1 John 2:18,19

‘Little children, it is the last hour, and as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now have there arisen many antichrists, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out, that they might be made openly displayed that they are all not of us.'

Now John addresses his readers as ‘paidia' as in 1 John 2:13. In 1 John 2:28 he will return to teknia as in 1 John 2:1; 1 John 2:12. The aim is probably rather to avoid weary repetition than for any great doctrinal purpose. They are his beloved children in the faith.

‘It is the last hour.' The idea of the ‘hour' as a crucial time is regular in John (John 2:4; John 7:30; John 8:20; John 12:23; John 12:27; John 13:1; John 17:1; also Revelation 17:12). The whole ministry of Jesus had led up to the final hour (John 13:1) which began with the Last Supper and led on through the cross (John 12:23; John 12:27) to His final glorification (John 17:1). So Jesus had had His hour, and now the church must face theirs.

To John the final hour had now come in which the final purposes of God would be completed. No one knew at this time how long the ‘last hour' would last, although both Peter and John saw it as possibly lasting a long time, ‘a thousand years' (2 Peter 3:8; Revelation 20:4). It was in God's hands, and to God time was insignificant. But by all it was recognised that the coming of Jesus and His death, resurrection and exaltation, had ushered in the last times, the final stage of God's purposes. It was ‘the last days' (Acts 2:17), ‘the end of the days' (Hebrews 1:2), ‘the end of the times' (1 Peter 1:20), ‘the ends of the ages' (1 Corinthians 10:11), so that ‘the end of all things is at hand' (1 Peter 4:7).

‘And as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now have there arisen many antichrists, by which we know that it is the last hour.' John here wrote after Peter and Paul, and probably after the Book of Revelation. Both Paul (2 Thessalonians 2:8) and the Book of Revelation (Revelation 17:8; Revelation 17:11; Revelation 19:19) spoke of the final arising of a great Anti-god, setting himself up over against God to be worshipped. And Peter stressed the arising of false teachers who would face dreadful judgment (2 Peter 2). So John now either saw the antichrist as having come or as imminently coming and preceded by his forerunners. There are, he said, many antichrists, any of which might turn out to be the final antichrist, and seemed satisfied that this mainly fulfilled the prophecy of antichrists made by Jesus (Matthew 24:5; Matthew 24:24) and possibly even those made by himself in Revelation, although both he and Paul spoke of one great antichrist (or equivalent) who would sum up them all (2 Thessalonians 2:8; Revelation 17:8; Revelation 17:11; Revelation 19:19), and was prefigured by the Roman emperors (Revelation 13).

These antichrists were not on the whole great martial figures, but false teachers whose message to some extent aped and paralleled the Gospel, some even pointing to Jesus, but not as both true God and true man. However their sometimes rapid success may well have been seen as about to introduce the reign of Antichrist. The essence of the antichrist was deception and denial of Jesus as the Christ and thus of Father and Son (1 John 2:22; 2 John 1:7). But there had of course also been, and would be, emperors of Rome who had and would claim deity, to be gods and sons of gods, or were fervently acclaimed as such by many of the people, especially far from Rome where their divinity was treated seriously, and who when faced with the issue by implication denied that Jesus was the Christ. They too were antichrist.

But here, unlike in Revelation, his concentration is more on the false teachers who abounded and were hindering the churches' message and establishing their rival widespread groups of adherents, and many flocked to them so that it seemed sometimes as though they would almost swamp the church of Christ. They were constant reminders that the end was imminent and could come at any time, although when they did not know.

‘They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out, that they might be made openly displayed that they are all not of us.' These particular false teachers were men who had become attached to the Christian church, had seemed part of it, but had then left it and, taking those whom they had influenced with them, established ‘churches' of their own, with their own particular extravagant doctrines which had possibly some resemblance to Christian teaching but without its practicality and down to earth reality, and essentially denied that the man Jesus was truly ‘the Christ', God's unique anointed One and only Son. Some possibly taught the reception of an esoteric ‘knowledge' (gnosis) or a contact with varying succession of lights which lifted men beyond the ordinary, denying the true humanity and full Godhood of Jesus, and many were not concerned with morality. Such ideas would certainly be common later.

But what they were was revealed by the fact that they departed from a church in which at that time the basic doctrine had remained pure, because of the presence of apostolic men. They went out from them because they could not stomach basic Christian doctrine. It was too down to earth, too basic, too tied to earthly things. It was not exciting enough.

They wanted as it were to stretch their wings and introduce fantasy (as the so-called later ‘Gospels' demonstrate). They did not want someone from God Who as God became man and exemplified and taught the resurrection of the body, and literally died, and called on men to repent of sin and be cleansed, and made strong ethical demands. They did not want to be limited to the life and teachings of a Jew Who had lived in Palestine and had physically been put to death. They wanted to rise above it all into a fantasy world of light, to free their souls with freedom to do as they wanted.

This is of course very much a generalisation, for there would be many forms of differing views as they mingled Christian ideas with those of other religions and philosophies, especially the mystery religions that abounded and strongly influenced men's thoughts. But one thing was common to most. They departed from the church, sometimes by choice, and sometimes because they were expelled for false ideas by apostolic men who firmly defended certain basic truths. And thus they proved that they were not of the truth.

John has clear views about them. They “are of the world” (1 John 4:5 a), they “have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1), they “speak from the world's perspective” (1 John 4:5 b), and “the world listens to them” (1 John 4:5 c). They offer what the world wants, that which titillates the flesh or the mind. For their teaching does not bring men to obey God and keep His commandments, and live lives of unselfishness and goodness, but stresses either asceticism or laxity, both in order to free them from their fleshly bodies, and without too much emphasis on sin and the need to obey God's laws as human beings in the flesh. Walking in the true light and living for God among men in accordance with His moral demands, and admitting their sinfulness and seeking forgiveness through the blood of the cross, did not appeal to them.