The “last hour” to which John refers has to do with the period of time between our Lord’s ascension and return, in which the spirit of the antichrist is at work. In that time frame the Lord Jesus is building His church. But that building faces opposition from a world that does not know Jesus. 

Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming (1 John 2:18, NKJV).
It is in vogue in our day to desert the Christian faith in the name of freedom. There is even a name for it: “deconversion.” Deconversion testimonies follow a distinct pattern. A person steeped in the Christian faith and an outspoken adherent of it, perhaps even seen as an influencer for the faith, will declare their emancipation from its bondage. By their testimony they now become evangelists for whatever religious, spiritual, or philosophical construct that suits them at the moment.
Little do they realize, however, that they have exchanged the truth for a lie and given themselves over to the bondage of sin and Satan.
John describes these sorts of people who once were part of the community of faith but have departed from it for one reason or another. “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” (1 John 2:19).
John is not speaking of a wandering but of a definitive break with Christ. The apostle has his own term for such deserters, “antichrist.” “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” (1 John 2:18). Antichrists are those in league with the devil, who oppose Christ and His church.
The “last hour” to which John refers has to do with the period of time between our Lord’s ascension and return, in which the spirit of the antichrist is at work. In that time frame the Lord Jesus is building His church. But that building faces opposition from a world that does not know Jesus. Jude put it “that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit” (Jude 18–19).
John, however, is confident of the faith of those he addresses as “little children.” Because he is convinced of the workmanship of God in their lives, he is confident that they are secure in Christ against the lures and molestations of the devil. “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things” (1 John 2:20). His point is that they remain in the truth and have not bought into the devil’s lies, and therefore are safe and secure in the arms of their Lord.
While all not of the Kingdom of God are in bondage to sin and can be called “children of the devil” (John 8:44), those who are antichrists make it their business to lead people astray.
What are the telling signs of an antichrist that you can look out for?
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Written by Derek J. Brown |
Saturday, April 30, 2022
If we are ever wavering between confidence and doubt with regard to our standing with God, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to be decisive in spiritual matters. Obedience often requires earthly sacrifice, and if we are unsure that we possess eternal life, we will be unable to endure earthly trouble for the sake of Christ. Assurance is essential to the Christian life. If you have fallen into a pattern of doubt and have neglected the assurance of your salvation, let this be the day you heed the Scripture’s exhortations and, by God’s grace, find your footing through faith in God’s sure promises.

I remember a conversation during college in which a friend confessed to me that he did not think it was necessary, or even possible, for a believer to gain assurance of their salvation. I was surprised by his comments, especially because we were attending a Christian college that emphasized all the biblical truths related to assurance of salvation: election, grace, faith, repentance, substitutionary atonement, the fully deity and humanity of Christ, and eternal security.
As it turns out, this was not an isolated incident. Over the past several years as I’ve wrestled personally with the issue of assurance and had opportunity to speak to others about it, I’ve found that many Christians do not rightly understand the biblical basis or importance of this doctrine. Assurance is essential to genuine Christianity and central to the New Testament’s theological framework, yet plenty of Christians are content to walk through life without the sure knowledge that they belong to Christ. There are, of course, those who claim assurance who have no right to do so; but it seems that there are an equal number of professing Christians who have either resigned to the fact they will never have assurance or that they don’t really need it.
What is assurance?
When I use the phrase “assurance of salvation” I am referring to a professing Christian’s confidence that he is, through the gospel, presently in right standing with God and will, upon his death or at the return of Christ, enter into eternal life and be delivered from the penalty of eternal condemnation. Assurance is the present intellectual and heart-felt conviction that I am, at this moment and for eternity, at peace with the living God through Jesus Christ.
But is such assurance really that important? In light of our sin and struggles with faith, shouldn’t we be content with the reality that we may or may not achieve assurance in this lifetime? While Scripture acknowledges that we will wrestle with sin and a lack of faith, it also consistently calls professing believers to gain assurance of their salvation. Scripture doesn’t suggest that those who are without assurance of their right standing with God are not necessarily saved, but neither does it applaud those who lack it, as though being without assurance was a mark of spiritual humility and maturity. Here are five reasons why assurance is essential for the Christian life.
1. Assurance is God’s will for you.
The first reason we must say that assurance is essential for the Christian life is because assurance is God’s will for you. Listen to the language of the New Testament (emphasis added):

Colossians 2:1-3: For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Hebrews 6:11-12: And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Hebrews 10:22: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Hebrews 11:1: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

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A failure to grasp the relationship between the new covenant and prior covenants diminishes how the entire biblical storyline coheres and finds its culmination in Christ. Finally, a failure to misperceive that the new covenant has been already inaugurated through Christ is to obscure Christ’s work as the Last Adam, the definitive offspring of Abraham, the true and faithful Israelite, and the final son of David. Put simply, a proper appraisal of Christ’s work in inaugurating the new covenant magnifies the glory of Christ and the glory of God’s grace toward us in him.

This essay will seek to address the following three questions: How does the new covenant differ from the old covenant? How does the new covenant relate to God’s prior covenants with his people? Finally, in what sense did Christ fulfill the new covenant? These questions, while challenging for readers of Scripture, are necessary for us to have a right grasp of the Bible’s storyline, a right appreciation for Christ’s work on our behalf, and a right foundation for the church and the Christian life.
The New Covenant Transcends the Old Covenant
The descriptor “new” sets the new covenant in redemptive-historical contrast with the “old” covenant. The new covenant is new not merely in time but also in quality. As Hebrews 8 poignantly says it, the new covenant is qualitatively better than the old because it is founded on “better promises” (Heb 8:6). These promises are aptly summarized by Jeremiah 31:33–34, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” We can summarize these promises as the internalization of the law, an inviolable covenant relationship between God and his people, a community-wide knowledge of God, and the final forgiveness of sins. Each of these promises contrasts with Israel’s experience under the old covenant and evinces at least four ways in which the new covenant transcends the old.
First, under the old covenant God did not internalize the law within his people. God gave the law on tablets of stone, but he did not transform the hearts of Israelites such that they would receive the law and desire to obey it (see 2 Cor. 3:3). Put another way, old covenant Israel was circumcised outwardly but not inwardly. In contrast with Israel’s experience, the new covenant promise to internalize the law means that God would circumcise the hearts of the covenant members (Deut. 30:6) and put within them his Spirit so that they would desire to obey God’s commands from the heart (Ezek. 36:26–27).
Second, the old covenant did not provide a lasting covenant relationship between God and his people. Immediately after God ratified the Sinai covenant with Israel, Israel broke the covenant by worshiping the golden calf. The new covenant’s promise of a relationship that is “not like the [Sinai] covenant . . . that they broke” (Jer 31:32) strongly suggests that the new covenant relationship forged between God and his people will never be broken. Accordingly, at times the biblical authors will depict the new covenant as a “covenant of peace” or an “everlasting covenant” (Isa 55:3; Ezek 34:25; 37:26; cf. Heb 13:20).
Third, the old covenant community was mixed in that only some of the covenant members possessed saving faith, whereas the majority were characterized by unbelief. Shot through the Old Testament is the notion of a faithful remnant within the broader covenant community. This remnant was often keenly felt to be minuscule (e.g., 1 Kgs. 19:10; Jer. 6:13). The new covenant’s promise is that the entire covenant community would “know the Lord” savingly, even “from the least of them to the greatest” (Jer 31:34). This portrays a vastly different experience for the covenant community, not only in their relationship to God but also to one another.
Finally, through the sacrificial system, the old covenant provided forgiveness of sins for Israel (e.g., Lev. 4:26; 4:31; 5:10). At the same time, such forgiveness was only temporary and provisional, since Israel needed to offer animal sacrifices for their sins repeatedly. Even more, as Hebrews 10 notes, animal sacrifices cannot actually provide forgiveness of sins, but only served as a constant reminder for Israel of their need for forgiveness (Heb. 10:3–4). Embedded within the old covenant, therefore, was a system impotent to deal definitively with sin in the covenant community. Set in contrast to this system is the new covenant promise of final and definitive forgiveness, such that God would “remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34), thus abrogating the necessity of repeated sacrifices for sin (Heb. 10:18).
The New Covenant Fulfills All God’s Covenant Promises
A right understanding of the new covenant takes into consideration not only how it is set in contrast with the old covenant but also how it fulfills all of God’s covenant promises throughout redemptive history, including the covenant at creation and the covenants with Abraham, Israel, and David.
At creation God gave Adam and Eve life and joy in the Garden of Eden, where God dwelt among them. They lost this paradise when they failed to trust and obey God’s word, which led to their eviction from the garden and the concomitant loss of life and joy in God’s presence. The new covenant relates to this loss by promising that through the new covenant the paradise lost would become paradise regained. Particularly, in the new covenant God promised to pour out his Spirit, recreating and giving life to a new sacred community whose beauty would match that of the Garden of Eden. Coinciding with Jeremiah’s new covenant promises is a depiction of the entire new and expanded Jerusalem as holy to the Lord (Jer. 31:38–40).
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