1 John 2:18 - Exposition

A last hour; or, the Divine enclosure of revealed time.

Connecting link: "The world is passing away," wrote the apostle ( 1 John 2:17 ), and now he proceeds to repeat and reimpress this fact upon his readers in two additional statements:

I. THE GREAT SUPREME , WHO IS FROM EVERLASTING TO EVERLASTING , HAS GRACIOUSLY DIVIDED TIME INTO PERIODS FOR US . No finite minds can comprehend a whole eternity. They will make their own horizon, even if one be not disclosed. The eye requires a point of repose whichever way it turns. We are not, however, left to make our own. God has furnished us with one in each direction, before and behind. We have such phrases as, "in the beginning" ( Genesis 1:1 ; John 1:1 ); "then the end" ( 1 Corinthians 15:24 ). In neither case can the phrase mean an absolute beginning or an absolute end. For with God is neither beginning nor end. Beginning and end can be such only so far as God reveals time to us. These are the two enclosures within which revelation moves. There are varied expressions in the Scriptures, moreover, to indicate several epochs which lie between the two extremes; and it would be a great gain to Bible students if, instead of wasting time and energy in attempting to fix dates for this event or that, they would take a larger view, comprehending all the time-expressions in the sacred volume, and endeavour to seize hold of and to apply the principles of the Divine government and the outlines of Divine plan thereby disclosed. Let the following references be carefully compared: "The last days," or "the latter days," as spoken of under the old dispensation ( Genesis 49:1 ; Numbers 24:14 ; Deuteronomy 4:30 ; Isaiah 2:2 ; Jeremiah 23:20 ; Jeremiah 30:24 ; Jeremiah 48:47 ; Jeremiah 49:39 ; Ezekiel 38:16 ; Hosea 3:5 ; Joel 2:28 ; Joel 3:1 ; Micah 4:1 ). In the New Testament we have the phrases, "mine hour" ( John 2:4 ); "his hour" ( John 13:1 ; John 8:20 ; John 7:30 ); "the hour" ( John 17:1 ; John 12:23 ; John 4:21 , John 4:23 ; John 5:28 , John 5:35 ; John 16:4 , John 16:25 , John 16:32 ); "this hour" ( John 12:27 ); "your hour" ( Luke 22:53 ); "times or seasons" ( Acts 1:7 ); "forty-two months" ( Revelation 11:2 ); "three days and a half" ( Revelation 11:11 ); "time, and times, and half a time" ( Revelation 12:14 ; cf. Daniel 7:25 ; Daniel 12:7 , Daniel 12:11 , Daniel 12:12 ); "these last times" ( 1 Peter 1:20 ); "these last days" ( Hebrews 1:2 ); "the last days" ( Acts 2:17 ; 2 Timothy 3:1 ; 2 Peter 3:3 ; Jude 1:18 ; James 5:3 ); "the last day" ( John 6:39 , John 6:44 , John 6:54 ; John 12:48 ); "the day of Christ" ( Philippians 1:10 ); "the day of the Lord" ( 1 Thessalonians 5:2 ; Acts 2:20 ); "that day" ( Matthew 24:36 ; Matthew 7:22 ; 2 Timothy 1:12 , 2 Timothy 1:18 ); "the last time" ( 1 Peter 1:5 ); "the end" ( Matthew 24:14 ; Matthew 13:39 ; Matthew 28:20 ; 1 Corinthians 15:24 ); "the fullness of times" ( Galatians 4:4 ; Ephesians 1:10 ); "the age to come" ( Hebrews 2:5 ; Ephesians 1:21 ); "the ages" ( Hebrews 1:2 ; Hebrews 11:3 ); "ages of ages" ( Revelation 14:11 ); "all the ages" ( Psalms 145:13 [ LXX ]; Jude 1:25 [Greek]); "all the generations of the age of the ages" ( Ephesians 3:21 ). The conception, developed with great care by Mr. Grattan Guinness, £ that the clockwork of the heavens and that of prophecy are similarly set as to time, is one of exceeding attractiveness and grandeur, though our knowledge requires to be enormously wider ere we have the materials for its verification. At the same time, the broad fact remains that he whose being is "one eternal Now" has, both in his works and in his Word, enclosed duration for us in a series of periods smaller or larger, in order that our limited apprehensions may have some point from whence to start, and some goal towards which to look!

II. GOD HAS HIS OWN SPECIFIC PERIOD FOR EACH STEP TO BE TAKEN IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN AFFAIRS . So far as it is needed that we should know what that step may be at any age, prophecy unfolds the plans of God. We know, e.g., that this period is "the day of salvation" foretold by the prophets; that it was ushered in by the first coming, and will be closed by the second coming of the Son of God, for which we are bidden to wait and watch.

III. EACH SUCCEEDING PERIOD IS MARKED BY FEATURES PECULIARLY ITS OWN . "By this we know that it is a last hour." The Adamic, patriarchal, Mosaic, and prophetic periods were all distinctly marked. So was the transition period of the Baptist, and that of the Messiah's life, death, and resurrection; so also is this, the dispensation of the Spirit. A critical change takes place in each one, marking an advance on the times gone by, and serving as an introduction to those which are to come.

IV. HENCE EACH EPOCH MAY BE DESCRIBED AS "A LAST HOUR ," inasmuch as it brings to a close some form of good (or of evil) which marked that which preceded. John the Baptist marked "the last hour" of prophecy. The Lord Jesus, "the last hour" of types and shadows; the Holy Ghost, "the last hour" of human probation. And our Lord Jesus reminds us that earthquakes, pestilences, etc., will mark the last hour ere he comes again, but that these will be but the beginnings of the "birth-pangs" that will usher in a new and glorious life. The Apostle John sees in the rise of antichrist a mark of "the last hour." Even so. It is the period in which Christ goes forth to judgment and to victory, when his foes are to be made manifest to their own destruction and to his glory!

V. STILL , THE WORD OF GOD BIDS US FIX OUR EYE ON THE CLOSE OF THIS EPOCH , referred to as "the day," "that day" "the great day," etc. We are looking for the reappearing of the Son of God, when all antichrists shall be trampled underfoot, and when he shall bring in the "new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

VI. EVEN " THE LAST DAY ," " THE END " FOR WHICH WE LOOK , WILL NOT BE AN ABSOLUTE END . It will be a consummation; and with our God it may be as it were a new beginning. His ways are ever unfolding from glory to glory. Then let it be ours to recognize this method of Divine disclosure, and learn herefrom:

1 . The limits of Divine revelation. It is enclosed between a "beginning" and an "end." Of what was before the one, of what will be after the other, we know nothing and can think nothing.

2 . To use the revealed period, that of probation, so that, let the "end" be what it may and come how it may, we are "ready."

3 . To look forward without fear, if we are in Christ.

4 . To learn "the terrors of the Lord," his manifestations of himself, which make the righteous glad, will put rebellion and the rebel to increasing shame.