2 John part 4

 Last time I talked about what hubris the author of the gospel of John must have had to effectively have made himself the mouthpiece of god. Then I got to thinking. Most of the bible writers had to have been charlatans, mentally ill, or deluded. They set themselves up as authorities about the words and actions of a god  that cannot be verified (the god, the actions, or the words) and we must take their word for it that they are telling us the truth or know what they are talking about.

Let us continue with verse 7.   "Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist." This is what you call group insurance. No one wants to be called a deceiver or an antichrist. This puts a person in an uncomfortable position if they just don't believe. There is no room to wiggle here. This is the attitude of a cult. What if you are in a community or a family of believers? You may have no option but to pretend belief.

Commentators say that this passage is in response to something called the "Gnostic heresy." Gnosticism is supposed to have said that "the son of god did not become flesh, he temporarily came upon the man Jesus between his baptism and crucifixion." It doesn't really matter. If Jesus Christ is not acknowledged, in way whatsoever, this scripture is used to condemn. I'm sure many first century Jews did not believe or accept that any actual son of god appeared in the flesh. Many people all over the world still do not accept it, including me.  Some people don't even believe that any Jesus Christ, in any form, ever existed. According to this verse, that makes us the antichrist.

This verse is also compared to one in 1 John, to try to prove that they have the same author:

1 John 4:2-3,  "This is how you can recognize the spirit of god: every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from god, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from god. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is in the world." Notice the wording is similar but not precisely the same. Again, it may or may not have been written by the same person. Neither the John epistles, nor the gospel, state who the authors are in the text.

Notice the condemnation of anyone who does not acknowledge Jesus. Clearly, at that time, there must have been enough people denying the existence of Jesus, whether in the flesh or in the divine, to warrant an attempt to curb the spread of such teaching. Basically, the readers of these letters are being told to cover their ears and yell "LA, LA, LA, LA, LA" when anyone tries to convince them they are wrong. Such a person would not be from god. Where would they be from? We shudder to think.

These are the kinds of passages that scare many christians into refusing to  read, listen to, or even associate with, nonbelievers. The religion comes with built in safeguards to prevent members from questioning too hard or learning too much. Anyone who does not acknowledge belief in Jesus, is automatically suspect and is often disregarded as any kind of expert or authority on any subject that touches the fundamentalist christian's beliefs about history, science, and even their perception of reality. The opinions of nonbelievers on all sorts of subjects do not matter to the "true believer."