Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ANTICHRIST

“Antichrist” and “antichrists” appear in the Bible only in 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7 and are unknown elsewhere in Christian literature before Polycarp in the 2nd century c.e. Yet by the beginning of the 3rd century (e.g., Hippolytus) the expectation of an eschatological Antichrist had become highly developed in Christian theology and has ever remained a topic of intrinsic interest to many Christians. Attempts to identify an individual Antichrist have a long but dismal history.

It is clear that John applied the plural antichrists to those former members of the Christian congregation who had recently departed from the flock (1 John 2:19) under a mantle of false teaching and practice. But because John says very little about the singular Antichrist, the biblical antecedents for this figure are in some dispute.

Many scholars distinguish two major biblical traditions which involve eschatological figures opposed to God and his purposes, one which warns of a political or military persecutor and one of a deceptive influence. For instance, in his Olivet discourse, Jesus spoke both of the appearance of Daniel’s abomination of desolation (Dan. 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; Matt. 24:15 par.) and of the coming of false prophets and false Christs who would deceive, if it were possible, even the elect (Matt. 24:24 par.). Daniel’s “little horn” (Dan. 7:8, 20, 24) seems to presage a figure Paul calls the “lawless one” (2 Thess. 2:3-10), a persecuting foe with self-deifying pretensions. Daniel’s dire expectations of the future are recast again in Rev. 13 as a dreadful beast to arise from the sea, incorporating many of the characteristics of the four beasts of Dan. 7:3-8. But John goes on to describe another Antichrist figure, a second beast, who rises from the land and supports the first beast in his diabolical attacks on the godly. This Earth Beast has the special characteristics of a false prophet (so named in Rev. 16:13; 19:20; 20:10) who deceives with his blasphemous lies. It is not agreed to what extent John’s Antichrist represents only one of these strands or a combination, though from John’s limited description in 1 and 2 John, his Antichrist figure has more in common with the deceiver/false prophet image, for it is associated with a denial of the truth about Jesus Christ (1 John 2:22; 4:1-3; 2 John 7).

Bibliography. G. C. Jenks, The Origins and Early Development of the Antichrist Myth. BZNW 59 (Berlin, 1991); C. E. Hill, “Antichrist from the Tribe of Dan,” JTS n.s. 46 (1995): 99-117.

Charles E. Hill

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ANTICHRIST

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)