II John 1:7 “For 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.”
These “deceivers” have an agenda other than worshipfully declaring the truth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Most often their agenda is to promote themselves, to glorify themselves, and to obtain power over the people. They deceive by making, seemingly, intriguing arguments in emotion filled orations and presentations. It appears that these “deceivers” had “entered into the world” where the Churches were prospering. John does not identify them as Jews or Gentiles, they were probably both. To “confess” “that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” is to declare that ‘Jehovah Is Our Salvation’ (“Jesus”), that God the Father Anointed and sent His Son into this world to “save his people from their sins” (“Christ”) (Matthew 1:21), and that He is indeed “God with us” (“Emanual”) (Matthew 1:23). God, Himself “when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me” (Hebrews 10:5). God “prepared” “a body” for Him that was the perfect sacrifice to “take away” our “sins” (Hebrew 10:4). Our Lord was born to give His Precious Life as the Sacrifice for our “sins”; and that Sacrifice was accepted by God the Father. We are plainly told that “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4); but, our Lord’s Sacrificial “blood” could and did; therefore, in His Sacrificial Death, He “offered one sacrifice for sins for ever” (Hebrews 10:12). The “deceivers” begin by subtly diminishing the truth of “Jesus Christ”; usually adding some requisite for Eternal Salvation; such as, confession, declaration, or action by the believer. Their deceptions actually declares that “Jesus Christ” didn’t really “finish” (John 19:30) the work of our Eternal Salvation, He is depending upon us to complete or consummate our Eternal Salvation by making some confession or declaration, performing some ceremonial act, or having some ceremonial thing done to us. Over time, these subtilties become more and more bold as they lead more and more people away from the truth of “Jesus Christ”; even to declare that He was simply a Good Man or that He was an exceptional Prophet or that God sort of adopted Him as His Son. The truth is that “Jesus Christ” is indeed and has always been God, “the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), and that He indeed took a Human Body for Himself and lived among men on this earth and that He Sacrificed Himself to fully and finally justify His people “by” the Shedding of “his blood” (Romans 5:9) and that He paid sin’s penal debt for everyone that God the Father had given him (John 6:37) and “chosen … in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesian 1:4). John tells us that those who profess such things are “a deceiver and an antichrist”; thus, we are to beware of them!