Imperishable Inheritance

Many Antichrist Have Already Come

John is the only author that uses the title “antichrist” in his writ­ing and only in his epis­tles. In his first epis­tle writ­ing against the Docetists (they believe that Jesus did not have a phys­i­cal body) he states that: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that con­fesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not con­fess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is com­ing, and now it is already in the world.” (1 John 4:2–3). Deny­ing the incar­na­tion is one char­ac­ter­is­tic of an antichrist.

Flat, fla­garant denial of Jesus as the Christ (Mes­siah) is another char­ac­ter­is­tic of the antichrist: “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). John’s teach­ing is that there have already been many antichrist, there are cur­rently many antichrists, and many more will come before the end of the age. To John, the antichrist is not an indi­vid­ual but a type of per­son. He says also: “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowl­edge Jesus Christ as com­ing in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 1:7). It should be noted, in one of the clear­est pas­sages on per­se­ver­ance in the New Tes­ta­ment, that true believ­ers will not be swayed by peo­ple such as these.

“Chil­dren, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is com­ing, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. But you have an anoint­ing from the Holy One, and you all know.” (1 John 2:18–20)

The Man of Lawlessness

The final point of reflec­tion is Paul’s teach­ing on the man of law­less­ness in his sec­ond let­ter to the church in Thessalonica.

“Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apos­tasy comes first, and the man of law­less­ness is revealed, the son of destruc­tion, who opposes and exalts him­self above every so-called god or object of wor­ship, so that he takes his seat in the tem­ple of God, dis­play­ing him­self as being God. Do you not remem­ber that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mys­tery of law­less­ness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that law­less one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appear­ance of His com­ing; that is, the one whose com­ing is in accord with the activ­ity of Satan, with all power and signs and false won­ders, and with all the decep­tion of wicked­ness for those who per­ish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this rea­son God will send upon them a delud­ing influ­ence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took plea­sure in wicked­ness.” (2 Thess 2:1–12)

That lengthy sec­tion has a lot for us to under­stand this per­son in the Pauline cor­pus. Paul specif­i­cally teaches that this is a man that is the “son of destruc­tion” he (sin­gu­lar) takes his seat in the tem­ple of God. That phrase “tem­ple of God” is where we get var­i­ous inter­pre­ta­tions. Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists insist that this refers to the rebuilt tem­ple in Jerusalem dur­ing the tribu­la­tion, and Preter­ists go to the other end claim­ing it refers to the tem­ple in 70 A.D. But we must remem­ber that Paul has a dif­fer­ent def­i­n­i­tion of the tem­ple in the New Covenant age. He tells the Corinthi­ans: “Do you not know that you are a tem­ple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16; cf. 6:19), and that the church is “the tem­ple of the liv­ing God” (2 Cor 6:16). He also tells the Eph­esians that the church is “grow­ing into a holy tem­ple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (Eph 2:21–22). It is appar­ent that the “tem­ple” Paul is refer­ring to in 2 Thess is the church. Kim has the fol­low­ing to say:

“As [G.K.] Beale points out, the word tem­ple (naon) is found nine other times in the New Tes­ta­ment out­side of 2 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans, where it is almost always use of Christ or the church. In the five other times Paul uses the word, it does not refer to a lit­eral tem­ple in Israel, past or future (1 Cor. 3:16–17; 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph. 2:21; 2 Thess. 2:4). In both Matthew and John the word is used of hte tem­ple taht will be destroyed before Christ raises it up, or of the true tem­ple, which is his body (Matt. 26:61; John 2:21). Paul refers to believ­ers as con­sti­tut­ing the tem­ple of the God because they are in union with Christ, through faith.” (pg. 128)

This per­son is fur­ther restrained so that in time he will be revealed (vs. 6). This per­son will come in accor­dance with the activ­ity of Satan with signs and won­ders to lead away those who didn’t receive the truth, and it’s impor­tant to notice that “God will send upon them a delud­ing influ­ence” so they will believe in this fig­ure and incur judg­ment. But Paul’s “plight to solu­tion” reigns again in his com­fort that “God has cho­sen you from the begin­ning for sal­va­tion through sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion by the Spirit and faith in the truth” (vs. 13).

Con­clu­sion

This is surely a dif­fi­cult sub­ject to tackle through all the spec­u­la­tion and all that does not pro­ceed from the teach­ings of Scrip­ture. We must be wary that there are peo­ple all around us that are the embod­iement of the antichrist, and that some­day one will be revealed that will be the fullest mea­sure of all that sin. Fear not how­ever, as the vic­tory is won, his fate is sealed, because our Lord has bruised his head!