Antichrist, then, is a counterfeit. But this one mark is not alone sufficient to identify the person on whom it is found as the great apostate. All deceit in religion is anti-Christian; the other marks must come along with this one to warrant us to say that we have found that pre-eminently wicked one, and that portentous combination of all evil that is to form the Antichrist. Yet this one mark enables us to test certain theories which have been advanced on this subject. If Antichrist must necessarily be a deceiver –a false Christ –then no Atheist or body of Atheists can be Antichrist. No Pantheist of body of Pantheists can be Antichrist. They are not deceivers; they are open enemies. They make war in defiance of God and Christ, and under the protestation that there is no such person as the Bible affirms filling the office of the world’s Mediator and Saviour. They hold the whole affair to be an invention of priests. Antichrist dare make no such avowal. It would be fatal to him. Were he to affirm that Christianity is a fable, and out and out imposture, he would cut away the ground from under his own feet. He would deny the very first postulate in his system; for there must first be a Christ before there can be an Antichrist.
And not less does this mark shut us up to the rejection of the theory which has been advanced with much earnestness and some plausibility, that Antichrist is a political character, or potentate, some frightfully tyrannical and portentously wicked King, who is to arise, and for a short space devastate the world by arms. This is an altogether different Antichrist from that Antichrist which prophecy foreshadows. He may resemble, nay, surpass him, in open violence, but he lacks the profound dissimulation under which Antichrist is to commit his atrocities. The rage of the mere tyrant is indiscriminately vented upon the world at large; Antichrist’s rage is concentrated on one particular object and cause; nor with any propriety can such a one be said to sit in the “temple of God,” the seat on which the mock-Christ specially delights to show himself. Prophecy absolutely refuses to see in either of these theories the altogether unique and over-topping system of hypocrisy, blasphemy, and tyranny which it has foretold. So far we are helped in our search. When we are able to put aside some of the false Antichrists, we come more within sight of the true one. We turn now to the prophecy of Paul, and we shall be blind indeed, if, after the study of it, we shall be in any doubt as to whose likeness it is that looks forth upon us from this remarkable prediction.