Q. The true application of 2 John is asked, more especially of verses 10, 11; and proof is wished that those refused for Newtonianism or for receiving its partisans fall under this scripture.
A. Is the raiser of the question aware that several grave and intelligent men printed and circulated their own full confession that the doctrine in question, which they had received and taught, did deny the Christ of God and must destroy the souls of all who abode under its poisonous influence? It is not in question therefore what opponents may have said. Abler persons than those who now palliate the error know far better what they held, and that it was as bad or worse than we said who resolutely rejected it and denounced its deadly nature. Can he be aware of what was taught about Christ? Was He really “exposed, for example, because of His relation to Adam to that sentence of death, that had been pronounced on the whole family of man”? Had He “the exercises of soul which His elect in their unconverted state ought to have?” Could the Spirit's anointing never have come on Him, unless foreordained and known as the Victim? Was it so that Christ was sealed of the Spirit? Had He to find His way to a point where God could meet Him, and that point, death on the cross under God's wrath? Is any one of these statements (a small sample of this awful heterodoxy) compatible with “the doctrine of Christ?”
He who questions this understands neither that doctrine nor its denial, and proves himself quite incompetent to speak, as being under the blinding power of the enemy. The doctrine overthrows Christ as come in the flesh and would make Him wholly unfit to be made sin for us. Now, not to speak of reproof or avoidance, putting out is far too mild for such an evil. Hence 2 John lays down in the broadest way, not this or that special form of anti-Christianism, but that if any bring not “this doctrine” [i.e., the true teaching of Christ's person], “receive him not into your house,” nor salute him. This is much more stringent than the measure prescribed for the incestuous man in 1 Cor. 5, and of course very much beyond withdrawing from the disorderly in 2 Thessalonians or the divisionists in Rom. 16. It is the most heinous sin, with which the Christian has to deal, and very precisely was the turning point of our great breach in 1849. For ver. 11 extends the partaking of evil deeds to all who have fellowship with those who do not bring this doctrine.
The reasoning that questions and undermines it is mere unbelief, in direct opposition to God's object in the church; which is bound to purge out all leaven (doctrinal, Gal. 5, as well as moral, 1 Cor. 5). It is in principle to build again Babylon on the ruins of the pillar and ground of the truth, and more worthy of a worldly man than of a soul that loves Christ and God's word. Yet I doubt not that real Christians have been and are beguiled into this indifference to Christ. But this makes it the more urgent that all who are true to His glory should prove their love to God's children, not by the faithless allowance of the worst evil in a person because he may be a Christian, but by loving God and keeping His commandments. And this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous.