001.32. Chapter 32
Chapter 32
ANTICHRISTS
What an immense amount of unedifying and worthless rubbish has been written on “the antichrist”! Yet that is hardly a thing to be wondered at, since it supplies an object which makes a strong appeal to lovers of the bizarre and sensational.
Moreover, it is a subject which offers an opportunity for every conceited tyro to pose as a “deep student of prophecy.” Almost endless have been the conjectures as to the identity of “the antichrist:” whether an evil system or a separate individual; and if the latter, whether he has yet appeared on the stage of human action, or whether his advent is yet future. The Reformers and almost all of the Puritans held that “the man of sin” (which they regard as another title of this infamous character) signified the Papacy. Later, some who claimed to be more enlightened were quite sure that Napoleon Bonaparte was this son of perdition. Influenced by his early teachers and associations, this writer once deemed himself qualified to write a book of three hundred pages thereon (long since out of print), but trusts he has grown wiser with the passing of the years.
During the last three decades many others have speculated upon the personality of “the antichrist.” Not a few who were regarded as eminent “Bible teachers” insisted that the Kaiser of Germany filled this iniquitous role, but when the closing years of his career falsified their theorizings, Mussolini (as “the restorer of the old Roman empire”) became their choice; then as he began to wane in power and be eclipsed by another, Hitler was preferred. Now those men of evil renown have been called to meet their God, Stalin has occupied the prophetic limelight. And so, we suppose, it will continue to the end, for human nature changes not, either in its arrogance, blindness, gullibility or refusal to acknowledge its ignorance. “Vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass’s colt” (Job 11:12). There ever have been, and doubtless will continue to be unto the close of this world’s history, men who posed as being wise above that which is written, and a flock of admirers will credit their pretensions and receive as oracles their wild and profitless theorizings.
Disregarding all speculations and controversies upon prophecies which may or may not bear upon the subject (for example, those in Daniel and the Revelation, to which so many appeal), let us concentrate upon the term itself. The actual word “antichrist” occurs only in John’s epistles. In other connections the prefix “anti” is used in various senses: e.g. over against, contrary to, a substitute for. Thus, abstractedly considered, “antichrist” might refer either to one who pretended to be the Messiah or to one who openly opposed Him: a pseudo Christ or a rival. It is by carefully observing how the term is used by the apostle and what he predicated thereof that we must determine its sense. It is true that our Lord announced, “Many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many,” which He explained as “there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders” (Matthew 24:5, Matthew 24:24), but that is nothing to the point of our present inquiry—we consider that history shows those predictions were fulfilled in the first century A.D.
First, John had said, “ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists ... They went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:18-19). There we see that the early Christians had been forewarned that the Gospel of Christ would be opposed, that there were many such opposers by the close of the first century, and that such were apostates.
“And hence we learn that antichrist is not a single person, but many: antichrist in the first clause is explained by antichrists in the latter” (J. Gill). Second, 1 John 2:22, identifies those antichrists by describing them as liars against the Truth and repudiators of the Christ of God. Third, John affirmed, “And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist” (1 John 4:3). As “the spirit of the world” (1 Corinthians 2:12) has reference to that principle of carnal reason and gratification which regulates its subjects, so “the spirit of antichrist” signifies that evil influence which produces hostility to Christ. Finally, he informs us “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” (2 John 1:7). “From this it is clear that John understood by the word all those who denied that Jesus is the Messiah” (Barnes).
“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?” (1 John 2:22). To deny—either implicitly or explicitly—that Jesus is the Christ is to say that He is not the Messiah, the One announced and promised by the prophets of old. Second, it is to repudiate Him as the one appointed and endued by God to be the sole but sufficient Saviour of sinners. Third, it is the rejection of His person and official work, and that is a sin of the highest magnitude: “whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God” (2 John 1:9). As Gill remarked “The one who denied that Jesus is the Christ is not the only liar in the world, but he is the greatest of liars; this is a consummate lie, being opposed to a glaring truth.” It is the gainsaying of a fact clear and indisputable. It is opposed to the witness of the angels at His incarnation, and to that of His forerunner. It is opposed to the teaching of Him who is the Truth itself, for He clearly manifested Himself to be the Messiah. It flies in the face of His miraculous credentials, which authenticated His claim. It is contrary to the declaration of His apostles, who were eye-witnesses of His miracles, and to the sure Word of God Himself. The denial that Jesus is the Christ is a sin committed in many different ways and in varying degrees of culpability.
Unitarians, who directly and explicitly repudiate His Godhead, are not the only liars and antichrists. There are many opposers in Christendom who indirectly and implicitly deny the Christ of God by devising a false Christ from their perverted imaginations. Thus, Pelagians, and in a lesser degree Arminians, are guilty of this horrible crime, for they transfer to the creature almost all the honour which rightly belongs to the Redeemer alone. And as Calvin pertinently remarked, “So the Papists at this day, setting up free will in opposition to the grace of the Holy Spirit, ascribing a part of their righteousness and salvation to the merits of works, feigning for themselves innumerable advocates, by whom they render God propitious to them, have a sort of fictitious Christ I know not what: but the living and genuine image of God which shines forth in Christ they deform by their wicked inventions: they lessen His power, subvert and pervert His office.
Christ is denied whenever those things which belong to Him are taken away from Him.”
“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?
He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.”
Those terrible names of opprobrium cannot but fill the renewed heart with holy horror. Yet no terms of infamy and condemnation can be too strong to designate the opposers and blasphemers of the Christ of God. To deny that Jesus is the Christ is to repudiate His virgin birth, His vicarious character, His redemptive work, for those things were predicated of the Messiah. In the preceding chapter we explained that “the Christ” means “the Anointed One” and expresses His threefold office. Thus any man who denies that Jesus is the great Prophet of the Church, the infallible Teacher, the essential Word of God, is an antichrist—an arch-heretic. Anyone who denies that Jesus is the great High Priest, the sole Mediator between God and men, by whose one perfect offering He has perfected for ever the sanctified, is an antichrist—His open antagonist. Anyone who denies that Jesus is the King of the Church, the only one who has the right to command and be obeyed, is an antichrist—His avowed enemy. Yet this is not all that is included: “he is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.” The Messiahship of Christ is not an isolated fact: lying behind it is the all-important truth of the Holy Trinity. The denial of Christ is, at the same time, a repudiation of the mysterious and ineffable union which there is between the members of the Godhead. There is a most intimate and unique relation subsisting between the Father and the Son, one which is entirely beyond finite comprehension expressed in such terms as “the man ... My fellow, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 13:7), so that “all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father” (John 5:23), for, as He expressly declared, “I and Father are one” (John 10:30)—co-essential, co-eternal, co-glorious; “His own Son” (Romans 8:32) in a way that the regenerate are not: really, though incomprehensibly, “His own Son.” Now unless Christ be owned in this highest relation, He is virtually denied in all. Scripture presents the Father and the Son in eternity past, as engaged in mutual council (Zechariah 6:13). “A great covenant is negotiated. The Father and the Son, with the Spirit, are, if one may dare say so, in solemn conference together. From the bosom of the Father, in which He is dwelling evermore, the Son receives a commission to come forth.
“He is appointed Heir of all things. Creation is assigned to Him as His proper work. All providence is to be His care; and, above all, the providence of this spot of earth. Here on this earth, from among a fallen race, He is to purchase for Himself, and for His Father, at a great price, a seed given Him by the Father, and to share with Him the blessedness of His being the Son. So it is announced between the Father and the Son from everlasting; the Holy Spirit being a party to the arrangement, as He is to have a large share in carrying it out. And so, accordingly, in the fullness of time, the Son appears among men. He appears as the Son: on the Father’s behalf, entrusted with His Father’s commission, to be about His Father’s business. He is the Son not merely in respect of His being the Holy Jesus, receiving proofs and pledges of God’s fatherly presence and approval, as any holy being might. He is the Son also, and chiefly, in respect of the work or office with a view to which He is the Christ.
He is the Son consenting to be the Father’s Servant, and as such anointed for the accomplishment of the Father’s purpose.
Only, therefore, in so far as you acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, do you really receive Him as the Son.
“And denial, whether practical or doctrinal, of the proposition that Jesus is the Christ, is tantamount to a disowning of His personality as the Son. It is only when you recognize Him as anointed to do His Father’s will in the sacrifice of Himself, that you really own Him as the Son. Such, then, is the importance and significancy of the proposition that Jesus is the Christ, considered in itself; and such its bearing on the owning of His person as the Saviour and as the Son. It is a proposition which so vitally affects the essential character of Him to whom it relates, that the denial of it is virtually a denial of Himself ... For, in a word, the completeness of this illustrious personage depends on a full and adequate recognition of His double relation: to us as sinners, as our Jesus; and to God the Father, as His Son. Set aside His being Christ: the anointed Sacrificer and anointed Sacrifice, the anointed Priest and anointed Victim—the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world... and we have neither any Jesus fit to be our Saviour, nor any Son of God worth the owning... Hence he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ is not only a liar: he is antichrist. And being antichrist—setting himself against the Christ—he, as antichrist, denies the Father and the Son” (R. Candlish).
Let none aspire to more “liberality and charity” than the one who was favoured to lean on the Master’s bosom: those who are opposed to the person, doctrine, gospel, and kingdom of Christ are liars and antichrists. Those who array themselves against Him and hold doctrines which are hostile to His Godhead, His official character, His redemptive work, are His adversaries. Yet there is no truth so sacred and well attested, but there have ever been those who controverted it.
Some have denied the Saviour’s deity, some have explained away the reality and uniqueness of His humanity, and so the reality of His sufferings; while others set themselves against His headship and kingly authority; yet professing themselves to be and retaining the name of Christians, imposing their falsehoods on their deluded followers. In their bitter antagonism to the Lord Jesus, we may discover something more than an ebullition of human depravity, namely the agency of Satan. It is the enmity of that old serpent the Devil against the woman’s Seed. It demonstrates his age-long hatred of Christ and His gospel.
“He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.” How little is this realized today! Scriptural views of the Father cannot be ours if we err concerning the Son. “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27). The Father cannot be known apart from the Son, for He is the One who has “declared Him” (John 1:18) or made Him known. There is such an ineffable union between Them that He could aver, “he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.... I am in the Father, and the Father in Me” (John 14:9, John 14:11). Where Christ be denied, the whole revelation of God in and through Him (Hebrews 1:1-2; 2 Corinthians 5:19) is set aside. “As God has given Himself to us to be enjoyed only in Christ, He is elsewhere sought for in vain; or (if anyone prefers what is clearer) as in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Deity, there is no God apart from Him. It hence follows that Turks, Jews, and such as are like them, have a mere idol and not the true God. For by whatever titles they may honour the God which they worship, still, as they reject Him without whom they cannot come to God, and in whom God has really manifested Himself to us, they have but some creature or fiction of their own” (Calvin).
“Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father” (1 John 2:23). How wide and sweeping is this solemn statement! No matter what his profession and pretensions, if he in any way denies the Son he cuts himself off from the Father. The Father can only be known (John 17:3), approached (John 14:6), worshipped (1 Peter 2:5) and glorified (Colossians 3:17) in and through His incarnate Son. Despite their boasted orthodoxy, Jesus Christ said to the Jews, “Ye neither know Me, nor My Father; if ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also” (John 8:19). To be without the One is to be without the Other. That is abundantly demonstrated in heathendom: their religions are Godless because they are Christless! In like manner, all who acknowledge “the Supreme Being,” “the Architect of the universe,” or even “the Almighty,” and at the same time refuse the Mediator, believe in one who has no existence. Moreover, if wrong views be entertained of the Son, erroneous conceptions of the Father are necessarily entertained. If Christ be the Son only by adoption, God is not His Father.
If He be Son merely by office, equally so is the Father. If He be Son only by incarnation or resurrection, the Father is denied.
“Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father” as his “Father.” This at once gives the lie to one of the most popular and widely accepted errors of the last century, namely “the universal fatherhood of God.” In the spiritual and highest sense God is the Father of none save of Christ and His redeemed: “For ye [namely the saints] are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). Where there be no faith in Christ Jesus there is no spiritual sonship, and where that be absent, God cannot rightfully be regarded as our Father. Christ made that very plain when He exposed the empty boast of the unbelieving Jews, who claimed, “we have one Father, God,” and to whom He replied, “If God were your Father, ye would love Me” (John 8:41-42). How can one who despises and rejects the Son have God for his Father—have a filial relation to Him—when there is no bond of union between them? The Father thinks far too highly of His Son to love any who hate Him. He will not set a premium upon those who so grievously insult Him by disdaining His Beloved, for “Him hath God the Father sealed” (John 6:27).
“But he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also” (1 John 2:23). We have placed that sentence in italics, for so it is found in the Authorized Version. As most of our readers are aware, that is to indicate that such words are not found in the Greek, but have been supplied by the translators. This instance serves to manifest the scrupulous fairness of those who produced that edition of the Bible: because it was found in some of the ancient manuscripts, they gave it a place; as it was omitted by others, they marked it as doubtful. The Revised Version includes it in the text without any question, and, we believe, warrantably so. The editorial note in Calvin’s commentary says, “The words are found in most of the manuscripts, and in most of the versions, and in many of the Fathers. Besides, they wholly comport with the usual style of the apostle, whose common practice it was to state things positively and negatively, and vice versa. See 1 John 5:12.” A. Barnes tells us that this passage “is found in the Vulgate, the Syriac, the Ethiopian, the Armenian and Arabic versions; and in the critical editions of Griesbach, Tittman, and Hahn. It is probable, therefore, that it should be regarded as a genuine portion of the sacred text.”
Gill pointed out that the second half of 1 John 2:23 “confirms and illustrates what is before said: for as he who denies the sonship of Christ cannot hold the paternity of God, so he who owns the sonship of Christ, the second person, maintains the paternity of the first; for those two are correlates and mutually put or take away each other. No mention is made of the Spirit, because, as yet, no controversy had arisen concerning Him.” To which we would add: in Scripture, repetition is always for the purpose of emphasis, and often the same thing is stated both negatively and positively (as in 1 John 1:6-7) in order to impress us more deeply with that which is of first importance—as many of our Lord’s weightiest utterances were prefaced with a double “verily.” The fundamental truth of our present verse cannot be too clearly and emphatically stated or too frequently inculcated: that only by faith’s acceptance of Christ can we obtain any saving knowledge of God; and that all who believingly receive the Lord Jesus have in fact become the sons and daughters of the Almighty, and are made heirs of eternal life.
“But he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.” “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God” (1 Peter 3:18). By Christ all that believe are united to the Father, so that He could say, “I ascend unto My Father, and your Father” (John 20:17). As there is a most intimate relation between the Father and the Son, so there is in the doctrine and knowledge of Them. And as we cannot have the One without the Other, so on Christ’s becoming our Saviour we are received into the Father’s favour. The Father gives Himself to us in His Son, and by receiving the Latter we receive the Former. “He hath the Father” for his everlasting Portion: to commune with, to enjoy, to supply all his need. Thus, not only is the honour of Christ involved in our apprehensions of Him, but our blessings and privileges are bound up therein.