two antichrists

antichrist-prophet12.jpg (12000 bytes) Two Kind of Antichrists
in the Bible

The name "Antichrist" appears in the Bible only in the first two Letters of John... its name does not appear in the Book of Revelation, nor in Daniel, nor in any other place in the Bible.

However, its name, "Antichrist", have been applied to the person and his government who will cause the great catastrophic struggles at the end of times: The one who causes the Abomination of Desolation and the Great Tribulation in Matt.24, the Beasts of Revelation 13 and Daniel 7, the man of sin and the son of perdition of 2Thes.2, and others...

So, there are two kind of Antichrists in the Bible:
    1- The one of the Letters of John.
    2- The one at the end of times, who will reign for 3½ years, the same time of the ministry of Christ!.

And still more:
    The prophecies about the Antichrist in the Bible, like most prophecies, have a fourfold fulfillment:
    1- A local and immediate fulfillment: For example, the Roman Empire in Revelation.
    2- A fulfillment in my life and yours, today!: You and I will have our Antichrist in our life.
    3- A continual and gradual fulfillment: For example, the types of the Antichrist of the End of he World: Nero, Pharaoh...
    4- A final and exhaustive fulfillment: The real Antichrist of the last times.

So, we always should distinguish between "an" Antichrist, and "the" Antichrist.

1- The Antichrists of the Letters of John:

He is mentioned 5 times: Twice in 1Jn.2:18, once in 1Jn.2:22, 4:3, and 2Jn.7.

As you can read in the quotations below they have the following characteristics:

1- They are many (1Jn.:2:18-19).

2- They were already present in the times of John... "even now many antichrists have come" (1Jn.2:18), "you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world" (1Jn.4:3)... and the time of John, after Christ, is called "the last hour" (1Jn.2:18).
These Antichrists are then already present today!... in our lives!... they will try to make us deny Christ, to provoke the Abomination of Desolation in our lives: To steel from us the Eternal Sacrifice, the Altar, the Priests, which will be the first thing the Antichrist of the End of Time will do. See The Time of Coming of the Antichrist of the End of the Age.

3- He denies that Jesus is the Christ, he denies the Father and the Son, he does not acknowledge Jesus Christ has come in the flesh from God (1Jn.2:22, 4:2-3, 2Jn.7)

4- They came out from us, from the Christian Community!. (1Jn.2:19).

5- He is a liar, a deceiver, the antichrist (1Jn.2:22, 2Jn.7).

These are the full quotations from the Bible:

1John.2:18-19: "18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us".

1John:2:22: "Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son".

1John.4:3: "2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world".

2 John 7: "7 Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist".

2- The Antichrist of the End of the World:

The term "Antichrist" of the Letters of John has been applied in the Christian literature to the one coming at the End of Times "at the last hour"!, says 1Jn.2:18:

1- The "Beast" and "the False Prophet" of Revelation 13 and 16:13, who will reign for 3½ years plus 3½ years (Rev.13:5, 12:6, 12:14, 11:3). And the Woman sitting on a Scarlet Beast of Rev.17:3, Babylon the Great, mother of all prostitutes (17:5).

    2- The "Little Horn" of Daniel 7:8,11, 8:9, who will reign for 2,300 days, 7 years (8:9-14), during the time of the Abomination of Desolation and the Great Tribulation. In 12:11-12 Daniel specifies the times: The time of the Abomination of Desolation will be 1,290 days (3½ years), and afterwards, another 1,290 days of the Great Tribulation, and blessed are those who persevere for 1,335 days!. Look at Dan.7:8-11, 21-26; 8:9-12, 23-25. See Time of Coming.
    "Little Horn" refers to the lowly political origin of the Antichrist, and describes him as he is before he attains governmental supremacy.
    Daniel also describes the Antichrist as "the Prince that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary" (Dan. 9:26).
    King Antioch IV, the Assyrian, is the type of the Antichrist in Daniel, the "Little Horn", of 7, 8, and 11:21. See Types of the Antichrist in the Bible.

3- Jesus in Mat.24 describes the two struggles provoked by the Antichrist: The Abomination of Desolation of Mat.24:15, for 3½ years, and next the Great Tribulation of Mat.24:21 for another 3½ years... and gives a precise order of the events of the end of the world in chapters 24 and 25, in the Sermon of Jesus of the End of the World. See The time and work of the Antichrist

4- St. Paul in 2 Thessalonians gives awful, important, and revealing titles to the Antichrist: The Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, the Wicked One, the Lawless One... and he is already at work today!, but not at full strength until the restrainer is gone (2Thes.2:3,8,9). See Paul

5- The Psalms give the Antichrist several titles: The Bloody and Deceitful One, the Arrogant (5:6). The Wicked One (10:2,4). The Mighty One (52:1). The Enemy (53:3). The Adversary (74:8-10). The Head of Many Countries (140:1).

    6- The Prophets also mention him many times:
    - Isaiah: The Assirian, the "rod" of God's anger (Is.10:5,12). The King of Babylon (Is.14:4, 11-20, Jer.49:51). The Spoiler (Is.16:4-5). The Nail (Is.22:25).
    - Jeremiah calls him "the Destroyer of the Gentiles" (4:7); the "Enemy", the "Cruel One" and "the Wicked" (30:14 and 23).
    - Ezekiel: The "Profane Wicked Prince of Israel" (21:25), "Prince of Tyre" (28:2-10), and also as "the chief Prince of Meshech and Tubal" (38:2).

    - Daniel as mentioned above.
    - Hosea speaks of him as "the King of Princes" (8:10), and as the "Merchant" in whose hand are "the balances of deceit" and who "loves to oppress" (12:7).
    - Joel describes him as the Head of the Northern Army, who shall be overthrown because he "magnified himself to do great things" (2:20).
    - Amos terms him the "Adversary" who shall break Israel's strength and spoil her palaces (3:11).
    - Nahum refers to him under the name of "Belial (Heb.) and tells of his destruction (1:15).
    - Habakkuk speaks of him as "the Proud Man" who "enlarged his desires as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples" (2:5).
    - Zechariah describes him as "the Idol Shepherd" upon whom is pronounced God's "woe", and upon whom descends His judgment (11:17).

The Antichrist in your life and mine, today!:

Every prophecy of the Bible about the Antichrist applies to you and me, today!

The day of our physical death is the end of this world for us, as it was for St. Paul an St. Peter, and for St. Therese and Luther, and for Kennedy, Stalin, Columbus, Shakespeare, Marylyn Monroe... that day will be the Second Coming of Christ for us... if Kennedy and Stalin are in Heaven, they did every thing right in this world... if anyone of them is in Heel, he was an idiot in his only life on earth.

And before our death, we will have also our Antichrist in our lives, because the Antichrist always comes before the coming of Christ, who will completely defeat him.... we will have the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, the Wicked One, the Lawless One of 2Thes.2:3,8,9... not as universal as the the real one of the end of the world, but for us, as powerful and devastating and as wicked as the Antichrist of the end of times...

That's why it is very important to know well the struggles the Antichrist is going to produce at the end of the world, because the same kind of struggles is going to produce in our life, before our death, just before the Second Coming of Jesus to us, to you and me!... it is essential for us to know the work of the Antichrist, what it is the Abomination of Desolation and the Great Tribulation... please look at The Time and Work of the Antichrist... because we will have it, like it o not!... to get to the Easter Sunday of Resurrection, we have to pass through the Good Friday... you can't reach Sunday, without passing before Friday... Jesus and his mother had it, and Peter who was crucified, and John killed in a caldron of boiling oil, and Paul beheaded...

And it is also very important to know the order of the events of the end of the world of Matt.24-25, because it is going to be the order of events of the end of our lives in this world... The Time and Work of the Antichrist...

And always with faith and hope, because, no matter what happen, the final total and complete victory is ours, if we live in Christ, in His Church, and Christ in us... if we are always ready with the oil of grace in our lamps like the 5 wise bridesmaids virgins of Matt.25:2... because Jesus in our hearts is more powerful than 1000 Antichrists: Nothing and nobody can take away the love, joy, and peace of Jesus in us!:

"If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ... Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom.8:31-39).