Prophecy makes strange bedfellows: On the history of identifying the antichrist

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Mar 2001 by Nichols, Stephen J

In the history of American literature, perhaps no two stranger bedfellows exist than Herman Melville's naive but adventurous Ishmael and the skillful harpooner but strangely tattooed, and, one might add, cannibalistic, Queequeg. Upon barely observing Queequeg's decorated body, the skull he is unable to sell, and the harpoon which never left his side, in the dark of the room, Ishmael, fearing for his life, mutters, "Yes it's just as I thought, he's a terrible bedfellow." That is, no stranger bedfellows, until one considers a particular point of prophetic interpretation, namely, identifying the antichrist. What do the eschatologies of J. Dwight Pentecost and John Calvin have in common? Hal Lindsey and Jonathan Edwards? Increase Mather and Arno C. Gaebelein? On the one hand, the answer is not much. Such different eschatologies, nonetheless, yield a rather surprising connection. All of these, as well as a host of others, identify the Pope as the antichrist.

Not only is this commonality strange given the different theological perspectives and hermeneutics of these figures, it also confounds understanding given the distance-chronological, geographical, and sociologicalbetween them. I suppose one can conclude that in light of the similar exegetical conclusion in spite of such theological, hermeneutical, and other differences, this is a clear case of the text triumphing over tradition, interpretation trumping theology. In other words, if these interpreters understand the antichrist to be the Pope, then, goes the logic, they are right. I might propose a different way to interpret this data. The point is, the whole task of identifying the antichrist, which has a long and cornucopian history indeed, is a misdirected quest. The text never calls upon us to identify the antichrist. In fact, some have argued that to impose such a construct as the antichrist upon the text is unwarranted. This isolated issue serves to highlight the danger of allowing sociological factors to govern our understanding of texts in general and prophetic texts in particular. As the Church enters the new millennium perhaps such cautions are especially in order. Below follows a brief and selective survey of the history of identifying the antichrist, with an emphasis on the predominant, sometimes called the Protestant interpretation, viz. of the pope as antichrist. Some conclusions concerning this enterprise and apocalyptic speculations and prophetic interpretations will be drawn. First, however, a brief examination of the Biblical teaching on antichrist is in order.

I. ANTICHRIST IN SCRIPTURE

Despite the literature on antichrist there is a paucity of explicit references to antichrist in Scripture. Only John in his epistles employs the term, four times in the singular (1 John 2:18; 2:22; 4:3; and 2 John 7) and once in the plural (1 John 2:18). Two elements in these texts encourage the reader not to look for an individual per se. First, the use of antichristoi polloi in 1 John 2:18 defies the interpretation that antichrist is an individual. Secondly, 1 John 4:3 refers to the interpolated but warranted to pneuma tou antichristou, which may very well be understood impersonally and so would be translated as "you have heard that it comes, and now it is already in the world," following the NRSV and NAS. The NIV omits the pronoun altogether. So John speaks of a spirit of antichrist already present in the world. Further, John identifies antichrist for the reader as the ones) who denies the deity of Christ. Thus 2:22 reads, "Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist the one who denies the father and the son." In 4:3 John adds that every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God: "this is the spirit of antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world." 2 John 7 states the matter directly: "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist." John provides a singular criterion for identifying antichrists: a heretical Christology. One could conclude that antichrist in John is no less an individual than it is false teaching; John's audience may well have understood antichrist to be no more than anti-Christian theology.1 One is just as warranted as identifying false teaching as antichrist as identifying many people as antichrist. So Polycarp writes in his letter to the Philippians, "Everyone who does not confess Jesus Christ to have come in the flesh is antichrist."2 For Polycarp, and for that matter for John, the docetists were antichrists. The more tenuous conclusion would be to look for one particular individual to fit the bill. Nonetheless, it is this latter interpretation that holds sway. Such an interpretation is essential to naming antichrist because these texts are the linchpin to that whole enterprise.

From the perspective of systematic theology, one would err not to look for connections of John's teaching here to other texts. It would be fallacious, besides, to assume that the absence of the term antichrist elsewhere in Scripture necessarily means the absence of teaching on this subject. Kenneth Grayston challenges such an approach with John's antichrist texts by arguing that it is unwarranted to connect John's teaching here to other texts given John's specificity. Additionally, there is nothing explicitly relating John's material to the other so-called antichrist material.3 Raymond Brown takes a different approach. While acknowledging the peculiarity of the term antichrist in the Johannine epistles, Brown argues that this teaching "represents a convergence of various background factors in Judaism."4 He identifies four loci, namely: (1) the sea monster or Leviathan-a reference to the parallels to ANE cosmogenic struggle; (2) Satan or an angelic adversary; (3) a human ruler embodying evil; and (4) the false prophet. Brown probably represents the majority of commentators, and so those wishing to best understand John's point here should look elsewhere. Typically three trajectories are taken. First, one goes back to Christ's teaching, which in turn leads to a few salient OT texts. Secondly, one turns to Paul in 2 Thessalonians. Finally, John's apocalypse, most notably chapter 13, comes into view.