2 John 1

Many deceivers have gone out into the world who won’t confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. Wesley: carefully keep what ye have heard from the beginning. They disbelieve His prophetic, priestly, or kingly office. Such a one is the seducer from God, and the antichrist—fighting against Christ.

Match 1 John 4:1–6: the test is the incarnation. Come in the flesh is the whole Christ. The deceiver is defined by that denial. Shared christology: whoever will not confess the flesh of Jesus is not from God, and is already in the world as antichrist’s spirit.

Deceivers gone out who do not confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh: the deceiver and the antichrist. Calvin on 1 John 4: come—He was before with the Father, eternal divinity; in the flesh—man, our brother, free from sin. All who depreciated Christ were members of that kingdom.

Shared with Wesley and with live 1 John 4:1–6: antichrist is denial of the incarnation, already among them, not a license to preach against modern manners. The mark is the Person. Safety is abiding in Christ. Both camps refuse a phantom Christ and a merely future bogeyman.

Watch yourselves, that we don’t lose the things which we have accomplished, but that we receive a full reward. Wesley: that we lose not the things which we have wrought—which every apostate does. But receive a full reward—having fully employed all our talents to the glory of Him that gave them. The apostle modestly transfers it to himself.

Watch is not in doubt. Apostasy loses the work. Full reward is not automatic. Wesleyans hear a perseverance warning that can be failed: keep what you heard from the beginning, or the labor is lost. Match the “if they continue” note of 1 John without turning the verse into a payroll.

Watch, so that we don’t lose the things which we worked for, but that we receive a full reward. Calvin on those who went out: they were not of us; had they belonged to us, they would have stayed with us. The warning is no empty threat; the going-out manifests who never had the living root.

Reformed match to 1 John 2:19: watch is the means God uses; those born of God are kept. Reward language does not make salvation wages. The labor is the apostolic gospel among them; losing it is what deceivers produce in a house that will not watch. Watch. The fork is whether the watcher may become the apostate who loses the work, or whether those who finally lose it were never of us.

Whoever goes on ahead and doesn’t remain in the teaching of Christ doesn’t have God. Wesley: receive this as a certain rule. Whosoever transgresseth—any law of God—hath not God for his Father and his God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, believing and obeying it, hath both the Father and the Son.

Abiding is believing and obeying the teaching, not progressing past the incarnation into a “higher” Christ. Going on ahead is the deceiver’s move. Match 1 John 2:23: no Son, no Father. The have/have-not is present and grave. Stay in the teaching you heard from the beginning.

Going on ahead and not abiding: does not have God. Abiding in the teaching: has both Father and Son. Calvin: whosoever denieth the Son hath not the Father. Let that abide which ye heard from the beginning; if it remain, ye continue in the Son and in the Father.

Reformed match to 1 John 2:23–24: the teaching of Christ is the confession of the incarnate Son. Progress past that is not growth; it is emptying God. Abiding is remaining in what was heard, the Spirit sealing it. Without Christ there is no God. The fork with Wesley is only how far “hath not God” describes a believer who wanders versus one who never held the Son.

If anyone comes and doesn’t bring this teaching, don’t receive him into your house, and don’t welcome him any greeting. Wesley: if any came as a teacher or a brother and advance anything contrary to this doctrine, receive him not as either—neither bid him God speed. Give him no encouragement therein.

This is church refusal of false christology: the teaching of Christ come in the flesh (v. 7). The house is not to platform the deceiver as teacher or brother. Stay with the incarnation. Ordinary neighbors and ordinary kindness are not this verse’s target.

Don’t receive him into your house or welcome him if he doesn’t bring this teaching. Calvin’s pastoral match: a diligent pastor not only gathers a flock but drives away wolves; proclaiming the pure gospel while conniving at impostures is not faithfulness.

Common ground with Wesley: the teaching is v. 7’s confession, not a political program. House and greeting here are fellowship that treats the denier of the flesh as a brother-teacher. Not a brief on contemporary manners, blocking, or shunning the merely annoying. False christology is the line. The church does not give that denial a room and a blessing.

Whoever greets him participates in his wicked works. Wesley: he that biddeth him God speed—that gives him any encouragement—is accessory to his evil deeds.

The wicked works are the deceiver’s denial of Christ in the flesh and the leading of others after him. Greeting as God-speed to that mission shares it. Again: not a theory of everyday civility. Accessory is about encouraging the antichrist-teaching, the same teaching 1 John 4 refused.

Greeting him is taking part in his wicked works. The works are the deceit of v. 7: denying the coming in the flesh, emptying the teaching of Christ.

For the hearer: fellowship that blesses the mission shares the mission. Calvin would have the church refuse frauds that overthrow Christ, not invent a social-media ethic from a first-century greeting. Stay with the teaching. God-speed to the deceiver is complicity in his work against the incarnate Son.

Much to write, but not with paper and ink; hope of coming, face to face, that joy may be complete. Wesley: he was not minded to write now, only of these things then peculiarly needful.

Close the letter. The warnings of vv. 7–11 were the needful part. Face to face is better than more ink. The verse gives no ground for a fresh quarrel between the traditions. Joy complete is the elder’s hope for this household in the truth.

Paper and ink yield to the hope of coming and speaking face to face, that joy may be made full. The letter has said what the crisis required: the flesh of Christ, the watch, the closed door to the deceiver.

Shared: no extra fight here. Presence is preferred to a longer brief. Complete joy is fellowship in the teaching they already have, not a new commandment.

The children of your chosen sister greet you. Wesley: thy elect or Christian sister—absent, if not dead, when the apostle wrote this.

As in 1:1, elect is Christian, an honorific, not a predestination treatise. The household network greets. Close the letter. No extra fight. The sister’s children walking (v. 4) and greeting are the same family in the truth.

The children of your chosen sister greet you. Same title of honor as v. 1: a Christian sister’s household, or, in later reading, a sister church. Calvin did not comment the line.

Do not unload Romans 9 onto a greeting. The letter ends as it began, in the truth and in named people who belong to Christ. Both traditions can read this line the same way.