1 John 2:18 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The last time; the time here referred to seems to be the destruction of Jerusalem, and the finishing of the Jewish state, both civil and ecclesiastical. In the Greek, the last hour, the approaching period of Daniel's seventy weeks, as Mr. Mede understands it, in his Apostacy of the Later Times. Whereas therefore it was now a known and expected thing among Christians, that the eminent antichrist, or antichristian state, (expressly foretold, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17), was to come, or take place; therefore the apostle says, ye, i.e. the generality of Christians, have heard so much. So he says, even now, as the forerunners of that eminent one, are there many antichrists, (foretold also by our Saviour, Matthew 24:5,24), viz. noted heretics and seducers then in being: not such falsely assuming vicarious Christs, as only pretended to do that part which the Jews expected from their Messiah, the delivering them from the Roman tyranny, and so set up to be merely civil or secular Christs, having themselves never been Christians, but such as had revolted from Christianity, and now laboured fundamentally to subvert it, denying Christ to be come in the flesh, 1 John 2:22 3 John 1:7; having been before professed Christians, as appears by the following words.