Who Is The Antichrist?
By Douglas B. Clark
One of the most misunderstood characters in the New Testament is the Antichrist. He is a master of illusion and has managed to dupe many of God’s people. He is a ventriloquist who skillfully projects his voice unto another. A look on the Internet reveals the diversity of opinions about the identity of the Antichrist. There are some who believe President Bush is the Antichrist, while others including John Calvin believed that the office of the Pope is the Antichrist. I also found a website implying that all Christians who do not keep the Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath, are part of the Antichrist. Throughout history there have been others who have been suspected as the Antichrist including, Nero, Stalin, Mussolini, and Adolph Hitler. So the question remains: Who is this man of mystery and deceit and how does his role affect the lives of Christians and non-Christians alike?
First let’s define what the term antichrist means. Anti means either against or in place of, while Christ means anointing. So an antichrist can either be flat out against Christ, as were the Jews who did not recognize Jesus as their Messiah, or something offered in place of Christ. Since Christ means anointing then anything that would replace or come against the anointing would also fit the definition of antichrist.
The Anointing
To better understand what it means to come against or replace the anointing, it is helpful to consider what the word, anointing, means. If you have been a good Pentecostal or Charismatic you know the anointing as the manifestation of God’s presence when a prophetic word is given, or some other manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit. Sometimes you hear people say, “That was an anointed word that brother Smith shared today,” or perhaps you have received an anointed word for someone and your heart pounded in your chest until you delivered what God had given you.
The best way to determine the meaning of “anointing” is to examine the context in which it is used. One example is when Samuel anointed Saul to be king over Israel. (1Sam 10:1) Oil was the physical substance used as a representation for the anointing, but the anointing itself was a purpose of God given to Saul to perform the task of being king over Israel. Or another way to express it is to say, the anointing is the power of God upon an individual to accomplish a given task.
When God gives an anointing there is a supernatural manifestation that often accompanies His directive. Sometimes it is His Holy presence, the Divine aura that emanates from the anointed person or persons. With Saul it was manifested as he prophesied with the prophets. When a truly anointed tongue or prophetic word is given there is a sense of God’s presence released into the atmosphere that is recognized by both sinner and saint.
There are other ways of experiencing an anointing other than the gifts of the Spirit. When I was a teenager I visited John Gardner Sr. while he was writing a letter to Derek Prince about the shepherding movement while the movement was still in its infancy. John was writing because the Holy Spirit had anointed him to do so. It was a rare occasion where I saw a true elder in the body of Christ being given a specific word of warning to an individual pertaining to a movement that would touch the lives of millions. I was around John twice during the thirty days he wrote the letter. On both occasions there was a Holy presence that emanated from him. What I sensed was the manifested presence of the purpose of God that was upon John Gardner Sr. for a particular task. When the letter was completed it totaled one hundred pages and was an allegory revealing how the shepherding deception was infiltrating the body of Christ and harming God’s people. The letter was then hand delivered and copies were mailed to other leaders in this movement. It was then John was released from the anointing that God had given for that particular task. When God anoints someone there is a confirming presence that is physically sensed that lets us know, indeed this is God! Yet, God’s confirming presence is only the manifestation of the anointing. The anointing itself is always the purpose of God given for a particular task. Sometimes it may pertain to a specific event in time similar to what John Gardner experienced, or it may be a general anointing pertaining to our maturing in the ultimate purpose of God – to become His expression.
In the New Testament we see evidence of two significant moments when Jesus was anointed. The first time was at the beginning of His public ministry when John baptized Him in the river, Jordan. John saw the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove, resting upon Jesus. The voice of the heavenly Father was heard saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” This was an anointing for healing the sick, feeding the hungry, raising the dead, casting out demons and preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God. This was the purpose of God given to Jesus for ministry to mankind. God has made provision for us to partake of this same anointing through the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost. This is what Jesus referred to when He instructed His followers to wait until the day of Pentecost where He promised they would receive power to be witnesses. This Pentecostal experience is the “anointing for service.”
The second example is after the ministry of Jesus had ended. His crucifixion was only a week away when a woman came into the house where Jesus was staying and anointed Him with a very expensive perfume. The disciples did not have their spiritual eyes open and were upset over what they considered an extravagant waste of expensive perfume. They wanted to sell it and use the money to feed the poor. The disciples were so accustomed to the anointing for ministry that they had trouble understanding this new directive that required the death of Jesus.
“While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.” Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” Mt 26: 6-13
There is an anointing for death and burial that follows the anointing for service. This is often what separates “the called” from “the chosen,” for it is much easier to receive the anointing for service than it is to receive the anointing for death. Even Jesus prayed, “Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me.” The anointing for death does not manifest itself with clouds of glory. Those outside of its grasp rarely recognize this anointing, for when it manifests itself the recipient is led as a lamb to the slaughter, accompanied by rejection from those who loved you the week before, and finally, a very humiliating death. Many who observe this process see only failure. Although, a few who watch this process unfold may look up and say, “Truly this is a son of God.” Does this sound like what you are experiencing? Are you crying out to God, “Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from me?” The truth is all who would become mature sons of God must drink from this cup. As the Lord spoke to one dear sister, “I must take everything if you are to be a savior in the Savior.”
What was accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ far exceeded His ministry of healing the sick, casting out demons and preaching the good news of the Kingdom. The same principle applies to those who embrace the anointing for burial. What God will do through us in our partaking of His death by laying down our own lives will far exceed all that could be accomplished through the ministry of Pentecost.
All of God’s children receive chastising from time to time. But no one wants the scourging required for becoming a Son of God. This is why it is evident to me that those that who are becoming mature sons did not choose this path on their own. No one follows this path of their own choosing. Instead they are apprehended by God. This truth does not deny the fact that most on this path experience moments of self-will. The mystery is not in the exercise of our will, but in the ability of the Divine to shape us regardless of which way we turn.
At times when I have shared these elementary truths of sonship some have cried out, “elitism.” Anyone who would make such an accusation has no idea what it means to be a son. Those who have heard the call to sonship appear in this world as the least of the least. The nature of sonship is seen in the life of Jesus who made no reputation for Himself, but took upon Himself the form of a servant. Do you want to see a true Son of God? Look for the person who has been crucified by their brethren and everything else in their life has fallen apart. If you see a look of compassion in their eyes and notice that he or she is praying, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing,” then you are beholding a Son of God in the making.
There is an anointing for sonship. It is a like a sweet perfume poured out upon us, drenching us with intimacy from God. It appears wasteful to those who have only experienced the anointing for service. “It could have been used to accomplish so many great things for God,” they say. Sonship is the ultimate purpose of God, hidden from countless generations since the foundation of the world. It is the unfolding plan of God to create a dwelling place for Him to live.
When Jesus made the transition from the “anointing for service” to the “anointing for His death,” this was the event that pushed Judas over the edge, causing Him to betray Jesus. It was immediately after the woman at Bethany anointed the head of Jesus that Judas conspired with the chief priests.
“Then one of the Twelve–the one called Judas Iscariot–went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty silver coins. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.” Mt 26: 14-16
How many times have we read this account and have wondered how it was possible that someone who ate, slept and lived with Jesus, could betray him? Do you see that we have often done the same thing when confronted with “the anointing for our burial?” What a shocker it is when God reveals, the greatest opposition we will ever face regarding the purpose of God is not out there lurking in the shadowy blend of religion and politics, but is inside of us. The reason we are unable to recognize this inner deception is because it often hides behind “the anointing for service.” But when God lifts that anointing for service and reveals Himself in His stillness all sorts of things come to the surface. Not every believer will make this transition.
I had a friend who prayed every morning, “Lord, use me or kill me.” He preached the gospel all over the world and was used mightily until he died of a massive heart attack at age forty-six. He preferred to physically leave this world rather than submit to the anointing that requires everything of self to be stripped away. I know that He saw the Promised Land because He preached about it, yet he was not able to enter this place of rest in this life because he did not want to give up the anointing for service in order to embrace the anointing for his burial. Be careful for what you ask. I wonder if the outcome might have been different if my friend had prayed, “Lord, kill me that you may use me.” What a difference of ministry might he have experienced?
Some have embraced the various manifestations of the anointing without ever giving a thought as to the purpose of God behind the manifestation. This has become an earmark for many in the realm of Pentecost. It is here we see the tendency to replace the purpose of God with the gifts from God. So the very tools given for the purpose of growing us in Him become the end rather than the means to the end. In this process, the anointing, which is the purpose of God, is replaced with something else and this something else is a spirit of antichrist. This is why the Holy Spirit will often lift the anointing for service in those who have been apprehended for sonship.
I wonder how often when the anointing for death and crucifixion comes along that we continue to think with our ministry hat on? Like the disciples who were upset over the needless waste of expensive perfume we become frustrated when God ask us to lay aside our gifts and abilities. We are thinking of all the good we can do for the Kingdom while the Holy Spirit wants to prepare us for our burial. So many of God’s people stumble at this transition and so they align themselves with the spirit of religion so they may continue their work for God. This is what it means to resist the anointing! This is the spirit of antichrist at work!
When referring to the anointed one, or to the anointing the meaning is the same – the purpose of God given to accomplish a particular task. The significance of Jesus being the Anointed One was two-fold. First, it was a demonstration of a God-man — an expression of the Father in an earthly body. The second purpose was revealed in the words of Jesus when He said it was necessary for Him to go in order for the Comforter to come. It was when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church that we find out that God had ulterior motives in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, The Christ. Here we begin to see a new meaning to the prophecy, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.” Heb 10:5 Through out this age and continuing into this very moment God is preparing a many-member body for Himself.
This passage quoted in Hebrews was taken from Psalms 40:6-8 which reads:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Then I said, “Here I am, I have come– it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” (Young’s literal translation.)
According to John Darby’s Synopsis of the New Testament: “The psalm says in the Hebrew, ‘Thou hast digged ears for me,’ translated by the Septuagint, ‘Thou hast prepared me a body.’” The piercing of the ear had great significance for the Israelite servant. The servant’s ear was pierced with an awl in the doorway of the house they were to serve. This signified hearing with obedience. When we separate the manifestation of the anointing from the purpose of God embedded in the anointing it is like seeing without comprehending what is before us, or listening without really hearing. The obedience to an outward law, as was the case in presenting burnt offerings and sin offerings, did not have the power to produce the type of obedience God was ultimately looking for …His law written in our hearts.
All that was fulfilled in Jesus is now being fulfilled in you and I who walk not after the natural man, but are filled with the Spirit of God. That is why the Bible says He was the first born among many brethren. If we are going to walk in all that God has for us then we must move beyond the first anointing to be witnesses and experience the anointing that leads to death to self. This anointing is something that no man can teach us. Only the purpose of God revealed in us can teach us this truth. This anointing is awakened from within, birthing from the innermost parts of our being and it IS NO LIE! (1 John 2:27)
Concerning Those Who would Seduce You
In 1 John we read this: “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” (1 Jo 2:18)
John indicated they were living in the last days and that the antichrist would come and even then there was many antichrists. A few verses later John identifies how we recognize an antichrist: “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” (I Jo 2:22) Many Believers read these words and can only recognize the obvious; that someone who flat out denies that Jesus is the Christ is against the purpose of God. If we also examine this statement with our spiritual eyes open we will see that anyone who chooses a religious life over a truly spiritual one is denying both the Father and the Son. It is possible to live an outward life of conformity to all things religious while denying the Spirit of God within. Most earth-minded Believers think that if someone says they believe in the Father and the Son that they cannot be part of the antichrist. May the Holy Spirit enlighten our understanding to recognize what it is in us that would deny the Father and the Son.
We have already established that Christ means, “anointing,” and that “The Christ” means the “anointed one” which we know refers to Jesus. To put it another way, the anointing is simply the purpose of the Father being expressed in a physical sense. I find it interesting that in this same chapter after John warns us about the antichrist that he refers to the anointing like this: “These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” (1Jo 2:26-27)
When God puts His mark on someone, the purpose of God permeates their being to such a degree that no matter which way they turn the Holy Spirit is working things out in their lives in order to accomplish the purpose of God. That does not mean there are no detours. To the contrary, there are many detours on the path toward entering God’s rest and each one provides its own unique lesson. This is where the illusion of free will becomes the catalyst used to accomplish the plan of God in you and me.
Over the past thirty years I have seen the seducing power of the spirit of antichrist sweep many a believer away in a sea of religious fervor. Some have remained there content to serve God in a diminished capacity. While I have seen others have their eyes opened as the purpose of God in them arose in corrective judgment, setting them back on the path that leads to rest in God.
There is no denying that there are teachers that try to seduce us and lead us astray from the path that leads to righteousness. However, none of them compare to the cunning ways of “self” that we impose upon the life of the Spirit in ourselves.
The Man of Sin
“Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” 2 Thes. 2: 3-4
The power of religious tradition directs our attention outward toward one particular man called, “The Antichrist.” The ironic thing is that this way of thinking is actually the spirit of antichrist at work. It is a decoy that was invented in the imagination of man that is meant to distract us while the spirit of antichrist rules in our heart in place of the King of Kings. The spirit of antichrist is not a demon like some think it to be. It is an attitude, or a way of approaching God that allows us to substitute religious works in place of the anointing that requires our death. The spirit of antichrist is man’s provision for maintaining the appearance of a spiritual life while avoiding a true death to the “self” life. I know this to be true because the Holy Spirit spoke to me very clearly and told me the spirit of antichrist and the self-works of man are one and the same thing. At the time I heard this God was specifically speaking to me of how my ministry and the gifts of the Spirit were a cover for a part of self that still needed to be nailed to the cross. Our protection from the deceptive forces of the antichrist is to be enveloped in the purpose of God – the same purpose that was manifested in the life of Jesus.
J. Preston Eby has written these words concerning the man of sin:
“Have you noticed, precious saint of God, that Paul does not say of the man of sin, or the man of lawlessness, that he is BORN - but that he is REVEALED. It does not say that he suddenly emerges upon the world scene, or that he seizes political power, or that he marshals vast armies - but simply that he is REVEALED! The whole world has been waiting for the man of sin to be revealed, and now by the grace of the Holy Spirit HE IS BEING REVEALED as the Lord makes known to His apprehended ones the awful depth of our own carnal minds, self-will, and inherent sin faithfully and relentlessly purging, refining, crushing, and stripping us of all that pertains to the self-ego of Adam’s nature.
“The moment you understand this truth, you will also be able to grasp the fact that the destruction of the man of sin comes AT THE TIME HE IS REVEALED. ” ‘And THEN shall that Wicked be REVEALED, whom the Lord shall CONSUME with the spirit of His mouth, and shall DESTROY with the brightness of His coming’ ” (II Thes. 2:8). This man of sin within will do everything in his power to conceal his identity, for his discovery is his undoing! He is hidden, not to God and Christ, but to the man who is not walking in the Spirit. As our lives become exposed to the life and light of Christ the man of sin IS REVEALED, uncovered, exposed - then to be dealt with, destroyed, consumed by the bright-burning of the arising of the Day Star within our hearts. If the cunning, craftiness, subtleness, deceitfulness, treachery, and wickedness of your own carnal mind is being uncovered, revealed, exposed by the Spirit’s dealings, then know, beloved, that THE HOUR OF HIS DESTRUCTION IS AT HAND! The order is: REVEALED … DESTROYED! Glory!
“The Psalmist alluded to this process when he penned these inspired words, ” ‘HE WEAKENED M-Y STRENGTH IN THE WAY; He shortened my days’ “ (Ps. 102:23). It is in bringing us to the end of ourselves that we are prepared to rise up solely in HIS STRENGTH. It is the subduing of our will that brings us to the place where we fervently pray, “not my will, but Yours, be done.” In ways which HE knows best, He strips His Sons of every prop of the flesh, removes their self-made reputations, demolishes their personal kingdoms, dries up the fountains of their own soulish activities, and tenderly and carefully draws them aside into a separated walk where He unfolds truth and works it deep into their very being. God has endured with much longsuffering all the self-seeking of carnal men, who have presumed to speak and work in His name, and while they have usurped their positions and made their claims, He has secretly and silently prepared HIS OWN LITTLE FLOCK of disciplined ones to whom He shall GIVE the Kingdom!
“Call to remembrance here that the man of sin “exalts himself above all…so that he AS GOD sits IN THE TEMPLE OF GOD” (II Thes. 2:4). It is quite important that we understand just what Paul meant by his use of the term “temple of God”. The popular teaching is that Paul was speaking of a future rebuilt JEWISH TEMPLE in Jerusalem. But a careful study of every reference that Paul made to the “temple of God” reveals that he NEVER applied this term to the Jewish temple! When the Bible speaks of the complete, literal temple, the word “hieron” is used. This word is used 71 times in the New Testament in reference to the temple at Jerusalem. On the other hand, the word that Paul used for temple is “naos” which refers not to the complete, literal temple, but to the Holy Place, the dwelling of God. And the dwelling place of God is now THE CHURCH WHICH IS HIS BODY.
“Would God that all the saints might see that God’s purpose from the foundation of the world has been the building a spiritual house, a holy temple, an eternal abiding place in which He can be at home, and in which place He and His creation can meet. It is a temple made up of living stones. Every stone is a redeemed person and every stone is a person upon whom the mighty hand of God has been laid in dealing. More than three thousand years ago Solomon built a magnificent temple of stone and precious materials. He overlaid it with gold and adorned it with silver. So wonderful was it that the Queen of Sheba stood transfixed at the sight. But the temple built by Solomon was only an ephemeral foreshadow of the living temple which Christ would build by the Spirit - a temple not made with hands.” End of Quote.
In conclusion I pray that it is abundantly clear to all who would read these words that the most deceptive antichrist we will ever encounter is hiding within us, the temple of God, pretending that he is God. We do not need to go looking for this man of sin, for the purpose of God in us will REVEAL him and the brightness of His coming overcome the darkness of the carnal mind.
Douglas B. Clark