SEV Biblia, Chapter 2:18
¶ Hijitos, ya es la postrera hora; y como vosotros habis oído que el anticristo ha de venir, así tambin al presente han comenzado a ser muchos anticristos; por lo cual sabemos que es el ltimo tiempo.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - 1 John 2:18
Verse 18. Little children, it is the last time] This place is variously understood. This is the last dispensation of grace and mercy to mankind; the present age is the conclusion of the Jewish state, as the temple and holy city are shortly to be destroyed. But as there are many who suppose that this epistle was written after the destruction of Jerusalem, consequently the words cannot, on that supposition, refer to this. Others think that escath wra should be translated, a most difficult, perilous, and wretched time; a time in which all kinds of vices, heresies, and pollutions shall have their full reign; that time which out Lord predicted, Matt. vii. 15, when he said, Beware of false prophets. And Matt. xxiv. 11, 12: Many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many; and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. And Matt. xxiv. 24: There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders. And Matthew xxiv. 25: Behold, I have told you before. Now the apostle may allude to these predictions of our Lord; but all these refer to a time antecedent to the destruction of Jerusalem. I am therefore inclined to think, whatever may be here the precise meaning of the last time, that the epistle before us was written while Jerusalem yet stood. See what is said in the preface on this head. Antichrist shall come] Who is this anticristov antichrist? Is he the Emperor Domitian, the Gnostics, Nicolaitans, Nazareans, Cerinthians, Romish pontiffs, &c., &c.! Ans. Any person, thing, doctrine, system of religion, polity, &c., which is opposed to Christ, and to the spirit and spread of his Gospel, is antichrist. We need not look for this imaginary being in any of the above exclusively. Even Protestantism may have its antichrist as well as Popery. Every man who opposes the spirit of the Gospel, and every teacher and writer who endeavours to lower the Gospel standard to the spirit and taste of the world, is a genuine antichrist, no matter where or among whom he is found. The heresies which sprang up in the days of St. John were the antichrist of that time. As there has been a succession of oppositions to Christianity in its spirit and spread through every age since its promulgation in the world, so there has been a succession of antichrists. We may bring this matter much lower; every enemy of Christ, every one who opposes his reign in the world, in others, or in himself, is an antichrist; and consequently every wicked man is an antichrist. But the name has been generally applied to whatever person or thing systematically opposes Christ and his religion.
Many antichrists] Many false prophets, false Messiahs, heretics, and corrupters of the truth.
Whereby we know that it is the last time.] That time which our Lord has predicted, and of which he has warned us.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 18. Little children, it is the last time , &c.] Or hour; not of the Jewish civil and church state, for that had been at an end for some time; this epistle was written some years after the destruction of Jerusalem; nor the last hour of the Gospel dispensation, or world to come, for this was but the first age of that; and much less the last hour of time, or of the present world itself, for that has been many hundreds of years since; but the last hour of the apostolic age. All the apostles were now dead, John was the last of them; perilous times were now coming on, impostors and heretics were rising apace, against which the apostle cautions his little children; and so still he writes to them, agreeably to their age and character, who, being such, were most likely to be imposed upon by those who lie in wait to deceive. And as ye have heard that antichrist shall come ; or is coming; and begins to show himself in the false teachers and deceivers, who were his forerunners; and this they had heard and understood, either from the words of Christ in ( John 5:43); or from the account the Apostle Paul gave to the Thessalonians concerning him, ( 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4,7-10); or rather it may be from what, the apostle had said to the elders of the church at Ephesus, where the Apostle John now was, when he met them at Miletus, ( Acts 20:29,30), even now there are many antichrists . The Syriac and Ethiopic versions read, false Christs; but such are not intended here, that set up for Messiahs, whom Christ foretold should arise before the destruction of Jerusalem, ( Matthew 24:24); for that was now over, and those false Christs had arisen and were gone: if this sense could be admitted, Bar Cocab, in Adrian's time, bids fair to be the false Christ, or Messiah, in the preceding clause, as the same versions there read; but such as were adversaries of Christ, as the Arabic version renders it, are meant, who set themselves against Christ, and were opposers of his person, incarnation, and office; who either denied that he was the Christ, or that he was come in the flesh, the truth of his incarnation, or his proper deity, or real humanity, such as Ebion, Cerinthus, and others. The apostle might well say there were many, since in his time were the followers of Simon Magus, the Menandrians, Saturnilians, Basilidians, Nicolaites, Gnostics, Carpocratians, Cerinthians, Ebionites, and Nazarenes, as reckoned up by Epiphanius. And hence we learn, that antichrist is not one single individual, but many; antichrist in the former clause is explained by antichrists in this; (see John 2:22 4:1,3 2 John 7); and though the popes of Rome are, by way of eminence, the antichrist that should come, and which those deceivers were the forerunners of, and paved the way for; yet they are not the only antichrists, there were others before them, and there are many now besides them. Whereby we know that it is the last time ; the pure apostolic age was now going off, with the doctrines, discipline, and worship of it, which was easy to be discerned by the multitude of antichrists which now appeared; and it may well be thought to be the last time, or near the end of things with us, since almost every heresy is revived among us.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 18-23 - Every man is an antichrist, who denies the Person, or any of the offices of Christ; and in denying the Son, he denies the Father also and has no part in his favour while he rejects his great salvation. Le this prophecy that seducers would rise in the Christian world, keep u from being seduced. The church knows not well who are its true members and who are not, but thus true Christians were proved, and rendere more watchful and humble. True Christians are anointed ones; their names expresses this: they are anointed with grace, with gifts an spiritual privileges, by the Holy Spirit of grace. The great and mos hurtful lies that the father of lies spreads in the world, usually ar falsehoods and errors relating to the person of Christ. The unctio from the Holy One, alone can keep us from delusions. While we judg favourably of all who trust in Christ as the Divine Saviour, and obe his word, and seek to live in union with them, let us pity and pray for those who deny the Godhead of Christ, or his atonement, and the new-creating work of the Holy Ghost. Let us protest against suc antichristian doctrine, and keep from them as much as we may.
Greek Textus Receptus
παιδια 3813 εσχατη 2078 ωρα 5610 εστιν 2076 5748 και 2532 καθως 2531 ηκουσατε 191 5656 οτι 3754 ο 3588 αντιχριστος 500 ερχεται 2064 5736 και 2532 νυν 3568 αντιχριστοι 500 πολλοι 4183 γεγονασιν 1096 5754 οθεν 3606 γινωσκομεν 1097 5719 οτι 3754 εσχατη 2078 ωρα 5610 εστιν 2076 5748
Vincent's NT Word Studies
18. Little children (paidia). See on ver. 13.
The last hour (escath wra). The phrase only here in the New Testament. On John's use of wra hour, as marking a critical season, see John ii. 4; iv. 21, 23; v. 25, 28; vii. 30; viii. 20; xi. 23, 27; xvi. 2, 4, 25, 32. The dominant sense of the expression last days, in the New Testament, is that of a period of suffering and struggle preceding a divine victory. See Acts ii. 17; Jas. v. 3; 1 Pet. i. 20. Hence the phrase here does not refer to the end of the world, but to the period preceding a crisis in the advance of Christ's kingdom, a changeful and troublous period, marked by the appearance of "many antichrists."
Antichrist. Peculiar to John in the New Testament. The absence of the article shows its currency as a proper name. It may mean one who stands against Christ, or one who stands instead of Christ; just as ajntistrathgov may mean either one who stands in the place of a strathgov praetor, a propraetor (see Introd. to Luke, vol. 1, p. 246, and note on Acts xvi. 20), or an opposing general. John never uses the word yeudocristov false Christ (Matt. xxiv. 24; Mark xiii. 22). While the false Christ is merely a pretender to the Messianic office, the Antichrist "assails Christ by proposing to do or to preserve what he did, while denying Him." Antichrist, then, is one who opposes Christ in the guise of Christ. Westcott's remark is very important, that John's sense of Antichrist is determined by the full Christian conception of Christ, and not by the Jewish conception of the promised Savior.
Cometh (ercetai). The prophetic present, equivalent to is about to come. The same term is used of Christ (John xiv. 3; xxi. 22; Revelation xxii. 20).
Are there (gegonasin). Rev., more correctly, have there arisen.
Whereby (oqen). Lit., whence. Only here in John. It is found in Matthew and Luke, and frequently in Hebrews, and not elsewhere.
