Identifying the Antichrist by Eddie Parrish

In a book entitled World War III, J. W. White wrote: "The prime mover in the events that will march man into World War III will be the Anti-Christ...a terrible personification of evil who will work more wholesale havoc than any other human being in the history of the world."White, Hal Lindsey (author of The Late Great Planet Earth, There's a New World Coming, et al.) and other dispensational premillennialists have done their work well in convincing a religious, but biblically illiterate, "Christian" community that such a person as described above will indeed torment the world and hasten the start of the much-feared Battle of Armageddon. Let us examine these claims under the perfect light of God's word.Following is every occurrence of "antichrist" in the Bible:* "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" (I John 2:18).* "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son" (I John 2:22).* "And 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" (I John 4:3).* "For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist" (II John 7).When most people discuss the antichrist they confine their discussions to wild misunderstandings of the imagery in the book of Revelation -- a book that never uses the term! It is also interesting to note the glaring differences between the premillennialist's description of the antichrist and the Bible's description.(1) According to the Bible there were many antichrists, not just one.(2) Those antichrists already existed in John's day, as opposed to being yet future to us.(3) These antichrists were false teachers in the church, not political dictators.(4) Anyone that denies that Jesus is the Christ, that He is the son of God, and/or that he came in the flesh can rightly be called "antichrist".The antichrist is not a political dictator that starts World War III. When John wrote of the antichrist, he was addressing something that his readers could and would recognize -- something that was a threat to them. Anyone who denies that Jesus is God's Son, or the Messiah, or that he came in the flesh could rightly be called an antichrist. Let us not be swayed or frightened by false teachers who "draw away disciples after themselves" (Acts 20:30) by "wresting the scriptures to their own destruction" (II Peter 3:16).