For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website.
Scriptures
- Where the word antichrist appears:
- 1 John 2:18
- 1 John 2:22
- 1 John 4:3
- 2 John 7
- Passages that do not mention antichrist but which are popularly understood to refer to him:
- 2 Thessalonians 2
- Appears to be a Roman emperor, one with the arrogance of Caligula, Nero, or Domitian.
- Stands as a warning for all generations.
- No mention of "antichrist."
- Revelation 13
- Whereas the "number" of the Beast is 666, the apocalypse never identifies the Beast (Rome the false religious power) with an antichrist.
- Applies in immediate context to the persecuting Roman Empire.
- That antichrist is a figure who would be worshipped is a second century construction. This notion was never part of the apostolic doctrine.
- The specific truth denied by the opponents of the faith is the incarnation.
- The heretics in view were Docetists, a variety of Gnostics who denied that Jesus (God) came in the flesh; rather, he appeared (Greek dokein = appear) to come in a body. These heretics were active in the late first century, at the time 1 and 2 John were written.
- They held that the physical world is evil, and therefore...
- They denied that God came to us in a body.
Conclusions
- Antichrist was already present even in the first century, although those rejecting the incarnation are still among us (e.g. theological liberals who deny Jesus was God, but rather a guru whose God-consciousness inspired others).
- The antichrist is not a single person; contradicts 1 John 2:18.
- Popular guesses: Hitler, Muhammad, the Pope.
- There have been, and presumably will be, many antichrists.
- Antichrist lives in those who have left the community.
- Joining the antichrist is more than a subtle doctrinal shift; it is to join the agents of evil, with seriously negative cosmic implications.
- It is unlikely an antichrist would come in a body, since incarnation is the very truth denied by the antichrist!
- Eventual triumph comes not by inflicting death on the followers of evil, but by words that engender faith (Revelation 12:11).
- We as readers of the Bible are called to distinguish truth from falsehood.
Further study: Listen to all the podcasts in the Last Things series.