Exposition of I John 2:18-21 (1)

In this section of first John the writer touches upon a most basic danger to the church of Christ. He refers to the error and manifestation of those who are most rightly called "antichrists." The danger for the readers is not really so much from without the church as from within the church, from those who were "out of us" in number but were not "of us" in the faith: No persecution from without threatens. Rather there is a lukewarm spirit of those who deny the essentials of the very Christian...