2John 7

Jonathan Robie jwrobie at mindspring.com
Sat Dec 18 07:57:37 EST 1999


At 05:19 PM 12/17/99 +0000, Dmitriy Reznik wrote:
>Dear friends,
>
>Will you please help me with 2John 7? hOTI POLLOI PLANOI EISELQON EIS TON
>KOSMON hOI MH hOMOLOGOUNTES IHSOUN CRISTON ERCOMENON EN SARKI...
>( because many leading astray did enter into the world, who are not
>confessing Jesus Christ coming in flesh...
>Does this "coming in flesh" refers to the future (He is now coming, so He
>is going to arrive)? Does it mean that some false teachers used to teach
>that the second coming will be not in flesh?

ERCOMENON is a present middle participle. The phrase ERCOMENON EN SARKI 
have an effect a lot like the English phrase "come in the flesh"

Suppose we leave off the words ERCOMENON EN SARKI - the rest of the phrase, 
hOI MH hOMOLOGOUNTES IHSOUN CRISTON, means "those not confessing Jesus 
Christ". Adding back the phrase ERCOMENON EN SARKI, it means basically 
"those not confessing Jesus Christ come in the flesh." There is no 
reference to a future event. The reference is to the ongoing nature of 
Jesus as one come in the flesh, and not only in the spirit. I think it 
would be perfectly possible to confess Jesus Christ ERCOMENON EN SARKI 
without believing in his future coming. The admonition in this verse is 
probably aimed at a different group of people, those who do not believe 
that Jesus was born physically, i.e. those who denied the incarnation.

Jonathan
--
Jonathan Robie
R&D Fellow, Software AG
Jonathan.Robie at SoftwareAG-USA.com



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