The Bible Answers: “Who Is Actually The Antichrist?”
Precisely what does the Bible reveal with regard to the Antichrist?
“Antichrist” signifies “against {or instead of} Christ.” In its broadest sense then, the expression applies to each and every individual who defies Christ or one his representative. It likewise refers to each and every one who mendaciously claims to be Christ or simply a Christian.
Jesus himself explained:
“He that is not on my side is against me [or is antichrist].” — Luke 11:23 (Brackets mine)
In the first century of our era, the apostle Paul cautioned Timothy to be wary of the recalcitrant ideas of antichrist apostates, such as Hymenaeus and Philetus, whose “word will spread like gangrene.” Paul further exhorted: “These very men have deviated from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already occurred; and they are subverting the faith of some.” (2 Timothy 2:16–18)
Evidently, Hymenaeus and Philetus proclaimed that the resurrection was a symbolic one as well as that Christians had actually already been resurrected in a spiritual sense. But as you see, the teaching of Hymenaeus together with Philetus defied Christ’s own assurance of a literal resurrection of the deceased under God’s Kingdom government. — John 5:28, 29.
Yet another canard, hatched hundreds of years afterwards, is the doctrine of the purported holy Trinity, which basically makes the outrageous allegation that Jesus is equally the Father, Almighty God, as well as the Son of God.
In his text, The Church of the First Three Centuries, Dr. Alvan Lamson details that the doctrine of the Trinity “had its origin in a source entirely foreign from that of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; that it grew up, and was ingrafted on Christianity, through the hands of the Platonizing Fathers.”
Exactly who happened to be all these “Platonizing Fathers”? These were apostate clerics enthralled with the ideology of another antichrist pagan Greek thinker, Plato.
This adulterous engrafting of the Trinity was a masterstroke of the antichrist, for this false doctrine enshrouded The Almighty in confusion while simultaneously obfuscating his association with the Son. (John 14:28; 15:10; Colossians 1:15)
Exactly how can anyone “draw close to God,” as encouraged by the Scriptures, if God Almighty is some Delphic mystery? — James 4:8.
Exacerbating this bewilderment, many Bible translators have had the sheer temerity to take God’s very own name — rendered “Jehovah” in English — out of their translations, despite the fact that it appears well over 7,000 times in its original text!
Undeniably, distorting the identity of The Almighty by making him not only a mystery but a nameless mystery is an act of blatant contempt for our loving Creator as well as his inspired Word. (Revelation 22:18, 19)
What is more, replacing the divine name with such labels as “Lord” and “God” is a direct contravention of Christ’s instruction, who taught his disciples to pray: “Thy name be hallowed or, made holy.” — Matthew 6:9, The New English Bible.