I can still remember the fear instilled in me as a child, when I heard one preacher declare that Antichrist was then living somewhere in the Middle East, probably still a child playing stickball in some crowded dusty street, awaiting the day when he would be possessed by the devil and allowed to wreak havoc on the world after the rapture. Others have tabbed, at one time or another, virtually every leader of the Soviet Union, the Middle East, and the European Economic Community as possibilities to become the archenemy of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps no subject broached by contemporary Bible prophecy teachers engenders more speculation and less sound Biblical exegesis than does the subject of Antichrist. Such speculation has gone on almost from the beginning of Christianity. Irenaeus (130-200) argued that the Antichrist would be a Jewish born, satanically inspired, usurper of God’s true glory, who would appear in the Jerusalem temple in connection with an end-times great apostasy.^[1]

The Protestant Reformers, of course, universally identified the papacy with the Antichrist. Rome, not to be outdone, has returned the favor, contending that antichristic Protestant “heresies have swept down from the North, where Calvin, Wycliffe, Luther and legions of Protestants are ravaging the flock of Christ.”^[2]

I can still remember the fear instilled in me as a child, when I heard one preacher declare that Antichrist was then living somewhere in the Middle East, probably still a child playing stickball in some crowded dusty street, awaiting the day when he would be possessed by the devil and allowed to wreak havoc on the world after the rapture. Others have tabbed, at one time or another, virtually every leader of the Soviet Union, the Middle East, and the European Economic Community as possibilities to become the archenemy of Jesus Christ.^[3]

I am sure that many of you can identify with these prophetic schemes. But is this really what the Bible says about the Antichrist? While it may come as a surprise to many, there are only four texts in Scripture (all in John’s first two epistles: 1 Jn 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 Jn 7) where the term “antichrist” is actually used.^[4] John’s four texts set out a markedly different understanding of Antichrist than that given us by contemporary prophecy “experts.” Therefore, it is most helpful to review them.

Based on these texts, there are three critical points to be made related to John’s treatment of the Antichrist.

1.  John argues that the Antichrist is not some mysterious individual who is only and finally revealed in the last days.

In fact, John says just the opposite. Whatever (or whoever) the Antichrist is, it (or he or she as the case may be) was already present at the time of John’s writing. John expressly states that the spirit of Antichrist, “even now is already in the world” (1 Jn 4:3b). As B. B. Warfield points out, “John makes this assertion with the utmost emphasis. This thing, he says ‘is now in the world already.'”^[5] John instead describes him as a foe already existing when the epistle was written.

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