Antichrist Periodized or Imminent for John in 1 John 2:18?


Many preterists attack historicists for emphasizing the periods of prophecy saying the Antichrist was believed by John to be in his own day and not like Adventists are saying to play a part during 1260 years stretching between 538 A.D. to 1798. Let us look closer to this text again with another insight:


18Παιδία, ἐσχτη ὥρα ἐστίν, καὶ καθὼς ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἀντίχριστος ἔρχεται, καὶ νῦν ἀντίχριστοι πολλοὶ γεγόνασιν, ὅθεν γινώσκομεν ὅτι ἐσχτη ὥρα ἐστίν.

Children, [heretics are saying I assume] “it is the last hour, and you have heard that the Antichrist will come, and now there are many antichrists, from where we know that it is the last hour.”

Yes, they have heard it from Paul in 2 Thes. 2:1-3. From Jesus and Daniel in Daniel 7 with the Little Horn function. They all talked about periodization when the timing of the Antichrist is involved. Even John in Revelation is familiar in chapter 12 with the 1260 years prophecy of Daniel repeated in Revelation. Thus, he would not for one moment cancel his own idea, that of Jesus, that of Daniel and that of Paul to override what they said with an imminent concept for the Antichrist. It is more likely, that the next verse is holding the key to reflect back that those who cite this direct table-talk quoted by John without quotation marks, were the ones that are no longer with them. That is what verse 19 is saying.  

 

19ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξῆλθαν ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἦσαν ἐξ ἡμῶν, εἰ γρ ἐξ ἡμῶν ἦσαν, μεμενήκεισαν ἂν μεθ’ ἡμῶν– ἀλλ’ ἵνα φανερωθῶσιν ὅτι οὐκ εἰσὶν πντες ἐξ ἡμῶν.

From us they went out but they are not from of us, because if they were from us, they would have remained with us, but so-that they might be revealed that they are not all from us.


The concept that John had the misunderstanding that Jesus would come in his day was cited by a number of even Adventist scholars. Nothing can be further from the truth. God does not speak with two tongues. G. Berkhouwer and a number of scholars did not understand this point at all. They missed it. If one claims that John was talking about themselves here, then one creates a dichotomy between Daniel, Jesus, Paul and others on one side and John on the other. Secondly, one creates a dichotomy within John himself because how can he say with one tongue there is periodization of 1260 years according to Revelation 12 and with another tongue here in the letter thought his own day is near the Second Coming? The solution is to allocate it to a citation of a heretic view, a group that is singled out in verse 19, the very next verse. The content of verse 19 should then be pushed into verse 18 to make it the same audience that are involved in direct quotation of their sermons in verse 18 and in identification by John in verse 19.