1 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
5 Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
–2 THESSALONIANS 2:1-12 (NIV)–
Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.
–1 JOHN 2:18 (NIV)–
11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13 And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. 14 Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.***
–REVELATION 13:11-18 (NIV)–
*** I just realized this for the first time: the beast associated with 666 is not the Antichrist but his false prophet (the second beast in Rev. 13). This means that the whole 666 thing is really speaking of the false prophet of the literal future Antichrist, or something like that. The number is not meant to be a mystical identifier of the Antichrist figure (the first beast in Rev. 13). Nor is it necessary, because 2 Thessalonians 2 is extremely clear about all of his character traits and actions. –J.B.
The Antichrist is also described as “the first beast”:
5 The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. 6 It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. 7 It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.
–REVELATION 13:5-8 (NIV)–
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St. Irenaeus, “The Fraud, Pride, and Tyrannical Kingdom of the Antichrist.” (180 A.D.). “They [the ten kings] shall…give their kingdom to the beast, and put the Church to flight…But he [John] indicates the number of the name [Antichrist, 666] now, that when this man comes we may avoid him, being aware who he is.”
St. Hippolytus of Rome, “On Christ and Antichrist.” (202 A.D.). “Concerning the tribulation of the persecution which is to fall upon the Church from the adversary…That refers to the one thousand two hundred and threescore days (the half of the week) during which the tyrant is to reign and persecute the Church.”
George Eldon Ladd, The Blessed Hope (Eerdmans, 1956). Shows that the early church fathers taught that there will be a post-tribulation rapture. The appearance of the Antichrist was the first aspect to be expected in the end-time process; and not a sudden and unexpected rapture like in the Left Behind films. The Omen films, as worldly as they are, come much closer to the Biblical and early church view of the last days.
Robert Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation (Zondervan, 1973).
Douglas Moo, “A Case for the Posttribulation Rapture,” Three Views on the Rapture (Zondervan, 2018).
David Bercot, ed. A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs (Hendrickson, 1998).
