The Antichrist(s)
1 JOHN 2:18-27
Main Idea: There have always been those, and more will come, who actively oppose Christ and the gospel; Christians must resist such error and cling to the truth of God as revealed by the Spirit in the Scriptures.
I. Antichrists Attack Christ (2:18).
A. Antichrist has a period of time.
B. Antichrist is a principle of spiritual error.
C. Antichrist is a person of deception.
II. Antichrists Abandon the Church (2:19,22-23).
A. Physically, they desert the fellowship (2:19).
B. Spiritually, they deny the faith (2:22-23).
III. Antichrists Assault the Christian (2:20-21,24-27).
A. We have experienced the anointing of the Spirit (2:20-21,27).
B. We must embrace the authority of the Scriptures (2:24-26).
One of the earliest and most important lessons we Americans teach our children is how to tell time. This is because we live in a time-conscious culture. Whereas people in many other parts of the world worry much less about deadlines and dates, we are rather obsessed with them. Being early is not fashionable. Being late can often be costly.
The apostle John was also concerned that we know how to tell time. However, it was not chronological time-telling that concerned him. It was spiritual clock-watching that he deemed of first importance. His interest was not time as man measures it, but time as God measures it. How God reckons time is an important theological issue that should concern the heart and occupy the mind of every follower of Jesus Christ. You see, as God keeps time, “it is the last hour” (v. 18). Time is running out. Midnight is almost here. How do we know this? According to John, unmistakable evidence has appeared: the antichrists have come on the scene!
The word “antichrist” (Gk antichristos) has a way of striking a sense of wonder, amazement, and even fear in our hearts. And in one sense it should. Nevertheless, given all the strange and wild speculations that surface when antichrist is mentioned, it is absolutely essential that we have a biblically balanced understanding of who the antichrists are and what the antichrists do.
In our text John will place before us three important lessons that will equip us to both recognize and defeat these archenemies of the true Christ, our Savior the Lord Jesus. It is time to get armed for the battle. Spiritual conflict is inevitable.
Antichrists Attack Christ
The apostle John did not go looking for a fight. However, he would not run from one when those he loved and cared for were in danger of being lied to (v. 22) and deceived (v. 26). Once again he addresses his readers as “children” (cf. vv. 1,12,13). It is a term of endearment and tender affection. It is also a literary device John uses to introduce a new subject. Here, that subject is “the last hour” and the appearance of “many antichrists.” The word “antichrist” means “against Christ” or “in the place of Christ.” The primary idea in this case is that these enemies are “against Christ.” Only John uses this striking term and only in four places in his letters (1 John 2:18,22; 4:3; 2 John 7). While John appears to have coined the word, he did not make up the idea. Daniel calls this rival of Christ “the coming prince” (Dan 9:27). Paul calls him the “man of lawlessness” (2 Thess 2:3). John will picture him as the beast from the sea in Revelation 13:1-10. In this text, John notes several important truths about this spiritual nemesis.
Antichrist Has a Period of Time
John says at the beginning and the end of verse 18, “it is the last hour.” It is crucial that we understand what this term means if we are to develop a proper eschatology. Note that John said it was the last hour almost 2,000 years ago. The phrase signifies the entire period of time between the first and second comings of Christ. This is a consistent teaching of the New Testament. Note the following passages:
On the contrary, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: And it will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out My Spirit on all humanity; then your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. (Acts 2:16-17)
Now these things happened to them as examples, and they were
written as a warning to us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. (1 Cor 10:11)
But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days. (2 Tim 3:1)
Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. God has appointed Him heir of all things and made the universe through Him. (Heb 1:1-2)
Otherwise, He would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world. But now He has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
(Heb 9:26)
He was chosen before the foundation of the world but was revealed at the end of the times for you. (1 Pet 1:20)
The last hour evokes the sense of imminence and urgency in which those who follow Christ must live in throughout any and every age. We live in a time when antichrists (plural) are active. This activity will increase until “the Antichrist” comes at the end of the last hour. Jesus Himself warned us of all of this in Matthew 24:4-5,24-25. As the gospel spreads, so will false teaching. As Christ’s missionaries go out to the nations, so will Satan’s missionaries called “antichrists”! We are engaged in a global conflict for the souls of men. Interestingly, there could be no antichrists if there was not a true Christ. Even their coming is a witness concerning His coming!
Antichrist Is a Principle of Spiritual Error
In 1 John 4:3 the apostle speaks of “the spirit of the antichrist.” In our text in 2:22, he makes plain what the spirit of antichrist is all about: they are liars who deny “that Jesus is the Messiah.” And their strategy is deceptive and seductive. They do not directly oppose Jesus Christ. They redefine Him. They re-imagine Him. “He is good,” they say, “but He is not God.” “He may be a son of God like we can be sons and daughters of God,” they teach, “but He is not the Son of God.” “He may have died on the cross as a martyr,” they affirm, “but He did not die as a Savior.” The spirit of antichrist always diminishes the person and work of Christ. It chips away at His deity and rejects His work of atonement. The antichrist spirit thinks and then teaches incorrectly concerning who Jesus Christ is and what Jesus Christ has done.
The “hub” of Christianity is the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal and divine Son of God. If you get it wrong here, you will get it wrong almost everywhere else. This is the spirit of the antichrists, and it will attempt to lead you down the road of spiritual error that is a theological dead end.
Antichrist Is a Person of Deception
John makes an important distinction between many antichrists who are already here and the Antichrist who is coming at the end of the age. Satan’s superman will appear someday. The Devil’s darling will make a grand entrance sometime in the future. This counterfeit Christ will come on the scene of world history and, amazingly, the whole earth will marvel and follow him. Satan will indwell him and give him “his power, his throne, and great authority” (Rev 13:2-3). The Bible teaches that the nations will even worship him as God (Rev 13:4).
Now you may ask, “When is he coming? Could he be alive right now?” Several years ago Newsweek reported that 19 percent of all Americans and 50 percent of those who accept biblical prophecy believe the antichrist is alive today (Woodward, “The Way the World Ends,” 69). Whether he is alive or not, I cannot, will not, and should not speculate, and neither should you. That is God’s business. What I do know is he will come, and the spirit of antichrist is alive and well. So, be on the lookout for those who attack the biblical teachings about Christ. They will do you no good.
Antichrists Abandon the Church
1 JOHN 2:19,22-23
The greatest dangers to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ are always from within, not from without. Satan is a master deceiver and strategist who knows that the deployment of a spiritual Trojan Horse can do serious, if not irreparable, damage to the body of Christ. However, once the damage is done, the antichrists will leave the spiritual battlefield taking with them what captives they can. Eventually they reveal their true colors and allegiance. Their departure will almost always be painful and the occasion for tremendous grief. But their exit is essential for the health and vitality of the church. Alistair Begg says it well: “There are some who share [for a while] our earthly company who do not share our heavenly birth” (“A Word of Warning”). You see, their leaving us is a clear sign and certain signal that they were really never a part of us to begin with.
Physically, They Desert the Fellowship (1 John 2:19)
Perseverance is the proof of possession. Defection from the fellowship gives evidence of a defective faith. That was certainly John’s perspective.
The contrast between “they” and “us” in verse 19 is striking. In the original text both words appear five times. There are two spiritual teams as John sees it. There is “us” and there is “them” (they). Several observations can be made about each team. First, the “they team” did not last. They left. “They went out from us.” Most likely this was a voluntary departure not an excommunication, though both are certainly possible. Second, their departure proves they were never really a part of us regardless of what they once professed. In other words they were never truly saved; they never truly experienced the new birth of regeneration (cf. 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:4,9-10,18). They were and are lost.
The “us team” in contrast remains in the fellowship and perseveres. As tragic as this verse is on one hand, it is glorious and comforting on the other. Why? Because it is a wonderful affirmation of what we call “eternal security” or “perseverance of the saints.” Those who truly belong to Christ will stay with Christ because, as Jude 1 says, we are “kept for Jesus Christ.” Jesus addressed this wonderful truth in John 10:27-29 where He says, “My sheep hear My voice, I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish—ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” I love what the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 says of this doctrine in Article V on “God’s Purpose of Grace”: “All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.”
Spiritually, They Deny the Faith (1 John 2:22-23)
The physical desertion of the false teachers and their disciples was grounded in their defection from and denial of the faith. They left the church because they had left Christ. They no longer believed what the apostles, those who had been with Him, taught. They denied the incarnation and deity of Christ, that Jesus was the One sent by the Father. And their rejection of the biblical and apostolic witness concerning Jesus was personally tragic and spiritually disastrous. You see, to deny the Son is to deny His Father who sent Him. This is a package deal, as verses 22-23 make crystal clear. Indeed, “No one who denies the Son can have the Father.” But, and this is good news, “He who confesses the Son has the Father as well.”
Once again we see the Christological test is the crucial test. What do you think and believe about Jesus Christ? To these heretics, and that is what they were, Jesus was important but not preeminent. He was significant but not the Savior. However, the New Testament scholar I. H. Marshall is right on target when he says, “To deny that Jesus is the Christ is to deny that He is the Son of God” (The Epistles of John, 158). He further notes,
To reduce Jesus to the status of a mere man, or to allow no more than a temporary indwelling of some divine power in Him is to strike at the root of Christianity. Modern thinkers may have more refined ways of stating similar denials of the reality of the incarnation. It may be doubted whether they are any more immune to John’s perception that they take the heart out of Christianity. (The Epistles of John, 159)
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), the father of modern liberal theology, offered an adoptionist understanding of Jesus, dismissing as outrageous the idea that Jesus was the eternal Son of God who became human. What distinguished Jesus from other humans was “the constant potency of His God-consciousness, which was a veritable existence of God in Him” (Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 385). Jesus was a God-filled man, a God-intoxicated man, but not the God-man. Liberal theologian John Macquarrie says, “Jesus Christ pre-existed in the mind and purpose of God, and I doubt if one should look for any other kind of pre-existence” (Jesus Christ in Modern Thought, 57). And religious pluralist John Hick says, “We see in Jesus a human being extraordinarily open to God’s influence and thus living to an extraordinary extent as God’s agent on earth, ‘incarnating’ the divine purpose for human life. He thus embodied . . . the ideal of humanity living in openness and response to God, and in doing so He ‘incarnated’ a love that reflects the divine love” (The Metaphor of God Incarnate, 12).
Sadly, many of these modern false teachers and others like them have left the faith but have sought to remain in the fellowship. Their deadly poison continues to infect the body of Christ with its lies. John has given us a way to identify them. We must have the courage to expose them, even though it hurts to do so. It is always better to be divided by truth than united by error.
Antichrists Assault the Christian
1 JOHN 2:20-21,24-27
The proliferation of the antichrists, these false teachers, could easily discourage us. They are, after all, intellectual heavyweights with persuasive arguments and personalities. And as John makes clear, they are committed to our defeat. However, we should not despair. First John 4:4 promises us, “You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” John reminds us that we have a twofold arsenal that Satan, the antichrists, the liars and deceivers cannot withstand. One is the anointing of the Spirit. The other is the Word of God. “Word and Spirit” was the battle cry of the Protestant Reformation as the Reformers recaptured the truth of “justification by faith alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone.” I believe Word and Spirit must also be the battle cry of every generation of those who follow Jesus if they are to abide in the Son and in the Father (v. 24).
We Have Experienced the Anointing of the Spirit
(1 John 2:20-21,27)
What has enabled us to remain in the apostles’ teaching and the community of faith (v. 19)? We have “an anointing from the Holy One” (v. 20). “You have” is emphatic and draws a stark contrast with the antichrists of 2:18-19. This anointing refers to our receiving the Holy Spirit (cf. John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 Cor 1:21). The “Holy One” who provides this anointing is probably Jesus, who is referred to by this title numerous times in Scripture (Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34; John 6:69; Acts 3:14; Rev 3:7). However, that the Godhead in general is in view should not be ruled out. Consecrated and set apart by God and for God by the Holy Spirit, we now have an internal and abiding Teacher who will guide us in all knowledge and truth (vv. 21,27). And, by abiding in Him, no lie will seduce us, deceive us, and lead us astray.
Some have been troubled by these verses, especially verse 27, which seems to imply that having been given the Spirit, we now need no human teachers. What are we to make of this? The Bible consistently advocates teaching (Matt 28:20; 1 Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11; Col 3:16; 1 Tim 4:11; 2 Tim 2:2,24). Therefore, we can confidently say that John is not ruling out a human teacher. The fact that he wrote this letter makes that clear! Instead, this is what he is getting at: At the time he wrote, the antichrists, the false teachers, were insisting that the teaching of the apostles was to be supplemented with an additional “higher knowledge,” an “advanced knowledge,” that they claimed to possess. John’s response was that what the readers were taught under the Spirit’s ministry through the apostles was not only adequate, it was the only reliable truth. The teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit (what we call “illumination”) does not involve revelation of new truth. Rather, it is the enablement to appropriate God’s truth that has already been revealed. All things necessary for salvation are ours; we need nothing more. Let the Holy Spirit be your guide, not another spirit.
We Must Embrace the Authority of the Scriptures (1 John 2:24-26)
John now reintroduces a concept that is one of his favorites: abiding. He will use this term (Gk meno; translated to English as “abide” or “remain”) 23 times in 1 John, seven of which appear in 2:18-28. It conveys the ideas of both union and communion. John says you should abide in the Word you have received in Christ. In verse 24, John challenges the believer to simply remain in the teaching of Christ that they had received at the beginning, at conversion. To abide and remain in this teaching is to abide and remain in both the Son and the Father. There is not any additional thing you need. Jesus plus nothing equals everything (Tchividjian, Jesus + Nothing = Everything). Jesus plus something extra equals heresy and the teachings of the antichrist. All you need is Christ, and with Christ comes the Father too. Further, it is only in the Son sent by the Father that the gift of eternal life is promised. This is a promise made by God (v. 25), a promise that can never be broken.
The false teachers will attempt to deceive you into thinking you need something more than Christ or something other than Christ. They are liars (vv. 22,27). The Spirit and the apostles’ teaching (the Word) always agree. If what men teach goes against or beyond what those who knew Jesus taught, mark them because they are not of God. They have a different spirit, the spirit of antichrist.
Conclusion
Herman Bavinck was a Dutch churchman and theologian in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He also was an insightful teacher concerning the person and work of Christ. Concerning the centrality of Christ to the Christian gospel, he simply and concisely said,“Christ is Christianity itself; He stands not outside of it but in its centre; without His name, person and work, there is no Christianity left. In a word, Christ does not point out the way to salvation; He is the Way itself” (quoted in Warfield, The Person and Work of Christ, 319). This is what the apostles taught. This is what the Word says. This is what the Spirit affirms. This is what we believe. This is where we abide. This is what we confess. Eternal life is what we are promised!
Reflect and Discuss