Antichrist Defined
Contrary to sensationalist end-time preachers and Hollywood, the term antichrist does not refer to some Satan-possessed politician who will one day rule the world. That’s the stuff of end-time fiction, à la Left Behind, not the Bible. The term antichrist is only used five times in the New Testament, and in every case it refers to people in in the first century who denied that Jesus was the Messiah. Here are those five times:
#1–3: “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. 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 they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us…Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:18–19, 22–23, bolding mine).
#4: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world” (1 John 4:2–3, bolding mine).
#5: “I [John] say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 7, bolding mine).
These are the only references to antichrists in the entire New Testament, and in every case it refers to people in the first century who denied that Jesus is the Messiah.
For more information about the Antichrist, get my book The End Is Here: How the New Testament Prophecies Were Fulfilled, available at Amazon.
By Alex Polyak, Director of The Bible Fulfilled, 3/20/25
