June 9, 2019: Love Says – Michael Hidalgo, Hannah Thom

When talking about antichrists it would make sense to mention the “last hour.” These two things have often gone together when Christians talk about the end of the world. John is the only one to use the term antichrist, and he is not speaking about someone at the end of the world who has yet to come. He speaks about those who were a part of his community of faith, but had left, moved on. Much has been made about the division that existed here.

Some assume it was all doctrine, others opine that perhaps the Gnostics infiltrated the church and worked from the inside. However, there is something noteworthy about what we know from what John writes: whoever theywere they were destroying unity within the Church. “This sin is as bad as, if not worse than, the actual doctrinal error, because … they disregarded the cardinal and foundational command of Jesus to ‘love each other.’”