CHRIST-APP by philtierneyblog

The Case of an Antichrist in Disguise

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Have you ever noticed that the synoptic Gospels, especially Mark’s Gospel, were written like mysteries? Each of them told stories about Jesus.  But in the process, they presented evidence from Jesus’ actions and words, asking the reader a question in the process.  The question embedded in the stories was this: “Who do you suppose Jesus of Nazareth is?”  The Gospels read like mysteries, not so much who-done-it as who-is-it.

I’ve always enjoyed mysteries. They engage the reader on a different level than other fictional writings.  To borrow from the Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot, mysteries engage “the little grey cells.” And so I’d like to adapt that genre to engage minds in a logically deductive exercise.        I invite the reader to join me in solving a mystery, not who-done-it but who-is-it.  It’s the mystery of identifying, the exercise of tracking down, and exposing an antichrist.  A what?!  That’s what I said, an antichrist.

Back fifty years ago, when I was in college, bull sessions among Evangelical students often involved discussions and speculations about all sorts of things.  Favorite subjects of speculation, especially during mid-term and finals times, were the so-called “end times” and “Antichrist.”  Most of those musings had to do with displaced anxieties over our own immanent adversity and judgment – exams, term papers and grades.  Believe it or not, some just wanted the “rapture” to take place to rescue them from final exams.  Those speculations often involved trying to unravel the mysterious language in the Book of Revelation.  But frankly, dissecting Revelation for reliable information about the enigmatic figure of the so-called Antichrist is like studying for a geometry test by scrutinizing cubist works of art.  It’s a wild goose chase.  An antichrist is better exposed deductively by examining attributes and dynamics than by speculating on the meanings of 2,000 year-old, highly figurative, apocalyptic images.

When I say “an antichrist” rather than “the antichrist” it’s because the Christian scriptures refer to multiple antichrists. In the Gospels according to Matthew and Mark, Jesus was quoted as having said this: “False messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”  Indeed in his first letter, St. John wrote, “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.” 

Obviously, nineteen hundred years or so ago, St. John was wrong when he determined that the “last hour,” the end of days, was at hand.  After all, that was written back nearly half of the total number of years of recorded human history.  I suppose John forgot that Jesus mentioned the futility of trying to determine when the end of the world would come.  Jesus acknowledged that he didn’t even know that.  So, if St. John was wrong about the end of the world coming 1900 years ago, was he also wrong about this murky figure of antichrist?  Well John wasn’t the only one who spoke of antichrist(s).  As I’ve mentioned, Jesus suggested that people should discern and identify false messiahs and false prophets.  He seemed to have encouraged identifying antichrists by raising awareness among His disciples that they would come to “deceive even the elect.” It stands to reason that Jesus’ intention was to raise His followers’ consciousness so that they wouldn’t be misled whenever antichrists actually might turn up.