2 John 1
Riley2 John 1:1-6
IN THE TRUTH 2 John 1:1-13. THE Second Epistle of John involves two disputes which are almost as old as the Christian Church. The first is as to its authenticity, some having denied that John wrote it. It may be positively asserted, however, that the arguments in favor of the authorship of John—the beloved disciple —are fairly overwhelming. When such men as Iraeneus, Clement and Alexander of Alexandria, Dionysius and Cyprian quote from this Epistle, and speak of it as from the pen of John, it is presumptuous, to say the least, for a twentieth century preacher to dispute its place in the sacred canon.The second question, however, is not so definitely, and certainly not so easily, settled—To whom was this Epistle addressed? In other words who is “the elect lady and her children” named in the first verse? Some insist that it was a woman—Kyria— (the Greek proper name which is the same as Martha in the Hebrew) an exceptional Christian character in whose home John had been entertained on one of his missionary journeys, and to whom, with her children, he writes this Epistle.Others argue, with equal show of reason, that the similarity of “Kuriake” from which the word “Church” is derived, to “Kuria” or “kyria”, indicates this Epistle was addressed to the Church. They base their argument upon 1 Peter 1:1-2 where the Elect in Asia are addressed; and 1 Peter 5:13, where the Epistle concludes with the statement,“The Church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you”. The arguments as between these two interpretations are so well balanced that one hesitates to take sides, but I confess that I feel the less strained interpretation is to believe this an individual—a woman of excellent Christian character and hospitable house.However the teaching of the Epistle is in no wise affected by this discussion. Its suggestions are the same in either instance.And now for its exposition under three suggestions:—The Friend of Truth, Fellowship in the Truth, and False Teachers Disfellowshiped.THE FRIEND OF TRUTH “The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth; “For the truths sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever. “Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love” (2 John 1:1-3). It is a salutation that involves teaching. “Grace” paves the way for salvation; “mercy” is the experience of it; and “peace” one of the blessed results. The Apostle claims that these are the portion of believers in the truth.But from the salutation he passes to the discussion of—The Friend of Truth.“I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we received a commandment from the Father” (2 John 1:4). She had made herself familiar with the Truth.John emphasizes this thought. It is an “elect lady”. She is loved in truth by all that have “known the Truth”, for the Truth’s sake.It is refreshing to meet a woman after this sort. Martha’s are more common than Mary’s. The very life every good woman leads involves her in a thousand little duties, and so the phrase has come to pass, “A woman’s work is never done.” It is true! There is never a time when a woman who is the house-keeper can sit down and fold her hands and say, “There is not a thing about this institution that needs attention.” The insidious temptation, therefore, is to be forever at ten thousand things, and to omit altogether the study of the Word of God, and to treat personal devotion with neglect, and even to look upon family prayer as a domestic inconvenience.And yet, if a thoughtful woman will but sit down, and take time to discuss, in her own mind, and determine what is fundamental in life, there can be but one conclusion, namely, that a knowledge of the Truth is still more essential than the discovery of the tiniest cobweb in the most remote corner, or the dispossession of the last speck of dust, or the final touch to the lad’s attire, or even the exquisite embroidery essential to make the lassie outshine her neighbor.Once in Chicago I heard a business man say, “Wife, I don’t see how we can take time this morning for both our breakfast and our Bible.” Instantly that Godly woman answered, “Then, John; we will have the Bible and go without breakfast.”It is my candid conviction that, from the standpoint of the physical man, as well as that of the spiritual, that if both are impossible, better begin the day with a taste of the Book than a hearty breakfast. “Know the Truth.”There are men rising up in these days to ask in scorn, as did Pilate, “What is Truth”?
And Jesus Christ has long since answered their question. Speaking of His Father He said, “Thy Word is truth”, or more literally, “The Word that is Thine is Truth.”The poet Tennyson caused to be put into the pavement of the entrance hall to his home this motto in tiles—“Truth against the World.”Long before him Pythagoras had written, “If God were to reveal Himself visible to men He would choose light for His body and Truth for His soul.”In this he was scriptural, for God did reveal Himself to men “in Christ”, and what was Christ’s definition of Himself—“I am the Light of the world”—“I am the Truth”.But let us understand once for all that “Truth” in the Bible does one little good until he has transferred it to his own mind and heart.
That involves thought, research, diligent study. Paul wrote to Timothy—“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth”.She had instructed her children in the same. John said, “I found of thy children walking in Truth”.A woman who is sufficiently interested in the Sacred Scriptures to give herself to their personal study will feel the necessity of imparting the same to her own little ones. No other teacher has such a field; and no other such a responsibility. Efforts there will bring the sweetest fruits; failure there will involve the deepest and bitterest sorrow. Would God I could properly impress this upon mothers whose little ones are yet about them, or whose bigger grown sons and daughters still abide in the house.
I find not a few women who fret against the limitations of female life and long for a field in which to exercise and reveal their superior abilities; but I say to you the true woman who is a wife and mother has that opportunity, that field just at hand. In it she “lives and moves and has her being.”Charles Spurgeon’s father once told Dr.
Ford, an American minister, how when he had been from home a good deal trying to build up congregations, there came a conviction that he was neglecting the religious training of his own children, and he had almost decided to preach less. On returning home he opened the door and was surprised to find none of the children about the hall. Ascending the stairs he heard his wife’s voice and knew that she was engaged in prayer. One by one she named the children; regarding Charles she put up a special petition, telling the Lord that he was high-spirited and daring-tempered. When she had finished her petition, and instruction, the elder Spurgeon felt, and said, “I will go on with my work; the children will be cared for.”Who doubts that that mother’s work made Charles Spurgeon’s and his brother’s blessed associate ministry a possibility, and through them reached the whole wide world?Ah, mothers, if visitors in your home find your children walking in the Truth, they will look upon the best results possible to a woman’s endeavor.She revealed real hospitality to truth-teachers.If it is a woman to whom this Epistle is addressed, the door of her home had been opened to the Apostle, and as he walked and talked with her children he came to this admiration of their character. It is doubtful if there is a better test of one’s love to Christ than his attitude toward teachers of the Truth. You will remember that Jesus in the 25th of Matthew pictures a judgment wherein men are separated to the right and to the left,“Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: “For I was an hungred, and ye gave Me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me in: “Naked, and ye clothed Me: I was sick, and ye visited Me: I was in prison, and ye came unto Me. “Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, and fed Thee? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? “When saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee In? or naked, and clothed Thee? “Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee? “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me”. But the brethren of Christ are not so near His heart as are the teachers of His Word. They are His “select brethren.” When Paul was writing to the Romans he said, “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love”. And then, after adding duty upon duty, he reaches the climax by saying, “Distributing to the necessity of the saints; given to hospitality” (Romans 12:13).When Peter penned his First Epistle he put in a passage extremely akin to that of the Apostle Paul, and concluded it by saying, “Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves; * * use hospitality one to another without grudging” (1 Peter 4:8-9).The blessing that came upon the house of Publius was the direct result of having received and entertained Paul and his associates in the Gospel “three days courteously”.When Mary and Martha opened their doors to Jesus they imagined themselves entertaining a great religious Teacher and regarded it a privilege. What a privilege it was! Little did they dream of the benediction they were bringing upon themselves. Little did they imagine that, in the darkest hour of life for them, this same Teacher would turn His feet again to their house and would bring their bereavement to an end by calling their own brother back from the grave.
But such was God’s reward for their hospitality! All we know about Jason is that he received the Apostle into his house and suffered an arrest in consequence.
But that act of hospitality made his name immortal.The times in which we live are not particularly hospitable. Even the Church of God has forgotten the use of hospitality. It is easy enough to imagine that we need all our room and that the last bed is comfortably occupied by the lone sleeper; that the tiniest tot must have a spacious place all to himself, but the fact remains that the people who thus turn teachers of the Truth from their doors are gratifying self at the expense of soul.Dr. A. C. Dixon once told me that he had gone some time before through a large insane asylum which was in charge of a personal friend.
In one of the wards he met a sweet-faced patient who looked at him with a good deal of intelligence and said, “Dr. Dixon, I know you; I have heard you preach many times; what are you doing here?” “Just looking around.” “Well, do you know what insanity is?” “No, I don’t,” said Dixon, “I am trying to find out.”She replied, “Insanity is in-self.
We people just got to thinking about ourselves, and we kept it up until they took us from our homes and put us in this place.”They are not all in the state asylum either. Selfishness is always and everywhere opposed to hospitality. It inconveniences and costs to entertain, and yet the man who lives unto himself is dead while he liveth, and the woman who consults only her own pleasure may “have a name to live”, but she is also dead. This friend of the Truth revealed it by her hospitality to teachers in the same. IN THE TRUTH “And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. “And this is love, that we walk after His commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it” (2 John 1:5-6). The holiest and the most tender love is in the Truth. This message of John involves no marriage proposition. It was probably written after the Book of Revelation when he was a most aged man, and expressed his affection in Christ for one who held tenaciously to the Truth.The longer one lives in the Truth, the more one holds to the Truth, the closer it binds him to all others who live and abide in the same.“Christian fraternity” is not a meaningless phrase; it expresses the tenderest and the holiest bond known as between men. That fellowship may have competitors but no peers. When Remonsat, of Marseilles was about to die, he assembled his large family at his bedside and said, “I have had the utmost delight in my children. Your affection and attachment to me and your tender love has been my delight.
But now I have a disclosure to make that will remove one from among you. This secret I have kept and would, were I to live, but as I must die I feel that in justice to my children in the distribution of the property, I must make it known. One of you is only an adopted child—the child of the nurse on whose bosom my own child died. Shall I name that child?” “No, no!” they cried with one accord, “let us continue to be brothers and sisters.”But, as I had occasion to remark a week or two ago, in speaking to you from a previous Epistle, the fraternity of association falls far short of fraternity in spirit. The fraternity of flesh and blood is not so close a bond as is that of a common faith in Christ. Alford remarks truly, “The communion of love is as wide as the communion of faith.”The best expression of fellowship is in Christian conduct.“This is love, that we walk after His commandments”. The world has long entertained the notion that love is largely a subject of profession, but John puts it upon another basis altogether, namely, that of behavior. It makes little difference what you tell your wife before she marries you, but a profound difference how you treat her afterward. It makes little difference what you say in covenant meeting concerning your affection for the membership of the church; but a profound difference how you behave between Sundays and on Sunday. The man who professes to love his brethren, but when they come into disaster and misfortune closes his purse against them, has simply indulged in a false profession, for, as John wrote,“Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. “And hereby we know that we are of the Truth” (1 John 3:17-19). It has been my constant observation that the bigger the scoundrel the more glib is his tongue in telling women about his love; and the more terrible is his treatment of those, who in folly, respond to his professions.Deep waters are for the most part the silent waters, and the man who holds the brotherhood in Christ in the grip of a firm affection is not the man who eloquently orates, but the one who watches daily opportunity of action. When that brotherhood undertakes to build a church he will be there to do his full part; when they undertake to raise its current expense account no man will need persuade him; when the appeal of missions is put forth he will be found among the dependable ones, and if the load of work be especially heavy he will only loosen his hand to get a better grip, and shove his shoulder more firmly under the burden. True love is an eloquent thing; but its speech is action. Nellie Jones has written upon “The Recovery of Peter” after this manner: “ ‘Lovest thou Me,’ in gentle tones the Master said, ‘Better than these who linger at My side!’ And that disciple, once so bold that he had dared to tread The boisterous sea, now careful seemed to be to hide His head meekly said, “Thou knowest, Lord, I love Thee best.’ ‘Feed thou My lambs,’ the Master said, ‘this be the test.’
“ ‘Lovest thou Me,’ He said, in tones more tender, still and low. And he who could not watch one hour in dark Gethsemane, Now, grieving that his Lord should seem to doubt him so, But clung the closer to Him, and with tearful eye, Said, ‘Lord, Thou knowest my heart is filled with love to Thee.” ‘Feed thou My little sheep.’ He said, ‘and thus thou wilt remember Me.’
“ ‘Lovest thou Me,’ for the third time the Master spoke, In accents sweet and kind to him who once denied His Lord, and as he thought of that great heart that broke In pity for Him, the disciple thus replied: ‘Thou knowest all things Lord, Thou knowest I love but Thee.’ ‘Feed thou My sheep,’ He said, ‘This be My legacy to thee.’” The chief of all commands is Christian love. John continues—“This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it”. The command of all commands, for love is the grace of all graces. Paul seems determined to put that past dispute. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, 13th chapter, he affirms,“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, So that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing. “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, “Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; “Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the Truth; “Beareth all tilings, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. “Charity never faileth * *. “Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; and the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:1-8; 1 Corinthians 13:13). Dr. Guthrie expressed this very thought in a poem which reads after this manner:“I live for those that love me, For those I know are true, For the heaven that smiles above me, And awaits my spirit too. For all human ties that bind me, For the task my God assigned me, For the bright hopes left behind me, And the good that I can do. “I live for those who love me, With all that is Divine, To feel that there is union ’Twixt nature’s heart and mine; To profit by affliction, Reap truth from fields of fiction, Grow wiser from conviction, Fulfilling God’s design.” No wonder John wrote, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God”.FALSE “Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: “For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 1:7-11). Three things, or four:False teachers are determined by their attitude to Christ. They “confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh”. They abide “not in the doctrine of Christ”.The times upon which we are fallen are rapidly showing how to truly discern false teachers. A few years since the denominational bigot would have pointed out any preacher outside of his particular fold and called him a false teacher. But that would only have demonstrated the intolerance of the man. I believe firmly that the Bible teaches baptism by immersion; but I am not ready to call every man who practices sprinkling a false teacher.
I believe firmly that the second sacrament is only a symbol, but I am not ready to say that every man who teaches consubstantiation is cut off from Christ; that is not a sufficient occasion.To me it seems fairly clear that the New Testament Church was congregational in polity, but I would be far from pointing my finger at the Episcopalians and telling them that they were departing from the Word of the Lord, and that their teachers have departed from the Truth. “To obey is better than sacrifice”.It is the true teacher’s business to discover what the Word of God teaches, and follow it with careful strictness; but the petty divisions in evangelical protestant bodies are not the occasions of dis-fellowship! When a man denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh then he disfellowships himself.
He removes the very foundation. “What part hath he that believeth with an infidel”? Truly, as John Watson has said, “It is not doctrines, or the ethics of Christianity, that are its irresistible attraction. The life-blood of Christianity is Christ. As Louis said, I am my religion,’ so may Jesus say the same. No emotion in human experience has been so masterful, none so fruitful, as the passion for Jesus. It has inspired the Church, it has half saved the world.”The man who denies Him disfellowships you, if you be the Lord’s own.False teachers always take away more than they contribute.“Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. “Whosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God” (2 John 1:8-9), That is a remarkable phrase in the American Revision—“whosoever goeth onward.” What does the Apostle mean—that we should make no progress?No! The onward march of every phase of civilization has been accentuated by Christ. What he means to say is this, that the man who sets himself up as “the latest thinker,” the “special student,” “the person of advanced thought”—if you please, who talks boastfully about the latest research of science, while “abiding not in the teachings of Christ”, that man hath not God.Truly here common sense and the Sacred Scriptures speak together. You let a man in the medical realm come out in the public press, or in an oration, and tell the people that he is an advanced thinker in medicine, that other practitioners all about him, equally equipped, are only “fogies, fifty years behind the times,” and the public will dub him a “quack.” You let a lawyer say that he, only, understands law; that other successful men of his fraternity are not up-to-date, and the public will put him down as a braggart. The public is right about it. What opinion other can you hold of these theologians who strut the earth, affirming that all who follow not with them are back numbers?
That is the speech of the quack and not of the good student; and of the foolish; not the wise. John says that whenever you find a man who “goeth onward”—mark the phrase—progressive to the last degree, “goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, he hath not God”.
Then he speaks of the converse truth, “He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son”.False teachers deny Christ’s Word yet boast communion with God. They say, “We do not accept all the teachings of Jesus, but we have God.” John says they have “not God”. How marvelously accurate this description. I have with my own ears heard men deny the Virgin Birth of Jesus, repudiate His miracles, dispute His atonement and resurrection, and then turn about and affirm, “This does not prevent my relations with the Father I know Him and He knows me.” Jesus said this is not so—“Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father”. He that rejecteth Me rejecteth Him. “No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me”.There is a very unreasonable demand for charity in these days. When the Pharisees were asked, the worst they could say against Jesus, they replied, “He eateth and drinketh with publicans”.
When Pilate was asked what he thought of Him, he replied, “I find no fault in Him”. When Judas was asked his opinion, he replied, “I have betrayed the innocent blood”.
When the centurion soldier expressed himself, he said, “Truly this was the Son of God”. When the demons voiced their sentiments they said, “Thou Son of God”.And yet we do not claim the Pharisees as brethren in Christ. No one has yet accepted Pilate into the brotherhood of the church. Poor Judas Iscariot knows only eternal excommunication. The centurion soldier has never been canonized as a saint.Will you then turn about and take men who deny the Virgin Birth of Christ, His sacrificial Death, physical Resurrection and promised Return, and call them brethren?Hear the Word, “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds”.Companionship with false teachers compromises your Christian profession. We know about the specious plea for “toleration.” Men say of false teachers—“Oh, well, they are nice fellows.” So has the world a good company of “nice fellows.” Why not then invite them to join your church, and even if they decline, yet call them brethren in Christ?
We are not arguing that we should hate people, even when they depart from the faith; we should not hate. But we are saying that when we treat false teachers with cordiality in our houses we are opposing the plain teaching of the Word of God, “For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds”.Suppose no hospitality had ever been shown to the opposers of the Word of God; suppose our seminaries had given them no room; suppose our colleges had had no place for them; suppose the church people had said no man can be our pastor who has departed from the faith: what would it have meant to the very men themselves who are now caught in the swirl of skepticism, and are being drowned in its black depths?False charity afflicts the very man upon whom we bestow it.
The cry of “peace, peace, when there is no peace” is perjury for the man who speaks it, and injury for those to whom it is spoken. What did Paul mean when he wrote to the Romans,“I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. “For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, * * by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple”. Was that illiberal? Suppose Paul had stretched out his hand to the false teachers of his day, and Peter, James, and John had said, “We differ, but it is all right; let us give to such a hearty fellowship, what would have been the effect upon the Church of the first century?Can the Church of the twentieth century survive such a compromise?Suppose such men as Wendell Phillips and William Lovejoy had said, “We don’t think slavery is exactly right, but then we believe in fellowship, and in according the other fellow the right to think to suit himself, and striking kind hands the while,” would the stain of slavery have been wiped from America’s escutcheon?Daniel O’Connell had as one of his maxims, “Never deny or trim a truth to keep any man.” Our own stultification was what he was thinking of; but in addition you injure the man. You attempt to keep by falsehood.A strange thing happened in England at the great World’s Baptist Congress of years since. They unveiled a statue to Charles Spurgeon. Men stood forth and in eloquent orations praised his now immortal name; and before that unveiling came to pass real friends of Charles Spurgeon reminded the others who were participating that they had once passed resolutions against him, and that they still stood upon the records, and asked to have them erased before the unveiling occurred. But their pleas were in vain.
The men who had helped to slay the true prophet of God turned about and without apology built a tomb to him.Perish such ethics!You know the story of how Kate Shelly risked her life by crawling across the smoking charred timbers of a burned bridge to flag the oncoming express and save scores of passengers, and how the rich man built a monument to her memory emblazoning his name on the same, and putting Kate’s in small letters at the base. So with Spurgeon’s monument.
It was built to glorify its erectors.What was the fault of Spurgeon that brought to his name such excoriations? “Fault,” did I say! Better “virtue!” His literal adoption of this phrase in Second John. He parted company with those who quit the teaching of Jesus Christ. He refused to fellowship with them. He said, “To strike fraternal hands with them would be to partake of their evil works.” They condemned him, but the favor of God was so especially upon him that the same men turned about to sing his praises. The virtue of this hour is decision.
Loyalty to the Lord Christ, He will not overlook! The call of Paul to the Church at Corinth is the call of the present— “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong”.But the Apostle did not stop with that; he added a sentence that is very essential—“Let all your things be done with charity”.
2 John 1:7-11
CHRIST AND THE ORDER 2 John 1:7-11. Sermon preached by Dr. W. B. Riley in the First Baptist Church, Minneapolis, May 21, 1916. Occasion—Convention Sunday of Northern Baptists. This chapter is a reprint from the author’s volume: “Christ—the Incomparable.” THE theme of this discourse, “Christ and the Changing Order”, is somewhat akin to that of a considerable volume brought from the press some years since by another writer. The speaker has no fear, however, lest this discourse, once in print, should in any wise be confused with that volume. The theological cleavage will clearly distinguish them. However, they will have one feature in agreement, namely, “the changing order,”—or that “history is at one of its turning points.”The twentieth century presents a crisis in the experience of the Christian Church.If it be true, that “since the days of Kant in philosophy, and Darwin in science, we have lived in a world of thought peopled with new intellectual citizens,” as the author of “The Church and the Changing Order” contends, one need not be surprised to find the thinking of the century rather confused, since these gentlemen, approaching kindred themes from the separate standpoints of philosophy and science, came to exactly opposite conclusions; Kant contending that, in the trial of life, the strongest and best equipped will finally fail, while Darwin insists that the result will be “the survival of the fittest,”—conclusions which really gave occasion to Schopenhauer’s dictum— “we are all fools living in a fool world.”When one gives himself to a study of the progress of that so-called “modernism,” which is supposed to have originated with these men, he is compelled to consent that Schopenhauer had much basis for his remark. Paradoxical as it may sound, John, writing twenty centuries ago, was dealing with this exact propaganda, and we should give candid consideration to what he has to say (2 John 1:7-11).Describing their theology, he denominates its representatives as apostles of deception, and brings their propaganda the indictment of infidelity, declaring that all who participate with them are, alike, members of the antichrist. Is he justified in this somewhat rabid arraignment?THE OF He describes them after this manner:—“Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist”.Careful study of the language used brings out three suggestions.These were nominal disciples. The phrase employed, “are entered in the world”, indicates that they had been members of the Christian fraternity, and had used their place in the Church as a vantage point for the propagation of false teachings.In 1 John 2:19 we read of certain ones—perhaps these same—“they went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us”.In other words, men who confessed loyalty to Jesus Christ became apostles of another gospel, the advocates of anti-christian teaching.Even modern warfare, with all its devices for the destruction of an army, has been able to hit upon nothing more effective than to get an enemy within the camp. No men in all England are able, today, to do her injury as those men who dwell within her borders, even joining her army, wearing her uniform, but secretly communicating with and aiding her enemies. The word “spy” has long been a detested one. As a rule, a man who plays that role is not held in esteem by any save those whose interests he directly represents.
Paul, writing a Letter to the Galatians, declared that he had encountered “false brethren unawares brought in”, who came in privily to spy out the liberty he and his friends enjoyed in Christ Jesus, and bring them into bondage.We do not desire to be harsh, nor uncharitable, but we must declare our deepest conviction, namely, that the greatest enemy of any church of Jesus Christ is the man who remains in her, assumes to be one of her teachers, calmly wears her good name, and yet denies the Deity of Him who brought her into being, and disputes the authority of the Book upon which she has, for twenty full centuries, rested her every contention. I regard myself as declaring a most patent truth when I say that “modernism”—so-called—is just such an enemy.
By lip and pen, it has alike rejected Jesus—the Christ —and repudiated the Bible.It is a matter of more than passing interest, also, to trace the parallelism between the opponents of John’s description and the present-day opponents of Jesus.They denied His physical manifestations. The language in which John indicted them is this:—“They confess not that Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh” (R.V.).The King James Version, as you recall, has it, “is come in the flesh”. If that translation were correct, it might refer to the first appearance of Jesus. If the text of the 1911 version is correct, “who confess not that Jesus is coming in the flesh”, then the Second Coming is in the mind of the sacred writer. But in either event, that which these false teachers opposed was the physical manifestation of God in Christ Jesus.Truly they have their successors. God manifest in the flesh is a miracle of such transcendent import as to be utterly rejected by our advocates of evolution!
They almost universally resort to the statements that Jesus, while being God’s best representative, was yet born of Mary and begotten by Joseph. The Virgin Birth is, doubtless, one of those “New Testament concepts which,” says one of their number, “the modern world, under the domination of science, finds it impossible to understand, much less to believe.”Concerning the Second Appearance of Jesus in personal, visible form, known as Messianism, we are blithely told by the same writer that it is “a survival of Judaism and its influence and implications must be removed before we can see the essential elements of the Gospel.”Of course, the resurrection of Jesus is another physical manifestation, which, while not expressly mentioned in the text, is involved in the question; and, it is now well nigh the common custom among “new theologians” to hold that New Testament contention to ridicule.
In fact, we are plainly asked the question, “If a man believes in a risen Christ without believing in the events of the first Easter Day, or in the objective character of the appearances of Jesus to Paul and the other Apostles”, should “he be excluded from preaching the Gospel of salvation?”, and answered, “assuredly not!”, and are told that “he too, can bring and must bring his conviction of the continued life of Jesus to bear upon men and women.”But this raises the logical and inevitable question,—“What Jesus is he preaching; and whence does he bring either his Master or his message?”Manifestly it cannot be the Jesus of the Bible, for He was “flesh and blood” before His crucifixion, and “flesh and bones” after His resurrection; physical and visible in His ascension, and destined to be visible and personal in His glorious Second Appearance.What nonsense, then, to imagine that by the adoption of a name to which there was never a corresponding reality, one has created a personality and provided a message. Coningsby Dawson’s poetry is the essence of inanity:—“If He lived or died, I may not know, For who shall disprove the words of the dead, Or who may approve of the wisdom they said? For me, He is not of the long ago, But speaks in the morn of my life, I know.” Who speaks; and, what does He say?Is it not true, as one of their own company has confessed, that “when we take away the historical Jesus, we take away the only Jesus” and “remove the Gospel,” and thereby “change the very definition of Christianity itself,” since “Christianity, as an embodiment of the Gospel, is a phase of religion determined by historical facts?”Any Jesus, not begotten by the Holy Ghost, born of Mary, crucified on Calvary, raised the third day, ascended to the right hand of God, and destined to descend to the earth and take His throne and reign from sea to sea, is as much the figment of a distempered imagination as are the dreams resulting from an overdose of meat; and any message based upon it has no more claims upon intelligent, thinking men, than do the unintelligible, incoherent babblings of a Mary Baker Eddy.What would you think of a man who said he believed in George Washington, but not the George Washington who was born in 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia, who was the first president of the United States, who led in the Revolution, and whose opinions gave rise and final form to the very constitution of the country itself. He believed rather, in a Washington who never had a visible, physical existence, but whose ideas and spirit dominated the colonies in the Puritan days, and still lives! Nonsense!Candidly, one finds it difficult to be patient with men who name themselves “Rationalists,” while dispensing with reason, and call themselves “thinkers,” while giving proof that they are incapable of clearly stating premises or reaching logical conclusions.There never was a more just and justifiable indictment made against men than I. M. Haldeman brings against these self-named Moderns when he says:—“The Christ they preach never rose from the dead in the body!“The Christ they preach has no body!“Their Christ is a boneless and fleshless Christ!“The Christ of the modern theologian is an immaterial ghost!”“Over the doors of some modern theological institutions might well be written, ‘Erected to the Ghost Christ!’ “Over the pulpits of some modern preachers might be written, “Here the Ghost Christ is preached!”Their message is as baseless as their Christ is bodiless!These teachers John denominated the antichrist.His language is:—“This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward”.A careful study of the Bible will show that the antichrist is a person destined to head up the final but fatal rebellion against God; and yet the Sacred Scriptures equally teach that preliminary to his appearance and preparatory unto the same, is a whole school of men who shall speak against Jesus Christ, incessantly striving to bring God to the level of man, and to exalt man to the height of God.Fundamental to this whole satanic scheme is the discrediting of the Sacred Scriptures.
The man who attempts that is brought to book in John’s catalog of the antichrist. Before one can successfully dispute the claim that “Jesus is the Son of God, that God dwelleth in Him, and He in God,” he must discredit the whole doctrine of inspiration; and yet, unless he do that adroitly, he may fail even in the judgment of his coveted followers.What could be more adroit than to insist that the denial of inspiration is not necessarily a denial of a Divine Saviour?
They tell us that Jesus is the foundation of our religion, and whatever else we lose, we shall not lose Him. It is written, “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ”.But back of foundation-laying is work in the quarries. The Scriptures are the quarries of truth. Destroy them and no Christ can be brought forth. Discredit them and no Christ remains, save that moral phantom of the Modern’s intellect. If a man bow before him or “it,” he must concede Mrs.
Eddy’s contention that our behavior is determined by the “illusions of mortal mind”, and at once and forever part company with the whole goodly company of New Testament apostles and teachers, for in the language of John McDowell Leavitt, “That company of notable names knew Jesus Christ by the same sufficient crowning proofs the chemist employs when he analyzes salt, the geologist uses when examining a rock, the astronomer engages when he observes the stars, namely, the senses!“These witnesses affirmed that they had seen and heard and touched Jesus both before and after the resurrection. To the visible, the audible, and the tangible they gave evidence with their blood before the earth and Heaven, and with it, they sealed their testimony.
Thus their sincerity is unimpeachable, while they witnessed not to a philosophical opinion, not to a scientific explanation, not to a religious dogma, but to the plain, perceptible fact that Jesus arose from the dead and ascended into Glory.”The author of our text voices it after this manner:—“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; “(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you” (1 John 1:1-3). He it is that says:—Deny that and you are deceivers and of the antichrist, and do become,THE OF “Whosoever goeth onward”, as the expression in the original is, “and abideth not in the teachings of Christ, hath not God”.It is a significant fact, that in the very word here employed, “proagon,” and correctly translated “goeth onward”, we have the term “progressive,” which has been voluntarily assumed by the critics of the times.They profess to be the solitary progressives of the hour. They speak of themselves as “men who really think.” In their advanced circle they claim to include “practically every biblical teacher in the world of any scholarly significance.”In youth, their mothers must have told them that if they did not think well of themselves, no one else would, and then forgot to warn them against its too vociferous expression. Against the “Thus saith the Lord” of the conservatives, they have “set up a sacramental phrase,” namely, “Scholarship is agreed.”If they ever name an exception, they are careful not to name more than one, or, at most two, who are not trailing with this self-elected tribunal.In spite of the fact that some of us are privileged to minister to many men who represent the most complete scholastic training, and who, in circles of their respective sciences, are widely known and justly honored, and whose loyalty to the authority of the Scriptures and the very Deity of Christ is as unswerving as was that of Paul, it is even denied that the church “now numbers among its members any considerable company of the scientifically trained and professional classes.”We are asked, “What has become of these college-bred men and women who went out from graduating classes into the wide world?”Possibly these Progressives might make a discovery if they sat down and studied the membership roll of the greater churches of this land, which are, almost without exception, under conservative leadership.If it be true that “in the church at large, not one in fifty members are college graduates,” it might bring another revelation than that which our Progressives imagine. The discovery may be made that the conservative churches far exceed this proportion. The speaker knows well one church that multiplies this number many times over, and bears testimony that these college and university men and women are not only among his most capable members, but are notable in their theological conservatism. It is not “education” that is taking the generation away from the church, but it is skepticism, masking under the name of scholarship.It is as impossible to make science oppose Scripture as it is to compel God to contend against Himself; and if culture oppose the church, then the child fights its own mother, yea, even the creature, its Creator.But “science falsely so-called,” has bespattered the pages of Scripture with interrogation points, and many a college and university student is thereby stumbled.
Darwinism, a dogma without scientific data, or, in the words of the famous French scientist Fabre, “a theory exploited in big words but destitute of even little facts”, has undone alike the superficial student of both Scripture and Science.It is impossible to start from false premises and reach true conclusions. If, therefore, we have been able as charged to create a test of church membership that “compels a man, under the influence of today’s scholarship, to abandon not only a life of evil thought and evil action, but also the results of his education”, it may be because that education was as far wrong as either his thought or action.
The outcome will not only vindicate the church but re-enthrone the Christ.Exclusive leadership on the part of Moderns is a mere assumption. Mrs. Eddy, however, has illustrated the fact that you may state a thing so positively, and repeat it so often, as to bring the superficial to accept it. She took two of the noblest words known to human speech, “Christian” and “Science”, and by combining and adopting them, has brought the unthinking to imagine her to have been an expert in both, and that in spite of the fact that her writings reveal no knowledge whatever of either.For full fifteen years, or longer, our self-styled “Moderns” have been asserting their leadership alike in “Science” and “Scripture.”Some have supposed that a thing so often spoken must necessarily be so, and so modernism has accomplished its following. Such students would have been profoundly impressed by the Pharisee’s prayer, and from the hour of its utterance, would have been his devoted followers. The claim of “assured results” has made its easy dupes in both the oil and mining enterprises, and the hypercritical profession.
Almost without exception the devotees of that modern skepticism which discredits the Deity of Jesus Christ and questions the authority of the Bible, are either still in their tender youth or else had their thinking fatally twisted before they were far out of their teens. Not once in a hundred instances do mature men turn from conservatism to liberalism, and in that instance, the rule is that while the man was mature in years, his early education was both poor and partial, and at forty he had only the intellectual equipment of a lad at twenty.
Who knows a single man in whom ripened years and scholarship have combined to produce a skeptic; but there are scores of men—many of them world-famed—in whom additional study and experience have wrought an utter revolt from the doubts of youth.But the greater seriousness of all this John does not disregard.He charges those who reject the Son with having lost the Father also. Unitarianism, masking under the term “Evangelical”, proposing to retain God, even though Christ be rejected, has no God, unless John be disputed.“Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father”. “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God”. The New York Presbytery, in ordaining men who dispute the Virgin Birth, thereby deny the inspiration of Scripture, and if it continue to wear the name of “Christian”, will do nothing better than cloak an infidel form with a profession of faith. The life of Presbyterianism, as a positive Christian force, will depend in no small measure upon its final regard for the Cincinnati Presbyter’s request that such Unitarians be disfellowshipped.The history of the past has provided abundant proof of the utter powerlessness of the Unitarian propaganda. It has created no ministry worthy of mention; it has started no missions that have proven virile; it has established no colleges that play conspicuous part in the educational process. It has effected .so few converts from sin to holiness that one sometimes wonders how it keeps courage enough to build an occasional church. Its people are almost universally disciples of Charles Darwin, and with equal unanimity they emaculate the writings of Moses, repudiate the prophecies of Daniel, and laugh to scorn the Apocalypse of John, while Jesus is to them Mary’s bastard son.Is it any wonder that John dares to say, “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God”?But now what is, to be the attitude of true Christian men and women toward all of this?Let John speak again, “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds”.THE IN THE According to John Christian fraternity is not far Christ’s opponents. One of our best commentators tells us that the phrase, “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not”, looks not to a social reception, but, rather, to a reception into the house of God, unto Christian fellowship.The true Christian will not be unfriendly toward an infidel, nor refuse social fellowship with a skeptic. On the contrary, he will show neighborliness for every man visiting his door, and kindness to any one coming to, or going from, the same. But that does not mean his reception into the fellowship of God’s family, nor a benediction upon his infidelity, in God’s Name.I have no creed to which my neighbor must subscribe, no doctrinal standards to which my acquaintance must come. The Unitarian may be my closest personal friend, and the Universalist my fishing companion, and it is alike my privilege and pleasure to return the bland smile of Mrs. Eddy’s disciple.But the fellowship of faith is altogether another thing and cannot be accorded to any who “bring not this doctrine” —“God manifest in the flesh”.The moment you create a church that exceeds fellowship in Christ, you introduce into it the seeds of self-destruction.The weakness of present-day Protestantism is at exactly that point.
We are wondering why we are not marking greater progress. We are worrying over subjects of secondary concern.
We are searching every nook and corner of church life to discover the elements of weakness in our work. We are saying that by “a further federation of forces” we will “engender power.” The exact opposite is true! We are over-federated now. Our affiliations are our fundamental weaknesses. Better a Gideon’s three hundred that believe God and lap the Water of Life from the fountains of His Word, than the thousands that now leisurely drink from the tasteless springs of skepticism that come from multiplied schools as muddy tepid water does from mole-holes of the Southland in a wet season.But John has a further word,—He makes our commendation of skeptics a self-condemnation.“He that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds”. Frankly do some of us confess “to making it a part of our life work to mark the man who brings not the teaching of Jesus—God manifest in the flesh—and to refuse to recommend him to any church seeking our advice.How can we do otherwise and keep conscience at all? Would we advise any wife to take into her house, as a boarder, a man who would alienate her affections from her husband, and by criticisms finally dethrone him from the headship of the family? Can we advise any church to receive as a pastor a man who denies the Deity of Jesus, and removes from the headship of the Church her own and only rightful Lord?Believing as we do that He is the very God, the One and only basis of hope for time and eternity, the One and only sufficient moral ideal and inspiring personality, the One and only Saviour from sin; in fact, the One and only way for the world’s redemption, how can we recommend the man who proposes to tear the crown of Deity from His brow, dispute His authority over the conscience and His Lordship over life?John McDowell Leavitt said truly, “Take Jesus from the world and you turn it into gloom. Let Him reign and humanity realizes its dream of light and love. In His system and character are all the marks of a Divine Messiah. But, Jesus false, how black the picture and how inconceivable the consequences!
No middle place for this Christ, so perfect in character and so matchless in career. If not from the Holy Ghost in the Virgin, His conception a lie!
If angels did not sing at His birth, aid after temptation, and amid agony, and watch at His tomb, narratives of their appearances falsehoods! If no Divine voice at His baptism, his ministry of holiness opening with imposture! If no suffering mortals relieved by His touch and word, His miracles of love fabrications! If no power over Hades, His promise to the thief on the cross a deception! If no resurrection and ascension, fraud carried over life into death itself!” If no return in power, then no millennium for this world is possible, and the future will grow increasingly bloody and eventuate in the darkest of nights!He who mars the Jesus of the Bible, unmakes mankind! He who blots the sentences of sacred Scripture flings a blackness over future history.Commend the man who discredits Him as a teacher?
Ask a church to appoint such to its leadership? Write letters, dexterously dodging the facts involved, in aiding him to cover up his unfaith long enough to be comfortably seated and begin to uncover his skepticism, and thereby break the hearts of his aged parishioners, and destroy the faith of his youthful ones?Never!!
For this would be to be a “partaker of his evil deeds”. The compromise of truth is a crime against Christ!The crisis is on! The injunction of Joshua lives again, “Choose you this day”!“He that hath felt the spirit of the Highest Cannot confound or doubt Him, or deny; Yea, with one breath, O world, though thou deniest, Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.”