So here is the epistle of 2 John as a whole, with the second person pronouns, both explicit and implicit (in verb forms), marked out. Second person singulars are underlined. Second person plurals are boldfaced. If no Greek word follows in brackets, then the singular or plural comes from the form of the verb, not from a pronoun. Cross references to 1 John are also included; I gleaned these from the margins of my NASB Study Bible (a useful gift from a relative many years ago, one which said relative would have sincerely regretted, were she aware of the uses to which I have put it since that time):
- a 1 John 3.18: 18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
b 1 John 1.8: 8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
- c 1 John 2.7: 7 Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.
d 1 John 3.11: 11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Refer also to 1 John 4.7, 11.
- e 1 John 2.26: 26 These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.
f 1 John 4.1: 1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Refer also to 1 John 2.19.
g 1 John 4.2-3: 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
h 1 John 2.18: Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour.
- i 1 John 2.23: 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.
- j 1 John 1.4: 4 And these things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.
There is no significant doctrinal content in this epistle which does not connect in some way to 1 John. The only verses which lack such a connection are direct instructions to the church (the "lady") as to how to treat or react to the doctrines, which are expressed incredibly briefly. I have elsewhere pointed out that the respective ways in which Irenaeus and the Muratorian Canon treat the Johannine epistles may point to an early textual situation in which 1 and 2 John were actually considered a single epistle. Some scholars have suggested that 2 John served as a cover letter for 1 John, but I think that 2 John [1.]12 may speak against such simplicity: "Though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, so that your joy may be made full." I suppose a wordy author might consider even the five chapters of 1 John to be less than "many things to write," but I think another option, only slightly more complicated and still preserving the sense that 2 John served as a cover letter for 1 John at some point, presents itself: though the contents of 1 John were in existence (in some form) first, it was 2 John that was actually sent first, as a teaser, with a visit planned to teach things more fully; but either the visit never materialized and 1 John was sent in its place, or the visit did materialize and 1 John is a follow-up covering the key topics presented during the visit. A particular "chosen lady/church" was the recipient of both epistles, and bundled them together for later circulation, and they were treated as one for a time. 3 John, intended for a different church and a different situation, circulated separately at first before being lumped in (naturally) with the obviously related epistles of 1 and 2 John, at which point it made more sense to treat 2 John as distinct from 1 John.
Such are my thoughts on these epistles so far, at any rate. I know that Bernard regards the phrase "Christ as having come in the flesh" from 1 John 4.2 as a later interpolation based on 2 John, but I am not (yet) convinced. If it were, then this same phrase from 2 John [1.]7 would be, I think, the only significant doctrine in the epistle which did not mirror something from 1 John. This scenario so far seems less likely to me than that 2 John was composed with the doctrinal contents (whether already written down or not) of 1 John squarely in mind, and that this is the origin of the phrase about Christ having come in the flesh in verse 7 of 2 John. (1 John 4.3, incidentally, has a very complex manuscript transmission, one which needs to be looked into carefully, especially since Bernard's case for an interpolation in 4.2 rests mainly upon the lack of a corresponding phrase in 4.3.)
Ben.