Little children, these are the end times, and as you heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen. By this we know that it is the end times.
John notes many such situations that involve great change. This is one. Some say this reference is to the last dispensation in God’s dealings with man, equivalent to "the last days" found in other passages. This explanation might be so, but it seems more reasonable to equate "this" with a definite period that was promised when certain things would occur--that is, the coming of "antichrist." There are those who teach that the "last hour" refers to the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish state. This position assumes that John wrote before A.D. 70, of which there is much uncertainty. We cannot prove when he wrote with any certainty. After some study, it seems that the obvious definition of the "last hour" is found in this verse itself: the "last hour" is the hour when antichrist arrives. John says, "This is it, the time when antichrist comes." Too often we stray far from a passage to arrive at interpretations foreign to the simple truth of the context.