(1 John 2:18-23)
6. Christ and the Antichrists
Children, it is the last hour. In this passage John is urging children to hurry and grow up, because it is the last hour. Your body's age isn't affected by your will. In a physical sense no one grows when he wills it any more than anyone is born when he wills it. But in a case where birth can be willed, so can growth. No one "'is born of water and the Spirit" unless he wills it, and so one who wills it increases and one who does not will it decreases. What does increase mean? It means progress. And what does decrease mean? It means regress. Have you learned that you've been born? Then recognize that you're a child, a mere baby, and cling eagerly to your mother's breasts and grow up quickly. Your mother is the Church, and her breasts are the two testaments of the Bible. Suck from these testaments her milk, the sacraments we carry out in time for our eternal salvation. When you have been nourished and strengthened by this milk, you'll be capable of eating solid food, this food: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Christ in his lowly state is our milk; our solid food is the same Christ in his equality with the Father. In order to feed you with bread, he first suckles you with milk. To touch Jesus spiritually with your heart is to know that he is equal to the Father.
This is why Jesus forbade Mary Magdalen to touch him. He told her, *Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father." But what's happening here? Did he allow the disciples to touch him and not Mary? Isn't he the same person who told the doubting disciple, ''Put your finger here and feel my wounds"? Had he already ascended to the Father? Then why did he forbid Mary to touch him? Shall we answer that he was
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afraid to have a woman touch him but not a man? But it's by touching him that every one is purified! Was he afraid to be touched by women when they were the ones he chose to manifest himself to first? Wasn't it women who announced his resurrection to the men? In this way the serpent was overcome by his own craft working in reverse: by a woman the devil sent a message of death to the first man, and by a woman the message of life was brought to men.
Why then didn't Christ want to be touched, unless it was because he wanted us to understand that there is a touch that is spiritual? A pure heart touches spiritually, and so a person who understands that Christ is the Father's equal touches him with a pure heart. One who doesn't understand yet that Christ is God only reaches his flesh, not his divinity. Is it so wonderful to touch his flesh when the persecutors who crucified him did this too? What is wonderful is to understand that he is the Word, God in the beginning with God, the Word through which everything was made. This is how he wanted us to know him. He said to Philip, "Have I been with you so long, and have you not known me, Philip? One who sees me sees the Father, too."
But if there is anyone who is sluggish, let him listen to John: Children, it is the last hour. Move! Run! Grow! For it is the last hour! This last hour is long, but even so it's the last one. Hour here means the last time, the end. It's in the last time that our Lord Jesus Christ is going to come. But some will ask, *How can it be the end? How can it be the last hour? We know that the antichrist will come first, and then the day of judgment." John was aware of these thoughts. So that people wouldn't become careless and think that it wasn't the last hour, because the antichrist was still to come, he said to them, and as you have heard that the antichrist is to come, even now many antichrists have come to be. Could there be many antichrists if it weren't the last hour?
Who is it he is calling the antichrists? John goes on to explain: By this we know that it is the last hour. By what? By the fact
26 / LOVEONE ANOTHER, MY FRIENDS that many antichrists have come to be. You see the antichrists.
They went out from us and so we lament the loss. But take comfort from this: but they were not of us. Every heretic and schismatic has gone out from us; they leave the Church. But they wouldn't go out if they were of us. Therefore before they went out they were not of us. If before they went out they weren't of us, then there are many within, many who haven't gone out but are antichrists even so. This is a bold thing to say. So why do I say it? I say it so that no one in the Church may be an antichrist. John is going to describe and point out the antichrists; now we will see them.
All of us ought to question our own consciences about whether we are antichrists. Antichrist means '"'one who is opposed to Christ." Some people have thought that antichrist means *one who will come before Christ, whom Christ will follow" that the prefix is ante, which means "before." It isn't written that way and it doesn't mean that. Antichrist means "opposed to Christ."
Now who is opposed to Christ? You already know from the writer's own explanation. You understand that no one can go outside except the antichrists, that there is no possible way those who are not opposed to Christ can go outside. A person who is not opposed to Christ remains part of his body and is reckoned a member of it. Its members are never opposed to each other. The body's integrity comes from all the members together. Do you remember what the apostle Paul says of the union of members? "If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together." If all members rejoice together in the honoring of one member, and if they all suffer in the suffering of one, the union of members does not admit an antichrist. Nevertheless, because at the present time Christ's body still needs healing, and because it will have perfect health only in the resurrection of the dead, there are some who exist in his body as bad substances exist in ours. When we throw these up, our bodies are relieved. In the same way, when the bad go out, the Church is relieved. When it throws up and gets rid of the bad matter, the body says, "This came out of me, but it wasn't part of me." When it says, "It wasn't part of me," it means that it wasn't cut out of its living flesh; while the bad matter was inside, it was oppressive.
They went out from us but (don't be unhappy!) they were not of us. How is this shown? For if they had been of us they would surely have continued with us. This tells you, dear friends, that many who are not of us receive the sacraments with us; they receive baptism with us. They receive with us what the faithful are aware that they receive: blessing, Eucharist, everything that is in the holy mysteries. They receive communion from the altar with us, but they are not of us! Temptation shows that they aren't of us. When temptation comes to them, it's as if they are blown away by the wind because they are chaff and not grain. They will all be blown away—I need to say this often— when the wind comes upon the Lord's threshing floor on the day of judgment. They went out from us but they were not of us; for it they had been of us they would surely have continued with us.
Do you want to know, my friends, how I can say with complete certainty that people who may have gone out and then returned are not antichrists, that they are not opposed to Christ? It cannot happen that those who are not antichrists should remain outside. Each person, by his own will, is either antichrist or in Christ. Either we are among his members or we are part of the bad matter. Anyone who changes for the better is a member of the body; while one who remains in his badness is bad matter. When such a one goes out, those who have been oppressed will be relieved. They went out from us but they were not of us; for if they had been of us they would surely have continued with us; but they went out so that they might be manifest, that they were not all of us. John added that they might be manifest, because even while they are within they aren't of us, but then they aren't manifest. By going out they make plain what they are.
And you have been anointed by the Holy One so that you may be manifest to yourselves. The spiritual anointing is the Holy Spirit, whose sacramental sign is the visible anointing. John says that
28 / LOVEONE ANOTHER, MY FRIENDS everyone who has this anointing recognizes the bad and the good. It isn't necessary for anyone to teach them, because the anointing itself teaches them.
I am writing to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and know that no lie is of the truth. See: here we are instructed how we can recognize the antichrist. What is Christ? He is the truth. He himself said it: "I am the truth." But no lie is of the truth, and so everyone who lies is not yet of Christ. John didn't say that some lies are of the truth and some not. Note what he says, and don't deceive yourselves: No lie is of the truth.
Let us see, then, how the antichrists lie, because there is more than one kind of lie. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? The name Jesus signifies one thing, and the name Christ signifies another. There is one Jesus Christ, our Savior, and Jesus is his proper name. As Moses was called by his proper name, and Elias and Abraham, so our Lord has as his proper name Jesus. Christ is the name that reveals his sacred character. We may call someone a prophet or a priest; the name Christ signifies the Anointed One, in whom is accomplished the redemption of the whole people of Israel.
The Jewish people were awaiting this Christ who was to come. Because he came in humility, they didn't recognize him. Because he was a pebble, they stumbled over him and were broken. But the pebble grew and became a great mountain. And what does Scripture tell us about it? "Whoever stumbles on that stone will be broken to pieces; and when that stone falls on anyone, it will grind him to powder." We have to distinguish between the two parts of this sentence. One who stumbles over the stone will be broken to pieces, but the one it falls on will be ground to powder. Because Christ came first in humility, people stumbled over him. Because he will be exalted when he comes in judgment, he'll grind to powder the one he falls on. But when he comes in judgment, he won't grind to powder anyone he didn't break to pieces when he first camie. Anyone who didn't stumble over him when he was humble
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won't be afraid of him when he is exalted. You have heard it in few words, my friends: anyone who didn't stumble over him when he was humble won't be afraid of him when he is exalted. To all wicked people Christ is a stumbling stone; whatever Christ says is bitter to them.
But let us not be unhappy. They went out from us but they were not of us; for it they had been of us they would surely have continued with us. If they went out from us, they are antichrists. If they are antichrists, they are liars. If they are liars, they deny that Jesus is the Christ. But there is a problem that troubles both us and them: whether we are the antichrists or they are. They call us antichrists and say that we have gone out from them; we say the same thing of them. But this letter has described the antichrists. Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ, that one is an antichrist. Now let us ask, then, who denies this? And let us look not at words but at actions.
Everyone who is asked replies with one voice that Jesus is the Christ. But let their voices be silent for a little while, and let us question their lives. If Scripture itself tells us that denial is possible by actions as well as words, then surely we find many antichrists who profess belief in Christ by their words but who separate themselves from him by their way of life. Do we find this in Scripture? Listen to the apostle Paul. He is talking of people of this kind when he says that "they profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds." These are the antichrists; whoever denies Christ by his deeds is an antichrist. I don't listen to the sounds people make, but I look at the lives they lead. Actions speak. Do we need words? What evil person doesn't want to speak well? What does our Lord say to people like this? He says, in the gospel, You hypocrites, how can you speak good when you are evil?" He is telling them, "Your voices reach my ears, but I look into your thoughts. I see ill will there, and the fruits you show me are false. I know what I must gather and where to find it. I don't gather figs from thistles or grapes from thorns. Every tree is known by its fruits." The worst liar of all is the antichrist who by his words professes that
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Jesus is the Christ but denies him by his deeds. This is why he is a liar: he says one thing and does another.
And so, dear friends, if we question actions we don't just find many antichrists who have gone outside; we also find many who aren't yet manifest, who haven't begun to go out. The Church contains perjurers, deceivers, criminals, people who consult fortune tellers, adulterers, drunkards, moneylenders, dishonest merchants, and people who practice other vices I haven't time to list. These things are opposed to Christ's teaching; they are opposed to the Word of God. God's Word is Christ. Whatever is opposed to the Word of God is an antichrist, because an antichrist is one who is opposed to Christ.
Do you want to know how openly these people resist Christ? Sometimes it happens that they do something wrong, and somebody begins to reprove them. Because they don't dare to speak evil of Christ, they malign his ministers, the people who reproach them. If you show them that you are speaking Christ's words and not your own, they try as hard as they can to convince you that you are wrong, that what you say is your own and not Christ's. But if it is clear that you are speaking Christ's words, they even go against him. They begin to find fault with him. **Why," they say, did he make us the way we are?" Don't people say this every day when they are shown to be wrong? They have been perverted by their disordered wills, so they accuse their Maker. Their Maker cries to them from heaven, the One who made us and made us new: **What did I make when I made you? I made a human being, I didn't make greed. I made a human being, I didn't make theft. I made a human being, I didn't make adultery. My works praise me."
You know this, dear friends. It's in the hymn the three boys sang that saved them from the fire. The Lord's works praise him. Heaven, earth, and sea praise him. All things in heaven praise him: angels praise him; stars praise him; all the luminaries praise him. All swimming, flying, walking, crawling things praise him. All of these things praise the Lord. Have you ever heard that greed praises the Lord? Or that drunkenness or luxury or frivolity praise him? In the hymn, whatever you didn't hear giving praise to the Lord, the Lord didn't make. Set right what you have made, so that what God made in you may be saved. But if you won't do this, if you love and embrace your sins, you are opposed to Christ. Inside or outside, you are an antichrist. Inside or outside, you are chaff. So why aren't you outside? Only because the wind hasn't reached you yet!
These things are manifest now, dear friends. No one can say, *I don't worship Christ, but I worship God, his Father." Everyone who denies the Son has neither the Son nor the Father; and the one who confesses the Son has the Son and the Father. John is speaking to you who are grain. As for the chaff, may they listen and become grain. Every one of you, examine your consciences. If you are a lover of the world, be changed and become a lover of Christ. Then you won't be an antichrist. And if someone should tell you that you are an antichrist, don't become angry and think you've been wronged, don't threaten to bring a charge against your accuser. Christ tells you, "Be patient—if the accusation is false, rejoice with me because I too am falsely accused by the antichrists." But if what you've heard is true, admit it in your conscience. And if you are afraid of being called an antichrist, be even more afraid of being one.