“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” (1 John 2: 18)

The apostle John, the disciple Jesus loved and he who did witness the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and His resurrection, wrote the above words. He speaks about a people or a person, over whom much ink has been spilled. This person or persons is “the antichrist“.

Interestingly enough, John’s letters are the only places in the Bible where the actual name “antichrist” is used in direct wording. This wording can be found in 1 John 2: 18, 1 John 2: 22, 2 John 1: 7.

All other texts which are connected with antichrist are interpretated as referring to antichrist.

The question remains; Who then is antichrist?

Well, if we read further, we find that John tells us; “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” 1 John 2: 22

Firstly, 1 John 2: 22 tells us that antichrist denies the Godhead, the trinity, he also denies that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, God incarnate.

Secondly, 1 John 2: 18 tells us that there are “many antichrists“. From this verse we can conclude from the text of this passages that antichrist should not merely be understood as one man, nor limited to one man, for there are many antichrists.

Thirdly, we know antichrist is a liar (1 John 2: 22)

Fourthly, we know that antichrist does deny that Jesus came to earth as God and became flesh and blood and dwelt on earth, this can be concluded from the following passage; “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” (2 John 1: 7)

Thus, we can conclude with certainty that antichrist was in the world when John wrote this passage (1 John 2: 18) and that antichrist does not deny Jesus as a person, for only an ignorant person can deny the historical reality of the historical Jesus, but antichrist denies Him as God (2 John 1: 17) and we can also conclude that antichrist is not limited to one person or man, for there are many (1 John 2: 18)

Sounds a lot like atheism, maybe even the modern atheist movement? After all, if John is referring to atheists, we know that atheists did exist in the Biblical times, since David wrote; “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works” Psalm 14: 1. So we can conclude that if atheists existed in Davids time, they must have also existed in John’s time, hence the words; “even now are there many antichrists” (1 John 2: 18)

Fools have always been on the earth, but in reality, whether or not you believe in an antichrist or many antichrists or one distinct antichrist, it must be stated that atheism is antichrist, it denies God and thus denies Jesus as God, yet often has no problem with a certain Jesus who is not the Jesus of the gospels, not divine and not God in the flesh, thus, the atheist Jesus is not the Jesus of Christianity. It promotes another Jesus and believes the creature is the creator and denies that the divine Jesus is the creator, contrary to John 1: 1-3.

Thus, modern atheism may or may not actually be ‘The antichrist’ but it can be said with certainty atheism is ‘antichrist’ and since atheism is currently growing through the commercial and widespread influence of antichrist teachers such as Richard Dawkins and Christofer Hitchens, we can say that atheism is actually becoming a religion of sorts, even though many modern atheists inconsistently deny that.

But they deny the creator, so what do they know about the Truth?

Thus, modern atheism may or may not be a trendy fad or a flash in the pan, but it certainly is not going away any time soon. Thus, I conclude that the rise of atheism has been prophesied already in scripture as a warning for all Christians to not be deceived by it.

And in reality, the reason so many people follow these lies is because they are not of the truth and never were of the truth, as John says in the following text;

“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” 1 John 2: 19

God bless all those who are His children, who did belong to Him even before the foundations of the world were laid.

“Keep the faith”

Simon Peter Sutherland
15th December 2011