---
title: 1 John 2:18
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-john-2-18/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-john-2-18.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 1 John 2:18
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 1 John 2:18

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour.

## JW Usage

The Watchtower teaches that the "antichrist" is not a single future figure but a collective term for all of Christendom — mainstream churches that have apostatised from true Christianity. The Reasoning book (pp. 32–33) uses 1 John 2:18's "many antichrists" to define the collective antichrist. The phrase "they went out from us" (2:19) is applied to mainline Christianity departing from apostolic truth.

## Protestant Usage

John writes "it is the last hour" — placing the last days squarely in the first century, not after 1914. He defines antichrist by two Christological tests: denying "that Jesus is the Christ" (2:22) and denying that "Jesus Christ has come in the flesh" (4:2; 2 John 7). The Watchtower uses this passage to label Christendom as antichrist, but John's own tests create a boomerang: the Watchtower's Christology — denying Christ's full deity, denying his bodily resurrection, identifying him as a created angel — catches on the very criteria John establishes. First John 5:20 in the NWT itself concludes: "This is the true God and life everlasting" — with Jesus Christ as the immediate antecedent. The letter's own content undermines the Watchtower's application of it.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Last Days Began at Pentecost, Not 1914](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/last-days-pentecost.md) — Acts 2:16-17 — 'This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel' [Eschatology]
- [The 'Last Days' Started at Pentecost — Not 1914](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/2timothy3-last-days.md) — 2 Timothy 3:1-5 / Hebrews 1:2 / Acts 2:17 [Eschatology]
- [Antichrist Is Whoever Denies the Son — And Your NWT Knows](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/antichrist-christendom-boomerang.md) — 1 John 2:22 / 1 John 4:2 / 1 John 5:20 [Deity of Christ]
- [The Apostasia Watchtower Thesis](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/apostasia-watchtower-thesis.md) — 2 Thessalonians 2:3 / 2:15 — The Antidote Was Tradition, Not a Future Restorer [Authority]