Duality in the Doom of Antichrist

That wicked whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.

2 Thessalonians 2:8

"There is here a dual destruction suspended above Antichrist –a slow wasting first, for, it may be, centuries, and a sudden and utter extinction in the end. 

This duality in the doom of Antichrist has been noted in prophecy

ever since its beginning. It is emphasized by Daniel. Speaking of the "little horn" which had a mouth speaking great things, eyes like the eyes of a man, a look more stout than his fellows, and which made war with the saints, and was to have dominion over them, "until a time, times, and the dividing of time," that is 1260 years, the prophet says. "The judgement shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it unto the end" (Daniel 7:26) another proof, by the way, of identity between the "little horn" of Daniel, and the Antichrist of John.

In the predicted doom of the Papacy there are thus two well-marked stages. There is, 

--first, a gradual consumption; and there is,

--second, a sudden and terrible destruction.

The "consumption," a slow and gradual process, is to be effected by the "spirit of His mouth," by which we understand the preaching of the Gospel. This consumption has been going on ever since the Bible was translated, and the Gospel began to be preached at the Reformation. Men have begun to see the errors of popery; its political props have been weakened, and in some instances struck from under it, and its hold generally on the nations of Christendom has been loosened;

The Lord shall "destroy" it "with the brightness of His coming." The form of the judgment is left vague, but enough is said to warrant us to conclude that it will be swift and final –it will come with lightning flash, and its holy vengeance will be so manifest that, to use the figure in the prophecy, it will irradiate both heaven and earth with a moral splendor." 

J.A. Wylie