1 John 2:18

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.

It is the last hour ... The apostles had asked Christ to tell them when the end of the world was coming, when the temple would be destroyed, and when the Christ would come. To these three questions, Jesus gave a composite answer (Matthew 24), but not distinguishing for them the fact that these events would not all occur simultaneously; however, Jesus did deny them altogether any answer as to the time of his Second Coming (Matthew 24:36,42). It is therefore the height of presumption to construe John's words here as meaning that Christ was coming soon. "The last hour" here has no reference whatever to the Second Coming and must be referred either to the destruction of Jerusalem or the end of the world. Significantly, since Jesus failed (purposefully) to distinguish for his apostles that those two events (the end of all things and the destruction of the city of Jerusalem) would be separated in time by thousands of years, it may be legitimately supposed that the apostles might have thought they would come at the same time; but, even more significantly, no apostle ever said so. There is not a line in the New Testament that has any such declaration in it. However, in the providence of God, the destruction of Jerusalem was foreordained to be a type of the overthrow of the entire world; and in giving the signs that would precede the first event, Christ of necessity gave in those very signs the sign of the end of the world; but it was necessary for Christ to make the signs of Jerusalem's overthrow plain enough for the Christians to be forewarned and to enable them to escape from the city before its destruction. Otherwise, Satan might have accomplished the total destruction of the church itself in that disaster. Heeding those signs which Jesus had given, John here prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem (perhaps supposing also that the end of the world was at hand, a supposition that he did not state, even if he thought it). And what sign did he stress? That there were antichrists who had already appeared. This was the very sign that Jesus had definitely connected with the destruction of the temple (involving also, of course, the overthrow of Jerusalem): "There shall arise false christs and false prophets" (Matthew 24:24). It was also indicated by Christ as being a signal for the "elect" to "flee out of Judea" (Matthew 24:16), to avoid "the end of the world"? Certainly not! To avoid the destruction of Jerusalem? Of course! Thus it is absolutely certain that John in this passage was not warning the Christians to get ready for the end of the world, but to get ready to flee the city of Jerusalem. That this is exactly what John and the other apostles did in such statements as this is proved by the fact that the Christians did flee Jerusalem, not a single one of "the elect" losing his life in the holocaust that overthrew the city in A.D. 70.

Despite the fact of "antichrist" being popularly understood as "a personal opponent of Christ at the end of time,"[47] and also being identified with Paul's "lawless one" (2 Thessalonians 2:8), there is absolutely no authority for such views. The "antichrists" in this passage are plural; the "lawless one" is singular; Christ associates the antichrists, or false christs, with the need for the "elect" to flee out of Judea (Matthew 24:16); whereas, Paul associated the "lawless one" with the "coming of the Lord," an association that John refrained from making here. Neither the "man of sin" nor "the lawless one" of Paul's writings has any connection whatever with what John wrote here. It was long after John wrote that "the name of antichrist was appropriated to that great adversary of Christ 'the man of sin' (2 Thessalonians 2:3)."[48] John's antichrist "falls far short of Paul's `son of perdition.'"[49]

As ye have heard, antichrist cometh ... Although only the singular is used here, it is clear from what John at once wrote that there were many of these. Where had the Christians heard of this? From the teachings of Christ, as recorded in Matthew 24.

It is the last hour ... Before leaving this, the error of the rendition should be noted. As Stott said:

This phrase should be translated "a last hour." Westcott makes much of this and writes that the omission of the definite article "seems to mark the general character of the period and not its specific relation to `end.' It was a period of crucial change."[50]

Morris also stressed the same thing, saying, "There is no article with hour. John is not saying it is the last hour, but that it is a last hour."[51] In the light of such truth, how ridiculous, therefore, it is for men to write such dogmatic opinions as the following:

"The last hour ..." The apostles undoubtedly anticipated the coming of Christ in the near future, etc.[52]

"The last hour ..." The expected immediate second coming of Christ to judge the world.[53]

Nothing but the unwillingness of Christians to admit that the apostle 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. This can only mean "the last hour before the Second Coming of Christ."[54]

A hundred other examples of the same kind of scholarly blindness could be cited. It never seems to have occurred to such commentators that there is no hint whatever of the Second Coming in this verse.

It is true of course that those who suppose that the apostles "expected" the coming of Christ to take place concurrently with the destruction of Jerusalem are probably correct in that supposition. Why? Because Jesus himself so mingled the prophecies of the two events that such a supposition might easily have followed. However, true exegesis of the New Testament does not consist in reading into its sacred texts what people suppose the apostles thought, but rather consists in studying what they wrote; and John wrote nothing here, either of the judgment or of the second coming of Christ.

[47] New Catholic Bible, op. cit., New Testament, p. 315.

[48] John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (Naperville, Illinois: Alec R. Allenson, Inc., reprint, 1950), p. 908.

[49] Harvey J. S. Blaney, op. cit., p. 372.

[50] John R. W. Stott, op. cit., p. 108.

[51] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 1264.

[52] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 1056.

[53] James Russell Williams, Compact Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1964), p. 600.

[54] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 25.