Men Of Lawlessness

The Antichrist Of Hollywood

When a person hears “antichrist” they may draw to mind any number of pop-culture images, from slick men in suits to babies born by dark rituals. Many believe that the name itself means there will be a man who in every way is “like” Christ but somehow opposite. Some expect this to mean the antichrist must be born of a virgin.

As believers, we shouldn’t allow every fantastical imagining of the world to influence our understanding of scripture. Rather, we should focus on what God has revealed to us in scripture and understand the term as it is found there.

John’s Antichrist

The word antichrist is found in the epistles from John. The church was expecting an antichrist to come, and that coming to lead to the end of the age.

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

1 John 2:18

However, even in acknowledging this understanding, he points out that this is not an entirely unique type of man, but rather than many antichrists had already come at their time. He identifies everyone who knows and understands but denies the truth that Jesus is the Christ (including apostates) as those antichrists.

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

1 John 2:19

Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

1 John 2:22-23

Later, in chapter 4, while warning the church to watch out for deceptive spirits, he again contends that there is a spirit of antichrist at work in men in their time which leads men to deny Jesus.

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

1 John 4:2-3

The church to which John was writing was expecting a future revelation of an antichrist, and John is telling them that they need only look around. They were surrounded by antichrists, and likely knew at least some of them personally! Further, they must be discerning to avoid being deceived by them, because they would attempt to turn people away from following Christ’s commands and, ultimately, to deny him as well.

And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.

2 John 1:6-8

Spirit of Lawlessness

People may notice a lot of similarity between what John called the antichrist spirit and what Paul describes as the spirit of lawlessness in his second epistle to the church in Thessalonica. Like the antichrist, there is an expectation of the man of lawlessness coming shortly before the return of Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:3).

Also like the antichrist spirit we see that the spirit of this lawless one is already at work at the time of the letter, albeit in a muted way.

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

2 Thessalonians 2:7

While he is primarily focused upon the revelation of a specific man of lawlessness prior to the return of Christ, he also wants the church to be aware of the spirit of lawlessness that has been at work in the world since the early church.

I’ll note here that it is reasonable to take the description of this man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 and notice the similarities to the king described here:

He shall pay no attention to the gods of his fathers, or to the one beloved by women. He shall not pay attention to any other god, for he shall magnify himself above all.

Daniel 11:37

There is also a great deal to be said about the similarities between the man of lawlessness and the first of the two beasts mentioned in Revelation 13.

Already Here

While there’s a lot of controversy around the understand of this end times personification of this spirit, and all of the various ways the world focuses on him, I believe the church would benefit a great deal from learning what these texts teach about the antichrist/lawless spirit at work now.

This spirit will lead men to deny not only Christ, but also set themselves up as gods over any other god or object of worship as well. Because of this, they attempt to deceive even Christ’s church into believing that it is not important or good to obey Christ’s commands.

The modern Satanist movement, with it’s elevation of self as the supreme being of ones life and denial of Christ certainly follows this spirit. However, these attitudes slip their way into everyday life in seemingly mundane ways as well. From Secular Humanism to Proceduralism, there are many ideas that are widely accepted today which teach man that he is the author of law rather than God.

How often have we heard the idea that obedience to Christ is an optional addition to the faith, against what our Lord explicitly taught (which is that loving him is equivalent to obedience [John 14:21])? This deception encourages service to lawlessness!

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

1 John 3:4

It is easy to call out the errors of our past, where others have practiced discernment on our behalf. It is also easy to believe ourselves watchmen who are prepared to spot some future evil based on the too-easy-to-spot caricature we have made in our minds or observed on silver screens.

However, it is discernment in the moment that is the most difficult to practice. All the deceptions of our present age are designed specifically to cloud the matters we wrestle with right now. The certainty that we’ll “see it when it comes” convinces us there’s no concern now because evil doesn’t often look the way we imagine. All the social pressure is against speaking out when we do recognize evil because it would be divisive.

Keep the lessons of history in mind, but we must become a church that obeys Christ’s commands and practices discernment of spirits NOW! Otherwise, future generations will not have the benefit of our discernment to look back on.