Introduction
This editorial is a continuation of my series on the end of all things that will culminate in the final coming of Jesus Christ, who will declare himself judge of the quick and the dead. This coming of Christ is preceded by clear signs that the church can observe and from which signs she can know that the coming of Christ draws near and approaches quickly. These signs are related to the coming of Jesus Christ as cause and effect. Christ always is coming throughout history. His coming is the grand event that defines and effects all history in both the old and new dispensations. When the signs of Christ’s coming take place, then the comfort of the church is that all those signs are under the control of him who is the Lord of lords and the King of kings, who holds in his hands the book of God’s counsel and loosens its seals to carry out the plan of God for the end of all things.
Belonging to those signs of Christ’s coming is a closely related triumvirate of signs: the working of the mystery of iniquity, the coming of apostasy, and the rise of antichrist. I have treated the working of the mystery of iniquity and the coming of apostasy. In this editorial I turn to the rise of antichrist. Antichrist in his final forms is the culmination of apostasy. That apostasy began with Adam in the garden of Eden when in his lust to be God, Adam rebelled against God and departed from God, who was Adam’s life. That apostasy will have its final form in the personal man of sin and in his worldwide kingdom of sin, in which a man will be worshiped as God. Behind that man stands Satan in his history-long rebellion against God. Satan gathers the nations into antichrist’s kingdom, and Satan will give his seat, power, and authority to that antichrist.
The Idea and Definition of Antichrist
When we think about the word antichrist, what usually arises in our minds is a vision of what we call the personal antichrist, that man of sin who will stand at the head of the antichristian world power at the end of time. But in scripture antichrist is a phenomenon as much as an individual. The phenomenon of antichrist has several aspects and includes movements in history and a multitude of individuals. Those movements in history include opposition to Christ by world powers and opposition to Christ by the false church and world religions. The multitude of individuals includes all those who stand in the service of those movements by world powers and false religions to oppose Christ. All this will culminate in the final antichrist, the man of sin, the son of perdition, and his worldwide kingdom.
The word antichrist occurs only in the epistles of the apostle John in the passages that are cited at the beginning of this editorial. The word occurs in both its singular and plural forms: antichrist and antichrists. The prefix anti- in the Greek in connection with the word christ has two basic meanings: opposition to and displacement of. So the idea of the term antichrist is one who stands opposed to Christ and seeks to displace Christ. The old Reformed theologians sometimes referred to antichrist as the ape of Christ, that is, one who in his opposition to Christ and in his desire to displace Christ seeks also to imitate Christ. For instance, the personal antichrist has a time and a coming, and he will work signs and wonders, although he will perform them in the service of and under the power of the lie. Since antichrist no longer can oppose Christ personally, the form of the warfare between Christ and antichrist is the battle between Christ’s church and the world and the false church.
Thus antichrist can be defined as that movement in world history under the influence of the power of Satan to oppose Christ and his kingdom and to set up in this world the kingdom of Satan. Antichrist has three basic aspects: it is a world power; it is a false religion; and it is individuals who labor in those wicked causes.
First, nations and governments throughout history have corrupted the power of the sword and turned it to destroy God’s church, the form of God’s kingdom in the world, and sought to establish themselves as the power in the world. This we may call the antichristian world power. It is a political movement. A significant part of this aspect of antichrist is a history-long effort to unify the nations under the world power by a willing coalition or by a force of arms. This antichristian world power has appeared repeatedly throughout history as nations rise and fall according to the determinate counsel of God. This antichristian world power will have its final form of antichrist at the end of history in the kingdom that will rule over the entire world.
Second, throughout world history there is apostasy from the truth. The result of apostasy is a false church who is the enemy of the true church and who seeks to destroy the true church by means of false doctrine and persecution. The false church often tries to turn the government against the church and to incite the government to use the power of the sword to persecute the church and to destroy her. We may call this the religious aspect of antichrist. Belonging to this aspect of antichrist is a history-long effort to unify the false church and all false religions. The final form of this religious aspect of antichrist will be the unification of the false church and all false religions into a movement that will stand in the service of the worldwide government and cause all men to worship that government and the man who stands at its head.
Third, throughout history there have been individuals who have stood at the head of the antichristian movements or stood in the service of these movements. The Agags, the Pharaohs, the Nebuchadnezzars, the Caesars, the popes, the Hitlers, the Stalins, all their minions, and a whole host of false teachers and false prophets have appeared throughout history. All these men will have their fulfillment and final form in the personal antichrist, who will stand at the head of the final worldwide kingdom and will demand and receive divine worship as though he were God.
In the Old Dispensation
This antichristian kingdom appeared in the Old Testament. It appeared at Babel with the kingdom of Nimrod, whose kingdom was a deliberate act of rebellion against the authority of Noah and Seth and the command of God to spread out over the earth. Through Nimrod’s leadership and force of personality, the people sought to build a tower that reached unto heaven. It was at Babel where God confounded the one language of men and made Nimrod’s dream impossible for the time being. This act of God the apostle John refers to in Revelation 13:
1. I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
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. (vv. 1–3)
That deadly wound was at Babel and the confounding of the language of men. At the end of time, that deadly wound will be healed, so that “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea” (Rev. 20:7–8). This refers to the gathering of the nations into the kingdom of antichrist at the end of time.
God’s confounding the language at Babel did not diminish Nimrod’s lust for power. Immediately after God had confounded the language and put an end to Nimrod’s efforts to unify the people in a willing coalition, Nimrod went out to establish an empire by force of arms:
8. Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
9. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.
10. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. (Gen. 10:8–10)
The great continuation of Nimrod’s dream was Babylon, at the head of which stood Nebuchadnezzar. Babylon was succeeded first by the Medes and Persians, then by the Greco-Macedonian kingdom of Alexander, then by Rome, and finally by the amalgamation of nations in the Christian West. All this was shown to Nebuchadnezzar in his dream of the metallic man:
31. Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.
32. This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
33. His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
34. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
35. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. (Dan. 2:31–35)
In deliberate rebellion against the word of God in his dream—that Nebuchadnezzar was only a head of gold and that his kingdom would have an end and be replaced by a kingdom of silver—Nebuchadnezzar made an all-gold replica of the image, thereby signifying that his kingdom would endure. By demanding worship of that image, and thus demanding worship of himself and his kingdom, Nebuchadnezzar rebelled also against the main point of the vision—that the kingdoms of man will be smashed to smithereens by the kingdom of God and thus that God is God and man is not God.
In his visions recorded in chapter 7, the prophet Daniel saw the foreshadowing of the future worldwide kingdom of antichrist in the rise of four different kingdoms pictured as four different beasts that thrust themselves to prominence out of the tumultuous sea of nations:
2. Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.
3. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
4. The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.
5. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.
6. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.
7. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
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. (Dan. 7:2–8)
Later Daniel revealed that these four beasts are four kings and their kingdoms that oppose God, his saints, and his kingdom:
17. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.
18. But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.
23. Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
24. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
25. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. (Dan. 7:17–18, 23–25)
These four kingdoms, then, are old-dispensational, typical manifestations of the final kingdom of antichrist that shall arise at the end of time after the gospel has gone to the ends of the earth.
In the First Vision of Revelation 13
The imagery of Daniel is picked up in Revelation 13:1–10 in John’s vision of antichrist as a world power and the beast that arises out of the sea. I will focus on this vision for the main details about antichrist as a world power.
The vision that John sees on the seashore reveals to us a terrible beast. John sees this beast as he begins to rise out of the sea. John describes the beast as he emerges from the sea. First, John sees the seven heads pushing out of the sea, and on those heads are seven horns, and on the horns are ten crowns. The horns are indicative of the beast’s power, and the crowns indicate his royal rule and authority.
John also sees that on the heads of the beast is the name of blasphemy, or a blasphemous name. And the beast carries into action his blasphemous reputation because he speaks great blasphemies against God, God’s tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. That the beast’s name is blasphemy means that he is blasphemy incarnate, its culmination, and its final and greatest form.
This beast emerges out of the stormy and turbulent sea. The sea stands symbolically for the sea of nations. This is clear from a number of passages of scripture. For instance, Isaiah 57:20: “The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.” Decisive is Revelation 17:15: “The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” That the waters are depicted as a sea shows that the nations are under and develop under the principle of sin and the dominion of Satan. This sea is windswept, roaring, and raging; out of this foaming sea, the beast comes.
As the beast pushes his heads clear of the foaming and roaring waves, John sees clearly the beast’s terrible body. He is a composite beast, a mixture of beasts. He has the dappled coat of a leopard covering his body, the sturdy feet of a bear, and the tawny mouth of a lion.
John sees that the dragon gives his power, seat, and great authority to this terrible beast. Sitting behind this beast, influencing and controlling this beast, are the power, seat, and authority of the great red dragon, who is Satan, that old serpent.
As this beast stands clear of the water, John notices that one of the beast’s heads appears to have been smitten to death and that this deadly wound is now healed.
Revelation 13:1–10 is a vision of antichrist particularly as a world power headed by its king. He is a beast, a great and wild beast who is a great power in the world. The book of Daniel gives the definitive answer regarding what this beast represents. He is a movement and a power that take the form of a great kingdom in the world. In Daniel 7:23 the fourth beast that Daniel saw was a kingdom. Thus the beast in Revelation 13 represents a kingdom, a great power in the world.
The form that this movement takes is a kingdom of universal dominion that arises out of the sea of nations and dominates these nations, so that the whole world wonders after and worships this beast. While the vision in Daniel 7 is similar to the vision in Revelation 13, Daniel’s vision is different because in it are distinct beasts, whereas in John’s vision there is an amalgamation of beasts. This tells us something regarding the form of this antichristian kingdom. In the old dispensation the form of this kingdom was successive, individual nations—Babylon, Persia, Greece, and finally Rome—that forced their wills and dominion on the nation that each nation conquered.
The composite form of the beast in Revelation 13:1–10 represents a willing coalition of nations. This willing coalition is not only evident in the composite form of the beast, but it is also the reason that the whole world wonders after the beast. The world is enamored and awed by the beast’s presence and declares, “Who is like the beast, and who is able to make war with him?” And the world actually worships the beast. The kingdoms of the world, which normally have existed in hostility toward one another, succeed in forming a willing coalition. All the powers, ambitions, and glory of these kingdoms are united and made subservient to the one aim of the kingdom of the beast.
There will be a return to Nimrod and Babel!
And make no mistake: This kingdom will be grand and universal in scope! The vision’s further details reveal that this kingdom will possess absolute dominion in society, so that all the institutions of society will be under the beast’s dominion. The beast will speak of great things, great ambitions, and great ideas. Man will subdue the earth. Man will be on display. It will be a splendid time for the world—a time of peace and great accomplishments in the earth. This kingdom will impress men with its greatness, like its earlier typical forms impressed men: Babylon with her buildings, cities, armies, and learning; Rome with her legions and roads; Greece with her philosophy, art, and science; and Persia with her sheer size and astounding wealth. And awed by the glory and might of this kingdom, all the world willingly will obey and be in subjection to the beast. If it were possible, even the elect would be deceived by the grandeur of this kingdom and would worship the beast.
And all this will be under the control of one man, for with the kingdom must be a king who rules and directs that kingdom. This ought to be clear from the great historical types of this terrible beast. Babylon was not without her Nebuchadnezzar, neither Rome without her Caesars, nor Greece without her Alexander, nor Persia without her kings. And this, too, is found in Daniel’s vision, in which the first three beasts are kings (7:17). Certain things in the vision in Revelation 13 can be applied only to a person. First, a mouth is given to the beast. Take that to mean mouthpiece; there will be one who expresses, is the leader of, and is the spokesman for this beast. Second, a man’s heart is given to the beast, which means that the culmination of this movement or kingdom will be in a man. Thus the beast in Revelation 13 represents a kingdom and its king.
Important for identifying this beast is that he comes. This beast as kingdom and king animated by the spirit of the dragon has been, is already, and still comes. Revelation 13:1 says that he is rising out of the sea. He is in the act of rising when John sees him, and finally the beast appears fully astride the turbulent waters of the sea of nations, and he exercises his full dominion.
And in this light too, we understand that the head that had been wounded is healed. This beast has appeared before, but just as his head was emerging from the waves and before he could appear fully and take his power and authority, someone had smitten that head to death, and the beast sank back into the waves. However, in the vision one head appears as having been wounded, but the wound is healed. The idea is that the beast always appears against opposition that would seem to stop him from coming, but he always survives the deadly wound, for it is healed. Thus the beast always appears with his wound healed. The wound is Babel and God’s confounding the language there. This beast is not synonymous with any one nation, but it is a movement; a power; a spirit of opposition to God, Christ, and his kingdom that lives in the hearts of wicked men and is fired as it were by the dragon himself, whom God allows to give his power to the beast.
Throughout history this beast has been coming. He comes. He arose in the tower of Babel when Nimrod sought the willing coalition of men against God to build a tower that reached to heaven. And God smote the beast on the head by confusing the language of men and making certain enmity between the races, tribes, tongues, and nations of men. This beast also came in the four beasts of Daniel 7. He came in every attempt of a nation to overstep the bounds that God had set for her. The beast came in the empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Macedonia, and he was powerfully evident in the Roman Empire. Always the beast’s head was being smitten and wounded. God struck down Belshazzar in a night; God put enmity between Greece and Persia; and he brought the barbarians against Rome and another confusion of tongues, when before the language had been nearly one. And it is not outside the bounds of the vision in Revelation to see modern risings of the beast. The beast comes throughout history and in every age. He was rising in the ascent of Hitler, and he is in every other movement that seeks to unite the nations under one head and government with one common goal.
And the culmination of this beast, who throughout history has had different forms, will be in the man who leads this movement, the one man of sin, antichrist as we commonly understand him. And in his kingdom of world dominion, all nations of the earth willingly will give their power, authority, and glory to him.
His Spiritual Character
John is shown also the true, spiritual character of this beast, which for all his glory and grandeur is thoroughly antichristian. This kingdom will not be devoid of religion, for antichrist will don a religious cloak. I am not referring yet to the religious aspect of antichrist. That will be seen in the next vision in Revelation 13 of the beast out of the earth. But I am referring to the political aspect of antichrist. He is all the more dangerous in his present appearance because the rhetoric of religiosity abounds in antichrist. But the religion of the final antichristian kingdom will be man. That is present in John’s vision too. Antichrist, like the dragon, grabs for himself the number seven. I view that as a reflection of his mimicry of Christ. Antichrist will take that number in the form of religious tones as he presses his program for the earth. He will speak of hope and redemption and salvation. He will speak of worship and adoration. He will speak of heaven and happiness and blessings. He will speak of life and liberty and freedom. Furthermore, he will be about worship, but it will be a blasphemous, idolatrous worship of himself, and a religious-type fervor will follow him.
Still more, his message will be one of peace. Because his message will be “I have established peace,” his subjects will cry, “Who is able to make war with him?” Even his appearance will have a peaceful feel to it, for he will not appear as a monstrous snake; but he will appear with the dappled beauty of a leopard, the firm strength of a bear, and the royal bearing of a lion. The world will wonder at him because his appearance will be impressive. Although he is evil incarnate, he will appear under the species of the good.
The spiritual character of this beast is anti-God, anti-Christ, and anti-church.
This spiritual character will be evident, first, in the source of the beast’s authority and power, which is the dragon. The man who will sit at the head of that kingdom, as the spokesman and human agent to direct the work of the kingdom, will be the embodiment of the power and authority of Satan. Satan has a power among the nations as those nations develop along the lines of sin. We might say that since the fall there have been two kingdoms developing in the world. The one is the kingdom of God, which has been developing along the lines of grace and redemption. The other is the kingdom of Satan, which has been developing along the lines of sin and depravity.
This beast will be the earthly agent of the dragon’s goal to set up his kingdom. The dragon has been trying throughout history to set up his kingdom, but there always has been failure. The works of Babylon, Persia, and Rome will seem as child’s play compared to what will come when the whole world is subject to Satan. And that Satan stands behind this tells us that opposition to God is the principle that will drive this kingdom. Satan will use all the powers, talents, gifts, and might that the world has to oppose God and his Christ. That is all that Satan has done, and that is the principle that governs his existence, and that principle will govern the kingdom that he establishes in the beast as well. The vision in Revelation 13 tells us that all attempts to establish a union of nations apart from Jesus Christ are demonic in origin.
The beast’s spiritual character will be clearly evident, second, in his message. The name on his heads is blasphemy. That his name is blasphemy means that his very essence is blasphemy. He will receive a mouth that will speak blasphemies. He will blaspheme God, his name, his tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. Nothing will be sacred to this beast. There will be nothing higher than himself. This blasphemy will evidence his sheer ambition. He will set himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped. And he will demand of the world the worship of himself and his kingdom, and he will receive it. The whole world will wonder after and worship this beast and accord divine honors not only to the kingdom but also to the man—the king of that kingdom. From him they will expect all things, and in him they will place their trust. Him they will worship, and him they will thank for their wonderful prosperity.
And in worshiping the beast, they will worship Satan. Satan worship that takes the gross form of men who call themselves Satanists is rather odd. Satan worship has a much more subtle form that is practiced by the intellectual, the educated, and the religious; and that is the worship of and trust in movements that always have cropped up in the world to unite the nations in a peaceful kingdom, in the worship of unrighteous mammon, and in the worship of the deified state.
The beast’s spiritual character will be evident, third, in his war on the saints. There is one class of people that has not and will not bow to or worship the beast. These people are the elect of God, those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. The whole world will worship the beast, but the elect will not. Revelation 13:7 tells us of the great tribulation that will be the work of this beast. He will make war on the saints and will overcome them.
This, too, has been seen in the great historical types of the antichrist. Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, the holy city. Persia attempted the destruction of the whole Jewish race. Greece gave rise to Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the great historical types of antichrist, who defiled the temple and the holy city. Rome, through her representative Pilate together with Herod and the apostate Jews, set herself against God and his holy child Jesus; and she thoroughly persecuted the church of God, slew the apostles, and killed the saints.
And so the beast’s kingdom will wear out the saints of God. Those days of persecution and suffering will be worse for the saints than in any former days; they will be difficult days, so that if they were not shortened, the very elect would perish.
The beast will reign only forty-two months. His time will be cut short. He will have a rapid ascent and an even more precipitous demise. His whole regime is and always will be one of captivity and killing with the sword. With his captivity and sword, he will wear out the saints of God, and he himself will perish with the sword and in captivity. He will perish with the brightness of the coming of Jesus Christ and the sword that proceeds out of his mouth, and the beast will go eternally into the captivity of hell. Christ already has defeated the beast’s master and cast him out of heaven, and Christ with his coming will cast the master into hell too.
We view the present political developments in this light. Do not suppose that the final antichrist has come already. He has not. There is as yet no power that corresponds to the kingdom and king so presented. There have been types, but the final revelation of this antichristian kingdom awaits. In this there is for the believer the assurance that he has a little space yet in which to live in the world. Be not soon shaken as though the day of the Lord can come at any moment. The man of sin, the son of perdition, must be revealed yet. We see developments that point to his revelation. Up to this point in history, one nation has always attempted to dominate over the other nations. We do not see that today. Rather, we see a willing coalition of the nations; we see a kingdom and government established by common consent and a thorough disgust with all things Christian. This beast is rising, and he will appear in God’s appointed time. The beast’s final appearance will be aided by the religious aspect of antichrist, which, the Lord willing, I will explain in my next editorial.
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