Little children, it is [the] last hour, and, according as ye have heard that antichrist comes, even now there have come many antichrists, whence we know that it is [the] last hour.
John writes to the youngest believers with solemn news. The clock has run down to its final hour, and the proof is not one great enemy but many. Two questions follow. What does "hour" mean here? And how can an hour announced so long ago still be running?
In this verse "little children" translates a different word from the one used earlier in the chapter.
This letter uses two words that are both translated "little children." The one in 1 John 2:12 and 28 is simply "children." It takes in all believers, since all are children of God. The other, used in 1 John 2:13 and 18, is really "babes," the beginners in the Christian life. These are the ones told that it is "the last hour." That is, it is the last epoch, and in its last days the Antichrist will appear. So already men of antichristian character were at work.
Beginners get the hardest news first, and one writer notes how strange that seems to us.
"Little children, it is the last hour." How this must have sounded in their souls and made them wonder! Many think that such truth is not at all the right food for babes. It is much to be wished that Christians would read their Bible, and not only read but in all simple confidence believe it.
John's own usage elsewhere sets the sense of the word.
With John an hour is a period of time marked by a certain event, which may be good or evil. In the gospel he speaks of the hour of life-giving (John 5:25), of resurrection (5:28), and of the hour that had come for His glorification (12:23). Here he says it is the last hour. Nothing more was left to wait for except the coming of Christ. The evil had now fully developed, and the antichrists were present.
Some read the phrase as naming the age of grace. One writer disagrees.
Many think that this refers to grace as the last dispensation, but this does not fit the context here. John uses the word "hour" as a period marked by one thing... It is not the outflow of grace but the coming of many antichrists.
Centuries have passed and the hour has not closed. Why?
Yes, it is a "last hour" — a very long hour, no doubt. The reason is not delay but the long-suffering of God. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Grace has some more souls to save and bless, some more to make members of Christ's body; and therefore God waits. But from the apostle's day it is the "last hour."
What makes it final is that no further stage of God's working is left to come.
But it is the last hour, because the power of evil has come in. When Christ was here, and was rejected, the power of evil was in the world. Then, when God raised up the church by the presence of the Holy Spirit, while Christ was on high... there came power of redemption into the middle of Satan's world. That was not the last hour. But now antichrists had come in. So he says, "this is the last hour," because even this had failed. Nothing will come after this but judgment.
One writer describes how this opposition works.
No evil is as blatant as antichrist. It is direct, personal opposition to the Lord. He may imitate the Lord Jesus in order to oppose Him. He may claim what belongs only to God in order to exalt himself and deny God.
The verse also holds two things apart: one figure still to come, and many already here.
The Greek name antichristos means an opposer of Christ. Only John uses it, in his first and second letters. It is important to tell the difference between an antichrist and the antichrist. John says, "as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come." But he also says, "This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son" (1 John 2:18, 22). He is what all the many antichrists lead up to.
What marks an antichrist is not general wickedness but a specific rejection.
The "many antichrists" who have preceded him all run on similar lines. Their denials are aimed mainly at the Son, who appeared on earth. They may claim that they have nothing to say about the Father, or against Him. Such a claim is useless. To deny the Son is to deny the Father. To confess the Son is to have the Father also.
John does not leave the warning hanging. He points beginners to a refuge.
Evil is ripening, and the spirit of falsehood is spreading. The sure refuge of the babes is that what they heard from the beginning should stay in them. Then they will remain in the true fellowship, in the Son and in the Father. They will not be deceived by anyone speaking of the "universal fatherhood" of God, or anything of the kind.
- Hour. For John an hour is a stretch of time marked by one event. This one is marked by antichrists, not by the spread of the gospel.
- Sign. The many antichrists are the evidence. They imitate Christ in order to oppose Him, and the Antichrist to come is their full flowering.
- Patience. The hour has run long because God is not slow but long-suffering, still saving souls before the end.
- Test. The dividing line is the Son: deny Him and the Father is gone with Him; confess Him and you have the Father too.
- Safeguard. Beginners are not told to become clever, but to let what they heard at the start stay in them.
They went out from among us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have surely remained with us, but that they might be made manifest that none are of us.
John writes to believers shaken by men who once sat among them and now stand against Christ. This verse explains why they left. Their going out was not a loss to the church. It was an exposure, and it shows what marks a person as one of God's own.
The people John describes were not outsiders. They left a place they once held.
Remember that the very worst of them, the antichrists, had once had their place in the church. While an apostle was alive, people recognised them as part of the family of God.
Their leaving did not change their standing. It displayed it.
By this act they made it clear that they never really belonged to the family of God — they were not "of us." The true believer is marked by holding fast the faith. They had abandoned it and gone out from the Christian company, showing in that way that they had no vital connection with the children of God.
Older versions end the verse with "they were not all of us." That wording sounds as if some of those who left were genuine. Kelly pushes the grammar the other way.
This is a very strange and incorrect rendering: "they were not all of us." It really has no proper meaning at all… The Greek text actually says "they all were not of us." In plain English that means "none of them were of us." But if you say, "they were not all of us," it would imply that some were. Some of these antichrists were of us! The apostle expressly contradicts this.
Believers can fail and shrink from the cost of standing with a faithful servant of God. Grant separates that weakness from what John describes here.
The case in 2 Timothy 1:15 is far removed from this. There Paul writes, "You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me." That does not mean they rejected the ministry John gave about the eternal Deity and perfect Manhood of the Lord Jesus. It means they were unwilling to be identified with Paul in suffering for the truth about the church of God and its separation from unrighteousness. Even true believers had apparently turned away from Paul in this way, as Demas had deserted him when the pressure of persecution threatened. This is pathetic weakness, but not the spirit of antichrist, of which John speaks. "They went out from us" refers to a cold, deliberate refusal of what they had once acknowledged in public. All that remained in them was a callous contempt for the blessed personal glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude writes about ungodly men too. They moved the opposite way, and the contrast sharpens what John means by "went out."
The ungodly men John speaks of "went out," whereas the ungodly Jude writes about "crept in." The difference in result is very great. If ungodly men "go out," they become opposers of the truth outside the Christian circle. If the ungodly creep in, they become corrupters of the truth inside the Christian circle. To oppose the truth is indeed serious; to corrupt it is far worse.
The test is not only about the past. It reaches every reader.
The parable of the sower shows the same thing. Of the four parts that appear to receive the truth, only one receives it in a prepared heart and, understanding it, bears fruit. It is not the agreement of the mind, but the reception of Christ in the heart by faith. Have you received Christ in this way? If you have, you will certainly continue; if you have not, you will sooner or later fall away.
- Among, not of. The people who left had a recognised place in the Christian company. They never belonged to it. The whole verse turns on two words: "of us."
- Going out exposed. Their leaving made nothing new. It showed what was already true: no living link with the children of God.
- All, not some. The Greek means none of them were of us. Not one was genuine. The exposure covers every one who went out.
- Failure is not defiance. Demas turned away under pressure, and that is sad failure. This verse describes something colder: a deliberate refusal of the Christ they had once acknowledged.
- Two dangers, one test. Some go out and oppose the truth. Others creep in and corrupt it. One test settles both: has the heart received Christ? Whoever has received Him will continue.