Who is the anti-Christ?
Playing ‘spot the anti-Christ’ has been a favourite past time of many Christians, especially since Hollywood produced the Omen movies. However, I’m convinced the burning urgency many have about identifying an individual anti-Christ is misplaced.
Everything the entire Bible says about "antichrist":
1 John 2:18
18Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.
John clearly sees this literary figure of an antichrist as a metaphor. Notice how he says 'such a man is the antichrist'. If there were a real antichrist, surely he would have kept that specific and said 'an antichrist much like the REAL antichrist'. But he just says ANY man who denies that Jesus is the Christ is THE antichrist. I've added capital letters to highlight this below.
1 John 2:22
22Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is THE antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son.
1 John 4:3
3but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of THE antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even NOW IS ALREADY IN THE WORLD.
2 John 1:7
7Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and THE antichrist.
To me that's generic descriptions of many, many, many people. I read this as saying the spirit of antichrist has always been with us and that there is no special antichrist period we are waiting for.
I don't think there are any prophecies about an AntiChrist.
1. The Beasts in Revelation.
John's "beasts" are a symbolic amalgamation of Daniel's beasts. He takes bits and pieces of the 4 beasts of Daniel and welds them together into one super-beast. Daniel's vision is broken down into a specific kingdom by kingdom prophecy: John's apocalyptic writing doesn't do any such thing. That is because it's a sermon, not a timetable. It's generic writing for all ages. John is in effect saying that *any* time worldy governments persecute God's people they are a beast. It's generic writing describing *any* government that sets itself up against Christians, not a *specific* description of any one specific event. Also please consider that John does not use the term Anti-Christ here.
2. The Dragon of Revelation 12.
The Dragon is Satan, and this scene is where Satan tries to persecute Mary and kill Jesus, the incarnate son of God. These few Chapters are a gospel recap: the story so far. They are not prophetic so much as a gospel tract within Revelation to make some statements about the infallibility of God's plans. The lady with the 12 stars runs do the desert as God's people have done in exodus and God's prophets have done in times of persecution. It's the language of seeking refuge. God gives his church periods of refuge in the terrible persecution of these Last Days (since Acts 2 and counting...)
3. The man of lawlessness.
As my good mate Dr Greg Clarke says:
“But is there going to be one mega-evil ruler who will deceive the world and lead millions astray and do things like brand ‘666’ on their foreheads?
Probably not. There are passages in the Bible, which talk about a particular being that is Christ's foe (e.g., “the man of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians 2 or the dragon of Revelation 12-13 who is identified as the Devil). But this kind of symbolic language is used to describe an attitude or spirit of evil rather than a single evil person. The fact that some parts of Scripture bring ultimate evil to a head by using an individual character to identify it probably says more about how dramatic literature operates than it does about predicting history.”


The devil you know | The Briefing
Or try Luke Woodhouse:
To explain this present spiritual reality in 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul draws a picture of the last days, when the man known as ‘lawlessness’ will be exposed. On that day, rebellion at its highest magnitude will be revealed for all to see. Comparisons with ‘lawless’ figures over history have often been distractions for Christians, in that they miss the picture Paul sketches. But comparisons should not be totally dismissed. The global outrage at figures like Adolf Hitler is a rare opportunity to see the secret power of lawlessness brought out into the open and examined. It is a moment where the whole world stops and notices anarchy with its disguise removed. It's a glimpse of hell.
Getting refocused on the return of Jesus | The Briefing
Or Try this 5 minute video by the Dean of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, Phillip Jensen.
Antichrist: Who Is He? | Video | Phillip Jensen
So basically I just feel sad for Christians obsessed with tracking down one 'antiChrist' figure when there are *clearly* many! I feel sad for futurists who see Revelation as some sort of future timetable instead of a generic sermon about trusting God in these Last Days, of 2000 years and counting. I feel sad that so many modern evangelicals have abandoned the Covenant Theology Amil position of the great Reformation thinkers. Last Days cults are a dime a dozen, and Christians that become obsessed with all their (contradictory) last days timetables, whether Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib, Post-Trib, Pre-Mil, Post-Mil, and whatever, are often fair game for cults. It's just sad.
