Antichrists- Part 2

1 John 2:18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.

1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

1 John 2:20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.

1 John 2:21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.

1 John 2:22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son.

1 John 2:23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

Review – “Many antichrists have come…”

The Bible teaches that when the Antichrist comes in the end times, he will try to be the Christ that men are looking for. I believe he will take advantage of the turbulent times in which we are living and bring about a false sense of peace. Later he will turn against Christ and demand people to worship him as God. If you don’t worship him you will die.

Then the Bible also speaks of a “spirit of Antichrist.” The spirit of Antichrist has always been in the world. It has manifested itself both in open opposition to Christ and in subtle attempts to replace Christ.

John proceeds and tells his readers how to recognize some who are against Christ. He essentially teaches how we might recognize those in the church who are antichrist and does not really belong to us.

It is amazing that in verse 19 he gives just one characteristic of this kind of person: They leave. But don’t get John wrong; he is not speaking of leaving the church; he is not referring to the person who takes his name off the church roll.

John writes in verse 19, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.”

The Greek the words “out form” and “of” in this verse are the translation of the preposition ek which Greek scholars say is followed by the ablative case.

The word ablative means, “that which is borne away or separated. The ablative case in the Greek denotes separation. It is involved not only in the literal removal of one object from the vicinity of another, but in any idea which implies departure from the relationship of origin.

In verse 19 there are two occurrences of the ablative case:

They went from us… This is called the ablative of separation.

Here John is referring to the person who leaves, or departs from a specific teaching or doctrine. In this context, the person who leaves, departs or separates from the doctrinal position of the church concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the person who has a mental assent to the teachings concerning Jesus Christ but not a heart acceptance of these teachings so it is easy to leave these teachings.

They were not of us… This is called the ablative of source.

Here John shows his readers that the antichrists did not have their source in the Body of Jesus Christ, which is composed only of true believers. They were merely members of the visible, organized church on earth.

When Peters says Christians are “partakers of the divine nature…” Well, these people who “were not of us” as John writes, did not have this divine nature or life that animates the Christian. They were like a toy in the toy box without its batteries.

They were in the church but did not have the Spirit of God indwelling them.

They were in the choir but when they sang, they may have sounded good but they didn’t have the Spirit.

They were in leadership but it wasn’t the Spirit of God who put them there it was their own fleshly motives.

No, they didn’t leave the church; they left the doctrines or teachings of the church concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. And, since they never held forth to the teachings of the Bible concerning Jesus, they were never with us.

Sometimes when a person leaves the doctrines of the Bible, they leave the people who hold these teachings as precious.

An Example of One “Went Out From Us…”

In 1852 a man was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania to Presbyterian parents; His father was a Presbyterian minister. He claims to have tried to convert an agnostic and was defeated in his arguments, leading to his time of being a skeptic. He claims that he could not believe in a gospel in which there was a literal hell, so he set out on a quest to find a belief that did not include a hell. At the age of seventeen he was a skeptic and disbelieved the Bible.