Mask of the Antichrist

 "Antichrist is an enemy who makes war with the Son of God. 

Of that there is no doubt. 

Q: But what is the form of this war, and under what character does Antichrist carry it on?

*The reader sees that the term is a composite one, being made up of

two words anti and Christ. The name is one of new formation; being compounded, it would seem, for this very enemy, and by its etymology expressing more exactly and perfectly his character than any older word could. 

.... let us look at the force given to this prefix by writers in both classic literature and Holy Scripture. 

First, the old classic writers. By these the preposition anti is often employed to designate a substitute. 

For instance, anti-basileus, he who is the locum tenens of a king, or as we now should say viceroy: anti having in this case the force of the English term vice. He who filled the place of consul was antihupatos, pro-counsul. He who took the place of an absent guest at a feast was styled antideipnos. 

---The Antichrist comes first into view in our Lord’s discourse recorded in Matt. 24:24, and Mark 13:22. “For false Christs (pseudoxristos) and false prophets shall arise, and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.’ --Our Lord does not, indeed, use the word Antichrist, but what is almost its synonym pseudo-Christ. Nevertheless, the persons whose coming He foretells are in the line of Antichrist; they belong to the same family, and their grand characteristic is deception. Manifestly, they are not open enemies, but pretended friends; they are “false Christs and false prophets,” and as such are forerunners of that great Antichrist who is to succeed them, and in whom they are to find their fuller development and final consummation. 

--They shall seek by “signs and wonders,” false, of course, to obscure the glory of Christ’s true miracles, to weaken the evidence of His Messiahship arising therefrom, and to draw men away from Him, and after themselves.

The other place in the New Testament in which reference is made to Antichrist is the 1st and 2nd Epistles of John. 

--The idea which John presents of the Antichrist is quite in harmony with that of our Lord. John looks for him in the guise of a Deceiver. “Little children,” says John (1 John 2:18), “it is the last time: and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists.” 

--He notes prominently one characteristic of him, and it is his falsehood. Antichrist, says John, is to be a liar (1 John 2:22). “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.”

“He is a liar,” says John. 

Q: But if he comes boldly and truthfully avowing himself the enemy of Christ, how is he a liar? If he avows, without concealment, his impious design of overthrowing Christ, with what truth can he be spoken of as a deceiver? But such is the character plainly ascribed to him by John (2 John 7): -“For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.

This is a deceiver and an Antichrist.”  It is clear that Antichrist, as depicted by our Lord and by His Apostle John, is to wear a mask, and to profess one thing and act another.  

He is to enter the church as Judas entered the garden –professedly to kiss his Master, but in reality to betray Him. 

He is to come with words of peace in his mouth but war in his heart. He is to be a counterfeit Christ –Christ’s likeness stamped on base metal. 

He is to be an imitation of Christ, -a close, clever, and astute imitation, which will deceive the world for ages, those only excepted who, taught by the Holy Spirit, shall be able to see through the disguise and detect the enemy under the mask of the friend."

Wylie