The Antichrist's Deception.
Continuing
our series on what Jesus and the Bible have to say about living in this world,
today we take a second look at the Biblical term, “antichrist.” Previously we
looked at St. John’s expression of “many antichrists” which have come, and he
also speaks of “the” antichrist as an individual figure who is still to come
(e.g., 1 Jn 2:18).
In
St. John’s second letter he refers to the antichrist as “the deceiver.” He
writes, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not
acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver
and the antichrist” (2 Jn 7). So “the deceiver” is another name for the
antichrist. St. John says we can know him by his denial that Jesus Christ is
God incarnate – God who assumed our human flesh.
St.
Paul goes into some specificity about this deceiver, this antichrist. Paul
calls him the “man of lawlessness,” the “son of perdition” who exalts himself
and proclaims himself to be God (2 Thes 2:3-4). The prophet Daniel had said a
similar thing, of the ungodly one who exalts himself and pretends to take the
place of God (Dan 11:36-37). This antichrist has to be revealed until “the
rebellion” or “apostasy” occurs, and both must occur before Christ returns (2Thes 2:3) to destroy the lawless one (2 Thes 2:8).
St.
Paul writes, “The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be
with all power and with pretended signs and wonders and with all wicked
deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to have the truth
and so be saved” (2 Thes 2:9-10). Those who are deceived will be so because
they refuse to love the truth and they instead take pleasure in unrighteousness
(2 Thes 2:10, 12). So St. Paul refers to a “strong delusion,” a lie, that God
“sends” or allows. We all have free will to chose. Those who fall for this
delusion, deception, and lie, are already unrighteous (2 Thes 2:12). They do
not have pure hearts. The pure of heart, the humble and meek, cannot be seduced
into this deepth of deception against God.
The
prophet Daniel warned of desolating sacrilege, or an abomination that makes
desolate, that will come and be placed in the holy sanctuary, profaning the
temple (Dan 9:27, 11:31, 12:11). St. Paul speaks of the same, of this lawless
deceiver taking his seat in the temple of God (2 Thes 2:4). Jesus also
specifically refers to Daniel’s desolating sacrilege (Mt 24:15; Mk 13:14) as a
sign of terrible tribulations to come.
Since
70 AD, the Jewish Temple is no more. However, in God’s providence of salvation
history, that Jewish Temple, formerly the place to worship God and manner of
worshiping of God, has been replaced by the Body of Christ, the Church, and so
the Church understands these passages as referring to itself. The Catechism
of the Catholic Church says the “man of lawlessness” alludes to a specific
incarnation of satan, the devil, in the world to unleash the final assault.
“Before Christ’s second coming the church must pass through the final trial
which will shake the faith of many believers” (CCC 675, ref. to Lk 18:8; Mt24:12), which the Catechism says (CCC 675) “will unveil the “mystery of
iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent
solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.” The
deception of the antichrist, then, is the means by which man will glorifies
himself in place of God and Christ – humanitarian religion in which man saves
himself (cf., CCC 676).
We see that everywhere already today, don’t we?
Dibby Allan Green