The Epistles of John, Part 11: True or False

Apostasy.  Lexically defined it is an abandonment of what one has professed; a total desertion or departure from one’s faith or religion.  For a Christian this word has an ominous tone.  Even saying it seems to cast a pall over the room.  It exudes ugliness and horror.  I knew a man once who was on fire for the Lord.  He was active in teaching and preaching the word of God.  He was pursuing further education in theological studies.  He was counseling and discipling people.  By all accounts he was a dynamite Christian who truly loved God and was genuinely born again.  Then he left his wife and family, turned his back on the church, and effectively disappeared.  It was a textbook case of apostasy.  Understandably, this was a terrible shock to those who knew him.  It left people feeling perplexed and discouraged.  It prompted questions for which there were and are no easy answers.

Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident.  The reality of Christians walking away from the faith is all too common.  But that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.  When it happens close to us it feels like a betrayal.  Everything we thought we knew about someone is turned upside down in an instant.  We wonder what to believe, if anything, any more.  And from a human perspective it looks like nothing less than a loss of salvation.  But honestly we should know better.  We have been specifically warned in Scripture that apostasy will occur.  The Bible tells us exactly how it happens and what it means for the salvation of the person who has apostatized.

In our passage of 1^st John this week the apostle gives what is perhaps the clearest and most comprehensive teaching in the Bible regarding apostasy.  A clear understanding of biblical truth on this issue will work to keep us from falling victim to bewilderment, frustration, and doubt.  So we would do well to pay careful attention to what John has to tell us.

He begins in verse 18 of chapter 2 by setting the stage and describing the conditions under which apostasy occurs: Children, it is the last hour.  Right off the bat we are faced with a question.  What does John mean by the phrase “the last hour”?  A number of interpretations have been offered over the years from various Bible scholars.  I think they can be trimmed down to two essential possibilities.  It seems to me that all the other views are variations of these main themes.  The first is that John actually believed the end was near in the mid-90s A.D.  Therefore when he says last hour, he is literally meaning that the return of Christ is imminent, things are drawing to a close, and his audience needed to be prepared for the culmination of the Father’s master plan for creation.  The second possibility that I want to address is that John may have been referring to the whole of the church age.  In other words, the last hour from John’s point of view began sometime in the first century after the establishment of the church and would continue until God brings about a change in the established order and operation of the world.

In support of the first argument, there are three indicators we can examine.  The first is the connecting statement in verse 17: the world is passing away.  John almost immediately follows that statement up with: children, it is the last hour.  From a cursory glance it certainly would appear that John is saying exactly what it sounds like he is saying.  And remember that the literal interpretation of Scripture requires us to go with the plain meaning whenever possible.

In addition to this, we know from Scripture that the early church traditionally did hold the belief that the return of Christ, ushering in the end of the age, was close.  In James 5:7-8 the Lord’s brother writes: Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.  The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains.  You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.  Similarly, Peter writes: The end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers in 1^st Peter 4:7.

In spite of John’s tone in verse 17 and the evidence from his contemporaries, I believe there is a serious problem with the view that “the last hour” means that the Lord was literally about to come back when John penned the words.  Simply put, it didn’t happen.  Although these writers were merely men and most certainly fallible, they were writing under the supernatural enablement of the Holy Spirit, and He is definitely not capable of being wrong. 

Even if these men did think, in their humanity, that Christ would return in their lifetimes, I think the fullness of biblical revelation here is that of an attitude rather than a certainty.  What I mean by this is that what I think God intended to convey through these men, whether they completely understood it or not, was the mindset Christians need to maintain continually.  Namely, that Christ “could” return at any moment.  Therefore we need to be ready every hour of the day.  This was the Lord Jesus’s point in the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew chapter 25.  He closes this parable in verse 13 with the statement: Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.  In fact, in the previous chapter Jesus stated emphatically in verse 36: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone”.  And then in verse 42 He says “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.”

Furthermore, if we examine the ways in which the Greek “hora” (hour in English) is used in Scripture it reveals something interesting.  Namely, “hora” was sometimes used to refer to a specific moment in time.  But at other times it was used to refer to a period of time.  In John 1:39 we read: and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.  This is obviously a literal use of the word.  Yet in chapter 2 verse 4 Jesus says: “Woman, what does that have to do with us?  My hour has not yet come.”  He is clearly not referring to the time of day here.  He is instead talking about the timeframe in which His glory would be manifested and His power revealed.  The examples are many throughout the Gospel of John.  In chapter 4 verse 6 we read: It was about the sixth hour.  Then in verse 21: Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”  And again in verse 23: But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

Thus I believe the following.  John in his humanity may very well have been under the impression that his master was coming back any day.  And in believing this it is incorrect to state that he was wrong because that is precisely the attitude that Christ taught and expected His disciples to adhere to.  But in the larger scheme of things, because God does not err and because “hora” has a multiplicity of uses I believe that “the last hour” is referring to the final age of God’s ongoing revelation to His creation and the last act of His timeless plan of redemption, salvation, and justice.

This understanding of “last hour” flows smoothly into the next phrase of our passage: and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.  There are three elements we need to look at here.  But first it’s important to define antichrist.  Fortunately, that task is very simple.  It means exactly what it sounds like.  Antichrist is a compound word in Greek, consisting of “anti” combined with “christos”.  Anti means against or opposed to.  Christos means messiah or anointed one and is generally understood as a direct reference to Jesus.  So what we have in the word antichrist is someone who is opposed to Jesus.  This is a person who actively works to subvert His glory privately and/or publicly. 

Note that John is not talking about the traditional apocalyptic Antichrist that we normally associate with the book of Revelation.  The word “antichristos” doesn’t actually appear in Revelation at all.  But the church has always understood the great deceiver described there to be the ultimate expression of this idea of antichrist.  And so over time he came to be known by that term.  But here in 1^st John, as we will see, John is talking about the more general sense of an antichrist.  And in that context many people will fit the mold.

John says that we have heard that these antichrists were coming.  What is he referring to?  The most likely candidate is the Olivet Discourse that Jesus gave in Matthew 24 and Mark 13.  Jesus revealed that many would come in His name claiming to be Him, thus misleading many.  They will even perform great signs and wonders.  He adds that not only will people claim the title of Christ for themselves, but others will also advertise them as the Christ, expressly for the purpose of misleading even the elect, the chosen people of God.  All of this is the very definition of antichrist; working against the purpose and truth of Christ by falsely proclaiming themselves to be Him.

Continuing to read we find that many antichrists have appeared by the time of John’s writing.  Remember, this is the mid-90s A.D.  This means that Christ was crucified only about 60 years previously.  So within half a century or less of the Messiah having departed the church was already beset with distortions, confrontations, and false teachers.  In a sense, almost as soon as God the Son was incarnated He was being defamed by men.  Now, this is obvious from even a cursory glance at the gospels.  Jesus faced extreme opposition from many of His own countrymen.  This much is clear.  But consider that these antichrists John is referring to arose from within the church itself.  These were people who, at least initially, had professed to be Christians.  We will see this in a moment from the next verse.  But for now I think it’s important to recognize that with this statement John is lending support to the doctrine of the complete and utter depraved state of mankind.  Human beings, apart from the work of God in Christ, are incapable of standing in support of the truth.  Romans 8:7 makes this clear: the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.

John concludes verse 18 with the statement that the presence of antichrists proves this is the last hour.  He is continuing to build upon what the Lord told them at the temple about the end times.  The previous references I mentioned about false Christs were all specifically in reference to signs given to the apostles to signify the end of the age.  This is actually an additional evidence for the interpretation of the last hour being analogous to the church age, although the reasoning is a little bit convoluted.

Briefly, in the Olivet Discourse Jesus mentions something called the “Abomination of Desolation”.  To understand what He is talking about we have to go back to Daniel chapter 9.  The prophet is given a vision in which the future of Israel is foretold.  Remember that Daniel was in exile in Babylon and Persia for most of his life.  He is told that a decree will be given for the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild Jerusalem.  Furthermore, from the issuing of this edict until the advent of the Messiah there would be a period of 483 years.  After this time there will be an additional 7 years in which a strong ruler will arise and put a stop to grain offerings and sacrifices.  On top of that, Daniel’s vision foretells that on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate.

Taking that information and going back to Jesus’s own prophecy, He tells the apostles that this Abomination of Desolation will be standing in “the holy place”, a reference to the temple in Jerusalem.  It is this event which will truly signal the imminent end of the age and culmination of all things.  So, what exactly is the Abomination of Desolation and how will we recognize it?

In 168 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes reigned as the king of the Seleucid Empire.  This kingdom was one of the remnants of Alexander the Great’s massive empire.  Antiochus had a particular hatred for Jews.  During his reign he oppressed them bitterly.  He even went so far as to raid the Jerusalem temple, steal its treasures, set up an altar to Zeus, and sacrifice pigs on the holy altar.  Then he proceeded to slaughter many Jewish people and sell others into slavery.

All of this brutality and pagan disregard for Judaism led the Jews to revolt under Judas Maccabeus.  Eventually Antiochus, weakened by other conflicts within his kingdom, was forced to withdraw from Israel.  The Jews had won their freedom back, for a time.  But the point as it relates to our passage in 1^st John is that the desecrations of Epiphanes in the temple are a foreshadowing of Daniel’s abomination of desolation that Jesus was referring to.  At some unknown point in the future, a man will rise up and become a great world leader.  He will perpetrate crimes against Israel including some sort of heinous sacrilegious desecration of the temple.  And because this obviously has not happened yet (in fact the temple has not even been rebuilt at this point) we know that we are still in what Jesus described as the beginning of birth pangs in His prophecy.

Thus the presence of antichrists within the church serves as the proof of the last hour being here on two fronts.  One, because they fit exactly into the mold of false proclamations of Christ that Jesus described as preceding the end.  And two, because antichrists are present yet the great Antichrist of Revelation has not yet appeared.

Now then, with full apologies for that extensive rabbit trail, let us proceed to verse 19: They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.  As I alluded to earlier, this is in my opinion the single clearest teaching in all of Scripture that explains how Christians can apostatize yet believers cannot lose their salvation.

These false Christians left the church because they were not authentic in the first place.  The leaving proves they never belonged to God at all.  Paul describes this as their belief being in vain in 1^st Corinthians 15:1-2: Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

In contrast to this vain, or futile, expression of faith, we read in Philippians 1:6 that God completing His work in us is an absolute certainty: For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.  He will do this because He has predestined it to be so as revealed in Romans chapter 8.  And in that same chapter combined with the understanding we gained from 1^st John 2:5 we find that there is nothing in the entire created order that can possibly separate us from God’s love being brought to completion in us.

I trust that at this point you need no further proof of the accuracy of what the Bible teaches on this subject.  But in case there are any doubts still lingering cast your mind back to what we learned several weeks ago from 1^st John 2:1: If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.  Christ is our perfect legal counsel, prepared to defend us indefinitely.  Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7:25).

All that being said, it is important to keep in mind that a timeline for apostasy is not black and white.  In other words, Christians can most definitely still sin.  John has already established that powerfully in 1^st John 1:8 and 1:10.  So at what point does a Christian’s sin indicate a false profession of faith?  Our frail minds, prone to the desire for immediate gratification, long for a clear cut answer to this question.  But God in His wisdom chose not to give it.  Instead we find passages such as 1^st John 3:4: Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness and 3:6: No one who abides in Him sins.  The Bible does not say how long one has to sin before it is considered a practice.  We are not given an exact time sequence to determine the veracity of a fellow Christian’s confession of faith.  But it is a certainty that if someone is a true child of God they are not capable of continuing to sin indefinitely.  The Holy Spirit will prevent such a thing from happening.  And this should serve as a great reassurance to us because it is God who keeps us with Him, not we who keep ourselves close.

Continuing to verses 20 and 21 we read: But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.  I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.  Again we find the loving heart of John building us up in the midst of the terrible darkness of antichrists who are opposed to the truth in every way.  He reminds us of our anointing from God.  What does John mean by this?  The word he chose is “chrisma”.  It only appears here in the New Testament so it is difficult to get a contextual definition of it.  However, the root word “chrio” appears in several places.

The first is Luke 4:18, referring to Jesus: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.  He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”  The strong definition of “chrio” as a special setting apart of someone for a particular task can be seen here.  There is no more exclusive job in all of history than the one given to Jesus for the redemption of sins.  It was not only a mission that Jesus was given, but He was equipped for the task, as Peter makes clear in Acts 10:38: You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power.

Now, in light of that, consider the glorious truth that in some mysterious way we who are Christians have been enfolded into that high calling.  2^nd Corinthians 1:21-22 tells the tale: Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.  Do you even realize, Christian reading this, how special you are because God has made you special in Christ?  Do you understand the great lengths He went to in order to secure your bride price for His Son?

If you do then you should have no problem recognizing that through Christ you have all the tools you need in order to discern truth from lie.  This is John’s point in verse 21.  He did not write this letter to us because we are ignorant fools who can’t manage to put two and two together.  He is writing to us precisely because we, along with Him, are the anointed ones of God.  We are capable, with the Spirit’s enablement, of ascertaining error.

It may very well be difficult to come to terms with the apostasy of a dearly loved brother or sister in Christ.  But we have all the evidence we need from Scripture of exactly what the truth of the situation is.  We have no excuse for avoiding the issue or casting a blind eye to the reality of what is going on.  We are instructed here by God through His vessel John the apostle, to stand up and face the truth rather than running from it.

To say it another way, because we possess the truth we ought to recognize the lie.  What is the lie that John is implying here?  The context reveals it as the false confession given by these antichrists who in their heart of hearts are opposed to Jesus.  Let’s be blunt.  If someone claims to be in Christ, yet their actions prove conclusively that they are not, what else would we call them but liars?  If that feels uncomfortable to say about a friend it doesn’t change the reality of what they are.

And to drive the point home and hopefully erase any further hesitation on our part, John proceeds in verses 22 and 23 to complete dismantle any remaining objection we may have to facing the facts: Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.  Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.

Let’s think about John’s train of thought here.  He says that the antichrist is defined by a denial of Christ.  Because the Son is equal to the Father, a denial of the Son also indicates a denial of the Father.  Now comes the critical question for life and practice.  What exactly does it mean to deny the Son?  I mean, obviously if someone says “No, Jesus of Nazareth was not the Son of God and the promised Messiah of Israel” then that is a blatant denial of the Son.  But although that may be the most direct and blunt way to do it, it is possible to deny the Son through implication without coming right out and saying it.

As already stated, the Son is the incarnate God.  He is the visible image of the fullness of God dwelling bodily in human form (Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3).  God is the perfection and purity of all good that exists (Psalm 106:1; Mark 10:18).  He is the absolute best for us (Psalm 135:3).  Therefore, if we reject His lordship over our lives we are rejecting His claim that He is the best.  Consequently, we are denying His nature.  Long story short, if God is not the central figure in our lives and we instead choose to invest our time, energy, and passion into the things of the world (1^st John 2:15) then we are by implication denying His nature and therefore denying the Son who shares His nature.

Let me illustrate this another way, with a simple example.  Let’s suppose a friend and I go out to get some ice cream.  The restaurant has two flavors: chocolate and strawberry.  My friend indicates to me that strawberry is their best flavor.  However, I decide to get chocolate instead.  What am I implying about my friend’s claim?  Without saying a word I have just conveyed my opinion that their opinion is incorrect.

In the same way, if God makes a claim in the Bible that He is the absolute best thing in the universe.  And if we then choose to go after something else with our affections then we are implicitly saying that God’s truth claim is not correct.

This is exactly what the antichrists have done.  They have taken the glory of God and exchanged it for a lie.  They have worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.  And they are engaged in actively suppressing the truth about God in unrighteousness.  Therefore, His wrath is revealed from heaven against them (Romans chapter 1).

And John’s point is that this is what we are up against.  We who are authentic disciples of Jesus have confessed the Son therefore we also have the Father.  But those people who were among us as brothers and sisters but then apostatize and walk away do not have either the Son or the Father.  And in spite of how much it may pain us we have to recognize that those who were formerly among us are not any longer. 

This is not to say we should be rude or cruel to such people.  This would be in violation of our clear mission as ministers of reconciliation.  2^nd Corinthians 5:18-19 tells us that God: gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.  Although it may seem like we have been betrayed by those who have deserted the church the reality is that they were never in the church at all.  Therefore they are no different from any other person in the world who needs to be restored to a right relationship with Jesus.  It is our calling to seek such a resolution with all of our energy.