recent horror film was entitled Antichrist.
A popular music group named one of its albums Antichrist Superstar.
Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th-century philosopher, named one of his works The Antichrist.
Kings and emperors in the Middle Ages often called their opponents antichrists.
Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, labeled Roman Catholic popes as antichrists.
SINCE the term “antichrist” has long been used as a label for everything from monarchs to movies, it is only natural to ask: Who is the antichrist? Does this term have anything to do with us today? Surely the logical place to begin when searching for the identity of the antichrist is in the Bible, where the term appears five times.
ANTICHRIST EXPOSED
The only Bible writer to use the word “antichrist” is the apostle John. How did he describe the antichrist? Note these words in the first letter bearing his name: “Young children, it is the last hour, and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared, from which fact we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of our sort . . . 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 2:18, 19, 22.
The apostle John understood the antichrist to be all who deliberately spread religious deception about Jesus Christ and Jesus’ teachings
What do we learn from those words? John mentioned “many antichrists,” indicating that the antichrist is, not an individual, but a collective term. People or organizations making up the antichrist spread lies, deny that Jesus is the Christ, or the Messiah, and try to distort the relationship between God and His Son, Jesus Christ. Those who make up the antichrist claim to be Christ or his representatives, but since “they went out from us,” they deviated from true Bible teachings. Furthermore, this group was present at the time when John wrote his letter, in “the last hour,” presumably the end of the time of the apostles.
What else did John write regarding the antichrist? Speaking about false prophets, he warned: “Every inspired statement that acknowledges Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh originates with God. But every inspired statement that does not acknowledge Jesus does not originate with God. Furthermore, this is the antichrist’s inspired statement that you have heard was coming, and now it is already in the world.” (1 John 4:2, 3) Then, in his second letter, John reiterated this point: “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those not acknowledging Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.” (2 John 7) Clearly, John understood the antichrist to be all who deliberately spread religious deception about Jesus Christ and Jesus’ teachings.
“FALSE PROPHETS” AND “THE MAN OF LAWLESSNESS”
