THE POPULAR ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLE PROPHECY
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ANTICHRIST  Part I

BIBLICAL PROPHECIES CLEARLY predict the rise of the Antichrist in the end times and more than 100 passages of Scripture describe the Antichrist’s origin, nationality, character, career, and global conquest. The term Antichrist may be applied both to an individual and to the system he represents. Interestingly, the term Antichrist (antichristos  in the Greek) appears only in 1 John 2:18-22; 4:3; and 2 John 7. The apostle John uses it both in the singular (“the antichrist”) and in the plural (“many antichrists”). John indicates that his readers have already heard that the Antichrist is coming in the future. Then he surprises them by announcing that many antichrists have already come. He describes these lesser antichrists as liars who deny that Jesus is the Christ (2:22). In this sense, an antichrist is any false teacher who denies the person and work of Jesus Christ. Such teachers are truly anti (against) Christ. In 1 John 4:1-3, John warns us to test the spirits to make sure they are from God. He warns that many false prophets (pseudo prophets in the Greek) have “gone out into the world.” These are the people who do not acknowledge that Jesus is from God. In this sense, John announces that the “spirit of the antichrist…is already in the world.” 

SPIRIT OF THE ANTICHRIST 

In this broad sense, we can say with certainty that the spirit of the Antichrist is already at work. This anti-Christian spirit does everything it can to reject, deny, and undermine the truth about Jesus Christ. This spirit has been at work since the first century A.D., actively opposing the work of Christ on earth. The biblical writers undoubtedly believed the spirit of the Antichrist was alive and well in the first century A.D. Therefore, they were not surprised by opposition to Christianity, persecution, and even martyrdom. They were convinced that the spiritual war between Christ and Antichrist had already begun. Numerous early Christian references to the Antichrist are included in the Apocalypse of Peter, the Didache, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the Pseudo-Titus Epistle, as well as in the writings of various church fathers, such as Irenaeus, Jerome, and Hippolytus. Irenaeus, who studied under Polycarp, who was discipled by the apostle John, said the Antichrist shall come as “an apostate,” the very embodiment of  “satanic apostasy.” From the very beginning of the Christian era, believers were convinced that a world ruler who was the embodiment of Satan would eventually come on the scene. Revelation 12–13 presents an “unholy trinity” that aligns Satan (vs. the Father), the Antichrist (vs. the Son), and the False Prophet (vs. the Holy Spirit). Thus, the real power behind the Antichrist is Satan. The “father of lies” is the source of the lie that will condemn multitudes to divine judgment (2 Thessalonians 2:11).