In the Bible, what does "the last hour" mean or refer to?
QUESTION:
In 1 John, how would the original readers of John’s letter understood the phrase, “Last Hour?” Would they have thought “imminent, any moment now”? How are WE supposed to interpret that?
ANSWER:
This question is one that gets many people off course in the eschatology (study of “end times”) timeline of events as laid out in the Bible. To understand the proper use of the term “Last hour”, it is important to discover the context of the passages. This ability to do so during you studies is invaluable and is crucial to a proper understanding. This can be done by simply asking the question “what did it mean to the FIRST AUDIENCE” and then only after you know this, you can seek to find out “what did it mean to TODAY’S AUDIENCE”. Below are a few examples that might help you find the answer:
“Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.”
1 John 2:18 ESV
Little children, it is the last hour… -
First Audience (FA): Based upon all of his writing, John lived in a constant state of expectancy of Christs imminent return .
Today's Audience(TA) : We too should live with this expectancy that the Lords return could be at any time. Seeing the current climate of our times, we should conciser ourselves as being in the "last minutes" if John considered it the "last hour"
The Antichrist is coming… -
FA - John is referring to a character who has captured the imagination of the people. They imagined someone opposite of Christ. He is referring to the THE Antichrist who is set to come at the "end of the hour" and he will be a sign to Israel that they are in tribulation (one of many signs), but many will be deceived.
TA - we need to take scripture at its word and see that the more accurate character traits this individual will have is more of a "instead of Jesus" trait than "opposite of the messiah". We too are in the same age the FA was in, only we are much closer to the actual time God intended to unfold this whole program. Again, he was speaking without knowledge that our generation would of read his text. That the world would of lasted this long. He had NO concept of God's timeline. (just like Peter after pentecost)
The Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come… -
There is a difference between THE antichrist and MANY antichrists. The spirit of the antichrist is here now... false religion. False prophets.
By which we know that it is the last hour… -
FA - Johns readers where given the warning that since they saw the many antichrists... that it was a sign of THE antichrist soon to come. substitute Christ's where a sign that we should know we are in the "last season" of time before Christ comes back.
TA - "Many antichrist's (False Christs) in the world now is evidence of the lateness in the hour before Jesus’ coming. John writes that this was true in his day; we could say it is even truer in our own.
The Hebrew Word for Hour (hōra) is also used to describe "seasons" or "time"