What is the whore of Babylon? - part 1

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries."
Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead:
MYSTERY
BABYLON THE GREAT
THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. -- Revelation 17:1-6

The Biblical story of Babylon is a morality play told in three parts. In each of these parts the name refers to two things: one, it refers to a specific people group. But it also refers to a God-ordained punishment.

As we saw in the blog sections What does Babylon mean the first encounter with the name "Babel" involves a tribe living in the plain of Shinar (Genesis 11) and here the punishment of God confusing the people's speech is what actually gives us the name, since "babel" is taken from the utterance "ba ba" and describes baby talk. When we encounter Babylon for the second time it is now a nation whose boundaries generally occupied modern day Iran and Iraq. This time, the nation itself is a punishment for wayward Israel and we see the Biblical maxim played out where discarding the freedom found in God's direction leads to slavery in "the land of confusion" which is what the name Babylon literally means.

When we encounter it for the last time Babylon is referred to as "whore" or "adulteress". This time it isn't a tribe or a country; this time it's a religion and as we read in chapter 17 it spans the globe and heavily influences the world-dominating empire known as "the beast".

Now, normally in my post this is the point where I tell you that mainstream theology is way off base in its particular interpretation and -- nice guy that I am -- I will now attempt to sort out the mistaken beliefs. This time it's not so simple. You see, a pretty fair number of evangelicals thinkers have correctly identified the whore of Babylon as a belief system known as gnosticism. And that actually makes my job here more difficult. This is because I can normally contrast my interpretation against theirs, and use that contrast to shed light on what I'm trying to say. This time I have to do it without the crutch.

Put simply the problem is this: they understand that the all caps portion of the verse-- MYSTERY
BABYLON THE GREAT
--means that we are talking about a religion like the Babylonian mystery religions -- in other words a form of gnosticism -- but they don't understand gnosticism, and so they think that there is a future religion that is still to come, and that this religion will do its religious stuff the same way that we do ours: it will congregate in 'churches' and sing hymns, and since it has this expectation it misses the fact that this religion is already with us; that it has always been with us, and that only the degree of influence and the base of knowledge has changed in the end times. Oh, and sometimes it even meets in churches and sings those hymns (I'll have to remind myself to tell you the story of Julian Huxley).

What is gnosticism -- it comes from the Greek word gnosis which means knowledge. Now if you consult any dictionary or encyclopedia you will likely be told that gnosticism refers to several "ancient" belief systems with the inference that it no longer exists in the modern day. This could not be more false. Gnosticism is a doppelganger, a shapechanger. It is the belief system that says that the more you know, the holier you become. The trick is figuring out what the base of information is that 'needs to be known'. The simplest way I can put it is to say that gnosticism tries to earn Heaven, and Heavenly things, by the acquisition of knowledge. You take a test, the higher you score, the holier you are.

There's an Albert Brooks movie that perfectly illustrates this. In his film, Defending your Life, Mr. Brooks as the title character, Daniel Miller, finds himself in an afterlife where you are justified and considered great based on the percentage of your brain that you use. That would be a form of gnosticism.

Another example is the early Christian gnostics, who took Christian teaching and then parcelled it out into a works-based study program where one becomes more holy by learning spiritual truths.

Every major religion has a gnostic variant. Gnostics took Judaism and turned it into Kaballah. They took Islam and turned it into Bahai. They took Christianity and turned it into Presbiterian USA... kidding... sort of. For Christianity it's actually a little more complicated. Many New Agers are gnostics, but not all.

Next post: how Christianity differs from gnosticism and why the medieval church actually owned the brothels and promoted prostitution.

Who is the antichrist? - part 5

When you see the World's most interesting man hold up a bottle of Dos equis you understand that you're seeing an ad campaign (at least I hope you do). The actor in those spots didn't do any of those things... and surely isn't anywhere near as interesting. Somewhere in an office building there is a group of marketing whizzes banking that these ads will cause people to associate the beer brand with adventure and excitement.

There's no office headquarters for the man of lawlessness. Not in the physical realm. What he does have, however, is a legion of unwitting artists, actors, directors, producers, ect. who are all collaborating to create an icon, a kind of Marlboro Man, who sells godlessness instead of cigarettes. But let's go back to the beginning; centuries before Scarface or Snoop Dog, an age before the current batch of 007 films -- there was Christopher Marlowe and his greatest invention: Tamburlaine.

I think Marlowe is one of history's most interesting individuals. He was a 16th century poet/genius who paved the way for William Shakespeare. He was also a British spy in the employ of Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, Lord Walsingham. He was accused twice of being a double agent for the Catholics trying to depose the Queen. The first time the charges quietly vanished. The second time he died three days later when another spy shoved a dagger into his eye socket.

I don't think he was ever a double agent, but Marlowe was a man who hated organized religion at a time when the European wars of religion were nearing their peak; and at that time anyone who did not think in lock-step was viewed with deep suspicion.

You see, Marlowe grew up in Canterbury, a stone's throw away from Canterbury Cathedral (the British equivalent of the Vatican). During his childhood England went from Anglican rule, to Catholic rule, then back to Anglican. As a child he watched churchmen pronounce Protestant values as absolute. Then he would have seen many of these same priests proclaim Catholic teachings when the ruling authority changed. If you want to see what happened to anyone who did not tow the party line you can read a book on that time period, Foxe's Book of Martyr's. Oh, since I know some of the old terminology can be confusing, drawn and quartered means that they cut out their intestines while the victim was still alive, then tied their arms and legs to four horses and tore them to pieces.

Marlowe wasn't the only one disillusioned by the violence and hypocrisy, just one of the most talented. His grand creation of wish fulfillment -- of a man who could transcend the religious oppression and tight social caste system of his day -- was Tamburlaine. Now the real Timber 'the lame' was not quite the world-beater of Marlowe's creation and as a Muslim he was certainly not lawless. But Marlowe did away with these 'flaws'. In his wildly successful play Tamburlaine was a demigod who imposed his will and conquered everything, even death (in an artsy no fear sort of way).

The important point here is that lawlessness became desirable in an environment of religious hypocrisy (unjust laws for living) and a sense of social disenfranchisement (a perceived lack of control over one's life). It would be centuries before the lawless man figure would return to the stage, but when he came back, he came back with a vengeance.

but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. -- 2 Thessalonians 2:7

In the 1920's and 1930's a privileged elite nearly bankrupted the United States and its average citizen. This was when the America's love affair with the gangster persona got well and truly underway. The white culture flirted with it, but it was the largely disenfranchised (there's that word again) American blacks who ran with it. Today it's called the Hip Hop culture and you can turn to any number of radio stations and hear a modern day horde of Lamechs boast about their own greatness and lawlessness.

The world as a whole is still looking for its Marlboro-man-of-lawlessness. But it's fast approaching the ideal with characters like the current James Bond. Now the original Bond wasn't a good fit for 'lawless' at all. Oh, he was a world-beater from the start, but he was also a man under authority. He was a "God save the Queen" man all the way, and placed his own desires... well, most of them, under the need to protect the UK. The two most recent movies have disposed of that. The Bond of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace is a rogue who does what he wants. Notice also how he does it.

Paul tells us that the man of lawlessness comes with "counterfeit miracles" (see the last post). Now theologians have usually explained a counterfeit miracle as an illusion, like someone making it appear as though fire were falling from the sky when it really isn't. The problem is that the ability to make people perceive something like illusionary fire without some sort of hidden machinery isn't a "counterfeit" miracle. No, that would be a real miracle. A miracle is something that violates the normal flow of cause and effect. Creating a mass illusion from nothing would do that brilliantly. Now, if you want to see a counterfeit miracle you need to turn on your television. Counterfeit miracles are produced with a special effects budget.

One might say, "But a counterfeit is an imitation that is meant to deceive? Like a counterfeit one hundred dollar bill. How is movie magic trying to deceive?"

And the answer is -- by trying to create a realistic enough simulation so that you, the moviegoer, lose yourself in the story for two hours or so. In other words to create a good enough bit of escapism to get you to pony up the cash to see the movie. Just because we typically think of this kind of imitation as harmless doesn't change what it is.

Does 007 perform miracles? Consider the real world:

Cause: dozens of armed men shooting at close range.

Effect: you die.

Now for the Bond version:

Cause: the usual army with guns, plus explosives, plus some guy with a razor blade hat or something.

Effect: a couple of scratches. Not enough to put him in the ICU, or even keep him from looking dapper.

The usual flow of cause and effect doesn't apply to Bond.

At this point you should be able to think of any number of examples of the man of lawlessness yourself. Harry Potter comes close, "Captain" Jack Sparrow is a good fit, as are any number of the current wave of vampire/antiheros.

Now let's complete our riddle:

How does the man of lawlessness avoid the 15 minutes of fame and the informational control trap?

Because he's not a mortal man or woman. He's a script that any number of people can pick up and read. We get tired of the people reading the script, but never of the script itself. And information can't control it because that's what it is, information -- a set of protocols that tells a person how to live and behave.

If you're waiting for a sorcerer to stand up in the middle of a UN assembly and call down fire you are wasting your time. The man of lawlessness is already among us in a hundred different personas. There may be another, perfect character on the horizon; a World's most interesting man that appeals to all cultures in a perfectly corrupt way, right before the tribulation, but I wouldn't hold my breath for this either. The man of lawlessness does his best work with children and therefore it is an ad campaign that needs time to convert its disciples into sons of lawlessness. On top of that, so far the lawless campaign has depended more on external conditions (abusive laws that prime individuals to think of 'lawlessness' as a good thing and social barriers that make the helpless long for supernatural powers of control) than on the personality of any particular 'lawless' character. I can't even think of any real advantages to investing itself into a single character. It's on the path to success just as it is.

Now for the last item of interest: the antichrist is never mentioned in the book of revelation, but neither is "the man of lawlessness". The reason for this is that the man of lawlessness is Paul's vision, not John. Paul and John think and write in very different ways. Paul focuses of the philosophical foundation of things; John focuses on people and relationships. When we come to John's Revelation we don't read about the philosophical fall of man. We read about one person inciting another person to commit murder. The person doing this killing is the 'beast' -- the empire of the end times. The person being killed is us. As for the instigator, that's a little tricky; John likens it to a religion, something like a church congregation, and thanks to Paul, we've just met the head pastor.

Next post we start, What is the whore of Babylon.

Who is the antichrist? - part 4

Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for (that day will not come) until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. -- 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4

So how is the "man of lawlessness" different than the antichrist?

It's riddle time -- how does a man transcend the weaknesses that we've previously seen in the antichrists? How does he convince people that he is both willing and able to be their savior and somehow continue on in this fiction without ever exposing himself as an impostor on both counts? Why doesn't the public get tired of him after the proverbial fifteen minutes? On top of that, how does this man avoid the informational control trap we saw in the last post?

To understand the answer to this riddle we need to back up all the way to Genesis and a fellow by the name of Lamech.

Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times." -- Genesis 4: 23-24

In Genesis 4 Cain commits murder and legions of Bible students ever since have wrongly concluded that this is what the chapter is about. What chapter 4 is really about is the punishment Cain receives. You see, this is the first instance of social law (ie: the code of conduct that tells people how to treat each other and what the punishments are if they violate that code). God shows us that He determines the content of the law and that we are subject to it because He (the lawgiver) is greater than us. Cain commits the crime of murder and receives the punishment of exile. Then we get Lamech.

Lamech defies the law, then replaced it with his own. He claims the right to kill and injure who he pleases for whatever reason he should choose. Lamech essentially claims the position of God -- the one who rightfully determines the code of conduct between human beings. Notice two things here: first, he is rejecting God's right to place any sort of restraints on his own conduct. Second, in claiming this he is claiming to be the master of his own circumstances. In other words he is claiming that he is actually capable of imposing this law on those around him, "I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me."

As Jesus teaches us in Matthew 12 with his explanation of the phrase, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." the law is meant to be a blessing to men, not a curse. It provides protection for the needy, and in truth, we are all needy. In the archaeological digs from the time before the first civilizations we see just how true this is. Over forty percent of the human skeletons unearthed from pre-civilization times died violently. They were killed -- with clubs, with spears, with arrows, etc.

I want you to notice not just what Lamech was saying, but the fact that it just a boast. It's not reality. He couldn't really impose his own "law" upon everyone else. He just wanted to believe that he could. If we could unearth his skeleton it would probably tell us of the time that he tried to impose his self-made law and it didn't work out so well.

The first piece of the riddle -- in order to be a "man of lawlessness" you must be someone who defies any law but your own. Also, you must be a master of circumstance, a man who controls everything around him without being controlled by anything but his own desires.

Impossible, you say? The first part is easy, but the second is out of the question. No one can do that.

Exactly.

That's why Lamech wasn't the man of lawlessness. Just a wannabe. Let's go back to 2 Thessalonians 2,

verse 5-6 -- Don't you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time.

Notice that he is 'revealed'. It's as if Satan is the master of ceremonies and he pulls back the curtain to reveal his perfect creation.

verse 7 -- For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.

This sort of 'floodgate' imagery sounds almost identical to Daniel 12:7 (When the power of the holy people has been finally broken, all these things will be completed.)

Verse 8 -- And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

Notice here that this man of lawlessness is not actually killed, he is destroyed by Jesus' "breath" (usually a metaphor for the Holy Spirit) and the splendor of His coming. Jesus' coming is associated with death, that being the judgement on all the nonbelievers, but that's not the only thing that it is associated with, and none of the usual imagery (blood, grapes, wrath, reaping) for human death is used here. Jesus' breath isn't associated with physical human death at all.

Verse 9 -- The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders,

Notice that these are not real miracle. They're counterfeit ones. At first this almost seems like another riddle -- how does a culture as skeptical as ours fall for counterfeit miracles -- but it's another part of the answer. These are not real miracles. These are simulated miracles. The man of lawlessness does not control the real circumstances, he only controls simulated "counterfeit" circumstances.

Verse 10 -- and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

This is what sickens me about ridiculous takes on the antichrist like Carpethia. It isn't demonic possession that makes man fall. Knock off all that "the devil made me do it" silliness! We are told plainly that the man of lawlessness is successful because we want to buy the slop that he is selling. The devil may give him his polish, but we give him his power.

Verses 11-12 -- For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

A powerful delusion? God-sent?

And at this point we have everything we need to answer the riddle. How can the man of lawlessness do impossible things? How can he avoid the fifteen minutes of fame and informational control traps? The answer is that he can do all these things because he is not a human being.

He's an advertising campaign.

Next: the perfectly corrupt ad campaign and the fraternity of people who believe in it.

Who is the antichrist? - part 3

Point 2) The entourage of the Antichrist.

No more than fifty or sixty years ago the most important attribute for a national leader was personal charisma. Looks took a back seat to the ability to inspire. Franklin Roosevelt was wheelchair bound, Adolf Hitler was a short little man with a Groucho Marx mustache. It didn't matter. They communicated to the masses through sound -- mostly radio, and the written word -- mostly newspaper print. Then something happened: we invented the cathode ray tube.

Television began the change. The internet finished it. Now the most important attribute for a national leader is that they "look" like a national leader. We live in an age where actors make good politicians. My goodness! Half the cast of the movie Predator segued into political careers! The Govenator... Jesse Ventura... what is the guy who wore the alien suit doing these days? He's got to be secretary of something or another.

What are the words of that old Don Henley song? I could have been an actor, but I wound up here. I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear.

He was writing about the nightly news, but he may have well have been talking about our current batch of politicians. On screen persona is everything now. They are talking heads that all seem to be reading the same script. Could Obama be one of the ten kings spoken of in Revelation? I think so. But here's the kicker: so could George W Bush. Why would an evangelical Christian like Bush 'give power and authority to the beast' the same way as an lip-service Christian who has more humanist leanings like Obama. That's easy.

Many will go here and there to increase knowledge. -- Daniel 12

This is given to Daniel as one of the intervening events between his prophecy and the end times, and it explains why a president who ran on the platform of "change" is at the head of an administration that looks -- in practice -- virtually identical to the one it replaced.

You see, President Obama's belief system may be totally different than Bush the Younger's, but it doesn't make any different if he's not the one who is calling the shots. And make no mistake, the President of the United States has not been calling the shots in this country since at least the 80's. It's the entourage, and not just here in America. The entourage is running the show all over the world. They have to. There is simply too much information for it to be any other way.

Example: Why does Obama's financial program look exactly the same as Bush's? It's because both men were reliant on same batch of so-called 'financial experts'. Obama used to work in the financial sector; he's not ignorant on financial matters. But it makes no difference. Modern financial institutions rely on transactions that are so complex that only the aforementioned 'financial experts' can shed any light on them.

But haven't leaders always been reliant on advisers? For that matter doesn't the book of proverbs commend a king who defers to his advisers?

Yes, but this is operating on a wildly different scale, and creating a radically different set of conditions. Historically an "adviser" was someone who would listen to his leaders wishes and then use his expertise to provide logistical council (ie: the nuts and bolts of the how to) to make it work, or to tell him if the plan was simply not feasible. These days, our president sits in a room surrounded by advisers whose job it is to take an encyclopedia's worth of information and distill it down to five minutes of "briefing". The information they provide and the way in which they frame it puts them in control. This is the power of the entourage: while the leader busies himself with the job of getting reelected the informational elites run the show from the shadows.

At this point it may be tempting to ask, "but doesn't money still run the show? What about the lobbyists and special interests?

This still may play a role to some degree, but less and less I think now that we are going to a more socialist economy. It would take time to explain. Maybe I'll give it it's own post at some point. For now, let me just point out that the laws being passed in this country have typically never been read by the people who are passing them. This is because those laws are often over a thousand pages long. Some are over 10,000 pages. At this point it's not the person passing the laws who is running the show; it's the people responsible for the content in those thousands of pages and the entourage of advisers who tell the legislators how to think about that mysterious content.

So here's the point -- what good is an antichrist who has to be spoon fed all of his information?

At that point, the individual takes a back seat in terms of importance. It wouldn't be any good for Satan to possess that single individual. The Devil would have to use a different tactic. He would have to find a way to somehow embed himself into that flow of information like some sort of corrupt software system. And for that, he would need the man of lawlessness.

Next post, the man of lawlessness is revealed, as is the organization he belongs to.

Who is the antichrist? - part 2

"In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." -- Andy Warhol

What would the antichrist be if he could only squeeze fifteen minutes of fame from the attention-span challenged public? He wouldn't be the Robert Redford look-alike/demon possessed/hypnotist/all around world-beater of the Left Behind books, that's for sure. He couldn't be. The fact is that in a world like that the antichrists of the type that we saw in the last post would be small fish in a huge, swirling ocean of humanity. You would need something else to work your corruption on a society like that. Something more pervasive.

The third time -- If you are a Protestant you probably think that very little good ever came from the Catholic church. You could not be more wrong.

We love to read the book of Acts and talk about the zeal in the early church, but the early church had a dark side as well. Yes it was characterized by hospitality; it was also characterized by heresy and falling away from "sound doctrine" at the drop of travelling antichrist's hat. These are the ones John singles out when he says, "they came from us, but did not remain in us."

The word Catholic means "universal" and it created a standard that protected centuries of believers by making heresy clearly visible as heresy. It was a God-ordained institution. It's breakup was God-ordained as well. By the fifteenth century the Catholic church had become a cumbersome, worldly monster and reform from within was no longer possible. The reformers would have to break away and become something else, but make no mistake, even as necessary as it was it still had the side effect of reopening the Pandora's box of heresies.

For every Martin Luther there was a Jan Bockelson, cult leaders taking advantage of the sudden doctrinal void in order to tell people that they were the real truth and the life. All over Europe believers turned back to pure worship of the God of the Bible; unfortunately, at the same time, all over Europe, people turned to heretical movements like the Cathars and Anabaptists.

The third rise was directly created not only by the hardship of the times, but also because of the opportunity afforded by the collapse of the "universal" church.

The half a time -- In all three of the earlier times, surrounding circumstances provided an opening for men who possessed the inclination to travel the path of the antichrist. But the inclination wasn't enough, these men also had to posses certain abilities. Charisma was the main requirement: specifically the ability to communicate a passionate message of cosmic significance. Now rhetoric (the ability to persuade with words) was the end goal of centuries of Western educational curriculum. A good speech could influence the masses, and an influential person had to master the spoken and written word.

We still make a big deal out of our leader's speeches, but we are not greatly influenced by them anymore. Think about the last presidential election. You saw the speeches, and then what happened? If you were watching on most channels you saw a political commentator who then 'rated' the speech. They told the viewers whether or not it was a good speech, and what they thought the speech would accomplish. So, who then was more influential, the speech-giver or the people who reinterpreted the speaker's message.

And now we find ourselves at the heart of the matter: how is a modern-day antichrist different from the earlier versions and how is the "man of lawlessness" different from an antichrist. This is not easy to explain and I'm going need to name certain names to illustrate my points.

Point 1) Barak Obama is not "the antichrist".

There was a "prophet" who, prior to the last election, claimed that the next American president would be the antichrist and that he would have a woman for his VP. Now, with all due respect to any of you who heard this on Christian talk radio and gave it more than a second's consideration, unless you think that Joe Biden is a very advanced cross-dresser you have to admit that this so-called prophet was flat out wrong.

But again, saying that he was merely 'wrong' misses the point. The very notion that our current president could be an antichrist -- let alone "the antichrist" -- reveals a basic misunderstanding. First of all, remember that an antichrist is one who corrupts people by tricking them into worshipping him rather than God. It is not a person whose politics you don't approve of. Yes, some people 'idolize' Mr. Obama, but as far as I know he has never yet claimed divinity and that mistaken idol-worship must for now fall squarely on the heads of the worshipful masses.

Saying that he could be "the antichrist" is a different matter. When John warns his readers of "the antichrist" in 1 John 2 the differentiation between "antichrist" and "antichrists" is a simple one: antichrist (singular) is the one of the antichrists (plural) who you have to worry about because he is going to try and corrupt and destroy you. Let's be clear on this, "the antichrist" is only "the antichrist" because he is the one antichrist who shows up at your door. For John's readers there was one obvious candidate for "the antichrist", that being the Roman emperor who claimed divinity, hated Christians and first began turning Christian-killing into an art form -- ie: Nero. For you, if you hear about David Koresh on the news then he's an antichrist. If he is your next door neighbor then, for you, he is "the antichrist". What about someone like the fictional Nicolai Carepthia who merits the status of being everyone's next door neighbor due to his powers and abilities?

Sorry, no. You see, Warhol was right. But don't take his word for it. Besides, noticing a phenomenon after it has already started is marginally impressive, but predicting it two thousand years in advance... that takes real talent. Observe below: (the italics are mine)


The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. --Revelation 17:12

It says hour and not minutes, but then the unit of time known as a minute hadn't been invented yet. An hour was the smallest. Not only does the above verse prophesy a time when leaders will come and go like spring fashion, but another passage is going to do something else that Warhol couldn't do; it is going to explain why.

Next post, point 2) the antichrist's entourage.

Who is the antichrist? - part 1

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. -- 1 John 2:18


The word "antichrist" appears a grand total of five times in the scriptures; four times in 1 John, once in 2 John. It never appears in the book of Revelation. Most of what modern theologians think they know about the antichrist comes from Paul's description of "the man of lawlessness" found in 2 Thessalonians 2 and are based on the assumption that the man of lawlessness and the antichrist are one and the same. This is not quite true. But I can't simply tell you how it is false. It's a bit like Matthew 24, where I can't just give the answer because you don't yet understand the question. Let's look at the history of the antichrists, first remembering two things: 1) an antichrist is someone who denies that Jesus is the Christ (ie: the savior), they do this to prop themselves up as savior and take for themselves the worship that rightfully belongs to God. 2) a spike in "antichrist" activity is a sign of the "last hour".

The first time -- I've already told you that historians are aware of at least forty so called "messiahs" that went around claiming to be the chosen one, or at least not denying the title when it was foisted upon them, during the Roman occupation of Israel. That's an average of about one every four to five years. That's not how they came, of course -- spread out I mean. Most times a decade would pass and then three or four would pop up all at once.

What is interesting about this is the way these "messiahs" came and the way they were treated by the religious authorities. Now let me tell you up front, there's not a lot of information on any of the first century messiahs other than Jesus, so I'm having to make certain assumptions, but apparently the other "messiah" rarely if ever claimed to fulfill any of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the long awaited savior. Does that not strike you as odd? Remember that one of the knocks on Jesus was that He came from Galilee, which the religious authorities believed was a violation of prophecy. So Jesus was given a hard times because He fulfilled some, but in their eyes, not all of the Old Testament prophecies. Yet forty others gained followings (which sometimes included those same religious authority figures) without ever seriously attempting to defend their messianic claims. How?

The other "messiahs" were rebels, military leaders claiming to be the one who could cast off the yoke of Roman rule. If I'm understanding it right the Pharisees, Saducees, Herodians often treated these messiahs like modern day political candidates, backing the one who they believed could benefit them the most. Let me state that again: they treated God's plan of salvation like something they could control, like it was a contract, the terms of which they should rightfully be able to dictate.

So the first flood of antichrists occurred because of the messianic expectations built into the Old Testament prophecies as well as the peculiar aspects of the Roman occupation -- and by that I mean that not only were the Roman Pagan culture totally at odds with Jewish culture, but prior to the Roman invasion the Jews had recently thrown off another Pagan regime, the Seleucids. So for another Pagan regime to conquer you so soon after you believed that you had been "saved" from paganism, the Jews naturally turned to and took solace in those messianic prophecies as being the only things that could truly save them (ie: "it's going to take a miracle if we're ever going to be rid of these pagans forever").

In general terms, the first rise of the antichrists took place due to a preexisting set of expectations and a surrounding backdrop of worldly hardships.

The second time -- As I wrote in History isn't what you think it is it became quite fashionable in the 12th-14th centuries to foist messianic expectations on the kings and emperors of the age. Now understand something: a sense of longing, of something unfulfilled, is every bit as much a part of being human as awkward puberty years and opposable thumbs. We all have a sensation of need, although one person's belief on how the need can be remedied may be very different than another's. For medieval man, Christianity was something that you did (through recitations in Latin, giving of offerings, ceremonials performances, etc.) but it was not something that you understood, and certainly not something that, for most, shaped your identity or -- here's that word again -- your expectations.

During that age the kingdom of Heaven was just too remote, and I mean "kingdom of Heaven" in both the sense of a future place of promise as well as God's spirit reshaping your life and identity right here and now, the very same way that Jesus means it when He begins a parable with the phrase, "The kingdom of Heaven is like..." For the medievals who did not own a Bible, who did not have a "personal" savior, but rather subcontracted out their spiritual needs to a professional priest, those needs I mentioned earlier naturally focused on the one agent that they could conceive of as being both willing and able to deliver them from that needy state -- their worldly rulers. Because of this several generations of Kings like Frederick Barbarossa would be worshipped as gods.... and some of them liked it.

Again, the second rise of the antichrists was caused by a preexisting set of expectations (those being the messianic qualities placed on human rulers) and a surrounding backdrop of hardship (this time a complex mish-mash of economic decline, disease, and the encroaching Muslims).

Next post, we finish with the third rise of the antichrists and I begin attempting to explain how the man of lawlessness is certainly an antichrist, but an antichrist is not necessarily the man of lawlessness.

Matthew 24 - part 3

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. -- Matthew 24: 36-41

Read the above. Now, tell me: who is it that is being "taken"? Are these servants of the Lord being raptured up to Heaven, or are these children of the devil being dragged to Hell?

The answer isn't so simple. For now just notice that there is nothing in the passage to tell you one way or the other. The whole thing is incredibly vague. Now let's back up.

So far in chapter 24 we have seen Jesus twice talk to the disciples in specific detail about the near-term events of the destruction of Jerusalem and the early church. Twice we have seen Him then broaden out and discuss the fall of man in a more general way. Now He does it one final time:

"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. -- Matthew 24: 32-35

Jesus answers the disciple's question "When will this happen?" with a statement that says, "In this generation." in other words, "You guys better pay attention, some of you are going to see this."

But, but, but, I was told that "generation" could refer to the Jewish race. That would be an outlandish translation. Also, Jesus would have been something of a heel to answer the 'when?' question with the oh-so-informative "Some Jews will still be alive somewhere when it happens" answer. But Jesus, that doesn't tell us anything. "So?".... Can you really see Jesus doing that?

The reality is that some people with a particular translation feel the need to defend that translation by making certain passages say something that they never intended to say. The logic goes like this: Jesus can't mean both "this generation" and "all these things have happened" because he hasn't come back yet. So they have to try and play word games to get the meanings to square with observed reality.

Except that He has come back. In fact, for that generation alone, He came back twice!

The first time He came back to life three days after His death on the cross. The second time He came in the form of the Holy Spirit -- which He even refered to as "My spirit."

Question -- So which was Jesus talking about in 32-35? That generation or the final generation?

Answer -- Both.

Remember how vague 36-41 sounds? Now we get the reason why. Like I said in the last post, at this point the disciples are still very much confused about Jesus' future comings and goings. Not only does Jesus have maneuver around their misconceptions, but He is somewhat limited in what He can tell them. Face it, Jesus -- the living embodiment of love -- is not going to be one to tell people the date and time of their own deaths. Knowing that tends to suck the joy out of life. So what does He do? He gives them what they need: a few basic watch-signs to give a heads up when their end is near. He also leaves a few crumbs of information to help them understand that the end of Jerusalem is not going to be end of everything.

Once more to try and make this clear -- The preterist says that everything that Jesus told the disciples was fulfilled in the 1st century AD. I'm telling you that they are right. The futurist says that most of what Jesus told his disciples was meant for people in a later age. I'm saying that that is correct as well.

Yes it happened in the 1st century. Then it happened again in the 11th and 12th centuries, and another time in the 15th and 16th centuries. It will happen one final time. If that time does not take place in our current generation I will be utterly stunned.

Next, we look at the antichrist.