1 John 2:18–29 — Antichrists and Abiding

Today’s Passage: 1 John 2:18–29

Yesterday closed with a warning about loving the world’s passing desires, and today the letter’s crisis surfaces directly. A group has left these congregations, and their departure is not incidental to the letter; it is a large part of why the letter exists. John names them as antichrists (ἀντίχριστος) antichristos, pronounced an-TEE-khris-tos. Strong's G500, antichrist; one against or in place of Christ. A term found in the New Testament only in John’s letters (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7), it names two things at once. There is a single future figure his readers had already been taught to expect, the one of whom they heard that “the antichrist is coming,” and there is a present pattern already operating in the “many antichrists” among the churches. The prefix anti can mean “against” or “in place of,” so an antichrist is not only an opponent of Christ but a counterfeit, someone offering a rival version of Him. Both senses fit these teachers, who opposed the true gospel by substituting a different Jesus for it. , calling their teaching a denial that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh. Then he does something pastorally unexpected. Rather than treat their exit as a threat to the readers’ standing, he reframes it as evidence of that standing. The people who left prove, by leaving, that they were never truly rooted, while the people who stayed have something in them that never planned to leave, an anointing from the Holy One and a settled remaining in what they were taught from the beginning.

As you read, hold this: They left because they never belonged. Those who stayed already have the Spirit’s anointing.

1 John 2:18–21 (BSB)

¹⁸ Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour. ¹⁹ They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But their departure made it clear that none of them belonged to us. ²⁰ You, however, have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. ²¹ I have not written to you because you lack knowledge of the truth, but because you have it, and because no lie comes from the truth.

“They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us” (v. 19). It is a hard verse on first read, yet John intends it as reassurance, not accusation. He is not telling the readers to wonder whether they might be next; he is telling them the opposite. A departure like this one is proof of what was already true, not the cause of a fall from grace, for real, remaining faith does not, in the end, walk away from the truth about who Jesus is. The split did not create a defect in the readers; it revealed one that was never in them. That is this letter’s approach to assurance in miniature: not manufactured confidence, but a settled reading of the evidence a life actually gives.

1 John 2:22–23 (BSB)

²² Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. ²³ Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.

The lie is named precisely, not vaguely: denying that Jesus is the Christ, and in doing so denying the Father and the Son together. John will not let a reader imagine they could keep the Father while setting the Son aside, for the two stand or fall together. Whoever has the Son has the Father, and whoever does not have the Son does not have the Father either, no matter what else they claim to believe.

1 John 2:24–27 (BSB)

²⁴ As for you, let what you have heard from the beginning remain in you. If it does, you will also remain in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵ And this is the promise that He Himself made to us: eternal life. ²⁶ I have written these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷ And as for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But just as His true and genuine anointing teaches you about all things, so remain in Him as you have been taught.

Menō, to remain, becomes the passage’s refrain. Let what you heard remain in you, John says, so that you will remain in the Son and the Father (v. 24); the anointing (χρῖσμα) chrisma, pronounced KHREE-smah. Strong's G5545, an anointing. This is a deliberate wordplay against “anti-christ.” Since Christos means “Anointed One,” an anti-christos is, among other things, someone set against the Anointed One and His anointing. Against that counterfeit claim to secret knowledge, John tells his readers they already carry a chrisma from the Holy One, so they have no need of a rival teacher offering a higher insight; they were never lacking the real thing. The anointing does not make ordinary teaching or Scripture unnecessary. It means a believer already has what it takes to recognize a counterfeit gospel when one is offered. remains in you, so remain in Him as you were taught (v. 27). Continuity with the earliest apostolic teaching is itself part of the test, for a gospel that departs from what was originally handed down is a different gospel. And the promise attached to that continuity is not modest: eternal life itself (v. 25), the same phrase the letter has been building toward since it opened with “the Word of life” (1:1).

1 John 2:28–29 (BSB)

²⁸ And now, little children, remain in Christ, so that when He appears, we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming. ²⁹ If you know that He is righteous, you also know that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him.

Abiding now produces confidence later rather than shame, so that when He appears at His coming those who remained may stand unashamed. The chapter closes by tying righteous living back to having been “born of Him,” the same “born of God” language Day 5 takes up in full. In twelve verses John has moved from a real church split to a settled confidence for those who stayed: an anointing that teaches, a truth that remains, and a righteousness that traces back to having been born of God.