Does the Bible really say that? Excerpt from my book, 29

[Continuing a discussion of End Times.]

Sometimes people try to identify the Antichrist. Hitler and Stalin were put forth as candidates years ago. One or more of the Popes also have been, at various times. Here’s a recent example, copied from a mass e-mail received during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Its purpose was to imply that Barack Obama was the Antichrist:

How long is the beast allowed to have authority in Revelations?

Revelations Chapter 13 tells us it is 42 months, and you know what that is. Almost a four-year term of a Presidency.

All I can say is "Lord, Have mercy on us!"

According to The Book of Revelations the anti-Christ is:
The anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40’s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything.

I should point out something that Revelation says:

Revelation 22:18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, may God add to him the plagues which are written in this book. 19 If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, may God take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book.

Now, back to the e-mail. Here’s the passage referred to:

Revelation 13:1 Then I stood on the sand of the sea. I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads. On his horns were ten crowns, and on his heads, blasphemous names. 2 The beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. 3 One of his heads looked like it had been wounded fatally. His fatal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled at the beast. 4 They worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” 5 A mouth speaking great things and blasphemy was given to him. Authority to make war for forty-two months was given to him.

11 I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon. 12 He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. He makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. 13 He performs great signs, even making fire come down out of the sky to the earth in the sight of people. 14 He deceives my own people who dwell on the earth because of the signs he was granted to do in front of the beast; saying to those who dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast who had the sword wound and lived.

Revelation 13 refers to a “beast,” and the Antichrist is not mentioned. Forty-two months is almost the term of a Presidency. But so are 39 months, and 45 months. So what? As to Revelation saying that the Antichrist will be of Muslim descent, John didn’t say that. He couldn’t have, as there were no Muslims at the time John wrote Revelation. Nothing in Revelation tells us how old anyone is, or will be. Mr. Obama did have some powers of persuasion, or he wouldn’t have been the nominee of his party, but so do a lot of other people. He probably wishes that his powers were stronger than they are. (Actually, Revelation 13 doesn’t mention powers of persuasion, just power.) Some people think that Mr. Obama is a deceiver, and a destroyer. Perhaps. He has his faults, and I have no wish to defend them, or point them out, in this space, but to claim that he, or any other prominent person, is the Antichrist is a real stretch. Whoever wrote this e-mail should have been much more afraid of having violated John’s command not to add to the Book of Revelation than he or she should have feared for the election of President Obama.

With the advantage of hindsight, we can now say that Mr. Obama served as President for more than forty-two months!

It is as foolish to claim someone is the Antichrist as it is foolish to predict a date for Christ to return.

The above is an excerpt from my recently published e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which may be obtained free of charge, or purchased from Amazon for $0.99, which is the lowest price Amazon lets an author set. Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain.

The previous post in this series is here. God willing, the next post in this series will continue a discussion of this topic, prophecy. Thanks for reading.

Does the Bible really say that? Excerpt from my book, 28

[Continuing a discussion of end-times prophecy.]

The Antichrist

Another idea of dispensationalists is that of an antichrist – an evil world ruler. Again, this belief rests on skimpy foundations. The word, Antichrist, does not occur at all in the book of Revelation. Here are the passages, where it does occur, with some context:

1 John 2:18 Little children, these are the end times, and as you heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen. By this we know that it is the final hour. 19 They went out from us, but they didn’t belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have continued with us. But they left, that they might be revealed that none of them belong to us. 20 You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 21 I have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son, the same doesn’t have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also.

1 John 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already.

2 John 1:7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who don’t confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist.

John (who also wrote Revelation, of course!) doesn’t seem to be prophesying that a powerful world leader, an Antichrist, will come, near the time of Christ’s return. He seems to be referring to an attitude. That attitude is to deny the Lordship of Christ. Apparently this type of attitude could be found in people, and also in spirits. John was talking about such an attitude in his own time. If there is going to be an Antichrist, in the sense that dispensationalists believe, that is, a powerful anti-Christian world ruler, presumably he (or she?) will deny the Lordship of Christ. Based on what John said, it is important to make sure that we don’t deny Christ’s deity by our own lives. It is also important to be careful that our view of God is not influenced by those who deny Christ’s deity. Worrying about a possible powerful future world leader is of lesser importance, and John doesn’t seem to have been talking about that at all, in the passages quoted above.

The above is an excerpt from my recently published e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which may be obtained free of charge, or purchased from Amazon for $0.99, which is the lowest price Amazon lets an author set. Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain.

The previous post in this series is here. God willing, the next post in this series will continue a discussion of this topic, prophecy. Thanks for reading.

Harold Camping, Rest in Peace

The Washington Post, and other outlets, report that Harold Camping, who predicted that Christ would return on May 21, 2011, and, thank God, later apologized for that prediction, has passed away.

There are two things we can be confident about, concerning end times:
1) Christ will return, and we should be ready for that.
2) We don't know when this will be.

Many Christians apparently have a strong desire to know more than that. We shouldn't succumb to that temptation. The previous paragraph tells us what Christ, Himself, told us, and that should be sufficient.

Some more food for thought, related to what some people want us to believe about Christ's return:
The word, "rapture," does not occur in the Bible.
The word, "anti-Christ" does not occur in Revelation.
The phrase, "seven years" does not occur in Revelation, either, even though the number seven occurs a few dozen times.
The nation of Israel, re-founded in 1948, may be related to Bible prophecy, (or may not) but the government discourages conversion to Christianity, and, in order to be classified as a Jew, a person does not have to so much as believe in God.

Thanks for reading.

Cautions on interpreting what the Bible says about end times

I believe that you can get a larger version of the graphic below, by right-clicking on it. You may feel free to use the graphic, as long as you do not use it for any commercial purpose -- it must remain free for all to use.

I don't have a lot of answers on end times. Some people seem to have answers, and they may be right. The above graphic illustrates reasons for caution. The Bible is not as clear about the end times as some people seem to believe that it is.

"Rapture" is not a word used in the Bible. The presentation of the idea of a rapture, a sudden removal of Christians from the world, that is most familiar to me is based on 1 Thessalonians 4:17. However, as you may learn from the comments on this post, below, that familiar presentation is probably mistaken, and a misinterpretation of scripture. (This paragraph was amended on September 28, 2009)

There are other reasons for caution. The Bible says this:
Matthew 24:36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. (All scripture from the ESV. See here for information on the ESV policy on on-line usage.)
and
Matthew 24:44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

A serious warning, widely ignored, occurs in Revelation: 22:18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Connie Willis, an author of fantastic literature, put it this way, probably a little too cynically, and, perhaps, even violating the warning above -- but she has a point -- in a short story:

The radio evangelists made it sound like the story of the Second Coming was a single narrative, but it was actually a hodgepodge of isolated scriptures -- Matthew 24 and sections of Isaiah and Daniel, verses out of Second Thessalonians and Joel, stray ravings from Revelation and Jeremiah, all thrown together by the evangelists as if the authors were writing at the same time. If they were even writing about the same thing. Connie Willis, "Epiphany," pp. 653-700, in The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories -- Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2007 -- p. 671. For similar thoughts, from an expert in Biblical interpretation, see here. (The expert doesn't call Revelation "ravings.") The expert, Kenneth Schenck, of Indiana Wesleyan University, is referring to the Dispensationalist view of end times, in particular the idea that there will be a seven year tribulation, and he points out that that view has, at best, very weak support in the Bible.

 
Thanks for reading. The Bible is clear on one idea about the end times: He is returning! We don't know when.

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Added August 3, 2011: Here is a post, by me, on the first four prophecies mentioned by Matthew as being fulfilled by the coming, and early life, of Christ, and how difficult it must have been for those who first heard these prophecies, or even spoke and wrote them, to understand them as being about what actually happened.

Since these prophecies were difficult to interpret -- in some cases, impossible to interpret correctly until after the prediction came about -- why should we expect easy interpretations of prophecies about end times?

Added March 13, 2010:

David Heddle, of the He Lives blog, has recently posted on a particular word that occurs sometimes in prophecy, namely soon, and also this generation. He points out that some who claim to be interpreting the Bible very literally ignore, for example, part of the very first verse of Revelation, which says that Jesus told John that He was going to show him what would happen soon. Heddle doesn't seem to have a solution to how to deal with soon. I don't either. But, as I said in the title, it's best to be cautious, very cautious, about interpreting end times. Some people aren't very careful.

Added September 18, 2010:
Heddle has also posted on Armageddon, making a case for the idea that the Battle of Armageddon has already occurred.