The Antichrist

1 John 2v18-27

5^th June 2020

We're studying:

1 John 2v18-27
Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist — he denies the Father and the Son. No-one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us — even eternal life.
I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit — just as it has taught you, remain in him.

As I said last week, in order to study this passage, we need to answer three questions:

What is the last hour?
Who is the antichrist?
Who are the antichrists?

Last week, we saw that, in any honest interpretation of scripture, the last hour must include the time when Jesus and the 12 apostles were on earth. Either the last hour was the period before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, or the last hour is the whole church age.

This week, we'll answer the second question: Who is the antichrist?

John says that the people in his churches have heard that the antichrist is coming. He doesn't say who or what the antichrist is. We should bear in mind that John is the only Bible writer who uses the word "antichrist". He does so four times: twice in our passage, in Chapter 4 Verse 3, and in his second letter, Chapter 1 Verse 7:

1 John 4:3
but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

2 John 1:7
I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.

1 John 4:3 seems to me to say that the Antichrist was already in the world in the first century, although you could argue that it might mean only that the spirit of the antichrist was present at that time.

2 John 1:7 says that "many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world". It then says that "Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist." This means there are many people who are the antichrist. That's very seldom taught, but there's no way of avoiding the fact that that's what 2 John 1:17 says.

Nevertheless, we could argue, and many do, that all these antichrists are lesser than some future antichrist, who will come just before Jesus returns. That may be true, but you don't get it from any of the passages that actually talk about the antichrist by name.

It's usual to associate the antichrist with the person Paul calls the "man of lawlessness" in:

2 Thessalonians 2:1-4
Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us — saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

This certainly sounds like the antichrist. "Antichrist" means either "against Christ" or "substitute for Christ". It means "enemy of Christ" and "fake Christ".

Over the centuries, good Christian scholars – and bad ones – have tried to identify this final antichrist. Some see it as an individual person, some see it as an institution. Some thought it was Napoleon. Some thought it was Hitler. Not long ago, some thought it was Communist Russia. When the European Union consisted of ten countries, some Christians identified it as the 10-horned beast of Revelation, identified that beast as the antichrist, and came to the conclusion that the EU was the antichrist. The EU, of course, no longer consists of ten countries.

John Calvin, the greatest theologian since Biblical times, was convinced the antichrist was the papacy – the leadership of the Catholic Church. Since the Catholic Church were burning his friends at the stake at that time, you can understand why he might do that.

If these scholars can't agree among themselves, we really should not imagine that we can work out the mystery for ourselves.

The weight of opinion is that some great, super-dooper antichrist will emerge at some time. But the best we can do, in order to life as good Christians in the generation in which God has put us, is to accept that there are already many antichrists in the world. I think that's what John was saying: it's more useful to deal with the antichrists in our own generation that to speculate about the antichrist who might come later.

I'll address our third question: Who are the antichrists? next week.