Studies in Revelation: The Antichrist, the Beast, the Man of Sin, the Ruler of the People to Come

Can we identify anyone now as the antichrist? In a word, no. We might identify an individual as an antichrist, but not the antichrist. There have been many low-level antichrists, as the apostle John tells us:

Dear children, the last hour is here. You have heard that the Antichrist is coming, and already many such antichrists have appeared. From this we know that the last hour has come…And who is a liar? Anyone who says that Jesus is not the Christ. Anyone who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist…But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here. (1 John 2:18,22; 4:3)

The Antichrist is coming, John says, but even now there are antichrists who seek to undermine the truth of who Jesus is and what his gospel is. The prefix, anti, in Greek can mean instead of and/or against. An antichrist can be either or both a substitute for Christ (fill in the blank with people who claim to be a Christ figure) and/or an enemy of Christ (false teachers). The beast of Revelation is absolutely both, viewed as a Christ figure (wounded yet revived, to be worshiped) and perversely against Jesus and his followers.

Daniel 9 tells us that there will be a leader who arises in the timetable of the last seven years of the 490 years that finish this present evil age, and he will make a treaty with Israel for seven years that he breaks midpoint, three and a half years in, putting an end to temple sacrifice with a sacrilegious defilement of the temple.

The ruler will make a treaty with the people for a period of one set of seven, but after half this time, he will put an end to the sacrifices and offerings. And as a climax to all his terrible deeds, he will set up a sacrilegious object that causes desecration, until the fate decreed for this defiler is finally poured out on him. (Daniel 9:27, NLT)

The apostle Paul tells the Thessalonian believers that Christ will not come before…

there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness is revealed—the one who brings destruction. ⁴ He will exalt himself and defy everything that people call god and every object of worship. He will even sit in the temple of God, claiming that he himself is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3,4, NLT)

He is that ruler in Daniel’s prophecy who desecrates the temple by sitting in it and claiming worship as God. This can be none other than the beast of Revelation 13 who is described as having “ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name” and resembling a leopard, a bear, and a lion, with one of his seven heads having a fatal wound that has been healed, waging very successful war, uttering blasphemy, persecuting God’s people, gaining world domination and worship (Revelation 13:1-8). Can an individual human being like Daniel and Paul describe look like animals? No. These are visionary symbols. Like the leopard, bear and lion, the Antichrist is swift and ferocious in his attack. He doesn’t literally have seven heads but has a confederation of ten and seven nations.

From Revelation 11:7 we know he comes from the Abyss (see also 17:8), which I take to mean he is possessed by a demon. He is empowered by Satan (13:4), who is able to give him “authority over every tribe, people, language and nation” (13:7). The Devil’s means of getting authority is through the Antichrist’s war and conquering (6:2). The beast’s ultimate battle is against Babylon (17&18). It is his military conquest, his political power, that gives him the power to require everyone to take his mark, 666, if they desire to buy or sell. Only believers refuse to take the mark (14:11;16:2;19:20;20:4).

We are not given any information as to the origin of the Antichrist, whether he is Jewish or Gentile, where he comes from, anything. All we know is that he is able to make a covenant with Israel for seven years that apparently allows them to rebuild the Temple, since to date there is no temple but there must be one for the Antichrist to defile, and the difficulty of building a temple now seems insurmountable given the political situation in Israel.

The Antichrist will be a voracious persecutor of Christians:

(Of the two witnesses in chapter 11) Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them and overpower and kill them. (Revelation 11:7)

It (the beast) was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. (Revelation 13:7)

Satan is in every way antichrist himself, desiring freedom from God’s authority, desiring worship (Matthew 4:9), and his protégé, the beast from the sea, is no different. He is filled with hatred for the saints and anyone who willingly worships God. He will be what the serpent in the garden was, a vehicle for Satan to try to accomplish Satan’s will.