Antichrist - Part 1
THE ANTICHRIST
When we began our men’s Bible study group we studied first the whole armor of God and Paul’s teaching of how we are to arm ourselves against the adversary who brings evil into our lives. This portion of study for us was taken from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, chapter 6, and he provided us with a strong warning for our defense:
“…my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world…” (Eph 6:11-12).
Saint Paul gave a more concise warning two chapters before on this same issue:
“And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; neither give place to the devil.”
(Eph 4:23 & 27).
Paul was very aware of the work of the evil one and he taught strong lessons concerning this matter also to those at the church in Corinth:
“Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices”. (II Cor 2:11).
As Paul struggled himself against Satan and his workers, those who brought the false messages to the followers of Jesus Christ, he wrote clearly and strongly about the difficulty:
“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works”.
(II Cor 11:13-15).
As we begin to look into the subject of the bringer of evil and his weapon of choice we must first understand that there are two different and distinct types of evil ones at work in creation. It is critical that we distinguish this difference in order to enter into this study. As always, scripture becomes our best friend as we seek wisdom on the mysteries of the plan of God for our world and its elect.
The difference we must first discuss and accept is that there have always been and likely will be until the end of days, those who are doing the work of the evil adversary who contends for our very souls.
Antichrist versus antichrist
The beloved apostle John wrote in his first epistle:
“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now there are many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” (I John 2:18).
In strict harmony with this thought, Paul wrote:
“For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way”. (2 Thess 2:7).
The term “letteth” means hinders, explaining that currently the Lord hinders the work of the evil one, allowing him to labor only under His permissive will. But once that force is removed, the more sinister worker will be revealed:
“And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders”. (2 Thess 2:8-9).
So the first understanding that we must have is the knowledge that there have always been those who work for the devil, doing his bidding in creation, tempting and leading away those who choose to believe in his path of darkness and march with him having yielded to his devious and cunning way.
These who have done the work of Satan throughout our history are antichrists. As the scripture writers teach us, there have always been those in our midst and they walk among us still today. They seek to mislead us and take us along their dark path as they do the devil’s work.
There will also appear, as Paul taught, the one who will be the final tempter, to be revealed as the Antichrist (with a capital A), who will come later as the actual son of perdition, the begotten of Satan whose function will be to act as Satan’s counterfeit to Jesus Christ in creation, turning nations toward darkness.
So those of whom John wrote have always been with us and live among us today. These are those who do the will of evil, but are men only, led by Satan to his dark path and they are the brethren of antichrists (small “a”).
All these who have so served, and serve today, are types of the one to come.
Scripture is filled with references to these ones and we will look deeply into these men later but it might make some good sense to look now at what our Bible reveals to us as only a few of these types and what these have been called:
Crooked Serpent Job 26:13
Bloody & deceitful man Ps 5:6
The wicked Ps 9:17
Man of the earth Ps 10:18
Mighty man Ps 52:1
Adversary Ps 74:10
Head over many countries Ps 110:6
Evil man Ps 140:1
Violent man Ps 140:1
Ps 10 & 52 & 55 are wise to his evil ones.
Assyrian Is 10:5
The wicked Is 11:4
King of Babylon Is 14:11-20
Spoiler & destroyer Is 16:4
Destroyer of the Gentiles Jer 4:7
Profane wicked prince of Israel Ez 21:25
King of princes Hos 8:10
Adversary Amos 3:11
Proud man Hab 2:5
Idol shepherd Zech 11:17
New Testament teachers are just as wary of these evil ones as well as the one to come:
Man of sin, son of perdition - 2 Thess 2:3
antichrist, who will deny father & son - 1 John 2:22
Let us not omit the reference by Jesus himself to the “one who will come in his own name and be received by Israel. (John 5:43).
This one, who will be revealed in the last days, will be one who is a true counterfeit of all that Jesus Christ so perfectly teaches and does. He is shown somewhat shadowed in most of the NT, while he becomes clear and revealed to all in the Revelation of John.
In terms of this spawn of evil, there have been basically three schools of thought concerning him:
PAST:
Some have supposed that there have been men who were indeed this true Antichrist, son of Satan.
There were those sure that Antiochus Epiphanies fulfilled all the prophecy and was indeed this person. He opposed the worship of Jehovah, was remarkable in military command, was a excellent diplomat, was known to defile the Holy Temple by sacrificing a pig on its holy altar, set up his own image to be worshipped, and was one of the cruelest persecutors of the Jews. But we must point out that Antiochus was dead in his grave for more than a hundred years when Paul wrote of the one “TO COME”.
Others felt sure that Nero was indeed this evil one, as his persecutions were of awful cruelty to the Jews, and his bloodthirsty nature seemed to be of Satan himself. But Nero was only a shadow of the one to come as he was in his grave before John wrote Revelation 13 of the one “TO COME”.
PRESENT:
Many strong believers have posed the idea that the Roman church itself, along with its pope, is now still acting as the Antichrist. This church has shown its willingness to ignore the doctrine of grace, to be arrogant and look downward on any who seek the Lord without one of her chosen men standing between the believer and the Lord, and has made martyrs of large numbers of devoted Christians who dared to stand against her. Her pope claims himself to be infallible and she has made the strange claim for many centuries that her own tradition is as valuable as scripture.
Looking at this claim, let us recall that this one to come is at all times taught to be “ONE” to come, not a system, nor a continual ruling of sequential leaders.
Just as the term “Christ” refers to one and only one being, so would the term “Antichrist” also refer to one and only one being. It seems assured that this evil son will be Jewish as he will be accepted for at least 3 ½ years by the Jews, who are a skeptical and stiff-necked people, hard to convince of anything, as Moses reported. As far as history has been revealed thus far, no Jew has sat on the throne of the pope in the Vatican.
Scripture provides us an interesting viewpoint as we recall Zechariah 11:16-17, which teaches: “… For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land…”. The land is of course the promised land. Daniel teaches in 11:45 “… he shall plant the tabernacle of his palace between the seas, in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end and none shall help him”.
We also know from many verses that the existence and rule of this son of perdition will be limited in time, not ever are we taught that he shall be a string of men throughout time. As we see later when we study his person, we will see further that he is not now, nor ever has been a pope.
FUTURE: The view which seems to prevail currently is that the prophecies concerning the coming of this evil one have not yet been fulfilled and cannot do so until this current age of grace has run its course. Scripture teaches us that the Holy Spirit which now prevents the final work of Satan and his man to come must be removed from creation here before Satan can implement his final efforts against mankind through his begotten one.As we noted earlier, it is II Thessalonians that we see some of the strongest evidence of the future coming to perhaps be most truthful. The believers at Thessalonica had been deceived by false teachers into thinking that the day of the carrying away of the Lord’s elect was at hand and their faith overall had been shaken when the time for them to be caught up as taught by the false ones was come and gone. Paul wrote to them to reinforce his teaching to them and to repudiate these false teachers who had infected that church.
In his defense of truth, he made it very clear that the time of the end would not arrive until:
A falling away must occur (apostasy) AND the son of perdition must be revealed. Both must occur. In addition he taught that this evil one must present himself as god to be worshipped and sit on the throne in the holy temple. The temple was destroyed by the Romans under Titus in 70AD, and until today has not been rebuilt.
It is on these true prophecies of the NT leader, among others, that we view today that the Antichrist must run his wickedness race against the world AFTER all Christians have been removed from this world by rapture. As he brings his evil upon those left, he will be thought to have all the answers to the problems of the world and will bring false peace for the first half (3 ½ years) of the 70th week of Daniel chapter 9.
It will be at this time that we see the initial phases of the last days and the fulfillment, after the great tribulation of what is known as the Protoevangelium (the first evangelium) given in Genesis 3:15, as the promised seed of Eve shall bruise the head of the seed of Satan.
Many believers today are confident that the “falling away” has already begun as we view a wicked and violent world around us that seems not to need or even to consider the Lord as our father any longer. It seems that the age of the church of Philadelphia, the age of brotherly love, is fading and we may now be seeing the time of the church at Laodecia, lukewarm and scoffing.
Now, we will look into several areas that will help us to gain some understanding of the work and nature of this evil one to come. As we continue, let us pray that the Lord will grant us strength and courage to stand for Him in these difficult days and to lead those lost toward His true light before the darkness to come overtakes them.