Children, it is the last hour, and as you have
heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore
we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of
us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they
went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have
been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not
because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie
is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?
This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies
the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what
you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning
abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this
is the promise that he made to us—eternal life. (1 John 2:18–25 ESV).
The first declaration of the Apostle
John is that we are in the last hour and “antichrist is coming” (v. 18). The
Apostle Paul writes of the coming of a “man of lawlessness” who will set
himself up in God’s temple and proclaim himself to be God (cf. 2 Thessalonians
2:3–4). John later will write of a coming “beast” who will wear out the saints
of God and be known by the number 666 (cf. Revelation 13). Here John simply warns
of “antichrist.” Naturally we want to know who these people are, or are they
all the same person?
As always we were are trying to
interpret prophecy, there are a variety of views. The older historicist
approach usually identified the beast (“out of the sea”) as the Roman emperor,
while the second beast (“out of the land”) of Revelation 13, together with the
false prophet of that chapter, were associated with the papacy. The man of sin
was also the pope, for he sat in the temple (the church) and exalted himself. Modern
futurism links the man of sin and the beast, and says that this is a man who
will arise in the future just before Christ returns. He will be the false
Christ, the antichrist, and will unite the world in a new tower of Babel
against the remnant of the faithful. Preterists usually see 666 as a symbol for
the name “Nero Caesar,” and thus they identify the beast as Nero, while the
second beast and false prophet are identified with the Sanhedrin and Judaizers
who sought to stamp out the early church. The man of sin is taken by some to be
Nero, and by others identified as the high priest, who literally sat in the
temple and opposed Christ. Modern futurism tends to have a very political
understanding of this figure. Beast/antichrist/man of sin is a world leader,
not an ecclesiastical opponent of the faithful. The older views (preterist and
historicist) focus attention more on the church. The greatest enemies of the
faith, they say, are in the church, as the serpent was in the Garden.
So, where does that leave us? Let me ask
a different kind of question. Did John intend for us to envision some
particular person as the antichrist, or did he mean that any self-conscious
opponent of the faith is an antichrist (cf. 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7)? AS
you may surmise, I tend to think in terms of this meaning. That is not to say
there will not be a physical being who opposes Christ and the faithful.
However, as we are going to see, the biggest danger John is writing to prevent
in these beloved friends is the failure to recognize the danger of those who
would oppose Christ and His faithful in every age and generation. There will
always be political beasts and ecclesiastical antichrists who seek to oppose
the truth, and we must always be on our guard against them.
We must remain vigilant. We can only do
so as we immerse ourselves in the truth of the gospel.
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