John's words that everyone who has left the Church is an antichrist (vv. 18-19) seem to many people like a propaganda stamp, an attempt to frighten fellow believers, to awaken in them metaphysical terror before eternal destruction. If Christianity were simply one more, new religion, that is exactly how one would have to perceive them. But the point is precisely that Christianity is not a new religion, but new life. And for John, as for the whole generation of the first Christians, the Church is not a religious community, but the place where the faithful gather for a completely real meeting with the risen Christ, who also quite really blesses the bread and the cup broken in that assembly.
Therefore for John the antichrist is not some mystical figure who appears on the historical stage at the end of time in the appropriate scenery, but anyone who sets himself against Christ and His Church. The matter here is not hatred of these people or condemnation of their position, but a simple statement of fact. At first glance the apostle's judgment may appear much too harsh: after all, there is still time before the Savior's return, so those who have left can still have time to return. But it is no accident that John speaks of the "last times" as something that has already arrived.
Talk like this usually brings only a skeptical smile from the modern reader. This is understandable: there have been too many alarmists in Christian history predicting Christ's imminent return, which for some reason was always, at the last moment, either postponed in some mysterious way or canceled altogether. But the apostle has in mind not the future, even the very nearest future, but the present. It is we who live in the age of the coming Kingdom. Just as John himself and his contemporaries lived in this age.
Just as everyone everywhere has lived in this same age since the day of Pentecost, and everyone will live in it until the day of Christ's return in glory, which of course will not come when self-appointed "prophets" announce it. The coming of the Kingdom is an objective reality, completely independent of people's opinion and attitude toward it. And it touches everyone regardless of age, sex, race, language, or religion. And even regardless of whether a person knows anything about Christ or does not know. But those who know and have accepted have a special responsibility.
We do not know what relationship to the Kingdom and its life is held by those who have no idea of the Kingdom. Just as we do not know what relationships Christ has with those who have not heard of Him from people. Or who have heard and seen things it would have been better not to hear and see. But if a person knew Christ and the Kingdom and, knowing, left, then such a person has broken with Christ and with the Kingdom, and this is the same objective given as the very presence of the Kingdom in the world. Of course, the way back is closed to no one, at least until the Savior's return in glory. But those who have left must walk that way. So that they may be faithful to Christ, and not His opponents.
