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Foreign with me it’s in your Bibles first John chapter 2, beginning at verse 18.
Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard the 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 be 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. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him.
And now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray:
Father God, you speak to us through your word. It is inspired by your many writers through your Holy Spirit. Let him touch us now to hear what it is you have to say to comfort us, to guide us, and to especially help us to know what it is that you mean for us to know and understand. We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Cyrus Scofield first produced his famous Chain Reference Study Bible in 1909, updating and revising it in 1917. The assertions and interpretations he published became widely popular after World War II, following especially the re-establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948. Because what he had written seemed to be proven prophetic and accurate, this Study Bible became a bestseller and was a product of its time, emerging from the social pessimism of the pre- and post-World War One era. Even now, it continues to be popular.
This Study Bible was special and unique because of its focus and emphasis upon the end times. Scofield promoted and popularized dispensationalism, more specifically the pre-millennial dispensationalism, which has pervaded and infected American religious and popular culture through the writings of Hal Lindsey, “The Late Great Planet Earth,” back in 1971, or the “Left Behind” series of novels written from 1995 to 2007 by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, or the movies starring Kirk Cameron.
But today we are not looking at dispensationalism because, even though there are significant problems with what that system of doctrine teaches about scripture and about who God’s people are, ultimately, a person’s view of the end times does not really matter. It remains a non-essential of the Christian faith so long as they continue to affirm the salvation of some through Christ’s work of atonement on the cross, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, the future physical resurrection of the dead, and a final judgment where the elect of God will be declared righteous according to God’s grace through their faith in Jesus Christ, whereby they will enter into the kingdom of God on the new Earth to eternally enjoy the Lord’s favor and mercy, while the unrepentant sinners are cast into the Lake of Fire, where they will eternally suffer the Lord’s wrath and justice as punishment for their cosmic treason of sin.
However, it is because of this very popular theology that the character known as the Antichrist has risen to a prominent position within our cultural awareness: a singular, powerful person who is the satanic antithesis to Jesus Christ, who is also often called the son of Satan. It is this person and idea which John leads us to address today, because much of what is believed concerning the Antichrist is sourced from the writings of John, and we all need to know what is true so that we may guard against the lies which might lead some astray.
Now, although John is the only New Testament writer to use the specific term ‘antichristos,’ he will define it clearly for us in this text. But information about antichrists is not unique or confined to John alone; the concept and idea of an antichrist is also taught by the apostles Paul and Peter, for example, in Second Thessalonians chapter 2 and Second Peter chapter 2. It was also taught by Jesus himself in Matthew 24 and Mark 13.
Interpreted together, the gospels and the writings of these three apostles teach us two very important things. First, that there is a singular, unique person or office who will appear and gain worldly influence as the Antichrist (capital T, capital A), the opposite of but not equal to Jesus Christ. Second, that there will be many antichrists (lowercase a) living in opposition to and in active rebellion against the lordship of Jesus, all of them together belonging to and united into the Antichrist by a common and shared spirit, in the same manner as how Christians belong to Jesus and are united into him and share in his spirit.
Therefore, these antichrists live their lives differently and in opposition to Christians, and we can know who they are. Christians are Christ-like, while the antichrists are anti-Christlike. Christian antichrists are unregenerate non-believers—every one of them pagans and satanists.
Paul describes specific examples of antichrist activity intended to help us identify the Antichrist. He describes the man of lawlessness who takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Peter describes what the common sinful activity of an antichrist looks like: following their sensuality and the passions of the flesh, their greedy exploitation of others through lies, and their following the way of Balaam, the son of Peor.
But John describes an antichrist according to their character and the way they live, through opposition to Jesus. Being able to recognize antichrists so that we might avoid them and their influence is a necessary and important matter for every Christian to understand.
So what does John say about these antichrists?
Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard, the Antichrist is coming. So now many antichrists have come; therefore we know that it is the last hour. He argues that presently it is the last hour and that we can know, gnosco, that it is because there is evidence for many antichrists during his present time. Antichrists were not just some future danger that John was warning the church about; they were and are a clear and present danger in every time and place, from Jesus’s resurrection morning until Jesus’s return in judgment.
Now, taken alone, John’s statement might seem like a circular argument, but when we consider the rest of scripture, it makes more sense. Eschatology is the theological study of the end times, and although there are countless theories and expectations, only one of them—or perhaps none of them—will ultimately be proven true when Jesus finally returns. This field of study takes its name from the Greek word translated here as ‘last hour,’ eschatos. Throughout much of scripture, the word eschatos is used simply to mean something that is last, final, or an opposite extreme.
But like he does with the word cosmos, John adds greater depth of meaning to simple words by how he uses them in his vocabulary. Six of the seven times he uses the word eschatos in his gospel, he uses it to mean the last day or the day of judgment. His use connects it to the future great and terrible event that the Old Testament prophets all called the day of the Lord. But John was not alone in using it this way, either, because Paul, James, Peter, and even Jude use it the same way.
What John is telling us is that right now, presently, at this very moment, we are in the end times and the last days. And I’m sure that you would agree with me that it certainly feels like we are. Remember, however, that John has been saying this ever since the first century A.D., and while that might seem like a long time to us, God does not reckon time the same way that we do.
When John writes that we have heard the Antichrist is coming, he’s alluding to Jesus’s Olivet Discourse found in Matthew 24 and Mark 13. Although that speech is not recorded within John’s gospel, Mark tells us that Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?”
And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.”
So it’s reasonable for us to presume that John had spoken about this during all of his many public teachings and preachings, and being that his gospel was the last one written, he was just not led by the Holy Spirit to repeat this information again.
What quickly becomes apparent is that although there was no stated cause or specific occasion for John’s writing, he writes this so that we may know, gnosco, these things and not be led astray. He’s writing against and providing the correct counterpoint to problematic people that are working to lead the church astray. John writes against the false teachers whom he declares are antichrists.
So this is not a circular argument, because Jesus warned us that this would happen, and since John is needing to address this kind of problem, therefore we can know that we are in the end times and the day of the Lord is coming soon.
But concerning these particular problematic antichrists, John tells us that 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.
Now that is a very strong proof text for the perseverance of the saints and once saved always saved, because it teaches that everyone who truly believes and trusts in Christ Jesus, after they have been regenerated and born again, will remain within the body of the church. But located here, within this literary context, that is only a secondary meaning.
What John is telling us is that these antichrists have willingly separated themselves from the Orthodox church, and that their separation is obvious. We can tell that they have chosen a different way because they have deviated from the teachings of the apostles and from the perfect example of Jesus. They make it clear that they belong to neither the congregation of faith nor to Christ, because they do not walk in the light, because they lie or try to corrupt the truth. They do not agape others as Jesus has loved them, and they do not agape the things of God, preferring to love the things of this cosmos. They are not Christians and have proven themselves to be antichrists.
However, that doesn’t deny or preclude the possibility that the Lord has just not regenerated them yet; there’s still hope they might be changed.
Then John writes, “But you,” speaking directly to those who walk in the light, “have been anointed by the Holy One, and you have all knowledge.” The noun form of the verb oida reminds us that we already know and have a spiritual understanding without needing any further explanation to know who belongs to Christ. This is more evidence favoring common authorship with John’s gospel.
There, John describes the gift of the Holy Spirit to believers and the understanding which he gives them: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
See, John knows that his audience has oidate—not merely because they’ve received information about Jesus, but because they have been anointed by the Holy Spirit, and he has taught them and given them understanding because he is the Spirit of Truth and he is their best witness to Jesus.
John continues, “I write to you not because you do not know, oida, understand the truth, but because you know, you order it, and because no lie is of the truth.”
So again, an expectation for the audience’s familiarity with his gospel—or at least the message he has preached—becomes even more certain here when he asks rhetorically, “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?”
Previously, John told us how we may know that we truly belong to God and have received his gift of eternal life: if we obediently follow him in his way, if we agape others, and if we are honest people. Now he will tell us plainly how we may know who certainly does not belong to God, at least not yet. Liars and anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ are not Christian.
John divides people into two categories using this binary: those who belong to Jesus Christ and those who belong to the Antichrist.
Now finally, after all this preamble, John defines who and what antichrists are: “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.”
Everyone who denies or opposes God the Father and or God the Son, Jesus Christ, is according to John’s plain and simple definition, an Antichrist.
Anyone who denies that Jesus is who he said he is and of whose scripture testifies that he is proves that God the Holy Spirit does not dwell within them, proves that they do not know God the Father, proves that they do not know Jesus, proves that they are not known by or called by God, and proves that they are an Antichrist and belong to the Antichrist.
Anyone who denies Jesus must be a liar, because they prove that the truth is not in them; since Jesus is the truth, he adds.
So John recalls to our minds what is perhaps the most controversial statement that Jesus ever made—I mean, it certainly is the most controversial today. John 14:6, Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
But how do they deny the Father or the Son? The first and most obvious way is by denying that Jesus is God, the Son, the Eternal God incarnate. The second is by denying the sovereign authority of the Lord over their lives by living in active rebellion and disobedience to God’s holy and eternal law.
They deny the Father and the Son’s authority by their words and by their deeds. They try to twist scripture and declare that it means or says something that it does not. They deny the truth and inerrancy of scripture when they suggest that there are contradictions or absolute and verifiable falsehoods within the text. They deny the continuing applicability of scripture to modern life when they suggest that since now we know more and know better than then, all the Bible’s teachings about human sexuality, human dignity, and the value of human life, about sin and righteousness, morality and wickedness, or about who God is—Holy, Sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Creator of the universe who is mighty to save, who gives grace and mercy to repentant sinners, and who is both just and the justifier by punishing sin and all unrighteousness—that these things are all antiquated, outdated, irrelevant, inappropriate, or just plain wrong.
They live in active disobedience to God’s commandments; they worship themselves as God, devoting themselves to their own pleasure. They lie, cheat, and steal. They engage in sexual immorality and infanticide. They defy the lawful authorities who seek to enforce justice. Furthermore, they teach others and encourage others to do the very same and even worse things than they do.
These are the problem people and the occasion which prompted John to write. All people like this are antichrists, and they are very easy to recognize when you know Jesus, both gnosco and oida.
Sadly, once we realize this, when we look around at the public world and our contemporary culture, it becomes clear that we are surrounded by antichrists everywhere we look. But it may seem most obvious when we look at the realm of politics.
We have politicians who put an alleged Christian faith on parade before their constituents, such as Roman Catholics like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, but who also go on to actively support, encourage, fight for, defend, promote, and refuse to oppose the willful murder of children to the sinful practice of abortion—making the excuse that they are not morally complicit because they are not personally engaging in it, even though it goes explicitly against stated Roman Catholic doctrine and a basic Christian moral understanding of the sixth commandment: you shall not murder. They prove themselves to be antichrists.
Or we have politicians who put an alleged Christian faith on parade before their constituents, such as non-denominational evangelical Protestants like Donald Trump, who is unrepentant concerning credible allegations of sexual assault, who is unrepentant of recorded verbal statements that he has made which glorify sexual assault, who is unrepentant of his many publicly known adulterous affairs, who exhibits patterns of extreme exaggeration at best or outright lies at the worst concerning everything, who has repeatedly made very troubling claims that are frightening and grievous if they are true, but has not yet provided any verifiable evidence in support of them. Politicians like this prove themselves to be antichrists.
But politicians are not the only ones. Consider all the many different types of influencers out in the world. Everyone who does likewise or similar are also antichrists.
We have teachers who teach that there are more than two genders. We have doctors that affirm that a man can become a woman or vice versa. We have judges who cannot say what a woman is, even when they themselves are a woman. We have those who seek to convince us that legalized drug use is not socially nor personally destructive. We have preachers who preach that homosexuality is no longer sinful, whether by word or by their inclination, and that all manner of deviant sinful lifestyles are now acceptable to God. All of these prove themselves to be antichrists.
It is their words and their actions which condemn them according to the standard of scripture, and it cannot be hidden, because they are public persons. The pattern of their denial is plain for everyone with eyes of faith to see. Yet many who are not so public are also guilty of the same pattern of denial, and we must remain on guard against them too.
We must remain on guard for ourselves against ourselves, lest we ourselves fall into the same pattern. Even though they may confess Christ with their lips, they do not confess him, or with their hearts they do not walk in the light. They do not walk the way that Jesus walks. They do not agape as Christ loves. They prove that the truth is not within them by their lies and their active opposition to the things of God. They demonstrate that they have neither the Son nor the Father by every action and every word of denial.
But that doesn’t mean that the Lord cannot and will not use them to further his will and his purposes, even being antichrists. One of those political examples is not like the other; one promotes wickedness, persecutes the righteous, and obstructs the pursuit of righteousness, godliness, and the Christian faith, and has unjustly used the full force of government against God’s people, against all people to this end. The other one has defended the righteous, has stood up for God’s people against many forms of oppression, has taken a firm stand against wickedness, and has even promoted righteousness, which he does not himself practice.
One of these is worse than the other, and I thank the Lord that I do not need to look at some earthly governance to be my hope for salvation. The president is neither our Savior or King, nor is the U.S. government our God. I thank God that our only hope for this life and the next does not rest with them. We can and we should be encouraged despite all of this.
Remember that the Kings Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus the Great also fit the definitions of antichrist, yet they were used by the Lord to judge and then restore Israel. Remember that many Roman emperors fit that same definition. Claudius expelled the Jews and Christians from Rome, while Nero condemned Christians to death in the arena and blamed them, blamed us, for the burning of Rome. Through these persecutions, the church grew and spread across the Empire as even more people came to faith through the example of these martyrs.
So even if we presently live under the worldly authority of antichristical leaders, it does not mean that the Lord has abandoned his people. We must continue to believe that he is somehow using them for his divine purpose of redemption and for the good of those who love and trust him, even if we don’t see it yet. Perhaps they’ve been given to us as judgment for the United States’ godlessness and idolatry. Perhaps God is removing all moral restraint and giving us over to our sinful passions. Perhaps the American church must suffer under leaders like these because of our failure to stand up for the biblical principles of marriage and family unity, a fight which we surrendered and abandoned long before the legalization of homosexual unions in 2015.
Perhaps the American church must suffer under leaders like these because we have failed to stand up for the weakest and least of these human persons, unborn children. Perhaps because the American church has failed to stand upon the sturdy foundation of Jesus Christ alone as taught by sacred scripture. Or perhaps this is how revival starts.
These antichrists hold up a mirror for us to see ourselves in and to recoil from in shame, leading us to repentance and contrition before our holy God. They have been given to us so that we may actively lean upon Christ, to trust him more completely, and for the Holy Spirit to strengthen us in the conviction of our faith. Suffering under them is the discipline of our heavenly Father and should seek to drive us further away from the darkness and into his light.
Finally, John again encourages us: “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.”
Now, many people confess Christ and claim to be Christians, but then they do not live as Christians ought to live. They live contrary to the way and the example of Jesus. They may be all about Jesus on Sunday, at least for an hour or two in the morning, but then they’re all about themselves for the rest of the week.
That is not what John means by confess. He means what Paul meant in Romans 10: “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart; that is, the word of faith that we proclaim; because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”
See, the word confess is not a mere affirmation or statement of fact. It means to swear to, to acknowledge as being the truth, to forcibly and credibly declare. The Westminster Confession of Faith is a statement that declares simply and plainly what we Presbyterians believe that the Bible teaches and which we believe is completely true, reliable, upon which our lives and our faith utterly depend.
So when John says we confess the Son, we declare that Jesus Christ is our only hope of salvation and the only secure foundation for our lives. That which we have had and have heard from the beginning is God’s law and his gospel—the same message which John began this missile with: the message from God the Son about who God is, who we are, what God has done for his people, and his ultimate triumph.
God’s word, sacred scripture, trust and belief in this message is what must abide within us so that we may abide within the Son and within the Father. This is what Jesus prayed for his disciples and for all of us when he prayed, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
So if this word abides with you, then you abide within the Father and the Son, and you have received the eternal life which God has promised you.
But John’s not telling us anything new here. This is not some deeper or different layer of meaning to what he taught previously. He has already taught this through his preaching, his witness of faith, and his gospel.
John writes this warning to guard us against those who seek to deceive us and lead us astray—those who try to draw us out of koinonia with God. First, he clearly explained how we may know who is a Christian, and then he clearly explained who an antichrist is so that we can remain steadfast in our faith and continue to walk and abide within the light of God.
The anointing that you have received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him again.
He reminds us of our anointing by the Holy One, by the Holy Spirit. Anointed, we have been baptized by the Holy Spirit. We have been born again, and he has brought our sin-dead souls to eternal life in Christ, and thus he now dwells with and abides within every person who confesses the Son. Abiding within us, he teaches us and gives us both gnosco and oida knowledge and understanding. He teaches us to discern worldly lies from the truth of God. He teaches us and helps us to choose the good and to turn away from evil, away from our sinful inclinations, towards the righteous way of Christ.
So if God’s Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, dwells within us, then we must abide with God as he abides with us. Then what must we do to abide with him? We abide in him through our obedience of faith, by our faithful obedience to his commandments, our sorrowful contrition and repentance whenever we fail, and our reliance upon him to persevere and preserve us. We abide in him by walking like Jesus walks, by agaping our friends, our neighbors, and strangers as Jesus agapes us. We abide in him by loving the things of God and remaining in koinonia with him, rather than loving and being in koinonia with the cosmos. We remain in the light of God and avoid the things belonging to the darkness.
And now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.
And that right there is the most important thing to remember about eschatology. That is the whole point, purpose, and reason for studying it: Jesus is going to return one day, sooner or later; therefore we must abide in him.
It is our duty and obligation to our sovereign God and King as his elect, his chosen, his church as Israel. We must faithfully abide through our obedience, through our agape, and that when, so that when he returns in glory and brings judgment in the eschatos, we can stand before his throne confidently and without shame, covered by the gracious righteousness of Jesus Christ as he welcomes us to a new life within his eternal kingdom upon the new Earth.
So what John tells us all of this, because we need to know, to believe, and to understand all of this so that we may know, that we have been invited and brought into koinonia with God the Father and God the Son, so that we may know that we are in Christ and that we have been saved by his grace, brought into God’s light, so that we may continue to live and walk in his way for him and with him, so that we may recognize the many antichrists who belong to him, and therefore not be deceived and led away from the light back into the darkness of the cosmos.
If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
Too many of us are afflicted by self-doubt, lacking the assurance of our salvation. We fear losing it; we fear losing God’s love for us since we still sin, because we cannot help it. But that is what makes John’s writings so sweet. He writes so that we can know, so that we may know and then rest secure in that knowledge.
Do you ever fear losing your salvation? Do you ever worry that you were never saved in the first place, or even worse? Now, do you fear that you might also fall within that category of antichrist?
Then John and I have some very good news for you. If you truly believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God the Son, is righteous; if you believe that he is the only perfect, righteous man who lived a perfectly sinless life and died a sacrificial death upon the cross for you, and then was raised from the dead because death had no claim upon him, then you may know for certain that you have been born again and have received eternal life from him.
You can know this because everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him, and since no one who has not been born of him practices righteousness, if you care enough to care about the things of God and care about being obedient to God, and care about loving others because Jesus has first loved you, then you are not an antichrist.
Even when an antichrist does something which we might consider to be righteous, they don’t do it because it’s right and good and godly, but because they expect to receive some kind of benefit because of it. They void its righteous quality because they do it for the wrong reasons.
So remember, the why we do often matters just as much as the what we do. So take comfort, rest assured, and know, know that you are in fellowship with God and are no longer walking in the darkness because you want to walk in his light. Because everyone who belongs to the darkness, every antichrist, fears and hates the light.
Know and trust God’s word and know that his Spirit has anointed you. Know and do not let Satan, the world, or any antichrist lead you away from the way of Jesus Christ. Amen.