Okay let's try this again
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John wrote of the false teachers, "They went out from us but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out, that it might be plain that they are not of us" (1 Jn. 2:19).
In the subsequent posts JGIG mentions, we read of “likely scenarios” and “saved and unsaved bottoms” and statements such as the one telling us that Gnostics could “absolutely” have been present in the church. JGIG urges us to get practical. But there is nothing speculative about John’s statement. The heretics had left. Read what has been written and quoted and observe the nimble side-stepping around the verse quoted above. We don't know the whereabouts of the Gnostics but are left in no doubt that it's not in the church John is writing to. JGIG has unfortunately provided nothing but surmise and conjecture.
JGIG’s heart is surely in the right place but in her discussion of false teachers she has forced on 1 Jn. 1:9 a false interpretation of her own.
It's not just my own interpretation in the sense that I'm the only one who reads it that way.
Many of the commentators of the NT include at the very least the possibility that there were false believers (in this case Gnostics) that were part of the congregation to whom John was writing:
John Gill (23 November 1697 – 14 October 1771),
considerably earlier than Joseph Prince, and who writes in worse run-on sentences than I do, wrote this concerning 1 Jn. 2:19:
. . . moreover, such a sense makes the going out to be merely local and corporeal, and which is in itself not criminal; the persons that went from Judea to Antioch were not blamable for going thither, nor for going out from the apostles thither, but for troubling the disciples with words, to the subverting of their souls; nor was a corporeal departure from the apostles any evidence of not being of the same mind with them; for they often departed one from other, yet continued of the same mind, and in the same faith: but the sense is, that there were some persons in the Apostle John's time, who had made a profession of religion, were members of the church, and some of them perhaps preachers, and yet they departed from the faith, and dropped their profession of it, and withdrew themselves from the church, or churches to which they belonged, and set up separate assemblies of their own:
but they were not of us: they were of the church, and of the same mind with it, at least in profession, antecedent to their going out; for had they not been in communion with the church, they could not be properly said to go out of it; and if they had not been of the same mind and faith in profession, they could not be said to depart from it; but they were not truly regenerated by the grace of God, and so apparently were not of the number, of God's elect: notwithstanding their profession and communion with the church, they were of the world, and not of God; they were not true believers; they had not that anointing which abides, and from which persons are truly denominated Christians, or anointed ones:
If this was going on during the Apostle John's time, there was a process happening. It is not unthinkable that there were Gnostics filtering through local bodies - people come and go all the time. It's true now; it was true then.
The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary, published in 1871, also considerably earlier than Joseph Prince, says this concerning 1 Jn. 2:19:
19. out from us—from our Christian communion. Not necessarily a formal secession or going out: thus Rome has spiritually gone out, though formally still of the Christian Church.
they would … have continued—implying the indefectibility of grace in the elect. "Where God's call is effectual, there will be sure perseverance" [Calvin]. Still, it is no fatal necessity, but a "voluntary necessity" [Didymus], which causes men to remain, or else go from the body of Christ. "We are either among the members, or else among the bad humors. It is of his own will that each is either an Antichrist, or in Christ" [Augustine]. Still God's actings in eternal election harmonize in a way inexplicable to us, with man's free agency and responsibility. It is men's own evil will that chooses the way to hell; it is God's free and sovereign grace that draws any to Himself and to heaven. To God the latter shall ascribe wholly their salvation from first to last: the former shall reproach themselves alone, and not God's decree, with their condemnation (1Jo 3:9; 5:18).
that they were not all of us—This translation would imply that some of the Antichrists are of us! Translate, therefore, "that all (who are for a time among us) are not of us." Compare 1Co 11:19, "There must be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." For "were" some of the oldest manuscripts read "are." Such occasions test who are, and who are not, the Lord's people.
Matthew Henry (18 October 1662 – 22 June 1714), also considerably earlier than Joseph Prince, wrote this regarding 1 Jn. 2:18-23:
Every man is an antichrist, who denies the Person, or any of the offices of Christ; and in denying the Son, he denies the Father also, and has no part in his favour while he rejects his great salvation. Let this prophecy that seducers would rise in the Christian world, keep us from being seduced. The church knows not well who are its true members, and who are not, but thus true Christians were proved, and rendered more watchful and humble. True Christians are anointed ones; their names expresses this: they are anointed with grace, with gifts and spiritual privileges, by the Holy Spirit of grace. The great and most hurtful lies that the father of lies spreads in the world, usually are falsehoods and errors relating to the person of Christ.
So Matthew Henry recognized that the congregation to whom John was writing might not see who was 'of them' and who wasn't, so he was clarifying to them the Truths of Who Jesus was (defense of Christ's Deity) and also reinforcing the Gospel to them. This does two things: it corrects error that those in the congregation may have been picking up from the Gnostics among them, and it preaches the Gospel (Life) to the Gnostics.
And if John was writing in that way to the congregation, it is not a stretch to think that he did so because he thought there could indeed be Gnostics amongst the congregation.
I stand by my opinion that it is possible that there were Gnostics in the congregation to whom John was writing. That interpretation is neither far-fetched nor is it new.
Again, I'm content to just put all of this out there and to let the reader decide. Agree or disagree, it's between you and God.
-JGIG
