The Antichrist

Last modified 2016-01-17

When you hear someone refer to "The Antichrist" you know they dont know what they are talking about. They frequently confuse "The AntiChrist" with "The Beast." They will even start saying mixed up things like The Antichrist must have a number of 666, etc.

The most quoted argument for "chiliasm" or "premillennialism" is based on a statement by Irenaeus in his book "Against Heresies", where he says: “We will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing positively as to the name of Antichrist; for if it were necessary that his name should be distinctly revealed in this present time, it would have been announced by him who beheld the Revelation. For ‘he’ [John?] or ‘it’ or "that" [the Revelation?] (1) was seen . . . towards the end of Domitian’s reign.
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(1) The “that” which forms the basis of their argument is an English translator’s interpolation! You cant tell, from the greek here, which is the correct interpretation, "he", "it", or "that" since the inflected verb "was seen" uses a generic inflection that cannot be tied to "he" or "it" or "that".

If he meant "he" then the book of Revelation could have been written pre 70 AD and the preterists are right. Most of Rev is talking about the 70 AD conflaguration between Titus army and the Jews.

If he meant "it" then it supports the late date crowd, the Dispensationalists, the PreMills, who say the "soon coming day of the Lord" written about all over the New Testament "day of wrath" etc. is in OUR future and is always immanent. Although if you examine Irenaeus other statements in "Against Heresies" you quickly see how off he was. in 2:22,5 he states that Christ died at age 50 and had a 15 year ministry.

The reason why I bring him up here, though, is because Ireneaus is so confused as to think that "the Antichrist" is one man. Even as many of our current dispensational friends of today (as well as the National Enquirer, and other scandal sheets). It is NOT to be confused with "the beast". For the best defense of all this, go to wordmp3.com and enter a search string "Ken Gentry" Buy all his books, buy all his mp3's. The only and few areas where I differ from him are in my Replacement Theology (Ken doesn't believe in RT he thinks there are Biblical "Jews" alive today, somehow "in covenant" with God, etc.). Also, Ken says "the holy city" in Rev is Jerusalem. Jordan correctly maintains it is the church, whereas "the great city" in Rev is Jerusalem.

When you see the word “Antichrist”, you should parse it and take it literally. I.E. “against the messiah”. The four primary verses in Scripture regarding the Antichrist occur in First and Second John. They are:

2 John 7 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.

There is no-one that better qualifies for this description than the Jews of 30 to 70 AD. They did not recognize the day of their visitation, says Jesus, and after His crucifixion, they continued to deny that He was the long promised messiah. These Jewish claimants are still denying it today.

Contrary to PreMill Preachers and Authors (Hal Lindsey, Salem Kirban, etc.) of today, Scripture says the spirit of Antichrist came in the 1st Century AD. It was this Jewish spirit of denial of Jesus as the messiah.

1 John 4: 1) Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2) By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3) 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 2:18 Little children, it is the last hour (before Christ comes in Judgment in 70 AD); 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. 19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us (Judaizers who were formerly in the Church, but went back to Judaism); 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. 22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ (messiah, the primary ones doing it at this time were the Jews)? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. Were they really an evil generation that deserved the title of Anti-Christ? See Why Were the Jews Disinherited off the main web page.

1 John 2:22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ (messiah)? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.

Matthew 16:4  An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.'' And He left them and went away.

John 7: 40 Some of the people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, ""This certainly is the Prophet.'' 41 Others were saying, ""This is the Christ.'' Still others were saying, Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He? 42 Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?'' 43 So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him. 44 Some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him. 45 The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, ""Why did you not bring Him?'' 46 The officers answered, Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.'' 47 The Pharisees then answered them, You have not also been led astray, have you? 48 No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he? 49 But this crowd which does not know the Law is accursed.'' 50 Nicodemus (he who came to Him before, being one of them) said to them, 51 Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?'' 52 They answered him, You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.'' [This is one reason why God had the 3 kings visit, and Herod try to kill Jesus, and the flight to Egypt, and then resettling in Galilee. To conceal Jesus Bethlehem identity] 53 Everyone went to his home.

John 12:37 But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. 38 This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?'' 39 For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, 40 HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM.'' 41 These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him. 42 Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue;

Luke 19:43 For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, 44 and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.

John 5 15 The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. (16) For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. (17) But He answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” (18) For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

John 7:1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill Him.

John 5 45 "Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. 46 "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. 47 "But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?''

The Jews of 30-70 AD were no longer true Jews because they had departed from the true faith (Moses). The Talmud and Mishnah are simply the oral law traditions of the Babylonian Jews (who remained in Babylon after God said to go back in the land under Cyrus the Persian), codified. The Judaism of today (2016) which holds to the Talmud and Mishnah, should not be seen as the true seed of Abraham, clinging to the Old Testament, and not yet made wise to the new testament. No, these verses say, they are a cult, foreign to Moses, and that Christ RESTORED the true Judaism by bringing back Christianity. The “Jews” of today are no different than the Muslims or Hindu’s in their standing before God. They do not worship the Yahweh of the Bible. They have no rights to the promised land, they have no covenant standing before God, and are in fact a synagogue of Satan. They WOULD lock Jesus up in a mental institution or assassinate him, if He were walking around Jerusalem today, claiming to be the Messiah, and healing hundreds, and preaching, and gathering a following. When you hear the word AntiChrist, you should parse it and think Anti Messiah. 1 John 4:3 said the AntiChrist had ALREADY come in John’s day, i.e. AD 62.

Is this anti Christian force alive and well today? Well to the degree that we have Christians being locked up in Israel for sharing about Jesus, because proselytizing for the Christian Faith is illegal in Israel, and to the degree that we see the ADL of the B’nai B’rith sueing Christians in Court to: end Prayer in Public Schools, take down nativity scenes at Christmas time, wipe Bible Verses off of our Court House walls, etc.

Then to that degree we can say anti messiah or anti Christian activity is still going on.

The web page of the ADL has sub titles on it like:

ADL Urges Support for Workplace Protections for Gays and Lesbians (7/31/01)

ADL Says White House Report on "Charitable Choice" Understates Church-State and Discrimination Concerns (8/16/01)

ADL: Lutheran Resolution Calling on U.S. Government to End Aid to Israel "Deplorable" and "One-Sided" (8/21/01)

ADL Outraged at Southern Baptist Call for Prayers to Convert Jews During High Holy Days

Just go to WWW.ADL.org to see if you detect any anti-Christian activity or positions. Their web page speaks for itself.

Incidentally, the ADL was founded in America the same year as the Federal Reserve, and the Income Tax Amendment, 1913.