In high school, when my young faith was taking off, conversations around who “the Anti-Christ” was happened often enough. It wasn’t until later I learned the enigmatic figure of the “antichrist” finds its first mention in the writings of John (1 John 2:18). He used it in a way not to refer to a specific person. His idea of an antichrist is similar to our idea of an antihero or an antithesis – an antichrist is the inverse of Christ.

Examining both 1 John and 2 John, we encounter the Apostle’s use of the term “antichrist” not to designate a single, future individual, but rather to describe a present reality. John identifies these “antichrists” as those who have given up on the community of love (1 John 2:19). A defining characteristic is the denial of Jesus’ identity as the “Christ”, an OT term referring to someone anointed for a purpose.

John’s Antichrists

It’s crucial to recognize the rich context of the word “anointed” within the Hebrew Scriptures. Throughout the Old Testament, God designated prophets, priests, and kings through the act of anointing (e.g., 1 Samuel 16:13). For example, Cyrus the Great, the Persian king to dethrone Babylon, was called a messiah (“anointed one”) in the Old Testament (Isaiah 45:1, 2 Chronicles 36:22-23, and Ezra 1:1-3). This act signified God’s selection, empowerment, and the setting apart of an individual for a specific purpose. By denying Jesus’ role as the divinely anointed one, these “antichrists” fundamentally reject the anointing Jesus had and the message He preached. This is why John keeps reminding his audience of the Gospel he shared with them at the “beginning”.

John’s focus here isn’t solely on doctrinal disagreement, at least not the way think about it. These “antichrists” appear to be willing to resort to violence in promoting their beliefs (cf. John 16:2-3). The Johannine community itself may have experienced such persecution (1 John 3:15). They were feeling the division and confusion caused by people taking the Gospel of Jesus and twisting it into convincing narratives…nothing like what happens in the cacophony of churches out there now.

In the face of such confusion, John’s message is one of encouragement. He offers his beleaguered community the “good news” of Christ’s enduring presence and the ultimate triumph of truth. He keeps his main point the main point – bringing it back to loving others well as being the marker of true faith. If we are in the light, we confess our sins to each other, we serve, and we keep Jesus’ teaching and life central to our own, then we in the actual Gospel of Jesus and not a twisted one.

Christians and AntiChristians Today

This would be where we today start getting lost. Questions about Jesus’ divinity and salvation spin up. Here’s a thought – John already had all the context he needed to write his gospel and then his epistles. We have the message he shared with people in the “beginning” and we have these letters. We have enough to work with to get the gist. We get lost when we pull in our underlying assumptions and insecurities about faith, Jesus, salvation, and eternal destiny we’ve evolved for thousands of years.

Let’s consider that John said what he needed to say to real people who understood at least some of what he was talking about. There were other “Christians” who were taking the message of Jesus, one of light and love (1 John 1:1-9), and turning it into something else. For John, he is consistent from gospel to epistle that the hallmark, the defining characteristic of true faith in Jesus, is that of loving others as Christ did.

Greg Boyd wrote once, “One wonders why no one in church history has ever been considered a heretic for being unloving.” He goes on to say, “Yet if love is to be placed above all other considerations (Col. 3:14; 1 Peter 4:8), if nothing has any value apart from love (1 Cor. 13:1–3), and if the only thing that matters is faith working in love (Gal. 5:6), how is it that possessing Christlike love has never been considered the central test of orthodoxy?” (Boyd, Greg. The Myth of A Christian Nation. https://amzn.to/3yyjwO3)

Now, for a pivot. Let’s consider when Obama was running for president the rumblings of him being “the anti-christ”. Let’s consider how our fascination with finding antichrists assumes that we aren’t one. Christianity has been around now for 2000 years – that’s a lot of generations of humans. What if we have been in the church and in the gospel of an antichrist the whole time? What if we are “the antichrist”? What if we’ve been looking at the Gospel wrong all along? The Gospel then might seem, to us antichrists, as a wrong gospel.

If Antichrists Vote

Let’s go one step further – what of Evangelicals’ pick for President? If we were to gather the characteristics and values found in the New Testament – does Donald Trump, as a man, embody them the way Jesus would expect his “chosen” and “anointed one” to? If Trump were just a man and in a typical church, would we ever let him join our pastoral team?

Does his treatment of people and women, his inability to be honest and provide consistent answers, or his speech sound like a humble, loving, and wise person? Saying “yes” might say more about you.

Does the way he flaunts his assumed innocence and grandeur, the way he lies and controls people, or the way he uses Christians to gain power seem Christ-like or World-like? Saying “Christ-like” might say more about the gospel you’ve been believing in.

Trump is an antichrist. He doesn’t know the bible at all but pretends it matters. He doesn’t care about Jesus’ teachings and loving others. He doesn’t care about honesty or service. He cares about controlling a mob and leveraging what he can for himself. He has no interest in laying himself down or confessing his sins. He lies to Christians and Christians believe it. The only name he’s interested in elevating is his own.

Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing

For you and I, do we live in such a way to keep “a new commandment,” to live by it so “all men will know your my disciples” (John 13:35), and to hold on “the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11, cf. 1 John 2:7-8 and 2 John 1:5). If this isn’t central to determine what “antichrist” means or how it turns up in our personal lives, we’ve missed the message John had been preaching from the beginning.