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Find the answers to all those questions you were too embarrassed to ask in Sunday School. Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. Hosted by Luke Taylor.
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The Antichrist: An Underworld Spirit
I John
Introduction
Hang around Christians long enough, listen to sermons long enough, or pick up just about any prophecy book sitting on the bookstore shelves, and you’re gonna hear about this dude called The Antichrist- an end-times world ruler who takes control in the last days.
And he’s referenced all throughout the Bible. The Old Testament has 33 names for him; the New Testament has at least 13. Daniel calls him the little horn. Revelation calls him the Beast. And I and II John call him the Antichrist. This guy carries more ID cards than Jason Bourne.
I John 2:18 tells us (NKJV)
Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming…
In the end times, in the apocalypse, this man will appear and dominate the world. But wait, there’s more to that verse. It continues:
…even now many antichrists have come…
Well what is that talking about? It gets even more confusing when you throw in
I John 4:3
every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
OK, so wait: is the Antichrist a man or a spirit? Is he coming, or is he already here? And if he is here- what do we do about him?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to I John 2, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]
Who is the antichrist?
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about the spirit of the Antichrist.
But first, I just want to establish who the Antichrist is, in his traditional understanding. Now, I know there are a variety of opinions out there on eschatology; I’m one of those weirdo premill-dispies, but as I often say, I don’t do this podcast to push a particular end-times view on you. You can take what I say today and fit it into your own eschatological framework. Hopefully you do have some way of interpreting all the references to this future world dictator who goes by these various names, because like I said in the opening, he comes up a lot.
If you pick up most prophecy books, they’re gonna tell you that the Antichrist is a man who will be, essentially, the king of the world for the final 7 years of history before Jesus comes back.
That comes from Daniel 9:27, which says
And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week
And if you read that in-context, it is clear that the “week” spoken of there is the Jewish concept of a “week of years,” which is a 7-year period. There’s good reason to think that the antichrist is actually kind of behind the scenes or not so prominent during the first half of the 7 years; however, for the last 3 and a half years, he becomes much more oppressive and genocidal, which is why it says:
and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering.
He tries to wipe out the Jewish people, as well as any Christians who stand against him, any nation that rises against him, and any individual who won’t take his mark. And he even puts pressure on the world to take his mark, saying that you cannot buy or sell unless you take it. In fact, he has this henchman called the False Prophet who enforces worship of the Antichrist, and if you’re caught refusing to worship the Antichrist or take his mark, you can be put to death. Revelation 13 explains all this. So it will be a distressful time on the earth.
And when you think about modern technology, artificial intelligence, and the capability of the government to surveil us so easily these days, it really makes it easier than ever to imagine how a dictator could carry these actions out.
However, it’s only for 7 years max; at that point, Jesus returns to this earth, and the antichrist is given the boot and cast into the Lake of Fire for all eternity, along with everyone who took his mark (Revelation 19:11-21).
Now, there are a million other little details that we could go into surrounding the antichrist, but that’s the gist of it. Most of the references to the antichrist make it clear that he’s a man—a human being—possibly nephilim or having some kind of demonically corrupted DNA, there are some good reasons to think that—but he’ll be a flesh-and-blood man. So why does I John refer to the antichrist as a spirit? Let’s return to that.
The Spirit of the Antichrist
So the books of I and II John refer to both speak of the antichrist. There is both a future and a present aspect to this dude.
I John 2:18, once again, says:
18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.
So the antichrist is coming—but also, many of them have come. So is the antichrist just one guy, or many guys? It’s both. There are many individuals throughout history and even in the present time who have been empowered by the antichrist spirit, but there will also be one singular guy who comes in the end.
You know how on this podcast I’ve often said that in the spiritual realm, there are many lowercase-g gods, but only one capital-g God. Similarly, there are many lowercase-a antichrists that we can see in history, but only one capital-a Antichrist who will arise in the last days. Because there is an antichrist spirit that invades our world.
Let’s talk about what it does, and then we’ll talk about where it comes from. The antichrist spirit invades our churches and tries to teach false doctrine.
I John 2 continues with verse 19
19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
Many people try to teach that this is about how you can’t lose your salvation, but that’s not what this verse is talking about if you read it in-context. It’s talking about a specific group of people who infiltrate our churches with the intention of teaching false doctrine about Jesus. And if they were to show up in your church, the Holy Spirit should help you discern truth from lies.
I John 2 continues
20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.
So the antichrist spirit denies (1) Jesus as the Messiah, and (2) trinitarian theology. Remember when Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” and Jesus said, “this has been revealed to you by my Father in heaven”? (Matthew 16). That was a spiritual truth. There is a God the Father and a God the Son. Any Christian, any denomination, any cult that tries to pass itself off as Christian but denies the deity of Jesus is of an antichrist spirit. Or any of them that say you can have the Father but not the Son.
There is no such thing as Chrislam, the idea that you can merge Christianity and Islam, because Islam denies that God has a son. Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Jesus is a created being; it’s not true. Yes, Jesus had a body that began to exist within Mary’s womb, but Jesus existed eternally as a member of the Trinity before that. Jesus is credited with creation of the world. John 1 says “all things were created through Him," and that “the world was made through Him.” But false spinoffs of Christianity will deny that Jesus existed eternally. The Jehovah’s Witnesses in particular have their own deceptive Bible translation that obscures these truths.
I John 4:1-3
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
So how can the antichrist be in the world already even if the man himself isn’t here? Because the antichrist spirit is already here. There are branches of Christianity, particularly those who call themselves liberal or progressive wings of Christianity which deny the supernatural as much as possible, who will say that Jesus did not really manifest in a fleshly body. Or they’ll say that He didn’t resurrect in a physical body but that He came back as a ghost, even though the Gospels go to great lengths to prove that Jesus was not a ghost. These so-called Christians are not Christians when they teach these things: they’re falling for an Antichrist spirit.
II John 7 says
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.
So what does this have to do with the antichrist of the end times? Because this capital-A Antichrist of the end times is going to deceive many people into believing that he is the long-awaited Messiah and savior of the world. Not Jesus. He’ll even enter into a rebuilt Jewish Temple and proclaim himself to be God, an event that Jesus says is the abomination of desolation.
II Thessalonians 2:3-4 describe this guy this way:
3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
The word “anti” doesn’t always mean “against,” even though he is against Christ. But it can also mean “instead of.” And that’s what the antichrist desires; that He would be worshipped instead of Christ.
But this conflict between the Antichrist and the True Christ is not just something that will play out in the End Times, and it’s not just something that is fought today. This conflict goes all the way back to the Creation of the World.
The Beast Out of the Sea
So there’s a human antichrist, and there’s a spirit of the antichrist, and someday the Antichrist spirit will surely inhabit or perhaps you might say “possess” the human being who becomes the final Antichrist.
But now I want to show where this spirit comes from, because this goes all the way back to Creation. If you listened to two episodes ago, I started into this subject, and I want to tie that all up today. In Revelation 13, you see a symbolic vision that describes the power and authority of the Antichrist.
Revelation 13:1 begins
And I saw a beast rising out of the sea
The beast is the Antichrist. If you remember what I said a couple of weeks ago, the phrase “sea” in Revelation is sometimes used to refer to the Underworld: the realm of the dead, known as Sheol in the Old Testament, which contains hell, and also contains a whole variety of spirits.
Now, being a good ole dispy boy, I’ve always been told that the “sea” here means Gentiles. So when Revelation tells us about a beast out of the sea, that means the Antichrist would be a Gentile. Later when it talks about a beast out of the earth, it means the False Prophet would emerge from the Jews.
Now, that may or may not be true. I’m not saying those theories are wrong. But verses of Scripture can have multiple layers of meaning. And now that we understand how the book of Revelation can use the word “sea” to mean the Underworld, and since we know there are Underworld spirits and Earthly realm spirits, we can theorize that this might also mean that the Antichrist spirit is an Underworld spirit and that the False Prophet is an earthly realm spirit.
To help build this case, let’s read the description of the Antichrist here:
Revelation 13 continues:
And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.
So the Antichrist is described here as a sea monster with multiple heads. When I imagine it, I kind of think of this creature in Greek mythology called a Hydra, if you’re familiar with that at all.
Verse 2
And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.
The dragon is the devil. And as we covered last week, the devil is an earthly realm spirit who rules the world. He offered the whole earth to Jesus as one of the temptations in the wilderness. Jesus called the devil “the ruler of this world” three times in the Book of John. So the Antichrist spirit is not subservient to the devil; he’s from a different realm. But they will partner together in the End Times because Satan wants to work with this spirit to try and overthrow or defeat God’s plans. So Satan gives his power and authority to the Antichrist during this time.
Verse 3
3 One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.
This may or may not refer to the Antichrist receiving some kind of head wound and he is thought dead but survives, which perhaps is a copy of Jesus’ death and resurrection. I won’t dwell on that today.
Verses 4-5
4 And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” 5 And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months.
In the last 3 and a half years, the antichrist and the dragon are both worshipped as deities. Again, perhaps setting up their own copy of the true God with Satan acting like God the Father and the Antichrist acting like God the Son. Throw in the False Prophet and you have an unholy trinity trying to deceive the world in the end times. Because just as the Holy Spirit testifies to Jesus, the False Prophet testifies to the Antichrist. So it’s an unholy trinity. Not sure if they’ll present themselves to the world in that way, but that seems to be what they’re copying in the spiritual realm.
Leviathan the Twisting Serpent
But let’s go back to this idea of a multi-headed sea monster with a wounded head. This actually sounds like something we’ve seen before in the Bible, when Psalms is recounting the story of Creation. When the earth was first formed, it was a sea of chaos. Psalms 74 describes God settling creation and setting the boundaries of the earth as if God was defeating a sea monster. At the risk of sounding repetitive from two weeks ago, I want to read
Psalm 74:12-17 again:
12 Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
15 You split open springs and brooks;
you dried up ever-flowing streams.
16 Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
17 You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.
So notice there that we see this sea monster called Leviathan mentioned, a beast of chaos with multiple heads. Does this not sound like the same beast we see in Revelation 13 who emerges from the Underworld and partners with Satan? I believe that Leviathan is the name of the Antichrist spirit.
Now you might say, “But Luke, Leviathan was slain at the foundation of the world. Psalm 74 is past-tense; it’s something that already happened. How could he come back in the end times?”
Well here’s something really interesting in the Book of Isaiah. There’s a section in chapters 24-27 that are often called the Isaianic Apocalypse. (Don’t ask me how to spell Isaianic). This is the end of the world, according to Isaiah. And Leviathan comes up again.
Isaiah 27:1
In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
Again, that’s talking about the end of the world, so that’s future. Unless a whole lot of stuff happens between the time I’m recording this and the day that it’s posted, Isaiah 27 is future. So Psalm 74 says God slayed Leviathan in the past at the Creation of the world; Isaiah 27 says God is going to do it again.
Daniel Moore’s Commentary on The Book of Isaiah, which recently released on Amazon, says, “…Isaiah 27 presents a vision of God’s final victory over chaos and evil, symbolized by the defeat of Leviathan…”
What does that mean? Leviathan comes back. Well I believe it’s so clear as you read Revelation that this beast from the sea is spirit of the Antichrist, which means that the battle between Jesus and the Antichrist is not just a conflict in the end times. It’s a conflict that’s been going on since the foundations of the earth were laid.
A Spirit of Chaos
So if the antichrist is a spirit of chaos, what is the relationship between chaos and the Antichrist?
Well let’s remind ourselves of what God did as He fashioned the earth. God started setting boundaries. God separated and made division between one thing and another. Psalms mentioned that as well as it described God’s victory over Leviathan. And the chaos waters kept getting pushed lower and lower, but if you read Genesis 1 carefully, they never went away. They were separated off into this lower region called the Sea, which is representative of the Underworld. And that’s where Leviathan—the chaos dragon—the Antichrist spirit—has been assigned (or situated).
So how does the Antichrist spirit of the end times align with the chaos agenda? In some surprising ways. For example, the antichrist is said to be a man of lawlessness in some verses we read before. Let me go back to them again.
II Thessalonians 2:3-4
3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
It seems like every boundary that the Antichrist can violate, he will. He sets up a 7-year covenant and then breaks it halfway through. He profanes the holy place. He is called a man of lawlessness. To be lawless means to blur lines and have no boundaries.
Here are some other ways. Genesis 1:14 says that God set up times and seasons.
(Genesis 1:14)
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,
These are boundaries. This is how God establishes order in his world. But look at what the Antichrist will do:
Daniel 7:25
He shall speak words against the Most High,
and shall wear out the saints of the Most High,
and shall think to change the times and the law;
Change the times. God establishes them; antichrist will think to change them.
I thought this was an interesting quote I read in a book I was recently reading by John Walton, The Lost World of the Prophets: “The signs of the end will be the disintegration of order—as happened in the days of Noah (Mt 24:37).”
And remember, this Antichrist spirit is already in the world. And places where you see boundaries being violated or blurred, I would say it’s a work of this spirit. Genesis 1 says that God created a distinction in male and female. The transgenderism movement was trying to erase that. That sounds like the influence of the chaos realm to me.
Let me remind you what John said was an antichrist spirit:
I John 2:22-23
This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.
There is a distinction in God the Father and God the Son. But the antichrist tries to erase this distinction. Blur the lines.
Defeating the Antichrist Today
So how can we oppose this spirit? Well let me ask you a question: what is the opposite of chaos? There is more than one right answer to this question, but here’s one: Order. When you follow rules and respect boundaries—especially God’s rules and boundaries—you establish order in your life, and this keeps the influence of chaos at bay. If you feel like you’re oppressed spiritually, like you’re under spiritual attack or like your life is a mess, like you’re sinking and can’t get your head above water—one of the best things you can do for yourself is to establish order in your life. Routines. Rhythms. Go to bed by a certain time. Get up at a certain time. Make your bed. Follow structure.
That sounds so practical that it might not sound very spiritual. It’s very spiritual, because it keeps the forces of chaos at bay who are trying to overwhelm your life. You have to put your foot down and not let them have control. You have self-control. Get yourself in a routine. Organize your life. Watch some Jordan Peterson. Now make your bed, dangit! What are you waiting for?
And not just order in our lives, but order in our doctrine. We see in I and II John that the Antichrist spirit tries to disrupt a lot of doctrine, especially around Jesus. So when we hold our ground firm on doctrine, especially in relation to the deity of Christ, we don’t just oppose the Antichrist spirit—we’re defeating him. Keep order in your life.
As I Timothy 4:16 says (NIV)
Watch your life and doctrine closely.
But there’s another antonym of chaos, and that is peace. And Jesus is certainly the Prince of Peace, but I don’t think I’ll have time to get into that today. So for the sake of time, I’ll stick that in the newsletter for this weekend. So if you’d like to get the newsletter, sign yourself up in the show notes or at my website: WeirdStuffInTheBible.com.
Next Time
This was fun today, guys. I almost skipped doing this episode, but I’m glad I did it. This really sheds a new light on this figure of the Antichrist who mysteriously appears in the Tribulation period. He’s a human, but his agenda is simply a manifestation of this spirit that has always been trying to blur boundaries and generate chaos in our world.
Next time on this podcast, we’re going to jump into a new topic: the Cosmic Mountain. This is related to the Underworld topics we’ve been talking about lately, but we’re building on it. The Bible says Eden was a garden, but it also says Eden was a mountain. So, what does that mean? Is this literal or figurative? Is this physical or spiritual? I’ll unpack all of that next time and explain what Eden actually is. The Bible describes a lot more going on in Eden than what you read in Genesis 2 and 3, and we’ll put all those pieces together next time.
Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it! And if you need to get in touch with me, my email is WeirdStuffInTheBible@gmail.com.
I’ll end with this message I received several weeks back from a listener named Owen. He is probably an official weirdo by now, and I wanted to include this email last time in my episode about the devil, but I ran out of time. It also fits in pretty well right here. The whole email might be a little too long to read, but Owen was essentially asking whether Satan should be understood as one spirit or many spirits. What provoked this question was how the word “Satan” in the Hebrew can simply mean “adversary” or “accuser,” and this word can be used to describe lots of different beings in the Bible, human or otherwise. Jesus even calls Peter “Satan” in Matthew 16. So Owen says, “is Satan a single being, a role that can be applied to multiple beings, or some combination of both? And how do passages like Job 1 and Matthew 4 fit into that picture?”
It’s a very thoughtful question, because Owen is right that “satan” is often more of a title or descriptive term, and there are many (quote-unquote) “satans” mentioned throughout the Bible. However, I think the Bible is also clear that there is one singular chief adversary of God who is THE Satan.
Revelation 12 and 20 use phrases like this: “the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.” To me, that’s the Bible just going out of its way to be clear to us: the devil = the serpent = the dragon = Satan, so we don’t have to have any confusion over whether this is the same dude. Even Michael Heiser, who I love, was a little squishy on this question. And if we didn’t have the Book of Revelation, it would perhaps be more mysterious. But I think Revelation 12 makes it uber-clear for us.
So we might say there are many lowercase-s satans in the Bible, but only one capital-s Satan. I noticed this trend in both the Bible and the Book of Enoch as I was doing our Enoch study this year: that the Bible will often say there are lots of prototypes of something, but there will also be a singular main version of that thing. Let me explain:
The Bible speaks of many lowercase-g gods, but there is only one singular creator God.
The Book of Enoch’s 40th chapter also refers to many satans on earth, but the 53rd chapter tells us there is THE Satan.
The Book of Enoch refers to the Watchers as the Sons of Perdition, but II Thessalonians 2 tells us that the Antichrist will be THE Son of Perdition.
I John 2 tells us there are many antichrists, but also says that THE Antichrist is coming.
Genesis 3 refers to spiritual beings as “beasts,” but Revelation tells us about the Antichrist who is THE Beast.
The New Testament warns us about many false prophets, but Revelation 13 tells us the Antichrist will be partnered with THE false prophet.
Genesis 6 and the Book of Enoch speak of many Sons of God, but the new Testament reveals THE Son of God.
And the Antichrist doesn’t stand a chance against Him. And if you watch your life and doctrine closely, the Antichrist doesn’t stand a chance against you either.
So if fighting the Antichrist today even though he hasn’t showed up in the flesh yet sounds weird, I hope you’ll be a little more weird today, too. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.