WHO IS THE ANTI-CHRIST?

Exploring the Biblical Parameters of who the Anti-Christ is using the Book of Revelation with the Book of Daniel.

Here is context for understanding. Scripture makes it clear that the Anti-Christ comes from the well of the Bottomless Pit. The pit is that part of the center of the earth that is reserved for the dead enemy prisoners of God. The Bottomless pit is a vast, profound region. It’s a very real locality in and a part of what is known as Sheol, the abode of all the dead. [See Romans 10:7; Ephesians 4:8-10; Luke 8:31; Matthew 8:29; Revelation 9:1-11] It’s a place with no softening of heart. It’s the place satan will be incarcerated for 1000 years. [See Revelation 20:1,2] From there, Revelation 11:7 reveals his ascent…“And when they (the 2 Witnesses) have finished their testimony (for 3 ½ years) , the (wild) beast that ascends from the bottomless pit will make war upon them and conquer them and kill them..…” The Anti-Christ/Beast cannot ascend out of the great Abyss until the first of 3 trumpet “woes” are declared in Revelation 8:13. “Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice, as it flew in midheaven, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blast of the other trumpets which the three angels are about to blow! And the fifth angel blew his trumpet and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit, he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit.…” So it is, the great 3 woes begin with the 5^th Trumpet blowing, as satan is cast out of heaven and given the key to release the evil supernatural forces within.

And so it is we discover the timing of these amazing events. That being at the sounding of the 5^th Trumpet, satan and his angels are cast out of the heavens associated with this earth described in detail in Revelation 12, in fulfillment of that prophetic word of Christ in Luke10:18. And then at some time after the 5^th or 6^th Trumpets, the Anti-Christ ascends and kills the 2 Witnesses. Then the second woe (6^th Trumpet) is declared past. [Revelation 11:14] And from the time of his rising up, until his destruction, Scripture says he would, “…continue forty and two months.”  [Revelation 13:5]

So as the entire period of the Two Witnesses’ witnessing is 3/12 years, the entire period of the Anti-Christ, the one rising from the Pit, receiving power from satan to kill them and begin the great persecution of the Saints is 3 ½ years. Then the war in the heavens of Revelation 12, the catching up of the man-child/first fruits unto God, the casting down of satan and him being given the keys to open the Bottomless Pit, is at the blowing of the 5^th Trumpet. This is all very near the middle of Daniel’s 70^th week of 7 years.   

Note: Jesus Christ lived and was 30 years old before He was baptized. “And the Holy Ghost descended…upon him..” He was then led into the wilderness, being tempted of the devil, and for  3 ½ years ministered in the Power of the Holy Spirit.  [Luke 3 &4] More on that later….. 

Now the 14^th Chapter and first verse of Revelation begins an account of sequential events beginning with the First Fruits/man-child offering unto God. Followed then by the first Angel’s warning to “fear God”. (As satan is now cast down upon the earth, the Anti-Christ strikes wonder and fear in the earth.)  Then shortly thereafter, “Another angel, a second, followed saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of her impure passion…” (Who or what this Babylon is, is not here revealed.) “And another angel, a third followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any one worships the beast and his image….he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath….”

So in the sequence of 1-2-3, we see the warning to fear God, the destruction of Babylon, then the warning of the angel of what is forthcoming; the great temptation of all to worship the beast. What this discovers to us is that in addition to the Anti-Christ’s victory over the Two Witnesses, there is a destruction soon following of a Babylon after the beast ascends. This is that which corresponds with Revelation 12’s mad satanic attack on the Woman’s children remaining on the earth. Thus we see in the sequence, it is prior to his demand for worship that this Babylon is fallen, and therefore is at the first of his 3 ½ yr career as opposed to that Babylon fallen at the end of his career, when the 7^th vial; (the final judgment just preceding his destruction) occurs.  [Revelation 16:17-19] We are not enlightened as to what and where this first Babylon is until the 17^th Chapter of Revelation…..which brings us to the subject of who is the Anti-Christ…..

Read 17^th chapter of Revelation through. 

Revelation 17:3 “So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman (end time religious system, mysteriously connected to ancient Babel/Babylon as opposed to that woman representative of God’s spiritual system in Chapter 12) sit upon a scarlet colored beast (the end time political system on the one hand/ the Anti-Christ on the other who personifies it) full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” The woman and the beast (corporate) were existing in John’s day.

Read Revelation 17:10,11, the 7 heads described ties the beast (corporate) to John’s period. See verse 10: “And there are seven kings: five are fallen and one is, (that is at the time of John’s vision) and the other is not yet come (the 7^th king), and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was (who lived before) and was not (at the time the Woman is seen riding the Beast), even he is (after the time he ascends from the pit) the eighth (the 8^th king/ the beast ‘personal’) and is one of the seven (kings fallen, and then appears “resurrected” at the last days) and goeth into perdition.” (“And the beast was taken,….cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.” Revelation 19:20 describes the second death of this man). 

So it is that the Beast which John saw in Revelation 17:8 is he who “was and is not ….and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit…”  It is the resurrected and final Beast/King who is easily identified with the one of Chapter 13. Both have 7 heads and 10 horns. Read Revelation 13:1-8. “….his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after……and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” 

This wonder and worship can be better understood if it can be seen that the 7^th king that had not yet come in John’s day, does come (similar to Christ’s living before His greater anointing) just prior to the 8^th. In that he, as the 7^th king of the last Beast/corporate had history already; he being the principle of the opening of the first Seal as the 7^th king.  “…and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.” [Revelation 6:2] That is to say, he is that person who “…is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.” [Revelation 6:2;17:10; Matthew 24:4-8] So it is that the 7 heads of the (4^th) Empire Beast are representative of 7 kings. And in the Last Days, that 7^th king “….has went out conquering and to conquer…” and was killed “….fallen…”. But Scripture says he miraculously “recovers”, and now then he is the 8^th Beast/King “…that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven….”

Coming back from the dead is no new idea. It is declared from Scripture and is seen in the Old Testament with Samuel (1 Samuel 28:15) and in the New Testament with our Lord’s references of Lazarus’s potential rising from the dead in Luke 16. If were not possible, He surely would not of used these as examples. As well as all references, and statements from both Testaments that the dead will be resurrected. 

Samuel came up recognizable and with clothing. (This suggests that the soul retains the recognizable look and the death state necessary for covering). The Anti-Christ must then come back in the recognizable wounded (unto death) body, that he might be worshiped by the remaining inhabitants of the earth. He then, in another’s body, would not in the strictest sense be “resurrected” from the dead. (Having not retained his former body which is decayed-but now occupying the body of the 7th King upon rising from out of the abyss.) Now being regarded as resurrected from the dead, he would then be more readily accepted upon his setting himself forth as God. [2nd Thessalonians 2:4]

Again, he is the 8th King with the body of the 7th. (…even he is the eighth, and is of the seven..) The 8^th king/ end time beast’s duration from here as Emperor of the Earth is 42 months. But when considering the career of the 7^th and 8^th kings together, this represents a very much longer period of time (33 ½ yrs?) in which the league of the 10 horns would have already formed and had recognized him, in the one capacity, then in the other.  

It is that personified Beast that incorporates all the characteristic natures of the first 3 cold-hearted wild beasts; a leopard, a bear and a lion. The reference is important as this also points towards the area of his initial and primary influence when he rises to power. (Compare Daniel 7:2-28, 8:19-26 and Revelation 17.)

Note: The 7^th  and the 8^th beast/king being connected and recognized by prophecy, as all previous Emperors were. (Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Alexander, and the Roman Emperors) When he comes in connection and in/ into control of Babylon, that great city (as seen in the 17 & 18^th chapters of Revelation) the first Babylon then destroyed in Revelation 14 is Mystic Religious Babylon, which is tied to Rome. God uses the Anti-Christ and 10 nation confederation to destroy and bring judgment on ancient Babel at the beginning of his reign. That being Rome/Mystic religious Babylon which is described in Revelation 17. And the literal Babylon, the throne of the last Gentile Beast-king comes again into God’s remembrance in the pouring out of the 7^th vial as seen in Revelation 16:19 and in the thoroughly described destruction in Chapter 18 at the end of his reign.  

Satan’s kingdom is a perverted copy of God’s.

With this understanding, many mysteries may be unlocked. In that this final beast, whose diabolic nature, now honed in the Abyss for around 2 thousand years, (and in the 3^rd day rises) can truly personify satan as the last Empire Wild Beast rising. Indeed his essence being “..a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly…” And you can see that in this he answers to the only Begotten Son of God, in that he is the son of man/son of god; the dragon (satan); he who comes in the power of his father as god “incarnate”; part human and part spirit beast. (This is satan’s answer to God’s glorious initiative to bring forth sons. [Hebrews 2:10]  And how may He have true sons? Only by combining two different natures: the created with eternal uncreated into a certain eternal union. {This special union in type can be seen from Eve coming out of Adam, when he declares “…bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”} So it is in even a greater way that Christ declares when we come out of His “side”, into that glorious greater resurrection union. “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” ….“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” So it is a man should understand that he is to leave the nature of fallen Adam, (his father) and cleave to his Bridegroom that they become one Spirit/spirit. God has marvelously and shockingly set before all His Creation the possibility of uniting the 2 natures into one, through the resurrected Jesus Christ. “The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me….”

The Anti-Christ has now forsaken all traces of humanity.“….who, though he was (atoned for the calling) in the form of God, did not count (this) equality with God a thing to be grasped (from a negative perspective), but emptied himself, taking the form of a (devil’s) servant, (who) being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even (an inordinate) death (like unto as) on a cross. Therefore God ( the god of this World) has highly exalted him and bestowed on (him) the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus (the Anti-Christ) every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ (the Anti-Christ) is Lord, to the glory of God (his god)  the Father (his father).” He has willingly shunned the spirit/Spirit of God to become like his father, that he might bring many children unto his father. He (the Anti-Christ) comes in the power and name of his father (satan), having all authority, throne and power in this world. As Jesus had ascended from the middle of the earth after having descended from the Heavens, now this son of god, having descended from the earth, ascends out of the center of the earth; the Bottomless Pit. “Resurrected” and “anointed” in the supernatural power displayed in signs and wonders, he kills the two Witnesses and goes about destroying the works of Christ, doing the will of his father. 

All this being the very strong delusion of God.