The History of the Ages – Lesson 26
At the rapture, in a moment of time, all those in Christ will be taken from the earth. Soon, people will start figuring it out and will begin coming to Christ through the awakening mentioned in the last lesson (Joel 2, Acts 2). As we will see in coming lessons, this awakening will anger the godless, rebellious majority and they will try to destroy all who seek God’s deliverance – so many will be martyred during this time.
Following the rapture, the next notable event is the rise of the antichrist. There must necessarily be several lessons on the antichrist to learn what we can about him (the extent of his power and his kingdom). Then, because of his activities during the tribulation period, we’ll see him mentioned in many of the lessons to come.
The term “antichrist” is only found in I John 2:18, 22, 4:3 and II John 1:7. The meaning of the term is clear. The preposition anti in antichristos means, against or in opposition to. In Revelation 13:1 the antichrist is called “the beast” and is described as a powerful political leader. This “beast” is also found in the Book of Daniel (we’ll look at this later). There is “another beast” mentioned in Revelation 13:11, not to be confused with the first beast. This second beast allies himself with the antichrist and becomes the religious leader of the latter part of the tribulation period (this is the false prophet and I’ll talk about him later).
As we saw in the last lesson, II Thessalonians 2:3-12 talks about the coming of antichrist. I’ll just list some facts about the antichrist found in this passage.
- He is called the “man of sin” (verse 3), or in some manuscripts, “the man of lawlessness”. This lawlessness is defined earlier in the verse by the words “a falling away”, translated from the word apostasia. This word does not describe believers who would depart from the faith, but those who would always reject Christ. In this verse Paul is describing the antichrist as the one who would lead this widespread apostasy or rejection of Christ.
- The antichrist is called the “son of perdition” (verse 3). Here, “perdition” is from apoleia and means, loss, ruin or destruction. It usually refers to one’s condition following death. In this case, as it refers to the antichrist, it is the absolute exclusion from salvation or eternal deliverance. The antichrist is doomed to eternal ruin as the reward for his opposition to Christ.
- He will openly oppose God, will promote or elevate himself above God or anything or anyone else that is worshipped, will establish the worship of himself in the future Jewish temple that will be rebuilt in Jerusalem (this also later from the Book of Daniel) and eventually will claim to be God (all in verse 4).
- There is a “mystery of iniquity” (verse 7) at work in the world preparing for the coming of the antichrist. This musterion anomia is literally a “hidden rebellion against the authority of God”. Paul says this rebellion is “already at work”, as does John in I John 2:18, 4:3. It is this rebellion against God’s authority that finds its full expression under the leadership of the antichrist. And we will see that the purpose of the tribulation period is to judge and destroy this rebellion.
- When “the wicked” (actually this is anomos and should be translated “the lawless”) is “revealed” (this is apokalupto, a word that describes something that has been hidden, but is now exposed to open view) he will live until the 2nd coming of Christ, will lead the armies fighting against God into the battle of Armageddon and will be killed by Christ (verse 8, Revelation 19:19-21).
- The antichrist will be Satan’s representative (his coming is “after the working of Satan” in verse 9) and will display miraculous powers. There are three things described. The first is “all power” translated from hapas dunamis. Hapas is a strengthened form of pas. Pas means “all”; hapas means “the whole” or “the fullness”. Dunamis is “ability, dominion or authority”. In other words, the antichrist will possess complete authority over the natural world giving him the ability to perform miracles in an unlimited or unrestricted way. The second is “signs” from the word semeion. Although it is translated “sign”, the emphasis of this word is not the act or miracle itself, but what the miracle indicates regarding the one who performed it (in this case, the ability of the antichrist to perform miracles is assumed to be proof that he has God’s approval, thus many are deceived). And the third is “lying wonders” from teras psuedos. These are literally, “startling or amazing events that are calculated to deceive”.
- In verse 10 we find the term “all deceivableness of unrighteousness” translated from apate (meaning, “that which gives a false impression”) and adikia (unrighteous). Taken together, these two words in context describe the unlimited scope of the things done by both men and demons working together to deceive those who will be destroyed because they reject truth.
In the next lesson we’ll look at the extent of antichrist’s power and kingdom and I’ll explain why it is not worldwide.
