Antichrist / Man of Lawlessness Who Is He?

The Antichrist or Man of Lawlessness - Who Is HeThe Antichrist or Man of Lawlessness – Who Is He?

I sometimes sit and wonder who the antichrist is, could it be the Pope Francis, or is Pope Francis the false prophet and Barack Hussein Obama the Antichrist.  Then it dawned on me, the best way to know who it will be is to go and search the scriptures to see what the bible has to say on the matter.

The antichrist is an end times (eschatological) person who will appear to the world at the start of the Tribulation and deceive countless numbers of people into believing he is The Christ that all religions have waited so long for to bring peace to the earth.  He is directly associated with Satan (Lucifer), possibly possessed by Satan and he directly opposes Jesus Christ and God.   He will be assisted by the false prophet and fallen angels (demons) in an unholy crusade to take over the world and establish a New World Order where he will be world ruler before the second coming of Jesus Christ.

In the New Testament the bible uses the word antichrist four times in the book of John (1 John 2:18; 1 John 2:22; 1 John 4:3 and 2 John 1:7). And in the Book of Revelation the antichrist is referred to as ‘the beast’.  Paul however does not use the term antichrist, he instead uses the word ‘man of lawlessness’ where he describes an extremely evil man who will stand in direct opposition to God and His Saints.  Paul says regarding the Tribulation (Day of the Lord):

2 Thessalonians 2:3  “3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;”

The Antichrist an Evil Shepherd

In the Old Testament the bible makes reference to the antichrist not as the antichrist or man of lawlessness but instead calls him, ‘the little horn’ and the ‘worthless shepherd’.

Daniel 7:8  “8 I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things”

Zechariah 11:17  “17 Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.”

From the above Zechariah verse and the ones found in Revelation 13:2-3, many people believe that the antichrist will be attacked somehow and will incur a head wound that will be ‘deadly’.

Revelation 13:2-3   “2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.  3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.”

Antichrist Rises from the Dead?

Satan of course needs to imitate Jesus Christ in order to deceive the world. The antichrist with the help of Satan will be supposedly ‘raised from the dead’.

The phrase “wounded to death” appears nowhere else in the Bible. As such it tells us that something vastly extraordinary is going to happen during the time these verses describe. It will be a time no one has ever witnessed before in the entire history of humankind. A single man will accomplish what no man has accomplished before. He is going to mesmerize the entire world to wonder (“thaumazoÌ”) after him”.

Dictators like Hitler and Stalin managed to muster millions of people who followed them to the hilt but never before has the entire world population marveled over a person like this. Indeed, Satan is going to empower this man to accomplished this great feat. The question is, how?

Some say the Antichrist is actually going to die due to a fatal head wound and that Satan himself is going to infuse him with new life when he enters his body (total possession).

Revelation 17:8  “8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.”

The immediate question we need to ask is whether Satan has the power to give a corpse life. Is he capable of resurrecting a cadaver?

According to Revelation 11:11 the Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of life” and only those who have his Holy Spirit (i.e. are saved) shall be raised from the dead in the same way He raised Jesus Christ from amongst the dead (Romans 8:11).  Satan, on the other hand, can do nothing else except to kill, murder and lie (John 8:44; John 10:10). There is no life in him, only death, destruction, mayhem and confusion.  Had he been able to raise the dead to life he would have been equal to God who is the only Fountain of life (Psalm 36:9). Only God can give, preserve and resurrect to life the dead  because He is the essence of life.

It follows that the words “wounded to death” must mean something else than the actual demise of Antichrist. Wounds are usually self-inflicted or they are inflicted by someone else whose intention it is to kill, like an assassin. However, I don’t think the Antichrist will be a masochist whose desire it will be to die and inflict his own head wound. His great ego will prevent him from doing a thing like that. It may well be that the Antichrist’s head wound will seem to be fatal and doctors who examine him are probably going to give him no chance whatsoever to survive.  He might be even presumed dead, but is not dead at all. To be certified dead, there needs to be no brain activity what-so-ever.  There are many people who have been presumed dead, taken a so called trip to Heaven and then apparently come back to life.  The fact is they were not entirely dead to start off with, the soul had not left their body, their ‘trip to heaven’ was an outer body experience after which they came back to life.

Enter Satan, whom we all know is capable of performing miracles. He is going to heal the Antichrist’s fatal wound so that it may appear he raised him from the dead. Satan is a past master at mimicking and imitating God and his miracles. This will probably be his Oscar winning miracle because the entire world is going to marvel and wonder after the Antichrist because of this so called great miracle. My own take on this is that the world will not recognize the miracle as that of Satan and actually believe that Antichrist overcame death by his own miraculous “resurrection” of his own accord.

After this ‘miracle’ has taken place, the marks of his wounds that he sustained from the attack will remain.  This is a sign that he is not Jesus Christ and it was not Jesus Christ that healed him.   When Satan heals his healing and miracles are incomplete (see article:  Can Satan Heal?) and because of this the antichrist will be blind in his right eye and he his left arm will be withered.

What is the Spirit of the Antichirst?

The word antichrist is used to describe the most evil man in history that is to come and will rule the world for a short time, but it also describes a spiritual condition.  It describes all those who are against God as having an antichrist spirit.

1 John 2:18-22  “18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.  19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.  20 But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.  21 I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.  22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.”

The bible says that anyone who does not confess Jesus Christ are of the spirit of the antichrist,

1 John 4:3  “3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”

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Deborah (Discerning the World)

Deborah Ellish is the author of the above article. Discerning the World is an internet Christian Ministry based in Johannesburg South Africa. Tom Lessing and Deborah Ellish both own Discerning the World. For more information see the About this Website page below the comments section.

46 Responses

  1. Sibusiso Cele says:

    Dear people, no no no the antichrist thing is close but it is not it. I will make a research and come back, because this has nothing to do with a person but a system of government, ofcourse headed by a person.

  2. We need to dig deep in this antichrist thing or else we will drive other people astray. We will never understand the antichrist thing until we use the bible and history to get clear understanding. The bible talks about the beasts(Daniel7:3) and what are beasts?, Verse 17 has the answer.

    These four beast/kingdoms are
    1. Babylon lead by king Nebuchadnezzar(1:1) and later by Belshazzar (5:2)
    2. Medes and Persian, I think this kingdom was lead by king Darius and king Cyrus( 6:28).
    3. Greece lead by king Alexander(shown by a he goat with a horn,Daniel chapter 8:5) who when he died his kingdom was taken and divided by his four generals(8:8)
    4. The bible seems to jump the kingdom of Rome/ Roman Empire and talks about the antichrist(the little horn of verse 9 of chapter 8).

    Let’s consider Verse 7,8 of chapter 7. The beast that has ten horns(Rome/Roman Empire, what are horns?, Verse 24 has the answer. The little horn arise among the ten horns/ten European kingdoms/ nations of Roman Empire. So, the Antichrist arise from the Roman Empire among the ten European nations and he himself is sort of a king.
    I hope this explanation helped though some part of it is still left.

    Now the geographical part of the antichrist is sorted, he will come in Europe. So he can’t be Obama or any one else from anywhere other than Europe. We are left with two questions. Who and how he will arise?

    And I will come back for that.

  3. Sibu

    Sometimes I don’t think it’s Obama and sometimes I do.

  4. Sibusisi Cele,

    When Jesus warned the Israelite against Antichrist, He referred to “him” (a man) and not an “it” (a system).

    I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him [Antichrist] ye will receive. (John 5:43)

    In the book of Daniel he is also referred to as a man and not a system per se.

    And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he [Antichrist] shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he [Antichrist] shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. (Dan 9:26-27)

  5. Joe says:

    Definitely a man. Rev 13 is quite clear on that.

    Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

  6. When the Pope comes to visit Obama in September, do you think they will do a parade in a car and one or the other receives a head wound from a gun shot? *just thinking out loud*

  7. Joe says:

    If that were to happen then I guess that Obama would have to take the bullet because it would mean that the pope is the false prophet.

  8. Ann says:

    God brought the land up out of the sea, and made man from the earth. That’s in Genesis.

    In Revelation 13 the first beast rises up out of the sea, and the second rises up out of the earth. The first beast is not a man, the second beast is.

    The first beast is the worldwide empire that will be controlled by the second beast…the false prophet who is the Antichrist. Look at the way scripture describes him: two horns like a lamb but the speech of a dragon. The Antichrist will appear as a savior to the world a false Christ, thus the appearance of a lamb but his speech will betray his true origins. The false prophet causes us to worship the first beast because it would rather belie his seeming humility and modesty to ask us to worship himself.

    As to empires with deadly wounds, consider communism, and more specifically communist Russia. How many thought the soviet union was dead? And yet we see it rising again, slowly now but surely and it will speed up as it goes. I forget which Russian writer said that the western world thought of communism as a roaring lion but to Russians it was a dead dog. Turn your atlas or globe so that the Koreas are at the bottom, you’ll see the feet of a bear in two Russian peninsulas.

    With America becoming less trusted and less mighty, and China in alliance with the first beast, who will be like him, and who will be able to make war with him?

    God bless you.

  9. In reply to Ann

    “Antichrist” means “in the place of” and “against.” So, what this means is that the Antichrist will parade as the genuine Christ of the world in order to go against Him. Satan is an imitator. He imitates everything God has accomplished through his Son. Satan wants to turn all God’s work upside down and to do that his false Christ must appear like Christ and also speak like a lamb. Jesus became a man (not a country) and so the Antichrist must also appear as a man who supposedly rose from the dead (deadly wound). The false prophet (probably a future pope in the Roman Catholic Church) will do false miracles and force everyone to worship the Antichrist, a man. If the Antichrist was a country (like Russia) then she would have been the one the false prophet forces everyone to worship. That’s ridiculous. Moreover, the Bible says:

    And the beast Antichrist) was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. (Rev 19:20)

    Here again, if Russia was the beast, then the entire Russian population would have had to be cast into the lake of fire. Are there no saved individuals in Russia? Either you make the whole of Russia the beast or you don’t.

    Here are a few names the Bible gives to Antichrist:

    The bloody and deceitful man (not country or empire) (Psalm 5:6)
    The mighty man (not a country or an empire) (Psalm 52:1)
    The violent man (not country or empire) (Psalm 140:1)
    The man of sin (not country or empire) (2 Thessalonians 2:3)

  10. Fledgling Discerner says:

    Hi Deborah

    What do you think of the following site’s article which concludes that Judas is the antichrist?
    https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/real-reason-judas-hung-himself-antichrist/

    My understanding has been that Judas hanged himself from remorse. :wonder:

  11. Hi Fledgling Discerner. The site of which you sent us the link are full of doctrinal discrepancies which I will not go into now. Our main topic is Judas. Will he be the Antichrist? Well, think of it this way. In Acts we read the following, “And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.” (Acts 1:24-25). It simply means that he went to a place suitable for his treacherous deeds. It cannot be heaven, so it must be hell, the same place the rich man went to after his death (Luke 16:19-31). Jesus Himself said of Judas, “The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.” (Matthew 26:24). I don’t think Jesus would have said this of Judas if He knew he would go to heaven.

    For Judas to be the Antichrist he will have to be resurrected from hell back to earth. There is not a single place in Scripture where we see unbelievers coming back from the dead (hell). Only some believers were resurrected for a certain time and then died again. At any rate, having seen that Judas is in the same place where the rich man is, the words must apply to Judas as well, “And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.” (Luke 16:26). They cannot come back to earth.

  12. Deborah (Discerning the World) says:

    Hi Fledgling Discerner :hi:

    NowtheEndBegins website is actually a Calvinist website. I mention this site on our FB group.
    As Tom said, for Judus to be the antichrist that would mean he can be resurrected. But the Bible is clear that once you die you cannot come back. The same goes for those you say that Nero is the antichrist – once again Nero is in hell and cannot return, ever, either.

  13. Fledgling Discerner says:

    Thanks Tom and Deborah for the responses. :thumbsup:

    Deborah, I don’t spend much time on Facebook so haven’t seen the group you mentioned. I came across the NTEB site when following some news headlines posted elsewhere.

    I would like to ask whether the mark of the beast might possibly be some sort of voluntary spiritual worship of the beast, or is it just additional deception? (See John 4:24.)

    I cannot think of any other reason so serious, that would cause God to pronounce what I understand to be an eternal sentence of punishment in Rev 14. :confused:

    John 4:24 “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

    “Rev 14: 9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, 10The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: 11And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. 12Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”

  14. Ngau says:

    Thanks for all the sharing. What is your idea/interpretation of the beast with number 666?

  15. Deborah (Discerning the World) says:

    Hi Fledgling

    Please read article on unforgivable sin here: https://www.discerningtheworld.com/2017/04/21/unforgivable-sin/

    I believe the mark of the beast is a tattoo of sorts, that contains a microchip… I say it’s a tattoo because it can be on your right hand or your forehead. It will be a visible mark and it will be a pledge of allegiance to the man of lawlessness – it has everything to do with worship. Those who pledge their allegiance to the antichrist have no intention of ever repenting.

  16. Hi Ngau. We do not know precisely what the mark of the beast will be. Some say the mark 666 is a presentation of what Satan has been trying to achieve all along, and that is to be like God and receive the worship which is due to God alone. We read of this in Isaiah 14:12-15. The number seven represents fullness, perfection, completeness and is said to be God’s number. 6 is man’s number and Satan will try to be like God by using the incomplete repetition off 666 to copy the trinity. As such, it will be Satan (god the false father), the false prophet (false holy spirit) and the Antichrist (false Christ). 666 can never reach the number 7. It will always remain subservient to God Almighty.

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