25-Chapter 1. The Person Of The Antichrist
Chapter 1. The Person Of The Antichrist [1] The Coming of the Antichrist The final goal of Christianity is Jesus Christ; the end of nominal Christendom is the Antichrist. It is the unmistakable teaching of the Bible that the goal of history is not the product of history, that the kingdom of God does not reach sovereignty through growth and ascent but only after worldwide collapse and catastrophe. Lawlessness will take the upper hand, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12), and when the Son of man comes He will find but little faith on earth (Luke 18:8). Not Christianizing of the world with consequent Christianizing of civilization, but increasing enmity of the world unto the expulsion of Christianity by civilization—this is the path foretold by Biblical prophecy.
Therefore it is not because the world is not Christian enough that Christ has not yet come but He has not yet come because the world is not unbelieving enough (2 Timothy 3:1-4; 2 Timothy 4:3-4; 2 Peter 3:3; 1 Timothy 4:1-3). It is a basic principle of the Divine government of the world that all things, the good as the evil (Matthew 13:29-30; Revelation 14:15; Revelation 14:18), must reach ripeness; only for the evil the patience of God leads to the severer judgment. “Let no one mislead you, for the day of the Lord will not come except the apostasy comes in advance, and the Man of Sin be manifested, the Son of perdition, the opposer, the Wicked One, whom the Lord Jesus, when he comes, will destroy by the breath of his mouth” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4; 2 Thessalonians 2:8).
Thus not by reconciliation but by intensifying of the conflict to the end, not by the glorifying of human development but by its collapse, not by a compact between God and civilization, but by the shattering of the kingdom of the world by the kingdom of God (Daniel 2:34-35; Revelation 19:11-21)—this is the manner by which the affairs of the Lord will triumph. The end of history is not its natural perfecting. The “ascending” line will be suddenly torn to pieces; the stormers of heaven will be thrust down by heaven (Genesis 11:4; Genesis 11:6; Revelation 18:1-24). At first, indeed, all things appear the reverse of this. For according to the testimony of Scripture a system of civilization will arise which appears to fulfil all the longing of mankind through thousands of years. At its head stands a mighty ruler who, by a genius for organization, is at once a world ruler and benefactor (Revelation 13:7; Revelation 13:4; Revelation 11:10), a counsellor of the nations who secures them against all danger of war (1 Thessalonians 5:3), an organizer of mankind who brings order into the hopeless chaos of the masses. As the acme of human greatness, he will inflame men with the utmost enthusiasm , as the supreme leader in all undertakings he will call forth a consciousness of rest and security, and as the ruling head he will receive divine honour (Revelation 13:3-4; Revelation 13:12). Thus will he exalt the world spirit to the highest height, and for world culture it will be a time of greatest upward progress and brilliance. But all this will be withoutGod, with the exclusion of grace, solely in self-confidence, to the glory of one’s own strength, and with the deifying of the spirit of man (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
Therefore the Most High will not withhold His answer (Jeremiah 17:5), He will not give His honour to another, nor His praise to dust-begotten rebels (Isaiah 42:8). His answer to the challenge of the Antichrist will be to send His Christ (Acts 3:20); and him whose “arrival (parousia) was according to the energy of Satan” will He destroy “through the outshining of His arrival” (the epiphany of His parousia) “in flaming fire, when He shall requite them who know not God, and those who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:8). Thus the summit of civilization will become the closing drama of its history, and through the red sunset of the world there will, as it were, flame as a sign of the judgment:
“Mene, mene, tekel, apharsin,”
Numbered, numbered, weighed, and found too light”
[2] The Names of the Antichrist The title “Antichrist” is found only in the writings of John, but there five times, with a threefold sense: of the personal Antichrist (1 John 2:18), of the spirit of the Antichrist (1 John 4:3), and of the antichrists (in the plural, 1 John 2:18; 1 John 2:22; 2 John 1:7). It had been remarked of old (as e.g. by Augustine) that by this “Antichrist” John doubtless means the same person whom Paul calls the “man of sin,” the son of perdition,” the lawless one,” the “opposer” (2 Thessalonians 2:3; 2 Thessalonians 2:8); and who, according to the Revelation, is the Beast that comes out of the sea of the peoples (Revelation 13:1-10), and, according to the prophecies of Daniel, is the “little horn” that rises out of the fourth world-empire (Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:23-25). Thus the Scripture gives in all seven chief designations of this same baneful figure, amounting to a sevenfold description of the opposition to God of this demonic rebel.
[3] The Personality of the Antichrist The Antichrist is at once a person and a system. As an individual he is the personal head of a system, the leader and embodiment of a general human revolt. As an inspiration and tendency he is indeed always present (1 John 2:22; 2 John 1:7), even as the “mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:7) and “the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:3)—hence through millenniums runs the line of his harbingers and forerunners, the antichrists (in the plural, 1 John 2:18); but as the complete exhibition of the closing history he is an individual, a demonic genius, a superhuman figure, a Devil’s Messiah. The universality of a movement does not exclude individual personal figures: on the contrary, all marked progress in the world has been brought about by individual men. “The history of a people is the biography of its great men” (Carlyle). Therefore it was a thoroughly historical and true conviction when the early Christians expected the perfecting of antichristianism through an individual man. “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not; if another comes in his own name, him ye will receive” (John 5:43). The opposed “I—another” place beyond doubt that this “another” (the Antichrist) must be an individual as certainly as Christ is such, who here speaks of Himself by this “I.” 41
Footnote 41: There are different answers to the question whether Antichrist will be a Jew or a heathen. That he will be a Jew, and apparently of the tribe Dan, Ireneus based upon Jeremiah 8:16 and the absence of that tribe in Revelation 7:5-8. Hippolytus grounded it upon Deuteronomy 33:22; Genesis 49:16-17, and the consideration that as the opposite to Christ he must descend from Israel. Ambrose refers to John 5:43; Prof. Schlatter to 2 Thessalonians 2:4; that he sets himself in the temple of God, not of idols. According to others he comes from heathendom, for his chief prototype, Antiochus Epiphanes, a Greco-Syrian, was a heathen king (Daniel 8:8-12; Daniel 11:21 ff.), and that he himself, as the first beast of Revelation 13:1-18, arises out of the “sea,” that is, the nations (Revelation 13:1; comp. 17:15; Isaiah 17:12-13). This further arises from the teaching of Christ as to the future found in Mark 13:14, when read strictly: “When ye see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not (let him that readeth take notice of it), then let them that are in Judaea flee unto the mountains.” The “abomination of desolation” is very plainly connected with the antichristian period. But the striking fact is that, although in the original text the noun “abomination” is of the neuter gender, its dependent participle “standing” is not neuter but masculine in form. 42
Footnote 42: Gk. to bdelygma (neuter) ... hestekota, accusative masculine, not hestekos, accusative neuter. (The R.V. marks this by the above rendering “standing where he ought not.”) This unmistakably signifies that the “abomination of desolation” is not to be merely an image or some other such object or action, but that a person, a man, is to stand in the holy place. Thus the profaning of the sanctuary will proceed from an individual man who, as an idolatrous human abomination, as a false god will stand forth as the enemy of the true God, and will demand for himself divine worship (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).
Finally, that the Antichrist is an individual person is shown by this further fact, that he as well as Christ, will have his parousia (coming). It is he “whose coming (parousia) is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9). And just as Christ, as an individual person, after this period of His being hidden, will in God’s hour come forth at His revelation (apocalypse, 2 Thessalonians 2:7), so also will His counterfeit, the Antichrist, as an individual person, in his season (which will be at once Satan’s hour and God’s hour), receive his revelation (apocalypse)! “The Lawless One will be revealed” (2 Thessalonians 2:8).
[4] The Forerunners of the Antichrist 1. In Bible history these, among others, were:
Cain—the originator of religious war—the anti-Abel. As the first “war” was, as it were, a religious war (Genesis 4:4-8), so will be the last of this age, the Anti-christian (Revelation 19:19).
Lamech—the boaster who defied “I”—the anti-Enoch. Deifying self is the Lamech character of Antichristendom (Genesis 4:23-24; Revelation 13:1; 2 Thessalonians 2:4).
Nimrod—The founder of world power. With Nimrod began, with the Antichrist will end, the history of Babylonian world power. Babel on the Euphrates is the forerunner of Imperial Rome, and Imperial Rome of the antichristian End-time (Genesis 10:8-12; Revelation 17:1-14).
Balaam—the seducer into fornication—the anti-Moses, as the Rabbis have said (Numbers 31:16; 2 Peter 2:15; Revelation 17:4; Revelation 17:15; Revelation 18:3-4; Revelation 19:2).
Goliath—the blaspheming popular orator—the anti-David, the representative terrorist. So the Rabbis (1 Samuel 17:8; 1 Samuel 17:10; 1 Samuel 17:25 : Daniel 7:25; Revelation 13:6).
Antiochus Epiphanes—the devastator of the sanctuary. He is the chief type of the Antichrist (Daniel 8:11; Daniel 9:27; Revelation 11:7; Revelation 13:7). As such he is the “little horn” of the third world empire (Daniel 8:9-14), even as the Antichrist himself is the “little horn” of the fourth world empire (Daniel 7:23-25). In Daniel 11:21-45 the two merge into one.
2. In church history and world history the following are forerunners:
Nero—the persecutor of Christians (Revelation 13:7; Revelation 17:6). Regarded as Antichrist by the first Christians. “Neron Kesar” (Nero Caesar) written in Hebrew letters, has the numerical value 666. the Emperors of Rome—representative of world power (Revelation 17:3; Revelation 17:9). Comp. Kesar Romim, “Caesar of the Romans,” in Hebrew letters = 666. 43 Mohammed—the false prophet; as was considered by many believers at the beginning of the Middle Ages. the Papacy—the sham religion, was regarded as Antichrist by the early evangelical churches of the Middle Ages (Waldenses, Wicliffites, Hussites), also by Dante, Luther and Reformers, Bengel, and others. 44
Napoleon—the world conqueror. In so far as Napoleon represented absolute rule, which had grown out of radicalism, he is certainly a type of the Antichrist. 45
Footnote 43: Alos “Lateinos,” “Roman,” written in Greek characters. So Irenaeus (about A.D. 200). Further the Greek titan, the gigantic = 666 (Irenaeus.). So also the “harlot” (Revelation 17:1; Revelation 17:3; Revelation 17:9; Revelation 17:15), who is throned on the seven hills and the many waters, unmistakably the gathering of the whole earth,” the seven-hilled city (urbs septivllis).
Footnote 44: Comp. the Latin title of the Pope, Vicarius filii Dei, Vicar of the Son of God, in Latin letters = 666.
Footnote 45: Further, the Greek word for “beast,” written in Hebrew characters, has the value 666. But too much worth is not to be given to the different attempts to explain the number 666.
These are all advance messengers of the Antichrist.
Two lines run through the history of mankind: the line of Christ and the line of Antichrist, the line of the Woman’s seed and that of the serpent. The Christ line begins with Adam, 46 passes via Golgotha, and leads to the heavenly Jerusalem. The Antichrist line begins with Cain, passes via Babel, and leads to the lake of fire. Each of us today belongs to one or the other line and is at the same time the preparer of his own future. He is introducing and furthering his own final completion, of which he is both type and pre-representation. He is either of Christ or of the Antichrist.
Footnote 46: Adam at once believed on the good news of the coming seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15). This is shown by the name Eve (Heb. Chavva life) which he gave to his wife (Ischa woman, Genesis 2:23) immediately after that first promise and certainly directly before the expulsion from Paradise (Genesis 3:1-24, context). “Sunken in death he nevertheless has given his wife so proud a name” (Calvin), and thereby expressed his confidence in the conquest of death by life. Thus it was “an act of faith that Adam named his wife Eve” (Delitzsch), and from that time her name was for mankind the “memorial of the promised grace of God” (mnemosymon gratia Dei promissa, Melanchthon). As Luther said of the first promise: “Adam believed this and so was saved from his fall.”