1 John 2:22

1 John 2:22, in plain English

The ultimate lie is denying that Jesus is the Messiah—and whoever spreads this denial is acting as an antichrist, opposing both Father and Son together.

Why it's here

In the late first century, some were claiming Jesus wasn't actually the Christ, or that the divine Christ only came upon the human Jesus temporarily. This wasn't abstract theology—it undermined the entire gospel and what Jesus accomplished.

Who's speaking

The Apostle John

Where it sits in the story

John connects back to Old Testament expectations of Messiah while also warning of end-times deception Jesus himself predicted. The rejection of Jesus as Christ echoes all the way back to His own people's rejection of Him during His ministry.

The scholarly reading

The definitive liar is anyone who denies Jesus is the Messiah—this person is the antichrist, fundamentally rejecting both Father and Son together.

Language and setting

The false teachers in view likely held a Christology that separated the divine Christ-spirit from the human Jesus, or denied Jesus's messianic identity altogether. For John, such denial is not an intellectual error but an existential lie (pseudēs, from pseudomai—to deceive by speaking falsehood). The term 'antichrist' (antichristos) appears only in the Johannine epistles; it denotes not a single eschatological figure but anyone opposing Christ's true identity. Irenaeus and Tertullian later understood this as a rejection of the incarnation itself.

Voice

The apostle John, using sharp, almost confrontational language to name the lie explicitly.

Significance

John's polemic against proto-Docetism and other Christological denials preserves the post-resurrection church's conviction that Jesus of Nazareth is truly the Christ. This verse echoes the Johannine Gospel's opening claim ('the Word became flesh') and anticipates later conciliar definitions of the hypostatic union. The stakes are not abstract doctrine but the identity of the God who saves.

20You, however, have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.

21I have not written to you because you lack knowledge of the truth, but because you have it, and because no lie comes from the truth.

22Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son.

23Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.

24As for you, let what you have heard from the beginning remain in you. If it does, you will also remain in the Son and in the Father.

Read all of 1 John 2 — The world and its desires are passing away, but whoever does God's will lives forever. Little children, it is the last hour. Stay rooted in what you first heard.