Antichrist: Person or Spirit, Past or Future?

There is very little about the Antichrist in the Bible and there is no biblical support for a seven-year tribulation period largely controlled by the Antichrist prior to the end of time, despite the current popularity of these ideas within Christian circles.

Every period of Church history from the age of the Apostles to now has produced speculation concerning evil in general and fascination with the supreme embodiment of evil in particular called either the Man of Sin/Lawlessness or the Antichrist.

A companion fascination, not quite as old as the one with the Antichrist, is a presumed intense period of trouble on earth just prior to the end of time called ‘the great tribulation’ which is to last seven years. The current most popular combination of these two old fascinations among Christians is that the Antichrist will exercise global rule during the tribulation period, functioning as a veritable Man of Peace but only for the first half of the seven year period.

The Antichrist, so runs the current theory, will make a treaty of peace with the nation of Israel. This treaty will foster the rebuilding of the Temple and a resumption of the Mosaic sacrificial system, but midway the seven year period the antichrist will renege on the treaty and then “all hell will break loose on the earth”.

This Antichrist, the current theory argues, will arise within the European Union (seen as a revived Roman Empire) and “…will be based in Iraq (the Babylon of Rev. 18)” according to journalist and “Bible scholar” Dr. Jimmy DeYoung as seen on the John Ankerberg show, September 20, 2009.

How biblical are these views though?

The only place in the Bible that the term Antichrist appears is in the Johannine epistles 1 and 2 John, and the usage there does not support the popular view of a still future supreme embodiment of evil. The word is thus not in Revelation or Daniel (the two books usually ransacked and misread for support). The texts in the Johannine epistles are 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3 and 2 John 7.

Let’s explore the meaning of the term in these texts.  1 John 2.18 says “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.” (New King James Version, NKJV).   The writer speaks of a plurality of antichrists in his day.  In v. 22 the writer clarifies the term antichrist when he writes “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.” (NKJV)

Antichrist from this passage is no 21^st century global broker of peace but anyone in the 1^st century who denies the Father and the Son Jesus, as the Messiah.

In 1 John 4.3 we learn “and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.” (NKJV)

The Greek manuscripts have different readings in this verse but the essence is the same in all of them —that which is of the Antichrist is that which fails to confess or acknowledge Jesus the Messiah. Of signal importance is the fact that John says it “is now already in the world”. Yet again Antichrist or the spirit=mindset of Antichrist was a reality in the 1^st century and once again John specifies false doctrine as that which is the defining mark of Antichrist. The expression “the spirit of the Antichrist” has spirit in italics in the NKJV thereby indicating no companion word for spirit in the Greek text though it needs to be supplied in English in keeping with the repeated use of spirit in the chapter so far and the presence of the neuter article that would match spirit (a neuter word) just before “of the Antichrist”.

The final appearance of Antichrist in the Bible is 2 John 7 and it reads “For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” (NKJV) To be more faithful to the Greek the last sentence should be “This is the deceiver and the antichrist.” Yet again the defining mark of Antichrist is false doctrine concerning Jesus and the one propounding the heresy was around in the 1^st century.

Shocking though it may be to some that is the totality of references to ‘Antichrist’ in the Bible. Paul speaks of ‘the man of sin/lawlessness’ in 2 Thessalonians 2.3 “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition…” (NKJV)

This ‘man of sin’ or ‘man of lawlessness’ is equated with the Antichrist in John’s epistles and this equation is quite defensible but still it does not provide support for the current popular Antichrist speculations.

It seems that in light of this very skimpy biblical data about Antichrist that some prophecy lovers appeal to Daniel 9.26-27 to ground the doctrine of a 7-year tribulation period involving Antichrist. This appeal has insurmountable problems as we shall soon see.

The passage in Daniel reads “And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.  The end of it shall be with a flood,   and till the end of the war desolations are determined. Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week;    But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.    And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate,    even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”

Antichrist or man of sin/lawlessness appears nowhere in the text yet “the prince” mentioned in v. 26 is seen as Antichrist by many interpreters. Further this prince is seen as the one confirming “a covenant with many for one week”. Daniel’s weeks are almost universally seen as weeks of years hence the prince or Antichrist will confirm a covenant for seven years.  How does Israel enter the text? By the mention of sacrifice and offering in v. 27, it is reasoned that the Jewish Temple system must be in view.

The passage is generally taken as prophesying the AD 70 destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem. This would mean that the people who are said to destroy the city and the sanctuary were in the first century whereas their prince is still to come. Edward J. Young’s damaging comment on this traditional view of the text seems beyond controversy “The people who destroyed the city and the prince that should come…are contemporaries. Otherwise, the language makes no sense.” (Daniel, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1949, 212)

Another major problem with this traditional approach to the text is grammatical. The ‘he’ of v. 27 who ‘will confirm a covenant’ could not be linked back to ‘the prince’ in v. 26 because ‘the prince’ is in a modifying phrase ‘of the prince’ and therefore too subordinate to function as a subject pronoun of the verb ‘will confirm’. Indeed the only two subject nouns to which the ‘he’ of v. 27 could have links in v. 26 are ‘Messiah’ or ‘the people’. Because of the singular ’he’ in v. 27 the only conclusion is that Messiah is the one who ‘will confirm a covenant’ (so Young, 209). Evidence in support of Jesus’ fulfillment of this passage is in Mt. 26.28.

Even the now popular idea of Antichrist ‘making a covenant’ is not in Dan. 9.27 at all. The Hebrew idiom for making a covenant is ‘to cut a covenant’, but that idiom is not used in Daniel 9.27. The expression there is the odd ‘cause to prevail’ rendered as “confirm a covenant” in the NKJV and NIV

The popular Antichrist thesis thus suffers two deadly blows from the history and grammar of the text in Daniel.

To be sure over the first few centuries of Church history various Fathers like Irenaeus and Hippolytus have built their own theories about Antichrist but in doing so they usually exceed the biblical core.

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