2 Cents

So many people today have an unhealthy fascination with the end of the world.

They try to predict when it will occur.  They are constantly looking at political and military events in the world today as fulfillments of biblical prophecy.  And they are constantly proclaiming that some current public figure is the antichrist - a being who will rise to great power and try to challenge God's authority just before the end of the world.

One of the most common assertions is that the President of the United States (whoever it is at the time) is the Antichrist.  Franklin D. Roosevelt, President from 1933-1945, is noted by many to be the first President publicly labelled as the Antichrist.

According to Joe Carter, from that time "almost every president has landed on the Antichrist suspect list. FDR, JFK, Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama have all been named by various individuals and organizations." (HT: Gospel Coalition)

Other popular figures accused of being the Antichrist include the Pope, Adolf Hitler, various communist leaders, and virtually any prominent politician that some radical obsessor over the end of the world doesn't agree with.  

The problem with all of this, aside from the unhealthy obsession with anything related to end times, is that the Bible does not speak of the "antichrist" being any one person.

The term "antichrist" is only used four times in the entire Bible, and the Apostle John is the only biblical author to use it.  No one else uses the term at all.  (See 1 John 2:18; 1 John 2:22; 1 John 4:3; 2 John 7)

Each time he uses the term he does so to describe anyone who is opposed to Jesus Christ - hence the term anti-Christ.  John never speaks of a single person coming to power.  Each time he uses the term he does so to warn his readers that there are many people who oppose Jesus Christ - and those were people alive during John's lifetime, the first and second centuries.

There is no biblical warrant for the term "antichrist" to be applied to a current or future person rising to power to challenge the authority of God.  

The "man of lawlessness" in 2 Thess. 2:3-5 is about as close as you come to such a figure, and most commentators argue that this prophecy was fulfilled in the first century close to or during the attack on Jerusalem in 70 A.D. 

It might also surprise you to know that the word "antichrist" never appears in the book of Revelation at all.

So it is inaccurate and unbiblical for anyone to claim that such and such person is "the Antichrist."  

What we should be more concerned about is that an anti-Christ culture and attitude is alive and well today.  

There are many people who relegate Jesus to simply a great teacher and a moral man.  That's antichrist type teaching.  

There are many today who seek to prove that Jesus was only a legend or a myth.  That's antichrist type teaching.  

And there are many who argue that there are other paths to God and Heaven apart from Jesus Christ (See John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 John 5:12).  That's antichrist type teaching as well.