One special person, a man, a Jew, an apostate, is the Antichrist of the prophetic scriptures.
Some expositors regard the Antichrist as the civil head of the Roman Empire, but this is not so. He is the false messiah, the minister of Satan among the Jews in Jerusalem working signs and displaying wonders through direct satanic power. He sits in the temple of God then set up in Jerusalem, and claims divine worship. The Beast (Rome), the false prophet or the Antichrist, and the dragon (Satan) are deified and worshipped, counterfeiting the worship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The apostate nation of Israel accepts the Antichrist as king.
In no sense is he a great political power. True, he influences Christendom, but religiously, not politically. The government of the western world, civil and political, is then in the hands of a great Gentile chief. It is he whose throne is in Rome who rules politically under Satan. The Antichrist has his seat in Jerusalem, the head of Gentile dominion in Rome. The two men are ministers of Satan, confederates in wickedness. The one is a Jew, the other a Gentile. Both exist at the coming of the Lord in judgment, and both are then consigned alive to the lake of fire—an eternal doom.
The term Antichrist is used only by the writer of Revelation, and by him four times (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7), and once in the plural (1 John 2:18).
From these texts we gather several important points: (1) The rise of antichrists is a definite mark of "the last time"; they are apostates. (2) The Antichrist sets himself in direct opposition to what is vital in Christianity—the revelation of the Father and of the Son—and also to the distinguishing truth of Judaism, Jesus the Christ (1 John 2:22). (3) The holy Person of the Lord is also the object of satanic attack. This is fully developed in the coming Antichrist in whom every form of religious evil culminates.
Paul, in one of his earliest and briefest epistles (2 Thessalonians), sketches a personage characterized by impiety, lawlessness, and assumption who towers far beyond all the world has ever seen—a character clearly identical with the Antichrist of John. They are one and the same person.
It is evident that Paul had personally instructed the Thessalonian Christians on the solemn subjects of the coming apostasy or public abandonment of Christianity, and consequent upon this apostasy, the revelation of the man of sin (2 Thess. 2:3). His letter added to his former verbal instruction.
Three descriptive epithets are used of the Antichrist: (1) The lawless one. (2) The man of sin. (3) The son of perdition. The first intimates that he sets himself in direct opposition to all divine and human authority. The second states that he is the living and active embodiment of every form and character of evil—sin personified. The third shows that he is the full-blown development of the power of Satan, and as such perdition is his proper doom and portion. This frightful character usurps God's place on earth, and sits in the temple then set up in Jerusalem, claiming divine worship and honor (v. 4).
His religious influence, for he is not a political person of any account, dominates the mass of professing Christians and Jews. They are caught in Satan's snare. They had already given God up, had publicly renounced the Christian faith and the essential truth of Judaism, and now in retributive justice He gives them up to the awful delusion of receiving the man of sin while believing him to be the true Messiah (v. 11). What a lie! The Antichrist received and believed on instead of the Christ of God!
If verse 9 is compared with Acts 2:22, a remarkable correspondence is shown. The very same terms are found in both texts, namely, power, signs, and wonders. By these God would accredit the mission and service of Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 2:22). By the same credentials Satan presents the Antichrist to an apostate world (2 Thess. 2:9, 10).
The Lord himself refers to the Antichrist and to his acceptance by the Jews as their messiah and prophet (John 5:43). In the book of the Psalms he is prophetically written of in his character as "the man of the earth" (Psa. 10:18), and also as "the bloody and deceitful man" (Psa. 5:6). These descriptive epithets are in themselves characteristic of the wicked in general in the coming crisis, yet there is one person, and only one, to whom in the fullest sense they can refer. It is the character of the Antichrist that is before us in these and other psalms.
Daniel, in chapter 11 of his prophecy, refers to three kings: the king of the north (Syria), the king of the south (Egypt), and the king in Palestine (the Antichrist). The wars, family alliances, and intrigue so minutely detailed in the first thirty-five verses of this interesting chapter have had an exact historical fulfillment in the history of the Syrian and Egyptian kingdoms formed after the breakup of the mighty Grecian empire.
In verse 36 the king is abruptly introduced into the history. This king is the Antichrist whose reign in Palestine precedes that of the true Messiah, even as King Saul preceded King David, the former pointing to the anti-Christian king; the latter to Christ, the true King of Israel. This portion of the chapter (vv. 3645) is yet future, carrying us on to the time of the end (v. 40). The king exalts himself and magnifies himself above man and every god. The pride of the devil is embodied in this terrible Jewish character. God's place alone will satisfy his ambition. What a contrast to the true Messiah, to Jesus who humbled Himself, even to the death of the cross (Phil. 2:5-8).
That the Antichrist is of Jewish descent seems evident from Dan. 11:37, as also from the consideration that otherwise he could have no claim even with apostate Jews to the throne of Israel. The king, or the Antichrist, is attacked from the north and south, his land, Palestine, lying between the two. He is unable, even with the help of his ally, the powerful chief of the west, to ward off the repeated attacks of his northern and southern enemies. The former is the more bitter and determined of the two. Palestine is overrun by the conquering forces of the north, but its king, the Antichrist, escapes the vengeance of the great northern oppressor, of whom Antiochus Epiphanes of infamous memory is the prototype. The Antichrist is the subject of the Lord's judgment at His return from heaven (Rev. 19:20).
In Rev. 13, two Beasts are seen in vision. The first is the Roman power and its blasphemous head under the direct control of Satan (vv. 1-10). The second Beast is the personal Antichrist (vv. 11-17).
The first is characterized by brute force. It is the political power of those days, and the one to whom Satan "gave... his power, and his seat [throne], and great authority" Chapter 13:2. The second Beast is clearly subordinate to the power of the first (v. 12). It is religious, not political ends he has in view. Religious pretension is supported by the might and strength of apostate Rome; thus the two Beasts act together under their great chief, Satan. The three are jointly worshipped.
The second Beast, or Antichrist, is identical with the false prophet, named three times in chapters 16:13; 19:20; 20:10. The respective heads of the rebellion against Christ in His royal and prophetic rights are two men directly controlled and energized by Satan. It is a kind of trinity of evil. The Dragon has given his external power to the first Beast (Rev. 13:2). To the second he gives his spirit, so that having this spirit it speaks as a dragon (v. 11). Finally, Zechariah refers to the Antichrist as the idol shepherd utterly disregarding the flock (Israel) over whom he assumes royal, priestly and prophetic power. But his boasted authority (his arm) and vaunted intelligence (his right eye) by which his pretensions in the land are supported, are utterly blasted, while personally he is cast alive into the eternal abode of misery, the lake of fire (Zech. 11:15-17; Rev. 19:20).
In our judgment, therefore, the fallen star under the first woe unmistakably designates the Antichrist. To whom else of the apocalyptic personages could the description apply? The spiritual aims and religious pretensions of Satan are supported and enforced by the Antichrist, while his temporal sovereignty on earth is established in the kingdom and person of the Roman prince.
Now the agony here depicted is that of soul and conscience, not bodily anguish. The Antichrist seems the devil's chosen instrument in the infliction of the former, whereas in the latter kind of torment the brute force of the Beast is let loose, indulging itself in scenes of cruelty and bloodshed, tormenting the bodies of men.
W. Scott