Throughout history, sages have feared that theirs was the terminal generation. Each era somehow produces a new crop of monsters and tyrants to torment the “good” people and threaten to destroy civilization.
But in every generation, also, there seems to be a few brave souls who are willing to resist evil, “unto the shedding of blood.” Most of the time, however, in spite of their heroic efforts, the monsters somehow survive, grow old and die. Nature takes its course and a new generation arises vowing to erect better safeguards against such people only to find that the next crop of monsters come from among their own – who arise, gain power, and perversely use those very safeguards against their opponents to advance themselves.
In the Christian world, the personification of evil is ascribed to “Satan” – an angelic being – and an “Antichrist,” who, as a demonically possessed human, comes in the “delusion and power of Satan.” In every age, Christians wage war against this evil “Satan” and “Antichrist.”
In the ancient world, the Jewish High Priest was the “Satan and Antichrist” to the first Christians, before they were even called “Christian.” This is the Preterist interpretation. Later, various Roman emperors earned the title, from Nero to Domitian and to others, depending upon how much they mistreated the Christians.
In medieval times, there were others, of course, but it was not until the Protestant Reformation that “antichrist” became a name ascribed to church leadership itself. Using the gematria of the number “666” found in Revelation 13:18, the Reformers came to the conclusion, as evidenced in the Puritan-sympathizer, Sir Isaac Newton, that it was a generic term for “Latinos.” Thus, in the Historicist School of prophetic interpretation which Newton shared, any perpetuator of the “Latin” system, Pope or otherwise, was an “antichrist.” More to come.
In our time with the rise of Dispensationalist Millenarianism, every leader has been scrutinized for the gematria of his name. Even President Reagan – a man with whom my grandmother went to high school in Dixon, Illinois and whose influence much later bore fruit and convinced him of the wisdom of limited government – was called the antichrist by some fanatics because each of his names had six letters: R-O-N-A-L-D, W-I-L-S-O-N, R-E-A-G-A-N = 666. How could my grandmother have known that the kindly lifeguard at the local “Lake Louise” would be such a sinister being!
While the personification of evil in every age seems to be a psychological need of our species, the rational mind requires that such a classification of our fellow humans be based upon their behavior rather than superstition. At first, Hitler was indulged by world leaders because of the guilt they felt for having vilified Germany during World War I, and for having had essentially robbed the German people in the Treaty of Versailles. They allowed Hitler to reassert a balance in central Europe by reintegrating ethnic Germans into the “Third Reich” from surrounding newly created nations which had formerly belonged to the Prussian Empire.
But European leaders made the mistake of indulging a man who had come to power through duplicity and thuggery. He did not represent the German people. There was no internal restraint upon his power, no rival party, no independent judiciary to hold him to account. Consequently, as the old saying goes, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And of course, we know the fruit of this in the Second World War.
Today, the superstitious among us are looking for a new antichrist: either in the leader of Russia (Putin), or England (Queen Elizabeth), or a new leader of the United States – H-I-L-L-A-R-Y, R-O-D-H-A-M, C-L-I-N-T-O-N = 767 (OOPS, that doesn’t work). If the gematria of their name fits, well, all the better for these exegetes. But if it doesn’t, no matter, they are still called a “forerunner” of the Antichrist. Of course, this is not how gematria works and it would imply that every person with six letters in each of their names would be a potential Antichrist.
Usually, “antichrist” is used pejoratively against one’s enemies. During the heated politics between Federalists and Anti-federalists in the early American Republic, Thomas Jefferson was labeled an “antichrist” by Yale’s Timothy Dwight, the “Mr. Evangelical” of his day. Dwight was convinced that Jefferson wanted to be President so that he could conduct orgies in the White House with deified French prostitutes. Jefferson retorted that Dwight was “that Pope from New Haven and the purveyor of Moloch religion.” With such an ugly heritage, it is truly a wonder that Americans can have a functioning government.
As will be explained in a future Pesher scheduled for “The Day of Trumpets” entitled, Anno Domini: In the Year of our Lord, 100,000 (97,997 A.D. vulgaris), we are not expecting a future and final Antichrist as a personification of evil to fulfill Bible prophecy – for there shall be many antichrists (1 John 2:18), and each one is an antitype. The Antichrist is identified through doctrinal and relational criteria, not by genetics, gematria, or gender.
On this website, we argue that the Great Tribulation of 1,260 years has come to an end and that we are in a transition period of 75 years, punctuated in the middle by God’s Great Eschaton in 2046 AD, which will usher in the 1000 generation Messianic kingdom (See Daniel 12). This is the Soteriological Model of Bible Prophecy.
It will not be easy to pass God’s gauntlet, but it is your calling to try.
God bless you.
— JWS, August 14th, 2022
