Antichrist is coming.

For some reason, probably because of the freedom God has built into the creation, good almost always has its opponents. Whether it be Pharaoh at the time of the exodus or the high priest when Jesus was on earth, there is almost always a bad guy in the story. The Bible is full of them.

As we saw in the previous chapter, the archetypal bad guy in the key passages in Daniel turns out to be a Syrian king named Antiochus Epiphanes. He is the one who, in 175 BC, deposes the anointed high priest and puts his own favorite in charge of Israel (Dan. 9:26). It is he who in 167 BC puts an end to the sacrifice and offering (Dan. 9:37). He defiles the temple with a "desolating abomination" (Dan. 11:31). He offers a pig on the altar and constructs an altar to Zeus in the temple. Some three years later, the temple was purified and restored (164 BC). 

In other words, the prophecies of Daniel were initially fulfilled even before the time of Christ, including its prophecies about a "desolater." There was already a secondary fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem (Mark 13:14). Who knows, perhaps there will be a third fulfillment in the end times. There wouldn't need to be. We'll find out.

Antichrists

2. There's a good chance that you have heard of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is the archetypal opponent of Christ and Christianity. The term itself comes from 1 John 2.
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"Little children, it is the last hour, and just as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now, many antichrists have arisen. Thus we know it is the last hour." (1 John 2:18)

"Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son." (2:22)

"Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard that it was coming and is already in the world"  (4:3)

"Many deceivers have gone out into the world that are not confessing that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist" (2 John 1:7)
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Because of the noise in our heads from other passages and contemporary debates, we can easily overread these passages. If we can bracket those other voices out and listen to these passages in context, none of them are necessarily referring to an individual person. In fact, the lead-off verse in 1 John 2:18 says that many antichrists are here, not a single figure. 

There is also no "the" on the word antichrist in 2:18. In Greek, that doesn't mean that we should put the word "an" in front -- "an antichrist is coming." It may simply say that opposition to Christ is a predictable element in the equation.  

The very next verse hints at who John the elder actually had in mind. It is a group that had split off from John's church (2:19). 2 John 1:7 suggests that they were early Gnostics who denied that Jesus had come to earth in the flesh (cf. 1 John 4:2). We call this group "Docetists" because they thought Jesus only seemed to be human. [1] They may have been Jewish since they seem to have acknowledged God the Father but denied Jesus the Son (1 John 2:22).

The bottom line is that the antichrists of 1 and 2 John are not primarily an end times figure like the Antichrist we have heard of. There will always be antichrists in the world. Opposition to Christ is always coming. Ironically, the passages from which we get the name "Antichrist" are not primarily about the Antichrist.

Now, John may allude to teaching about an Antichrist. When he says, "You have heard antichrist is coming," he may be alluding to teaching in the church about an archetypal opponent to Christ. It is possible. He may allude to some of the other teachings we will examine in this chapter. But in general, he was referring to some of the Gnostic resistance to a proper understanding of Jesus that existed in the late first century in certain church circles.

Bottom line: 1 John does not clearly refer to an end-times figure known as the Antichrist. It could allude to such teaching, but its primary concern was a group in the late first-century church who opposed a proper understanding of Jesus.

The Man of Lawlessness

3. One of the most enigmatic passages in the Bible is 2 Thessalonians 2. It mentions a "man of lawlessness" who opposes God. He would certainly qualify as an antichrist, although the word is not used of him here.
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[The Day of the Lord will not come] unless the apostasy should come first, and the man of lawlessness should be revealed, the son of destruction. [He is] the one who opposes and exalts himself against everything called "God" or any object of worship. Accordingly, he seats himself in the temple of God trying to demonstrate that he is God. Don't you remember that I was telling you about these things while I was still around?

And you know what is restraining him now so that he might be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already working -- [there is] only the one restraining until he should be out of the midst. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the Spirit of his mouth, and he will destroy with the appearance of his arrival.

The arrival of [the lawless one] is accompanied by the working of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders and with all the deceit of unrighteousness to those who are perishing because they did not receive the love of the truth so that they might be saved. So God sends on them the working of delusion that they might believe in the lie.

2 Thess. 2:3-11
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This is a difficult passage because nothing is said of the temple being destroyed (still less of it being reconstructed). The most natural way to think of this prediction is thus that it relates to Paul's own day and to the time before the temple was destroyed.

It is also very cryptic like there is code language here in case someone would read the letter. "You know," but the letter doesn't say. "Didn't I already talk about this when I was with you?" Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. This secret quality of the letter again reinforces a sense that it is about events that were unfolding at the time of writing.

As we have said repeatedly, that does not mean that it cannot be about the end times as well. Paul can be inspired to say more than he knows he is saying. But in his mind, something in his own time was likely going on.

What or who was keeping the man of lawlessness from fully emerging? Again, the language is very cryptic. No answer seems completely satisfying. The Holy Spirit is both a "what" (the Greek word for spirit is neuter) and a "who" (the Holy Spirit is a person), but it is not clear how the Spirit would ever be taken out of the way.

One theory is that the reference is to Paul himself. A self-reference might explain the cryptic nature of those comments. "You know what is keeping him from unleashing" (that is, me). "But when he is taken out of the way" (that is, me), he will come full on. 

4. The dating of 2 Thessalonians is often considered straightforward. The standard answer is that 2 Thessalonians was written at about the same time as 1 Thessalonians, around AD 50-52. Perhaps Paul writes 1 Thessalonians to explain the resurrection. Then some overreact and think the Day of the Lord has already happened.

However, there is nothing we know about at the time that fits the secretive nature of 2 Thessalonians. For example, there seems to be concern that its message be authenticated. Paul's signature is emphasized at the end (2 Thess. 3:17). There is also a strong parallel between the beginning of the letter and the beginning of 1 Thessalonians. Some have even suggested it has been copied.

For these reasons, I have hypothesized that the real context of 2 Thessalonians is in the last days of Paul before he was put to death by Nero. [2] This would put it in the range of AD 62 to 68. Some have suggested that 2 Thessalonians was "pseudonymous," written under Paul's name. If that were the case, we would still imagine it written soon after his death, when he would have been taken "out of the way."

As we will see in the rest of this chapter, the image of Nero as an antichrist figure, even if the word antichrist is not used, seems to be a major part of the imagery of Revelation as well. So it would be in keeping with this strand of New Testament thinking if 2 Thessalonians also had Nero in mind.

The imagery of 2 Thessalonians 2 also fits the tone and flavor of Mark 13. For example, both talk about signs and wonders accompanying false messiahs. They both suggest that there will be those who are deceived among the people of God. A context of the Jewish War -- which overlapped with Nero's rule -- would make some sense of these comments. 2 Thessalonians then, like Mark 13, would pertain to the lead-up to the temple's destruction ("sets up in the temple as God").

The bottom line is that Paul had some figure in his own day in mind and that the temple to which he refers was the temple that was standing at that time. More on the temple in the next chapter. Is it possible that there will be another man of lawlessness in the end times, even another temple? Far be it from me to say that there will not be. 

My point in this book is more to indicate that most of the prophecies that are part of the dispensationalist approach already had fulfillments in biblical times. God can do whatever he wants in the future. We'll know that when it comes. But these prophecies had a great deal to do with their own times. 

The Beasts of Revelation

5. [The chapter continues...]

[1] The Greek word dokeo means to "seem."

[2] See my Explanatory Notes on 1 and 2 Thessalonians (Marion: Independently Published, 2020).