Among but not Of

Introduction

John has been teaching his "little children" how to tell truth from a lie, how to tell if a person is really a Christian or not. It doesn’t depend on just what a person says, but also what they do.

I. 18-19 antichrists

A. 18 “Children, it is the last hour”

hour – hora ("hour") –season, any definite time, moment in time

The truth is, the "last days" actually began with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

They will end when Jesus comes back.

Also, there is no "definite article" in the Greek (our word "the" in English), and in Greek this means that the "last time" is being referred to by quality, "Little children, it is by nature the last hour", these are "last hour" kinds of times.

B. 18 “and as you have heard that antichrist is coming”

antichrist – antichristos – the adversary of the Messiah; it is a compound word with the prefix "anti" in front of it, which can mean two different things, either "opposite" or "in place of".

The antichrist is both in a sense the "opposite" of Jesus Christ, but also, and primarily, is someone who comes "in the place of" Jesus Christ, trying to take His place in our lives.

This word is actually used three different ways:

1) the "spirit of antichrist"

() 3 and every spirit a_that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and b_now is in the world already.

The "spirit of antichrist" is behind every false doctrine and every "religious" substitute for the realities Christians have in Christ. The "spirit of antichrist" is in the world today. It will eventually lead to the appearance of a "satanic superman" (Wiersbe)

2) false teachers, "many antichrist", the ones who are used by this "spirit of antichrist".

3) The specific individual, yet to be revealed on the world scene.

() 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, kproclaiming himself to be God.

C. 18 “so now are many antichrists have come”

In John’s day this was true.

It’s even truer today.

Jesus said,

() 4 And Jesus answered them, a_“See that no one leads you astray. 5 For b_many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am c_the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you d_are not alarmed, for this e_must take place, but the end is not yet.

() “just as there will be false teachers among you, who will o_secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master p_who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth q_will be blasphemed. 3 And r_in their greed they will exploit you s_with false words. t_Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

Also: ; ;

D. 18 “Therefore we know that it is the last hour.”

This is what defines our current time since Jesus’ resurrection as the "last time", the fact that there are many "antichrists", many who are opposed to Jesus, many who would try to take His place.

E. 19 “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.”

went out from us – not in the sense of being sent out as missionaries, but the idea of departing from the truth as well as departing from the group.

continued – meno – to remain, abide

Be careful not to take this as if everyone who leaves the church is some kind of heretic.

There are all kinds of reasons why people leave a church.

a) It may be because of some silly disagreement with another person.

b) It may be because of discipline that someone is asked to leave the church. And in this case, if a person repents, they are to be welcomed back in to the church, even as Paul wrote to the Corinthians about a person who had been removed from the church –

c) The idea here is that these people had been believing and even teaching heresies in the church, departing from the truth, and it got to the point where they left the church.

* If you will investigate the history of the false cults and antichristian religious systems in today’s world, you will find that in most cases their founders started out in a local church! They were "with us" but not "of us," so they went out "from us" and started their own groups.

F. 19 “But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

The departing of the false teachers made it obvious that they were not a part of them.

II. 20-27 truth and lies

C. 22 “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?”

anointed – chrisma – anything smeared on, unguent, ointment, usually prepared by the Hebrews from oil and aromatic herbs.

denies – arneomai – to deny; not to accept, to reject

Christ – "Messiah", the "anointed One" (maybe a little play on words with "anointing"?), God’s chosen Savior.

This is talking about the Holy Spirit, which is seen symbolically throughout the Bible as "oil" or "anointing". One of the clearest places we see this is when Samuel "anoints" little David to be king –

Lesson:

() Then Samuel took i_the horn of oil j_and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. k_And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. . .

…

The truth is centered on who you think Jesus is.

knowledge – eido – to see; to know; not particularly knowing by personal experience with something, but knowing by perceiving something.

This is one way to cut to the chase when you are talking with a person, and trying to find out if they really know the Lord or not.

Perhaps we might say, "you understand all these things because of the anointing you have".

What do you think of Jesus?

We’ll expound on this a little more in verse 27.

If they do not believe that Jesus is God’s anointed Savior, they don’t have the truth.

To make it even clearer, if they do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, if they do not believe that Jesus is God, then they don’t have the truth.

Jesus being our Savior depends on His also being God.

· Jesus is our Savior because He saves us from the penalty of our sins by having died in our place.

· If Jesus is not God, having an eternal, immortal life, then His death could not have helped more than one other person.

· But because He is God, then when He laid down His life in payment for our sins, He was able to pay for the sins of the entire world.

Who do you say that Jesus is?

D. 22 “This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.”

You can’t claim to know the Father without knowing the Son.

The two are a package deal.

Jesus said,

() 6 Jesus said to him, “I am l_the way, and m_the truth, and n_the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 o_If you had known me, you would have p_known my Father also.4 From now on you do know him and q_have seen him.”

What you heard from the beginning –

We’ve been taking this phrase to talk about the eternality of Christ.

We kind of got off a little bit from how John used "from the beginning" at the opening of his letter –

() That which was from the beginning,

This seemed so similar to the way he opened his gospel –

() In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. {2} The same was in the beginning with God.

But could it be that it is really referring to the teachings you heard from the beginning, not looking for some new thing, but staying with the basics?

Lesson:

Staying put is the greatest of maturity.

The "fathers" (2:13,14) are the ones who have known Him "from the beginning". Could it be simply that the greatest mark of maturity (for "fathers") is staying with what you know, and not looking for some "new" thing?

Not staying put by staying in the same church, but staying put in staying in the same teaching as the Bible about Jesus.