The Antichrist's identity?

[Josh]

Who is the Antichrist? He who says that Jesus is not the Christ.

Revelation is highly symbolic. The “man of lawlessness” is likely not an actual person, but rather represents the drive to lawlessness present in each of us.

[JimFoxvog]

Who is the Antichrist? He who says that Jesus is not the Christ.

Revelation is highly symbolic. The “man of lawlessness” is likely not an actual person, but rather represents the drive to lawlessness present in each of us.

I agree, but the “man of lawlessness” is Paul's term in Thessalonians. Antichrist is John's term. Revelation speaks of a "beast". Many people think they are all the same.

[Valerie]

Who is the Antichrist? He who says that Jesus is not the Christ.

Revelation is highly symbolic. The “man of lawlessness” is likely not an actual person, but rather represents the drive to lawlessness present in each of us.

I agree, but the “man of lawlessness” is Paul's term in Thessalonians. Antichrist is John's term. Revelation speaks of a "beast". Many people think they are all the same.

Absolutely- and you read about him in the book of Daniel as well- it was understood to be 'one' man in Daniel, Jeremiah, and the New Testament passages, albeit there is also a spirit of the antichrist- but perhaps it will be easier to deceive people if they do not know the truth about him. The early church writers and fathers of the faith seemed to understand this better than people today-

[Neto]

One conclusion I have come to is that most of those tagged with this name don't qualify under the Biblical criteria, because they are enemies of Israel, the Jews in general, or sometimes of Christians as well. (Hitler, Stalin, etc.) That person will be at first a friend to Israel, then later turn on them. This is only an opinion, but it seems to me that if you want to pick him out of a lineup, better be looking at people who are friendly to Israel (or Christians, depending on your response to other Biblical questions), but whose faith or convictions appear to be shallow or merely politically convenient.

[gcdonner]

Antichrists from my lifetime (that I remember):

• Any Pope
  Obama
  Reagan
  Kissinger
  Gorbachev
  JFK
  Juan Carlos of Spain
  Javier Solana of the EU
  Prince Charles

This Antichrist picking feels like a similar end-time exercise to picking the date of Christ's return, and represents an abuse of prophetic Scripture. At the end of the day, the rubbish heap of false prophets just continues to pile up.

Let's have our lamp's trimmed and ready, and be about the work of the Kingdom - if we are faithful, I'm confident we will know what we need to know at the appointed time. He will never leave us or forsake us - to the very end of the age.

This then is the problem, we are all looking for THE anti-christ in our time. If we were more concerned with biblical reasoning we would come to the same conclusion that the early church came to, that indeed Nero was THE anti-christ, but that also misses some of the point doesn't it, since John said that there were "many anti-christs"...

[gcdonner]

Who is the Antichrist? He who says that Jesus is not the Christ.

Revelation is highly symbolic. The “man of lawlessness” is likely not an actual person, but rather represents the drive to lawlessness present in each of us.

I agree, but the “man of lawlessness” is Paul's term in Thessalonians. Antichrist is John's term. Revelation speaks of a "beast". Many people think they are all the same.

Those terms are different because they refer to different things and/or people. They are not synonymous. John uses the term several times in his epistles, but never in the Revelation...did you ever wonder why? 2 possibilities come to mind, it was a different John who wrote the Revelation from the one who wrote the epistles or the author wasn't referring to the same personage(s). Paul's definition of the man of lawlessness is not the same as the definition of the antichrist given by John, they are different entities. Popular, modern eschatology has amalgamated them erroneously, IMO.

[Aaron]

This is a BIG kettle of fish!
........
Then, scratching my head, wondering, what is the Anabaptist view?
.......
could you help me understand what “Catholic,(not Roman)” means?

There are apparently many different Anabaptist / Mennonite/ other views.

The true followers of Jesus hold the same view as Jesus, eventually anyway (it may take time). As written - we have the thoughts of Jesus, we have the mind of Christ.

Some views today try to get false teachings accepted and to get themselves not rejected by claiming to be catholic as if "universal", not roman catholic, but that usually pans out to not make any difference when pursued, tested, questioned or even just watched for a few days.

[Ken]

It goes both ways. This is a common meme on lefty facebook and twitter



Personally I tend to agree with Josh. It's symbolic and represents the forces of evil in society. Not one particular individual. To the extent that everyone has evil impulses of some sort there would literally be millions of antichrists. It's really about us, not some outside malevolent force manipulating human events like a puppet master.

[Valerie]

In my Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs (David Bercot) "The" Antichrist (as opposed to antichrists) was taught to come from the Tribe of Dan. The 2000 yr old Orthodox Christian Church still hold to that understanding. Now, that's interesting when you consider where the tribe of Dan ended up. But if "He" comes from Tribe of Dan by lineage, it's easy to rule alot of speculations out. The Scriptures teach about Him for a reason, but not to obsess about it. I think that the passages that convey the world will be deceived causes Christians to have legitimate concerns for others.

[Moses]

In my Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs (David Bercot) "The" Antichrist (as opposed to antichrists) was taught to come from the Tribe of Dan. The 2000 yr old Orthodox Christian Church still hold to that understanding. Now, that's interesting when you consider where the tribe of Dan ended up. But if "He" comes from Tribe of Dan by lineage, it's easy to rule alot of speculations out. The Scriptures teach about Him for a reason, but not to obsess about it. I think that the passages that convey the world will be deceived causes Christians to have legitimate concerns for others.

President-elect Donald J. Trump is descended from German and Scottish ancestors.
A closer look at his antecedents, sentiments, and actions indicates the strong possibility
of both Hebrew and Jewish ancestry.