It is important for our souls to have sound and scriptural judgment of the time through which we are passing. We can have no hesitation in taking up the apostle's word and saying with renewed emphasis, “It is the (or, a) last time (hour).” It was so in principle then; it is immensely developed since, nothing less but a vast deal more. Now one peculiar feature of the evil with which we have to do, and through the midst of which we are passing is that the fairest forms are thrown as a veil over the foulest evil. This it is that deceives even true children of God. Babylon has not only the purple robe and the golden cup in her hand; she is also arrayed in fine linen. There is the appearance if not the reality of the righteousnesses of saints. No doubt she wears also gaudy splendor of the world; in these she revels, these alone she values. Practical righteousness here or there is but an accident of grace, and used as a decoy for those who are foolish pared the way by inciting good men to sanction evil things. The prevalence of “many antichrists” shows that His name was, even in apostolic times, made the cloak for thoughts and ways the most opposed to Himself. The devil could do nothing to destroy Christianity without attaching the Lord's name to his evil plans.
Even before the apostles disappeared how marked the change! Worldliness and the world, under the name of the Lord Christ! This laxity became a great snare for both Christians and the world. Christian professors were already too easily beguiled to countenance plausible lies of the enemy: for deadly heterodoxy may outwardly sound very like blessed truth. Thus sincere believers are often misled for a while, and those who have only a mental acquaintance with the truth are drawn away to take license from such sanction as theirs.
The Lord grant that we may feel deeply what a solemn importance attaches to Christ and the truth! What will the world think of you who profess to know better? What pleasure can Christ find in you, if you relax your protest and grudge your separation to Himself? if you grow careless and begin to allow evil you once felt in this or that? May grace make us lowly, yet earnest, not in a spirit of bondage or of petty fault-finding with others but in being true to the Lord Jesus who has been so true to us. We are told here that Antichrist is coming, but at the same time “even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour.” We must beware therefore of evils on every side, and of evil particularly done under the name of Christ—that is antichrist. It may be utterly to destroy the Christ of God, but an antichrist can do nothing but oppose the name of Him.
Finally we are told in what consists the great evil of the latter days: it is in this—a denial of all revealed truth of Christ. “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?” But this is not the full character of Antichrist. It was what the Old Testament prepared us for; it pointed to the promised One Jesus, and showed that He was the true Messiah, the Anointed of God. But the New Testament shows that He was not only the Messiah but the Son revealing the Father. That Jesus is the Christ is the great answer to all Jewish expectations, such as the Old Testament would form. But that Jesus is not only the Christ but the Son of the Father is the grand truth of the New Testament. Whatever tends to supplant and overthrow the truth of the New Testament will assuredly bring in antichrist. “He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.”
And this is what things are rapidly hastening to. It comes now to be a sanctioned thing that men may teach doctrine that undermines both Old and New Testaments. Even those who are in the highest position ecclesiastically lay it down that there is nothing in such speculations contrary to sound doctrine! What then since this Epistle was written can be more calculated to fill one with concern than that which is now avowed by those accredited as Christian men to speak with authority?
Truly do we need to be “kept by God's power, through faith.” Let us own that these are solemn words to ourselves; for this extreme evil is a thing floating in the air. Doubt of God and confidence in man prevail. It is not confined to a few individuals here and there; “even now are there many antichrists.” It is by their frequency that we know it is the “last hour” however long its continuance from the apostle's day.
The Lord keep us, not so much occupied with the evil, but cleaving to the good in Himself, entering more and more into the truth that God has revealed in Him. This is the surest preservative where it is coupled with a good conscience and a devoted heart. “As for you, let that abide in you which ye heard from the beginning. If that which ye heard from the beginning abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father.”