How To Identify Antichrist
by Steven Dow
1 John 2:18-23
October 28, 2001
INTRODUCTION:
There is much speculation today about whether or not we are living in the end times. Such speculation has been on the rise for the last fifty plus years. It started back in 1948 when Israel became a nation once again and many began to teach that this was the sign that those who saw it were the last generation. Such end times speculation increased as the new millennium approached and the whole Y2K episode only added more fuel to an already raging fire. After the new millennium came uneventfully the speculation may have died down a bit only to be revived in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
It would be very easy to answer this speculation if it weren’t for the fact that so many people who are asking questions about the end times don’t really know what they are asking. When people ask me if I think we are living in the end times what they are really asking is if we are going to see Jesus come back in our lifetime. That is a question that know one can answer with certainty because Jesus told us that we could not know the day or the hour of his return. And, contrary to some speculation, we can’t know the year or the month or the week either.
The question about whether or not we are living in the end times is very easy to answer. The answer is yes. This is an absolute fact and there is no doubt about it. You see, the Bible teaches us that the end times began nearly two thousand years ago when Christ came to earth and that these end times will continue until he returns to earth again. This is why John could say, almost two thousand years ago, that he and his readers were living in the last hour. Obviously, John wasn’t speaking of a literal sixty minute hour. In the New Testament the “last times” or the “last days” or the “last hour” are all references to the last era of human history -- the Christian era. The Christian era is the end time because there is not going to be another era before Christ returns to establish his kingdom on the earth. We are not waiting for another revelation from heaven. A third testament will never be written. We are not waiting for the coming of a great prophet to lead us into yet another dispensation of God’s grace. The Christian era is the last era and, therefore, it is the end times. This is the clear teaching of the New Testament in passages such as Hebrews 1:1 which says, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these LAST DAYS he has spoken to us by his Son” and 1 Peter 1:20 which says, “He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these LAST TIMES for your sake”.
The Bible also teaches us that one of the chief characteristics of the last days is the presence of false teachers. “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:1-2). Because of the presence of these false teachers or antichrists we know that it is the end times (2:18).
The term ‘antichrist’ is unique to John’s epistles. In 2 Thessalonians 2:3 the antichrist is called “the man of lawlessness” and in Revelation 13 he is identified as “the beast”. But what does this term mean? In the Greek “anti” can mean either “in the place of” or “in opposition to”. In the scriptures we find that both of these meanings will be true of the antichrist. “He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4). This verse reveals that when the antichrist comes he will both oppose God and set himself up in place of God. The antichrists do the same things because they come in the spirit of the antichrist. “This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world” (4:3). The antichrist has not come yet, but his spirit has been actively working in the world through false teachers since the first century.
Why is John writing about these antichrist? “I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth” (2:21). John knew that his readers knew the truth, but he also knew that the antichrists were trying to lead them astray (2:26). Even though Christians know the truth they can still potentially be lead astray and so John has written to true believers to make sure that they remain true to the faith. John knew that if he wanted his readers to be on guard against antichrists he would need to tell them how to recognize an antichrist.
A Biblical Profile of an Antichrist
I. An Antichrist is a Separatist
The antichrists broke away from the true church and established their own religious communities. “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us” (2:19). By breaking away from the true church they proved that they weren’t true Christians. However, we must remember that not every one who leaves the church leaves the church. People can leave this church without leaving the true church, which is the body of Christ. We recognize that the true church is not our church only or even our denomination only, but the complete body of true believers in Jesus Christ where ever they may be found. Anytime a Bible teacher, church, or denomination breaks away from the orthodox church and proclaims themselves to be the only true church they have become antichrists. You don’t have to study cults for long to discover that their leaders do exactly what the antichrists of John’s day did. They gather their followers into communities, isolate them from the outside world, and try to influence more and more people with their teaching. Often times they claim an exalted status for themselves such messiah or prophet and by doing so they are setting themselves up “in the place of” God. Anytime that you see any or all of these things happening you need to be aware that these people are actually antichrists no matter how nice they seem.
The spirit of antichrist is actively influencing the culture of our day in many ways. One of them runs along the lines of this separatism. Just as these cult leaders and false teachers have an over inflated view of their own importance so do many people today. This spirit manifests itself in pride, egotism, and individualism. We are fast becoming a society of individuals whose primary concern is for themselves only. A poll was taken of churchgoers that showed that a majority of them believed that their primary concern in life was not for God, family, or church, but for themselves. We are a culture whose values are seriously out of whack because we have been influenced by the spirit of antichrist. The Spirit of Christ is exactly the opposite of this spirit. The Spirit of Christ is a spirit of humility and concern for the needs of others. The Bible tells us that we are supposed to consider the needs of others as being more important than our own needs.
II. An Antichrist is a Liar.
Antichrists are liars (2:22) and this clearly aligns them with their father the devil: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). The antichrists build their following based on lies and deceit. They get people to follow them by telling them whatever they want to hear. The antichrists are the New Testament version of the Old Testament false prophet of whom Micah wrote: “If a liar and deceiver comes and says, ‘I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,’ he would be just the prophet for this people” (Micah 2:11)! In other words, the people wanted a prophet like this because he told them what they wanted to hear whether it was the truth or not. People like this are another hallmark of the end times. “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3). This has always been true of false teachers and cult leaders who deceive people into following them by lying to them and telling them what they want to hear.
This practice of the antichrists is just the opposite of what Jesus practiced in his ministry. Jesus always told people the truth whether they wanted to hear it or not. In fact, Jesus was more interested in telling the truth than in developing a following. Now I’m sure that Jesus wanted everyone to follow him because the Bible tells us that God wants everyone to be saved, but he wasn’t willing to sacrifice the truth in order to get that following. One day a rich, young ruler came to Jesus and asked what he would have to do in order to have eternal life. Jesus told him that he needed to obey the commandments and when he heard this the rich, young ruler was happy. He told Jesus that he had kept the commandments since childhood. Then Jesus told him that he needed to sell all that he had and give it to the poor and then come and follow him. When the man heard that he was sad because he couldn’t bring himself to give up all of his possessions and so he went away and didn’t follow Jesus. Now let’s think about that for a minute. If all Jesus was interested in was gathering a following this would have been the perfect guy to get. Why? Because he followed the commandments and that probably meant that he was also a tither. This young man was a rich tither. If you are looking to start a following who better to recruit than a rich tither? But Jesus wasn’t interested in getting a following just for the sake of having a following and feeling important. Jesus told him the truth even though he didn’t want to hear it. This is the Spirit of Christ -- the spirit of truth.
III. An Antichrist is a Heretic.
An antichrist is a heretic. What is a heretic? A heretic is someone who holds to unorthodox beliefs. In other words, his theology is wrong. John could probably have brought out many false teachings of the antichrists but he chose to focus on one in particular -- Christology. Christology is the study of Christ. Their doctrine of Christ was seriously warped. Specifically they were guilty of denying that Jesus was the Christ. “Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist -- he denies the Father and the Son” (2:22). This christology was a form of gnostic teaching. You see, the gnostics believed in the man Jesus and they believed in the divine Christ, but they didn’t believe that the man Jesus was the divine Christ. They believed that the divine Christ came upon the man Jesus temporarily and that the Christ left Jesus just before the crucifixion. What they were doing was denying the full incarnation as John wrote in verse seven of his second epistle: “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.”
By denying the Son in this way they were also guilty of denying the Father. “No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (2:23). John also records many statement of Jesus in his Gospel that support this. Jesus said: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30); “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9); and “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). If there was a town that had only one road leading into it, you could not get to that town if you refused to take that road. Clearly there is no way to get to the Father if one insists on rejecting the only way that leads to the Father. Such is the dilemma of the antichrists.
We learn from this that doctrine really does matter after all. It has been popular since the sixties for some to say that they don’t get caught up in doctrine, they just love Jesus. But that kind of an attitude simply will not do. The Bible says: “Watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Timothy 4:16). Paul says that we are to watch our life and doctrine closely because life and doctrine are closely tied together. You simply cannot live a genuine Christian life if your doctrine of Christ is heresy. You cannot be saved if your doctrine of salvation is wrong. Doctrine is very, very important and so we need to know what we believe and why we believe it. How can we know if what a particular teacher is saying is true or not? The only effective was to recognize false teaching is to be familiar with the truth. For example, if you know that the Bible teaches that Jesus was both God and man and you hear a teacher saying that
Jesus was just a good teacher then you immediately know that this teacher is a false teacher. This is why it is vitally important for you to be in God’s word every day. You need to read, study, and memorize God’s word so that when you come face to face with heresy you will be able to recognize it, refute it, and reject it.
PastorSteve Dow
Heritage Wesleyan Church
www.forministry.com/80909hwc
heritagewesleyan@hotmail.com
Please email me if you use this sermon or a revision of it in your church or ministry. Thank you.
