The Antichrist: His Portrait, History & Characteristics

The Antichrist: His Portrait and History – Chapter III. Characteristics.

Continued from Chapter II. True Meaning Of The Term.

As the “lawless one,” above all laws, as well as the “Man of the Sin,” ho anthropos tees amartias, and “the Son of Perdition,” ho uios fees apoleias, he exalts himself above all “called god,” or, that is an object of reverence, sebasma. The term ho anomos, in the Greek, corresponds to the Latin classical phrase, legibus solutus, applied to Roman Emperors’; “the expression was supposed to exalt the Emperor above all human restraints; and to leave his conscience and reason as the sacred measure of his conduct.”

As ho antikeimenos (2 Thess, ii. 4) he is an adversary, for Paul uses that phrase in Phil. i. 28 of the adversaries of Christians; hence he is described as warring with the saints.(Rev. xi. 7, xiii, 7; Dan. vii. 21)

As an oracle (Rev. xiii. 5, 6; Dan. vii. 7, 25; Isa. xxxvii. 23) he blasphemes God, God’s Name, God’s Tabernacle, God’s Heavenly ones, not by abuse, but by usurpation and falsehood. All which characteristics naturally are the logical outcome of the claim to be Christ’s Vicar, and the mouthpiece of God. Whosoever, in the pride of his heart, falsely assumes to be the oracle of God and Christ’s Vicar, cannot but utter “great things and blasphemies.” These are inseparable concomitants. He who claims to be Judge of all, (Harduin, VI., ii, 1650; and Cardinal Manning, 1880, in Pro- Cathedral, Kensington) but incapable of being judged by any, necessarily is the Lawless One. He who makes laws, but is above laws, is necessarily the Lawless One, for no earthly power can reach him.

Combine these features, and you have the Scriptural Antichrist, as Gregory, Bishop of Rome, A.D. 590, long ago perceived.

Such a climax of impiety is not to be reached by man, even though “energized by Satan,” in a brief space of time, or in the lifetime of one human being. Such an idea is contrary to all the marks by which the Holy Spirit has delineated the Antichrist. Particularly so in regard to duration. It is constantly overlooked by writers and speakers that no time limit is fixed to “the Apostasy,” beyond the statement that it began in apostolic days, (2 Thess. ii. 7; 2 John 7) and is to endure until the Second Advent. (Rev. xix. 2) But a definite time limit is fixed for the Antichristian Head of the Matured Apostasy, in “the latter times.” (1 Tim. iv. 1) This time limit is seven times mentioned in varying terms: “a time and times and half a time,” (Dan. vii. 25; xii. 7; Rev. xii. 14) “forty- two months,” (Rev. xi. 2, xii. 5) and “one thousand two hundred and sixty days,” (Rev. xi. 3, xii. 6) in symbolical phraseology. The precedent of the seventy “weeks” of Daniel ix., as well as logic and sanctified commonsense, combine to show that in symbolic prophecy a “time” means three hundred and sixty years, and a “day” a literal year. Hence three and a half “times” are one thousand two hundred and sixty literal years, a period accordant with the magnitude of the Apostasy, and with its duration, which we know has lasted over eighteen hundred years.

Hence the duration of the Bestial Head cannot be three and a half literal years, and must be one thousand two hundred and sixty years—a fact which renders it impossible for a solitary person to be “the Antichrist.” From the nature of the case, and from all the converging lines of identification, the Antichrist must be a “Perpetual Person.” Just as the British Throne enfolds an entire series of persons, each styled “the Sovereign,” so the “Seat” or Cathedra of Antichrist enfolds an entire series of persons styled “the Beast,” or “Little Horn,” or “Eighth Head” (of the “Ten Horned, Seven Headed Wild Beast”), or “Son of Perdition,” according to the various phases of the character portrayed; i.e., species and origin, position among rulers, power of persecution, religious apostasy and blasphemy.

Continued in Chapter IV. Time of Antichrist’s Appearance.