Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come.  – 1 John 2:18

When I was growing up, one of the things that seemed to be on everyone’s mind was this notion of the Antichrist, since, according to some big names, Jesus was coming back sometime during the 70s (and 80s, and 90s…). People were looking for every possible sign to indicate that the Antichrist was coming, and trying to interpret which events of the era were a direct indication that the end of the world was upon us.

It was all very exhausting.

And yet, none of these prophecies ever came to pass. After all, if the Holocaust was not the end of the world as we know it, then how could any of the things we were experiencing in the 1980s – or even today – come close to being the End?

As I got older, I discovered that the concept of one Antichrist was generated by the Reformers. The Reformers wanted to declare the Pope as the person opposed to Christ, rather than the person representing Christ, because they wanted to justify breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church.

But in truth, the only place where the word antichrist is mentioned in the bible is the first and second letters of John:

Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. – 1 John 2:22

The antichrist is anyone who has heard that Jesus is the Messiah, but actively denies it. That means, there can be many people who are anti-Christ. The word, and the passages in John’s letters include anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ. But back when I was growing up, we were taught to search the world for all the signs so that we could be ready for the horrors and evils to come when one individual would take over the world and deceive Christians in great numbers.

John Henry Newman, when he wrote his lecture series on The Times of the Antichrist in the late 1830s, was an Anglican priest,¹ and was actively trying to move people away from the Reformist idea that the Pope was the Antichrist. Instead, he argued for one future figure that would come and deceive the people of God. 

Newman describes the nature of this one individual in this way:

Do you think he is so unskillful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you lower taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you … He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft.² He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his. – John Henry Newman, The Times of Antichrist, Lecture 1³

Others picked up the mantle of interpreting the signs of the times, scouring the prophetic books to point to one individual who fit the description. This is where we get much of the mania of the 70s and 80s. A time when people felt that they had deciphered who this future individual would be – by reading into scripture exactly what they wanted to be true.

If we look through history – the present included – we can find multiple examples of people who deny Christ or deny Christ’s power. These people often give in to the temptation to mock God, to spread lies, attack the truth, cast off the mantle of decency, and distort the Gospel for their own personal or political agenda. At worst, people who share this attitude will even go so far as to equate themselves with Christ. This is blasphemy, pure and simple. 

The spirit of antichrist exists. It has in the past, and it exists today. And while many people will want to use this idea of a future figure who will deceive the world in order to instill fear in others, we must remember that in his letter, John writes that many antichrists have already come. The antichrist is not just one person, but a mindset, an attitude, a destructive self-interest that pervades the minds of many, including rulers of nations, and those who support them.

The mindset is pervasive, and it creates many people who will spread this attitude of destructive self-interest. And yet, it is impossible to know when Christ’s return will happen, whether later today, tomorrow, or a thousand years from now. That’s what John is telling his fellow believers in his letter: continue to believe what you already have; do not be discouraged by the naysayers; live according to God’s word, and you will never have anything to fear:

And now, little children, abide in Christ, so that when Christ is revealed we may have confidence and not be put to shame before him at his coming. – 1 John 1:28

1. He later converted to Catholicism. ↩︎
2. That is, he tempts to you cast off humility and seek superiority in all things. ↩︎
3. https://www.newmanreader.org/works/arguments/antichrist/lecture1.html ↩︎

[This is an article for the Newsletter at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, May 2026.]