A Constant Source of Speculation

It is difficult to find anything in the Bible which has provoked as much unbiblical speculation as has the doctrine of antichrist. The very mention of this mysterious figure sends the Christian imagination off and running. This is nothing new. The church fathers, by and large, thought the Antichrist would be an apostate Jew who would come to power after the fall of the Roman Empire. The Reformers–and virtually the entire Reformed tradition–have seen the warning about antichrist fulfilled in the Roman papacy. More recently, the dispensationalists have taught that the Antichrist will appear near the time of the end in connection with the rapture of the church. At the beginning of the seven-year tribulation period, dispensationalists tell us, the Antichrist will make a seven-year peace treaty with the nation of Israel before turning on God’s ancient people, declaring himself to be God in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. Much of this antichrist speculation is so far afield from the way John uses the term “antichrist” in his epistles, it is truly remarkable. For the apostle John, antichrist is not some dreaded future foe, but a very present threat to those to whom he is writing. John warns his readers in Asia Minor, “Antichrist is coming.”

Context, Context, Context . . .

We now take up John’s warning regarding the Antichrist in verses 18-27, the final of the four things in this part of John chapter 2 which John says should characterize all those who walk in the light. The first thing which should characterize Christians, John says, is that they confess their sins (1:5-2:2). The second thing they will do is to strive to obey the commandments of God, which are a published revelation of God’s will (2:3-11). Those who walk in darkness have no interest in God’s law. Then, in verses 12-17, John warns us not to love the world. John is not referring to the physical world (the universe) when he warns us not to love the world. Rather, John is referring to the fallen world as it is currently under the control of the evil one (cf. 1 John 5:19). John puts this in very stark either/or terms. If we love the fallen world in its opposition to God, we cannot love the Father.

This brings us to verses 18-27 and the fourth characteristic of those who walk in the light–they will oppose the many antichrists who have already gone out into the world. In order to make sense of John’s warning about these antichrists–these arch-enemies of Jesus Christ who is the word made flesh–recall that John is responding to an early form of Gnosticism, which held that reality exists in the form of a dualism between pure spirit (the good) and matter (evil). As we have seen, this conception of the universe makes Christ’s incarnation a metaphysical impossibility because if these proto-Gnostic categories are in fact correct, God (who is pure spirit) cannot take to himself a true human nature (which would be evil). In order to explain the physical appearances of Jesus in the gospels these proto-Gnostics opposed by John were affirming that while Jesus was truly God, he only appeared to be human (or took the form of a human). It is this so-called docetic heresy which John will now label the “spirit of antichrist.” This definition is quite different from the way in which most people use the term.

Two Different Ways to Speak of Antichrist

When it comes to the term “antichrist,” it is important to notice that theologians use the term in two ways. The first is the broad use, which is a reference to the end-time foe of Christ and his church. The second, and narrow use of the term is used by John in this epistle. The broad use (which is far and away the most common) refers to that mysterious end-times figure whom Paul labels the “Man of Sin (2 Thessalonians 2) and whom John calls “the beast” in the Book of Revelation (i.e., Revelation 13). This individual is usually thought to be the final antichrist in the series of antichrists about which John warns his readers in these epistles. When Christians speak of the “Antichrist,” they are most often referring to that individual who appears at the time of the end and who is a composite figure which we get when we put all the information from John (the beast, antichrists) and Paul (“Man of Sin”) together.

The second and “narrow” way the term is that used by the apostle John in his first two epistles. John uses the term “antichrist” as a specific reference to those false teachers who deny that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. For the apostle John, an antichrist is anyone who embraces the docetic heresy threatening the churches in Asia Minor at the time John writes these epistles. So, when we speak of the Antichrist, we need to keep in mind that the term can be used in these two ways. John’s usage of the term in these epistles–John, by the way, is the only biblical writer who even uses the term “antichrist”–is vastly different from the way in which most people use the term. In these epistles John is not warning us of a future end times foe, but of an ever-present threat to Christ’s church.

With that in mind, as we move into our text (verses 18-27 of the second chapter of this epistle), John turns to the subject of eschatology and begins by explaining how we as Christians should understand that period of time (the “last hour”) in which we presently live.

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