In the interval between the rapture of the saints and the appearing of Christ, the earth will be the scene of some of the most awful events which the world has ever witnessed. Among these will be the apostasy—the open abandonment of all profession of Christianity, yea, the denial both of the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22), and the appearance of the man of sin, the son of perdition, or the antichrist. Paul has given us most distinct and precise instruction upon these subjects. False teachers had sought to disturb the minds of the Thessalonian believers by alleging that the day of the Lord was already come. It was to meet this error that he wrote, “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand (the day of the Lord is present). Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he himself (the words “as God” should be omitted) sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thess. 2:1-4). We are, therefore, plainly warned that “the falling away” (the apostasy), and the man of sin, will be seen in the interval between the rapture of the saints and the day of the Lord. For the apostle grounds his exhortation to these believers on the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him. As another has explained this scripture: “Their gathering together unto Christ in the air was a demonstration of the impossibility of the day of the Lord being already come. Moreover with regard to this last he presents two considerations: first, the day could not be already come, since Christians were not yet gathered to the Lord, and they were to come with Him; second, the wicked one who was then to be judged had not yet appeared, so that the judgment could not be executed.”
Thereon the apostle proceeds to show that until the Church is caught away this consummation and embodiment of wickedness cannot be reached. “And now ye know what withholdeth” (that which restrains) “that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed (vss. 6-8). In the light, then, of this and other scriptures, we may trace a little both the “falling away,” and the man of sin.
1. The Apostasy. This was foreseen and predicted from the earliest days of Christianity. Our Lord Himself plainly points to it in some of His parables, and never speaks of the gradual diffusion of the truth until the whole world should be brought to confess Him as Lord. On the other hand He compares the kingdom of heaven, as seen in the world, “unto leaven” (and leaven in the Scriptures has generally the significance of corruption) “which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened” (Matt. 13:33; see also the parable of the tares, and of the mustard seed, in the same chapter). Paul, moreover, tells the elders of the Church at Ephesus, “I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30). And passing by his allusions to the subject, we find in his two epistles to Timothy (1 Tim. 4; 2 Tim. 3) express descriptions of the evils of the “latter times,” and of “the perilous times” of “the last days.” What can be, indeed, more direct and emphatic than the scripture cited from 2 Thessalonians? For he there warns the saints to whom he writes that the mystery of iniquity was already working, and though for the time restrained, would at last, when the restraint was removed, rise so rapidly and mightily that, passing over all bounds, it would finally reach its consummation in that fearful being who would oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God, and demand and receive the homage which is due to God alone. Peter also speaks of the evil of the last days, and Jude too, and especially in its form of apostasy; and in the Revelation we are permitted to behold its final form in “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth” (Rev. 17:5).
To understand this aright it must be borne in mind, that when the saints are caught away, the Church in its outward form, that is the profession of Christianity, will still remain. Only real Christians will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. There will, therefore, be thousands (not to say millions) of mere nominal believers left behind. And doubtless this profession will at the outset be maintained; and many churches and chapels, and other places where professing Christians meet, will carry on as before their religious services. But now that He that restrained the development of the mystery of iniquity—the Spirit of God in the Church—now that He is gone, evil will be unbridled and hearts that shrunk before from receiving teachings, infidel in their character, which undermined the authority of the word of God, and the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, will soon fall completely under their sway. Yea, in the solemn and awful language of Scripture, “God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:11-12). Thus they will be gradually prepared to fall under the influence and power of antichrist, and therewith utterly to abandon even the form of Christianity. And it is not a little remarkable, as one has said, “that the apostasy will develop itself under the three forms in which man has been in relationship with God: Nature—it is the man of sin unrestrained, who exalts himself; Judaism—he sits as God in the temple of God; Christianity—it is to this that the term apostasy is directly applied in the passage before us” (2 Thess. 2). How fearful the prospect! And how sad it is to notice this mystery of iniquity so plainly working in the present day, boldly rearing its head in the pulpits of Christendom, and proclaiming, without let or hindrance, doctrines which subvert the very foundations of revealed truth, and thereby preparing the way, as soon as the Church is gone, for the advent of the man of sin.
2. The Antichrist. If we now consider a little more closely the character of this personage we shall have a clearer understanding of the whole subject. He is mentioned as the man of sin, as we have already seen in connection with the apostasy; but we may find traces of him both in the Old and New Testaments. He is termed “the king” in Daniel (11:36), the “idol shepherd” in Zechariah (11:17); but it is in the epistles of John that he is specified as the antichrist (1 John 2:18-22 John 1:7). In Revelation he is termed a “beast.”
Now it must be distinctly understood that antichrist is not a figurative term for some evil principle or system, but that it indicates an actual person. Whoever will take the trouble to read the various scriptures in which he is mentioned will at once perceive this. There is reason, moreover, to conclude that he will be not a Gentile, but a Jew. Thus our Lord, doubtless in allusion to this incarnation of evil, says, “If another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (John 5:43); and this is inconceivable, excepting he were of their own nation. Indeed he will present himself as the Messiah in his antagonism to Christ, and thus he is termed “the king” in Daniel, who, speaking of him, says that he will not “regard the God of his fathers,” plainly pointing out his Jewish lineage as well as his apostate character. Indeed he tells us that he will “exalt himself... above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done” (Dan. 11:36 et seq).
If we now turn to the book of Revelation, we shall find both his rise and the character of his actings described. Before, however, entering upon this, it will be necessary to recall the reader’s attention to the Gentile monarchies; three of which will precede, and the last be contemporaneous with the antichrist. As revealed to Daniel, and by him announced to Nebuchadnezzar, four monarchies were to reach down to the end. Those of Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece have appeared, and passed away. The fourth, symbolized by the legs of iron, and the “feet part of iron and of clay,” is the last; for in the vision which Nebuchadnezzar saw, “a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces... and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Dan. 2:34-35).
This last is the Roman empire—first in its pristine energy and resistless strength, as set forth under the emblem of iron, and then in its final form of ten kingdoms, foreshadowed by the ten toes, welded together in one confederation under a supreme head. Now in Revelation 13 we have described first of all the rise of the imperial power, of the Roman empire in its final form. John says, “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up from the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy” (Rev. 13:1). To cite the words of another, “The sea sets forth the unformed mass of the people under a troubled state of the world— people in great agitation, like the restless waves of the deep. And it is out of that mass of anarchy and confusion that an imperial power rises” The “beast” that thus appears is characterized by having seven heads and ten horns, which prepares us for the statement that “the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority” (vs. 2), inasmuch as we find the dragon himself so distinguished in the previous chapter (12:3); and this transfer of characteristics, as marking the source of the “beast’s” power, is subsequent, it should be remarked, to Satan’s expulsion from heaven (12:9). This is indicated moreover in another way. “The crowns were upon the heads of the dragon, but upon the horns of the beast; that is, in the Roman empire you have the exercise of the power represented as a matter of fact, but in Satan’s case merely as a matter of principle, or the root of the thing. It is a question of source and character, not history.”
We have, then, here set before us the final form of the Gentile power, animated and energized by Satan, and possessing in itself all the features that marked each of its predecessors (vs. 2; see Dan. 7:4-6). The seven heads signify the successive forms of power that have existed, but now concentrated in the “beast”; the ten horns are kings, and these ten will finally unite under one supreme head. “The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (Rev. 17:9-13). There will be such a display of power as the world has never seen; and since both its source and energy are alike Satanic, it will all be directed against God and His people. “And he (the beast) opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwelt in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given unto him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:6-8). It will be a time of open antagonism against God, and therefore of fearful tribulation for the saints.
In connection with all this there arises another “beast,” not out of the sea, as was the case with his predecessor, but out of the earth, at a time therefore when there is settled government, under the order and sway indeed of the first beast. This is the antichrist. He has “two horns like a lamb, and spake like a dragon” (vs. 11). He is thus an imitator of, while in direct antagonism to, Christ; but his voice reveals his true character. He acts, as will be seen, as a kind of deputy of the first “beast;” exercising his power, and causing “the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed” (vs. 12). He, moreover, works miracles, or seeming miracles, and thereby deceiving the dwellers upon the earth, he causes that they should make an image to the first beast, and worship it. And the more effectually to accomplish his purposes he has “power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (vss. 15-17).
There will be thus a kind of mock trinity, composed of Satan, the first beast, and the false prophet (Rev. 19:20); and the object of all their strivings will be to exclude God from the earth, and to usurp His place in the minds of men. The first beast, it will be seen, is the supreme secular power; the second, or the antichrist, acting under the first, has his domain in the religious sphere; while Satan is the inspirer and energy of both. We cannot here go into further details, as we shall see something more of the actings of antichrist in connection with the great tribulation. But it is well to remind ourselves that all the workings of error, and all the activities of men’s minds, apart from Christ, have but one goal; for they all look towards, and will finally be embodied in this hateful antagonist of God and His Christ. John warns the believers of his day that the spirit of antichrist was already abroad (1 John 4:3); and it is necessary therefore, especially at a time when infidelity is ever waxing bolder, to be on the watch, and to ponder well these delineations of the coming man of sin, so that we may be preserved, in the grace of our God, from all association with that which, as it is the offspring of Satan, is also the mark of hostility to Christ. At the present moment it is especially necessary to be vigilant, for there are many indications abroad that Satan is busily employed in marshalling and training his forces for the coming conflict. But, as ever, his movements are most subtle. Not yet does he dare to avow open antagonism to Christ; but he can, and does, influence the minds of men against the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and he uses for this purpose those who are its avowed teachers. Our foes are they of our own household. But as long as we adhere to the word of God—refusing human wisdom and human reasonings—and look to be guided alone by the Holy Spirit, we shall escape the snare, and be kept true to Christ.