Recap of Sunday

1 John 2:18-28 and 4:1-6

I will recap last Sunday’s lesson by reviewing some of the major concepts and terms from the passage that we discussed and give verse references with them:

‘the last hour’ (2:18) – John tells us we are in the end times, which can be a little hard to understand if the last hour started almost 2000 years ago and Jesus still hasn’t come back yet. I think it is important to understand that a few things together marked the start of the last days, or ‘beginning of the end’, for the apostles. That would be first foremost the first coming of Jesus (Heb 1:1), but also the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2) and the appearance of antichrists. While the apostles were certain those events signaled the ‘last hour’, they were not certain how long this time would last before Jesus returned.

‘Antichrist’ and ‘antichrists’ (2:18, 22; 4:3) – John says that (the) Antichrist is coming, but that many antichrists have already come. One way to read this is that John says one big bad Antichrist is going to come and signal the end times, but there are many lesser antichrists already on earth making trouble. These antichrists are actually the primary reason for John’s letter…they have come out of John’s churches and broken away to teach their own heresies. John says that the fact that they broke away reveals they were never true believers to begin with. John defines antichrists by their denial of Jesus as the Christ, the God in man.

‘anointed’ and ‘anointing’ (2:20, 27) – One thing John says differentiates the believers and the antichrists is the anointing from God the believers have. He may be using a play on words. ‘Christ’ is a term meaning ‘Messiah’, but literally means ‘anointed one’ in the Greek. Therefore antichrist literally means ‘opposite of’ or ‘against’ anointed or anointed one. It is the believer who has the anointing, the Spirit of God and His word indwelling, that gives them knowledge and teaching, not the lying antichrists.

‘abide’ (2:24, 27, and 28) – John uses this word over and over in his Gospel and letters…to understand what the Holy Spirit is telling us through John we have to understand this concept. We are to abide in Jesus, and therefore abide in the Father. At the same time, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and his word is supposed to abide in us. This is the idea…that we continually live and exist in Him, and He in us. It’s a picture of close fellowship and communion, and this should characterize the lives of all believers…and maybe a description of the union of our spirit and identity with His…the new creation.

‘test the spirits’ (4:1-6) – There are really only two ultimate sources of spiritual inspiration…God and the evil one. How do we tell them apart? John says the spirit of antichrist denies Jesus the Christ came in the flesh from God. Also, only people from the world listen to this message. On the other hand, only people of God listen to the Spirit of God’s message, that Jesus is the promised God-man. It may seem a bit simplistic to us (and inadequate to judge today’s false prophets), but that could be attributed to two things: 1) this was all that was needed by John’s church members in this specific situation to tell the false prophets from the real guys, and 2) his church members probably needed to basic and clear cut guidelines to help the confusion that undoubtedly occurred as the result of the schism.

I'm loving our journey through 1 John so far, and can't wait to go through the rest of it!

-casey