Illuminated Coptic sanctuary banner

1 John 2:18-27 - Abiding in the Son in the Last Hour

14 min read

St John has just refused the Church a heart trained by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Now he names a danger that can sound more spiritual than those desires: voices that loosen the confession of the Son. The last hour is already upon the Church, not because a calendar has been decoded, but because Christ has come, died, risen, and poured out the Spirit, and falsehood now shows itself against that light. St John is not arming the parish to hunt enemies. He is teaching the Church to remain in the truth received from the beginning.

Discernment in the Last Hour (1 John 2:18-23)

18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. 20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. 21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

“Little children, it is the last hour.” The address is tender, and the claim is urgent. St John repeats the phrase at both ends of verse 18: the hour is recognized by what is already happening, not by a date calculation. The decisive light has appeared in the Incarnate Son. Denial of Him resists the One in whom eternal life has been revealed.

St John first recalls what the believers have heard: “the Antichrist is coming.” Then he turns that singular expectation toward a present plural crisis: “even now many antichrists have come.” The Church must recognize what is already contrary to Christ. The passage directs vigilance toward confession and conduct, not fascination with a hidden timetable.

That test is defined by the passage itself. “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.” The danger is Christological and Trinitarian before it is political or cultural. To deny that Jesus is the Christ is to deny the Son; to deny the Son is to lose the Father as well. Confession of the Son is communion with the Father. A spirituality that wants the Father while setting the Incarnate Son aside is already a lie, however devout its vocabulary may sound.

“They went out from us, but they were not of us.” The crisis is an intra-community rupture, not an invasion by strangers. Some who had been associated with the apostolic fellowship departed, and their departure made visible what was already unstable. St John explains the secession; he does not invite the parish to treat every hard departure, every wounded conscience, or every painful disagreement as proof of reprobation. The controlling issue in this unit is denial of the Son and rupture from the confession received from the beginning. The faithful response is therefore abiding, not panic, and discernment, not the thrill of accusation.

Against the departure stands a gift: “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.” The Greek noun “χρῖσμα” (chrisma) means anointing or unction.1 St John reassures the community that the Holy One has given them the Spirit, so they are not orphans before deceivers. “You know all things” is governed by verse 21: they know the truth already received, not every possible fact. Another Greek reading says “you all know,” emphasizing the whole community.2 Neither reading gives private certainty authority over the apostolic gospel.

“No lie is of the truth.” Falsehood is not a creative variant of Christian faith. It does not share the same root. The Church does not need to treat every fashionable reinterpretation of Jesus as if it might still be a deeper form of the same gospel. St John writes because the truth is already known, and because a lie cannot be baptized by sincerity alone.

Gems from the Fathers 💎: Ask the Life

St Augustine keeps the word close to the ground: “For antichrist in our tongue means, contrary to Christ.”3 He will not let the label become a slogan. He turns it into self-examination: “Let the tongue keep still for a little while, ask the life.”4 A person may say orthodox words while living against the Christ those words name. The passage still has a public doctrinal edge. Some had left the apostolic fellowship and denied the Son. Augustine’s counsel does not erase that history. It prevents the Church from using truth only as a weapon against others while leaving its own heart unexamined.

Abiding in What Was Heard from the Beginning (1 John 2:24-27)

24 Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life. 26 These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. 27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

The remedy is not novelty. “Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.” The apostolic word must remain in the believers so that the believers remain in the Son and in the Father. The Greek vocabulary of remaining runs through the whole unit: those who left would have remained if they had truly belonged; the received word must remain; the faithful remain in the Son and Father; the anointing remains and teaches them to remain.5 St John’s answer to antichrist is remaining, not decoding.

What was “heard from the beginning” is the apostolic proclamation of the Incarnate Son, not a private memory of spiritual excitement. Earlier in the letter, the manifested Life whom the witnesses heard, saw, and handled establishes this beginning. Continuity with that proclamation is the Church’s protection. A voice that offers a fresher Jesus, a less demanding Christ, or a spirituality detached from the flesh of the Son is asking the heart to trade the beginning for a counterfeit.

The promise attached to this abiding is enormous: “And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life.” Discernment is not cold doctrinal policing. Truth here is the path of communion. To remain in the Son and the Father is to remain in the life God has promised. Error is dangerous because it severs people from that life, not merely because it spoils an argument.

St John names the pressure plainly: “These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you.” Someone is pulling the faithful away from their received life. The letter intervenes while that redirection is underway. Deception can arrive as sophistication or spiritual confidence that no longer needs the flesh of Jesus, repentance, or love of the brethren.

Then comes the verse most easily twisted: “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you.” St John is teaching in the very sentence that says the anointing teaches. He cannot mean the abolition of apostolic instruction or the Church’s teachers. He means that the faithful do not need the deceivers’ alternative curriculum. The same anointing that abides in them is true and is not a lie, and it has already taught them to remain in Christ.

Gems from the Fathers 💎: The Master Within

St Augustine hears the mystery without contempt for human words: “The sound of our words strikes the ears, the Master is within.”6 The external teacher can admonish; Christ by the Spirit teaches the heart. That is the opposite of religious isolation. It is the Church’s confidence that the Spirit makes the apostolic word living within the baptized. Augustine also joins unction to charity: “the invisible unction is the Holy Ghost; the invisible unction is that charity, which, in whomsoever it be, shall be as a root to him: however burning the sun, he cannot wither.”7 Discernment that becomes proud, cold, or merciless has already drifted from the anointing it claims.

The lecture On Chrism, transmitted under St Cyril of Jerusalem’s name, receives John’s words within the Church’s sacramental life after Baptism. Speaking of the holy chrism, it says, “Keep This unspotted: for it shall teach you all things, if it abide in you, as you have just heard declared by the blessed John,” then adds, “For this holy thing is a spiritual safeguard of the body, and salvation of the soul.”8 The anointing belongs to participation in Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. This fourth-century reception does not exhaust the first-century image, but it excludes a reading that makes the Spirit the sponsor of religious isolation.

The NKJV ends with assurance: “just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.” Another Greek form reads “abide in Him.”9 Verse 24 already joins exhortation and promise: let the received word remain, and you will remain in the Son and the Father. The Spirit gives life to that persevering obedience.

The path of the passage is therefore clear. Recognize the hour by the crisis of confession. Do not romanticize departure from apostolic fellowship. Receive the anointing as the Spirit’s gift within the Church. Let what was heard from the beginning remain. Confess the Son and so have the Father. Refuse the voices that lead astray. Abide in Him, for the promise is eternal life.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

At Pentecost, the Coptic Church hears 1 John 2:20-3:1 as the Catholic Epistle beside John 15:26-16:15. The anointing from the Holy One is heard with Christ’s promise of the Spirit of truth, who bears witness to Him and guides His disciples into truth.10 The Gospel unfolds in John 15:26-16:4 and John 16:5-15. Together these readings turn “the anointing teaches” toward the Spirit’s faithful witness to the Son, not toward a private revelation competing with Him.

This gift has a bodily place in Coptic Christian life. Immediately after Baptism, the newly baptized is anointed with the holy Myron, the consecrated chrism, in the Mystery of Chrismation. CopticChurch.net’s account describes the anointing of the senses and members, and the Patriarch’s role in the sanctification of the Myron.11 The person who must confess the Son with the mouth and obey Him in daily life has been consecrated in that embodied life. In the Myron consecration order preserved by Coptic Reader, the Catholic Epistle is 1 John 2:20-28, the same range that heads the ancient lecture On Chrism.12

The passage returns through the year in distinct selections:

  • Tuesday of the third week of the Holy Fifty Days: 1 John 2:18-23.
  • Saturday of the second week and Wednesday of the third week of the Holy Fifty Days: 1 John 2:21-25.
  • Thursday of the third week of the Holy Fifty Days: 1 John 2:26-3:1.
  • Wedding of Cana and Babah 6: 1 John 2:20-25.
  • Fourth Sunday of Kiahk: 1 John 2:24-3:3.13

The Church repeatedly brings confession, anointing, and abiding into her Paschal and Incarnational hearing. The promise is not merely that error can be identified. It is that we may remain in the Son and in the Father, receiving the eternal life He has promised.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

Let discernment begin with repentance. Augustine’s question reaches the life beneath correct speech. Ask where your habits contradict the Christ you confess: contempt for another believer, a defended lie, or a faith that wants God without costly obedience to His Son. Bring that place to confession. Then pray for those being led astray instead of feeding the pleasure of accusation.

Stay with what you heard from the beginning when a voice offers a more convenient Christ. Deception often flatters the desire for a faith with less Cross, less Church, less repentance, or less embodied obedience. When a book, teacher, feed, or inner rationalization begins to detach Jesus from the apostolic confession, return to the beginning: the Life manifested, the Son acknowledged, the Father known through Him. Read the Gospel. Stand in the liturgy. Ask a trusted father of confession. Remaining can look ordinary. Novelty often looks brilliant. St John prefers the ordinary faithfulness that keeps eternal life.

Receive the anointing as communion. When private certainty becomes unteachable, return to Scripture heard in the Church, the Eucharist, and counsel able to correct you. The inward Master makes the apostolic word living; He does not make the believer self-sufficient.

Hold the promise of eternal life when faithfulness feels costly. Abiding can mean remaining in a hard obedience, a quiet parish fidelity, a refused compromise, or a friendship that will not bless a lie. St John does not leave the Church with only a warning. He leaves it with a promise: eternal life. When remaining feels like loss, name the promise in prayer. The last hour is not only a time of danger. It is the time in which the Son gives life to those who remain in Him.

Footnotes

  1. Thayer, “χρῖσμα”, on 1 John 2:20, 27. ↩

  2. 1 John 2:20, parallel Greek editions: Nestle 1904 has “πάντες,” “you all”; Robinson-Pierpont 2005 has “πάντα,” “all things.” ↩

  3. St Augustine, Homily 3 on the First Epistle of John, §4, NPNF 1/7. ↩

  4. St Augustine, Homily 3 on the First Epistle of John, §8, NPNF 1/7. ↩

  5. Thayer, “μένω,” I.1.b, on fellowship and abiding in 1 John 2:19, 24, 27. ↩

  6. St Augustine, Homily 3 on the First Epistle of John, §13, NPNF 1/7. ↩

  7. St Augustine, Homily 3 on the First Epistle of John, §12, NPNF 1/7. ↩

  8. St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 21.7, On Chrism, NPNF 2/7. ↩

  9. 1 John 2:27, parallel Greek editions: Nestle 1904 has “μένετε”; Robinson-Pierpont 2005 has the future “μενεῖτε,” reflected in NKJV. ↩

  10. Coptic Catholic Epistle and Liturgy Gospel for Pentecost. ↩

  11. CopticChurch.net, The Sacrament of Confirmation, opening account and “The Rite of Anointment by Holy Myron.” ↩

  12. Coptic Reader, Special / Consecrations / Oil / Myron / Consecration, Catholic Epistle, 1 John 2:20-28, as preserved in its special-service reading record. ↩

  13. Coptic Catholic Epistle readings: Holy Fifty, third-week Tuesday, second-week Saturday, third-week Wednesday, third-week Thursday, Wedding of Cana, Babah 6, and Fourth Sunday of Kiahk. ↩

Reading statusLoading your browser-local progress
Saved only in this browser
Referenced Fathers:

Created: | Updated:

Page Connections

Backlinks