Recognizing a Modern Antichrist

 

All Bible verses are NKJV taken from biblegateway.com.

This is a 3/2026 update and edit of an earlier post.

Setting the parameters of discussion

First, the term antichrist is a biblical construct, so only the Bible can define it. It’s actually a Judeo-Christian meme, rooted deeply in Old Testament prophecy and history as well as in New Testament theology. The fact that the title of Christ is in the word Antichrist does not prevent us from searching out similar historical themes in the Hebrew Bible where spiritual and cultural forces are horrifically anti-God.

The OT/HB deity established a theocracy in Israel, so the prophets were very political. Jesus unmoored His kingdom from earthly politics by declaring that the kingdom of God is within you and His kingdom is not of this world (Luke 17:21; John 18:36). Nevertheless, the Antichrist, if there is one individual called that, will be both religious and political, and that is part of the blasphemy of the antichristal system, the marriage of spirituality and earthly, carnal power politics. The prosperity gospel and Christian nationalism can both slide into that category.

In fairness, any article about a charming, ruthless man rising to global power can be great clickbait. The apostles of Christ were divided as to whether there would be one man on the cusp of Christ’s return or whether there would be many over the years, which would change the terms from singular to plural, change the definitions, and disconnect antichrist from the Second Coming. Because the first century believers were looking for the Antichrist in every persecuting, brutish leader, John taught that any person who denied that Jesus was the Son of God who died and rose to redeem the world was a antichrist. Government officials who persecuted Christians, like the Roman emperors, Jewish leaders, or false apostles were antichrist. By the time John wrote his accounts, there were already many such (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7).

Paul, on the other hand, believed that a singular man (sort like Herod the Great or Hitler) would arise and have an apocalyptic effect. First, there must be a “great falling away,” and “the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” Paul called this man “the lawless one” (NKJV) twice in this letter; he will reign over a lawless era. He will verify his claim to deity by doing many signs and wonders (dabbling in the occult?). Thereby he will deceive all those who do not want to hear the truth. Christ will destroy this man and his followers when He returns, (2 Thess. 2:1–12).

Literalist Christians are watching events in Jerusalem to see if the place where the Jewish temple stood would fall out of Muslim hands and into the net of the Antichrist. There’s a lot of specific detail there to be fulfilled if we take the Bible as inerrant (I don’t). I would dismiss any connection of these verses to the United States if I weren’t reading every day absolute gobsmacking news about President Donald Trump. I just read that some of our troops are being told that the Iran invasion (of March 2026) is God’s divine plan because Trump is God’s anointed to bring about Armageddon and the Second Coming. This is pretty much what a modern Antichrist would look like.

If we add the Revelation of John to the recipe, there is the mark of the Beast, 666, planted on the forehead of the deceived. Is it literally a brand, like what they do to cattle, a chip that can be seen if swiped by a machine, or possibly a hat with a logo? This beast is revealed in Revelation 13. He has aspects of a leopard, a bear, and a lion, all powerful predators. He has great global influence, suggesting money and power that came straight from the devil himself. The Dragon gave authority to the Beast, who caused people to fear that he could not be stopped or defeated in war. He will be boastful, will blaspheme God and the temple, and will persecute God’s people. All who are not written in the Book of Life will worship the Beast and the Dragon. They will be allotted a certain amount of time to wreak ruin upon the world, and then it will end.

The Prediction Game

In the second half of the twentieth century there were many predictions about the immanent rise of the Antichrist, but they came from people who were partly or totally into channeling spirits. The situations that I know of and have blogged about are Jeane Dixon, Ruth Montgomery, Vance Davis, and an apparition of the Virgin Mary in Bayside, New York. Although the NT does encourage gifts of the Holy Spirit like prophecy and word of knowledge in which God speaks and acts through those endowed with the gift, the Holy Spirit doesn’t chat with us or speak through Ouija boards, tarot cards, or dead people.

Anyone who traffics in spirit communication or messages from “aliens” knows that revelations of great disasters are common. Often there is a date involved. The day passes, the event does not happen, and people forget all about the prediction. All the above predictions of the Antichrist are contradictory, meaning that some or all of them are inaccurate, so I’m not going to declare in this post that we are in the End Times and the Antichrist is here. And if he is here today, or if one arises soon, I would not expect every prediction referring to him, biblical or otherwise, to come to pass. Certain generalities could be expected in any global dictator.

I have often wondered why Hitler wasn’t THE Antichrist, which would suggest that the return of Christ should already have happened, but then in our own era, it dawns on me that perhaps every generation has its own Antichrist, an apocalyptic upheaval, unleashing events where the stakes are so high that no one can avoid choosing a side.

Lastly, an antichrist is more than a typical narcissistic dictator like so many I’ve seen in my lifetime. An antichrist specifically opposes God’s Judeo-Christian believers, either by persecuting them or subverting them…turning them away from God’s word and will with honey smooth religious statements that point to something just off to the side of what God wants. And then off to the side of that. He will rock the world.

Look for These Signs

He’ll be a slick speaker. Did you see the movie The King’s Speech? When older brother Edward VIII of England abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry American Wallis Simpson, younger brother Bertie inherited the crown to be George VI. Bertie had a profound speech impediment, so an Australian speech expert coached him to be able to make his coronation speech. I recall the lines when Prince Charlie and his royal father were watching Hitler make a fiery speech on TV. Charlie asked, “What is he saying?” Bertie answers, “I don’t know, but he’s saying it rather well.” That is so on brand with God, Who often uses the weak things of the world to confound the mighty.

The lies may be very subtle and mixed with truth. If we can expand the definition of antichrist to encompass any figure who opposes all that God is and wants for us, we can look to Genesis 3 for our first antichrist entity. Long ago I saw a Frank and Ernest cartoon where they were in a museum looking at an old pair of sneakers on a pedestal. One said to the other, “Belonged to the first snake.” Fairly insightful humor. An interdimensional humanoid serpent with full ability to communicate with an adult human appeared on the scene and questions Yahweh-Elohim’s motives by sly inuendo. “Hey, he really told you two to not eat of the tree?” Like, gee, why would any reasonable deity do that? Eve responds, “Yeah we can eat of any tree in the Garden but we can’t touch this one or we die.”

Odds are Yahweh Elohim didn’t mean that Adam and Eve would die physically, because if they are the only humans — in the narrative, which may be metaphorical rather than literal and historical — and they don’t know the difference between right and wrong, their free will and immortality aren’t much use. They are like toddlers in understanding, and they can’t leave the garden to test what choices they would make. So the tree is a metaphor of humans becoming self-aware and capable of higher reasoning. The serpent wasn’t wrong. If they were the first humans ever, (which they weren’t), and if they dropped dead because of their disobedience, God’s whole plan would have died with them.

An antichrist may dabble in the occult and be supported by “prophecy” and miracles. The Israelites were about at the end of their wanderings in the wilderness. After 40 years, they were at the edge of the Promised Land ,  of inheritance, of rest, of identity as a coherent people to be reckoned with. Balak son of Zippor, King of the Moabites, stood between the wanderers and their goal, and he was terrified of them because he had seen what they can do in war. He wasn’t a bloody dictator. As far as we know, he was a typical politician, perhaps like half our US congress, but he was determined to block what God had clearly set in motion, and he was going to use magic rather than weapons to do it. The expert he called upon for support was not a warlord but a sorcerer/prophet.

Balaam is summoned from the north, but he was warned by an angel to speak only what Yahweh would tell him, (Num. 22:20 NKJV). Balak took Balaam to the top of a mountain where they made 7 altars and offered bulls and rams, but the curses just wouldn’t stick. The magic of a petty politician backfired. What came forth instead was a flood of love and protection along with a prediction of a near Messianic figure who would rule in power over the region. Israel would be great. But right afterwards, Israel fell on its face. What brought them down? What almost crashed the program? Moabite women! Where weapons of war and the strongest curses failed, women, feasting, and sex got the morally spineless men worshiping the god of the Moabites. They still entered the Land, but not before a plague of judgement thinned their ranks.

An antichrist will be boastful and have great political power. Every Christian and Jew should be conversant with the Messianic personage in Daniel 7 because it depicts an Antichrist literally, and the Christ to come, with victory given to the Messianic Son of Man who comes before the Ancient of Days. God is sitting on a throne with wheels of fire. A fiery river flows out from beneath the throne. But the scene would be incomplete without the ancient adversary. Verse 7:8:

“I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there, in this horn, were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words.” Horns represent earthly power or strength of character in the Hebrew Bible. Movers and shakers get horns.

This person could represent someone like Herod the Great, who died shortly after the birth of Jesus Christ. I copied the paragraphs below from a recent article on Herod in Bible History Daily, Biblical Archaeology Review:

“King Herod the Great ruled Judea from 37 B.C.E. until his death in 4 B.C.E. Outside of Judea, the Greeks and Romans found his charm (and his extravagant benefactions) irresistible. He generously endowed the Greek Olympic Games, sponsored building projects in prestigious cities such as Athens and Rhodes, and erected public buildings, palaces, and even entire cities, some of which still astonish visitors.

“At home, however, King Herod was despised for his ruthless oppression and cruelty. His many endeavors came at a considerable cost to his Jewish subjects through heavy taxes. He executed his wife, Miriamme, because he suspected her of adultery. And he may be most well-known by biblical scholars for his order to kill all children under the age of two in and around Bethlehem shortly after the birth of Jesus.”

“I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed.”

This passage is why Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of Man. According to the historian Josephus, Herod not only died soon after he ordered the babies to be slain, he died a horrible death, screaming in pain because his genitals were being eaten by maggots.

An actual antichrist will have no respect for the law. There is a man described in Paul’s letters that caused the Christian community to wonder if this Roman emperor or that one would be the personage preceding Christ’s return, but as the Parousia was delayed and the generations came and went, it seemed as if law-abiding leaders were the exception rather than the rule. We can assume, then, that there will be something unique about the Antichrist’s disdain for law. He will have power to turn weaker souls from doing what is right to joining him in his corruption. Obviously, he will offer the weak a bountiful supply of money and status.

Conclusion

So what can we say about an antichrist who might appear in our day?

• He’ll be a great speaker with an appealing voice. Someone easy to listen to.

• He’ll be a braggart. Arrogant.

• He will be good looking and charming, but utterly selfish.

• He’ll weasel himself into positions of immense political power, but it won’t last.

• He’ll be a master deceiver, a skilled liar, a con artist, and a sociopath with no care for his effect on the world.

• He’ll be antisemitic. He’ll either persecute Christians or he’ll subvert them with promises of power and favor. He’ll have power to deceive the very elect.

• He will either openly or deviously allow people to think he’s a god or a savior of some kind.

• He’ll be religious, but not sincerely. He’ll be open to help from the occult.

• He’ll have an anointing to spread his wickedness like cancer.

Like I wrote at the beginning, perhaps there isn’t just one. If the men that I would label antichrist aren’t IT, and there’s still The Big Guy yet to come, holy heaven help us.

Check out my personal website www.janetksmithpersonal.com, where you can read for free The Legacy: A Memoir of Personal Guidance and Korean War Sabotage.