Will the Real Antichrist Please Stand up?
It wasn’t my original plan to write about the End Times in the Forlorn series. I was writing a YA fantasy series about spiritual warfare. But then something happened—maybe it was divine intervention. Maybe it was 2020. At any rate, the books have taken a sharp turn toward Armageddon. Consequently, I’ve had to do quite a bit of new research on eschatology, which is the study of End Times theology.
And it turns out you can’t have an End Times without an Antichrist. I had to figure out a way to put an Antichrist figure in my books that made sense with the story as it was already written and didn’t depart too dramatically from the Bible. If you’ve had a chance to read the Forlorn series so far, you may already know who the Antichrist character is—then again, maybe you don’t.
But who, according to the Bible, is this Antichrist? And will we know him when we see him?
The term “antichrist” is used only five times in the Bible, mostly in 1 and 2 John. In those passages, John is clearly speaking not of a future despotic ruler as we’ve come to think of him, but of certain people who have fallen away from the true faith. Funnily enough, these verses are usually left out of any discussion of the Antichrist.
'Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. 1 John 2:18-19
Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. 1 John 2:22
…but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. 1 John 4:3
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. 2 John 1:7
John doesn’t seem to be talking about a future evil dictator but former believers who no longer confess the return of Jesus Christ. But when we think of the Antichrist, it’s something else entirely. A person of supreme, perhaps even supernatural, power and unimaginable evil. A…beast.
Daniel’s Beast
The Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation refer to a “beast” who will “rise out of the sea” to wreak havoc on the world. (The “sea” is often used as a metaphor for Gentile nations.)
According to Daniel, the beast
Has ten horns (Dan 7:7)
Will “speak words against the Most High and exhaust the holy ones.”
Will rule for three and a half years. (Dan 7:25).
Will come in peace and seize the kingdom by deceitful means. (Dan 11:21).
Will disregard the gods of his fathers and do whatever he wants (Dan 11:36)
Will exalt himself above all gods. (Dan 11:37).
Will make a seven-year covenant with many people (Dan 9:27), but halfway through, will stop the sacrifices and offerings and set up an abomination in the temple. Jesus refers to this event in Matthew:
“So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place ( let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” Matthew 24:15-16
Will succeed “until the doom is completed” (Dan 11:36).
Will “invade countries, sweeping over them like a flood.” (Dan 11:40)
Will invade the “beautiful country” (Israel), and many countries will fall (Dan 11:41).
Sounds pretty beastly to me.
The Man of Lawlessness
Paul uses the terms “man of lawlessness” and “son of destruction” to refer to this future despotic ruler who sounds an awful lot like Daniel’s beast and John’s beast in Revelation.
Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion [apostasy, falling away] comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
Here are some other characteristics of the beast, according to Revelation:
He gets his power from Satan. (Rev 13:2)
He has seven heads. (Rev 13:1) — could this mean there is more than one?
He will rule with ten kings, who will give all their power to him. (Rev 17:12-13)
One of his heads has a mortal wound that was healed. (Rev 13:3)
People will worship him. (Rev 13:4)
He will have total control of the world economy. People must receive his mark (666) on their forehead or hand in order to buy and sell (Rev 13:17-18).
God’s people will not be deceived or worship him. (Rev 13:8)
He was given authority to make war on the saints for 42 months (Rev 13: 5)
Are the two beasts in Daniel and Revelation the same? It would seem so.
Could the Antichrist be a Watcher?
In my novel Forbidden, I hint that the Antichrist might be Azazel, the fallen angel, Jared’s ancestral father.
The beast that you saw was and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction. Those who live on earth, whose names haven’t been written in the scroll of life from the time the earth was made, will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was and is not and will again be present. ' Revelation 17:8
Well, the only creatures in the Abyss are the Watchers. And the Watchers were on earth, then were not (because they were sent to the Abyss) and could possibly escape and return.
The “beast that rises from the Abyss” will also kill two witnesses who prophesy against him (Rev 11:7). Both these verses point to a fallen angel as the beast.
Since the beast has seven heads, it might not be just one individual but several—like the Grigori. And what about that mortal head wound on one of his heads? You’ll see my interpretation of that at the end of Forbidden. If you read the third book, Forgiven, you might remember that Jared believes he himself is the beast. It’s thought that Satan, the power behind the beast and the false prophet, is trying to set up his own Trinity, like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And then there’s Gog
The Gog whom God rebukes in Ezekiel 39 is usually considered a precursor to the Antichrist – a demonic runner-up who sets the stage for Armageddon. But there’s a solid case to be made for this Gog being the Antichrist himself. This Gog will come “out of the uttermost parts of the north” (Ezekiel 38:15) with a mighty army so huge it will be like a “cloud covering the land.”
God comes right out and says who Gog is: “Are you he of whom I spoke in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel, who in those days prophesied for years that I would you against them?” (Ezekiel 38:17)
Here are some other indications that Gog is the Antichrist:
Once Gog is destroyed, God says, “I will not let my holy name be profaned anymore.” (Ezekiel 39:7). We know that the Antichrist did nothing but profane God’s name, so Gog couldn’t be some opening act, but the main event.
God says that once Gog is defeated, “I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment.” (Ezekiel 39:21) That doesn’t happen until Antichrist is defeated.
Not only the nations but “Israel shall know that I am the Lord, their God from that day forward.” (Ezekiel 39:22) This also doesn’t happen until the Antichrist is defeated.
There is a different battle of “Gog and Magog” referred to in Revelation 20 at the end of the Millenium, but that is clearly not the same battle that Ezekiel refers here to since it’s over in like twenty seconds.
Was Hitler the Antichrist?
There have certainly been people in history who fit the description of the Antichrist, and perhaps have what John would have called “the spirit of the antichrist.” Hitler, Antiochus Epiphanes, Nero, Constantine, and even a few popes fit the description. But since we are still in the midst of the spiritual war, I believe the last battle is still to come, and even Hitler, as horrible as he was, won’t be able to hold a candle to the evil of the final beast. Should we be scared? No way. We’ve read the book. We know who wins.
There’s a lot more to the Antichrist which I can’t cover in a short blog post. I highly recommend checking out Frontier Alliance International on YouTube for some great End Times videos.
Gina Detwiler is the author of Forbidden, the Amazon bestselling fourth part of the Forlorn series. She also co-wrote the Prince Warriors series with Priscilla Shirer and wrote The Ultimate Bible Character Guide for Lifeway.
