CHRISTIANITY
The Antichrist / the beast
A deceiver who opposes and counterfeits Christ, appearing before the end in the futurist reading.
Primary citations
- 1 John 2:18 — “even now many antichrists have come”
- 1 John 2:22; 1 John 4:3; 2 John 1:7
- 2 Thessalonians 2:3–10 (the man of lawlessness)
- Revelation 13 (the beast from the sea and the beast from the earth)
- Daniel 7:25; Daniel 9:27
Expected preceding signs
- — A covenant with many, then its breaking (Daniel 9:27).
- — Self-exaltation in the temple of God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
- — Signs and lying wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:9).
- — A mark required for commerce, and the number 666 (Revelation 13:16–18).
The usual conflation
The title “Antichrist” appears in the Johannine epistles and nowhere in Revelation, which describes beasts. 1 John also uses the word in the plural and in the present tense — “many antichrists have come” — of people already alive when it was written. Popular usage collapses the Johannine antichrist, Paul's man of lawlessness and the beasts of Revelation into one named individual; the texts do not do that themselves.
Internal disagreement
Preterist, historicist, futurist and idealist readings identify the figure as a first-century emperor, an institution across history, a future individual, or a type recurring in every age.
SCRIPTURE
New Testament and Daniel, cited per line