How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

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Intertextuality Pair

1 John 2:18 → Daniel 7:25

Allusion

Later text

1 John 2:18BSB

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.

Earlier text

Daniel 7:25BSB

He will speak out against the Most High and oppress the saints of the Most High, intending to change the appointed times and laws; and the saints will be given into his hand for a time, and times, and half a time.

Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square13:35

Significance

John's declaration that "it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared" (antichristoi polloi gegonasin) draws on the Danielic tradition of an eschatological opponent who opposes God and his people. Daniel 7:25 describes the "little horn" who "speaks against the Most High," "oppresses the saints," and "tries to change the set times and the laws" — a figure who concentrates opposition to God in the final period of history. John's innovation is twofold: he pluralizes the concept ("many antichrists") and locates them in the present ("even now"), applying the inaugurated eschatology of the apostolic era to the Danielic framework. The "last hour" echoes Daniel's temporal language of appointed times and final periods. John's antichrists — those who deny that Jesus is the Christ (2:22) — are present-tense manifestations of the Danielic opposition pattern, confirming the eschatological location of the church.

Found via: G.K. Beale, _Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament_
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment + Longitudinal Theme