1 John 2:18

Here is, I. A moral prognostication of the time; the end is coming: Little children, it is the last time, Jo1 2:18. Some may suppose that the apostle here addresses the first rank of Christians again; the juniors are most apt to be seduced, and therefore, "Little children, you that are young in religion, take heed to yourselves that you be not corrupted." But it may be, as elsewhere, a universal appellation, introductive of an alarm to all Christians: "Little children, it is the last time; our Jewish polity in church and state is hastening to an end; the Mosaic institution and discipline are just upon vanishing away; Daniel's weeks are now expiring; the destruction of the Hebrew city and sanctuary is approaching, the end whereof must be with a flood, and to the end of the war desolations are determined," Dan 9:26. It is meet that the disciples should be warned of the haste and end of time, and apprised as much as may be of the prophetic periods of time.

II. The sign of this last time: Even now there are many antichrists (Jo1 2:18), many that oppose the person, doctrine, and kingdom of Christ. It is a mysterious portion of providence that antichrists should be permitted; but, when they have come, it is good and safe that the disciples should be informed of them; ministers should be watchmen to the house of Israel. Now it should be no great offence nor prejudice to the disciples that there are such antichrists: 1. One great one has been foretold: As you have heard that antichrist shall come, Jo1 2:18. The generality of the church have been informed by divine revelation that there must be a long and fatal adversary to Christ and his church, Th2 2:8-10. No wonder then that there are many harbingers and forerunners of the great one: Even now there are many antichrists, the mystery of iniquity already worketh. 2. They were foretold also as the sign of this last time. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect, Mat 24:24. And these were the forerunners of the dissolution of the Jewish state, nation, and religion: Whereby we know it is the last time, Jo1 2:18. Let the prediction that we see there has been of seducers arising in the Christian world fortify us against their seduction.

III. Some account of these seducers or antichrists. 1. More positively. They were once entertainers or professors of apostolical doctrine: "They went out from us (Jo1 2:19), from our company and communion;" possibly from the church of Jerusalem, or some of the churches of Judea, as Act 15:1, Certain men came down from Judea, and taught the brethren, etc. The purest churches may have their apostates and revolters; the apostolic doctrine did not convert all whom it convinced of its truth. 2. More privately. "They were not inwardly such as we are: But they were not of us; they had not from the heart obeyed the form of sound doctrine delivered to them; they were not of our union with Christ the head." Then here is, (1.) The reason upon which it is concluded that they were not of us, were not what they pretended, or what we are, and that is their actual defection: "For, if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us (Jo1 2:19); had the sacred truth been rooted in their hearts it would have held them with us; had they had the anointing from above, by which they had been made true and real Christians, they would not have turned antichrists." Those that apostatize from religion sufficiently indicate that, before, they were hypocrites in religion: those who have imbibed the spirit of gospel truth have a good preservative against destructive error. (2.) The reason why they are permitted thus to depart from apostolical doctrine and communion - that their insincerity may be detected: But this was done (or they went out) that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us, Jo1 2:19. The church knows not well who are its vital members and who are not; and therefore the church, considered as internally sanctified, may well be styled invisible. Some of the hypocritical must be manifested here, and that for their own shame and benefit too, in their reduction to the truth, if they have not sinned unto death, and for the terror and caution of others. You therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, etc., Pe2 3:17, Pe2 3:18.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(8) THE MANIFESTATIONS OF DARKNESS (1Jn_2:18-28).

(a) Signs whereby they should know the forerunners of the last time (1Jn_2:18-23).

(b) Exhortation to continue in the light (1Jn_2:24-28).

After cheering his readers by stating the grounds of his writing, and the opinion which he has of them, he reminds them of the momentous epoch at which they are living, of the discriminating effect which it has had on mere nominal Christians, and of the signs by which such might be known, introducing, as in 1Jn_2:12, a saving clause to separate his friends from the condemnatory category. The train of thought connected with “the last hour” is suggested by 1Jn_2:17, “the world passeth away,” and is appropriate to the treatment of the general subject of light as it brings the manifestation of its contrary.

(18) The last time.—Rather, hour. Until the visions of the Apocalypse, St. John naturally thought from Christ’s words, “If he tarry till I come” (Joh_21:22), that he would see the last days before the Second Advent. Our Lord, in Mat_24:36, distinctly asserted that not even the angels knew the day and the hour; and on this subject accordingly the Apostles were evidently left to their own conjectures. St. Paul expected a speedy return (1Th_4:17); so did St. Peter (2Pe_3:12-15). In the same way St. John thought that he recognised in the serious signs of his time that final period spoken of in Isa_2:2; Mic_4:1; Act_2:17; 1Ti_4:1; 2Ti_3:1; and 2Pe_3:3. And it was indeed true that with the approaching death of the last living witness of the Lord’s life, the new revelation was being finally closed, miraculous outpourings of the Spirit were ceasing, heresies and opponents were growing, and the lives of Christians were beginning to fade into the light of common day.

Antichrist.—See Introduction. Of the terrible personage or power prophesied in 2Th_2:1-12, Revelation 11, 13, 17, the “liars” already mentioned in 1Jn_1:6, and afterwards in 1Jn_4:3; 1Jn_4:14; are regarded as forerunners. So might Hymenæus and Philetus (2Ti_2:17), Diotrephes (3Jn_1:9), the Nicolaitanes (Rev_2:6), or Simon Magus, Cerinthus, Ebion, any who opposed the teaching of Christ from within or without. (Comp. also Jud_1:4.) See Excursus on 2Th_2:3-12.

(19) They went out.—The special instances in his mind were of men who had seemed to belong to the body of Christ, but were never really penetrated by His Spirit. (Comp. Mat_13:3-7; Mat_13:24-30; Mat_13:47-50.) St. John is not pronouncing a general law that “grace is indefectible;” but in looking back on each case of apostasy he sees there must have been some element in the character not subdued to Christ. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb_6:4-6) regarded it as possible for those who have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost to “fall away.” They might have partaken of the Holy Ghost in some degree, and yet not have been wholly Christian. Safety lies in the continual appeal to Christ.

(20, 21) But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.—If the Antichrists had formerly any unction at all from Christ, the Holy One (comp. Joh_15:26; 2Co_3:17-18; Eph_3:16; Php_1:29), they must have grieved His Spirit. But St. John’s hearers were still “holding the Head,” and therefore had the divine instinct which “guided them into all truth.” If they trusted to the Spirit in simplicity, questions of morality and religion, all that concerned the soul, would be made sufficiently plain to them. He does believe this of them; humbly he begs them not to think that he distrusts them. If he did not think that they had the eye of their understanding spiritually enlightened, he would know that there would be no response in their hearts to his words, nor interest about them in their intelligence.

(22) Who is a liar?—Rather, the liar, the enemy of light above ail others. St. John thrusts home his point by a lively personal reference. All who err from Christ’s teaching are liars; the greatest of all, he who may be called actually Antichrist, is he who denies that the Crucified is the Son of God. Such a man, with the opportunity of seeing and believing in the light, by refusing to do so loses the knowledge of God in the impressive beauty of His relation as Father revealed in Jesus. And a God who cannot be revealed, who has no Son, who cannot be heard or seen, is at best a cold abstraction.

(23) Whosoever denieth the Son. . . .—The sentence in italics has good authority, and should stand as part of the text. “Acknowledging” here, as the opposite of that denial which involved such weighty consequences, implies, as Bede says, “the confession of the heart, the mouth, and the deed.”

After this description of the manifestations of darkness in their midst, and of his trust in them, he winds up with some forcible practical appeals, weaving together with concentrated power ideas which have already been suggested, and introducing the most familiar associations of the Lord’s teaching.

(24, 25) As for you (omit “therefore”), that which ye heard from the beginning, let it remain in you. If there remain in you that which ye heard from the beginning, ye in your turn shall remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise which He Himself promised to us, the life eternal.

He turns over in his mind the question, “What shall I say to my dear children about these sad apostasies that shake the faith and darken the heart?” Well, there is nothing new to tell them; they have heard it all, only let it remain fixed and fresh in them! Then all he could wish will be theirs; they will be living and moving and having their being in the life and mind and love of the Son, the beloved Lord who has ascended, and through Him not less in the Father Almighty Himself. And the great promise which the Son made to them and to the world transcends all else, for it is of life eternal.

(24) Let that therefore abide.—An echo of Joh_15:7.

Which ye have heard from the beginning.—Since each individual first felt the gospel brought home to his heart. Its message is always the same.

(25) Eternal life.—The life which cannot be measured by days and years, but is the enjoyment of the blessedness of virtue. This is a present fact, begun as soon as the believer begins to be in Christ, growing more and more unto the perfect day as he walks more closely with God, secured for ever when he enters into his rest, and perfected in the glory of heaven. (Comp. Joh_5:21-26; Joh_10:10; Joh_10:27-28; Joh_11:25-26; Joh_17:3.) That this life, depending on knowledge of God, is begun here, does not lessen the reasonableness of its being perfected hereafter, any more than its future completion prevents its present beginning.

(26) These things have I written.—To remind them that he is still on the subject of the Antichrists, and to sum up what he has said about them.

(27) But the anointing.—He reverts to 1Jn_2:20-21 as a favourite ground of consolation and encouragement. Anointing played a great part in the physical life of Eastern races. The climate was dry, sultry, and enervating; unguents restored freshness, elasticity, and life to the parched and feeble frame. So, like dew reviving the verdure of the hill-side, or ointment restoring the vigour of muscles and sinews, the healing, soothing, influence of the Divine Spirit breathes about the children of God, unfolds the meaning of what they have heard, brings all things to their remembrance, and guides them into all truth. They needed not the pretended discoveries of false teachers; all they wanted was the unction of God to bring home what they had heard from the beginning.

Shall abide in him.—Rather, abide ye in Him (imperative). These words are the conclusion to the four parallel clauses of the last half of 1Jn_2:27. On the grounds that their minds were visibly alive to spiritual insight; that this insight was from God, a living power, witnessed to by the life of Christ and His Apostles, and all the phenomena of Christianity; that it was no mere human theory like the speculation of false teachers, demonstrably at variance with Christ; and, lastly, that it had already brought home to their inmost souls the priceless lessons of which they were aware, he earnestly charges them, “Abide ye in Christ!”

(28) And now.—As in Joh_17:5; Act_3:17; Act_4:29; Act_7:34; Act_10:5; Act_22:16; 2Th_2:6, these words mark a conclusion arising naturally from previous thoughts. As they have this holy anointing, and can exercise the Christian critical ability, and can see the truth, all they have to do is to let their whole being rest in the Son; this cannot be urged upon them too often, or too simply. Their safety depends on the exercise of their own will. (Comp. Joh_15:1-6.)

Little children.—Tenderly, as in 1Jn_2:18.

When he shall appear.—Rather, if Compare 1Jn_2:18 for the thought of the possible nearness of Christ’s Second Advent. He passes to the first person plural, to place himself under the same experiences, laws, promises, hopes, fears, as his friends. It would be foreign to his nature to express a personal wish that he himself might not be ashamed on the score of their declension.

So ends the treatise on LIGHT. From the thought that the true fellowship excluded sin, he passed on to forbid the concealment of sin. for sin could not be altogether banished; then he spoke of the remedy for sin; then of the test of walking in the Light; so he was led to speak of the chief Christian characteristic; and then of the things to be forsworn. That led him to think of nominal Christians who had been unable to forswear them, and had therefore become enemies of Christ and beacons of warning. His friends needed no practical counsel except reminders of what they knew, and exhortations to exercise their moral choice by holding on to Christ.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18–26. The Persons to be Avoided;—Antichrists

18. Little children] Or, Little ones. It is difficult to see anything in this section specially suitable to children: indeed the very reverse is rather the case. The same word (παιδία) is used here as in 1Jn_2:14 and Joh_21:5. S. John’s readers in general are addressed, irrespective of age. Both his Epistle and Gospel are written for adults and for well-instructed Christians.

it is the last time] More literally, it is the last hour; possibly, but not probably, it is a last hour. The omission of the definite article is quite intelligible and not unusual: the idea is sufficiently definite without it, for there can be only one last hour. Similarly (Judges 18) we have ‘in (the) last time there shall be mockers walking after their own ungodly lusts’: and (Act_1:8; Act_13:47) ‘unto (the) uttermost part of the earth’. A great deal has been written upon this text in order to avoid a very plain but unwelcome conclusion, that by the ‘last hour’ S. John means the time immediately preceding the return of Christ to judge the world. Hundreds of years have passed away since S. John wrote these words, and the Lord is not yet come. Rather, therefore, than admit an interpretation which seemed to charge the Apostle with a serious error, commentators have suggested all kinds of explanations as substitutes for the obvious one. The following considerations place S. John’s meaning beyond all reasonable doubt.

1. He has just been stating that the world is on the wane and that its dissolution has already begun. 2. He has just declared that the obedient Christian shall abide ‘unto the age’ of Christ’s kingdom of glory. 3. He goes on to give as a proof that it is the ‘last hour’, that many Antichrists have already arisen; it being the common belief of Christians that Antichrist would immediately precede the return of Christ. 4. ‘The last day’ is a phrase peculiar to S. John (Joh_6:39-40; Joh_6:44; Joh_6:54; Joh_11:24; Joh_12:48), and invariably means the end of the world, not the Christian dispensation. 5. Analogous phrases in other parts of N.T. point in the same direction: ‘In the last days grievous times shall come’ (2Ti_3:1); ‘Ye are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time’ (1Pe_1:5); ‘In the last days mockers shall come with mockery’ (2Pe_3:3). These and other passages shew that by ‘the last days’, ‘last time’, ‘last hour’, and the like, Christian writers did not mean the whole time between the first and second coming of Christ, but only the concluding portion of it. 6. We find similar language with similar meaning in the sub-apostolic age. Thus Ignatius (Eph. XI.) writes; “These are the last times. Henceforth let us be reverent; let us fear the longsuffering of God, lest it turn into a judgment against us. For either let us fear the wrath which is to come, or let us love the grace which now is.”

Of other interpretations of ‘the last hour’ the most noteworthy are these. (1) The Christian dispensation, which we have every reason to believe is the last. This is the sense in which S. John’s words are true; but this is plainly not his meaning. The appearance of Christ, not of Antichrist, proves that the Christian dispensation is come. (2) A very grievous time, tempora periculosa pessima et abjectissima. This is quite against usage whether in classical or N.T. Greek: comp. 2Ti_3:1. The classical phrase, ‘to suffer the last things’, i.e. ‘to suffer extremities’ (τὰ ἔσχατα παθεῖν), supplies no analogy: here the notion of ‘grievous’ comes from the verb. (3) The eve of the destruction of Jerusalem. How could the appearance of Antichrist prove that this had arrived? And Jerusalem had perished at least a dozen years before the probable date of this Epistle. (4) The eve of S. John’s own death. Antichrists could be no sign of that.

It is admitted even by some of those who reject the obvious interpretation that “the Apostles expected a speedy appearing or manifestation of Jesus as the Judge of their nation and of all nations” (Maurice): which is to admit the whole difficulty of the rejected explanation. Only gradually was the vision of the Apostles cleared to see the true nature of the spiritual kingdom which Christ had founded on earth and left in their charge. Even Pentecost did not at once give them perfect insight. Being under the guidance of the Holy Spirit they could not teach what was untrue: but, like the Prophets before them, they sometimes uttered words which were true in a sense far higher than that which was present to their own minds. In this higher sense S. John’s words here are true. Like others, he was wrong in supposing ‘that the kingdom of God was immediately to appear’ (Luk_19:11), for ‘it was not for them to know times or seasons which the Father hath set within His own authority’ (Act_1:7). He was right in declaring that, the Messiah having come, it was the ‘last hour’. No event in the world’s history can ever equal the coming of Christ until He comes again. The epoch of Christianity, therefore, is rightly called the ‘last hour’, although it has lasted nearly two thousand years. What is that compared with the many thousands of years since the creation of man, and the limitless geological periods which preceded the creation of man? What again in the eyes of Him in whose sight ‘a thousand years are but yesterday?’

“It may be remarked that the only point on which we can certainly say that the Apostles were in error, and led others into error, is in their expectation of the immediate coming of Christ; and this is the very point which our Saviour says (Mar_13:32) is known only to the Father” (Jelf).

as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come] Better, even as ye heard that Antichrist cometh: the first verb is aorist, not perfect; the second present, not future; and the conjunction is of the same strong form as in 1Jn_2:6. This seems to be a case in which the aorist should be retained in English (see on 1Jn_2:11). As in 1Jn_2:7, the reference is probably to a definite point in their instruction in the faith: and ‘cometh’ should be retained in order to bring out the analogy between the Christ and the Antichrist. The one was hoped for, and the other dreaded, with equal certainty; and hence each might be spoken of as ‘He that cometh’. ‘Art Thou He that cometh?’ (Mat_11:3; Luk_19:20). Comp. Mar_8:38; Mar_11:9; Joh_4:25; Joh_6:14; Joh_11:27, &c. &c. And as to the coming of Antichrists the N. T. seems to be as explicit as the O. T. with regard to the coming of Christ. ‘Many shall come in My name, saying I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray … There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible even the elect’ (Mat_24:5; Mat_24:24). Comp. Mar_13:22-23; Act_20:29; 2Ti_3:1; 2Pe_2:1; and especially 2Th_2:3, which like the passage before us seems to point to one distinct person or power as the one Antichrist, whose spirit animates all antichristian teachers.

The term ‘Antichrist’ in Scripture occurs only in the First and Second Epistles of S. John (1Jn_2:18; 1Jn_2:22, 1Jn_4:3; 2Jn_1:7). The earliest instance of its use outside Scripture is in S. Polycarp (Ep. ad Phil, VII.), in a passage which shews that this disciple of S. John (a.d. 140–155) knew our Epistle: see on 1Jn_4:3. The term does not mean merely a mock Christ or false Christ, for which the N.T. term is ‘pseudo-Christ’ (Mat_24:24; Mar_13:22). Nor does it mean simply an opponent of Christ, for which we should probably have ‘enemy of Christ’, like ‘enemy of the Cross of Christ’ (Php_3:18) and ‘enemy of God’ (Jas_4:4). But it includes both these ideas of counterfeiting and opposing; it means an opposition Christ or rival Christ; just as we call a rival Pope an ‘antipope’. The Antichrist is, therefore, a usurper, who under false pretences assumes a position which does not belong to him, and who opposes the rightful owner. The idea of opposition is the predominant one.

It is not easy to determine whether the Antichrist of S. John is personal or not. But the discussion of this question is too long for a note: see Appendix B.

even now are there many Antichrists] Better, as R.V., even now have there arisen many Antichrists: the Christ was from all eternity (1Jn_1:1), the Antichrist and his company arose in time; they are come into being. We have a similar contrast in the Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word’; but ‘There arose a man, sent from God, whose name was John’ (Joh_1:1; Joh_1:6). These ‘many Antichrists’ are probably to be regarded as at once forerunners of the Antichrist and evidence that his spirit is already at work in the world: the one fact shews that he is not far distant, the other that in a sense he is already here. In either case we have proof that the return of Christ, which is to be heralded by the appearance of Antichrist, is near.

whereby we know that it is the last time] Or, whence we come to know that it is the last hour: as in 1Jn_2:3; 1Jn_2:5 the verb indicates acquisition of and progress in knowledge. ‘Whence’ in the sense of ‘from which data, from which premises’ hardly occurs elsewhere in N.T. except perhaps in the Epistle to the Hebrews (1Jn_2:17, Joh_7:25, Joh_8:3), where the same Greek word (ὅθεν) is uniformly rendered ‘wherefore’ in both A.V. and R.V.

It is difficult to see what S. John could have meant by this, if by the ‘last hour’ he understood the Christian dispensation as a whole and not the concluding portion of it (comp. 2Ti_3:1). The multitude of false teachers who were spreading the great lie (1Jn_2:22) that Jesus is not the Christ, were evidence, not of the existence of Christianity, but of antichristianity. Nor could evidence of the former be needed by S. John’s readers. They did not need to be convinced either that the Gospel dispensation had begun, or that it was the last in the history of the Divine Revelation. The Montanist theory that a further dispensation of the Spirit, distinct from that of the Son, was to follow and supersede the Gospel, as the Gospel had superseded Judaism, the dispensation of the Father, was a belief of later growth. (For an account of this theory as elaborated by Joachim of Flora [fl. a.d. 1180–90] see Döllinger’s Prophecies and the Prophetic Spirit in the Christian Era, pp. 114–119.) In the Apostolic age the tendency was all the other way;—to believe that the period since the coming of Christ was not only the last in the world’s history, but would be very brief. It was thought that some of the generation then existing might live to see the end (1Th_4:15-16; 1Co_15:51-52).

B. Antichrist

In the notes on 1Jn_2:18 it has been pointed out that the term ‘Antichrist’ is in N. T. peculiar to the Epistles of S. John (1Jn_2:18; 1Jn_2:22; 1Jn_4:3; 2Jn_1:7), and that in meaning it seems to combine the ideas of a mock Christ and an opponent of Christ, but that the latter idea is the prominent one. The false claims of a rival Christ are more or less included in the signification; but the predominant notion is that of hostility.

It remains to say something on two other points of interest. I. Is the Antichrist of S. John a person or a tendency, an individual man or a principle? II. Is the Antichrist of S. John identical with the great adversary spoken of by S. Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2? The answer to the one question will to a certain extent depend upon the answer to the other.

I. It will be observed that S. John introduces the term ‘Antichrist,’ as he introduces the term ‘Logos’ (1Jn_1:1; Joh_1:1), without any explanation. He expressly states that it is one with which his readers are familiar; ‘even as ye heard that Antichrist cometh.’ Certainly this, the first introduction of the name, looks like an allusion to a person. All the more so when we remember that the Christ was ‘He that cometh’ (Mat_11:3; Luk_19:20). Both Christ and Antichrist had been the subject of prophecy, and therefore each might be spoken of as ‘He that cometh.’ But it is by no means conclusive. We may understand ‘Antichrist’ to mean an impersonal power, or principle, or tendency, exhibiting itself in the words and conduct of individuals, without doing violence to the passage. In the one case the ‘many antichrists’ will be forerunners of the great personal opponent; in the other the antichristian spirit which they exhibit may be regarded as Antichrist. But the balance of probability seems to be in favour of the view that the Antichrist, of which S. John’s readers had heard as certain to come shortly before the end of the world, is a person.

Such is not the case with the other three passages in which the term occurs. ‘Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, even he that denieth the Father and the Son’ (1Jn_2:22). There were many who denied that Jesus is the Christ and thereby denied not only the Son but the Father of whom the Son is the revelation and representative. Therefore once more we have many antichrists, each one of whom may be spoken of as ‘the Antichrist,’ inasmuch as he exhibits the antichristian characteristics. No doubt this does not exclude the idea of a person who should have these characteristics in the highest possible degree, and who had not yet appeared. But this passage taken by itself would hardly suggest such a person.

So also with the third passage in the First Epistle. ‘Every spirit which confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the (spirit) of the Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh, and now is in the world already’ (1Jn_4:3). Here it is no longer ‘the Antichrist’ that is spoken of, but ‘the spirit of the Antichrist.’ This is evidently a principle; which again does not exclude, though it would not necessarily suggest or imply, the idea of a person who would embody this antichristian spirit of denial.

The passage in the Second Epistle is similar to the second passage in the First Epistle. ‘Many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist’ (1Jn_2:7). Here again we have many who exhibit the characteristics of Antichrist. Each one of them, and also the spirit which animates them, may be spoken of as ‘the Antichrist;’ the further idea of an individual who shall exhibit this spirit in an extraordinary manner being neither necessarily excluded, nor necessarily implied.

The first of the four passages, therefore, will have to interpret the other three. And as the interpretation of that passage cannot be determined beyond dispute, we must be content to admit that the question as to whether the Antichrist of S. John is personal or not cannot be answered with certainty. The probability seems to be in favour of an affirmative answer. In the passage which introduces the subject (1Jn_2:18) the Antichrist, of which the Apostle’s little children had heard as coming, appears to be a person of whom the ‘many antichrists’ with their lying doctrine are the heralds and already existing representatives. And it may well be that, having introduced the term with the personal signification familiar to his readers, the Apostle goes on to make other uses of it; in order to warn them that, although the personal Antichrist has not yet come, yet his spirit and doctrine are already at work in the world.

Nevertheless, we must allow that, if we confine our attention to the passages of S. John in which the term occurs, the balance in favour of the view that he looked to the coming of a personal Antichrist is far from conclusive. This balance, however, whatever its amount, is considerably augmented when we take a wider range and consider—(a) The origin of the doctrine which the Apostle says that his readers had already heard respecting Antichrist; (b) The treatment of the question by those who followed S. John as teachers in the Church; (c) Other passages in the N. T. which seem to bear upon the question. The discussion of this third point is placed last because it involves the second question to be investigated in this Appendix;—Is the Antichrist of S. John identical with S. Paul’s ‘man of sin.’

(a) There can be little doubt that the origin of the primitive doctrine respecting Antichrist is the Book of Daniel, to which our Lord Himself had drawn attention in speaking of the ‘abomination of desolation’ (Mat_24:15; Dan_9:27; Dan_12:11). The causing the daily sacrifice to cease, which was one great element of this desolation, at once brings these passages into connexion with the ‘little horn’ of Dan_8:9-14, the language respecting which seems almost necessarily to imply an individual potentate. The prophecies respecting the ‘king of fierce countenance’ (Joh_8:23-25) and ‘the king’ who ‘shall do according to his will’ (Joh_11:36-39) strongly confirm this view. And just as it has been in individuals that Christians have seen realisations, or at least types, of Antichrist (Nero, Julian, Mahomet), so it was in an individual (Antiochus Epiphanes) that the Jews believed that they saw such. It is by no means improbable that S. John himself considered Nero to be a type, indeed the great type, of Antichrist. When Nero perished so miserably and obscurely in a.d. 68, Romans and Christians alike believed that he had only disappeared for a time. Like the Emperor Frederick II. in Germany, and Sebastian ‘the Regretted’ in Portugal, this last representative of the Caesars was supposed to be still alive in mysterious retirement: some day he would return. Among Christians this belief took the form that Nero was to come again as the Antichrist (Suet. Nero 40, 56; Tac. Hist. ii. 8). All this will incline us to believe that the Antichrist, of whose future coming S. John’s ‘little children’ had heard, was not a mere principle, but a person.

(b) “That Antichrist is one individual man, not a power, not a mere ethical spirit, or a political system, not a dynasty, or a succession of rulers, was the universal tradition of the early Church.” This strong statement seems to need a small amount of qualification. The Alexandrian School is not fond of the subject. “Clement makes no mention of the Antichrist at all; Origen, after his fashion, passes into the region of generalizing allegory. The Antichrist, the ‘adversary,’ is ‘false doctrine;’ the temple of God in which he sits and exalts himself, is the written Word; men are to flee, when he comes, to ‘the mountains of truth’ (Hom. xxix. in Matt.). Gregory of Nyssa (Orat. xi. c. Eunom.) follows in the same track.” Still the general tendency is all the other way. Justin Martyr (Trypho XXXII.) says “He whom Daniel foretells would have dominion for a time, and times, and an half, is even already at the door, about to speak blasphemous and daring things against the Most High.” He speaks of him as ‘the man of sin.’ Irenaeus (v. xxv. 1, 3), Tertullian (De Res. Carn. XXIV., XXV.), Lactantius (Div. Inst. vii. xvii.), Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. XV. 4, n, 14, 17), and others take a similar view, some of them enlarging much upon the subject. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xx. xix.) says “Satan shall be loosed, and by means of that Antichrist shall work with all power in a lying but wonderful manner.” Jerome affirms that Antichrist “is one man, in whom Satan shall dwell bodily;” and Theodoret that “the Man of Sin, the son of perdition, will make every effort for the seduction of the pious, by false miracles, and by force, and by persecution.” From these and many more passages that might be cited it is quite clear that the Church of the first three or four centuries almost universally regarded Antichrist as an individual. The evidence, beginning with Justin Martyr in the sub-Apostolic age, warrants us in believing that in this stream of testimony we have a belief which prevailed in the time of the Apostles and was possibly shared by them. But as regards this last point it is worth remarking how reserved the Apostles seem to have been with regard to the interpretation of prophecy. “What the Apostles disclosed concerning the future was for the most part disclosed by them in private, to individuals—not committed to writing, not intended for the edifying of the body of Christ,—and was soon lost” (J. H. Newman).

(c) Besides the various passages in N.T. which point to the coming of false Christs and false prophets (Mat_24:5; Mat_24:24; Mar_13:22-23; Act_20:29; 2Ti_3:1; 2Pe_2:1), there are two passages which give a detailed description of a great power, hostile to God and His people, which is to arise hereafter and have great success;—Revelation 13 and 2 Thessalonians 2. The second of these passages will be considered in the discussion of the second question. With regard to the first this much may be asserted with something like certainty, that the correspondence between the ‘beast’ of Revelation 13 and the ‘little horn’ of Daniel 7 is too close to be accidental. But in consideration of the difficulty of the subject and the great diversity of opinion it would be rash to affirm positively that the ‘beast’ of the Apocalypse is a person. The correspondence between the ‘beast’ and the ‘little horn’ is not so close as to compel us to interpret both images alike. The wiser plan will be to leave Revelation 13 out of consideration as neutral, for we cannot be at all sure whether the beast (1) is a person, (2) is identical with Antichrist. We shall find that 2 Thessalonians 2 favours the belief that Antichrist is an individual.

II. There is a strong preponderance of opinion in favour of the view that the Antichrist of S. John is the same as the great adversary of S. Paul (2Th_2:3). 1. Even in the name there is some similarity; the Antichrist (ὁ ἀντίχριστος) and ‘he that opposeth’ (ὁ ἀντικείμενος). And the idea of being a rival Christ which is included in the name Antichrist and is wanting in ‘he that opposeth,’ is supplied in S. Paul’s description of the great opponent: for he is a ‘man’, and he ‘setteth himself forth as God.’ 2. Both Apostles state that their readers had previously been instructed about this future adversary. 3. Both declare that his coming is preceded by an apostasy of many nominal Christians. 4. Both connect his coming with the Second Advent of Christ. 5. Both describe him as a liar and deceiver. 6. S. Paul says that this ‘man of sin exalteth himself against all that is called God.’ S. John places the spirit of Antichrist as the opposite of the Spirit of God. 7. S. Paul states that his ‘coming is according to the working of Satan.’ S. John implies that he is of the evil one. 8. Both Apostles state that, although this great opponent of the truth is still to come, yet his spirit is already at work in the world. With agreement in so many and such important details before us, we can hardly be mistaken in affirming that the two Apostles in their accounts of the trouble in store for the Church have one and the same meaning.

Having answered, therefore, this second question in the affirmative we return to the first question with a substantial addition to the evidence. It would be most unnatural to understand S. Paul’s ‘man of sin’ as an impersonal principle; and the widely different interpretations of the passage for the most part agree in this, that the great adversary is an individual. If, therefore, S. John has the same meaning as S. Paul, then the Antichrist of S. John is an individual.

To sum up:—Although none of the four passages in S. John’s Epistles are conclusive, yet the first of them (1Jn_2:18) inclines us to regard Antichrist as a person. This view is confirmed (a) by earlier Jewish ideas on the subject, (b) by subsequent Christian ideas from the sub-Apostolic age onwards, (c) above all by S. Paul’s description of the ‘man of sin,’ whose similarity to S. John’s Antichrist is of a very close and remarkable kind.

For further information on this difficult subject see the articles on Antichrist in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible (Appendix), and Dictionary of Christian Biography, with the authorities there quoted; also four lectures on The Patristical Idea of Antichrist in J. H. Newman’s Discussions and Arguments.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Little children - See 1Jo 2:1.

It is the last time - The closing period or dispensation; that dispensation in which the affairs of the world are ultimately to be wound up. The apostle does not, however, say that the end of the world would soon occur, nor does he intimate how long this dispensation would be. That period might continue through many ages or centuries, and still be the last dispensation, or that in which the affairs of the world would be finally closed. See the Isa 2:2 note; Act 2:17 note; Heb 1:2 note. Some have supposed that the “last time” here refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the end of the Jewish economy; but the more natural interpretation is to refer it to the last dispensation of the world, and to suppose that the apostle meant to say that there were clear evidences that that period had arrived.

And as ye have heard that antichrist shall come - The word “antichrist” occurs in the New Testament only in these Epistles of John, 1Jo 2:18, 1Jo 2:22; 1Jo 4:3; 2Jo 1:7. The proper meaning of (ἀντί anti) in composition is:

(1)Over-against,” as ἀντιτάσσειν antitassein;

(2)Contrary to,” as ἀντιλέγειν antilegein;

(3)Reciprocity, as ἀνταποδίδωμι antapodidōmi;

(4)Substitution,” as ἀντιβασιλεύς antibasileus;

(5)The place of the king, or ἀνθύπατος anthupatos - “proconsul.”

The word “antichrist,” therefore, might denote anyone who either was or claimed to be in the place of Christ, or one who, for any cause, was in opposition to him. The word, further, would apply to one opposed to him, on whatever ground the opposition might be; whether it were open and avowed, or whether it were only in fact, as resulting from certain claims which were adverse to his, or which were inconsistent with his. A “vice-functionary,” or an “opposing functionary,” would be the idea which the word would naturally suggest. If the word stood alone, and there were nothing said further to explain its meaning, we should think, when the word “antichrist” was used, either of one who claimed to be the Christ, and who thus was a rival; or of one who stood in opposition to him on some other ground. That which constituted the characteristics of antichrist, according to John, who only has used the word, he has himself stated. 1Jo 2:22, “who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” 1Jo 4:3, “and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God; and this is that spirit of antichrist.” 2Jo 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.”

From this it is clear, that John understood by the word all those that denied that Jesus is the Messiah, or that the Messiah has come in the flesh. If they held that Jesus was a deceiver, and that he was not the Christ, or if they maintained that, though Christ had come, he had not come in the flesh, that is, with a proper human nature, this showed that such persons had the spirit of antichrist. They arrayed themselves against him, and held doctrines which were in fact in entire opposition to the Son of God. It would appear then that John does not use the word in the sense which it would bear as denoting one who set up a rival claim, or who came in the place of Christ, but in the sense of those who were opposed to him by denying essential doctrines in regard to his person and advent. It is not certainly known to what persons he refers, but it would seem not improbable to Jewish adversaries, (see Suicer’s Thesaur. s. voc.,) or to some forms of the Gnostic belief. See the notes at 1Jo 4:2. The doctrine respecting antichrist, as stated in the New Testament, may be summed up in the following particulars:

(1) That there would be those, perhaps in considerable numbers, who would openly claim to be the Christ, or the true Messiah, Mat 24:5, Mat 24:24.

(2) That there would be a spirit, which would manifest itself early in the church, that would strongly tend to some great apostasy under some one head or leader, or to a concentration on an individual, or a succession of individuals, who would have eminently the spirit of antichrist, though for a time the developement of that spirit would be hindered or restrained. See the notes at 2Th 2:1-7.

(3) That this would be ultimately concentrated on a single leader - “the man of sin” - and embodied under some great apostasy, at the head of which would be that “man of sin,” 2Th 2:3-4, 2Th 2:8-10. It is to this that Paul particularly refers, or this is the view which he took of this apostacy, and it is this which he particularly describes.

(4) That, in the meantime, and before the elements of the great apostasy should be concentrated and embodied, there might not be a few who would partake of the same general spirit, and who would be equally opposed to Christ in their doctrines and aims; that is, who would embody in themselves the essential spirit of antichrist, and by whose appearing it might be known that the last dispensation had come. It is to these that John refers, and these he found in his own age. Paul fixed the eye on future times, when the spirit of antichrist should be embodied under a distinct and mighty organization; John on his own time, and found then essentially what it had been predicted would occur in the church. He here says that they had been taught to expect that antichrist would come under the last dispensation; and it is implied that it could be ascertained that it was the last time, from the fact that the predicted opposer of Christ had come. The reference is probably to the language of the Saviour, that before the end should be, and as a sign that it was coming, many would arise claiming to be Christ, and, of course, practically denying that he was the Christ. Mat 24:5, “many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” Mat 24:24, “and there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets; and they shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” This prediction it is probable the apostles had referred to wherever they had preached, so that there was a general expectation that one or more persons would appear claiming to be the Christ, or maintaining such opinions as to be inconsistent with the true doctrine that Jesus was the Messiah. Such persons, John says, had then in fact appeared, by which it could be known that they were living under the closing dispensations of the world referred to by the Saviour. Compare the notes at 2Th 2:2-5.

Even now are there many antichrists - There are many who have the characteristics which it was predicted that antichrist would have; that is, as explained above, there are many who deny that Jesus is the Messiah, or who deny that he has come in the flesh. If they maintained that Jesus was an impostor and not the true Messiah, or if, though they admitted that the Messiah had come, they affirmed, as the “Docetae” did, (Note at 1Jo 4:2) that he had come in “appearance” only, and not really come in the flesh, this was the spirit of antichrist. John says that there were many such persons in fact in his time. It would seem from this that John did not refer to a single individual, or to a succession of individuals who should come previous to the winding up of the affairs of the world, as Paul did (2Th 2:2 ff), but that he understood that there might be many at the same time who would evince the spirit of antichrist. Both he and Paul, however, refer to the expectation that before the coming of the Saviour to judge the world there would be prominent adversaries of the Christian religion, and that the end would not come until such adversaries appeared. Paul goes more into detail, and describes the characteristics of the great apostasy more at length (2Th 2:2 ff; 1Ti 4:1 ff; 2Ti 3:1 ff) John says, not that the appearing of these persons indicated that the end of the world was near, but that they had such characteristics as to show that they were living in the last dispensation. Paul so describes them as to show that the end of the world was not to be immediately expected (2Th 2:1 ff), John, without referring to that point, says that there were enough of that character then to prove that the last dispensation had come, though he does not say how long it would continue.

Whereby we know it is the last time - They have the characteristics which it was predicted many would have before the end of the world should come. The evidence that it was “the last time,” or the closing dispensation of the world, derived from the appearing of these persons, consists simply in the fact that it was predicted that such persons would appear under the Christian, or the last dispensation, Mat 24:5, Mat 24:24-27. Their appearance was to precede the coming of the Saviour, though it is not said “how long” it would precede that; but at any time the appearing of such persons would be an evidence that it was the closing dispensation of the world, for the Saviour, in his predictions respecting them, had said that they would appear before he should return to judgment. It cannot now be determined precisely to what classes of persons there is reference here, because we know too little of the religious state of the times to which the apostle refers. No one can prove, however, that there were “not” persons at that time who so fully corresponded to the predictions of the Saviour as to be a complete fulfillment of what he said, and to demonstrate that the last age had truly come. It would seem probable that there may have been reference to some Jewish adversaries, who denied that Jesus was the Messiah (Robinson Lexicon), or to some persons who had already broached the doctrine of the “Docetae,” that though Jesus was the Messiah, yet that he was a man in appearance only, and had not really come in the flesh. Classes of persons of each description abounded in the early ages of the church.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1Jn_2:18-23

Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists

St.

Johns last hour

The Apostle John is an old man; he has lived through a long day. The way of the Lord that he teaches is by this time a well-marked path, trodden by the feet already of two generations. Time has vindicated the bold inference that the aged apostle drew from his experience. The disciples of Jesus have known the truth, which abideth in us and shall be with us forever. St. John has but one thing to say to his successors: Abide in Him. As for the recent seceders from the apostolic communion, their departure is a gain and not a loss; for that is manifest in them which was before concealed (verses 18, 19). They bore the name of Christ falsely: antichrist is their proper title; and that there are many such, who stand threateningly arrayed against His servants, only proves that His word is doing its sifting and judicial work, that the Divine life within the body of Christ is casting off dead limbs and foreign elements, that the truth is accomplishing its destined result, that the age has come to its ripeness and its crisis: whence we perceive that it is the last hour. We may best expound the paragraph under review by considering in order the crisis to which the apostle refers, the danger which he denounces, and the safeguards on which he relies--in other words, the last hour, the many antichrists, and the chrism from the Holy One.

I. My children, it is the last hour--We perceive that it is the last hour. Bishop Westcott, in his rich and learned Commentary on this Epistle, calls our attention to the absence of the Greek article: A last hour it is (ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστίν)--so the apostle literally puts it; and the anarthrous combination is peculiar here. (St. Pauls, A day of the Lord is coming, in 1Th_5:2, resembles the expression.) The phrase seems to mark the general character of the period, and not its specific relation to the end. It was a period of critical change. The hour is a term repeatedly used in the Gospel of St. John for the crisis of the earthly course of Jesus, the supreme epoch of His death and return to the Father. This guides us to St. Johns meaning here. He is looking backward, not forward. The venerable apostle stands upon the border of the first Christian age. He is nearing the horizon, the rim and outmost verge of that great day of the Lord which began with the birth of the first John, the forerunner, and would terminate with his own departure: himself the solitary survivor of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. The shadows were closing upon John; everything was altered about him. The world he knew had passed or was passing quite away. Jerusalem had fallen: he had seen in vision the overthrow of mighty Rome, and the empire was shaken with rumours and fears of change. The work of revelation, he felt, was all but complete. The finished truth of the revelation of the Father in the Son was now confronted by the consummate lie of heresy which denied them both (verse 22). He presided over the completion of the grand creative age, and he saw that its end was come. Clearly it was his last hour; and for aught he knew it might be the worlds last, the sun of time setting to rise no more, the crash of doom breaking upon his dying ears. The world passes through great cycles, each of which has its last hour anticipating the absolute conclusion. The year, with its course from spring to winter, from winter to autumn, the day from dawn to dark, image the total course of time. The great epochs and days of human history have a finality. Each of these periods in turn sensibly anticipates the end of all things. Many great and notable days of the Lord there have been, and perhaps will be, many last hours before the last of all. The earth is a mausoleum of dead worlds; in its grave mounds, tier above tier, extinct civilisations lie orderly interred. Each day of history, with its last hour, is a moment in that age of the ages which includes the measureless circumference of time.

II. The Apostle John saw the proof of the end of the age in the appearance of many antichrists. The word antichrist has, by etymology, a double meaning. The antichrist of whose coming St. Johns readers had heard, if identical, as one presumes, with the awful figure of 2Th_2:1-17, is a rival or mock-Christ, a Satanic caricature of the Lord Jesus; the many antichrists were not that, but deniers, indeed destroyers of Christ; and this the epithet may equally well signify. So there is no real disagreement in the matter between St. Paul and St. John. The heretic oppugners of Christ, starting up before Johns eyes in the Asian Churches, were forerunners, whether at a greater or less distance, of the supreme antagonist, messengers who prepared his way. They were of the same breed and likeness, and set forth principles that find in him their full impersonation. These antichrists of St. Johns last hour, the opponents then most to be dreaded by the Church, were teachers of false doctrine. They deny that Jesus is the Christ (verse 22). This denial is other than that which the same words had denoted fifty years before. It is not the denial of Jewish unbelief, a refusal to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah; it is the denial of Gnostic error, the refusal to admit the Divine Sonship of Jesus and the revelation of the Godhead in manhood through His person. Such a refusal makes the knowledge of both impossible; neither is God understood as Father, nor Jesus Christ as Son, by these misbelievers. The nature of the person of Christ, in St. Johns view, is not a question of transcendental dogma or theological speculation; in it lies the vital point of an experimental and working Christian belief. Who is he, the apostle cries, that overcometh the world, except he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1Jn_5:5); and again, Everyone that believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is begotten of God (1Jn_5:1). In passing from St. Pauls chief Epistles to this of St. John, the doctrinal conflict is carried back from the atonement to the incarnation, from the work to the nature of Christ, from Calvary to Bethlehem. There it culminates. Truth could reach no higher than the affirmation, error could proceed no further than the contradiction, of the completed doctrine of the Person of Christ as it was taught by St. John. The final teaching of Divine revelation is daringly denied. What think ye of the Christ?--what do you make of Me? is His crucial question to every age. The two answers--that of the world with its false prophets and seducers (1Jn_2:19; 1Jn_4:5), and that of the Christian brotherhood, one with its Divine Head--are now delivered in categorical assertion and negation. Faith and unfaith have each said their last word.

III. While the Apostle John insists on the radical nature of the assaults made in his last days upon the Churchs Christological belief, he points with entire confidence to the safeguards by which that belief is guaranteed.

1. In the first place, you,--in contrast with the antichrists, none of whom were really of us (verse 19)--you have a chrism from the Holy One (i.e., Christ)

; all of you know. the truth and can discern its verity (verses 20, 21). Again, in verse 27, The chrism that you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone be teaching you. But as His chrism teaches you about all things, and is true, and is no lie, and as it did teach you, abide in Him. Chrism is Greek for anointing, as Christ for anointed; St. Johns argument lies in this verbal connection. The chrism makes Christians, and is wanting to antichrists. It is the constitutive vital element common to Christ and His people, pervading members and Head alike. We soon perceive wherein this chrism consists. What the apostle says of the chrism here he says of the Spirit afterwards in 1Jn_5:7 : It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth. And in 1Jn_4:6 he contrasts the influences working in apostolic and heretical circles respectively as the spirit of truth and of error. The bestowal of the Spirit on Jesus of Nazareth is described under the figure of unction by St. Peter in Act_10:38, who tells How God anointed (christened) Him--made Him officially the Christ--with the Holy Spirit and power. It was the possession, without limit, of the Spirit of truth which gave to the words of Christ their unlimited authority (Joh_3:34-35). Now out of that Holy Spirit which He possessed infinitely in His Divine fashion, and which His presence and teaching continually breathed, the Holy One gave to His disciples; and all members of His body receive, according to their capacity, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot receive, but whom He sends unto His own from the Father (Joh_14:17; Joh_15:26, etc.). The Spirit of the Head is the vital principle of the Church, resident in every limb, and by its universal inhabitation and operation constituting the Body of Christ. The communion of the Holy Ghost is the inner side of all that is outwardly visible in Church activity and fellowship. It is the life of God in the society of men. This Divine principle of life in Christ has at the same time an antiseptic power. It affords the real security for the Churchs preservation from corruption and decay. For this gift St. Paul had prayed long ago on behalf of these same Asian Christians (Eph_1:17-23). This prayer had been answered. Pauls and Johns children in the faith were endowed with a Christian discernment that enabled them to detect the sophistries and resist the blandishments of subtle Gnostic error. This Spirit of wisdom and revelation has never deserted the Church. You know, all of you (verse 20)--this is what the apostle really says. It is the most remarkable thing in the passage. I have not written unto you, he continues, because you know not the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. He appeals to the judgment of the enlightened lay commonalty of the Church, just as St. Paul when he writes, I speak as to men of sense; judge ye what I say. St. Johns chrism certainly did not guarantee a precise agreement in all points of doctrine and of practice; but it covers essential truth, such as that of the Godhead of the Redeemer here in question. Much less does the witness of the Spirit warrant individual men, whose hearts are touched with His grace, in setting up to be oracles of God and mouthpieces of the Holy Ghost. In that case the Holy Spirit must contradict Himself endlessly, and God becomes the author of confusion and not of peace. But there is in matters of collective faith a spiritual common sense, a Christian public opinion in the communion of saints, behind the extravagances of individuals and the party cries of the hour, which acts informally by a silent and impalpable pressure, but all the more effectually, after the manner of the Spirit.

2. To this inward and cumulative witness there corresponds an outward witness, defined once for all. You know the truth … that no lie is of the truth That which you heard from the beginning, let it abide in you (verses 21, 24). Here is an objective criterion, given in the truth about Christ and the Father as Johns readers heard it from the apostles at the first, and as we find it written in their books. Believing that to be true, the Church rejected promptly what did not square with it. In the most downright and peremptory fashion St. John asserts the apostolic witness to be a test of religious truth: We are of God: he that knows God hears us; he that is not of God hears us not. By this we recognise the spirit of truth and the spirit of error (1Jn_4:6), Here is the exterior test of the inner light. The witness of the Spirit in the living Church, and in the abiding apostolic word, authenticate and guard each other. This must be so, if one and the self-same Spirit testifies in both. Experience and Scripture coincide. Neither will suffice us separated from the other. Without experience, Scripture becomes a dead letter; without the norm of Scripture, experience becomes a speculation, a fanaticism, or a conceit.

3. The third guarantee cited by St. John lies outside ourselves and the Church: it is neither the chrism that rests upon all Christians, nor the apostolic message deposited with the Church in the beginning; it is the faithfulness of our promise giving Lord. His fidelity is our ultimate dependence; and it is involved in the two safeguards previously described. Accordingly, when the apostle has said, in verse 24, If that abide in you which ye heard from the beginning, ye too shall abide in the Son and the Father, he adds, to make all sure, in the next verse: And this is the promise which He promised us--the eternal life! It is our Lords own assurance over again (Joh_8:51; Joh_15:4). The life of fellowship with the Father in the Son, which the antichrist would destroy at its root by denying the Son, the Son of God pledges Himself to maintain amongst those who are loyal to His word, and the word of His apostles, which is virtually His own. He has promised us this (αὐτὸς ἐπηγγείλατο)--He who says, I am the resurrection and the life. No brief or transient existence is that secured to His people, but the eternal life. Now eternal life means with St. John, not as with St. Paul a prize to be won, but a foundation on which to rest, a fountain from which to draw; not a future attainment so much as a present divine, and therefore abiding, possession. It is the life which came into the world from God with Jesus Christ (1Jn_1:1-2), and in which every soul has its part that is grafted into Him. Understanding this, we see that the promise of life eternal, in verse 25, is not brought in as an incitement to hope, but as a reassurance to our troubled faith. These things have I written unto you, the apostle says, concerning those that mislead you (verse 26). Christs word is set against theirs. Error cannot prevail against the truth as it is in Jesus. Our little systems have their day; but the fellowship of souls which rests upon the foundation of the apostles has within it the power of an indissoluble life. Such are the three guarantees of the permanence of Christian doctrine and the Christian life, as they were conceived by St. John and are asserted by him here at his last hour, when the tempests of persecution and sceptical error were on all sides let loose against the Church. (George G. Findlay, B. A.)

The dispensations

How could those days of primitive Christianity be called the last days, inasmuch as since those days eighteen hundred years have elapsed, and still the worlds history has not reached its close? The answer is obvious. The whole period lying between the first advent and the present year of grace is but one oeconomy; and it is destined to be the last oeconomy, under which man is to be tried. What is a dispensation--Οἰκονομία Οἰκονομος is the administrator of a household, the lord of a family, he who dispenses to the household their portion of meat in due season. It is a certain measure, more or less, of moral light and help meted out by God, the great Householder, to His human family for the purpose of their probation. Any and every light and help which man has from heaven constitutes, strictly speaking, a dispensation. It seems, moreover, to be a principle of Gods dealings that the light and knowledge having been once supernaturally communicated, shall thenceforth be left to radiate from its centre, to diffuse itself among mankind, by the ordinary means of human testimony. Let us now proceed to review the leading dispensations under which mankind has been placed.

1. A single arbitrary restriction, issued merely as a test of obedience, was the first of them. The threat of death, in ease of disobedience, was a moral help to our first parents, tending to keep them in the narrow path of obedience and happiness. But it did not enable them to stand. They broke the commandment, and they fell.

2. The fall had in some mysterious manner put our first parents in possession of a moral sense, or faculty of discerning between good and evil, independently of Divine precept. To second and aid the remonstrances of this faculty, the heads of the human family had such bitter experience of the fruits of transgression as would abide with them to their dying day. Into this experience of the results of transgression was infused, lest man should despair, an element of faith and hope. Who shall say whether man, with these powers brought to bear upon him, may not retrieve his ground and return in true penitence to the bosom of his Father? So the dispensation of experienced punishment on the part of the parent, of ancestral precept on the part of the children began and run its course. But it proved an utter failure. The principle of sin, engendered in its primeval act, ate into the moral nature of man like a gangrene, until at length blasphemy and immorality stalked rampant upon the earth, and the vices of human kind, like the stature of the men of those days, towered to a gigantic height.

3. While the shades of guilt were thus deepening towards a night of utter depravity, and the few faithful ones in the line of Seth shone but with the feeble ray of glowworms amid the surrounding darkness--an additional dispensation was instituted in the announcement of the deluge to the Patriarch Noah, and the direction associated with it, to commence the building of the ark. What a stirring voice from heaven was this! What a Divine trumpet note of warning in the ears of a generation sinking deeper every moment into the fatal torpor of moral insensibility! At length, when Divine patience had had her perfect work the flood OEconomy came to its close amid outpoured torrents and gushing fountains of the deep.

4. When the stage of the earth had been cleared by the flood for another probation of the human race, a new measure of light and help was meted out by God, or, in other terms, a new dispensation was introduced. Human law was now instituted and sanctioned by heaven. It was now to be seen whether mans innate depravity would break through this barrier of restraint also.

5. It was succeeded by the dispensation of Divine law, promulgated with the most awful solemnity, and having annexed to it the most tremendous sanctions.

6. With Samuel and the succession of prophets, as many as spoke or wrote after him, commenced a new era, about three hundred and fifty years after the giving of the law. And of this dispensation the distinguishing characteristic is, that it was constantly expanding itself, that fresh accessions were continually being made under it to mans moral and spiritual resources, that it was a light continually increasing in brightness, shining more and more unto the perfect day when the Sun of Righteousness should rise with healing in His wings.

7. And now at length mens yearnings and anticipations were to be realised. The last hour of the worlds day--or, in other words, the final dispensation under which man was to be tried--was at hand. The great Deliverer appeared and revealed a wholly new arrangement, or series of arrangements, under and in virtue of which God would henceforth deal with man.

(1) Perfect absolution from the guilt of past sin--an absolution obtained in such a manner as should effectually strike the chord of love and gratitude in every heart of man.

(2) A communication of Divine strength through outward means.

(3) A perfect and explicit law embodying the purest morality which it is possible to conceive. But as man was still, under this final dispensation, in a state of probation, and a state of probation is not and cannot be a final or fixed state, the mind was still thrown forward by predictions of the Second Advent, to a period when He, in whom the heart and hope of Gods people is bound up, shall come again to receive them to Himself, and to visit them with eternal comfort, while vengeance, terrific vengeance, is taken upon all who, though the new dispensation has been proclaimed to them, shall not have taken shelter under the refuge which it provides. We have now passed in review the various dispensations under which man has been placed; and, thus furnished for the fuller understanding of our text, we revert to the solemn asseveration of the apostle, that this under which we live is the final oeconomy, and that with its close will terminate forever the probation of mankind. (Dean Goulburn.)

Last things

I. My hearers are coming nearer their last business day. Men will ask about you, and say, Where is so-and-so? And your friend wilt say, Have you not heard the news? and will take a paper from his pocket and point to your name on the death list. If things are wrong they will always stay wrong. No chance of correcting a false entry, or repairing the loss done to a customer by a dishonest sample, or apologising for the imposition inflicted upon one of your clerks.

II. Men are coming nearer to their last sinful amusement. A dissipated life soon stops. The machinery of life is so delicate that it will not endure much trifling.

III. Men are coming nearer to their last Sabbath.

IV. We come near the last year of our life. The world is at least six thousand years old. Sixty thousand years may yet come, and the procession may seem interminable; but our own closing earthly year is not far off.

V. We are coming nearer the last moment of our life. That is often the most cheerful moment. John Howard talked of it with exhilaration, and selected his own burial place, saying to his friend, A spot near the village of Dauphiney would suit me nicely. It is a poor time to start to get your house insured when the flames are bursting out of all the windows; and it is a poor time to attempt to prepare for death when the realities of eternity are taking hold of us. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

Antichrist--

Antichrist

This word is absolutely peculiar to St. John. The general use of ἀντί (contra) and the meaning of the similarly formed word ἀντίθεος, lead to the conclusion that the term means adversary of Messiah. The Jews derived their conception from Dan_7:25; Dan_8:25; Dan_11:36; Eze_38:1-23; Eze_39:1-29. The name was probably formed by St. John. It was believed by the Jews that Antichrist would appear immediately before the advent of Christ (cf. chap. 2:22, 4:3; 2Jn_1:7)

. Our Lord mentioned pseudo-Christs as a sign (Mat_24:24). St. Paul gave a solemn warning to the very Churches which St. John now specially addressed (Act_20:29). St. John saw these principles and the men who embodied them in full action, and it was an indication for him of the last period. So far Christians had only learnt in general to expect the personal appearance of one great enemy of Christ, the Antichrist. In his Epistle St. John gives solemn warning that those heretics who denied the God-Man were not merely precursors of Antichrist, but impersonations of the anti-Christian principle--each of them in a true sense an antichrist. The term is used by no other sacred writer, by St. John him self only five times (1Jn_2:18, twice, 2:22, 4:3; 2Jn_1:7), and that specifically to characterise heresy denying the incarnation, person, and dignity of Christ as God-Man. Antichrist is the liar; his spirit and teaching is a lie pure and simple. The one Antichrist, whose coming was stamped into the living tradition of the early Church, and of whom believers had necessarily heard, is clearly distinguished from many who were already in existence, and were closely connected with him in spirit. Probably St. John expected the chief Antichrist, the theological antagonist of Christ, before the Personal Advent. In 2Th_2:1-17 we find the same idea of a singular individual of preeminent wickedness, while St. Paul does not call the Man of Sin Antichrist. In the Apocalypse (13-17) a delineation of an anti-Christian power; in St. Paul and in St. Johns Epistles of the eximious anti-Christian person. (Bp. Wm. Alexander.)

Antichrist and antichrists

It is a dangerous voyage which every Christian sails upon the sea of life. Sunken rocks, deceitful currents, and boisterous winds endanger his brittle bark. He needs constantly to beware that he makes not shipwreck of his faith. Here we are called to consider the danger arising from the seduction of false teachers. In the early Church these were the source of constant disquietude. Nor is it otherwise yet. It is melancholy to observe how little they are feared. Many trifle with them.

1. The apostle addresses himself to believers under the title of little children. There is a peculiar propriety in using such language to those who are warned. Little children need to be warned. They are ignorant and unsuspecting, because they are inexperienced. When they are tempted they possess little power of resistance. And once betrayed they have neither the skill nor the power to deliver themselves out of the evils into which they have been betrayed. It is to be lamented that in all these respects many Christians bear a strong resemblance to little children.

2. To these the apostle says, It is the last time, and this is an appropriate introduction to the warning he was about to give them. The meaning of the phrase will be seen by citing the parallel passage in Heb_1:1. The last time is therefore the day of Christ. It is the age of Christianity. And there are two views in which it may be appropriately so denominated. It is the last economy viewed in its historical relation to those which have preceded it. And it may be called so also in relation to the future. There will be no other economy. Then cometh the end, when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom to God the Father. It is a high privilege that we live under an economy which is the completion, the perfection of all that went before it. But we must not forget we shall have no higher privileges than those which we now enjoy. If we are not saved by means of those we have we must perish.

3. Thus introduced, the apostle begins to announce his warning, Ye have heard that antichrist shall come. The very name is sufficient to awaken deep concern. We are at once given to understand that we must see a grand opponent to Him whom we delight to honour, and in whom is all our confidence. For His sake and our own, such an announcement should awaken our timely fear. As for Him, we cannot doubt his ability to overcome every enemy. But we may well fear for ourselves.

4. The apostle, however, comes closer to the case of those little children whom he addressed, and says, Even now are there many antichrists. Observe the distinction between this statement and the former one. The former is a prophecy, the latter is a fact. Antichrist shall come, but he has not yet been revealed. Time will be required for his development. But there are other forms of evil and other seducers who exist now. You are not to imagine that you are safe because the great antichrist has not yet appeared. The leaven was working which would in time corrupt the mass of professors, so insiduous and dangerous is error; and so necessary it is to watch its first rise and destroy it at the bud. In our own day we may well cry with the apostles, There are many antichrists. And who or what are they? They are all persons and things that are opposed to Christ and His people and His cause. And how can they be enumerated? Infidelity is antichrist, and pours contempt upon the truth. The scoffer is antichrist, and scorns the truth. All ungodly men are antichrists, and while they resist the truth themselves they tempt others to deny it. All errorists are antichrists, and obscure and oppose the truth.

5. The apostle applies this announcement of many antichrists to a practical use, saying in the next clause, Whereby we know that it is the last time. The words amount to a declaration that this mighty host with all their enmity to the truth should be a marked and prominent feature in the Christian era. Christianity is the best economy, and therefore it is the most hated and opposed by the wicked one.

6. We should beware that we are not found among these antichrists. And for our warning and guidance a description of them is given in the 19th verse--they went out from us. Once they belonged to the Church of Christ. They apostatised from the faith and practice of the gospel. But they were not of us, adds the apostle. They never were. They are not all Israel that are of Israel. They may have professed the faith, but in reality they had never embraced it. For, says he, had they been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. This is certain. The nature of the Divine life makes it so. The just shall live by faith. The apostle concludes, But they went out, that they might be made manifest they were not all of us. On the whole, it was better they departed. It was better for themselves, that they may not be deceived by a name, but be led to penitence. It was better for others, that they might not be a burthen and hindrance to those with whom they were associated. And it was better for the cause of religion, that it might not be scandalised by their inconsistencies. (James Morgan, D. D.)

They went out from us, but they were not of us--

Anti-Christian

I. Where could these apostates go out from but the Church? If they had not been in it they could not have gone out from it. The Church they went out of was the true Church of Christ, in which the true and everlasting gospel was preached. And these persons had professed their faith in all the essential truths of the gospel. Yet their ambitious spirits were such they could not be content but they must bring in another gospel, contrary to what the apostles preached, pretending to have greater light into truth, and what they called the Person of Christ, and grace, than the very apostles themselves. They turned their back on Christ, His gospel, His ordinances, His apostles, His Churches, and everything belonging unto Him, and framed out of their own errors, heresies, whims, and fancies, a Christ and gospel for themselves. The apostle assigns the reason why they went out from the Churches in the way and manner they did--it was because they were not of one heart and soul with the Churches in the truth. As it was then, so it has been ever since. All the heresies which have tormented the Churches of Christ, down even to our present times, have originated from persons who have been in the Churches, who have departed from the Churches. From such as have made schisms and divisions in the Churches; and when any old error is newly revived, it in general springs from such persons as are disaffected to the true Churches of Jesus Christ.

II. How the apostle confirms his assertion--For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. How solemn! how awful! These antichrists came out of the apostolical Church of Jesus. They had been in it. It answered their end for a season to remain in the Churches to whom they had given in their names. It suited them to leave these Churches at such seasons; when they could, to distil their pernicious influences, as they thought and hoped, it would gain converts to them. These heretics left the Churches because they were not of them, only nominally. They might, and undoubtedly did, boast of superior light to all others in the doctrines of grace. They were slaves to their own lusts. They were covetous. They were greedy of reward. They were full of gainsaying.

III. Why these antichrists went out of the Church. It was that they might be made manifest, that they did not belong to the Church of Christ, let them make their boast of the same as they might. This was their end for their going out, but it was the Lords end in thrusting them out, and it might be some of these might have been thrust out by apostolic and also by Church authority. In the holy and secret mystery of the Lords providence it was evidenced they were not the Lords beloved ones. (S. E. Pierce.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn 2:18. Little, or young, children — The former caution against the love of the world belongs chiefly to old experienced Christians, or those who have attained some considerable knowledge and experience in divine things, because they are most apt to offend in that particular; this against seducers belongs chiefly to younger Christians, who are less established, and therefore more liable to be seduced. It is the last time — Greek, εσχατη ωρα εστι, it is the last hour, namely, as some understand it, of the duration of the Jewish Church and state, a sense of the expression which is favoured by the consideration that it was the period in which our Lord had foretold the rise of many false Christs. And therefore the apostle here cautions them against such deceivers, intimating, at the same time, for their encouragement and comfort, that the power of their persecutors, the Jews, would speedily be broken. Doddridge, however, Wesley, and many others, by the last hour, or last time, here understand the last dispensation of grace. As if the apostle had said, “The last dispensation that God will ever give to the world is now promulgated, and it is no wonder if Satan endeavour, to the utmost, to adulterate a system from which his kingdom has so much to fear.” And as ye have heard that antichrist shall come — Ερχκεται, cometh. “The word αντιχριστος, antichrist, is nowhere found but in John’s first and second epistle. It may have two meanings. For if the preposition αντι, in αντιχριστος, denotes in place of, the name will signify one who puts himself in the place of Christ: consequently antichrist is a false Christ. But if the preposition denotes oppositions, antichrist is one who opposeth Christ. The persons to whom this epistle was written had heard of the coming of antichrist in both senses of the name. For the first sort of antichrists were foretold by our Lord, Mat 24:5: Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. The second sort were foretold Mat 24:11, Many false prophets will arise and deceive many. From what John hath written, 1Jn 2:22 of this chapter, and chap. 1Jn 4:3-4; 1Jn 2:7, there is reason to think that by antichrist he meant those false prophets, or teachers, who were foretold by our Lord to rise about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, and who were now gone abroad. Some of these denied the humanity of Jesus Christ, others of them denied his divinity; and as both sorts opposed Christ, by denying the redemption of the world through his death, it is probably of them chiefly that John speaks in his epistles. When the apostle mentions these false teachers collectively, he calls them the antichrist in the singular number, as St. Paul called the false teachers collectively, of whom he prophesied, 2Th 2:3, the man of sin. But when John speaks of these teachers as individuals, he calls them many antichrists, in the plural number.” — Macknight. Thus also Mr. Wesley: “Under the term antichrist, or the spirit of antichrist, he includes all false teachers as enemies to the truth; yea, whatever doctrines or men are contrary to Christ. It seems to have been long after this that the name of antichrist was appropriated to that grand adversary of Christ, the man of sin, 2Th 2:3.” Even now are there many antichrists — Many seducers revolted from Christianity, (1Jn 2:19,) who were actuated by an antichristian spirit, and do secretly undermine the interest of Christ, and so make way for the grand antichrist. The preterit tense, γεγονασι, is here used to signify, not only the existence of many antichrists at that time, but also that there had been many antichrists who had gone off the stage; whereby we know that it is the last time — The last hour of the Jewish state, namely, by Christ’s prediction, Mat 24:24.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. Nor must we accept the many antichrists whose coming marks the closing age, 1Jn_2:18-19.

18. Little children—The third in the second triad of ages, commenced but unfinished in 1Jn_2:14. It now occurs because our apostle is about to mention a last time through which the younger portion of his audience will have passed and beheld its results.

The last time—Literally, a last hour. It is in the Greek without the definite article, like similar phrases in 1Ti_4:1, 2Ti_3:1, (where see notes,) which indicate a closing period, (namely, of the apostolic age,) rather than the close of earthly time. The absence of the article does not, apart from the context, fully prove that the reference is not to the second advent; for in 1Pe_1:5 the second advent is unquestionably designated as a final period, and in Jud_1:18, it is called a last time. The second advent is of course a last hour, but a last hour is with no certainty the second advent. See note on 2Pe_3:3. It is by the context that the phrase here is fixed to mean a last hour rather than the last hour. A last hour bears the same relation to the last hour that the many elemental antichrists bear to the antichrist. Just as these many antichrists were typical of our final antichrist, of whom the readers had heard, so this last hour was typical of that last day of which they had learned. To make St. John say the close of the world is attested by the presence of the antichrist because there are now many antichrists is to make him reason inconsequently. These typical antichrists can only be adduced to prove a typical last hour. Huther incorrectly makes the apostle intimate that the many antichrists preceded the antichrist as immediate forerunner; but there is no reference in any word of the apostle to time, but to the relative character. Just so St. Paul declares that “the mystery of iniquity doth already work;” that is, the moral elements of the “man of sin” were now seminally existing in secret. Important on the antichrist and his time are our notes on Act_8:9; Act_6:5; 2Th_2:1-12; 1Ti_4:1-4. The error of Huther, Alford, and many others, in applying this last time to the second advent ought, we should suppose, to have been prevented by Paul’s express warning to the Thessalonians that such language did not imply Christ’s near approach; as well as St. Peter’s caution in 2Pe_3:8. See our Supplementary Note at close of Matthew 25. At the approaching close of his life our apostle saw that the withdrawal of his fellow apostles from this scene of things was the close of a historical cycle, and the development of the errorists foretold by Saint Paul had already approached; so that the hour was typical of that last period before the rise of antichrist, who precedes the last advent. It was just equivalent to St. Paul’s predictive phrase, addressed to this same Ephesus, “after my departure,” where these very many antichrists are foretold. To this we may perhaps add Grotius’s solution, that the last hour indicated the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish state. For although the destruction of Jerusalem was no organic part of the framework of the kingdom of God, and probably had past at the time this was written, yet it did, as predicted by Christ, coincide with and characterize as one element the closing apostolic cycle. See quotation from Hegesippus in note on 1Ti_4:1.

Ye have heard—St. Paul early “told” the Thessalonians. 2Th_2:5.

Antichrist—An epithet used by St. John alone, here and 22; 1Jn_4:3; 2Jn_1:7. The word is rightly interpreted by Huther as “not simply the enemy of Christ, but the opposition-Christ; that is, the enemy of Christ who, under the lying guise of Christ, endeavours to destroy the work of Christ.” The fundamental mark of this antichrist St. John twice declares to be the denial that Christ was “flesh,” 1Jn_4:3, and 2Jn_1:7. And this was based on that assumption of the inherent evil of matter, which forbade marriage among the Gnostics, and which appears at the present day in the celibacy of the pope and his immense army of priests throughout the world, and in the promulgation of the dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary. Huther is clear as to the identity of John’s antichrist with Saint Paul’s. “Rightly have almost all commentators understood that John understands under this enemy the same as Paul describes, 2Th_2:3, etc. The points which appear in the picture of Paul, and those in the explanations of John, so coincide and answer to each other that there need be no doubt about it. According to both, the manifestation discloses itself in the Church by an exodus from it; for John says, (1Jn_2:19,) the antichrists went out from us, and Paul (1Jn_2:3) speaks of a revealed, and a falling away. Both describe him as a God-opposing evil nature. Paul figures him as the man of sin, the lawless: John as the spirit of antichrist, in antithesis to the spirit of God; and says of the antichrists who are animated by him that they are of the world. Both characterize him as a liar who strives to make the lie victorious over the truth. Both represent that he appears in the last time before the second advent of Christ. Then, also, if the name antichrist, ‘αντιχριστος, is not strictly synonymous with the anti-lying, ο αντικειμονος, yet even this point in Paul’s picture is so significant as to show how striking John’s naming of the enemy is. And when Paul describes the man of sin as showing himself that he is God, he clearly implies that spurious incarnation of God which the very name of antichrist implies.” And we may add, as Huther does not, that as St. Paul (2Th_2:2) expressly writes to show that he does not mean that either the man of sin or the day of Christ is really near at hand, so St. John does not mean by his last time and many antichrists that the second advent will be in his day.

Many antichrists—last time—As the antichrist identifies THE last time, so the many antichrists identify A last time.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Children paidia here must apply to all those addressed in the Epistle; and this helps to fix the meaning in verse 13. It is the last hour. What does this mean? There is scarcely room for doubt. The perishableness of the world has suggested the thought of its end, and St. John goes on to warn his readers that this thought is full of meaning to them; for they may recognize the time in which they are living as the last hour by the many antichrists that have arisen. "The last hour" can only mean the last hour before the second coming of Christ. Nothing but the unwillingness of Christians to admit that an apostle, and especially the Apostle St. John, could seem to be much in error about the nearness of the day of judgment, could have raised a question about language so plain. All explanations about its signifying the Christian dispensation, or the nearness of St. John"s death, or the nearness of the destruction of Jerusalem, must be firmly set aside. How could the rising of antichrists show that the Christian dispensation had begun? It was Christ, not antichrist, that showed that? What had antichrists to do with St. John"s death? or with the fall of Jerusalem, which, moreover, had fallen many years before this Epistle was written? Just as the apostles, even after the Resurrection, (Act_1:6) remained grossly ignorant of the nature of Christ"s kingdom on earth, so to the last they remained ignorant of its duration. The primitive Church had not yet found its true perspective, and, in common with all Christians of the first age, the apostles believed that Christ would return soon, possibly within the lifetime of some then living. "Yea, I come quickly" (Rev_22:20) was by them understood in the most literal sense of tacu. But it will not surprise those who remember Christ"s very strong declaration, (Mar_13:32) to find even an apostle in ignorance as to the time of the second advent of Christ. But it may very reasonably and reverently be asked, What becomes of the inspiration of Scripture if an inspired writer tells the Church that the end of the world is near, when it is not near? The question of inspiration must follow that of interpretation, not lead it. Let us patiently examine the facts, and then try to frame a theory of inspiration that will cover them; not first frame our theory, and then force the facts to agree with it. But the question in its proper place requires an answer. The Old Testament prophets were often guided to utter language the Divine meaning of which they did not themselves understand. They uttered the words in one sense, and the words were true in a far higher sense, of which they scarcely dreamed. The same thing is true of the New Testament prophets, though in a less degree, because the gift of Pentecost had given them powers of insight which their predecessors had not possessed. The present text seems to be an illustration of this truth. We can hardly doubt that, in saying, "it is the last hour," St. John means to imply that within a few years, or possibly even less time, Christ will return to judgment. In this sense the statement is not true. But it may also mean that the last period in the world"s history has begun; and in this sense we have good reason for believing that the statement is true. "That one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" is not rhetoric, but sober fact. By the Divine standard times are measured, not according to their duration, but their importance; it is their meaning, not their extent, which gives them value. What are all the measureless prehistoric aeons of the material universe compared with the time since the creation of rational life? What are the thousands of years covered by the Old Testament compared with the portion of a century covered by the New? The great crisis in the history of the world, constituted by the life and death of Christ, will never be equaled until he comes again. When he ascended to heaven the last hour sounded. There may follow a silence (as it seemed to St. John) about the space of half an hour, but (as human experience may prove) of half a thousand centuries. Yet the duration of the period, as measured by man, will not alter its essential characteristics; it was, is, and will still remain, "the last hour." Even as ye heard (when ye were instructed in the faith) that antichrist cometh (is destined to come). Antichrist in this also is assimilated to the Christ; he is oJ ejrcomenov. This was the teaching of the gospel (Mat_24:5, Mat_24:11, Mat_24:23-26; Mar_13:22, 23; comp. Act_20:29; 2Ti_3:1; 2Pe_2:1) What does St. John mean by ajnticristov? The four passages (1Jn_2:18, 22 4:3; 2Jn_1:7) in which he uses the term do not enable us to answer the question with certainty. The predominant idea is that of opposition to Christ, and rivalry of Christ, rather than merely of counterfeiting Christ. If ajnticristov were formed on the analogy of ajntibasileuv and ajnqupatov, it would mean "vice-Christ, vicar of Christ." It is, however, analogous to ajntiqeov ajntifilosofov and the Greek for a counterfeit Christ is yeudocristov. (Mat_24:24) But we are left in doubt whether this rival of Christ is a principle or a person. None of the four passages is decisive. Here we are not sure whether the arising of many antichrists proves that the spirit of antichrist is already in the world, or that by them the way is fully prepared for the one personal antichrist. Either the existence of the antichristian character, or the approach of the antichrist, is given as evidence that the day of the Lord is at hand. The latter is the more probable. A great personal opponent to the personal Christ seems to be indicated both by St. John and St. Paul. (2Th_2:1-8) The Jews expected a personal opponent of the Messiah to precede the Messiah Armillus, Gog, Antiochus Epiphanes, and the like (Eze 38 Eze 39; Dan_7:25 Dan_8:25 Dan_11:36) and Christians from the earliest times have expected a similar prelude to the return of the Messiah. The term ajnticristov is absolutely peculiar to St. John in the New Testament. By the ajnticristoi polloi he probably means those early heretical teachers, who in various ways denied the Incarnation, and were thus forerunners of the antichrist the Nicolaitanes, Simon Magus, Cerinthus, Diotrephes, Hymenaeus, and Philetus. Besides these there are practical antichrists. "Let us mark, not the tongue but the deeds. For if all be asked, all with one mouth confess that Jesus is the Christ. Let the tongue keep silent awhile: ask the life. If the Scripture itself shall tell us that denial is a thing done not only with the tongue, but also with deeds, then assuredly we find many antichrists if deeds are to be questioned, not only do we find many antichrists gone out, but many not yet manifest, who have not gone out at all" (St. Augustine).

A last hour; or, the Divine enclosure of revealed time.

Connecting link: "The world is passing away," wrote the apostle (verse 17), and now he proceeds to repeat and reimpress this fact upon his readers in two additional statements:

(1) that a great crisis had already begun; and

(2) that the mark of that being so was the appearance of antichrist, by this, he says, we know that it is a last hour. (The phrase is anarthrous.) Here are two homiletic studies of the profoundest interest. One on the time-arrangements of the Divine dispensations; the other on antichrist. The first only do we now note; our topicThe Divine enclosure of revealed time.

I THE GREAT SUPREME, WHO IS FROM EVERLASTING TO EVERLASTING, HAS GRACIOUSLY DIVIDED TIME INTO PERIODS FOR US. No finite minds can comprehend a whole eternity. They will make their own horizon, even if one be not disclosed. The eye requires a point of repose whichever way it turns. We are not, however, left to make our own. God has furnished us with one in each direction, before and behind. We have such phrases as, "in the beginning" (Gen_1:1; Joh_1:1) "then the end". (1Co_15:24) In neither case can the phrase mean an absolute beginning or an absolute end. For with God is neither beginning nor end. Beginning and end can be such only so far as God reveals time to us. These are the two enclosures within which revelation moves. There are varied expressions in the Scriptures, moreover, to indicate several epochs which lie between the two extremes; and it would be a great gain to Bible students if, instead of wasting time and energy in attempting to fix dates for this event or that, they would take a larger view, comprehending all the time-expressions in the sacred volume, and endeavour to seize hold of and to apply the principles of the Divine government and the outlines of Divine plan thereby disclosed. Let the following references be carefully compared: "The last days," or "the latter days," as spoken of under the old dispensation (Gen_49:1; Num_24:14; Deu_4:30; Isaiah Jer_23:20 Jer_30:24 Jer_48:47 Jer_49:39; Eze_38:16; Hosea Joe_2:28 Joe_3:1; Mic_4:1) In the New Testament we have the phrases, "mine hour"; (Joh_2:4) "his hour"; (Joh_13:1 Joh_8:20 Joh_7:30) "the hour"; (Joh_17:1 Joh_12:23 Joh 4:21, 23 5:28, 35 16:4, 25, 32) "this; (Joh_12:27) "your hour"; (Luk_22:53) "times or seasons"; (Act_1:7) "forty-two months"; (Rev_11:2) "three days and a; (Rev_11:11) "time, and times, and half a time" (Rev_12:14; cf.; Dan_7:25 Dan_12:7, Dan_12:11, Dan_12:12) "these last times"; (1Pe_1:20) "these last days"; (Heb_1:2) "the last days" (Act_2:17; 2Ti_3:1; 2Pe_3:3; Jud_1:18; Jam_5:3) "the last day"; (Joh_6:39, Joh_6:44, 54 12:48) "the day ofChrist"; (Php_1:10) "the day of the Lord" (1 Thessalonians; Act_2:20) "that day" (Mat_24:36 Mat_7:22; 2Ti_1:12, 2Ti_1:18) "the last time"; (1Pe_1:5) "the end" (Mat_24:14 Mat_13:39 Mat_28:20; 1Co_15:24) "the fullness of times" (Gal_4:4; Eph_1:10) "the age to come" (Hebrews; Eph_1:21) "the ages"; (Heb_1:2 Heb_11:3) "ages of; (Rev_14:11) "all the ages" (Psa_145:13 LXX; Jud_1:25 Greek); "all the generations of the age of the ages". (Eph_3:21) The conception, developed with great care by Mr. Grattan Guinness, that the clockwork of the heavens and that of prophecy are similarly set as to time, is one of exceeding attractiveness and grandeur, though our knowledge requires to be enormously wider ere we have the materials for its verification. At the same time, the broad fact remains that he whose being is "one eternal Now" has, both in his works and in his Word, enclosed duration for us in a series of periods smaller or larger, in order that our limited apprehensions may have some point from whence to start, and some goal towards which to look!

II GOD HAS HIS OWN SPECIFIC PERIOD FOR EACH STEP TO BE TAKEN IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN AFFAIRS. So far as it is needed that we should know what that step may be at any age, prophecy unfolds the plans of God. We know, e.g., that this period is "the day of salvation" foretold by the prophets; that it was ushered in by the first coming, and will be closed by the second coming of the Son of God, for which we are bidden to wait and watch.

III EACH SUCCEEDING PERIOD IS MARKED BY FEATURES PECULIARLY ITS OWN. "By this we know that it is a last hour." The Adamic, patriarchal, Mosaic, and prophetic periods were all distinctly marked. So was the transition period of the Baptist, and that of the Messiah"s life, death, and resurrection; so also is this, the dispensation of the Spirit. A critical change takes place in each one, marking an advance on the times gone by, and serving as an introduction to those which are to come.

IV HENCE EACH EPOCH MAY BE DESCRIBED AS "A LAST HOUR," inasmuch as it brings to a close some form of good (or of evil) which marked that which preceded. John the Baptist marked "the last hour" of prophecy. The Lord Jesus, "the last hour" of types and shadows; the Holy Ghost, "the last hour" of human probation. And our Lord Jesus reminds us that earthquakes, pestilences, etc., will mark the last hour ere he comes again, but that these will be but the beginnings of the "birth-pangs" that will usher in a new and glorious life. The Apostle John sees in the rise of antichrist a mark of "the last hour." Even so. It is the period in which Christ goes forth to judgment and to victory, when his foes are to be made manifest to their own destruction and to his glory!

V STILL, THE WORD OF GOD BIDS US FIX OUR EYE ON THE CLOSE OF THIS EPOCH, referred to as "the day," "that day" "the great day," etc. We are looking for the reappearing of the Son of God, when all antichrists shall be trampled underfoot, and when he shall bring in the "new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

VI EVEN "THE LAST DAY," "THE END" FOR WHICH WE LOOK, WILL NOT BE AN ABSOLUTE END. It will be a consummation; and with our God it may be as it were a new beginning. His ways are ever unfolding from glory to glory. Then let it be ours to recognize this method of Divine disclosure, and learn herefrom:

1. The limits of Divine revelation. It is enclosed between a "beginning" andan "end." Of what was before the one, of what will be after the other, we know nothing and can think nothing.

2. To use the revealed period, that of probation, so that, let the "end" bewhat it may and come how it may, we are "ready.

3. To look forward without fear, if we are in Christ.

4. To learn "the terrors of the Lord," his manifestations of himself, whichmake the righteous glad, will put rebellion and the rebel to increasing shame.

Many antichrists.

Connecting link: In the preceding homily we had occasion to remark that the expression, "a last hour," indicated that a great crisis had already begun, and that the apostle declared that the mark of such a crisis was to be seen in the rise of "many antichrists." We then, with the thought of a last hour as the basis, endeavoured to indicate the time-enclosures of Divine revelation. Now we have to expand, as far as our space permits, the apostolic teachings which gather round the expressions, "antichrist," "many antichrists." TopicAntichrist; a manifold series of negations.

I SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN AGE, THE SUPREME TEST OF TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD IN RELIGION IS THEIR RELATION TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. Cf., Mat_12:30, where our Lord shows that there is no neutrality in reference to himself. Either for or against. And we know the apostle himself received a sharp rebuke and a touching lesson when forbidding one, who was casting out devils, because he did not follow with them. Our Lord then took occasion to give the converse of the former expression, saying, "He that is not against us is on our part." So that it is no wonder, after such a lesson (which he could not forget) that the one test of truth should be with John How does it stand with reference to the Master? Does it enthrone ordethrone him? If the former, a wide divergence on minor topics would be allowed. If the latter, however specious its pretence, he would brand it as antichrist. This word (in the New Testament) is peculiar to John. It is found in verses 18, 22; 1Jn_4:3 2Jn_1:7. It is not at all improbable that he coined the word, although (so Westcott) the absence of the article in this verse indicates that it had become current as a technical name.

II BELIEVERS HAD BEEN PREPARED TO EXPECT THE RISE OF ANTICHRISTIAN HERESY. (Cf. Mat_24:5, Mat_24:24; Mar_13:6; Act_20:29, Act_20:30; 2Th_2:3; 1Ti_4:1) And no one can read the Epistles to the Corinthians, Colossians, and to the seven Churches without seeing how very early, even during the lifetime of the apostles, sundry antichristian heresies threatened to make havoc of the Church. It would be inaccurate to fix the term "antichrist" solely on one individual or one system, even if our knowledge of this or that one were complete enough to enable us to identify it or him as one form of antichrist. For in the prophetic passages referred to such forms are pointed out as manifold. And the apostle declares that manifold are the forms already seen; for, says he, "even now are there many antichrists." So that we are forbidden by the terms of the passage to fasten on any one form of heresy to the exclusion of others.

III THOUGH PROPHECY AND FACT SHOW MANY ANTICHRISTS, THERE IS ONE FEATURE MARKING THEM ALL, viz. NEGATION. (Verse 22.) "He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son." Thus the apostle himself, if he seems to plunge us into uncertainty as to who is antichrist, when he declares that there are many, speedily relieves us of the uncertainty, by giving us one mark by which antichrist may be distinguished anywhere and in all ages, whatever the name he assumes, whatever the garb he wears. So far, of course, as the word goes, if

(1) any one else professed to be the Christ;

(2) if any one, under the guise of a prophet, opposed Christ;

(3) if any one, under pretence of honouring his Person, denied his redeeming work; or

(4) if any one set himself openly and entirely against Christ; in either case the word "antichrist" would apply. Whether a man or a system opposes Christ"s Person, mission, revelation, redemption, or commandments, he or it would be a deceiver and an antichrist. But the apostle lays most stress, yea, the entire stress, on the thought of a denial. "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh this is the mark of the antichrist." What may be its claims for itself does not enter seriously into the apostle"s mind thereon; if it will not yield Christ his claims, it is antichrist. For in denying the Son, it denies all the faith. If any one denies the Son, he denies the Incarnation. Denying the Incarnation, he denies revelation of God, and a Mediator between God and man. He denies, consequently, any link between man and God. Christ united man to God. Antichrist would disown or break the tie, so that man is cut off from God, thus bringing out the terrible result, "He that denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." Thus everything distinctive of the Christian faith goes in a moment, when once the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ is denied (see Westcott, in loc.). This this is antichrist! He would take away the ladder between earth and heaven!

IV THE DEVELOPMENTS OF HISTORY SHOW US THIS ANTICHRISTIAN SPIRIT IN GREAT DIVERSITY or FORM. Obviously, all we have space for is to name some of the more prominent of these forms of error.

1. The heresies of the apostolic age. These are indicated in the apostolic Epistles and in the Apocalypse. Notably, there was Gnosticism.

2. Sacerdotalism. In the multiplication of priests and mediators the all-sufficiency of the one Priest and Mediator is denied. In the Church of Rome this evil has reached an appalling height. We would not intimate that the Church of Rome is one form of antichrist; but so far as this one point is concerned, or any point of her teaching, which obscures the glory of the Redeemer, she is so far antichristian.

3. Papal infallibility. When the pope applies to himself the words, "No man cometh to the Father but by me," he is so far, certainly, antichrist.

4. Socinianism. The denial of the eternal Sonship, and consequently, yea, necessarily, of the Incarnation, is another antichrist.

5. Deism. Denying revelation is another.

6. Anti-supernaturalism is another.

7. Positivism, in its denial of all but the phenomenal, and its worship of humanity, is another.

8. Agnosticism, in denying that God is knowable, or that he has ever made himself known, is another, and the most modern, most attractive, and most perilous form of antichrist existing at the present day. The growing culture of the day has broken off much of the roughness of religious controversy on all sides; but this system, which, under the guise of ignorance, declines all inquiry into religion, as lying beyond all possible knowledge, is about the most subtle fallacy by which men could be misled.

V THE APOSTLE"S DISCLOSURE OF THE REAL ANTICHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE IS MOST VALUABLE AND INSTRUCTIVE TO EVERY AGE. It may be made special use of by at least six classes of persons.

1. By the theologian. Here is indicated:

(1) The point-point of his theology, the central sun which lights up the whole of it.

(2) The testing-point, or touchstone to be applied to every system of thought Where does it place the Christ?

(3) The true tolerance which is demanded.

(4) Also where he must be intolerant, viz. wherever the Christ is robbed of his glory.

1. By the preacher. In his preaching, the Son of God must be all in all; he must be preached as "wisdom from God unto us; even righteousness and sanctification and redemption." And his hearers must be taught to be very impatient of any form of thought which relegates the Christ to an inferior place.

2. By the Christian. A young man once said to the writer, "I wanted to be right; I wanted to be religious; but my religion wanted a point-point; and now I have it in Christ." Just so. In Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is the immovable point of all we believe and know. All Christian doctrine is what it is because Christ is what he is. When he is denied or dislodged, the whole Christian scheme falls to pieces.

3. By the inquirer. In the search after Christian truth, let him study the testimony concerning Jesus, his Person, and his work. And if at first he cannot see all in Christ that the matured Christian sees in him, let him "follow on," ready to receive the kingdom of God as a little child, and he will certainly come at the truth concerning his Saviour"s glory.

4. By the student of comparative religion. Such a one sees here the main point of the Christian religion; and it is one with which there is naught in the world to compare.

5. By the student of prophecy. Since the Person of Christ as the incarnate Son of God is the supreme feature in Christianity, let him not wonder that in the Christian age, while the believer finds his chief glory in Christ, the unbeliever finds in him a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. "You may say anything you like in praise of Christ," said a noted skeptic to the writer, "if you will but put him on the merely human platform! " Ah! it is here, it is here the great conflict will point, and prophecy leads us to expect that it will grow fiercer and wilder till the end shall come. We know the issue: "He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

Vers. 18-29.

Antichrist.

I PERIOD OF ANTICHRIST. "Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour." The apostle addresses his readers with the authority of age and experience. He has been referring to the transitoriness of the world; from that he passes to the last hour. What was designated in Old Testament times the age to come, extending from the Incarnation to the second coming, is here called not "the last age," or "the last days," but, more strongly, "the last hoar," to emphasize the fact that we know not the hour when the present order of things is to terminate. The solemnity of the end is fitted to have a salutary impression; and it is kept dark, that we may always have the feeling of its being the last hour. The present era is for the Christian manifestation; but opposed to it is the antichristian manifestation. John is the only New Testament writer who uses the term "antichrist." Paul"s designation is "he who opposeth himself." Antichrist is more than Opposer; he is one who opposes under the guise of Christ. He is one who would supplant Christ by assuming to be and to do what Christ is and does. Our Lord had said that many would come in his name, saying, "I am Christ." This was doubtless the foundation for the teaching about the coming of antichrist. John follows the Master in referring to a plurality of antichrists. It would seem to follow that the personal element changes; the spirit remains. Those who represent separate anti-christian manifestations are antichrists; the whole of these manifestations, personally represented, is antichrist. In the apostle"s day there were not wanting quasi-Christian movements; they are not wanting still. When Christianity is active, attempts are made to meet the demand it makes, with something spurious, resembling Christianity, but not really Christianity. There is a displacing of Christ by priestly pretension, by the multiplication of rites, by the authority of the Church, by the merits of the saints; or there is, on the other hand, an explaining away of the Incarnation and the substitution, hero-worship, the gospel of mere science. Such antichristian developments, however much to be regretted, are only to be expected. John would seem to say that they are the writhings of the last hour, the rising up of evil against him by whom it is being destroyed, increasing in bitterness as the end approaches.

II RELATION OF THE ANTICHRISTS TO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. "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 manifest how that they all are not of us." The same idea is brought out by Paul when he describes the development as an apostasy, i.e., a falling away from the Christian position once occupied. The leaders were apostates, perverts, men who used the intellectual quickening, general enlightenment, and even the forms of thought they had got from Christianity, against its essential principles. The leaving of the Christian society by the antichrists of John"s day was to be accounted for by their not being animated by the common sentiment, or rather, as it is put, by their not being sustained in their life from the society, but from some other source. They had never been able to say that all their springs were in the Church. (Psa_87:7) If they had thus derived from the Church, they would have remained in the Church. But not being the Church"s true progeny and upbringing, they went out. By this there was served a good probationary purpose. Their true character and position were clearly brought out. They were known as persons whom the Church did not own. It is well, when there is so much life in Christian societies, that those who are not of them feel the necessity of going out. It is well, also, when it is made clear with whom we have to do.

III CONFIDENCE IN THE CHRISTIAN DISCERNMENT OF HIS READERS. "And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and because no lie is of the truth." Christ has not left his people without suitable provision against deception. He is here called the Holy One; and we may conclude that his own holiness has to do with his discernment. It is through his own holy experience, acquired in this world, that he sees things. And so it is the good who have true discernment. "Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not." Without holy experience, intellectual giants and the most successful men of business are blind. Christ"s provision is closely allied to his own name, viz. chrism. It is he who is himself the Christ, the Anointed of God, that supplies the chrism, the anointing oil for his people. After the tabernacle had been constructed, it had to be consecrated by the application, to all its parts and furniture, of the holy anointing oil, for the preparation of which special instructions were given. When Samuel poured the vial of oil on Saul"s head he said, "And the Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee." The anointing of David is thus described: "Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward." What was conferred on prophets and priests and kings is now conferred on Christians, viz. the anointing Spirit. The Spirit gives us a pure, deep, rich experience through which we can see things. We are here described ideally, as those who, with the anointing of the Spirit, know all things. As we are said to be omnipotent within the sphere of our doing, so we are said to be omniscient within the sphere of our knowing. As in the one case we must think of what is proper for us to do, so in the other case we must think of what is proper for us to know. We are to regard this as guarantee against deception. "For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." But it is not possible with what provision we have secured to us. There is no false appearance beneath which it is impossible for us to see, no truth into which it is impossible for us to penetrate. In writing, John recognized the favoured condition of his readers as qualified to know the truth, and to detect every lie as belonging to another category.

IV ANTICHRIST DEFINED. "Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, even he that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that confesseth the Son hath the Father also." Having recognized their power to detect every lie (passing from the abstract), he asks vividly, "Who is the liar?" i.e., the utterer of the supreme lie, the denier of truth by preeminence? His answer is virtually a definition of antichrist, viz. "he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ." Jesus was a historical Person, who had been seen, heard, handled; what was to be predicated of him? As there was a definiteness about Jesus, so there was a definiteness about the Christ, or the Messiah, i.e., there were certain ideas which the Old Testament put into the word, and which the Jews were trained to associate with it. There were these ideas in the Jewish mind as to the work of the Messiah that he would tell all things, (Joh_4:25) that he would be a King, that hewould be the Saviour of the world, (Joh_4:42) in a word, meet allspiritual need. There were these ideas as to his Person that it would not be known whence he was, (Joh_7:27) that he would abide for ever, (Joh_12:34) that he would be the Son of God. (Joh_1:49) These ideas were far from being distinctly or consistently held; but they were founded on the Old Testament. When Jesus claimed to be the Christ, it was according to the pure Old Testament conception. The distinguishing part of the conception was his being the Son of God. This was understood by, (Mat_16:16) and also by the high priest. (Mat_26:63) The liar here is defined to be he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ; and then this denier of Christ named antichrist is regarded as denying therewith the Father and the Son. The antichristian lie, then, comes to be the denial of the Incarnation, which is the key-note of the Epistle, viz. the union of the Son of God and man. The Jewish antichrist refused to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, declared him to be an impostor, and thus set aside the Incarnation. The Gnostic antichrist, which is more pointed at here, taught that the aeon, Christ, descended on the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him before the Passion. The antichrist is not confined to one shape or to two shapes, but is protean; its inmost character, however, always is the setting aside of the Incarnation. If God has not formed the connection with humanity, which is pointed to in the Incarnation, then his Fatherhood is not revealed; and we do not have the Father, i.e., possess him in living fellowship. Denying the Incarnation, we cannot have the joy of the thought that he has gone the length of sacrificing his Son for us. But, confessing God Incarnate, we have the joy of the Son dying for us, and of the Father giving him up to the death for us.

V ADVANTAGE OF HOLDING TO THE CHRISTIAN POSITION. "As for you, let that abide in you which ye heard from the beginning. If that which ye heard from the beginning abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise which he promised us, even the life eternal." That which they heard from the beginning was the truth about the Incarnation. If that abode in them, constantly mingled with their being, then they would also abide in the Son and in the Father would have constant communion, not only with the incarnate Son, but with his Father. The promise contained in the Incarnation is the life eternal. What could such condescending love mean but that, in communion with the Son and the Father, we should have our highest well-being inalienably secured to us? Let, then, the Incarnation dwell in our minds. Let it elevate our conception of God; let it touch our hearts; let it be motive-power to our wills. According as it takes possession of us do we advance toward the goal of our being.

VI RENEWED EXPRESSION OF CONFIDENCE IN HIS HEARERS. "These things have I written unto you concerning" them that would lead you astray. And as for you, the anointing which ye received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as his anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in him." The antichristian teachers were busy at their work, trying to lead them astray. That was his motive for writing to them as he had done. He did not thereby intend to convey any want of confidence in them. They had immediate communication with Christ, access to his thoughts through the reception of the anointing Spirit. The anointing abiding in them made them independent of any human teacher such as he was. Christ was present, in his Spirit, to teach them as every new occasion required to teach them what was truth and what was no lie, to teach them always in the way of opening up the meaning of the original message. Thus taught by his Spirit, they abode in him, notwithstanding the attempts to lead them astray. This doctrine does not exclude new developments; but these must be developments of the original teaching. We have thus a safeguard against extravagances. We are not to despise human helps; but it is well that we can all have the truth witnessed in our minds. Our teachers are not intended to see for us (which is the Roman Catholic idea), but to help us to see for ourselves.

VII EXHORTATION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THEIR KNOWLEDGE, IN WHICH TRANSITION IS MADE TO A NEW SECTION. "And now, my little children, abide in him; that, if he shall be manifested, we may have boldness, and not he ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one also that doeth righteousness is begotten of him." In this hortatory part he addresses them, not as under his care, but rather as objects of his warm affection. They knew, as we have seen, how to abide in Christ; let them, then, abide in him. It was a great fact that Christ was to be manifested, i.e., in glory, though there was uncertainty as to the time of the manifestation. What was their relation to that manifestation? Were they prepared, the moment of its occurrence, to pass into his presence with boldness, and not "as a guilty thing surprised," to shrink with shame from him? They knew what was required. It was a requirement founded on what they knew God to he, viz. righteous. "The righteousness of God is the Divine attribute of an active nature, by virtue of which God wills and performs all things which are conformable to his eternal Law, prescribes suitable laws to his creatures, implements his premises made to man, rewards the good, and punishes the ungodly." The requirement, then (to which there is no exception), is doing righteousness, i.e., actively fulfilling our duties. The inner abiding in Christ must pass into the outer life of God-defined and God-like activity. Only thus can we show ourselves to be begotten of God with which idea the new section begins. R.F.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

1Jn_2:18. Last time.—R.V. “last hour”; probably it should be “a last hour.” The period after Christ’s coming in the flesh, however long it may prove to be, is regarded as the “last time.” If the apostles did expect a visible return of their Lord in their day, it is quite clear that the facts of Christian history have proved that the expectation was founded on misapprehension. The Christian dispensation is the last until there is another. Antichrist shall come.—Cometh. It was the common belief of Christians that some individual antichrist would appear before our Lord’s second coming; and a similar notion is entertained by those who look for the second coming now. Antichrist is any person, or any thing, that opposes the establishment of Christ’s kingdom in the earth. So there have been antichrists in every age, and there are antichrists to-day. Opposition to Christ is the essential idea of the word; but it seems specially to refer to those who claimed that they themselves were christs—such as Barcochba. There is, however, a distinction to be drawn between false christs and antichrists. Compare Barcochba and Cerinthus. Are there many antichrists.—Better, “have there arisen.” St. John would check the disposition to fix the association of antichrist to any one person. And his caution is greatly needed in our day. What we require to see more clearly is, that antichrist may be a person, but it need not be: it may be a sentiment, a teaching, a doctrine, a social influence.

1Jn_2:19. Went out from us.—The most dangerous form of antichrist is the heretical teaching of those who have belonged to Christ’s Church. They so easily make rival parties and sects. Perhaps St. John had in mind the Gnostics, who were recruited from members of the Christian Church. The Church in every age has been composed of nominal members and real members. Its peril has always lain in the uncertainty of the response of its nominal members to surrounding doubtful and evil influences. Those who have the “unction from the Holy One,” the Divine indwelling Spirit, are defended from the attractions of sectarianism and heresy. Their spiritual life, kept in health by the Holy Spirit, throws off all attacks of disease, as bodies do in which there is strong vitality.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Jn_2:18-19

The Time of the Antichrists.—“It is the list time,” or more correctly, “it is a last hour.” By this figurative term the apostle indicates a time of severe conflict. We precisely express his meaning when we say, “Things are reaching a climax.” Much mistake has been made by taking the expression “last time” in a strictly temporal sense. What St. John meant to say was this, “Things are evidently coming to a point.” When we come to deal closely and philosophically with the term “last time,” we are compelled to see that so long as God lives, and is actively working, there cannot be any such thing as a “last time.” There never has been, and there never can be. Seemingly last things were only last of parts of a series. There never yet was an end that was not also a beginning,—just as you cannot destroy one particle of matter; you can only change its form and relations. The “last times” of St. John have come and gone, but the Christian ages continue; and every time in those ages when a great fight has arisen over some imperilled Christian truth has been a “last time” in St. John’s sense. The conflict over the “filioque” was a last time. The Arian struggle was a “last time.” The Reformation was a “last time.” Another point has too often escaped attention. The name “Christ” is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “Messiah,” and therefore the term “antichrist” is strictly referable to any one who opposes or denies the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth, and all that it involved. But that was a particular phase of conflict which belonged exclusively to the times of St. John. For the Christian nations it is a controversy that is dead and gone, or lingering only, in a small way, in the controversy with the Jew. We have filled the term “antichrist” with our own meanings, and so have quite forgotten the very precise and limited connotation of the term in the time of the first Christian Church. In these verses three things are urged on attention.

I. The Christian Churches had been warned to expect antichrist.—“Ye have heard that antichrist shall come.” Warnings had been fully given by our Lord Himself (Mat_24:5; Mat_24:23-24). And it could not have been otherwise, human nature being what it is. Was ever anything provided for humanity, or proclaimed to humanity, which was not opposed? Was ever scientific theory or theological doctrine presented without arousing contradiction? Enthusiastic men may take up some new thing, and imagine that, unhindered, it is going to carry all before it; but it never does. It succeeds at all only by forcing its way through and against obstacles. Christianity is a Divine force, but it works, and can only work, under human conditions. It was a dream that it would go forth to conquer, in such a sense as that; crushing all opposition, it would never have any fighting to do. Our Lord never for one moment encouraged that delusion. The result of His coming would be to set men at variance; and His truth would have as big a fight as His people. It must be so; and it was better that it should be so. Man never can get his best things save through conflict. And it is in wrestlings against antichrists that the Christian truth has been at once unfolded and preserved. And it will always be kept in similar conflicts.

II. The antichrists had come, and proved to be many.—If the singular “antichrist” is employed, it is only as a collective or representative term. To find some single person answering to antichrist has been a kind of mania in the Church. There never was only one; there is not now; and there never will be. St. John does all that he can toward correcting that serious mistake when he says, “even now are there many antichrists,” suggesting as the conclusion of his sentence, “and how many more there will be by-and-by.” When once we have mastered the fact, that antichrists, in every age, are many, we are put upon the right lines for understanding what is meant by, and what is included in, the term. Whatever in the Church opposes the living authority and rule of the Lord Jesus is an antichrist. So it includes the moral opponent, the sensual teacher, quite as truly as the doctrinal opponent. And the very essence of the spirit of antichrist is this—setting some authority, based on the claims of self, against the authority of Christ.

III. The antichrists proved to be mischievous persons inside the Church.—The significance of 1Jn_2:19 as an account of the antichrists that were in St. John’s mind has been overlooked. We have not to look for them outside the Churches. They were persons who had been until recently members of the Churches. They were apostates, who had found their position within the Church impossible, and so had left the Church, and were now making themselves as actively mischievous against the Church as they possibly could. And now we know the two classes from which the antichrists were recruited.

1. The Judaisers; or those who wanted to make religion—Christianity—a formality instead of a life. And such persons are antichrists in every age.

2. The philosophers; or those who wanted to make Christianity an opinion rather than a life. And it is equally true that such persons are antichrists in every age. Under the Judaiser, the false liberty that nourishes immorality is sure to flourish. Under the philosopher, the false pride that puts self between the soul and the living Christ is sure to flourish. Christ is holiness and humility. Antichrist is sensual indulgence, and self-aggrandisement, and everything that tends to nourish such evil things.

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

1Jn_2:19. Separation expressing Lost Harmony.—Some actual cases of self-willed separation from the Church had evidently occurred, and had been a source of much anxiety and distress. The voluntary withdrawal of members from Church fellowship always puts a slight upon the fellowship, and brings a feeling of unrest and suspicion to the remaining members. There is always danger of those who leave making a party. And St. John therefore tries to quiet the unrest, and prevent the enlargement of the mischief, by helping the members to look aright on the removal of these self-willed persons. Sooner or later things out of harmony, or persons out of harmony, will be sure to separate. Outside forces may act for a while and keep in relation those who are not in harmony. But the forces never succeed in holding on very long. The natural separation persists in working on beneath all the restraints; and the moment that the force holding them together is released, they break asunder. It is so in the Church of Christ. Members that are out of harmony, either with the moral tone, or with the primary religious truths of the Church, cannot long maintain their association with it. As St. John expressed it, “they are not of us.” They are not in sympathy with us. Their aims are not ours; their cherished thoughts are not ours; their first principles are not ours. And they cannot help it; they must go from us. If we stand firm in our loyalty to Christ, they will be sure to find themselves uncomfortable, and make some occasion for going away. And this is the point in which the want of harmony will most evidently appear. Supreme in the mind of the Church will be, the holiest admiration of Christ, the most loving loyalty to Christ, the full recognition of the living presence of Christ, and the absolute submission of the whole soul and life to His authority. In whatever sense self rules mind, and feeling, and life, the man will be out of harmony with all this. He will be antichrist; and when he finds he is, he knows he will be best away.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2

1Jn_2:18. The Pope as Antichrist.—It is singular to find that the See of Rome did not receive the appellation of antichrist first from its enemies the Protestants, but from its own leaders. Gregory himself (A.D. 590) started the idea by declaring that any man who held even the shadow of such power as the popes arrogated to themselves after his time would be the forerunner of antichrist. Arnulphus, bishop of Orleans, in an invective against John XV at Rheims (A.D. 991), intimated that a pope destitute of charity was antichrist. But the stigma was fixed, in the twelfth century, by Amalric of Bona, and also by the abbot Joachim (A.D 1202). Joachim said that the second apocalyptic beast represented some great prelate who will be like Simon Magus, and, as it were, universal pontiff, and that very antichrist of whom St. Paul speaks. Hildebrand was the first pope to whom this ugly label was affixed, but the career of Alexander VI. (Roderic Borgia) made it for ever irremovable for the Protestant mind. There is in the British Museum a volume of caricatures, dated 1545, in which occurs an ingenious representation of Alexander VI. The pope is first seen in his ceremonial robes; but a leaf being raised, another figure is joined to the lower part of the former, and there appears the papal devil, the cross in his hand being changed into a pitchfork. Attached to it is an explanation in German, giving the legend of the pope’s death. He was poisoned (1503) by the cup he had prepared for another man.—Conway.

1Jn_2:19. One Fold and One Shepherd.—One evening I went out with a shepherd to collect his sheep. After they had been gathered together, and were being driven off the moor, I observed that there were some among them who did not belong to his flock. I particularly noticed, also, that he paid no attention whatever to these wandering strangers, urged forward though they were, by the barking dog, farther and farther from their rightful companions. At last, thinking I must have been mistaken in supposing they were not his, I pointed to one of them and said, “Are those your sheep?” And he answered “No.” I said unto him, “Why then do you not separate them from the flock?” And he answered and said, “They will find out directly they are not of us, and then they will go away of themselves.” And immediately I remembered the words of John, how he had said, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”—W. G. S.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. Warning and consolation against Anti-Christ

DESCRIPTION OF HIS FORERUNNERS, WHOSE APPEARANCE POINTS TO THE LAST TIME (1Jn_2:18-23). EXHORTATION OF THE FAITHFUL TO STEADFASTNESS IN THEIR ASSURANCE OF POSSESSING THE TRUTH AND ETERNAL LIFE (1Jn_2:24-28).

1Jn_2:18-28

18Little children, it is the last time25, and as ye have heard that26 antichrist27 shall come, even now are28 there many antichrists; whereby29 we know that it is the last time30. 19They went out from us31, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt32 have continued33 with us: but they went out34, that they might be 20made manifest that they were35 not all of us. But36 ye have an37 unction from the Holy One, and ye38 know all things39. 21I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth40. 22Who is a41 liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He42 is antichrist, that 23denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever43 denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father44: [but] he that acknowledged the Son hath the Father also45. 24Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning46. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father47. 25And this is the promise that he48 hath promised us49, even eternal life50. 26These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you51 27But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you52, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same53 anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth54, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him55. 28And now, little children, abide in him; that when56 he shall appear57, we may have58 confidence, and not be ashamed before him59 at his coming.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

The connection. The groundwork on which this portion of the Epistle rests is contained in the individualized addresses (1Jn_2:12-14), introducing both warning and consolation against the love of the world (1Jn_2:15-17), as well as in the subsequent warning and consolation against antichrist (1Jn_2:18-28). As the former particularly connected with the final clause νενικήκατε τὸν πονηρόν whose kingdom is ὁ κόσμος, so this connects with ἐγνώκατε τὸν ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς, τὸν πατέρα, ὁ λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν μένει. The opening words ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστίν in the sequel (1Jn_2:18) connect also with ὁ κόσμος παράγεται (1Jn_2:17). This portion which began (1Jn_1:5 sq.) with the Light-Being of God and the Light-walk of believers, concludes with a warning against the lie which is directed against the fundamental pillar of eternal truth, the glory of Christ. and an exposure of its attempt to annihilate the promise of eternal life. The address παιδία, 1Jn_2:18, applies to all the readers of the Epistle, and requires us to consider the sequel addressed to the whole Church (contrary to Bengel). It is incomprehensible that Ebrard on account of the peculiarly childlike character of this section should hold the opinion that the reference is only to the little ones, to children.

The last hour, 1Jn_2:18. This important and difficult idea, which is liable to many interpretations and has been variously understood, can only be understood and explained with reference to the whole usus loquendi current and the sum-total of clear views on the subject contained in the New Testament. It is not sufficient to refer the reader to Lange on Matthew 24., Moll on Heb_1:1, and Fronmüller on 1Pe_1:5; 1Pe_1:20. Compare particularly Riehm, Lehrbegriff des Hebräerbriefs, pp. 72 sqq.; 204 sqq., and Düsterdieck ad loc.—The representation of two ages of the world is rooted in the Old Testament idea בְּאַחֲרִית חַיָּמִים which constantly recurs in prophetical passages, beginning with the blessing of Jacob (Gen_49:1), especially in Jeremiah, denotes “the most distant future, beyond which the eye cannot penetrate” (Hitzig on Mic_4:1), and is therefore well rendered by “in the end of the days.” The prophets use it almost exclusively to denote the Messianic times. The LXX. translate it ἐν ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις (Isa_2:2), ἐπ̓ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν (Gen_49:1), ἐπ̓ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν (Num_24:14), ἐπ̓ ἐσχάτῳ τῶν ἡμερῶν (Deu_4:30), ἔσχατον τῶν ἡμερῶν (Deu_31:29). Hence comes primarily the talmudical and rabbinical idea of the עו̇לָם הַזֶה and the עוֹלָם הַבּא; inside these two ages of the world are the יְמוֹת הַמָּשִׁיחַ, the days of the Messiah, the Messianic age proper, which is alternately counted with either age of the world, and consequently may be either after or before the end of the days, or the end of the days itself. The Lord Himself distinguishes ἐν τούτῳ τῷ αἰῶνι from ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι (Mat_12:30), ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τούτῳ from ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τῷ ἐρχομένῳ (Mar_10:30; Luk_18:30); and this distinction, as well as Luk_20:34, sq. (οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου γαμοῦσιν—οἱ δὲ καταξιωθέντες τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐκείνου τυχεῖν καὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῆς ἐκ νεκρῶν) show most plainly that the earthly development-period of the kingdom of God preceding the second coming of Christ in glory, and beginning with the first coming of Christ in the flesh, belongs to the first age of the world, and that the future time is the time of the completed kingdom of God. According to this ἡ ἐσχάτη ἡμέρα (Joh_6:39-40; Joh_6:44; Joh_6:54; Joh_11:24; Joh_12:48) is the day of the resurrection of the dead and the judgment, the last day of the first age of the world and the transition to the second. The turning-point between both ages of the world is the time of Christ’s return to judgment (Mat_13:39 sq.; Mat_13:49; Mat_24:3; Mat_28:20). Thus Paul also contrasts ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ with ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι, and the sufferings τοῦ νῦν καιροῦ with the μέλλουσα δόξα (Rom_8:18), and describes Christians as living ἐν τῷ νῦν αἰῶνι looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ (Tit_2:12-13). The ἔσχαται ἡμέραι in which there shall come καιροὶ χαλεποὶ (2Ti_3:1), and the ὕστεροι καιροί (1Ti_4:1), like the αἰῶνες οἱ ἐπερχόμενοι (Eph_2:7), denote the period immediately preceding the second coming of Christ. While, according to Paul, Christians still live outwardly in the first age of the world, yet are they ethically beyond it and the character of this present age of the world is described by him as tainted with immorality and alienation from God, Rom_12:2; 1Co_2:6; 1Co_2:8; 1Co_3:18; 2Co_4:4; Gal_1:4; Eph_2:2; 2Ti_4:10. He regarded also the present age of the world as running on towards its end since the first coming of Christ; hence he speaks of τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰώνων (1Co_10:11) having set in. We have not to inquire here whether he regarded the second coming of Christ to be near at hand.—Peter considers his time as the ἔσχαται ἡμέραι (Act_2:17) and laid the first coming of Christ ἐπ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρώνων (1Pe_1:20 cf. 1Jn_2:5 : ἐν καιρφ͂ ἐσχάτῳ or τῶν ἡμερῶν, 2Pe_3:3 cf. Judges 18).—So also James: (Jam_5:13 : ἐν ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις).—In the Epistle to the Hebrews also the close of the first age of the world is described as beginning with the first coming of Christ (Heb_1:1), but the συντέλεια τῶν αἰώνων denotes the turning-point of the two ages of the world, Heb_9:26, and this turning-point is more particularly described as found in the sacrificial death of Christ on account of its important consequences (Heb_10:14; Heb_11:39-40), since that which is eternal, is now extant (Χριστὸς–ἀρχιερεὺς τῶν μελλόντων ἀγαθῶν Heb_9:11; cf. Heb_5:14; Heb_10:1; Heb_10:18; Heb_6:5; Heb_12:22). The beginning of the new time has set in, but only the ideal and objective beginning; since the αἰὼν μέλλων as to the δύναμις is already extant in the redeemed, but will not enter into ἐνέργεια until the second coming of Christ (Heb_13:14), so that the first age of the world still continues outwardly and that consequently our time is only a transition-period; with respect to the ethical sense of these ideas we have here the point of contact between the Epistle to the Hebrews and the views of Paul.—John’s ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστίν must be understood as lying within the limits of these views. The use of ὥρα instead of ἡμέρα, the day which with God is equal to a thousand years (Psa_90:4; 2Pe_3:8), indicates a peculiar feature, and the absence of the Article leaves it undefined. We have to think of a period of time belonging to the last days or last times which exhibits their character in a concentrated form, and since the ἐσχάτη ἡμέρα in the Gospel adverts particularly to the κρίσις, the reference seems to be to peculiarly critical manifestations. If now we have to translate: “it is the last hour,” the reference to the antichrist and the antichrists is in admirable keeping with the announcements of the coming of false prophets and teachers for the purpose of temptation and trial, so that in them there already takes place a separation of true believers from false believers. Cf. Mat_24:24 sqq.; 1Ti_4:1 sqq.; 2Ti_3:1 sqq.—Hence ὥρα is neither=the season of the year, the wintry season of the world (Scholiast II), nor ἐσχάτη=χειρίστη (Oecumen., Schöttgen: tempora periculosa, pessima et abjectissima, Carpzov and others), which is also forbidden by 2Ti_3:1. Bengel’s explanation that it denotes the last hour of John’s old age (ultima, non respectu omnium mundi temporum, sed in antitheto puerulorum, ad patres et juvenes), is a singular make-shift in order to guard John from the error that his prediction of the last hour had not been fulfilled. Nor can ἐσχάτη ὥρα designate the time immediately preceding the destruction of Jerusalem (Socinus, Grotius), for the last time is not to be taken with such chronological precision. Nor is there any warrant for the assertion of Huther, that John wrote with presentiment of the second coming of Christ (an assertion based on what is said 1Jn_2:8 of the σκοτία and 1Jn_2:17 of the κόσμος, that they παράγεται which simply marks the transitory character inhering in the σκοτία and the κόσμος), since he writes only under the impression and with a sense of the transitoriness of the powers of this first age of the world, and that he indicates thereby the nearness of Christ’s second coming (Lücke, Neander, Baumgarten-Crusius, Gerlach, Ebrard, Huther). Hence we may say with Düsterdieck that “John did not wish to supply a chronological but only a real definition” [that is, one relating simply to the object—M.], which is clearly indicated by ἐὰν φανερώθῃ (1Jn_2:28), since ὅταν is hardly the true reading there. “The prophetical substance of the Apostolical declaration is true,” “the extension of the time from the real beginning (the destruction of Jerusalem, which does not disconcert John, and of the import of which, with reference to the history and the judgment of the world, his mind is fully made up), to the actual end of beings” denotes rather no measure at all than one that is too short. The first Messianic transition-period inaugurated by the Saviour in the form of a servant, governed by Him and terminating the first age of the world is the ἐσχάτη, during which men pass through peculiar troubles, perils and conflicts on to the promised advent of the second world-age of glory. In this transition-period there are however peculiar hours of development, one of which had come when John wrote his Epistle. The term ἐσχάτη ὥρα has therefore to be taken in a prophetical and eschatological sense; it has moreover an important bearing on the history of Christ’s kingdom and constitutes a historical reference to the second coming of Christ as the commencement of the second world-age, but not a chronological reference to the time when the second coming is to take place.—Noteworthy is Calvin’s explanation: ultimum tempus, in quo sic complentur omnia, ut nihil supersit præter ultimam Christi revelationem, and with reference to the absence of the Article also that of Besser: the time before a special revelation of the judicatory glory of Christ prefiguring the last hour before the universal final judgment.—

The Antichrist and the Antichrists, 1Jn_2:18.

1. The word ἀντίχριστος occurs only here, 1Jn_2:22; 1Jn_4:3 and 2Jn_1:7. and its meaning has to be ascertained first philologically and then exegetically.

2. ἀντὶ may mean both hostility and substitution. In the former case it denotes the antagonist of Christ, the antichrist, in the latter the pretender-Christ or pseudo-Christ. Thus ἀντίτυπος is a τύπος set in opposition to another τύπος, and ἀντίλυτρον a λύτρον, paid or given for something; so ἀντίθεος in Homer, denotes godlike, but other authors use it in the sense of adverse to the gods; one and the same word may then be used in both senses; but no word can have both meanings in one and the same place; hence we must not endeavour to combine the ideas of anti-Christ and pretender-Christ as Huther maintains (“the enemy of Christ, who, under the lying appearance of being the true Christ, endeavours to destroy the work of Christ”), although it must be conceded that the enemy of Christ appears at the same time with the pretension of being able to supply His place, of becoming His substitute, and that the pretender-Christ does occupy His place in hostility to Him. But the ἀντίχριστοι manifestly cannot be taken in this double sense. And still less allowable is it with Sander first to attach to the word in the Singular the sense of pseudo-Christ and mimic of Christ, and then immediately afterwards to make the Plural designate the enemies of Christ. We cannot get on purely philological considerations beyond the possibility of taking the word in one or the other of said senses.

3. We have to hold fast the fact that the word denotes persons. This is required of the Plural ἀντίχριστοι in 1Jn_2:19 : ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξῆλθαν, οὐκ ἦσαν ἐξ ἡμῶν, μεμενήκεισαν μεθ̓ ἡμῶν. But if the ἀντίχριστοι are persons, then ἀντίχριστος must also be a person, for this is required by ἔρχεται. Hence Bengel’s exposition is incorrect: “Sive id vocabulum phrasis apostolica, sive sermo fidelium introduxit, Johannes errores, qui oriri possent, prævisurus, non modo antichristum, sed etiam antichristos vult dici; et ubi antichristum vel spiritual antichristi vel deceptorem et antichristum dicit, sub singulari numero omnes mendaces et veritatis inimicos innuit. Quemadmodumque Christus interdum pro christianismo (where?), sic antichristus pro antichristianismo sive doctrina et multitudine hominum Christo contraria dicitur. Antichristum jam tum venire, ita assentitur Johannes, ut non unum, sed multos, id quod amplius quiddam et tristius esse censet, antichristos factos esse doceat. Sæpe totum genus eorum, qui bonam aliquam aut malem indolem habent, singulari numero cum articulo exprimitur (Mat_12:35; Mat_18:17; Mat_18:29.). Igitur antichristus sive anti-christianismus ab extrema Johannis œtate(see above: the last hour=old age!) per omnem sæculorum tractum se propagavit et permanet, donec magnus ille adversarius exoritur. This view is adopted by Lange, Baumgarten-Crusius, Besser and others.

4. We have here before us a law of historical development, a fixed ordinance of the history of the kingdom. The point in question is the ἐσχάτη ὥρα and the marks by which it may be known; the reference is to ἀντίχριστος ἐρχεται and to ἀντίχριστοι γεγόνασιν, to that which has happened νῦν, to that which is still to be looked for and has been announced (ἠκούσατε):

And as ye have heard (through the announcement of the Apostles) that an antichrist cometh, even now have there come into existence many antichrists (καὶ νῦν–γεγόνασι).—It is by no means allowable to insert ita est before καθὼς ἠκούσατε (Bengel): nor must the Present ἔρχεται be put on a line with γεγόνασι, so that the antichrist now cometh and is present even as the others also have appeared; nor must ἔρχεται and γεγόνασι, made equal in point of time, be only so distinguished from each other that the former comes aliunde, while these have come ex nobis. Γεγόνασι, they are become, they have come into existence, denotes the antichrists as a historical product, on whom the surrounding powers operating in time have operated. Hence it is not equal to coeperunt esse (Erasmus) but to “they are become, they are existing.”—Ebrard incorrectly renders ἔρχεται=is future, although he correctly explains it by=will some day appear. The Future is implied in the idea of coming and the Present indicates the certainty of the event. [Huther: The Present ἔρχεται instead of the Future; it denotes the future as an event which is sure to occur.—M.]. Accordingly the ἀντίχριστοι exist before the ἀντίχριστος, who however is sure to follow them, and that which appears in the former, the προδρόμοις, only in an isolated, undeveloped and feeble form, is gathered together by the latter in his individual person, and developed in a powerful form. In the course of time malice will so surely become intensified and opposition to God and Christ will reach such a degree of development that the existence of many antichrists warrants the certain result of a future concentration and formation of this spirit in one person.

5. The ἀντίχριστοι come out of the Christian Church, they have themselves been Christians before (ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξῆλθαν 1Jn_2:19); the antichrist, in like manner, will of course come forth from the ranks of the Christians, he will also be a man. Hence ἀντίχριστος is not Satan himself (Pseudohippolytos, Theodoret); the idea of Satan becoming man is inexecutable, since the Eternal Word only, the Image of the Father, in which man has been created, can become man.

6. The antichrists deny that Jesus is the Christ (1Jn_2:22; 1Jn_4:3; 2Jn_1:7);) that He did not come in the flesh, that He is not the Son of God, that He is not of God (1Jn_4:14 sqq.; 1Jn_5:5 sqq.; 1Jn_5:20 sq.). The doctrine is the denial of the truth, the lie, they themselves are liars, and according to Joh_8:44, the children of the devil, of the father of the lie (1Jn_3:3-10). The Greeks strikingly observe: ὁ ψεύστης, ἐναντίος ὥν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ, ἥτοι τῷ Χριστῷ, ἀντίχριστός ἐστιν (Theophylact) and ὁ ψεύστης τὸ τοῦ διαβόλου ὄνομα (Scholiast II.). The antichrist and the antichrists are to be taken “as expressly connected with Satan” (Düsterdieck), and the two words here denote not substitution, but hostility to Christ exhibited in the form of eminent strength; the antichrist is pre-eminently the instrument and tool of Satan. Hence we have to exclude the exposition of Irenæus, Hippolytus, Cyrillus and others, that the antichrist was tentans semet ipsum Christum ostendere, and mimicking Christ.

7. The comparison of this passage with 2Th_2:1 sq. (Hofmann, Heilige Schrift I., p. 307 sqq.) requires this explanation. The name ἀντίχριστος used by John corresponds with the description given by Paul, ἀντικείμενος καὶ ὑπεραιρόμενος ἐπὶ πάντα λεγόμενον θεὸν ἥ σέβασμα, to denote his hostility with reference to his pretended ability to supply the place of God (ὥστε αὐτὸν εἰς τὸν ναὸν τοῦ θεοῦ καθίσαι, ἀποδεικνύντα ἑαυτὸν ὅτι ἐστὶν θεός). John contrasts the πνεῦμα τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου with the πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ, while Paul calls him ὁ ἅνθρωπος τῆς ἀμαρτίας, ὁ ἅνομος, ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπͅωλείας. His appearing also is preceded by an ἀποστασία, and he himself is the precursor of the παρουσία τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν, just as in John. But we must not overlook a difference belonging to this agreement. John speaks in a more general way, and uses less definite terms than Paul, who gives more distinct prominence to the person and approach of the dreaded and dreadful one; but he also refers to τὸ κατέχον and ὁ κατέχων as a power wielded by a living person, and specifies that for the benefit of the Church his progress will be arrested and his appearing delayed, thus pointing, like John, to a historical development.—Remembering all these particulars, we have, first of all, to reject those expositions which limit the application of the subject to a solitary historical fact or a single personage, and regard this statement of the Apostle in the light of a prophecy of a church-historical fact. Thus the Greek expositors, and many others (Augustine, Luther, Calvin, al.) after them apply it to heretics or heresiarchs, e.g., to Simon Magus, Cerinthus, Ebion, the Gnostics, to Basilides, Valentinus, and others, the Nicolaitanes (Rev_2:6), to Diotrephes (3Jn_1:9.), Hymeneus and Philetus (2Ti_2:17), and Grotius actually applies it to Barcochba, Calov to Mohammed, Luther (Art. Schm. tract. de pot. et prim. papæ, § 39; cf. Melanchthon, Apol. Art VII. VIII., § 23; XV. § 18) to the pope, and Roman Catholics to Luther. All this is purely arbitrary and unwarranted, and not only depreciates the word of prophecy, but actually deprives it of the prophetical element, as if it had ceased to be valid. Secondly, we have also to reject the modern exposition (both that of rationalistic commentators and that of Lücke, de Wette and Neander) which insists upon separating the idea, “that simultaneously with the development of Christianity, evil also would gradually increase in intensity, until having reached its culmination, it would be completely conquered by the power of Christ,” from the form as here indicated, and that the form, as the mere shell, might be dropped. On the contrary, both the idea and the form have to be held fast, for we have here the expression of a law ever recurring in historical manifestations which belongs to the development of the history of the Kingdom [of God] up to and until the end of the time of Messiah and the Church, and this expression is so clearly and distinctly asserted that John feels warranted to draw the emphatic conclusion: “whence we know that there is a last hour.” By the appearing of many antichrists we may know and infer thence (ὅθεν) as from a distinct premise, that there is an onward progress in the direction of Christ’s coming, which is preceded by the concentration of the antichristian element, thriving and luxuriating of course in different persons according to its different forms of manifestation. [On the different views of the antichrist see Lünemann on 2Th_2:1-12; p. 204 sqq., and Düsterdieck ad locum; also Trench, Synonyms of the N. T., p. 145 sqq.—M.].

Relation of the Antichrists to the Church. First there is noted the fact that,

1Jn_2:19. From us they went out.—The most natural and primary meaning of ἡμῶν is that it designates the Apostle and his readers, consequently the Church, which is addressed by παιδία, and to be understood in ἡκούσατε. The reference is neither to the Jews (Grotius, Rickli), nor to the Apostles only (Spener, Besser), nor only to the Church with exclusion of the children (Ebrard). Apart from the form ἐξῆλθαν, which in this very verb is by no means uncommon in the New Testament (Winer, pp. 86, 87), the sense is various: prodire, exire, egredi, secedere. Two ideas play into each other: origin and separation, coming out and going away. The nature of the ἀντίχριστοι who are engaged in the ἀποστασία, not μεμενήκεισαν μεθ’ ἡμῶν, requires us to translate secesserunt, evaserunt (Augustine, Bede, Erasmus, Lücke, Düsterdieck, Ebrard, Huther). Prodierunt (Vulgate, al.) misapprehends the origin of the antichrists, and denotes origin only. ἐξῆλθαν does not point to their development and origin, but only to their separation, their apostasy, which ἐξ ἡμῶν requires us to regard as their apostasy from the Church; γεγόνασιν, to be sure, shows that they are within that Church from which they have now separated. This is brought out “by the emphatic position of ἐξ ἡμῶν before the verb” (Huther), for ἐξ ἡμῶν in connection with the verb ἐξέρχεσθαι merely denotes the circle, the fellowship from which they have separated. “John does not indicate the extent to which that formal separation has been carried; still ἐξῆλθαν implies that they had not only opposed the Apostolical doctrine (Beza: “ad mutationem non loci, sed doctrinæ pertinet”), but also those who, by the faithful preservation of the unadulterated Gospel, had proved themselves to be children of God”(Huther).

But they were not of us.—Εἶναι ἐξ ἡμῶν indicates the internal relation. Here the idea of origin combines with that of appertaining and affinity. ’Αλλὰ (Winer, pp. 462, 472, ἄλλα) denotes the strong opposition of ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξῆλθαν and ἐξ ἡμῶν ἦσαν. While the former simply betokens external origin and coming out from, the latter indicates internal relationship; they were the former, not the latter; the aforesaid fact expressly denies this internal relation. Both origin (coming from) and relationship (affinity, appertaining to) are contained in εἶναι ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς, ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου (1Jn_2:16) and in ἐξελθεῖν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ (Joh_8:42; Joh_16:28; while ἀπὸ θεοῦ, Joh_13:3, and παρ̇ὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, Joh_16:27, denote only the former.) [Augustine: Quandoquidem adhuc curatur corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et sanitas perfecta non erit nisi in resurrectione mortuorum; sic sunt in corpore Christi, quomodo humores mali. Quando evomuntur, tunc revelatur corpus: sic et mali quando exeunt, tunc revelatur ecclesia. Et dicit quando eos evomit atque projicit corpus, ex me exierunt humores isti, sed non erant ex me. Quid est, non erant ex me ? Non de carne mea præcisi sunt, sed pectus mihi premebant dum inessent.”—M.]. But John here sharply contrasts the two and excludes the one by the other, adding moreover,

For if they had been of us, they would have abode with us.—Consequently, they had been μεθ̓ ἡμῶν, they had belonged to the Christians, they had lived among and with the Christians, they were Christians outwardly and to be considered, as such. Although they had been μεθ̓ ἡμῶνͅ, they were not ἐξ ἡμῶν, for in that case they would have abode μεθ̓ ἡμῶν. On the very frequent omission of the augment in the Pluperfect see Winer, p. 85. On the dogmatical and ethical import of this passage, see below in Doctrinal and Ethical, especially sub. Nos. 4. 5.

But—that they might be made manifest, that not all are of us.—Here is an imperfect and involved construction. After ἀλλὰ we have of course to supply the thought suggested by the previous words: but they did not abide with us, that—(Huther, Winer, Grammar p. 333. where may be found the corresponding illustrations Joh_13:18 : ἐξελεξάμην, ἀλλ̓ (ἐξελεξάμην)ἵνα;—Joh_15:25 : μεμισήκασιν—,ἀλλ̓ (μεμισήκασιν)ἵνα—). In general γέγονε τοῦτο would have to be supplied, which would however depend on the context for its meaning, as in Joh_1:8 : ἀλλ̓(ἦλθεν) ἵνα—; Joh_9:3 : ἁλλ̓ (but he was born blind) ἵνα—. But de Wette has very correctly pointed out that two sentences are here interlaced, and Huther has rightly arranged them thus: 1, ἵνα φανερωθῶσιν ὅτι οὐκ εἰσὶν ἐξ ἡμῶν, 2, ἵνα φανερωθῇ ὅτι οὐκ εἰσί πάντες ἐξ ἡμῶν. The secession of the antichrists has, taken place and constitutes an event that does not take place without some providential design, an event in which God the Lord takes an active part both as Ruler and Judge, hence ἵνα, to the end that, in order that. The Apostle’s design is to mark a purpose and not a consequence, as Lange and Paulus maintain without any reason for their view. The purpose is first, that they shall manifest themselves as those who do not sustain to us an inward and ethical relation of kinship and appertainment, and secondly, that it shall become manifest in general that not all those who are in the Church and outwardly belong to it (μεθ̓ ἡμῶν, in ecclesia) do also belong to it inwardly (ἐξ ἡμῶν, de ecclesia). We have to connect οὐ πάντες in the sense of nonnulli; for if we were to connect οὐκ εἰσὶν so that the negation would belong to the predicate, John would have written οὐκ εἰσὶν ἐξ ἡμῶν πάντες, and we should be obliged to explain. “All are not of us,” or “none is of us.” In this case there would be something predicated of the antichrists, they would be the subject in πάντες. But this is not allowable on account of the position of the words. The meaning is rather: “Not all are of us, only some, although the majority are of us.” But this cannot be predicated of the antichrists; for they are not all true, living church members, none of them belongs truly to the Church. But their seceding furnishes actual proof that not all Christians (baptizati, vocati) are and remain real Christians (electi, fideles). “While in φανερωθῶσιν the seceders only are considered as the subject, the conception is enlarged in the clause ὄτι—ἡμῶν, and the Apostle declares in respect of the former, that in general not all who belong outwardly to the Christian Church, are really members of the same (Düsterdieck). It is not allowable to understand ού πάντες with Socinus in the sense of nulli: the connection is right, the explanation is wrong. [Wordsworth: “They all pretend to be of us, and the heathen confound them with us. But their secession from us, and opposition to us, clearly prove that they are not all of us. Some false teachers [or false brethren M.] there are still who propagate heresies in the Church. They are tares in the field, but as long as they are in the field, it is not easy to distinguish them from the wheat. They are not of us, but they are not manifested as such by going put from us. But the going out of those who have left us, and who resist us, is a manifest token to all men, that they and their associates are not all of us, as they profess to be, and as the heathen suppose them to be; and as even some of the brethren in the Church imagine that they are, and are therefore deceived by them. By their going out they are manifested in their true light; and by their opposition to us Truth is distinguished from Error and Error from Truth.”—M.].

Testimony of the gifts of believers. 1Jn_2:20-21.

1Jn_2:20. And you have ointment from the Holy One and know all things.—The address ὑμεῖς has regard to the readers, to the Church, from which the antichrists have seceded. They are referred to a gift: ἔχετε. This gift is χρῖσμα, unguentum, not unctio as explained by Vulgate, Augustine, Luther, de Wette, Sander, al. It is chrism. “Alludit appellatio chrismatis ad antichristi nomen” (Bengel). [They hare the chrism from Christ.—M.]. Thus John came to use this word which besides this place occurs only in 1Jn_2:27. In obedience to the command of God kings (1Sa_10:10; 1Sa_16:13-14; Psa_45:8), priests (Exo_29:7; Exo_30:31) and. prophets (Isa_61:1) were anointed, and ointment is both figuratively, and in the ordered act itself, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Thus Christ is anointed (Act_4:27) and that with the Holy Spirit (Act_10:38), and thus Christians also are anointed. The chrism or ointment will have to be understood as the Holy Spirit and ὑμεις ἔχετε χρῖσμα reminds the readers of the great gift which makes them priests, kings and prophets, the γένος ἐκλεκτόν, βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, ἕθνος ἄγιον, 1Pe_2:9; cf. Exo_19:6; Isa_43:20-21. This gift of the Holy Spirit must not be made the “divinum beneficium cognoscendi ipsas res divinas, quatenus homini est opus” (Socinus), or the “auditio evangelii, institutio christiana” (Episcopius, Rosenmüller), or the “docendi auctoritas” (Sauler), or “the true tradition concerning Christ distinguished by its being primitive, originating with the Apostles and vitally propagated” (Köstlin, Lehrbegriff, p. 243), or the “caritas quæ diffunditur in cordibus nostris per spiritum sanctum” (Didymus). And this having is a gift ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀγίου, they have received what they have; hence 1Jn_2:27 : τὸ χρῖσμα—ἐλάβετε. Christ is called ἀγνός 1Jn_3:3 and δίκαιος 1Jn_2:2; in Joh_6:69 He is called: ὁ ἅγιος τοῦ θεοῦ, Act_3:14 : ὁ ἅγιος καὶ σίκαιος, Rev_3:7 : ὁ ἅγιος ὁ ἀληθινός. The primary reference therefore seems to be to Christ who received the Spirit without measure (Joh_3:34), and baptized with the Holy Ghost (Joh_1:33) and sends Him from the Father (Joh_15:26; Act_2:33) and hence the idea is that the Χριστός makes the χριστούς.—̔Απὸ τοῦ ἁγίουconsequently denotes neither God the Father (Socinus, Episcopius, Rickli, Neander, Besser, al.) nor the Holy Ghost (Didymus, Grotius).—It must be remembered that nothing is said here of the time when they received this gift nor of the means by which it was conveyed to them, but we read simply: ἔχετε. Hence there is no warrant for finding here an allusion to baptism (Augustine, Bede, Oecumenius), and the inference of the ungenuineness of the Epistle from the supposition of an allusion to a usage connected with baptism introduced at a later period, is wholly unjustifiable (Baur). [The argument for an allusion to baptism, rests on the hypothesis that this whole section is addressed to παίδια, pueruli, children, who received the gifts of the Holy Spirit in their baptism; it is then by implication extended to adults, and the use of chrism in baptism, a practice which does not belong to the Apostolical Age, seems to have been occasioned by this passage. Bengel: “Eam unctionem spiritualem habent τὰπαιδία, pueruli: namque cum baptismo, quem susceperunt, conjunctum erat donum Spiritus Sancti, cujus significandi causa ex hoc loco deinceps usu receptum esse videtur, ut oleo corpora baptizatorum ungerentur.”—M.]. It is more allowable to connect with 1Jn_2:24 cf. 1Jn_2:18, and to refer to the preaching of the word of God (Düsterdieck). We read simply “ye have—! Thus John reminds his readers of an important and responsible gift from which they might derive comfort and enjoyment in opposition to the antichrists, but which they ought also to keep, use and show against these adversaries. Hence the thought is introduced by καἰ, as John is wont to do, without indicating an antithesis which is contained in the matter itself; his object being to develop his argument by way of comfort and exhortation. [It is doubtful whether there is even an adversative implication in the thought, for John surely did not want to inform his readers that because they had the χρῖσμα they were the opposite of the antichrists. I do not mean that ὑμεῖς is not antithetical, but doubt whether καὶ is intended to mark an emphatic antithesis; in which case the Apostle would most probably have used σὲ or dispensed with the particle altogether. So Huther.—M.]. There is no reason at all to discover here with Semler a “captatio benevolentiæ,” or with a Lapide an apology for the shortness of the Epistle; and still more objectionable is the view of Lange that “a certain anxious care is unmistakable which puts forth even rhetorical efforts;” nor is Calvin right in saying: “modeste excusat apostolus, quod eos tam sollicite admonet, ne putent oblique se perstringi, quasi rudes ignarosque eorum, quæ probe tenere debuerant.” The further particular

And know all things denotes the immediate gain they derive from this gift. Bengel rightly explains “et inde.” Πάντα is evidently neuter. The Syriac translates therefore falsely “omnes.” Although Calvin rightly says of πάντα: “omnia non universaliter capi, sed ad præsentis loci circumstantiam restringi debet,” we must not restrict it with Bengel to “ea, quæ vos scire opus est: hoc responso repellendi erant seductores.” Still less must it be applied with Estius to the Church, as knowing all things, whereas individual Christians know only implicite if they hold to the Church [He says: “Habetis episcopos et presbyteros, quorum cura ac studio vestræ ecclesiæ satis instructæ sunt in iis quæ pertinent ad doctrinæ christianæ veritatem.”—M.]. The reference, according to 1Jn_2:21 and agreeably to Joh_16:13 : to τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ὰληθείας ὁσηγήσει ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ πάσῃ cf. Joh_14:26) is rather to πᾶσαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν (so Huther and most expositors). The sentence οἵδατε τὴν ἀλήθειαν, 1Jn_2:21 is wholly=οἴδατε τὰ πάντα.

1Jn_2:21. I have not written unto you, because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it.—̔̓Εγραψα refers to the words immediately preceding 1Jn_2:19 [that is to what the Apostle had just said concerning the antichrists—M.], and not to the Gospel, as Ebrard arbitrarily asserts. Not ignorance or want of knowledge on the part of the Church induced the Apostle to write this Epistle, on the contrary it was their knowledge and ability to form a right judgment of what was transpiring among them which prompted him to indite this Epistle, anxious as he was to foster and stimulate the truth possessed by his Church. Lorinus: “non ut vos hæc doceam, sed ut doctos confirmem.”—̓Αλήθεια is “the truth as announced by the Apostles, determining the whole walk in the light of believers (1Jn_1:8; 1Jn_2:4), begetting all love, giving life and founded on Christ (1Jn_2:23 sqq.). Whatsoever falls within the compass of this truth is the object of Christian knowledge, all this is known by believers” (Düsterdieck).

And that every thing which is lie is not of the truth.—Καὶ ὄτι is not connected with ἔγραψα: and because—as if indicating the motive which prompted the Apostle to write this Epistle, but the sentence depended on the second οἵδατε and is an object-sentence coördinated with αὐτήν: ye know it (the truth)—and that—.Thus render almost all commentators. Hence springs the question (1Jn_2:22) τίς ἐστιν ὁ ψεύστης; John assumes that they know who is the liar, as well as what and whence the lie is. Here εἶναι ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας denotes not only origin but also appurtenance conditioned and defined by the origin. Of course πᾶν—οὐκ must not be explained here as a Hebraism (Grotius and al.)= οὐδέν, since οὐκ evidently belongs to the predicate, but—every lie is not out of the truth, which, however, amounts to=no lie is out of the truth. The reference to the antichrists is plain and the sense manifest: every thing which is lie neither originates from the truth, nor can it remain with the truth; it is not matter of complaint or of surprise that the antichrists with their lies and denials are seceding. ψεύδος consequently is not only error, but the distinct opposite of the truth, nor is it the abstract put for the concrete, viz.: the false teachers (Lange). Our Lord Himself tells us whence the lie originates, it is from the devil (Joh_8:44). The truth is from God and full of God, and therefore incompatible with any and every lie. [Diversity of origin renders the truth and the lie incompatibles. Christ is the truth (Joh_14:6). Lorinus: “Lex vero non nisi verum sequitur et verum vero consonat.”—M.]. All knowledge and ability to form a right judgment of moral phenomena are founded on the χρῖσμα, the Holy Spirit, consequently on a gift, even the gift which begins with sanctifying the will and renewing the heart. Sanctification leads to illumination. This points to the powerful exhortation which accompanies the consolation.

The substance of the antichristian lie. 1Jn_2:22-23.

Ver 22. Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?—The interrogative form marks the vivacity with which John passes from the general abstract (πᾶν ψεῦδος) to the definite concrete (ὁ ψεύστης) as in 1Jn_5:4-5. [Huther.] There is here surely no reference to children (Ebrard). Hence Bengel rightly explains: ὁ vim habet ad abstractum 1Jn_2:21=quis est plains: ὁ vim habet ad abstractum 21=quis est illius mendacii reus?” The Article is by all means to be retained (Luther translates wrongly: who is a liar? [also E. V.—M.]) and to be explained as bringing out with emphatic distinctness the idea “the liar κατ̓ ἐξοχήν i.e. he in whom the lie appears in concrete form= ὁ ἀντίχριστος” (Huther). It must not, however, be restricted to one individual besides whom there is none like him, but rather be taken generically or collectively with reference to the genus of antichristians, like ὁ νικῶν in 1Jn_5:5 (Düsterdieck); πᾶν ψεῦδος of course concentrates in him, if we exclude lies in other spheres, e.g. those of the natural sciences, history or jurisprudence; here we have to do with the sphere of religion, with church-life. All comparative explanations dilute the conception of the Apostle; under this head we may enumerate those of Calvin (“nisi hoc censeatur mendacium, aliud nullum haberi posse), Socinus (“mendacium quo nihil possit esse majus”), Grotius (“Quis potest esse major impostor?”), Episcopius (“enormitas mendacii”), J. Lange (“mendax præcipuus et periculosior?”), de Wette (“who deserves more the name of liar?”).—Huther very justly says that Baumgarten-Crusius has altogether missed the Apostle’s meaning in his explanation: “What is an erroneous doctrine, if not etc.”—In the sentence εἰ μὴ ὁ ἀρνούμενος, the term εἰ μὴ is=nisi, except; εἰ οὐ, si non would be inapplicable (Winer, p. 499) cf. 1Jn_5:5; Luk_17:18; Rom_11:15, etc. The negative οὐκ in the sentence: ὅτι ̔Ιησοῦς οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ Χριστὸς might have been omitted, since it is preceded by ἀρνούμενος; but the affirmation of the liar is fully indicated, although it is couched in the form of a negation; this is in perfect agreement with the genius of the Greek language. Similar terms are found Luk_20:27; Gal_5:17; Heb_12:19; cf. Kühner, II. p. 410; Winer, p. 532 β. The essential feature and the height of the lie of the antichrist is this: Jesus is not the Christ, the Saviour promised by and come from the Father, the λόγος σὰρξ γενόμενος; this is the gnostic error which does not distinguish Jesus from Christ, but tears them asunder and thus constitutes the strongest antithesis to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The reference therefore is neither to the form of Jewish unbelief that Jesus is not omnium hominum patronus (Semler) nor to the two forms of heresy one of which denies that Jesus was the Eternal Word, and the other that the Eternal Word became flesh (Besser following Tertullian), [who says: de Præscript, c. 1John 33: Joh. in ep. eos maxime antichristos vocat, qui Christum negarent in carne venisse et qui non putarent Jesum esse Filium Dei; illud Marcion, hoc Ebion vindicavit.”—Wordsworth, following Irenæus and Waterland, refers also to Cerinthus and his followers, who denied that Jesus was the Christ, dividing Jesus from Christ; and they denied the Son, because they did not acknowledge that Jesus was personally united with the Word, the Eternal Son of God; nor that the Word was the only begotten of the Father; and so they disowned the divine Sonship of Jesus and Christ; and thus they denied the Father and the Son.”—M.]. The reference is only to one lie.

This is the antichrist who denieth the Father and the Son.—̔Ο ἀντίχριστος here and ὁ ψεύστης in the preceding clause, are evidently identical, and for the very reason that the liar denies Christ [or as Huther puts it: the liar, who denies the identity of Jesus and Christ, is the antichrist.—M.]. John adds “a new particular, exhibiting the wholly fatal consequence of that antichristian lie,” (Düsterdieck) to this name in the following clause: ὁ ἀρνούμενος τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὸν υἱόν; here, to use the terse language of Luther, John knocks the bottom out of the barrel.—The antichrist denies also the Father. First he denies Christ and then proceeds to deny that He is the Son of and with the Father until he reaches the extreme position of denying the Father Himself. The Χρίστος belongs to history, to the economy of salvation. The idea υἱός reaches further, even down to the innermost Being of God; the denial of the Son violates the very Being of God, consequently the Father and thus far must it come with one who denies Christ. In Jesus appeared as Christ, as the Saviour of the world, the Son of the Father full of grace and truth, the Eternal Word which is from the beginning, and in the Son is manifested the Being of the Father, His Spirit and His Love, so that the knowledge of the Father is impossible without the knowledge of the Son. Hence he who denies Christ is led to the point that he has an ideal conception of God of his own making, an εἵδωλον, as Huther puts it, but not the true God, [Huther, to whom Braune is indebted for the thought, puts the logical sequence more lucidly than the latter; he says: He who denies the identity of Jesus and Christ, denies first the Son, for the Son is none other than ̔Ιησοῦς ό Χριστός (neither an Aeon called Christ who did not become man, nor Jesus who is not Christ, or according to Joh_1:14, who is not the Logos); but whoso denies the Son, denies also the Father not only in as far as Father and Son are logically convertible terms, but because the Being of the Father manifests Itself only in the Son and because all true knowledge of the Father is conditioned by the knowledge of the Son, so that the God of those who deny the Son is not the true God, but a false creation of their own thoughts—an εἵδωλον.—M.].

1Jn_2:23. Every one that denieth the Son, hath also not the Father [neither hath he the Father].—Here is the progression from denying (ἀρνεῖσθαι) to having (ἔχειν), and from the particular (ὁ ψεύστης) to the general (πᾶς).—’Αρνούμενος evidently cannot be without an object, so that we have to connect πᾶς ὁ ἀρνού,ενος τὸν υἱὸν, but not: every one that denieth hath not the Son also (hath not) the Father; neither ὁ ἀρνούμενος nor the immediately succeeding ὁ ὁμολογῶν can be independent subjects, and πατέρα joined to υἱὸν cannot be governed by ἔχειν as in 2Jn_1:9.—Ἁρνεῖσθαι τὸν υἱὸν signifies to disown the Eternal Word of the Father, the Logos (not only in Jesus who without the Logos is not and cannot be the Christ, but absolutely), and as such disowning implies not only mere ignorance or a limited understanding, but also infirmity and impurity of the heart and the will, it points to a separation of man from the Son of God, so that it becomes an οὺκ ἔχειν, and contains and operates an οὐκ ἔχειν 2Jn_1:9. It is therefore “habere in agnitione et communione (Bengel), a possession in vital fellowship (Düsterdieck); “habere in mente et fide, in ore et confessione” (a Lapide), “in faith and in love” (de Wette), “in knowledge, faith and confession” (Lücke). False are the expositions of Socinus (“non habere opinionem, quod Deus sit”), Grotius (“non cognoscere Deum seu quæ sit ejus voluntas erga humanum genus”), Episcopius and others.—Οὐδὲ emphatically denotes the further loss that one cannot separate oneself from the Son without giving up the Father. The Apostle now concludes affirmatively:

He that confesseth the Son hath the Father also.—On ὁμολογεῖν see above on 1Jn_2:9. It is an act of the inner life and of a more intimate fellowship. Cf. Mat_10:32; Rom_10:10. [Düsterdieck: “In the denial of the Son is involved necessarily the denial of the Father, since the Father cannot be known without the Son, and the Father cannot be received, believed on, loved, by any man, without the Son, or otherwise than through the Son, i.e. the Son manifested in the flesh, the Christ, which is Jesus. So that in John’s development of the argument there are three essentially connected points: denial of the Christ, of the Son, of the Father. The middle link of the chain, the denial of the Son of God, shows how the denial of the Father is of necessity involved in the denial of Christ. And the cogency of this proof is made yet more stringent by another equally unavoidable process of argument. The antichristian false doctrine consists mainly in a negation, in the denial of the fundamental truth, that Jesus is the Christ. But in this is involved the denial of the Essence of the Son as well as of the Father, and again in this denial is involved the losing, the virtual not having of the Son and of the Father. In the sense of John, we may say, taking the first and last steps of his argument and leaving out the intervening ones: He who denieth that Jesus is the Christ, hath not the Father. And this necessary connection between denying and not having is perfectly clear, the moment we understand the ethical character, the living realism of John’s way of regarding the subject. As (1Jn_2:23) we cannot separate the knowledge and confession of the Christ, the Son, the Father, from the having, the real possession of, the practical fellowship with, the actual remaining in the Son and the Father, so conversely, together with the denial is necessarily given the not having: together with the loss of the truth of the knowledge, the loss of the life which consists in that knowledge (Joh_17:3). In such a connection, the confession of the truth is as essential on the one side, as the denial on the other. Each is the necessary manifestation of the belief or unbelief hidden in the heart. And this ὁμολογεῖν is not to be understood of the “confessio cordis, vocis et operis,” (Bede), but only as 1Jn_1:9, of the confession of the mouth (στόματι ὁμολογεῖται, Rom_10:9, see Joh_12:42). It is parallel with φέρεινδιδαχήν 2Jn_1:7; 2Jn_1:10; and indicates the definite utterance of the doctrine which was made known by the Apostolic preaching, 1Jn_2:24.”—M.].

Paternal exhortation founded on promises, 1Jn_2:24-25.

1Jn_2:24. Ye, let that which ye have heard from the beginning, abide in you.—The sentence is anacoluthic. It is well explained by Theophylact: ἐκεῖνοι μὲν οὖν οὕτως ὑμεῖς δὲ ἃπερ ἠκούσατε ἀπ̓ ἁρχῆς—φυλάττετε παρ ἑαυτοῖς.—ὑμεῖς therefore must not be connected with ἠκούσατε, as if it were a mere transposition; there would be no reason whatsoever for such a connection and no reason or necessity for such an emphasis. So in 1Jn_2:27, and frequently. See Winer §. §. 28, 3; 64, 2. d. Kühner II, 156. Hence the explanations of Bengel (“antitheton, est in pronomine; ideo adhibetur trajectio”), de Wette (“ὑμεῖς is really the subject of the relative sentence, placed before”), and others are erroneous. Neither can ὑμεῖς be the pure Vocative (Ebrard, Paulus), nor be taken as an absolute Nominative (Myrberg).—The spurious οὐν after ὑμεῖς is not improper per se (Düsterdieck in opposition to de Wette with whom Huther agrees), for it is not an antithesis of what goes before, which is also assumed by Theophylact, because the preceding sentence closes affirmatively thus: ὁ ὁμολογῶν τὸν υἱὸν, καὶ τὸν πατέρα ἕχει; and this is the ground of the present exhortation.—On ὅ ἡκούσατε cf. 1Jn_2:7. John points to the apostolical announcement. ’Απ’ ἀρχῆς is more clearly defined by it (ex quo institui cœpistis in primis christianæ religionis rudimentis, Beza, so also Lücke and others). There is no necessity to think of the prima ecclesiæ nascentis tempora (Bede). The substance of ὅ, not ἅ, seems to be simple. But it is not enough to understand in general evangelium, Christi (Calvin), or the truth that Jesus is the Christ (Huther, Lücke), or θεολογούμενον τὸν χριστὸν (Theophylact), but we had better understand with Bengel (de patre et filio) the theologoumenon of the Father and the Son besides that fundamental truth (Düsterdieck), as indicated in the preceding verses.—̓Εν ὑμῖν μενέτω describes ἕχειν as a possession that has to be kept., The preposition must preserve its proper meaning; that which has been heard must “be in dwelling within as something that determines the life” (Neander). This meaning is also urged by the parallel passage Joh_15:1-10, where μένειν appears as a favourite expression of our Lord. In the sentence immediately following it is indeed impossible to render ἐν, with. The same holds good here. Hence Theophylact’s παρὰ, and Luther’s with are false. The truth and doctrine as announced by the Apostles “is really to dwell in them, as a living power in their hearts” (Düsterdieck), and if that takes place, ἐὰν ἐν ὑμῖν μείνῃ ὅ ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς ἡκούσατε,

If in you—emphatically placed first—abides that which ye have heard from the beginning, ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father.—Bengel well observes: καὶ: vicissim. Düsterdieck hits the mark: “John denotes by the position of καὶ before ὑμεῖς the promised consequence which will correspond with the indicated destination while at the same time he makes prominent the fine turn contained in the thoughtful change of ἐν ὑμῖν μείνῃ and ὑμεῖς ἐν τῷ υὶῷ μενεῖτε.” The reciprocal effect of the Word abiding in you and of the Church abiding in Christ does not refer to the origin of the relation of the Church and of her conduct, but only to the further development of the same. But the expression and its order intimate that the word must first be brought, preached and explained, and then be heard, received and kept, and that it must have found in individual Christians an element in which it is vitally efficient, even as it is full of life, in order to enable them to have (ἔχειν) and to live in Christ as their element. ἐντῷ υίῷ stands naturally before καὶ τῷ πατρὶ because the Son is the Mediator of this life-fellowship. Hence Theophylact’s exposition, based on Joh_17:2; Joh_17:21 : κοινωνοὶ αὐτοῦ ἔσεσθε, goes hardly far enough. The life of believers must really and essentially be rooted in God, derive nourishment, grow and mature to completeness from Him. Faith has not only brought news and intelligence and become acquainted with God, but has entered into personal intercourse with Him and carries away from Him the separate gifts, benefits and powers. The possession of this life is not left to the distant future, although the life is an eternal life, but the object of Christian hope in respect of its perfection and at the same time something present and the object of present experience; to speak with Calvin: deum se totum nobis in Christo fruendum dedit, not dabit (Düsterdieck). Besides the principal passage Joh_15:1 sqq. the following places are very similar Joh_6:56; Joh_17:23; Gal_2:20; 1Co_3:16; Eph_3:17. Hence the evaporating and diluting views of Grotius (“conjunctissimi Patri et filio eritis, summo eorum favore et amicitia fruemini”) Semler (“sitis certi, nobis patere omnem hanc felicitatem unice veram”) and others, as well as the scholastic, orthodox views of Schmid (“gratiosa filii et Patris inhabitatio”) and J. Lange (“unio cum deo mystica, communio cum eo jam inchoata, communicatio, per quam omnes regni divini dotes homini in usum sanctum et beatum contingunt”), are insignificant to bring out the mind and the thoughts of John in their living fulness.

1Jn_2:25. And this is the promise which He hath promised us, the life eternal.—Αὕτη ἐστίν should be explained here as in 1Jn_2:23; 1Jn_5:11; 1Jn_5:14 where the same words occur in the same position or as in 1Jn_1:5 : καὶ ἔστιν αὕτη; the reference is to the words which follow—τὴνζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον. The substance or object of ἐπαγγελία is qualified here by a Substantive, while the substance or object of ἀγγελία or ἐντολή or μαρτυρία or παῥῥησία in the other passages is indicated by a clause connected with ὅτι or ἵνα according to the context. Instead of the Accusative (ζωὴν), the Nominative (ζωὴ) ought to have been in apposition with ἐπαγγελία, but it was both attracted as apposition to the relative clause ἥν αὐτὸς ἐπηγγείλατο ἡμῖν annexed in the same case as ἥν. See Winer, p. 552 sq. Therefore manere in filio et patre is not the ἐπαγγελία and ἡ ζωὴ ἡ αἰώνιος not a pure apposition, so that the abiding itself is described as eternal life (Sander, Besser), but “the life eternal is the promise” (so Huther and most commentators). The ἐπαγγελία is promissio, consequently not res promissa (J. Lange, Estius), as if it were true contrary to the genius and usage of Greek to add ἥν—ἐπηγγείλατο. Αὐτὸς designates Him “who is the centre of this whole section” [Huther), that is Christ, and neither the Father (Hunnius), nor the Father through the Son (Socinus). But ἡ ζωὴ ἡ αἰώνιος, as the substance and object of the ἐπαγγελία of the Son, is not viewed as a gift remote from and subsequent to this promise, but as present and experienced, acquired and enjoyed wherever the pre-requisite of the promise is complied with, namely the abiding of the word in you. Where the promise applies, it is forthwith fulfilling itself. Therefore it is not said that we should acquire the life eternal, but that at which this promise is aimed is simply mentioned and connected by attraction with ἐπηγγείλατο.—Καὶ accordingly has here its ordinary force as copula, connecting this sentence with the one preceding, adding and explaining something implied, but not yet particularly mentioned in the preceding sentence; the reference is to something directly connected with abiding in God; καὶ therefore must not be taken αὶτιολογικῶς (Oecumenius) or as designating the further consequence of holding fast the Gospel (Lücke). Düsterdieck strikingly observes: “The present reality of eternal life in believers is no more annulled by the fact that it is not yet perfected in them than that inversely continued growth, a holy and fruitful development, and the final glorious perfection are excluded by its real possession.”

Conclusion, with repeated warnings and exhortations 1Jn_2:26-28.

1Jn_2:26. These things I have written unto you concerning those who deceive you.—Here ταῦτα connected with ἔγραψα refers back to the preceding verses, and the object περὶ τῶν πλανώντων ὑμᾶς points back as far as 1Jn_2:18. The πλανῶντες ὑμᾶς are the antichrists, and denotes that they are dangerous per se, really and not only unsuccessfully dangerous, as is evident from 1Jn_2:19. [It is doubtful whether the reference to 1Jn_2:19 warrants the inference of their actual success in the case of those whom the Apostle is addressing. The deceivers themselves had seceded; that is all we can gather from 1Jn_2:19, and that they were anxious to deceive others we learn from this verse, but nothing is said of their having been successful in their endeavour—M.]. This is also intimated by the Accusative ὑμᾶς and 2Jn_1:8; Mat_24:5; Mat_24:11; Mat_24:24. [This is certainly a singular conclusion, for ὑμᾶς indicates that they, the readers of the Epistle, the Church, are the object of the deceiver’s endeavours.—M.]. The word itself denotes an act, a continuing activity, and therefore more than a “studium, conatus,” “seducere conantibus” (Bengel, Huther). [See Apparat. Critic. 1Jn_2:26, note 27.—M.]. Hence the reiterated exhortation to fidelity.

1Jn_2:27. And you—the ointment which ye received from Him, abideth in you, and ye have no need that any one teach you.—Thought, expression and construction, as in 1Jn_2:20-21 : καὶ ὑμεῖς τὸ χρῖσμα—φυλάττετε=μένει ἐν ὑμῖν. From ὑμᾶς, 1Jn_2:26, the Apostle takes καὶ ὑμεῖς, and contrasting them with οἱ πλανῶντες, places said words emphatically in anteposition, for they would be too strongly emphasized if we were to connect them with the relative clause. cf. 1Jn_2:24. Tò χρῖσμα here, as χρῖσμα, 1Jn_2:20, is in the Accusative, but must not be connected with the relative clause, per trajectionem. The Article denotes what is known and what has already been mentioned. Ἐλάβετε distinctly marks their reception and points to a greater obligation than the previous reference to possession (ἔχετε, 1Jn_2:20). The gift is not without its task and work, here, under the impulse of gratitude. Ἀπ̓ αὐτοῦ of course designates Him round whom the Apostle’s thoughts revolve as round their centre, the same who is deseribed in ἀπὸ τοῦ ἁγίου, Christ, 1Jn_2:25. This verse proves that τοῦ ἁγίου, 1Jn_2:20, relates to Christ. (Huther). While the Future was used in 1Jn_2:24 (μενεῖτε), we have here the Present (μένει) in order to express the Apostle’s certain assurance (Huther) and to exhort at the same time to that which he does expect. Bengel (“Habet hic indicativus perquam subtilem adhortationem (conferendam ad 2Ti_3:14) qua fideles, a deceptatoribus sollicitatos, ita iis respondere facit: unctio in nobis manet: non egemus doctore: illa nos verum docet: in ea doctrina permanebimus. Vide quam amœna sit transitio ab hac sermocinatione ad sermonem directum versu sequenti“Manet in vobis: manebitis in Illo” correlata).—Καὶ, and because the Holy Spirit is and abideth in you (Bengel: et ideo), οὐ χρείαν ἔχετε, ye have no need whatever; thus is brought out here the αὐτάρκεια θεοδιδάκτων, and we have here a new particular, which was not expressed in 1Jn_2:20. The construction with ἵνα occurs also Joh_2:25; Joh_16:30.—Τοῦ διδάσκειν, Heb_5:12. The Infinitive only, Mat_3:14; Mat_14:6; 1Th_1:8; 1Th_4:9. This teaching is taken here not as a simple consequence, but as the end and aim because of the condition of the persons to be taught. Love prompts thereto, for love deems it its duty and cherishes the intention to teach. Hence the meaning is: “You are not at all in the situation that somebody should or ought to teach you” (Düsterdieck after Lücke and against Huther, who takes ἵνα in a weakened sense and thinks that it is simply used to indicate the object). Hence we may think also of Apostolical instruction, fraternal encouragement and (with reference to τις 1Jn_2:21) friendly teaching, perhaps that of the Apostle himself (Bengel, de Wette, Lücke, Düsterdieck). There is no occasion here to think of πλανῶν; so Semler, Spener, (τὶς=who asserts a new revelation), Sander, Gerlach, Besser. But with reference to πάντα 1Jn_2:20 and περὶ πάντων we must not restrict ἵνα διδάσκῃ ὑμᾶς to instruction concerning the false teachers (as Lücke does), although that is included (Huther).—It is important to bear in mind that this passage does not hold out the least encouragement, or give support, to the vagaries of fanatics, because the Holy Spirit works on the basis of the word given and received, and does not communicate any thing new, but only imparts to believers clearer perceptions and views of that which they already have.

But as the ointment of Him teacheth you concerning all things, and is true and is not lie, and as it hath taught you, so abide in Him.—As we read τὸ αὐτοῦ χρῖσμα and not τὸ αὐτὸ χρῖσμα, it is only necessary to observe that Bengel (“idem semper, non aliud atque aliud, sed sibi constans, et idem apud sanctos omnes) finds here the unchangeableness, and Düsterdieck and others the identity of the chrism, which unceasingly teaches believers and which they have received from Him, the Christ; our reading brings out this identity and also reiterates its origin: [See Appar. Crit. 1Jn_2:27, note 29, where the other reading is advocated, according to which we render “the same ointment,” i.e., the identical χρῖσμα, ὃ ἐλάβετε.—M.].—The structure of this sentence presents peculiar difficulties. Ἀλλὰ introduces the antithesis μένετε ἐν αὐτῷ. While, on the one hand, the Apostle had assured them that they have no need of being taught by any one, because they have the Spirit reminding them of the words of the Lord and leading them into all truth, he now declares, on the other, and by way of antithesis, that they have need of abiding faithful with Him. Hence the words in parenthesis belong to the first ὡς, although the vivacity [of the Apostle’s diction] which never repeats without indicating some new feature, has occasioned various modifications. The exhortation: μένετε ἐν ἀυτῷ requires fidelity toward and steadfastness with Christ, as is unmistakable from the context and 1Jn_2:28. Erasmus explaining ἐν τῷ χρίσματι erroneously thinks of the Holy Spirit, and Baumgarten-Crusius of the doctrine of the Spirit, while Schottgen strikingly observes: “in Christo, quem Johannes semper in mente habet.” The motive for abiding with Christ is: τὸ αὐτοῦ χρῖσμα διδάσκει περὶ πάντων. Hence the context also recommends the well authenticated αὐτοῦ [the authorities on Braune’s own showing are all the other way; they stand thus: αὐτοῦ C. Sin (?) against αὐτὸ A. B. (?) G. K.—M.]; it is the ointment of the Holy Ghost from Him [αὐτοῦ], Christ, with [ἐν?] whom they are to remain; and this ointment teaches them concerning all things, as we read 1Jn_2:20 : οἴδατε πάντα. But not only the extent of that concerning which they are taught of the Holy Spirit is the motive for his exhortation that they should abide with Him. The chief motive is the characteristic: καὶ άληθές ἐστιν. The χρῖσμα is called absolutely ἀληθὲς, implying of course that that also which it teaches, is true; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (Joh_14:17), therefore He leadeth you also into all truth (Joh_16:13). So Düsterdieck; also Lücke, de Wette, Brückner, Ebrard. There is no ground for restricting the reference to that which the χρῖσμα teaches, as do Oecumenius, Theophylact, Luther, Neander, Besser, Huther. The importance of the true essence and substance of the χρῖσμα occasions the additional clause which denies all lie: καὶ οὐκ ἐστὶν ψεῦδος, and lie is not, is not extant. John evidently here recurred to the thought expressed in 1Jn_2:21 : πᾶν ψεῦδος ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας οὐκ ἔστιν, and that there is no lie where the Spirit teaches. Now the Apostle resumes with the fuller form καθὼς that which he had begun with ἀλλ’ ὡς, and moreover, by way of reminding them that the Holy Spirit had taught them for some time: καθὼς ἐδίδαξεν ὑμᾶς. This Aorist after the preceding Present ought not to occasion any difficulty; and the καὶ before καθὼς instead of the ἀλλὰ before ὡς is readily accounted for by the one immediately preceding it; the sentence, thus resumed, connects with the testimony of the truth of the Spirit and His teaching; agreeably to which He has taught and teaches believers. Hence we should not divide the second clause of this verse. into two parts (with Luther, Calvin, Baumgarten-Crusius, Sander, Brückner, Besser, Huther, and others), so that ἀλλ’ ὡς τὸ αὐτοῦ χρῖσμα διδάσκει ὑμᾶς is the first antecedent, and καὶ ἀληθές ἐστιν καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ψεῦδος its consequent, and again καὶ καθὼς ἐδίδαξεν ὑμᾶς is the second antecedent, and μένετε ἐν αὐτῷ its consequent. The explanation given by us is supported by Oecumenius, Theophylact, Lücke, de Wette, Neander, Düsterdieck, Ewald and others. [This applies only to the structure of the sentence, not to the exposition of the passage. As to the former we cannot but think that the one adopted by Huther and the many authorities who agree with him, is preferable to that of Braune, and on the following grounds: 1st, it assigns to περὶ πάντων its proper position, whereas in the former view is no relation whatsoever to μενεῖτε(μένετε) of the consequent; 2d, ἀλλὰ indicates that the Apostle is about to introduce an antithesis to οὐ χρείαν ἔχετε, a sentence in which the teaching of the χρῖσμα is to be described as exempting them from the necessity of another human teacher, and 3d, because the clause καὶ οὐκ ἔστι ψεῦδος added to ἀληθές ἐστι raises this thought above the character of a mere parenthetical and secondary observation, and stamps it as the leading thought. These are the grounds on which Luther, Calvin, Baumgarten-Crusius, Sander, Brückner, Besser, Huther, and many more, deem it preferable to divide the whole into two clauses, and to take καὶ ἀληθές ἐστι καὶ οὐκ ἐστι ψεῦδος as the consequent of the first clause. “But as the anointing teaches you all things, so it is true and is no lie,” etc. (Luther).—M.].

The conclusion of the whole section, 1Jn_2:28.

1Jn_2:28. And now, little children, abide with [in, ἐν] him.

Καὶ νῦν connects the exhortation, repeated on account of its great importance and already expressed as a hope and in confidence 1Jn_2:27, with the preceding verses. Καὶ νῦν occurs very often (Joh_17:5; Act_3:17; Act_4:29; Act_7:34; Act_10:5; Act_22:16; 2Th_2:6), or καὶ νῦν ἰδοὺ (Act_13:11; Act_20:22; Act_20:25), or νῦν οὖν (Act_16:36; Act_23:15), on the other hand ἀλλὰ νῦν (Luk_22:36), νῦν δὲ (Joh_8:40; Joh_9:41; Joh_15:22; Joh_15:24; Joh_18:36), but always so that out of the originally sentient description of the present there has sprung a certain logical significance in order to mark the consequences from a present situation, to draw an inference or conclusion, to annex the features involved in a given case or to denote an antithetical relation (Düsterdieck). Hence Paulus errs in rendering: “Even already now—as in opposition to the Parthian-magian doctrine, that union with God cannot take place except in the future kingdom of light.”—The seasonable address τεκνία frees the Apostle’s earnestness from all severity, and intensifies his exhortation as a paternal right, by reminding them of the fellowship of love as the consequence of his Apostolical discharge of duty. Repetitio est præcepti cum blanda appellatione, qua paternum erga eos amorem declaret” (Estius). It is inconceivable how Socinus applies the ἐν αὐτῷ not to Christ, but to Deus per Christum, and how Semler could hit upon this doctrine. Rickli, who explains 1Jn_2:27 of abiding in the confession that Jesus is the Christ, suggests here abiding in righteousness.—Now follows a reference to the judgment.

That if He shall be manifested we may have confidence and not be shamed away from Him at His coming.—Since ἐὰν and not ὅταν is the true reading, we have here not an intimation of the time, or the nearness of the time, but of the reality of the manifestation of Christ (Huther, Düsterdieck). Although the same word is applied to our Lord’s appearing in flesh, in the form of a servant (1Jn_3:5; 1Jn_3:8. ἐφανερώθη), still it may be applied with equal propriety to the future manifestation of His glory as in Col_3:4. That will be manifested which as yet is hidden. The Apostle now passes to the first person Plural: παῤῥησίαν σχῶμεν. He ever places himself under the laws (1Jn_1:6 sqq.; 1Jn_2:2 sq.; 1Jn_3:16; 1Jn_3:18 sqq.) and promises (1Jn_3:1 sqq.; 1Jn_3:21; 1Jn_4:17; 1Jn_5:11; 1Jn_5:20), applicable to all without being able to exclude himself from the hope here presented (de Wette, Düsterdieck). Hence it is not from modesty (S. Schmid), nor because he would suffer loss if any members of his Church were falling away (Sander). Παῤῥησία is literally frankness, free-spokenness (Act_4:13; Act_4:29; Act_4:31; Act_26:26; Act_28:31; 1Th_2:2) then confident assurance with respect to all the threats and terrors of the judgment. The Vulgate translates fiducia, Luther properly freudig (vreidic i.e. free), Freudigkeit (vreidicheit i.e. freeness), which sheer ignorance has turned into joyful (freudig) and joyfulness (Freudigkeit). Compare Vilmar pastoral-theolog. Blätter 1861, Nos. 1. 2; Jütting, Biblisches Wörterbuch (1864) s. v.—A Strasburg edition of 1537, indeed, has already Freudigkeit, but the original word is Freydigkeit (Nürnberg ed. 1524), Freydigkeyt (Wittenberg ed. 1525), Freidigkeit (1530), and in a sermon on Joh_4:16-21 he speaks of boldness (Trotz) in the last day. The Greek Scholiasts and Lexicographers explain the word by ἄδεια, ἐξουσία, ἡ ἐπὶ τοῖς κακίστοις εὔτολμος ἀπολογία. The ordinary antithesis is αἰσχύνεσθαι (Pro_13:5; Php_1:20) to be ashamed, to shame oneself or feel ashamed, so as to depart from Him the Judge. The preposition ἀπὸ therefore is not=ὑπὸ (Socinus), nor=coram (Luther, Ewald), nor both together (S. Schmid, Sander), but=away from (Calvin, Beza, de Wette, Düsterdieck, Huther); but it is necessary to retain the Passive and not the Middle, because we do not retire and withdraw ourselves, but are rejected and driven away. Cf. Mat_25:41. It is impossible to agree with Erasmus, who says: “ut illum non pudeat nostri.”—Παρουσία occurs only here in John’s writings, but often elsewhere (Mat_24:8; Mat_24:27; Mat_24:37; Mat_24:39; 1Co_15:23; 1Th_2:19 etc.), corresponds with φανερωθῇ, and as φανερωθῇ answers to παῤῥησίαν ἔχειν so παρουσία answers to αἰσχύνεσθαι. All this, connected with ἵνα, constitutes a motive for abiding with Him, walking in the light, in fellowship with Him.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The unmistakable reference here to the immanent Trinity is theological in the strictest sense of the word. According to the final clause of 1Jn_2:22 and 1Jn_2:23 we have here a reference to a paternal relation with respect to the Son, and to a filial relation with respect to the Father existing above and before the world within the Godhead. The Son is not only a power or principle before He became personal in the Christ, but He is personal in virtue of his Being, the Son of the Father who is a Person, the Son who as the Image of the Father is also a Person. But He became a historical Person, a Person belonging to the history of man in the Christ who did appear in Jesus. See Exegetical and Critical.

2. The knowledge of God without the knowledge of Christ is impossible, because the knowledge of God is impossible without fellowship with God, which is solely the result of confession of Jesus the Christ.

3. Fellowship with God is not the act of men but the act of God through Christ. It begins in the word which is preached and heard, continues in the communication and reception of the Chrisma, the Holy Spirit, and it consists in the truth and in the constancy of faith and confession. The Word of Christ and the Spirit given of Him must first come to us and do His work and in us and then we shall be able to abide with Him in virtue of His power.

4. The question here is as to what constitutes the difference between esse in ecclesia and esse de ecclesia. As surely as these two conditions must be distinguished from each other, so certain it is that in point of fact they do coëxist alongside each other. So Confess. Aug. Art. 8.: “Quid sit ecclesia?—in hac vita multi hypocritæ et mali admixti—; Apol. IV. de ecclesia §. 1John 11: malos nomine tantum in ecclesia esse, non re, bonos vero re et nomine: Hieronymus enim ait: qui ergo peccator est aliqua sorde maculatus, de ecclesia Christi non potest appellari nee Christo subjectus dici.”—“Like tares they stood in the same field alongside the wheat (Mat_13:23 sqq.) and had part in the divine manifestations of grace whereby the whole field is made fertile and the genuine wheat brought to ripeness. But they shewed themselves to be tares and by their seceding did execute on themselves the divine judgment. Augustine and Bede, with whom Luther agrees in his second exposition, also compare the antichrists with the evil humours of the body. The body of Christ also, so long as it is undergoing the process of being cured, that is so long as it has not attained to perfect health through the resurrection, has such noxious humours (quandoquidem adhuc curatur corpus ipsius et sanitas perfecta non erit nisi in resurrectione mortuorum; sic sunt in corpore Christi, quomodo humores mali). Their expulsion liberates the body and enables it to attain unto perfect health (quando evomuntur, tunc relevatur corpus). But this does not happen to keep up Bede’s figure, with the providential care of God” (Düsterdieck).

5. The present section cannot be pressed into the service of predestinarianism. Augustine, indeed, says with reference to this passage (de bon. perse1Joh_2:11; Joh_2:8): “non erant ex nobis, quia non erant secundum propositum vocati, non erant in Christo electi ante constitutionem mundi—non erant prædestinati secundum propositum ejus, qui universa operatur.” So Calvin, Inst. III. 24, 7. But although Calvin the theologian [German “Dogmatiker,” not=dogmatist, i.e., one who is certain or presumes to say he knows, whether he be mistaken or in the right, but the teacher of a theological dogma—M.] cannot be corrected by Calvin the interpreter, yet Augustine the theologian can be corrected by Augustine the interpreter in his Tractat. ad h. 1., where he says: “De voluntate sua unusquisque aut antichristus, aut in Christo est; qui se in melius commutat, in corpore membrum est, qui autem in malitia permanet, humor malus est.” The Apostle distinguishes inward and true Christian fellowship from that which is only outward and in appearance; those who belong to the former are so thoroughly fettered in their believing and regenerated mind, that, as Lücke thinks, they can nevermore separate from that fellowship. It is, to use the striking language of the Oxymoron of Didymus, a voluntaria necessitas, but no contrarietas naturarum, although in the course of moral development there should arise a diversitas substantiæ.—The phrases οὐκ ἐξ ἡμῶν εἶναι and ἐξ ἡμῶν εἶναι used by the Apostle to denote simply the opposite results of the ethical life-process, which in the former case leads to ἐξελθεῖν and in the latter to μένειν μεθ’ ἡμῶν. But, as Augustine says, every Christian may become an antichrist, according as his will refuses to he determined to μένειν ἐν Χριστῷ, which beginning with the hearing of His word and advancing to πίστις εἰς αὐτόν, to childlike and unremitting trust and cleaving to Him, develops itself by ever determining guiding, strengthening, purifying and confirming the will, is a veritable history of the word heard with the outward ears and inwardly in the heart filling and conquering the heart until it has become wholly believing, but for all that may and does offer resistance at every point, so that it often does resist for some length of time and so undoes all its previous acquirements, that it often conceals unpardoned sins which may again draw it down or at least arrest its progress and bring it to the point that, unless it submit to being cleansed anew, it will apostatize and thus a Christian may become an antichrist, which is however of rare occurrence, because the eternal powers of the word of Christ and His Spirit are very strong and mighty and the heart of man has been created for and with special adaptation to said powers. Hence the universal experience that it is difficult to get to Christ through self-denying and world-renouncing penitence, but that it is even more difficult to get away from Christ through the denial of the conscience and of faith as well as of the word of Christ quickened in the conscience by faith,—and the Apostle speaks from this experience. But in all this there is neither predestination nor necessity, especially since the Apostle’s exhortation to abide leaves room for the possibility of their apostasy, as to the reality of which the Apostle confidently entertains no fear in the case of those who are vital Christians. Nor is it to be overlooked that John does not throw out the faintest allusion to the difference between the electi and vocati and the donum perseverantiæ. In the passage Heb_6:4-6 the lapse of the truly regenerate (as is evident from their description) is supposed to be possible, but the re-conversion of such apostates only is said to be impossible, so that we ought to be afraid. [Huther: the words εἰ ἦσαν ἐξ ἡμῶν, μεμενήκεισαν ἄν μεθ’ ἡμῶν contain the idea that he who truly belongs to the Church will never leave it, but he that leaves it shows thereby that he did not truly belong to it. This confidence of the Apostle in the love of the Lord which keeps and preserves those who are His, and in the fidelity of those who have been redeemed by Him, seems to contradict the idea pre-supposed in Heb_6:4-6, that they also who were once enlightened and had tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, can fall away. But John speaks here, as he does throughout his Epistle, absolutely, without any reference to the state of gradual development, from whence however it does by no means follow that he did not know it. The one circumstance that he exhorts believers, as such to abide in Christ, is sufficient to show that he does not wish to deny the possibility of their apostasy, all he is sure of, and rightly so, is this that he that does not abide, had never truly entered into fellowship with the Lord with his whole heart, but although he was touched by His love and felt somewhat of its power, he had not entirely abandoned and renounced the world.”—M.].

6. The Apostle here asserts a double law of historical development in its definite application to the development of the kingdom of God. “Evil by a gradual process of development culminates, then in the conflict between the kingdom of God and evil, the former develops itself, and at length, through a new coming of Christ in power, the kingdom of Christ is once more subdued.” (Neander). This is the one, and of the other the same author speaks thus: “In this respect also we shall see how the workings of one uniform law ever appear in the course of the development of the kingdom of God, that in good and evil there are certain individual personages constituting as it were, the centre and appearing especially as representatives of the conflicting principles, uniting and concentrating in themselves as one great whole, the fragments scattered in many individuals.” “When in the times before the Reformation the secularized Church under the secularized papacy, was especially instrumental under the cloak of Christianity to obscure and oppose true Christianity, people might believe that they saw in this the visible manifestation of antichrist, and Matthias of Janow, the Bohemian reformer before Huss, might suppose to have detected the effect of Satan’s craft in the circumstance that believers instead of identifying antichrist in the present, viz., the rule of the secularized Church and the sway of a superstition even unto the idolizing of the human, were beguiled into seeking it at some distant period.” The increasing revelation of the depths of evil in the world, runs therefore parallel to the development of the kingdom of God even up to its ultimate completion and both pass through personages in whom the former does concentrate. See also Düsterdieck: “The development of the Christian principle and that of the antichristian principle are reciprocally related. Christian truth cannot be revealed without forthwith exciting the contradiction of the darkness. The wheat and the tares grow together until they are ripe. The antichristian spirit works already in many antichrists; but the one antichrist is still future, still to come, and is only announced by his precursors. Although therefore the last hour has already come, yet its full close is still to come, viz., the real, personal advent of the Lord which will take place immediately after the appearance of the personal antichrist. But John did neither tell us when this antichrist would come nor give us a chronological clue to the exact time of the personal advent of Christ. In both respects he confines himself to the statement that the events are to take place.”—

7. Athough John in giving prominence to the marrow and vitalizing centre of Christianity, viz., to the belief that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, does not warrant us to undervalue the articulated confession of faith as a whole or as to its component parts, which are only developments of the pushing germ, he yet attaches, and for this very reason, the greatest importance to the faithfulness of abiding, the fides qui creditur, with reference to said centre.

8. His account of the χρῖσμα and its gifts, characteristically and emphatically adverts to the universal priesthood, indicating its origin and glory.

9. The “critical ability” (Düsterdieck) of Christians founded on the full knowledge or the truth, like the advancing knowledge of the truth itself, goes hand in hand with progressive holiness. The point throughout is not mere knowledge, tidings or information of a life in and of (from) God, but the actual possession and enjoyment of this life, the life itself and the personal converse of the human soul, with the living and revealed God; and it concerns man’s inmost and most profound being, which is neither the understanding nor the reason, but the will, and the point in question is not science but conscience.

10. It is only in the way of obedience to the word and will of God that man is able to keep and intensify fellowship with Him in order that he may become a partaker of the divine Being, the divine Nature. It is contrary to the will of God that man departs from the Being of God until he is wholly rejected.

11. The decision and the separation will not take place until the last, the last judgment; consider this.—

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See what time it is in the kingdom of God? 1. Hearken to the word which is preached (1Jn_2:18; 1Jn_2:24); 2. be led by the Spirit whom thou hast received (1Jn_2:20; 1Jn_2:27); 3. take note of the separations which take place in the Church (1Jn_2:19; 1Jn_2:22); 4. hold fast to Jesus the Christ, who is the Son of the Father (1Jn_2:26; 1Jn_2:28).—In all the separations in the Church be sure not to forget to decide.—In every separation the sorrow of having been deceived before is connected with the joy of

greater purity hereafter.—In the uncertainty as to who are true vital Christians take care lest thou lose the conviction that the vital Christian abides constant.—Act as Gideon did who encountering the Midianites numbering 135,000 with an army of 32,000 at the Lord’s bidding reduced the same by 22,000 and made a selection of 300 from the remaining 10,000 even as directed by the Lord, and then gained a glorious victory with them (Judges 7).—The source of the anointing is the Holy Ghost, its pre-requisite regeneration, its power an assured conviction of the importance of the truth, its impulse an earnest desire to bring it home to the hearts of others; it was a protection from the hierarchism and episcopalianism of the 2d and 3d centuries. Isa_41:15 applies to it. [I should rather say in more strict agreement with the text that the chrism of the Holy Ghost from Christ is a sure protection from any and every form of spiritual secessionism, separatism and individualism.—M.]. Because of a sorrowful experience in the Church do not give up the joy of the glory of the Church.—Comparison of the ointment as the figure or symbol of the Holy Spirit: 1, its value; 2, its use in the anointing of kings, priests and prophets; 3, its power of strengthening and stimulating the spirit of life; 4, its influence on a life well-pleasing to God; 5, its far-spreading fragrance.—The fundamental doctrine of salvation is: Jesus is the Christ. 1, With it and in it we find our way into the rich heart of God and bring God into our poor heart; 2, in opposition to it we bring eternal ruin into our heart and ourselves into eternal ruin. Or, 1, By it you learn the corrupting false teachers; 2, in it the true and living Christian shows himself: 3, out of it you pass to the inheritance of God.—Do not drive Christ and His word from thy heart, or Christ will drive thee from His kingdom.—1Jn_2:28. Confirmation-address.

Gregory:—“Nisi Spiritus Sanctus intus sit qui doceat, doctoris lingua extus in vanum laborat.”

Augustine:—“Cathedram in cœlo habet, qui intus docet.”

Luther:—It is dangerous and terrible to believe something against the uniform testimony, faith and doctrine of the universal holy Church, which has now thus held it unanimously in every place from the beginning these fifteen hundred years past.—Many a man has a paternoster round his neck and a rogue in his heart.

Starke:—As the betrayer of Christ was one of His most intimate Apostles, so antichrist did not arise among Jews or Turks, but in the very midst of Christendom.—The Church remaineth not without offences of which that is not least that within her fold there arise men who hold false doctrine and apostatize from the known, truth; the tares do not grow by themselves, but in the midst of the wheat.—Constancy in good is an infallible sign of a true Christian, just as temporizing and changeableness indicate a false heart.—Christians are anointed, and their name should daily remind them of what they owe to God and their neighbour as spiritual kings, priests and prophets.—A teacher ought not to despise his hearers, for they also, if they believe, are anointed with the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of divine truths, although there may be differences in the measure of their anointing.—He also denies Christ the Saviour, who does not prove in deed that He is His Saviour who has indeed delivered him from the guilt and punishment of sin.—We have need to be especially on our guard against the denial of Christ which takes place, not only in words and in doctrine, but also in our life.—The word of God must remain in the whole man, and not only enter his understanding.—A Christian, an anointed one, that is his name, but also the greatest prerogative to divine wisdom, it opens to him the school in which the most learned are seated below on the bench of humility, who follow in the simplicity of their heart, who know all things, and ever learn what they know, love and do.—As is a king without a kingdom, a ruler without subjects, a general without soldiers, so is a Christian without the anointing. Because the last coming of the Lord will be terrible, we should be diligent to be so well prepared that we may be found worthy to stand before the Son of Man.—The day of our Lord’s coming may properly be called the believers’ day of honour, for they shall be manifested, declared righteous, and advanced to the full enjoyment of heavenly blessing.

Spener:—It is a great blessing that God does not allow the heavenly [?] deceivers to remain in the Church but overrules it that they are made known and we learn to be on our guard against them, that they must manifest themselves and make themselves known, whereby the danger is lessened and believers rendered more cautious and prompted to be diligent in prayer and to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.—Even those who truly believe and have made great advances in the faith, may be deceived, and therefore let those who think that they stand, take heed lest they fall. None but those who have the Holy Spirit and the anointing can be sufficiently on their guard against the lies of antichrist. All other knowledge is too weak by far to be able to withstand temptation and spiritual conflicts.

Uhlhorn:—He only has God, who has Him as the Triune God. Let us only begin with what the Apostle puts in the middle, He that hath not the Son, neither hath he the Father, add that with which he begins, of the Son we can only know through the Holy Spirit, and conclude the statement in virtue of what the Apostle says, that the anointing cometh from Him who is holy: The Holy Ghost cometh from the Father and the Son.

Lavater:—Every one who is not an evangelical Christian, does not believe in Jesus Christ, is an atheist.

Heubner:—A hostile power, an opposition to Christianity, has stirred from the beginning. And this is a recommendation of Christianity; a proof of the mighty power of Christianity against evil, which is terrible to the wicked one. The more the good raises itself the more also does evil bestir itself. Where God builds a temple, Satan is sure to build a chapel by the side of it.—It serves also to exercise and try the soldiers of Christ. Without an opposing power, the divine drama would be without life or interest.—Unbelief which pretends that the kernel and characteristics of Christianity are irrational, is a very important epoch in this history.—Who thought Christianity imperilled by the growth of antichrist would betray great weakness of heart and understanding and want of confidence. The Christian should rejoice at every further manifestation: the end is drawing nearer: the catastrophe in the kingdom of Christ is the point to which the eyes of Christians are longingly directed.—The enemies of Christianity draw nourishment from the Church: it is in their interest not to suffer themselves to be deprived of the name “Christian;” they would then accomplish less and be less dangerous.—The manifestation of all, the good as well as the bad, is the design of the Kingdom of God. The evil cannot long conceal or disguise itself or stand back: it only waits for the time of coming out. God wills it thus. The appearance of evil tries and purifies the Church. It is a refreshing relief to Christians to see the separation of the unclean.—A Christian is insured and protected from false teachers. He has the Holy Spirit 1. Who interpenetrates every thing like precious perfume, enters into every thing, and imparts to it fragrance and the breath of life—to his thinking, judging, feeling and willing. The Christian is thereby clothed with a royal and priestly dignity in the Kingdom of God (Rev_1:6). The anointing is the signature of the Christian. 2. The Spirit enables him to try, to identify the spirit of error, to judge; to such a Christian no false teacher can be dangerous.—The Christian has a fine sense of discrimination (sagax odoratus); he quickly perceives the essence and tendency of every doctrine; hence his Christian severity of judgment and his antipathy to syncretism.—Bad opinions, seductive principles among Christians, originate not in Christianity. The Church of Christ must not be charged with the evil that is in it.—He that will not know God in Jesus—where else will he know God?—There is no revelation of God which resembles the revelation in Christ; if one is not satisfied with this revelation, which revelation will satisfy him?—Whether they like or do not like it, neologians are obliged to assert that true Christianity was unknown before them; for what they now call Christianity is known to the whole antiquity.—The true Christian faith is immutable and needs no perfecting.—This faith is of the utmost importance; our eternal salvation depends upon it; it is not a useless, subtle question raised by the schools, but it concerns the promise of eternal life, and the virtue of this promise depends on the Person of Jesus; only if He is truly the Son of God He is able to promise and give eternal life. This must attach us strongly to the faith, and those who have felt the power of this faith, live and die for this faith.—Even anointed Christians stand in need of warning and admonition, because deceivers are never quiet and because within us there is not wanting that which meets them half-way.—Other gifts decrease in the course of time, the Holy Spirit does not decrease. Other frames of mind and tendencies of thought change, the Holy Spirit does not change. Yield to the promptings of the Spirit and be vigilant lest thou mistake thy own spirit for the Holy Spirit and be deceived. Be pure and meek.—Abiding with Christ and in Him in steadfastness of faith and faithful following Him is the more honourable, the more fall away from Him, and it is necessary, because our acceptance depends on it. If one becomes unfaithful to Christ, how can he appear before Him with joyfulness [confidence?]? That thought has an overwhelming influence on the heart of a Christian. How shall unbelievers appear before Him who to please the world leave Christ, and esteem the world’s honours more highly than the grace of Christ? How well it would be if all men would only examine themselves in all their judging and doing; could you act thus in the presence of Jesus? would you dare to say such and such a thing in the presence of Jesus? would you dare to maintain such an opinion before Him? If you are honest and conscientious according to your interpretation, so that He may not even blame you, why have you twisted my words after your liking?

Besser:—It is the last hour. But those who read the history of the Church wrongly, and consider the time of her highest inward beauty and manifest power over the world to belong to an earthly future, will be inclined to suspect the holy Apostle, to have been in error for assuring us to have experienced the beginning of the last hour; those, on the other hand, who consider that the Sun of the Gospel shone in his brightest splendor, when in the preaching of the Apostles he came forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber and rejoiced as a giant to run his race from one end of the heavens back to the same end again and that there sounds through the whole history of the Church the sigh of the saints “Abide with us, Lord Jesus, for it is toward evening”—aye, that even her most glorious victories, like the victory of the Reformation, are only like the reflection of the setting sun on the darkening clouds,—those who see this cease to be surprised at what the Apostles tell us of the last hour and read the merciful cause of this prolonged duration of the last hour, prolonged for more than eighteen hundred years, in the words of the Apostle “the Lord is long-suffering to us-ward” (2Pe_3:9).—We must not only be on our guard against one antichrist, one great adversary and deceiver, but against a multitudinous progeny of the antichristian seed.—When somebody praised the sainted Oettinger shortly before his death, on account of his great wisdom, he replied with a smile: “Yes, I have learned many things; but the most precious knowledge I learned as a child in Luther’s Lesser Catechism, which comprises every thing which I desire to keep and carry away with me to the seeing face to face.”—A learner of the Catechism, that hath the Holy Spirit, is able so far to discover all errors which militate against the Gospel, that he is protected from deception and may immoveably stand on the foundation of his faith.—Neither the Jesus of the rationalists nor the Christ of the philosophers hurts the kingdom of Satan.—The antichrists showed themselves to be antitheists.—Declension begins with men’s loathing that which they have heard from the beginning (Rieger.)—Every true doctrine the assertion of which is assigned to the church during the time of her growth, is already contained in the treasury of Holy Scripture.

Johann Tauler had preached many a learned sermon when Nicolaus of Basle, the Waldensian, visited and told him: “You are a kind-hearted man and a great priest, but have not yet tasted in truth the sweetness of the Holy Spirit.” From that time Tauler sought the true Teacher in the Scripture and the cross, who teaches us more in one hour than all earthly teachers can teach us to the last day.

[Warburton:—The late appearance of antichrist was a doctrine so universally received in the primitive Church, that it was like a proverbial saying among them; and thence St. John takes occasion to moralize on the doctrine, and warn his followers against that spirit, which in after times was to animate “the man of sin.” “Little children,” says he, “it is the last time; and as ye have heard that antichrists shall come, even now there are many antichrists: whereby ye know that it is the last time.” As much as to say, we are fallen into the very dregs of time, as appears from that antichristian spirit, which now so much pollutes the Churches; for you know it is a common saying, that antichrist is to come in those wretched days. The Apostle goes on to employ the same allusion through the rest of the Epistle; 1John 5:22. 1Jn_4:3; 2Jn_1:7. Where we see the appellation “antichrist” is employed to signify an enemy of God and godliness in general, by the same figure of speech that Elias was designed in those times to signify a prophet, and Rachel, a daughter of Israel; and that in these times Judas is used for a traitor, and Nero for a tyrant. But as these convertible terms necessarily suppose that they originally belonged to persons of the like characters, who had them in proper, so does the name “antichrist” transferred by St. John to certain of his impious contemporaries, as necessarily suppose, that there was one who should arise in the latter times, to whom the title eminently belonged; as marked out in the prophecies by the proper name of antichrist.—M.].

[Hurd’s two sermons on 1Jn_2:18, the one entitled “Prophecies concerning Antichrist,” the other “Prejudices against the doctrine of Antichrist,” are well worth reading, as they embody much of the literature on the subject.—M.].

[Whitby:—To deny the Father here, is not to deny Him to be the true God, as the heathens did: but 1. to deny the truth of His testimony, see 1Jn_5:10; Joh_3:33; John 2. to deny the doctrine of the Father, or that doctrine which proceedeth from Him; “for He whom God hath sent, speaketh the words of God,” Joh_3:34. Whence it is evident, that he who denieth the Son, cannot thus retain the true knowledge of the Father; Joh_1:18; Mat_11:27. By Him alone can we come acceptably to the Father, so as to have life; for “He is the Way, and the Truth and the Life,” Joh_14:6. And by Him alone are we taught how to “worship the Father in spirit and in truth,” Joh_4:23-24. Hence Christ so often tells the Jews, they therefore wanted the true knowledge of the Father, because they knew not Him, Joh_8:19; Joh_14:7; Joh_16:3.—M.].

[Abp. Sharp:—Abundance of fanaticism, enthusiasm and other mischiefs have been brought into the Church of Christ, by the misinterpreting and misapplying of those texts which speak of the gifts of the Spirit, which some men so understand as to make no distinction between the times then and the times now.—(Joe_2:28; Act_2:17; Jer_31:34; 1Jn_2:27.)—Hence they conclude that in these days, which are the last days, the Spirit of God is poured upon all flesh, and that every one hath a right to expect immediate impulses and revelations, as to what he is to believe and to practise: that by this assistance of the Spirit, every brother may understand the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures, without the troublesome way of studying human learning; nay and may take upon himself the pastoral office, and become a guide and teacher of others, without any warrant from human authority, merely upon the impulse of the Spirit of God. These consequences have been drawn from these and such texts of Scripture: and so far have they been promoted and improved by several amongst us, that reason and prudence and all acquired learning, are rather accounted by them hinderances to the work of God’s Church, than any ways contributing to it. Nay, they are arrived to a pitch above the Scriptures themselves, which they look upon as a dead letter in comparison of the light within them, the witness, the anointing which they have received from above, which is the only measure with them of truth and falsehood, of good and evil. The colour, which these enthusiasts derive for this their notion from the letter of some passages of the Old and New Testament, would quite vanish, if they would but take care to distinguish between the effects of the Spirit, which belonged to the converting of the world, and those which were to be His constant permanent operations among such as were already Christians. There is no one will deny but the Apostles, and those in their times, had these inspirations, these revelations they speak of: and the texts, that they produce, are some of them plain proofs that those promises were made good. They did see visions, and were endowed with extraordinary talents of wisdom and knowledge, without human methods, and might expect particular impulses of the Holy Ghost upon occasions, where they wanted either light or direction; and all this was indeed little enough for the discharge of that great work they had upon their hands, namely, the bringing of the world over from Judaism and heathenism to Christianity. But that being done once, and the Gospel of Christ, and all things pertaining to it, being plainly left in writing by the Apostles or Apostolical men, as there would be from henceforward no need of those assistances of the Spirit, so it would be a vain thing to expect them. We are not to desire those immediate revelations, nor to expect that God should vouchsafe them, if we prayed for them. God hath declared all His will, that is necessary for us to know, by our Saviour and His Apostles: and the rules which they have given us, together with our own natural light and reason, and the other outward means and helps of instruction, which are every day at hand among us, are sufficient, abundantly sufficient, to guide and direct us, both as to belief and practice, through all the cases and emergencies that can ordinarily happen to us. And in extraordinary cases God will take care, some way or other, that we shall not be at a loss. And therefore to pretend to the Spirit in these days, either for preaching, or praying, or prophesying, or denouncing God’s judgments, or for any other thing, in such a way as implies immediate inspiration; or to set up a light within us, contrary to the light of reason, or different from the light of Scripture without us, is the extreme of folly, enthusiasm and madness.”—M.].

[The chrism Isaiah 1. a general gift, vouchsafed to all Christians;

2. not transient but permanent;

3. leads them into all truth;

4. moves them to the practice of all the precepts of Christ;

5. assures them of their Christian privileges; (children of God, members of Christ and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven);

6. teaches them in all things; they are therefore disciples and learners all the days of their life;

7. preserves their fellowship with the Father and with the Son; (abide).

8. and makes them the Temples of God.—M.].

Footnotes:

[25] [1Jn_2:18. ἐσχάτη ὥρα=the last hour.—M.]

[26]B. C. Sin. read ὅτι after ἡκούσατε. Est lectio difficilior.

[27]B. C. Sin. omit the Article before ἀντἱχριστος. In Sin. it is clearly a later addition. It would hardly have been omitted, had it been originally there. [Lachm. Tisch. Buttm. reject it.—M.]

[28] [German: “Even now have there come into existence” Lillie: “even now are there many become.”—M.]

[29][ὅθεν=whence.—M.]

[30] [German: “that there is a last hour.” Lillie: “that it is the last hour.”—M.]

[31] [1Jn_2:19. Better to retain the Greek order with German: “From us they went out.”—ἐξῆλθαν, A. B. C. Lach. Tisch. Buttm. Huther, is more authentic than ἐξῆλθον G. K., but less common.—M.]

[32][No doubt supplied by E. V. is arbitrary and unnecessary.—M.]

[33][No reason why μεμενήκεισαν should be rendered “continued,” since “abode” makes as good sense here as other forms of the same verb in other places. Better to render μένειν uniformly abide.—M.]

[34] [German: “but—that they might be made manifest,” i.e. nothing is supplied, although the context requires something to be supplied. E. V. supplies “they went out,” Beza, following the Syriac “egressi sunt ex nobis,” Wakefield: “this was done,” Newcome, “this hath come to pass,” Lillie “it was,” etc. See below in Exeget. and Critical.—M.]

[35] [German: “that not all are from us” better than the more inferential rendering advocated by Lillie “that none of them are of us,” and the less correct translation of E. V. “that they were not all of us.”

[36] [1Jn_2:20. German: “And.” There seems to be no necessity for “but,” although καί may here have slightly adversative force—M.]

[37] [German omits the Article before unction and renders “and ye have unction.”—M.]

[38] [German omits “ye;” B. omits καί before οἵδατε.—M.]

[39]B. Sin read πάντες instead of πάντα, August. “Ut ipsi vobis manifesti sint.”

[40] [1Jn_2:21. German: “and that every thing which is lie is not out of the truth,” but the rendering of E. V. is a happy inferential translation of the Greek idiom.—M.]

[41] [1Jn_2:22. German: “who is the liar.” The Article is emphatic here and must be retained.—M.]

[42] [German: “This is the antichrist, who.” οὕτος has demonstrative force.—M.]

[43] [1Jn_2:23. German: “Every one that denieth;” omnis qui, Vulg. Aug. Calv. Bengel, and “every one that” Greenfield, Allioli, de Wette, Lillie.—M.]

[44] [German: “Hath also not the Father.” Better render with Rhemish and most foreign versions “neither hath he the Father.”—M.]

[45]A. B. C. Sin. [Griesb., Scholz, Lachm., Tisch. Buttm. Wordsw. Lillie.—M.] have the final clause: “ὁ ὁμολογῶν τὸν υἱὸν καὶ τὸν πατέρα ἔχει,” and it is required by the parallel passage 2Jn_1:9 as well as by John’s fondness of antithesis. [ὁμολογῶν however should be rendered “confesseth” and not “acknowledgeth” as in E. V.—M.]

[46] [1Jn_2:24. German: “You, that which ye have heard from the beginning, let that abide in you.” In this rendering οὖν is left out; but the emphatic you, in the sense of as for you, is decidedly in favour of the German rendering; translate, “you, let that which ye have heard from the beginning, abide in you.”—A. B. C. Sin. Vulg. al. omit οὖν. M.]

[47] [German: “If that abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning, ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father.” The three-fold rendering of μένω in one verse: “abide, remain, continue,” adopted in E. V. should by all means be avoided. Lillie calls this sacrificing of the simple beauty and force of the original to “a great number of good English” words an “unprofitable exuberance.”—M.]

[48] [1Jn_2:25. German: “And this is the promise which He Himself;” αὐτός. The reference seems to be to an oral promise.—M.]

[49]A. C. Sin. read ἡμῖν. The context warrants the transition to the Plural.

[50] [German: “The eternal life.” The supplement in E. V. is hardly necessary, the Article is indispensable and the order “life eternal” seems preferable; see on the last point E. V. Mat_25:46; Joh_4:36; Joh_17:3; Rhemish version, Wakef. Macknight, Berleburg Bible, and Lillie.—M.]

[51] [1Jn_2:26. πλανώντων ὑμᾶς, “who would deceive you.” “The context (1Jn_2:20-21; 1Jn_2:27) shows that this is a case of the Present ‘de conatu, i.e. an endeavour or purpose’ (Buttm. § 137. n. 10), and so it is generally understood.” Lillie.—M.]

[52] [1Jn_2:27. German: “And you—the ointment which ye received from Him, abideth in you.”—M.]

[53] τὸ αὐτοῦ χρῖσμα is the reading of C. Sin., many versions (Syr. unctio quæ est a Deo) and fathers instead of τὸ αὐτὸ χρῖσμα A. B. G. K. and the Greek fathers.—Cod. Sin. reads really πνεῦμα afterwards corrected into χρῖσμα [or χάρισμα]; B reads χάρισμα. [But both in point of authority and in point of sense to τὸ αὐτὸ χρῖσμα seems to be the right reading. German, following the less authentic reading, renders “but as the ointment of Him;” E. V. follows τὸ αὐτὸχρῖσμα.—M.]

[54][καὶ ἀληθές ἐστι=and is true, better than “and is truth” of E. V.—M.]

[55] The reading μένετε A. B. C. Sin. is on external and internal grounds preferable to μενεῖτε [G. K. al. Tisch.—M.]

[56] 1Jn_2:28. A. B. C. Sin. read ἵναἐὰν instead of ἵνα ὅταν [G. K. Theoph. Oecum. Tisch.—M.]

[57] [German: “shall be manifested” decidedly preferable both for the sake of uniformity and on doctrinal grounds (“the agency and love of the Father in the second as well as the first coming of the Saviour” Lillie) to “when He shall appear” E. V.—M.]

[58] σχῶμεν.—B and Cod. Sin. give it as a correction of ἔχωμεν.

[59] German: “and not be put to shame away from Him in His coming.” Calvin: Pudefiamus ab ejus præsentiâ; Steph. ab eo discedamus pudefacti; Hammond: “Turned with shame from Him;” Green and Bloomfield: “shrink from Him with shame;” Peile: “put to confusion of face as being cast away from Him.” Wordsworth: “Driven to shame from Him;” Lillie: “Shamed away from Him at His coming.”—M.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

III. TRUTH AND ERROR

CHAPTER 2:18-27

This section contains a warning which is addressed to the babes, the little children, young believers. Truth and error, are contrasted. Seducers were trying to lead them astray, for we read in 1Jn 2:26: “These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.” He reminds them that it is “the last time,” a striking expression, for since it was written centuries have come and gone, and what was true then is true now, that it is the last time; only the Lord is still patiently waiting, not willing that any should perish. Christ was manifested, the truth revealed in Him and the world rejected Him and His truth. Satan became the god of this age, with the mystery of iniquity working in it from the very beginning. Antichristianity is not a new thing of our times; it was here from the very beginning. John writes, “Even now there are many antichrists, whereby we know it is the last time.” And the last time has its “last days” which are now upon us.

Anti-Christianity is increasing on all sides till the Antichrist, the man of sin, will be revealed (2Th 2:1-17). An antichrist is not a vicious lawbreaker, an out and out immoral man. An antichrist is one who rejects Christ, who does not allow His claims; who denies that Jesus is the Son of God. It is of great significance that John speaks of the antichrists in his day as having gone out from among the professing body of Christians (1Jn 2:19). They were not true believers but only professed belief, they had left the flock and gone into apostasy, “that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”

In 1Jn 2:22-23 we have a picture of the antichrists of John’s day and a prophecy of anti-christianity down to the end of the age when the great opposer will appear in a person, the personal antichrist. “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son hath not the Father. He who confesseth the Son hath the Father also.” Antichristianity is the denial that Jesus is the Christ. It includes every denial of the person of the Lord Jesus, the denial that He is the Son of God come into the flesh, His virgin birth and that He was sent by the Father. Such denials were prominent in John’s lifetime. Gnosticism was troubling the Church. They denied the Messiahship, and deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Other systems were present in embryo, known later by the name of Arianism, etc. Denying the Son they denied the Father also.

These are important statements for our own days, the last days of the present age. What began in the days when the Holy Spirit penned this Epistle is now full-grown in the world. It is all about us in various forms throughout the professing church, only with this difference, the apostates in the beginning were more honest than the apostates in our times. They were in the professing church and when they began their denials they went out, separated themselves from the true Church.

The apostates of today remain in the professing church and maintain outwardly a Christian profession, so that it becomes the solemn duty of true believers to separate themselves from these enemies of the cross of Christ. They deny both the Jewish hope, which centers in the promises of the Messiah, and the Christian hope, which is the Father and the Son. They reject the truths of the Old and the New Testament. They speak of the God of Abraham, who promised the seed to come from Abraham, as a tribal god. They make common cause with the Jewish apostates in denying that there are predictions concerning the Messiah in the Old Testament.

We give but one illustration of this fact. Jews deny that the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is a Messianic prophecy; the servant of Jehovah is explained to mean the nation Israel and not the Christ of God. This infidel view is held today by many preachers and teachers in various evangelical denominations, in spite of the fact that the New Testament tells us that it is Christ of whom Isaiah spoke. Rejecting Isa 7:14, the prophecy concerning the virgin birth, they reject the virgin birth itself, and brazenly utter the greatest blasphemy which human lips can utter, that Christ was born like any other man. They speak of Him as a great leader and teacher, as having divinity in Himself, in a degree higher than found in the rest of the race. His absolute deity is not believed; that He is the propitiation for sins is sneered at, that He will ever appear again in His glorified humanity in a second visible and glorious manifestation is ridiculed.

Thus antichristianity is present with us in the camp of Christendom in such a marked and universal way as unknown before. With denying Christ they deny the Father. All that we have seen in this Epistle concerning Him, the true God and the eternal life, fellowship with the Father and with His Son, walking in the light, the advocacy of Christ and loving the brethren, is denied by them. They speak of “love”; they speak of toleration and the “Christ- spirit.” But those who are the brethren, who contend for the faith once and for all delivered unto the saints, who believe on the Son of God, in His sacrificial work on the cross, are denounced by them, belittled and branded as fanatics. And the end is not yet. Let them continue in their evil ways under the guidance of the lying spirit of darkness and they may yet stoop to actual persecution of those who constitute the body of Christ. The conditions in Christendom today are the most solemn the true Church of Jesus Christ has faced. The heading up in “the Antichrist” cannot be far distant. As John writes these Christ-deniers, these blasphemers, who make the Holy Son of God the offspring of--we dare not finish the sentence! --may speak of “the Father,” but they have not the Father, because only those who confess the Son of God, Christ come in the flesh, have the Father.

John writes all this to the babes, young believers, warning them against the lie. He useth the word “liar,” for such the apostates are. In using this word repeatedly, he reveals his character as “Boanerges”--the son of thunder. Then he tells these babes how they may be guarded and kept. He reminds them that they have the anointing of the Holy One, that is, the Holy Spirit dwelling in their hearts and with Him they have the capacity to know and judge all these things. If they follow His guidance in and through the Word they would be kept in the truth and guarded from accepting the lie.

Let us again remember it is not the fathers, or the young men John addresses, but the babes. Here is a strong argument against the teaching so widespread among true believers, that the Holy Spirit is not given to a believer in regeneration, but that the gift of the Spirit must be sought in a definite experience after conversion. This is a serious error which opens the door to the most subtle delusions as found in certain Holiness sects and Pentecostalism. 1Jn 2:24 gives another instruction and exhortation. It is the truth concerning Christ, which they had heard from the beginning, which abiding in them will keep them. And besides “the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him.” The teachers in this instance who tried to seduce them (1Jn 2:26) were not gifts of Christ to His body, but false teachers, who came with a lying message. They did not need these teachers; the Holy Spirit was their teacher and infallible guide, but never apart from the written Word. All false teaching they were to repulse and fall back upon Him who guides in all truth. They were safe against all error as they abided in that.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2:18 Antichrist literally means “instead of Christ”; he claims for himself what belongs to Christ and poses as a substitute for Christ (cp. 2 Thes 2:3 and Rev 13:1-10). • many such antichrists have appeared: They are the false teachers who deny that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Son (1 Jn 2:22-23), God in the flesh (4:2; 2 Jn 1:7).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Jn 2:18. Παιδία, little children) See on 1Jn 2:12. The doctrine respecting antichrist is not beyond the capacity of a more tender age: 2Jn 1:7, note. Whence also the eleventh Catechesis, or Lecture to beginners, of Cyril treats of antichrist.—ἐσχάτη, the last) not with respect to all times of the world, but in the antithesis of children to fathers and to young men.[4]—καὶ καθὼς, and even as) and it is so, even as ye have heard, namely, that antichrist comes; and, indeed, already there are many, etc. There is a similar ellipsis, 1Jn 2:27, note.—ἠκούσατε, ye have heard) ch. 1Jn 4:3.—ὅτι, that) The particle is not redundant. The language is more distinct by the use of ὅτι, that, appended to it.—ὁ ἀντίχριστος, antichrist) The Spirit had predicted the falling away of many from the truth of Christ Jesus the Son of God; but John does not use the word antichrist in the singular number except in the 1st Epistle, 1Jn 2:18; 1Jn 2:22, 1Jn 4:3, in the 2d Epistle 1Jn 2:7: he does not introduce it at all in the 3d Epistle, in his Gospel, or in the Apocalypse; nor does any other writer of the New Testament use it. Whether the phraseology of the apostles or the language of the faithful led to the introduction of that word, John, about to cut off [guard against] the errors which might arise, wishes mention to be made not only of antichrist, but also of antichrists: and when he speaks of antichrist, or the spirit of antichrist, or a deceiver and antichrist, though he speaks in the singular number, he designs to point out all who are deceivers and enemies of the truth. The faithful had heard that the spirit of antichrist, and antichrist himself, should come. John acknowledges that, and adds, that the spirit of antichrist is now already in the world, that now there had arisen many antichrists. And as Christ is sometimes spoken of for Christianity, so antichrist is spoken of for antichristianity, or the doctrine and multitude of men opposed to Christ. There is in particular one remarkable adversary, who is called the Horn speaking great things, Dan 7:8; Dan 7:20; the man of sin, etc., 2Th 2:3-4; a beast ascending out of the bottomless pit, Rev 11:7; Rev 17:8; but he indeed appears to be called by the same name of antichrist, rather in accordance with ecclesiastical usage, ancient and modern, than in accordance with the sense of the apostle. Comp. H. More’s Synopsis of Prophecy, Book 1st, Ch. i. 4. John so admits that antichrist even then was come, as to teach, that not one only, but many antichrists had come; a matter which he considers of greater consequence and more disastrous. The whole class of those, who have any good or evil disposition, is often expressed in the singular number with the article. Ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἄνθρωπος, the good man [every man that is good], etc. Mat 12:35; Mat 18:17; 1Pe 4:18; Tit 2:8; Joh 10:10; Joh 10:12; and so everywhere, especially in Proverbs, also 1Jn 4:2-3; 1Jn 4:6. Thus ὁ ψεύστης, ὁ πλάνος, ὁ ἀντίχριστος, the liar, the deceiver, antichrist, ch. 1Jn 2:22; 2Jn 1:7. Therefore antichrist, or antichristianity, has propagated itself from the close of John’s life through the whole course of ages, and still remains until that great adversary arises.—ἔρχεται) comes, from another place. The antithesis is, “Many antichrists have arisen,” viz. from us, 1Jn 2:19. Comp. Act 20:29-30.—καὶ νῦν) καὶ, and: νῦν, Lat. hodie, to-day, Germ, würklich, actually. This is opposed to mere previous hearing [of antichrists].—ὅθεν—ἐστὶν, whence—it is) Hence the necessity of the admonition follows.

[4] There were three hours or seasons in all, of which the one both began after the other, and conjointly with continuous career inclined towards the end. The hour of the fathers and also of the youths was immediately completed. Hence it is to the little children that John says, “It is the last hour.” In this the last hour we all even still live.—V. g.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn_2:18. The appearance of the ἀντίχριστοι shows that the last hour has come.

παιδία] not an address to the children (see on 1Jn_2:12-14), but to all readers.[154]

ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστί] ἐσχάτη ὥρα may be the whole Christian era from the incarnation of Christ to His second advent. In the O. T. prophecy the appearance of the Messiah was promised בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָמִים (Isa_2:2; Hos_3:5; Mic_4:1, LXX.: ἘΝ ΤΑῖς ἘΣΧΆΤΑΙς ἩΜΈΡΑΙς; comp. also Act_2:16). Hence arose among the Jews the distinction of the two eras: עוֹלָם הַוֶּה (ΑἸῺΝ ΟὟΤΟς) and עוֹלָם הַבָּא (ΑἸῺΝ ΜΈΛΛΩΝ), the former the time up to the appearance of the Messiah, the latter embracing the Messianic time itself.

In the N. T. are found, partly the former idea that Christ has appeared in the last time (Heb_1:1; 1Pe_1:20), partly also the distinction of these two periods, but in this way, that the αἰὼν οὗτος does not close with the first appearance of Christ, but only with his Parousia, which coincides with the ΣΥΝΤΈΛΕΙΑ ΤΟῦ ΑἸῶΝΟς; comp. Mar_10:30; Luk_20:34-35; Eph_1:21.

Inasmuch as the period which begins with the birth of Christ is now the last preceding the ΣΥΝΤΈΛΕΙΑ, it may be described by the expression ἘΣΧΆΤΗ ὭΡΑ, as Calvin says: ultimum tempus, in quo sic complentur omnia, ut nihil supersit praeter ultimam Christi revelationem. This view is the customary one with the older commentators; Semler agrees with it, but the context is opposed to it; on the one hand, it results from 1Jn_2:8; 1Jn_2:17 that the apostle is writing with a presentiment of the Parousia of Christ; and, on the other hand, the conclusion of this verse: ὍΘΕΝ Κ.Τ.Λ., shows that the apostle cannot here mean the whole period extending from the first appearance of Christ to His second coming, but only a distinct time in it, namely, the time immediately preceding its termination; in favour of this also is the usus loquendi of the N. T.; comp. 2Ti_3:1; Jam_5:3; 1Pe_1:5; 2Pe_3:3; along with which it is to be observed that, especially in the Gospel of John, the day of judgment is called ἡ ἡμέρα ἐσχάτη. Lücke, Neander, Baumgarten-Crusius, Gerlach, Erdmann, Myrberg, Ebrard, etc., have therefore rightly interpreted the expression as a description of this time. The hesitation to admit that the apostle was mistaken in his expectation of the nearness of the advent, has given rise to many a false interpretation. Socinus and Grotius think that ἐσχάτη ὥρα is the time immediately preceding the destruction of Jerusalem; this view approximates to that of Düsterdieck, according to which the last time before the commencement of the ΚΡΊΣΙς is meant, which had its beginning at the destruction of Jerusalem. But the scruple is not overcome by this, for chap. 1Jn_2:28 shows that John regarded the ΠΑΡΟΥΣΊΑ of the Lord as near, and not as distant, just as the other apostles, and especially also Paul, according to 1Th_4:15, in view of which even Düsterdieck finds himself compelled to admit this; Besser urges the want of the article, and translates: a last time, i.e. the time before a special revelation of the judicial glory of Christ, in which the last hour before the universal final judgment is prefigured; but it is well known that the article is often wanting just with ideas which are definite in themselves; to which it may be added that the idea of such a succession of different epochs, which are to be regarded as special revelations of the judicial power of Christ, is nowhere found expressed in the N. T.[155] Oecumenius regarded it as likely that ἐσχάτη here is used = ΧΕΙΡΊΣΤΗ; this explanation is found in Schoettgen (tempora periculosa, pessima et abjectissima), Carpzov, and others (similarly Paulus: it is a late, i.e. dark, and ever growing worse, time); whereas the distinction between these ideas is perfectly clear from 2Ti_3:1 : ἐν ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις ἐνστήσονται καιροὶ χαλεποί[156].The result of an impartial exegesis therefore remains, thatas the other apostles

John also expected that the advent of the Lord would soon take place.[157] It was only when the first generation of believers was already dead, without that expectation having been fulfilled, that in the consciousness of Christians the period till the coming of the Lord extended to an indefinitely distant limit, without, however, extinguishing the hope of His speedy advent; comp. 2Pe_3:4 ff.; but that later still the time which began with the appearance of false teachers was regarded as the last, is proved by Ignatius, ep. ad Eph. c. xi.

καὶ καθὼς ἠκούσατε κ.τ.λ.] With the observation that it is the last time the apostle connects the other, that in accordance with what his readers have heard, that the ἀντίχριστος would come, many ἀντίχριστοι have already come. Bengel supplies before καθώς: et ita est, and after καί: adeo (et ita est, sicut audistis, nempe antichristum venire: atque adeo jam multi, etc.); these supplements are, however, unnecessary, for the καί before νῦν is not the simple copula, but serves to mark the appearance of the ἀντίχριστοι as a fact corresponding to the καθὼς ἠκούσατε κ.τ.λ.: as ye have heard, etc., so, accordingly, many ἀντίχριστοι are even now actually appearing.[158] καθὼς ἠκούσατε, namely, by the apostolic declaration, which had been communicated to his readers (comp. 1Jn_2:7; 1Jn_2:24) either by John, or even earlier, by Paul especially, according to Semler by Jewish teachers, who were spreading false rumours of the end of the world (!). ὅτι (ὁ) ἀντίχριστος ἔρχεται καὶ κ.τ.λ.] The present ἔρχεται is put for the future; it marks what is still future as a certainly occurring event; Ebrard incorrectly translates ἔρχεται by is to come; even in the passages cited by him: chap. 1Jn_4:3; Mat_11:3; Gospel of Joh_16:13; Rev_1:8 (why not 1Jn_1:4?), ἔρχεσθαι does not express simply the idea of the future; besides, Ebrard interprets correctly: will one day appear.

The prophecy that before Christ comes (hence before His Parousia) Antichrist will come, accordingly formed a part of the apostolic preaching, although it is not contained in the last discourses of Christ that have been handed down to us, for the ψευδοπροφῆται and the ψευδόχριστοι, whose appearance Christ foretells, are not to be identified with the ἀντίχριστος.

According to the view which has prevailed from antiquity, the ἀντίχριστος and the πολλοὶ ἀντίχριστοι are to be distinguished in this way, that the latter are only the πρόδρομοι of the former, in which for the first time the antichristian spirit which already animates them will be revealed in his full perfection and energy; Bengel, deviating from this, takes the expression ἀντίχριστος as a collective idea: ubi Joh. antichristum, vel spiritum antichristi, vel deceptorem et antichristum dicit, sub singulari numero, omnes mendaces et veritatis inimicos innuit. Antichristus pro antichristianismo, sive doctrina, et multitudine hominum Christo contraria dicitur; with this interpretation Lange, Baumgarten-Crusius, Besser, and Myrberg agree. But neither here nor in 1Jn_4:1 ff. does John say that Antichrist has already come; here he merely indicates the fact that πολλοὶ ἀντίχριστοι γεγόνασιν as corresponding to the announcement of the coming of Antichrist, and in the other passage it is merely stated that many ψευδοπροφῆται are gone out into the world, and that the πνεῦμα of Antichrist is already in the world. In the passage 2Jn_1:7, it is true that the explanatory clause οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ πλάνος καὶ ὁ ἀντίχριστος refers so directly to the preceding πολλοὶ πλάνοι, that it appears that the identity is thereby indicated (1st ed.); but this direct connection may, no doubt, be explained in this way, that he who speaks through the many is, according to John, no other than the one Antichrist; and even though John neither describes the ἀντίχριστοι as the πρόδρομοι, nor the ἀντίχριστος as the one in whom the principle that animates them is concentrated in highest potency, it is to be remembered that John is speaking of the Antichrist here, not in doctrinal aspect, but only in order to show by the heretics, whom he calls ἀντίχριστοι, that the πνεῦμα of Antichrist is already ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ.[159] The name ἀντίχριστος is not found in the Scriptures outside of the First and Second Epistles of John; only in the later ecclesiastical literature does it appear frequently.

That the prefixed ἀντι does not express the substitutionary reference (as in ἀντιβασιλεύς), but the reference of antagonism, is with justice now commonly recognised; but the prevailing translation: enemy of Christ, is grammatically inaccurate, as in substantive compounds formed with ἀντι (in the antagonistic sense) the substantive is an object which by ἀντι is described as standing in opposition to an object of the same kind. Thus, an ἀντιφιλόσοφος is not an opponent of philosophy (Ebrard), or of philosophers, but a philosopher who is opposed to other philosophers, a hostile philosopher; comp. ἀντιμαχητής, ἀντιπαλαιστής, ἀντίπολις, ἀντίῤῥησις, ἀντίῤῥοια κ.τ.λ.[160] Accordingly, ὁ ἀντίχριστος does not mean generally: the enemy of Christ, but the opposition Christ, i.e. that enemy of Christ who, under the false pretence of being the real Christ, seeks to destroy the work of Christ.[161] Almost all commentators have correctly supposed that John understands by this enemy the same as Paul speaks of in 2Th_2:3; the features which appear in the description of the Apostle Paul and in the statements of John correspond too closely to permit of this being doubted; according to both, his appearance in the Church is preceded by a falling away (John says in 1Jn_2:19 of the antichrists: ἘΞ ἩΜῶΝ ἘΞῆΛΘΟΝ; Paul in 1Jn_2:3 speaks of an ἈΠΟΣΤΑΣΊΑ connected with his ἈΠΟΚΆΛΥΨΙς); both ascribe to him a God-opposing, wicked nature (Paul calls him Ὁ ἌΝΘΡΩΠΟς Τῆς ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑς, Ὁ ἌΝΟΜΟς; John puts the ΠΝΕῦΜΑ ΤΟῦ ἈΝΤΙΧΡΊΣΤΟΥ in antithesis to the ΠΝΕῦΜΑ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ, and says of the antichrists who are animated by the former, that they are ἘΚ ΤΟῦ ΚΌΣΜΟΥ); both characterize him as a liar, who seeks to establish the lie against the truth; according to both, he appears in the last time before the Parousia of Christ; even the names correspond with each other, for even though the name ἈΝΤΊΧΡΙΣΤΟς contains an important feature which is not expressed in the name Ὁ ἈΝΤΙΚΕΊΜΕΝΟς, yet this very feature comes out so distinctly in the Pauline description, that it is clear how suitable Johns appellation of that enemy is; when, namely, Paul describes him as the ἌΝΘΡΩΠΟς Τῆς ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑς, and afterwards says of him that he ἈΠΟΔΕΊΚΝΥΣΙ ἙΑΥΤΌΝ, ὍΤΙ ἘΣΤῚ ΘΕΌς, this points to the fact that he will represent himself as the incarnate God,and this is just what is indicated in the name ἀντίχριστος.

[154] For the contrary, Ebrard appeals to the peculiarly childlike character of this section; but plainly this bears no other character than the whole Epistle, of which Ebrard himself says that it could only be understood by adults.

[155] Braune, who speaks of Calvins view and that of Besser as worthy of notice, expresses himself somewhat vaguely when he says: The expression ἐσχάτη ὥρα is to be taken prophetically, eschatologically, and has a value connected with the history of the kingdom, even a historical reference to the Parousia of Christ, as the beginning of the second era of the world, but no chronological reference to the date of the commencement of this Paronsia. Clearly a quite arbitrary assertion.

[156] Peculiar, but artificial, is Bengels interpretation, which, moreover, rests on the false opinion that the children are here specially addressed: ultima, non respectu omnium mundi temporum sed in antitheto puerulorum ad patres et ad juvenes. Tres omnino horae erant, quarum una post aliam et inchoavit, et conjunetim continuato cursu ad finem se inclinavit. Patrum itemque juvenum hora statim absoluta fuit. Hinc puerulis Johannes dicit: ultima hora est. Hac ultima hora nos etiamnum vivimus omnes.

[157] In opposition to the prejudice that the apostles regarded the advent as so near, Sander thinks that they could not possibly have imagined that all the great changes, transformations, and developments, to which 2Th_3:3, Rom_11:25-26, Luk_21:24-26 allude, could be accomplished within a generation. But could not important events take place within a comparatively short period? As it was not the business of the apostles to foresee the course of history, it cannot be any reproach on them if they cherished the hope that the longed-for coming of the Lord would soon occur, especially as they formed out of this hope no peculiar doctrine, and did not venture to determine the time and the hour. The certainly extravagant assertion of Ebrard, that it would have been contrary to the order of Gods economy of revelation if John, at the time when he wrote his Epistle, had not expected the second advent of Christ in the near future, rests entirely on Ebrards views of the Apocalypse, from the visions of which, according to him, it could only be clear to the apostle for the first time that the ἔρχομαι of the Gospel of Joh_21:22 is to be understood of the coming of the Lord in a vision.

[158] Düsterdieck: With the expectation ἕτι ὁ ἀντιχρ. ἔρχ., founded on the apostolic teaching, corresponds the fact already begun: ἀντιχρ. πολλοὶ γεγόνασιν.

[159] Weiss justly maintains, against Frommann and Reuss, according to whom John has spiritualized or confused the dogma of Antichrist, that he in no way denies the reality of the Antichrist, although Weiss thinks that John regards the prophecy of the Antichrist as fulfilled in this, that the spirit of Antichrist has come into the world, and in the false teachers is denying the fundamentals of Christian truth.

[160] From this it is clear that the rule laid down by Lücke, that the word compounded with ἀντι is the object of the opposition, can by no means hold good for all compounds with ἀντι, inasmuch as the examples adduced by Lücke: ἀντίῤῥιον ἄκρον, ἀντιβόρειος, ἁντήλιος, ἀντίθυρος, are not substantives; and, in the second place, ἀντι does not express in them the idea of hostile antagonism.

[161] While Brückner agrees with the explanation given here, it is opposed by Braune; but he does not pay attention to the grammatical vindication. Besides, it is to be observed that the more particular definition of false pretence does not lie in the word itself, but certainly in the fact, since there is only one Christ; it is different in the case of the word ἀντιφιλόσοφος.

REMARK.

On the various views of the Antichrist, see Lünemann on 2Th_2:1-12, p. 204 ff., and Düsterdieck on this passage.

The Greek Fathers regard the Antichrist usually as a man who, as an instrument of the devil, imitates the true Christ, comp. Hippolyt. de consummat. mundi, c. vi. 14, c. xlviii.; Cyril, Catech. xv.; yet there is also found the incorrect view that he is the incarnate devil himself (comp. Theodoret, Epit. div. decret. c. xxiii., and Comment, in Dan. ii.; Hippolyt. c. xxii.).

Like the Parousia of Christ, so the appearance of Antichrist also belongs still to the future; of antichrists, as they had appeared in the time of John, there has never since been any lack; but the Antichrist has not yet come, and it was equally arbitrary for Grotius to regard Barkochba, or others Mohammed, or Luther the Pope, or Catholics Luther, and so on, as Antichrist.

Not merely rationalistic writers, but also Lücke, de Wette, Neander, and others, distinguish form and idea in Johns representation of the future appearance of the Antichrist. As the fundamental idea, they regard the thought that, equally with the development of Christianity, the evil will gradually increase more and more in its contest against Christ, until at last, when it has attained its highest summit, it will be completely conquered by the power of Christ. As the Form they regard the representation that this highest energy of the evil will finally appear in one single person. For such a distinction it is difficult, however, to show any justification, as Scripture itself gives no suggestion of it; it is therefore rightly rejected by Düsterdieck, Braune, Brückner.

In the words: καὶ νῦν ἀντίχριστοι πολλοὶ γεγόνασιν, the apostle mentions the fact in which the expectation: ὅτι ὁ ἀντίχριστος ἔρχεται, is beginning to be realized. The ἀντίχριστοι are the heretics who accept the lie described in 1Jn_2:22; but they bear that name because the πνεῦμα τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου animates them, and thus the Antichrist himself is already revealing himself in them, γεγόνασιν is not = coeperunt esse (Erasmus), but: they have become, i.e. they are already in existence. By means of the subordinate clause ὅθεν γινώσκομεν κ.τ.λ., the connection between the two first parts of the verse is to be recognised.

1Jn_2:18-27. Warning against the antichrists, whose presence shows that the last hour has come. Description of them, and exhortation to believers to continue in that which they have heard from the beginning, combined with the testimony that they have known the truth.

This section stands in closest connection with the preceding one; for, in the first place, the preceding exhortation is occasioned by the thought that it is ἐσχάτη ὥρα, as is evidenced by the appearance of the ἀντίχριστοι; and, in the second place, the ἀντίχριστοι, of whom the apostle treats here, are, as it is put in chap. 1Jn_4:5 : ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn 2:18-29 . A Warning against Heretical Teaching. “Little ones, it is the last hour; and, as ye heard that Antichrist is coming, even now have many antichrists arisen; whence we recognise that it is the last hour. From our company they went out, but they were not of our company; for, if they had been of our company, they would have abode in our fellowship; but the purpose of it was that it may be manifested that they all are not of our company. And ye have a chrism from the Holy One, and ye all know. I did not write to you because ye did not know the Truth, but because ye know it and because every lie is not of the Truth. Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist he that denieth the Father and the Son. Every one that denieth the Son neither hath he the Father; he that confesseth the Son hath the Father also. As for you, that which ye heard from the beginning, let it abide in you. If that abide in you which ye heard from the beginning, ye also in the Son and in the Father will abide. And this is the promise which He Himself promised us the Life, the Eternal Life. These things I wrote to you regarding them that would lead you astray. And as for you, the chrism which ye received from Him abideth in you, and ye have no need that any one should teach you; but, as His chrism is teaching you regarding all things, and is true and is not a lie, and even as it taught you, abide in Him. And now, little children, abide in Him, that, if He be manifested, we may have boldness and not be shamed away from Him at His advent. If ye know that He is righteous, recognise that every one also that doeth righteousness hath been begotten of Him.”

A heresy had arisen in the bosom of the Church (see Introd. pp. 156 f.). It was a fatal heresy, a denial of the possibility of the Incarnation, and therefore of the relation of fatherhood and sonship between God and man. St. John’s emphatic condemnation of it was justified, but his apprehension was groundless. He shared the prevailing expectation of the imminence of the Second Advent ( cf. 1Co 10:11 ; 1Co 15:51 ; Phi 4:5 ; 1Th 4:15 sqq. ; Heb 10:25 ; Jas 5:8 ; 1Pe 4:7 ; Rev 1:1 ; Rev 1:3 ; Rev 3:11 ; Rev 22:7 ; Rev 22:10 ; Rev 22:12 ; Rev 22:20 ), and saw in the heresy an evidence that the end was at hand. It was rather an evidence that the Gospel was winning its way. The era of simple and unquestioning faith in the apostolic testimony was past, and men were beginning to enquire and reason. A heresy has the same use in theology as a mistaken hypothesis in science: it provokes thought and leads to a deeper understanding. What seemed to the Apostle the pangs of dissolution were in reality “growing pains”.

1Jn 2:18 . Aug.: “Pueros alloquitur, ut festinent crescere, quia novissima hora est.… Proficite, currite, crescite, novissima hora est”. 1Jn 2:28 puts it beyond doubt that ἐσχάτη ὥρα means “the end of the world,” and rules out various attempts which have been made to give it another reference and absolve the Apostle from the current misconception: (1) Aug. says vaguely: “the last hour is of long duration, yet it is the last” ( novissima hora diuturna est; tamen novissima est ). And Calv.: “Nothing any longer remains but that Christ should appear for the redemption of the world.… He calls that ‘the last time’ in which all things are being so completed that nothing is left except the last revelation of Christ”. (2) Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. , on Joh 21:22 , compares אַחֲרִית הַיּמִים i.e. , “the last times of the Jewish city, nation, and dispensation,” and remarks: “Gens ista vergit jam quam proxime in ruinam, cum enatus jam sit ultimus et summus apex infidelitatis, apostasiæ et nequitiæ”. (3) Beng. with unwonted ineptitude: The advanced age of St. John and his contemporaries in contrast to his “little children”. “ Ultima , non respectu omnium mundi temporum: sed in antitheto puerulorum ad patres , et ad juvenes ”. (4) Westcott: “a last hour,” i.e. , “a period of critical change”. This is possible but improbable. The omission of the def. art. in the pred. is regular. Ἀντίχριστος (anarthrous) is a proper name. Nowhere in N.T. but in the Johannine Epp. It may mean (1), on the analogy of ἀντιφιλόσοφος , ἀντικάτων , ἀντικείμενος , ἀντίθεσις , “adversary of Christ,” Widerchrist (Luth.); cf. Orig. C. Cels. 6:45: τὸν τούτῳ κατὰ διάμετρον ἐναντίον , Tert. De Praescript. Hær. : “antichristi, Christi rebelles,” Aug.: “Latine Antichristus contrarius est Christo”; (2), on the analogy of ἀντιβασιλεύς , ἀνθύπατος ( proconsul ), “antipope,” a “rival of Christ,” usurping His name, a ψευδόχριστος ( cf. Mat 24:24 = Mar 13:22 ); cf. Aristoph. Eq. 1038 sq. : ἐγὼ γὰρ ἀντὶ τοῦ λέοντός εἰμί σοι . / καὶ πῶς μʼ ἐλελήθης Ἀντιλέων γεγενημένος ; St. John seems to combine both ideas. The heresy arose in the bosom of the Church and claimed to be an enlightened Christianity; yet, while calling themselves Christians, Cerinthus and his followers were adversaries of Christ. Wetst.: “Qui se pro Christo gerit, ideoque ei contrarius est”. ἀντίχριστοι πολλοί , the exponents and representatives of the antichristian movement were a numerous party. γεγόνασιν , “have arisen,” in contrast to the true Christ who “was in the beginning”. Cf. the contrast between the Word and the Baptist in Joh 1:1 ; Joh 1:6 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He useth this word (little) not because he speaketh to children, but to allure them the more by using such sweet words.

Secondly because Antichrists, that is, such as fall from God, are already come, even as they heard that they should come. And it was very requisite to warn that unheedy and wariless age of that danger.

Now he turneth himself to little children, which notwithstanding are well instructed in the sum of religion, and willeth them by divers reasons to shake off slothfulness, which is too too familiar with that age.

First, because the last time is at hand, so that the matter suffereth no delay.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Little children--same Greek as Jo1 2:13; children in age. After the fathers and young men were gone, "the last time" with its "many Antichrists" was about to come suddenly on the children. "In this last hour we all even still live" [BENGEL]. Each successive age has had in it some of the signs of "the last time" which precedes Christ's coming, in order to keep the Church in continual waiting for the Lord. The connection with Jo1 2:15-17 is: There are coming those seducers who are of the world (Jo1 4:5), and would tempt you to go out from us (Jo1 2:19) and deny Christ (Jo1 2:22).

as ye have heard--from the apostles, preachers of the Gospel (for example, Th2 2:3-10; and in the region of Ephesus, Act 20:29-30).

shall come--Greek, "cometh," namely, out of his own place. Antichrist is interpreted in two ways: a false Christ (Mat 24:5, Mat 24:24), literally, "instead of Christ"; or an adversary of Christ, literally, "against Christ." As John never uses pseudo-Christ, or "false Christ," for Antichrist, it is plain he means an adversary of Christ, claiming to himself what belongs to Christ, and wishing to substitute himself for Christ as the supreme object of worship. He denies the Son, not merely, like the pope, acts in the name of the Son, Th2 2:4, "Who opposeth himself (Greek, " ANTI-keimenos") [to] all that is called God," decides this. For God's great truth, "God is man," he would substitute his own lie, "man is God" [TRENCH].

are there--Greek, "there have begun to be"; there have arisen. These "many Antichrists" answer to "the spirit of lawlessness (Greek) doth already work." The Antichristian principle appeared then, as now, in evil men and evil teachings and writings; but still "THE Antichrist" means a hostile person, even as "THE Christ" is a personal Saviour. As "cometh" is used of Christ, so here of Antichrist, the embodiment in his own person of all the Antichristian features and spirit of those "many Antichrists" which have been, and are, his forerunners. John uses the singular of him. No other New Testament writer uses the term. He probably answers to "the little horn having the eyes of a man, and speaking great things" (Dan 7:8, Dan 7:20); "the man of sin, son of perdition" (Th2 2:3); "the beast ascending out of the bottomless pit" (Rev 11:7; Rev 17:8), or rather, "the false prophet," the same as "the second beast coming up out of the earth" (Rev 13:11-18; Rev 16:13).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 18. Little children, it is the last time] This place is variously understood. This is the last dispensation of grace and mercy to mankind; the present age is the conclusion of the Jewish state, as the temple and holy city are shortly to be destroyed. But as there are many who suppose that this epistle was written after the destruction of Jerusalem, consequently the words cannot, on that supposition, refer to this. Others think that εσχατηωρα should be translated, a most difficult, perilous, and wretched time; a time in which all kinds of vices, heresies, and pollutions shall have their full reign; that time which out Lord predicted, Mt 7:15, when he said, Beware of false prophets. And Mt 24:11, 12: Many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many; and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. And Mt 24:24: There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders. And Mt 24:25: Behold, I have told you before. Now the apostle may allude to these predictions of our Lord; but all these refer to a time antecedent to the destruction of Jerusalem. I am therefore inclined to think, whatever may be here the precise meaning of the last time, that the epistle before us was written while Jerusalem yet stood. See what is said in the preface on this head.

Antichrist shall come] Who is this αντιχριστος antichrist? Is he the Emperor Domitian, the Gnostics, Nicolaitans, Nazareans, Cerinthians, Romish pontiffs, c., c.! Ans. Any person, thing, doctrine, system of religion, polity, &c., which is opposed to Christ, and to the spirit and spread of his Gospel, is antichrist. We need not look for this imaginary being in any of the above exclusively. Even Protestantism may have its antichrist as well as Popery. Every man who opposes the spirit of the Gospel, and every teacher and writer who endeavours to lower the Gospel standard to the spirit and taste of the world, is a genuine antichrist, no matter where or among whom he is found. The heresies which sprang up in the days of St. John were the antichrist of that time. As there has been a succession of oppositions to Christianity in its spirit and spread through every age since its promulgation in the world, so there has been a succession of antichrists. We may bring this matter much lower every enemy of Christ, every one who opposes his reign in the world, in others, or in himself, is an antichrist and consequently every wicked man is an antichrist. But the name has been generally applied to whatever person or thing systematically opposes Christ and his religion.

Many antichrists] Many false prophets, false Messiahs, heretics, and corrupters of the truth.

Whereby we know that it is the last time.] That time which our Lord has predicted, and of which he has warned us.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

18 It is the last time, or hour. He confirms the faithful against offenses by which they might have been disturbed. Already many sects had risen up, which rent the unity of faith and caused disorder in the churches. But the Apostle not only fortifies the faithful, lest they should falter, but turns the whole to a contrary purpose; for he reminds them that the last time had already come, and therefore he exhorts them to a greater vigilance, as though he had said, “Whilst various errors arise, it behooves you to be awakened rather than to be overwhelmed; for we ought hence to conclude that Christ is not far distant; let us then attentively look for him, lest he should come upon us suddenly.” In the same way it behooves us to comfort ourselves at this day, and to see by faith the near advent of Christ, while Satan is causing confusion for the sake of disturbing the Church, for these are the signs of the last time.

But so many ages having passed away since the death of John, seem to prove that this prophecy is not true: to this I answer, that the Apostle, according to the common mode adopted in the Scripture, declares to the faithful, that nothing more now remained but that Christ should appear for the redemption of the world. But as he fixes no time, he did not allure the men of that age by a vain hope, nor did he intend to cut short in future the course of the Church and the many successions of years during which the Church has hitherto remained in the world. And doubtless, if the eternity of God’s kingdom be borne in mind, so long a time will appear to us as a moment. We must understand the design of the Apostle, that he calls that the last time, during which all things shall be so completed, that nothing will remain except the last revelation of Christ.

As ye have heard that antichrist will come He speaks as of a thing well known. We may hence conclude that the faithful had been taught and warned from the beginning respecting the future disorder of the Church, in order that they might, carefully keep themselves in the faith they professed, and also instruct posterity in the duty of watchfulness. For it was God’s will that his Church should be thus tried, lest any one knowingly and willingly should be deceived, and that there might be no excuse for ignorance. But we see that almost the whole world has been miserably deceived, as though not a word had been said about Antichrist.

Moreover, under the Papacy there is nothing more notorious and common than the future coming of Antichrist; and yet they are so stupid, that they perceive not that his tyranny is exercised over them. Indeed, the same thing happens altogether to them as to the Jews; for though they hold the promises respecting the Messiah, they are yet further away from Christ than if they had never heard his name; for the imaginary Messiah, whom they have invented for themselves, turns them wholly aside from the Son of God; and were any one to shew Christ to them from the Law and the Prophets, he would only spend his labor in vain. The Popes have imagined an Antichrist, who for three years and a half is to harass the Church. All the marks by which the Spirit of God has pointed out Antichrist, clearly appear in the Pope; but the triennial Antichrist lays fast hold on the foolish Papists, so that seeing they do not see. Let us then remember, that Antichrist has not only been announced by the Spirit of God, but that also the marks by which he may be distinguished have been mentioned.

Even now are there many antichrists. This may seem to have been added by way of correction, as they falsely thought that it would be some one kingdom; but it is not so. They who suppose that he would be only one man, are indeed greatly mistaken. For Paul, referring to a future defection, plainly shows that it would be a certain body or kingdom. (2 Thessalonians 2:3.) He first predicts a defection that would prevail through the whole Church, as a universal evil; he then makes the head of the apostasy the adversary of Christ, who would sit in the temple of God, claiming for himself divinity and divine honors. Except we desire willfully to err, we may learn from Paul’s description to know Antichrist. That passage I have already explained; it is enough now touch on it by the way.

But how can that passage agree with the words of John, who says that there were already many antichrists? To this I reply, that John meant no other thing than to say, that some particular sects had already risen, which were forerunners of a future Antichrist; for Cerinthus, Basilides, Marcion, Valentinus, Ebion, Arrius, and others, were members of that kingdom which the Devil afterwards raised up in opposition to Christ. Properly speaking, Antichrist was not yet in existence; but the mystery of iniquity was working secretly. But John uses the name, that he might effectually stimulate the care and solicitude of the godly to repel frauds.

But if the Spirit of God even then commanded the faithful to stand on their watch, when they saw at a distance only signs of the coming enemy, much less is it now a time for sleeping, when he holds the Church under his cruel and oppressive tyranny, and openly dishonors Christ.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

Little children, it is the last time,.... Or hour; not of the Jewish civil and church state, for that had been at an end for some time; this epistle was written some years after the destruction of Jerusalem; nor the last hour of the Gospel dispensation, or world to come, for this was but the first age of that; and much less the last hour of time, or of the present world itself, for that has been many hundreds of years since; but the last hour of the apostolic age. All the apostles were now dead, John was the last of them; perilous times were now coming on, impostors and heretics were rising apace, against which the apostle cautions his little children; and so still he writes to them, agreeably to their age and character, who, being such, were most likely to be imposed upon by those who lie in wait to deceive.

And as ye have heard that antichrist shall come; or "is coming"; and begins to show himself in the false teachers and deceivers, who were his forerunners; and this they had heard and understood, either from the words of Christ in Joh 5:43; or from the account the Apostle Paul gave to the Thessalonians concerning him, Th2 2:3; or rather it may be from what, the apostle had said to the elders of the church at Ephesus, where the Apostle John now was, when he met them at Miletus, Act 20:29,

even now there are many antichrists. The Syriac and Ethiopic versions read, "false Christs"; but such are not intended here, that set up for Messiahs, whom Christ foretold should arise before the destruction of Jerusalem, Mat 24:24; for that was now over, and those false Christs had arisen and were gone: if this sense could be admitted, Bar Cocab, in Adrian's time, bids fair to be the false Christ, or Messiah, in the preceding clause, as the same versions there read; but such as were adversaries of Christ, as the Arabic version renders it, are meant, who set themselves against Christ, and were opposers of his person, incarnation, and office; who either denied that he was the Christ, or that he was come in the flesh, the truth of his incarnation, or his proper deity, or real humanity, such as Ebion, Cerinthus, and others. The apostle might well say there were many, since in his time were the followers of Simon Magus, the Menandrians, Saturnilians, Basilidians, Nicolaites, Gnostics, Carpocratians, Cerinthians, Ebionites, and Nazarenes, as reckoned up by Epiphanius. And hence we learn, that antichrist is not one single individual, but many; antichrist in the former clause is explained by antichrists in this; see Jo1 2:22; and though the popes of Rome are, by way of eminence, the antichrist that should come, and which those deceivers were the forerunners of, and paved the way for; yet they are not the only antichrists, there were others before them, and there are many now besides them.

Whereby we know that it is the last time; the pure apostolic age was now going off, with the doctrines, discipline, and worship of it, which was easy to be discerned by the multitude of antichrists which now appeared; and it may well be thought to be the last time, or near the end of things with us, since almost every heresy is revived among us.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

Ver. 18. Little children] Children may easily be deceived, and made to take a sheep counter for an angel, because broader and brighter; so young Christians are soon seduced; hence they are cautioned. {See Trapp on "1Jn 1:5"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

It is the last hour. That is, according to the common interpretation, the last age of the world, from the coming of Christ to the day of judgment, and the end of the world, which St. Paul calls the end and consummation of ages. (Hebrews ix. 26.) --- And as you have heard that antichrist (the great antichrist) cometh, or is to come in this last age: now there are already many antichrists; i.e. as the word signifies, many adversaries to Christ, who are forerunners of the great and last antichrist. (Witham) --- Many antichrists; that is, many heretics, enemies of Christ and his Church, and forerunners of the great antichrist. (Challoner) --- St. Cyprian says all are called antichrists that have divided themselves from the charity and unity of the Catholic Church. (Ep. lxxvii. ad Magnum.) --- Whereby we know that it is the last hour, it being foretold that many false prophets should rise in the last days. (Matthew xxiv. 11. &c.) (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The last time; the time here referred to seems to be the destruction of Jerusalem, and the finishing of the Jewish state, both civil and ecclesiastical. In the Greek, the last hour, the approaching period of Daniel’s seventy weeks, as Mr. Mede understands it, in his Apostacy of the Later Times. Whereas therefore it was now a known and expected thing among Christians, that the eminent

antichrist, or antichristian state, (expressly foretold, 2Th 2:1-17), was to come, or take place; therefore the apostle says, ye, i.e. the generality of Christians,

have heard so much. So he says,

even now, as the forerunners of that eminent one,

are there many antichrists, ( foretold also by our Saviour, Mat 24:5,24), viz. noted heretics and seducers then in being: not such falsely assuming vicarious Christs, as only pretended to do that part which the Jews expected from their Messiah, the delivering them from the Roman tyranny, and so set up to be merely civil or secular Christs, having themselves never been Christians, but such as had revolted from Christianity, and now laboured fundamentally to subvert it, denying Christ to be come in the flesh, 1Jo 2:22; 2Jo 1:7; having been before professed Christians, as appears by the following words.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Little children, it is the last time - The last dispensation of grace, that which is to continue to the end of time, is begun. Ye have heard that antichrist cometh - Under the term antichrist, or the spirit of antichrist, he includes all false teachers and enemies to the truth; yea, whatever doctrines or men are contrary to Christ. It seems to have been long after this that the name of antichrist was appropriated to that grand adversary of Christ, the man of sin, 2 Thess. ii, 3 Antichrist, in St. John's sense, that is, antichristianism, has been spreading from his time till now; and will do so, till that great adversary arises, and is destroyed by Christ's coming.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Our apostle having warned them against the danger of covetousness in the foregoing verses, he cautions them against the danger of deceit in these; he tells them, that this is the last time of the Jewish dispensation, and that the destruction of their city, temple, and polity, was now at hand; and as they had heard that antichrist should come, accordingly now there were many antichrists come; that is, opposers of Christ, and deniers of him to be the Christ; and by the swarming of these seducers and false teachers now, according to our Saviour’s prediction, Matthew 24 they might well conclude it was the last time.

Observe next, These antichrists are described by the communion which they once were of, to wit, the Christian communion; They went out from us, from us apostles, and from us Christians, being false brethren, and unsound Christians; for if they had been of us, as members of the same body, and had joined with us apostles, in planting and propagating the same Christian faith, They would no doubt have continued with us, professing the same faith, and preaching the same doctrine which we do; but they left us, that it might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

Here note, That these antichristian impostors had been in the bosom of the church, and made a profession of the Christian faith; so did the false apostles, the judaizing teachers, mentioned Act 25:1; so did Simon Magus, Nicholas, and Cerinthus. The church’s seeming members proves her worst friends, the foxes within do more mischief that the wild boar without.

Quest. But is it not then lawful to depart from the communion of a church whereof we have been formerly members?

Ans. Yes, if she departs from herself: if she degenerates and grows so corrupt a body, and be so far infected, that we cannot communicate with her without sin, which was th case between us and the church of Rome, her doctrines were erroneous, her worship idolatrous; we went out from them, because they went out from the ancient apostolical church. Non fugimus; sed fugamur: Not we, but they made the separation, and consequently the schism lies at their door.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ARGUMENT 5

LAST ANTICHRIST AND THE LORD’S COMING

18. “Little children, it is the last hour, and as ye have heard that Antichrist cometh, and now many Antichrists are here; then we know that it is the last hour.” On the dark eclipse of the bright Eden day Satan’s dark night set in.

Rom 13:12. As the Gentile age is the last of Satan’s night of ten thousand years, symbolized by the six days of toil preceding the glorious millennial Sabbath. If John was in the last hour of Satan’s night eighteen hundred years ago, surely we are in the last minute! Glory to God! I believe it, and hail with rapture the millennial dawn! Antichrist means a counterfeit Christ, or an opponent of Christ, as anti means instead of and also means against. As the Jewish element was still in the leadership of the Church, doubtless the Antichrists in John’s day were Jews, who either claimed to be Christ themselves, or because they were unconverted were the practical opponents of Christ. At the present day the Pope is the great Antichrist who, doubtless, during the Tribulation will usurp the throne of Christ, both political and ecclesiastical, raising the floodgate of persecution. The present age is literally flooded with Antichrists, i.e., counterfeit preachers unacquainted with God, preaching a sinning religion, which is Satan’s, arrogating to themselves the power to have sins remitted in baptism, and teaching salvation by human works, ecclesiastical tyrants usurping the throne of Christ, claiming the right to rule a church, which belongs to Christ alone. The Holy Ghost is the spiritual successor of the personal Christ (Joh 16:7), and has the sole right to rule the Church of Christ, all His rivals occupying the attitude of Antichrist.

19. The great trouble with this multitude of Antichrist, i.e., counterfeit, preachers is their personal ignorance of experimental salvation.

20. “Truly you have an unction from the Holy One, and you all know.” The common reading of the English, “You know all things,” has led to fanaticism, discarding human teachers.

21. The Bible is the grand thesaurus of inspired truth, containing all things essential to life and godliness.

22, 23. There is but one God, with three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. As these three persons are all identical in the divine unity, yet separate and distinct in their offices, perfecting the plan of salvation, radical heresy relative to either person apostatizes into the Antichristhood. Some of the Antichrists of the present day reject the divinity of Christ;

but most of them reject the office and works of the Holy Ghost. Satan is now in his last ditch, prosecuting his final campaign against God. Having

been defeated both in the dispensation of the Father and Son, he is now using all of his artillery, laying under contribution earth and hell against the divine personality, office, work and administration of the Holy Ghost, leading forth his millions of Antichristian preachers, who are doing their utmost to usurp the throne of the Holy Ghost, take the Church into hand and rule over it.

24-26. The great salient fact of Gospel grace is the eternal divine life, imparted by the Holy Ghost in regeneration and made to abound in sanctification.

27. “The unction which you receive from Him abideth in you, and you have no need that any one may teach you, but as this unction teacheth you concerning all things, and is true and no falsehood, and as He has taught you, abide in Him.” Oh, the grandeur and the majesty of the redemptive scheme! Fortifying us at every point of Satan’s compass, giving us complete victory throughout, making us safe in life’s probation, as in heaven, if we faithfully utilize the means of grace. He first gives us His own eternal life in regeneration. Then He destroys all of our inward enemies in entire sanctification, filling us with the Holy Ghost, our infallible Guide in all things. This heavenly unction is our fortification against these Antichrists, i.e., the devil’s preachers, who will do their utmost to get us to follow and obey them instead of the Holy Ghost. Verily, they are almost sure to succeed with all who are not fortified and guided by the unction of the infallible One. Worldly ones follow Satan down to hell, while church members follow these Antichrists to the same dismal doom. It is not understood that this holy unction precludes human teaching by speech and pen. On the contrary, the Holy Ghost pursuant to this wonderful unction utilizes holy men, women and babes as His faithful teachers. Two hundred millions of martyrs have sealed their faith with their blood. Guided by the infallible unction they shouted in the fire and triumphed over the grim monster.

28. “And now, little children, abide in Him, in order that if He may appear we may have holiness and not shrink with embarrassment from Him in His presence.” The true attitude of New Testament saintship is entire sanctification, the fullness of the Spirit and constant expectancy of the personal Jesus. When He went away He left the Holy Ghost in charge to

prepare His people for His glorious return and millennial reign. When we are really emptied of sin and filled with the divine unction, we are ready to go forth to meet Him with a shout. “Coming,” in this verse, is parousia, and means presence, corroborating the prophecies of His coming to stay and reign forever; doubtless, as in His former presence on the earth, anon appearing and disappearing in different parts of the world.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18–25. Little children, it is the last time. We are in the last dispensation. Ye have heard that antichrist shall come. False Christs and those opposed to Christ. See Matt. 24:4. Anti-Christ is Anti-Christianity. Whereby we know that it is the last time. Their appearance is a part of the series of events which leads to the final consummation.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

John warns about those who are against Christ.

Little children

"Immature Christians." See how you translated this in 1 John 2:1.

it is the last hour

The phrase "the last hour" refers to the time just before Jesus returns. AT: "Jesus will return soon" (See: Metonymy)

many antichrists have come

"there are many people who are against Christ"

have come. By this we know

"have come, and because of this we know" or "have come, and because many antichrists have come, we know"

They went out from us

"They left us"

but they were not from us

"but they did not really belong to us anyway" or "but they were not really part of our group in the first place." The reason they were not really part of the group is that they were not believers in Jesus.

For if they had been from us they would have remained with us

"We know this because they would not have left us if they really had been believers"

translationWords

children

antichrist

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

18–26. THE PERSONS TO BE AVOIDED;—ANTICHRISTS

18. Before ἀντίχριστος omit ὁ with [491]1[492][493] against [494][495][496].

[491] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.

[492] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

[493] 5th century. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it. In the National Library at Paris. Part of the First and Third Epistles; 1Jn 1:1 to 1Jn 4:2; 3Jn 1:3-14. Of the whole N.T. the only Books entirely missing are 2 John and 2 Thessalonians.

[494] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.

[495] 9th century. All three Epistles.

[496] 9th century. All three Epistles.

18. παιδία. Little ones. See on 1Jn 2:14. It is difficult to see anything in this section specially suitable to children: indeed the very reverse is rather the case. S. John’s readers in general are addressed, irrespective of age. Both his Epistle and Gospel are written for adults and for well-instructed Christians.

ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστίν. It is the last hour; possibly, but not probably, it is a last hour. The omission of the definite article is quite intelligible and not unusual: the idea is sufficiently definite without it, for there can be only one last hour. Similarly (Jud 1:18) we have ἐπ ἐσχάτου χρόνου: and (Act 1:8; Act 13:47) ἕως ἐσχάτου τ. γῆς. A great deal has been written upon this text in order to avoid a very plain but unwelcome conclusion, that by the ‘last hour’ S. John means the time immediately preceding the return of Christ to judge the world. Hundreds of years have passed away since S. John wrote these words, and the Lord is not yet come. Rather, therefore, than admit an interpretation which seemed to charge the Apostle with a serious error, commentators have suggested all kinds of explanations as substitutes for the obvious one. The following considerations place S. John’s meaning beyond all reasonable doubt.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18-28.] Warning against antichrists and false teachers (vv. 18-23): and exhortation to abide in Christ (vv. 24-28). The place which this portion holds will be best seen by strictly recapitulating. “God is light, and in Him is no darkness:” that (ch. 1:5) is the ground-tone of this whole division of the Epistle. In ch. 1:5-2:11, the Apostle shews, wherein the believer’s walking in light consists. At ver. 12, his style takes at once a hortatory turn. In his addresses to the various classes of his readers, the tone of warning is slightly struck by νενικήκατε τὸν πονηρόν: if indeed the whole form of assertion of an ideal state in each case do not of itself carry a delicate shade of warning. Hence the transition is easy to actual warning. And this in vv. 15-17 begins by general dehortation from the love of the world as excluding the love of God, and now proceeds by caution against those in the world who would rob them of Him by whom alone walking in the light of God is made both possible and actual to us. The note of transition from the last verses is the παράγεται, here taken up by ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστίν. The world is passing away: and those temptations and conflicts of which ye have heard as belonging to its last period, are now upon you: those adversaries who would endanger your abiding in Him and being found in Him at His coming.

18.] Children (παιδία, as before, is addressed not to any one class, but to all the readers), it is the last time (what is exactly the Apostle’s meaning by these words? Clearly, in some sense or other, that it is the last period of the world. For we must at once repudiate such views as that of Bengel, who, strange to say, seems to understand it as “extrema Johannis ætas,” and that of Steinhofer, who explains it to be John’s own time as the close of the Apostolic age: and even more decidedly that of Œc. (ἔστι δὲ τὸ ἔσχατον καὶ κατὰ τὸ χείριστον ἐκλαθεῖν, ὡς ὅταν φαμέν, εἰς ἔσχατον ἀφῖγμαι κακοῦ), Schöttgen, Carpzov., Rosenm., for all other reasons, and on account of the saying 2Ti 3:1, ἐν ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις ἐνστήσονται καιροὶ χαλεποί.

These then being cleared away, we come to the view of Grot.: “ultimum tempus, ubi ad Judæos sermo est, significat tempus proximum excidio urbis ac templi et reipublicæ Judæorum,” proceeding to interpret the ἀντίχριστοι to be the many false Christs who arose in that period, and ἀντίχριστος to be the chief of them, Barchochebas. So Hammond, Mede, Lightfoot, Socinus: and similarly, but not so decidedly, Episcopius. But two sufficient replies may be given to this view. First, that thus these false Messiahs of the Jews must have gone forth ἐξ ἡμῶν, i. e. from the Christian Church, which they did not. Secondly, what would the approximation of the destruction of Jerusalem, viewed merely as a Jewish event (which it must be, on the hypothesis here, as ἐσχάτη would only be true as addressed to Jews), have to do with the subject of our Epistle?

And thus we have arrived at the views of those who recognize here the last age of the world, but are anxious to get rid of the idea that the Apostle, in thus speaking, regarded the coming of the Lord as near at hand, and endeavour to give some meaning to the expression which shall preclude this (to them) objectionable notion. Among these may be mentioned Calvin, and many of the elder Commentators (e. g. Aug., Bede, Schol. I., Œc., Thl.), who understand the latter dispensation: the time from Christ’s advent in the flesh to His coming to judgment. This is (Calv.) “ultimum tempus, in quo sic complentur omnia, ut nihil supersit præter ultimam Christi revelationem.” With this in the main, Beza, Wolf, Lücke, De Wette, Neander, Sander, also agree. But, apart from considerations of the unfitness of such an idea in the context, in which παράγεται, vv. 8, 17,—and our ver. 28, shew that it is the coming of the Lord which is before the mind of the Apostle,—this objection is fatal to it: that manifestly not this whole period itself, but some time within its limits is meant, from the nature of the sign given below, ὅθεν γινώσκομεν κ.τ.λ. If the whole Christian dispensation were intended by ἐσχάτη ὥρα, it would not be stated as a sign of its presence, that already there were many antichrists, but rather that already He was come who is to be the final revelation of the Father. The circumstance of there being already many antichrists, corresponds with a prophecy delivered by our Lord, not of the general character of the whole of the last dispensation, but of the particular character of the time preceding τὸ τέλος, to which prophecy and to which time the Apostle here beyond question alludes.

Düsterdieck’s interpretation is founded in some respects on those of Socinus and Grotius, impugned above,—but with this difference, that he believes the expression to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem considered not as a Jewish, but as a Christian event: as opening that period of judgment, which shall precede the end, and the length of which was no where laid down in our Lord’s prophecies, nor revealed to the Apostles. But thus, with all his anxiety to escape the ascribing to the Apostles a mistaken view as to the nearness of the Lord’s second coming, he does in fact fall unavoidably into that class of interpreters, by regarding that as left uncertain, of which the apostolic prophecies seem to speak with some certainty. And I believe that if we are to deal ingenuously both with words and with facts, we must recognize this difficulty here, as well as in such passages as 1Co 15:52; 2Co 5:1 ff.; 1Th 4:15 ff.; and understand the Apostle to be speaking, as any one in any subsequent age of the Church might have spoken, and as we may speak now, of his time as being the last time, seeing that the signs of the last time were rife in it. How long it may please God to prolong this ἐσχάτη ὥρα, how long to permit the signs to continue which demonstrate each age of the church to have this character, is a question to which it was not given to him, and is not given to us, to reply. To him indeed many prophetic visions were given, and have been recorded for us; but what is their plain and unmistakable import, will only then be known, when it becomes necessary for the churches to see clearly the signs of His coming): and even as ye heard (in our preaching, when ye received the Gospel) that antichrist cometh (ἔρχεται, the present of ordained fixity: “is to come.” But who, and what, is ἀντίχριστος? As far as the meaning of the word is concerned, it may mean, either 1) one who stands against Christ, or 2) one who stands instead of Christ. The latter meaning is strenuously maintained here by Grotius, who holds that our ἀντίχριστος here has nothing to do with the ἀντικείμενος of St. Paul, 2Th 2:3: that being “qui Deo summo se hostem profitetur,” whereas this is “qui se Christum facit:” understanding this and what follows (see above) of the ψευδόχριστοι prophesied of by our Lord, Mat 24:5, Mat 24:24. This he defends by ἀντιβασιλεύς, meaning a viceroy, not an adversary of the king. And as Düsterd. suggests, he might have cited more instances on his side: ἀντίψυχος, in Ignat. Smyrn. 10, p. 716; Eph. 21, p. 661; Polyc. 2, 6, pp. 721, 725, in the sense of ἀντίλυτρον: the Homeric ἀντίθεος, “equal to the gods:” ἀνθύπατος, a proconsul, &c. But seeing that the other meaning, “adversarius Christi,” is also upheld by precedent,—e. g. τύπος—ἀντίτυπος, ἀντιφιλόσοφος, ἀντιφάρμακον, ἀντίθεος in Homer also = enemy to the gods (so Chrys. on 2Th 2:4, ἀντίθεός τις ἔσται, κ. πάντας καταλύσει τοὺς θεούς, κ. κελεύσει προσκυνεῖν αὐτὸν ἀντὶ τοῦ θεοῦ), ἀντιφύλαξ, ἀντιμαχητής, ἀντικάτων (the book written by Cæsar against Cato), &c.,—it is clear that we cannot solve the doubt by philology alone, but must take into account other considerations. And first among these comes the fact, that St. John, who was acquainted with the form ψευδόχριστος, using as he does ψευδοπροφήτης, ch. 4:1, never uses it, but always (see reff.) this word ἀντίχριστος. Is it not hence probable that he intended to signify, not a false Christ, but an antichrist? Next, we may fairly allege the ancient interpretations, as shewing how Greeks themselves understood the word. In these we do not find a vestige of the meaning ψευδόχριστος being attached to the term ἀντίχριστος (Hippolyt. de Antichristo, § 6, p. 734, Migne, κατὰ πάντα ἐξομοιοῦσθαι βούλεται ὁ πλάνος τῷ υἱῷ τοῦ θεοῦ, is not really to the point; it does not give a meaning to ἀντίχριστος, but only alleges an undeniable feature in his character. The same may be said of Iren. Hær. v. 28. 2, p. 326, “ut sicut Christum adorent illum qui seducentur ab illo:” and of that of Hippolytus, de Christo et Antichristo, c. 49, p. 768, ἐξομοιοῦσθαι μέλλει τῷ υἱῷ τοῦ θεοῦ, and indeed of all the passages where the Greek Fathers, as Cyril, Theodoret, &c., speak of the likeness of antichrist to Christ), but every where (see e. g. the quotations in Suicer) they interpret ἀντίχριστος by ἐναντίος τῷ χριστῷ. The most decided is Thl., πάντως ὁ ψεύστης ἐναντίος ὢν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἤτοι τῷ χριστῷ ἀντίχριστός ἐστι. So also the Latins: de præscr. hær. 4, vol. ii. p. 16,—“qui antichristi, interim et semper, nisi Christi rebelles?”—Aug. in loc.,—“Latine Antichristus est, contrarius Christo:” and so Bede. And lastly our ver. 22 is quite against Grot.’s view, where ἀντίχριστος is interpreted, not ὁ προσποιούμενος χριστὸν εἶναι, but ὁ ἀρνούμενος τὸν πατέρα κ. τὸν υἱόν, which is explained, ver. 23, to be involved in ἀρνεῖσθαι τὸν υἱόν.

Taking then (ὁ) ἀντίχριστος for Christ’s adversary, I would refer to the disquisition and summary of opinions in the Prolegomena to Vol. III. on 2Th 2:1 ff., where the reasons which have induced me to expect a personal Antichrist are given in full: as are also the indications furnished by prophecy, and by the history of the church and the world, as to his probable character and work), even now there have arisen many antichrists (not, “even now many have become antichrists:” this would rather be ἀντίχριστοι γεγόνασιν πολλοί, or πολλοὶ ἀντίχ. γεγ. By the πολλοί being thrown between the subst. and the verb, it is shewn to be only an epithet, not the subject of the proposition. But what are we to understand the Apostle as saying? Is this fact alleged as a presumption that ὁ ἀντίχριστος is near, these πολλοὶ ἀντίχριστοι prefiguring and heralding him,—or as a proof that he is come, being in fact the aggregate of these? The question is an important one, as affecting that of a personal or collective antichrist. And the first thing to be noticed in answering it is, that these ἀντίχριστοι πολλοί are explained by the Apostle himself, ver. 22 f., to be deniers of the Father and the Son: i. e. of the Son: and even more explicitly, ch. 4:3, deniers that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. Here, however, this latter point is not yet brought out: here it is as ψεῦσται that we hear of them: as deniers of the truth, which Truth is Jesus Christ, the Son of God: as not having the Spirit, which is truth and no lie, ver. 27. They are said to have gone forth from the Christian church, but not to have been ἐξ ἡμῶν, as their spirit ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν, ch. 4:3. They are ἀντίχριστοι; their spirit is τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου, ibid., of which the readers had heard that it should come, and it was in the world already. From much of this it might at first sight appear as if these ἀντίχριστοι in their aggregate formed ὁ ἀντίχριστος. But a nearer inspection will convince us that this cannot be so. (ὁ) χριστός and (ὁ) ἀντίχριστος stand over against one another, and analogy requires that if the one be personal, the other should be also. And in ch. 4:3 we are not told that merely the spirit is ἀντιχρίστου, but that it is τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου, the personal reference being still kept. Again, we have ἔρχεται, the present future of prophetic fixity, in both places, here and in ch. 4:3, set against γεγόνασιν and ἐστίν: and the verb itself, in its prophetic sense, one regularly used of Christ, as here of antichrist. So that our only refuge in order to consistent interpretation here, is to regard these ἀντίχριστοι πολλοί clothed with the attributes and having the spirit of ὁ ἀντίχριστος, as being his forerunners, in the sense of 2Th 2:7, τὸ γὰρ μυστήριον ἤδη ἐνεργεῖται τῆς ἀνομίας: meaning, as I have explained at length in the summary referred to above, that the antichristian principle was then, as it is now, and will be in every age, working, realizing, and concentrating itself from time to time, in evil men and evil books and evil days, but awaiting its final development and consummation in (ὁ) ἀντίχριστος, who shall personally appear before the coming of the Lord. In St. John’s time these ἀντίχριστοι πολλοί were to be seen in the early heretical teachers whose false and corrupting doctrine and practice was beginning to trouble the church. See again, Düsterdieck’s long and elaborate note, in which he has discussed all the difficulties of the subject. He in the main agrees with the conclusion given above; as do also De Wette, Lücke, Erdmann): from whence we know that it is the last time (these words are a formal statement of the connexion between the first and second members of the foregoing sentence, which without them it would be left for the reader to supply in his mind).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18-21. The writer passes by a natural transition from the thought of the transitoriness of the world to that of its approaching end. The many forms of false teaching which have appeared are embodiments of the spirit of Antichrist, and therefore are sure signs of the nearness of the end. The coming of Antichrist had formed part of the Apostolic teaching which had been imparted to them all. His “coming” was a recognized sign of the imminence of the Parousia.It is a matter of dispute whether the false teachers, or the spirits of error who inspire them, are to be regarded as so many precursors and heralds of Antichrist himself, in whom all the various forces of hostility to Messiah are to be gathered up for the one final conflict, or whether the many false teachers are to be thought of as actual manifestations of Antichrist, convincing proofs that the spirit of Antichrist is already present in the world. The form of the sentence, καθὼς ἠκούσατε… καὶ νῦν is in favour of the latter explanation. “You have always been taught that Antichrist is to come. The prophecy is now being fulfilled in the many Antichrists who have made their appearance.” Such an interpretation would be natural among the Disciples of the Lord. Had He not taught His Apostles to see the fulfilment of what Malachi, and others, prophesied about the Return of Elijah before the great and terrible Day of the Lord in the coming of John Baptist? And it is in complete harmony with the author’s way of thinking. In the Johannine teaching the present working of forces is not always clearly distinguished or sharply separated from their final manifestation. The author can speak of “having passed from death unto life,” and still look forward to a “raising up at the last day” without betraying any consciousness of the supposed inconsistency, which a certain type of criticism has found in his method of presentation. He would probably have regarded with complete indifference the question of whether the many antichristian forces, of whose present working he was assured, were to find their consummation in the person of a single opponent before the final manifestation of his Lord and his God, or not. There is no reason to suppose that he could not have found room for such a figure in his scheme of expectation. His immediate concern is with the relation of the many false teachers, who now show forth the spirit of Antichrist, to the Christian community. They had separated themselves off from the society of Christians, and their action was to the writer clear proof that their connection with that body could never have been more than superficial. Those who had “gone out” could never have been really “of” the community which they had not hesitated to leave, or in true union and fellowship with the Christ. It was necessary for the health of the body that all such should be clearly seen to be no true members of it. Their true character needed to be disclosed. And the readers could discover the truth for themselves if they were willing to use and trust the powers of discernment which they possessed. In their baptism they had received the anointing of the Holy One, even as the Kings and Priests of the old Covenant were anointed with the oil which symbolized the gift of God’s Spirit. What had then been granted to a few was now extended to all. They all possessed the gift of knowledge which enabled them to grasp the truth of what Christ had revealed. In what he wrote to them the author was not teaching new truths. He was recalling to their mind what they already knew. And knowing the truth, they knew that no falsehood could have anything to do with it.

(1) 18. The appearance of Antichrists the sign of the end

παιδία] He still addresses them by the title which emphasizes their need of instruction and guidance. Cf. ver. 14, and perhaps 3:7.

ἐσχάτη ὥρα] The absence of the article emphasizes the character of the period. It suggests no idea of a series of periods of stress which are to precede the several comings of Christ. The conception of many partial “comings” has a very important place in the elucidation of the permanent value of the New Testament expectations of the Coming of the Christ, but it is not to be found in those expectations themselves. The Johannine teaching, whatever its origin may be, has taught us to spiritualize the New Testament expression of the doctrine of the last things. But the writer held firmly to the expectation of a final manifestation of the Christ at “the last day,” and he seems to have expected it within the remaining years of his own lifetime. When he uses the phrase “last hour” he clearly means the short period, as he conceived it to be, which still remained before the final manifestation of the last day. The phrase is found here only in the New Testament. The expression ἡ ἐσχάτη ἡμέρα occurs in the Gospel (seven times), and never without the article. Its use is confined to the Gospel. Cf. Act 2:17 (αἱ ἐσχ. ἡμ).; 2Ti 3:1 (ἐσχ. ἡμέραι); 1 P. 1:5 (ἐν καιρῷ ἐσχάτῷ); Jud 1:18 (ἐν ἐσχάτῳ χρόνῳ). The use of ὥρα in connection with the coming of Christ is frequent in the Gospels, Mat 24:36 ( = Mar 13:32), 24:42, 44, 50, 25:13; Luk 12:40, Luk 12:46. Cf. Rom 13:11; Rev 3:3.

The “last hour” is the last period of the interval between the first and second coming of the Christ. Christian expectation had inherited from Jewish apocalyptic the doctrine of a period of extreme distress which was immediately to precede the coming of Messiah, and in which the hostility of the World Powers was to culminate in a single opponent. In the prevalence of so many false views about the Person of Jesus, and His relation to God, the writer sees the surest signs of their approach, and probably the true fulfilment of the prediction of His coming.

καθὼς ἠκούσατε] Cf. Mat 24:15, Mat 24:24; Mar 13:6; Act 20:30, and especially 2Th 2:3. The subject formed part of the general apostolic teaching. As in ver. 24, the aorist refers to the time when they were instructed in the faith.

ἀντίχριστος] The preposition can denote either one who takes the place of another (cf. ἀνθύπατος), or one who opposes (cf. ἀντιστράτηγος, used of the opposing general, Thucyd. vii. 86, as well as in later times for the Propraetor). The word may therefore mean one who, pretending to be the Christ, really opposes Him and seeks to destroy His work. The word is found in the N.T. only here and in 2:22, 4:3; 2Jn 1:7. But though the word appears first in these Epistles, the idea is undoubtedly taken over from Jewish Apocalyptic thought, to which it is also probable that early Babylonian, or at least Semitic, nature-myths had contributed. It is imposible to explain the references to the subject which are found in the New Testament (Synoptic Eschatological discourses, Pauline Epistles, especially 2 Th. 2., and Apocalypse) from the New Testament itself and the apocalyptic portions of Daniel and Zechariah. There must have been some popular tradition, at once definite within certain limits and varying according to the circumstances of the times, from which the N.T. writers have drawn independently. The late Christian writers, who may have derived the name from the passages in these Epistles, have certainly drawn their material from other sources besides the books of the N.T. The Johannine Epistles contribute nothing but the first mention of the name. The author refers to a popular tradition only to spiritualize it. He makes no substantial addition to our knowledge of its content (see additional note).

ἔρχεται] sit uenturus (vg.), cf. Mar 9:12, Ἠλείας μὲν ἐλθὼν… ἀποκαθιστάνει. The present expresses the fact as the subject of common teaching, rather than as about to be realized immediately. Cf. the use of ὁ ἐρχόμενος, Mat 11:3, Mat 11:21:9; Mar 11:9; Luk 7:19, Luk 7:20, Luk 7:13:35; Joh 1:15, Joh 1:27, Joh 1:6:14, Joh 1:12:13; Act 19:4; (?) 2Co 11:4; Heb 10:37.

γεγόνασιν] “have come to be,” “have arisen.” Their appearance was a natural outcome of the growth of Christianity. As the truth of what Christ really was came to be more and more clearly realized in the gradual growth of Christian life and experience, those who had been attracted to the movement by partial views and external considerations, which had nothing to do with its essential import, were necessarily driven into sharper antagonism. Growth necessitated the rejection of that which did not contribute to true life. In the extent of such developments the writer finds clear indication that the process is nearing completion (ὅθεν γινώσκομεν).

ὅθεν γινώσκομεν ὅτι] It is the writer’s favourite method of exposition first to make his statement and then to state the facts by which his readers can assure themselves of its truth. When their first enthusiasm had died out, and delay had brought disappointment, the question was often being asked, “How can we know?” “From the fact just stated we come to know.”

παιδια] αδελφοι I a 175 (319).

ωρα1o] for τη C*.

και] om. k.

οτι א B C K P al. pler. cat. vg. syrutr aeth. Or. Epiph. Ir. Cypr.] om. A L 17. 96. 100. 142 aethro.

αντιχριστος א* B C 3. 5. 58lect arm. Or. Epiph.] pr. o אc A K L al. pler. cat. Thphyl. Oec.: αντιχρηστοςI a 206f, 192, 173 (83).

γινωσκομεν] γινωσκωμεν A

(2) 19 ἐξῆλθαν] Cf. 3Jn 1:7. The word indicates (1) that originally they were members of the community, “they drew their origin from us,” (2) that they had now separated themselves from the community. It suggests, if it does not compel us to assume, that their “going forth” was their own act, and not due to excommunication. But it is useless to attempt to reproduce by conjecture the exact historical circumstances, which were too well known to both writer and readers to need further elucidation. The false teachers had ceased to belong to the community to which they had formerly attached themselves—of the manner of their going forth, or of the exact causes which led to it, we are ignorant.

ἀλλά] In spite of their external membership, they had never been true members of the Body.

οὐκ ἦσαν ἐξ ἡμῶν] Their connection was purely external. They did not share the inner life.

εἰ γάρ] Cf. 4:20, 5:3; 2Jn 1:11; 3Jn 1:3, 3Jn 1:7. As a rule, the writer uses the more “objective” ὅτι to state the cause.

ἐξ ἡμῶν] The emphasis is now laid on the words ἐξ ἡμῶν. They were not ours; if ours they had been, they would have remained with those to whom they (inwardly) belonged.

μεμενήκεισαν ἄν] The word μένειν, though it is here the obvious word to use in any case, had a special significance for the writer. “The slave abideth not in the house for ever. The son abideth for ever.” The test of true discipleship was to “abide” in the truth, as made known by those who had seen the Lord and been taught by Him. The writer cannot conceive the possibility of those who had ever fully welcomed the truth breaking their connection with the Christian society. External membership was no proof of inward union. The severing of the connection showed that such membership had never been anything but external.

μεθʼ ἡμῶν] naturally expresses outward fellowship as distinguished from inward communion.

It was natural that the authors of theories of predestination should find in this verse confirmation of their doctrine.The writer follows his usual practice, which was also the practice of his Master, of making absolute statements without qualification. But the whole teaching and aim of his Epistle shows that he recognized the danger, and therefore the possibility, of those who were truly “members of Christ” falling away. “The subject here is neither a donum perseverantiae, nor a distinction of the Vocati and Electi.”

ἀλλʼ ἵνα] For the elliptic use of ἵνα, cf. Joh 1:8, Joh 1:13:18; Rev 14:13. The result is contemplated as part of the Divine purpose. Some such phrase as τοῦτο γέγονεν must be supplied, or the sense may be brought out by a paraphrase, “they had to be made manifest” (“Sie sollten offenbar werden,” Weiss).οὐκ εἰσὶν πάντες ἐξ ἡμῶν] It is tempting to take the negative as qualifying πάντες, in spite of the fact that the two words are separated by the verb. In this case the meaning would be that the incident, or incidents, to which the verse refers served a wider purpose than the mere unmasking of the individuals concerned. It showed that external membership is no proof of inward union. Their unmasking was necessary, for not all who were external members of the Church really and inwardly belonged to it. But the usage of the New Testament in general, and of the author in particular, is decisive against such an interpretation of οὐ … πᾶς when the negative is separated from the πᾶς. Cf. Mat 24:22; Mar 13:20; Luk 1:37; Act 10:14, Act 10:11:8; 1Co 1:29; Gal 2:16; Eph 4:29, Eph 4:5:5; Joh 3:15, Joh 3:16, Joh 3:6:39; 1Jn 2:21; Rev 7:1, Rev 7:16, Rev 7:9:4, 18:22, 21:27, 22:3. There is no parallel instance of οὐ … πάντες where the words are separated. But the usage with the singular, and the influence of Hebrew and Aramaic forms of expression on the style of the writer, suggest that the plural should be understood as the singular undoubtedly must be interpreted. And the meaning thus obtained is supported by the context. The subject is, of course, the “Antichrists,” who have severed their connection with the Christian Body. The interpretation given above suffers from the extreme awkwardness of having to break the sentence by taking ὅτι in a casual sense. “Their detection had to be brought about; for all members are not true members, and the fact must needs be made clear.” It is still more awkward to suppose (as Weiss) that the sentence is continued, “as if ἵνα φανερωθῇ had preceded.” It seems clear, therefore, that the negative must qualify the verb, according to the usual construction of οὐ … πᾶς, and בֹּל…לאֹ . And the meaning must be, “they had to be made manifest; it was necessary to show that none of them, however specious their pretensions, however much they differed in character or in opinions, were truly members of the Body.” The extent of the apostasy, and the variety of attack, had caused surprise and alarm. The writer assures his “children” that it had its place and purpose in the counsels of Him who saith, “A whole I planned.” The author finds comfort and assurance, for himself and for his readers, in the thought that whatever happens is included in the one purpose of God, however much appearances may seem to indicate the contrary. He has his own language in which to express the Pauline τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν τὸν θεὸν πάντα συνεργεῖ εἰς ἀγαθόν.

εξημων 3o B C 69. 137 ascr arm. syrseh etp aeth. Amb. Optat.] post ησαν א A K L P al. pler. cat. vg. Clem. Cyr. Epiph. Thphyl. Oec. Ir. Tert. Cypr. Or. Did.

μεμενηκεισαν] μεμενηκεσαν Ia δ454 (262) Ib 472 Ic 364 K500: μενενηκασιν Ia 264. 397 ffff. 110* (233) Ib δ368 Ic 353. 174.

φανερωθωσιν] φανερωθη69 ascr syrsch etp mg.

εισιν] ησανIa 64 (328) Ic 174 K 453.

om. παντες69 aser syrutr Ir. Eph.

ημων (?)] υμων H δ6 (Ψ).

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Little children [παιδια] . See on ver. 13.

The last hour [εσχατη ωρα] . The phrase only here in the New Testament. On John's use of wra hour, as marking a critical season, see Joh 2:4; Joh 4:21, 23; Joh 5:25, 28; Joh 7:30; Joh 8:20; Joh 11:2 3, 27; Joh 16:2, 4, 25, 32. The dominant sense of the expression last days, in the New Testament, is that of a period of suffering and struggle preceding a divine victory. See Act 2:17; Jas 5:3; 1Pe 1:20. Hence the phrase here does not refer to the end of the world, but to the period preceding a crisis in the advance of Christ 's kingdom, a changeful and troublous period, marked by the appearance of "many antichrists."

Antichrist. Peculiar to John in the New Testament. The absence of the article shows its currency as a proper name. It may mean one who stands against Christ, or one who stands instead of Christ; just as ajntistrathgov may mean either one who stands in the place of a strathgov praetor, a propraetor (see Introd. to Luke, vol. 1, p. 246, and note on Act 16:20), or an opposing general. John never uses the word yeudocristov false Christ (Mt 24:24; Mr 13:22). While the false Christ is merely a pretender to the Messianic office, the Antichrist "assails Christ by proposing to do or to preserve what he did, while denying Him." Antichrist, then, is one who opposes Christ in the guise of Christ. Westcott's remark is very important, that John's sense of Antichrist is determined by the full Christian conception of Christ, and not by the Jewish conception of the promised Savior.

Cometh [ερχεται] . The prophetic present, equivalent to is about to come. The same term is used of Christ (Joh 14:3; Joh 21:22; Revelation 22 20).

Are there [γεγονασιν] . Rev., more correctly, have there arisen.

Whereby [οθεν] . Lit., whence. Only here in John. It is found in Matthew and Luke, and frequently in Hebrews, and not elsewhere.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

18, Παιδία] Filioli (Puert) V., My little ones. See v.14. The Apostle addresses his readers with the authority of age and experience, and not as dwelling on the thought of spiritual kinship (rexvia).

bom

But in this interpretation the successive partial dawnings of ‘the age to come’ give a different force to the words ‘the last days’ which usher in the age according to the context in which they occur. In one sense ‘the age to come’ dated from Pentecost; in another from the destruction of Jerusalem; in another it was still the object of hope. So also ‘the last days’ are found in each of the seasons of fierce trial which precede the several

Comp. Ign. ad Ephes.c.11. The true reading in 1 Thess. v. 2 (jp. not ἡ nu.) illustrates ἐσχ. dpa here.

καθὼς ἠκούσατε] as ye heard in

D). It appears therefore to be characteristic of the school of St Joho. See Additional Note.

ceive... because this form of trial is connected with each critical conflict which comes before an end. A full manifestation of (good and) evil is the condition of a divine judgment.

Ὅθεν is found here only in the writings of St John. It is character-

(see ii. 17 note), but is not found in the Epistles of St Paul.

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901), The Epistle to the Hebrews (1889) and The Epistles of St John (1883) — public domain (pre-1929). Text recovered from Internet Archive / Google Books OCR scans. Westcott’s Gospel of John commentary is not included (its OCR lost the chapter running-heads required for reliable verse-keying). Some Greek quoted in the Hebrews volume is imperfectly rendered by the OCR.