Who is Antichrist?
Is there just one Antichrist?
1 John 4:1-3 says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every (sic.) spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.” Taken from the comprehensive full-color, Holman Study Bible NKJV (New King James Version) Edition.
To answer these questions, we first have to consider who Jesus Christ was. New Age gurus profess that Jesus Christ is none other than a Master, a holy man; and that God is in you and me, and in the frog and the tree. While God does manifest and experience through all of his Creation, Jesus Christ proved himself to be both fully human and fully divine.
Some religions downgrade Jesus to only being the Son of God, not one and the same as God His Father. They try to put human understanding of the words “Father” and “Son” on the divine concept of the Trinity. Therefore, since the human view of “Father” and “Son” involve two different people, humanly speaking, they then wrongly assume that there is no Trinity either.
An article by Stephen J. Wellum included in the Holman Study NKJV highlights the humanity and Deity of Jesus in Scripture as follows:
“The Humanity and Deity of Jesus in Scripture
… Scripture affirms that the man Christ Jesus is also the eternal Son of God and thus God equal with the Father and Spirit. From the opening pages of the NT, Jesus is identified as the Lord: the one who establishes the divine rule and inaugurates the new covenant era in fulfillment of OT expectation – something only God can do (e.g., Is.9:6-7; 11:1-10; Jeri.31:31-34; Ezek. 34). That is why Jesus’ miracles are not merely human acts empowered by the Spirit of God; rather they are demonstrations of His own divine authority over nature (e.g., Matt.8:23-27; 14:22-23 – My notice* here shows that verse 23 does not prove the point, but verse 25 does), Satan and his hosts (Matt. 12:27-28), and all things (Eph. 1:9-10, 19-23). Because He is God the Son, Jesus has the authority to forgive sin (Mark2:3-12), call Himself the fulfillment of Scripture (Matt. 5:17-19; 11:13), view His relationship with the Father as one of equality and reciprocity (Matt. 11:25-27; John 5:16-30; 10:14-30 – My notice* here in verse 30 says, “I and My Father are one.”), and do the very works of God in creation, providence, and redemption (John 1:1-18 – My notice* here in verse 1 says ” … and the Word was God. Some Bible seek to diminish Jesus by adding the article “a” and diminishing “God” to “a god” … The New World Translation of the Holy Bible says ” … “and the Word was a god.”); Phil. 2:6-11 – My notice* here in verse 6 actually begins in verse 5 “Let this mind be in you which was also on Christ Jesus, who, BEING IN THE FORM OF GOD DID NOT CONSIDER IT ROBBERY TO BE EAUAL TO GOD …; Col. 1:15-20 – My notice* in verse 15 says, “He is the image of the invisible God…”; Hebrews 1:1-3 – My notice* in verse 3 says, “… who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person …”).”
Wellum also notes that “the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451), affirmed that we cannot do justice to Scripture without confessing that Jesus of Nazareth was fully God and fully man. God the Son, who gave personal identity to the human nature He had assumed and did so without putting aside or compromising His divine nature, must be confessed as one person who now exists in two natures. Additionally, Chalcedon affirmed that we must not think that the incarnation involved a change in the natures of each property so that some kind of blending resulted which was neither divine nor human, as the Eutychians wrongly affirmed. Rather, we must affirm that the properties of each nature (human and divine) were preserved so that Jesus is all that God is in all His perfections and all that we humans are except in terms of sin.”
Can you and I do the miracles that Jesus did, even though we come to realize that the very breath of God lives inside of each one of us? I think not.
Others among us claim there is no God at all. This is understandable since faith is a gift apparently not given to everyone. Free will is involved. If and when any human asks for God to come into his or her life, at that moment, God will begin to be included into that person’s life. A measure of faith, not doubt, is involved. We must move past egoism and ridicule for this to happen. Acting on faith in God is the beginning, or a recommitment to walking through life with God as a loving, guiding partner. The thing is, we ought to try it before we make fun of it, or deny it.
Now another point to consider about who Jesus is comes from two different scriptures in the Book of Revelation. Centuries of debates among numerous religions that have taken a stand on who Jesus is, or was to their way of thinking.
Let us read directly from these two scriptures in Revelation 21:6 and Revelation 22:13.
In Revelation 21:6 God is called the “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end . . . I shall be His God and He shall be My Son.” But Jesus is called the “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” in Revelation 22:13. How can Jesus and God the Father of Jesus both be the “Alpha and the Omega?”
We need to ask ourselves if this means that God had a “beginning,” because arche is used to describe Him. Here arche means “the source of all being.” Jesus is the source of the creation of God because he is the creator of all things. John 1:1-3 says Jesus (the Word) created “all things . . . and without Him was made nothing that was made.”
Going by the words of Revelation, we can clearly see that Jesus is of God. Pray on this for deeper understanding and for deeper faith. We have faith in so many things these days. We act in faith with our family and fiends, our employers and with inanimate things such as our vehicles and technology. We can also act in faith to grow or deepen our belief system.
But if we come to the point of saying there is no God, or that Jesus Christ is not of God, then this person and/or situation is Antichrist. Antichrist is not one person, place or thing that denies that Jesus Christ is of God. Rather, Antichrist is any and everything that denies that Jesus Christ is of God.
*My notice is mentioned amid the quotes and are not included specifically as stated by Wellum, although my emphasis is included within the quotes.
God Bless