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"Anti-Christ"
Wikipedia
The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, is a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner. The antichrist will seemingly provide for the needs of the people but deny the ultimate salvation.
The term "antichrist" appears five times in 1 John and 2 John of the New Testament — once in plural form and four times in the singular.[1] The Apostle Paul's Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, in particular the 2nd chapter, summarizes the nature, work, coming, and revelation of the "Man of Sin" - a passage often regarded as referring to same person as the antichrist of 1 and 2 John.
Etymology
"Antichrist" is the English translation of the original Koine Greek ἀντίχριστος, pronounced än-tē'-khrē-stos. It is made up of two root words, αντί + Χριστός (anti + Christos). "Αντί" can mean not only “against” and “opposite of”, but also “in place of",[2] "Χριστός", translated "Christ", is Greek for the Hebrew "Messiah" meaning "anointed," and refers to Jesus of Nazareth[3]within Christian theology.
[edit]New Testament
The words antichrist and antichrists appear four times in the First and Second Epistle of John.[4][5][6][7] The word is not capitalized in most English translations of the Bible, including the original King James Version. 1 John chapter 2 refers to many antichrists present at the time while warning of one Antichrist that is coming.[8] The "many antichrists" belong to the same spirit as that of the one Antichrist.[6][8] John wrote that such antichrists deny "that Jesus is the Christ", "the Father and the Son", and would "not confess Jesus came in the flesh.": a probable reference to the Gnostic claim that Jesus was not human, but only a spirit.
Terms
Some commentators, both ancient and modern, identify the Man of Sin in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 as the Antichrist, even though they vary greatly in who they view the Antichrist to be.[9] They argue that Paul uses the term "Man of Sin" (sometimes translated son of perdition or man of lawlessness) to describe what John identifies as the Antichrist.[10]
Paul writes that this Man of Sin will possess a number of characteristics. These include "sitting in the temple", opposing himself against anything that is worshiped, claiming divine authority,[11] working all kinds of counterfeit miracles and signs,[12] and doing all kinds of evil.[13] Paul notes that "the mystery of lawlessness"[14] (though not the Man of Sin himself) was working in secret already during his day and will continue to function until being destroyed on the Last Day.[15] His identity is to be revealed after that which is restraining him is removed.[16][15]
The term is also sometimes applied to prophecies regarding a "Little horn" power in Daniel 7.[17] Daniel 9:27 mentions an "abomination that causes desolations" setting itself up in a "wing" or a "pinnacle" of the temple.[18] Some scholars interpret this as referring to the Antichrist.[19] Some commentators also view the verses prior to this as referring to the Antichrist.[20] Jesus references the abomination from Daniel 9:27, 11:31,[21] and 12:11[22] in Matthew 24:15[23] and Mark 13:14[24] when he warns about the destruction of Jerusalem. Daniel 11:36-37[25] speaks of a self exalting king, considered by some to be the Antichrist.[26]
[edit]Other entities
Bernard McGinn described multiple traditions detailing the relationship between the Antichrist and Satan. In the dualist approach, Satan will become incarnate in the Antichrist, just as God became incarnate in Jesus. However, in orthodox Christian thought, this view was problematic because it was too similar to Christ's incarnation. Instead, the "indwelling" view became more accepted. It stipulates that the Antichrist is a human figure inhabited by Satan, since the latter’s power is not to be seen as equivalent to God’s.[27]
Several American evangelical and fundamentalist theologians, including Cyrus Scofield, have identified the Antichrist as being in league with (or the same as) several figures in the Book of Revelation including the Dragon, the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Whore of Babylon.[28] Others, for example, Rob Bell, reject the identification of the Antichrist with any one person or group. They believe a loving Christ would not view anyone as an enemy.[29] Technically seen the antichrist is John's prophecy of an other religion that would spring up out of the old one, exactly and explicitly negating what Christ in the perception of christians is. As John said: He who does not believe Christ came into the flesh as Son of God, is the antichrist.
[edit]Jewish antecedents
Anti-messiahs are referred to in some Jewish writings in the period 500 BC–50 AD, and this is thought to be the precursor of the concept of the Antichrist in Christian writing. Bernard McGinn conjectures that the concept may have been generated by the frustration of Jews subject to often-capricious Seleucid or Roman rule, who found the idea of Satan insufficiently humanised and personalised to be a satisfactory incarnation of evil and threat.[27]
Armilus is an anti-messiah figure from late period Jewish eschatology. He is described as bald, partially maimed, and partially deaf.[30]
[EDIT]PROTESTANT REFORMERS
Many Protestant reformers, including Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, John Knox, and Cotton Mather, identified the Roman Papacy as the Antichrist.[31] The Centuriators ofMagdeburg, a group of Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg headed by Matthias Flacius, wrote the 12-volume "Magdeburg Centuries" to discredit the papacy and identify the pope as the Antichrist. The fifth round of talks in the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue notes,
- In calling the pope the "antichrist," the early Lutherans stood in a tradition that reached back into the eleventh century. Not only dissidents and heretics but even saints had called the bishop of Rome the "antichrist" when they wished to castigate his abuse of power.[32]
William Tyndale, an English Protestant reformer, held that while the Roman Catholic realms of that age were the empire of Antichrist, any religious organization that distorted the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments also showed the work of Antichrist. In his treatise The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, he expressly rejected the established Church teaching that looked to the future for an Antichrist to rise up, and he taught that Antichrist is a present spiritual force that will be with us until the end of the age under different religious disguises from time to time.[33] Tyndale's translation of 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, concerning the "man of sin" reflected his understanding, but was significantly amended by later revisers, including theKing James Bible committee.[34]
[EDIT]OLD BELIEVERS
After the reforms of Patriarch Nikon to the Russian Orthodox Church of 1652, a large number of Old Believers held that czar Peter the Great was the Antichrist[35] because of his treatment of the Orthodox Church, namely subordinating the church to the state, requiring clergymen to conform to the standards of all Russian civilians (shaved beards, being fluent in French), and requiring them to pay state taxes.
[EDIT]COUNTER-REFORMATION
The view of Futurism, a product of the Counter-Reformation, was advanced beginning in the 16th century in response to the identification of the Papacy as Antichrist. Francisco Ribera, aJesuit priest, developed this theory in In Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, & Evangelistiae Apocalypsin Commentarij, his 1585 treatise on the Apocalypse of John. St. Bellarmine codified this view, giving in full the Catholic theory set forth by the Greek and Latin Fathers, of a personal Antichrist to come just before the end of the world and to be accepted by the Jews and enthroned in the temple at Jerusalem — thus endeavoring to dispose of the exposition which saw Antichrist in the pope. Most premillennial dispensationalists now accept Bellarmine's interpretation in modified form.[citation needed] Widespread Protestant identification of the Papacy as the Antichrist persisted in the USA until the early 1900s when the Scofield Reference Bible was published by Cyrus Scofield. This commentary promoted Futurism, causing a decline in the Protestant identification of the Papacy as Antichrist.
Some US Futurists hold that sometime prior to the expected return of Jesus, there will be a period of "great tribulation"[36] during which the Antichrist, indwelt and controlled by Satan, will attempt to win supporters with false peace, supernatural signs. He will silence all that defy him by refusing to "receive his mark" on their right hands or forehead. This "mark" will be required to legally partake in the end-time economic system.[37] Some Futurists believe that the Antichrist will be assassinated half way through the Tribulation, being revived and indwelt by Satan. The Antichrist will continue on for three and a half years following this "deadly wound".[38]
[EDIT]ENLIGHTENMENT
Bernard McGinn noted that complete denial of the Antichrist was rare until the Enlightenment. Following frequent use of "Antichrist" laden rhetoric during religious controversies in the 17th century, the use of the concept declined in the 18th century. Subsequent eighteenth-century efforts to cleanse Christianity of “legendary” or “folk” accretions effectively removed the Antichrist from discussion in mainstream Western churches.[27]
[EDIT]BOOK OF MORMON
In Mormonism, the term anti-Christ refers to those who deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, deny the Gospel, and oppose his faith. "It is a word used by John to describe one who would assume the guise of Christ, but in reality would be opposed to Christ (1 John 2: 18, 22; 1 John 4: 3-6; 2 John 1: 7)." In a broader sense Mormons believe that the anti-Christ, "is anyone or anything that counterfeits the true gospel or plan of salvation and that openly or secretly is set up in opposition to Christ. The great antichrist is Lucifer, but he has many assistants both as spirit beings and as mortals." (Book of Mormon: Jacob 7: 1-23, Alma 1: 2-16, Alma 30: 6-60) [39]
[EDIT]WESTERN CHURCH–PRE-REFORMATION
Archbishop Arnulf of Rheims disagreed with the policies and morals of Pope John XV. He expressed his views while presiding over the Council of Reims in A.D. 991. Arnulf accused John XV of being the Antichrist while also using the 2 Thessalonians passage about the Man of Sin, saying, "Surely, if he is empty of charity and filled with vain knowledge and lifted up, he is Antichrist sitting in God's temple and showing himself as God." This incident is history's earliest record of anyone identifying a pope with the Antichrist (See Antichrist (historicism)).[40]
Pope Gregory VII (c. 1015 or 29 - 1085), struggled against, in his own words, "a robber of temples, a perjurer against the Holy Roman Church, notorious throughout the whole Roman world for the basest of crimes, namely, Wilbert, plunderer of the holy church of Ravenna, Antichrist, and archeritic."[41]
Cardinal Benno, on the opposite side of the Investiture Controversy, wrote long descriptions of abuses committed by Gregory VII, including necromancy, torture of a former friend upon a bed of nails, commissioning an attempted assassination, executions without trials, unjust excommunication, doubting the Real Presence in the Eucharist, and even burning it.[42] Benno held that Gregory VII was “either a member of Antichrist, or Antichrist himself.”[43]
Eberhard II von Truchsees, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg in 1241 at the Council of Regensburg denounced Pope Gregory IX as "that man of perdition, whom they call Antichrist, who in his extravagant boasting says, I am God, I cannot err."[44] He argued that the ten kingdoms that the Antichrist is involved with[45] were the "Turks, Greeks, Egyptians, Africans, Spaniards, French, English, Germans, Sicilians, and Italians who now occupy the provinces of Rome."[46] He held that the papacy was the "little horn" of Daniel 7:8:[47]
A little horn has grown up with eyes and mouth speaking great things, which is reducing three of these kingdoms--i.e. Sicily, Italy, and Germany--to subserviency, is persecuting the people of Christ and the saints of God with intolerable opposition, is confounding things human and divine, and is attempting things unutterable, execrable.[46]
[EDIT]ISLAM
Masih Ad-Dajjal (Arabic: الدّجّال, literally "The Deceiving Messiah"), is an evil figure in Islamic eschatology. He is to appear pretending to be The Masih (Messiah), Isa (Jesus) at a time in the future, before Yawm al-Qiyamah (The Day of Resurrection, Judgment Day). It is also believed by Muslims that Isa will return at the time of the Dajjal and Isa will be the one to eventually defeat the Dajjal.
[EDIT]THEOSOPHY
In the Alice A. Bailey material, Theosophist Alice A. Bailey asserts that World War II was a cosmic conflict between good and evil. The Masters of the Wisdom, representing the Forces of Light, were on the side of the Allies; the Dark Forces were on the side of the Axis. According to Bailey, Adolf Hitler was possessed by the Dark Forces.[48] With the defeat of the axis by the allies in 1945, the stage was set for the appearance of Maitreya to inaugurate the New Age. Alice A. Bailey's follower Benjamin Creme claims to be the one called to prepare the way for this to happen, and that it is possible that it could happen because Adolf Hitler was the Anti-Christ and he was defeated in World War II.
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