But before moving on, consider the exact meaning of “antichrist.”
The root noun is “Christ” and the identity of that “Christ”
is prepped by “anti,” meaning against or in place of” (Strong’s Dictionary).
The First Commandment narrows that down if taken literally as “in the face of
God.” (ibid). Now examine scripture:
Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. (1 John 2:22)
Atheists deny the Father and the Son exist, but atheists do not claim to know the Father and the Son, hence, the Antichrist is one who knows the Father and the Son yet denies them. Antichrist is one who would deny that the Father and Son are one, most certainly, but that entails denial of that He who has seen the Father has seen the Son, to wit: “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him (John 1:18).
That Jesus is in the Father is declared therein. Hence, not only would Antichrist deny the Father and Son, but also that they are one and the same. Jesus died for that cause; He declared that He and the Father are One. Thus, those who crucified Jesus all denied that the Father and Son is One because that is what the crucifixion is all about. In other words, Antichrist denies that the sacrificial death of Jesus was frivolous, as foretold in the Third Commandment: “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain” (Exod 20:7).
Jews know the Lord God but take His Name, Jesus, in vain. Not alone, Christians know the Lord God and take His Name in vain. Not that saying His Name carelessly is the decisive issue but that the very purpose of Jesus is taken without efficacy. Hence, he who knows the Lord God but then denies Him is the Antichrist. But there is more!
Those who deny Jesus, deny the Father, but by denying the purpose of Jesus is to deny the Holy Ghost. The death of Jesus revealed that the Holy Spirit of old is the Holy Ghost of the Man-God Jesus. Scripture refers to the three statuses of God as the Godhead, “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2:9). So, denying the Body of Christ is denying the Godhead, or “Holy Trinity,” as theologians say. In the Greek, Godhead is Theotes; “the state of being God” (ibid) which Theotes is to be taught to the world and symbolized by, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Mat 28:19).
The “One Baptism” from scripture (Eph 4:5) would be “baptism by the Holy Ghost” (Mark 1:8). Denying that the soterial baptism (not by water), but by the Holy Ghost of Jesus, “blaspheme(s) the Holy Ghost” (Mark 3:29) which results in eternal damnation.
Therefore, Antichrist is always one who once knew the Holy Trinity of God in three substances but denies His Substances. That the Holy Spirit (the Comforter) is any less than Jesus and any less than God is blasphemy.
Lucifer and all the fallen angels know and even believe in God (Jas 2:19). Lucifer is Antichrist who appears often in the “face of God” as the Books and Adam and Eve indicate. John saw in his Revelation that Antichrist appears as “Christ.”
Christ is God in the flesh of man and King of all. Lucifer, as Antichrist, aspires to that position:
13 …I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. (Isa 14:13-14)
Hence, Antichrist is Lucifer, and he aspires to be both God and King, and furthermore he is the “familiar friend” of Jesus (Psalm 41:9). That seems to pertain to Judas who Jesus would encounter and select as His apostle, but more so, the Satan in Judas, who was once the friend of God but rebelled.
Antichrist is the one person who has Satan (the Adversary of God) in him. The “Serpent” (the “Beast” of Revelation) seems to be Satan in a Serpent but may very well be the “Satan” in Lucifer.
Regardless, the “Serpent” was the Antichrist, but do not think of the “Serpent” as a mythological being but the beautiful angel, Lucifer, with guile in him since he “beguiled” Eve (Gen 3:13). Of course, literally, the Serpent deceived her (Hebrew; nasa) but that is repeated in Greek (exapatao); “seduced” (ibid).
Satan somehow put his “substance” in Eve, and Cain was of the Wicked One (1 John 3:12). Likewise, Satan “seduced” Judas with silver, and Satan entered Judas, and made him the “Adversary” of Christ.
With that background, Antichrist can be recognized as a being, usually in the form of a man, who believes in Christ so much that he denies Jesus and promotes himself as Christ. Hence, Satan is always Antichrist in all ages. Antichrist is all men in history who have Satan in them, and they cannot exist at the same moment because Satan is not God and as such is limited to one place at any given moment.
Antichrist was obvious in some instances. That the Serpent is the original Antichrist is obvious, but that Cain was the Antichrist, less so. His name means “Wanderer” and in Nod (outside Paradise), he populated the earth with his Anti-Messianic seed.
Who was next is not definitely known but Genun, the seed of Cain had Satan in him. Genun was Antichrist, but there may have been some others before him.
Cain was the “Adversary of God” since he denied Abel who perhaps was the body of Christ in the world at that time; not to be heretical, but his meat sacrifice would have covered the grain sacrifice for Cain, but Cain was adversarial against Abel and slayed him. God said that the blood of righteous Abel cries out from the grave, so his was the sacrificial blood in that age (Mat 23:35).
Cain was Antichrist and Abel, Christ. Just as the Satan in Cain murdered Abel, Satan in Judas murdered Jesus. Abel (Hebel) means “breath.” Abel was the “Breath of God,” and in like manner, so was Jesus.
When the Father “overshadowed” Mary, just as he generated Adam, He would have generated Jesus by breathing life into the womb of Mary with no type of intercourse involved, unlike with Cain. Since Eve created Cain (Gen 4:1) after being seduced by the Serpent with carnal knowledge, forthwith, all men would be created by carnal knowledge except for three: Abel, Isaac, and Jesus. She bare Abel (Gen 4:2) with no mention of Adam nor the Serpent. The Father of righteous Abel was as his name suggests; that God breathed his life unto Eve.
If nothing else, Cain was the negative antitype of Jesus and Abel the positive Antitype, so Abel would be “Christ” and Cain, “Antichrist.”
Just a few in the Bible were specifically endowed with Satan. Pseudepigrapha (sacred literature) does name Genun, the seed of Cain, as having Satan in him, and that seed caused the world to perish. So, Genun was obviously Antichrist for that age.
Herod was not said to have Satan in him, but as king-adversary of Jesus who planned the act and thought he had murdered Jesus when an infant, as Herod have up his ghost, then Herod the Great, was the “Great Hunter” who thought he had done what Nimrod tried.
So, anyone who directly attempts to kill God, is Antichrist. As the “Mighty Hunter” Nimrod hunted God even in the heavens to kill Him.
To be Antichrist, it is a required that a significant figure who once knew God, defects from Him just as Lucifer did in the beginning in the heavens where he pre-existed.
Antichrist will persecute God’s people after the Person of God (Jesus) ascended. With Jesus in another realm and His Ghost remaining in the world, then no longer can the Person of God be attacked, thus the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost is all that is possible and that is by denying the Word of God, who was the Invisible Entity of God in the beginning (John 1:1-14).
Skipping over many generations, the philosopher, Friedrich
Nietzsche, wrote:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Nietzche was a contributor to the Age of Enlightenment wherein science and philosophy replaced, not all religions, but Christianity specifically. The philosophy of Nietzche killed the idea of Jesus. Not only did Nietsche kill God in Name but Spirit.
Since God could not be seen, according to science, God is not real, and by the philosophy of science, Nietsche killed God and with that notion; and during his lifetime, European socialist governments replaced republics and monarchies. Thus, in his day, during the “Age of Reason” that commenced in the mid-seventeenth century and continues to that time, Nietsche killed God; he crucified God with his adversarial words and as such his ideas became the thoughts of adversaries of Christianity.
Most certainly, at least for a short time, it seems that Nietzche was Antichrist.
He had to know Christ to be adversarial to Him. Nietzche was the son of a German Lutheran pastor and knew Jesus well. He knew Christ and denied Him, so according to Hebrews 6:6, Nietsche crucified Jesus afresh! To be Antichrist, Nietsche would somehow be instrumental in government affairs as was Lucifer, Nimrod, Herod, Caius, and Judas.
Judas was political? He was a “nobody” from Kerioth! Not so, he was the tool of the shadow government. In the past, under the Hasmoneans, John Hyrcanus, was both King of the Jews and Chief Priest. Many chief priests sought to be king of the Jews. The chief priest who had Jesus crucified was Joseph ben Caiaphas, who presided over the Great Sanhedrin, the “court” that tried Jesus and found Him guilty of His claim to be God.
The Sanhedrin were as much a shadow religious government that governed the king using God’s Laws, and most often kings bowed to the will of the Sanhedrin so to keep the government that they had. The trials of Jesus revealed who were the true power. Neither king nor governor could hang Jesus, but the Sanhedrin could and did. Even Caesar feared the Jews because he (Caligua) backed off when he tried to be their God rather than Yahweh.
The Chief Priests were the Power, and Judas their tool. For a day, Satan was in Judas, and shortly, at least for three more days, Satan was in Caiaphas who was Antichrist for that period. Hence, Judas was part of the “shadow” government, the “shadow” representing Lucifer who was in the ones that killed God, according to Jesus (John 19:11).
Now back to the nineteenth century: Nietzche was not the “government” but was the “tool” for the government just as Judas. He was Antichrist during the Age of Reason, and as such, he caused the worst governments, along with some others, that ever existed. Communism and its twin, Nazism. You see, without God, government can do anything it wills to do, and that is the problem in this day!
Herod built a Temple, not for God, but for himself! (Some say restored, but Josephus wrote built.) His will was to please the Jews to keep them from rebelling. By appeasing the chief priests and the Sanhedrin, Herod did about whatever he wanted, but never without the approval of Julius Caesar, according to Josephus. Caesar was truly Herod’s “god” just as claimed to be. Not only Julius but Augustus Caesar (Octavian) became Herod’s “god” once Julius was stabbed in the back by a plot of senators.
Therefore, Antichrist is not always the most powerful but those the most powerful use to diminish God and increase their power over the people. That is what Nietsche created in the minds of pretenders to the thrones of kings and republicans during the power struggles in Europe in the 1800s. Nietsche caused Hitler! However, as you shall see, Hitler revived Jesus but made his “Jesus” a Nazi. (Keep in mind that Antichrist must know Christ to be the Antichrist.)
(picture: By Keith Schengili-Roberts - Own Work (photo), CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1864568)
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