Friday, November 8, 2019

John's Comments On The Antichrist

Deep concern that this generation might be one of the last before the return of Christ, if not the last, has hindered some of the most conservative evangelicals from maximizing their potential and pursuing legitimate causes.  Anticipating the antichrist, a figure said (according to modern evangelicals) to lead a unified world against Yahweh in the last days, these Christians are prone to unverifiable speculation about the exact years and people to be involved in major eschatological events.

The antichrist is at the core of much of this speculation.  In some cases, each new political candidate in or from a particular region is viewed as if they might soon be the greatest tyrant in history.  However, there is not a single antichrist figure according to 1 John 2:18, which explicitly states that "even now many antichrists have come."  This is because the basic Biblical definition of an antichrist (found in 1 John 4:3 and 2 John 1:7) applies to more than just a single person, much less to the European male many paranoid adherents of eschatology seem to expect.

The presence of many antichrists throughout history does not exclude the possibility of a singular antichrist who appears in a key eschatological period and epitomizes the spirit that defies Yahweh and Jesus, but it does not directly confirm this idea either.  Nothing about a long succession of antichrists inherently foreshadows a supreme antichrist.  1 John 2 is far from specific enough to provide great clarity about eschatology.  Later in 1 John, the emphasis is merely placed on the fact that anyone who misrepresents the nature of Christ is himself or herself an "antichrist."

1 John 4:3 contains such a description of what it calls the spirit of the antichrist, which it states has already manifested in the world.  Again, while nothing about the wording refutes the idea of a supreme antichrist figure in an end times context, it is clear that the spirit of the antichrist is not limited to a being that has yet to be revealed.  The verse is similar to 2 John 1:7, which declares that if a person refuses to acknowledge the fact that the evidence points to the divinity of Christ, he or she is an antichrist, whether or not political power is involved.

Rather than try to fruitlessly identify every male politician associated with Europe who speaks of globalism as if he is potentially the antichrist, Christians need to realize that every individual man and woman who opposes Christ bears the title in question.  Some may do far more to deserve the title than others, but the era of time and geographical location in which a person lives are irrelevant.  Although there may very well be a figure to come who resembles evangelical stereotypes of the antichrist, history is full of antichrists who have already come.

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