THE CHRIST AND THE ANTICHRIST

There are two figures in the Bible who stand in opposition to one another.  They are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and the Anti-Christ, the son of perdition.  Jesus Christ is the Word of God made flesh, the express image of God in human form; the King of righteousness and Prince of Peace; the Savior of the world.  The Antichrist is the man of sin, the manifestation of Satan’s darkest lies and the very image of the devil in human form.  The same spirit of rebellion and lawlessness that resides in Satan will reside in the Antichrist.  His allegiance is to the god of this world and to the prince of the power of the air (the devil).  Through him, Satan will try to drown mankind in sin and destruction.  It will be the devil’s final effort to reverse God’s plan to redeem man and restore to him the dominion that he lost in the Garden of Eden.

 

God has not chosen to reveal the Antichrist to the world just yet, though you can see his influence all around.  There is a restraining, spiritual force that keeps him hidden from the world.  Once God lifts that restraining influence, He will expose the Antichrist in all his wickedness, and the stage will be set for the final act of the end-time events. 

 

TWO GREAT MYSTERIES

 

The Bible also speaks of two great mysteries.  They are the mystery of godliness and the mystery of iniquity. 

 

Paul describes the mystery of godliness in this way, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16).  This was so great a mystery that the prophets themselves who foretold the Messiah’s coming did not fully grasp God’s plan, and even the angels desired to investigate it more fully (see 1 Peter 1:12). 

 

Consider the following passages of scripture:

 

“For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him.” (Isaiah 64:4; 1 Corinthians 2:9).   

 

“…that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, Who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: in Whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.” (Ephesians 3:8-12).

 

“…even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory…” (Colossians 1:26, 27).

 

“But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Corinthians 2:7, 8).                  

 

God cloaked His wisdom in foolishness, and His power He disguised as weakness.  The powers of darkness thought that by killing the Christ they had gained a great victory.  On the third day after the Roman soldiers sealed Christ in the tomb, however, an earthquake shook the earth, the veil of the Temple was torn from top to bottom, and the spirit of life returned to Him as He arose from the dead.

 

The mystery of iniquity is also a great secret.  Evil lurks in the darkness and not in the light.  It hides in the shadows waiting for its opportunity to strike at the righteous.  Like the tares that Jesus said the devil planted among the wheat, the wicked grow up together undetected until their time (see Matthew 13:36-43).  Judas is a good example of this.  He was one of the original twelve disciples, and he followed the Lord with the others for 3½ years.  He went that long without detection by the other eleven, but something was not right in Judas’ heart.  He appeared like wheat but was really a tare.

 

Paul told the Thessalonians that the mystery of iniquity was already at work (2 Thessalonians 2:7), and John wrote, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” (1 John 2:18).  The spirit of the Antichrist was already working behind the scenes then, in the darkness, undetected, right up to today.  Only the restraining influence of good is preventing the son of perdition from being exposed at present.  That day will end eventually, in God’s time, and then “shall that Wicked be revealed…even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.” (2 Thessalonians 2:8, 9).  The Lord Jesus will then consume the Antichrist with the spirit of His mouth (the power of His Word) and destroy him with the brightness of His coming. 

 

“ALL THIS POWER WILL I GIVE THEE”

 

“And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness…And the devil, taking Him up into an high mountain, shewed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  And the devil said unto Him, All this power will I give Thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.  If Thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be Thine.  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind Me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” (Luke 4:1, 5-8).

 

At the very beginning of His earthly ministry, after John baptized Jesus, He was “…led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil”. (Matthew 4:1).  This was not an accident!  Jesus didn’t take a wrong turn.  The Holy Spirit led him there.  He knew what He was walking into, but Scripture reminds us that even though Jesus was the Son of God, He still had to learn obedience by the things that He suffered (see Hebrews 5:8).  The temptation that Jesus felt wasn’t staged; it was real.  It tried every fiber of His humanness, and Satan was determined to cause Him to stumble.  Jesus is our great high Priest Who feels our infirmities because He, too, was tempted in every way that we are, “yet without sin”. (Hebrews 4:15).  

 

Temptations and tribulations are part of our human experience.  We cannot escape them.  The Apostle Paul wrote that temptation is “…common [or natural] to man…” (see 1 Corinthians 10:13).  James also weighed in on the subject when he wrote that “…every man is tempted…” and “…tribulation worketh patience”.  Christ was tempted and made a partaker of flesh and blood in every way so that He “…might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” (Hebrews 2:14).  He could then show us that we, too, may overcome the devil through faith in our precious Savior.  It is good for us to remember that Christ was all God, but He was also all man!

 

One of the temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness was when Satan took Him to the top of a high mountain and showed Him “…all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time…” saying to Christ, “All this power will I give Thee, and the glory of them.”  The only stipulation that Satan made to close the deal was that Christ worship the devil.  Then, as the devil said, “…all shall be Thine…”.  For one man to obtain power over every earthly kingdom was unprecedented.  With such power a man could command and secure worldwide peace and prosperity.  He could usher in a true golden age for the people of the earth.  Jesus knew, however, that this would be only a counterfeit of the real Kingdom that God promised to His people.  Jesus’ road would not lead to popularity, earthly power, and acclaim, but to rejection, suffering, and death!  “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3).   

 

Jesus refused the devil’s offer saying, “Get thee behind Me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”  The power of the written Word of God was the Lord’s defense.  Even more powerful was the fact that He was the Word of God placed in mortal flesh and sent to dwell among us and show us the way of salvation.  Satan would have to take a back seat – his deal fell flat!

 

Centuries later, the devil will find someone who is willing to make the deal.  In the last days of this age there will arise a man who will seem to come from obscurity (Daniel calls him a “little” horn, meaning of little authority) but will emerge to assume a position of great power over the other kings and leaders of the world. 

 

Concerning the power and glory that the devil offered to Christ, notice that Satan said, “…that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.”  In the beginning it was God’s intention for mankind to have dominion over the world: “What is man, that Thou [God] art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?  For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.  Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet…” (Psalm 8:4-6).  It was mankind’s destiny to rule the earth in righteousness, but Adam relinquished that right when he chose to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  His disobedience allowed sin to taint the image of God that man possessed in the beginning and disqualified him from fulfilling his destiny at that time.

 

Revelation 12 describes Satan as a red dragon with ten horns and seven crowns.  This indicates the kingdoms and powers that he holds dominion over.  In the next chapter, the Beast that rises out of the sea (who is the Antichrist) also has ten horns and seven crowns.  This is an indication that Satan has shared his power with the Beast.  Revelation 13:2 tells us as much: “…and the dragon gave him [the Beast] his power, and his seat, and great authority”.  The Beast, at this point,  has clearly accepted the deal that Satan tried to make with Jesus. 

 

We see a contrast between Jesus, Who is the Christ, and the one that scripture calls the Beast, who is the Anti-Christ (meaning against Christ, or in opposition to Christ).  In Christ Jesus, God has manifested Himself in flesh and blood.  “God was manifest in the flesh…” (1 Timothy 3:16).  Jesus became the express image of His heavenly Father.  “Who being…the express image of His [God’s] person…” (Hebrews 1:3).  Satan, on the other hand, seeks to counterfeit God’s plan with a grand deception.  He seeks to manifest his evil power in flesh and blood by causing the Antichrist to yield to his wicked lies.  He will sprinkle just enough truth in with his falsehoods to mislead those who are foolish and ignorant of the truth.  The Beast will become the express image of Satan himself, choosing to follow the devil’s evil intentions.  Paul described this Beast in 1 Thessalonians 2:9 and 10 when he wrote, “Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”

 

Satan’s greatest tactic is to camouflage himself in religion: a wolf parading in sheepskin.  The Jews in Jesus’ day were convinced that they were doing the will of the heavenly Father.  But the Lord called them out and told them, “I speak that which I have seen with My Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father…Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:38; 44).  The Apostle Paul was also deceived by false religion.  Before his conversion, Paul rounded up Christians to have them imprisoned and martyred for their faith, and he thought that he was doing God a service!  Religion, no matter how devout and no matter how popular, if it is based solely on works and commandments and not on the transformative power of Christ in us, is a mere counterfeit and cannot save you.   

 

The Antichrist “…opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (see 2 Thessalonians 2:4).  Tragically, many people will be deceived and accept him as the Christ and his appearing as the Second Coming.  You see, Satan is trying to mimic God’s plan by sending this false Christ to establish a false kingdom and mankind will once more take a bite of the apple.  “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” (1 Timothy 4:1, 2).

 

The mystery of godliness is one that God has chosen to hide from the world but make known to all those who truly love Him.  St. Paul wrote, “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:26, 27).  Yes, Christ has come to dwell in our mortal flesh through the Holy Spirit.  The transformative power of the Holy Spirit in our lives is what gives us hope.  It is no longer a matter of our trying to change ourselves from the outside in, but Christ changing us from the inside out.  There are those who have made an intellectual decision to profess Christianity but have never come to understand the necessity of surrendering their life and their will to Christ and choosing to follow Him.  Jesus said, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.  And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.  I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:15-18).  

 

John called out the deceivers of the world and even identified them when he wrote, “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.  This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” (2 John 1:7).  And in 1 John 4:2, 3 the Apostle said, “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 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.” In this case, it is not what our mouth confesses that is important, but what our spirit confesses.  John is saying that there are those who will confess with their mouth that they are Christians, but whose spirit and fruits do not reflect the presence of the Lord Jesus operating in their flesh.  This is the spirit of the antichrist that is already in the world but will manifest itself as the Beast in the end time.  Then shall the wicked be revealed.  There will no longer be a cloak of religion to hide behind.  Every lie that the devil has spun will be exposed by the light of truth.  Every wolf will be stripped of its sheep’s clothing.  God will judge the great Whore of Revelation along with all her harlot daughters (Revelation 17).  “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father.” (Matthew 13:43).