THE SPIRIT OF ANTICHRIST
1 JOHN 4:3.
While the world and its spirit are quite contrary to Christ and the Spirit of Christ, and might therefore without impropriety be termed anti-Christ (against Christ), yet this term as used in Scripture is never applied to the world, but always to professed Christians who have turned aside from the truth, and who, by becoming advocates of error, are in Christ's name opposing him, his followers, and his doctrines.
We are well aware that many regard it in a contrary light,—considering the term antichrist as belonging to worldly opponents of all who profess Christ in any manner—infidels, heathens, Mohammedans, etc. That this view is incorrect we can prove readily by citing here every text in the Bible containing the word antichrist, and pointing to some statement in the context which unmistakably fixes it upon some professing to be Christ's followers. This is an important point, as it overthrows completely a wide-spread belief, and opens our eyes to look for antichrist in a quarter in which many may not have thought to look hitherto. In fact, the prefix anti, signifies more than against, it contains the double thought of instead and against.
The word antichrist occurs five times, 1 Jno. 2:18,22; 4:3; 2 Jno. 7. The class meant is easily discerned from the general tenor of John's epistles and from the following pointed statements: "They went out from us, but they were not of us." They are [really] of the world [though professing otherwise], therefore speak they of [or according to the spirit of] the world, and the world heareth them." (1 Jno. 2:19; 4:5.) Other scriptures mention and describe the same class, but by different names. Paul in 2 Thes. 2:3, following the same vein of thought as in Rom. 6:6, personifies the system of error which he saw would arise, and speaks of it as the "Body of Sin," counterfeiting and opposing the "Body of Christ," naming it here as an organized body, "The man of Sin." He makes no reference to a sinful individual; for there are and have been in the past, and were in and before Paul's day, horribly depraved creatures of the human race, than whom worse could scarcely be conceived of; and the Apostle was not passing all these by to speak of some individual pre-eminently vile and vicious. No, he sees and tells us of a system of evil and error, the embodiment of evil, the opponent and counterfeit of the Body of Christ,—the antichrist Body. But only those who have learned that the true church is the "Body of Christ" can appreciate how the counterfeit nominal system, the "Man of Sin," is the antichrist. But we refer to this merely to note the fact that the Apostle Paul mentions that this "Man of Sin" system arises in the church, and professes to be in and of the true temple—the Church of the living God (Compare 2 Thes. 2:4with 1 Cor. 3:16,17; Eph. 2:21.) and not of the world. He declares this to be an apostasy, a falling away from the truth.
But it is not our purpose here to discuss antichrist: this we have done heretofore and may again, but now we simply call attention to one point of antichrist's erroneous teaching which is very injurious as a source of many other errors. This point of error is particularly pointed out to us by John, the Apostle who specially represented us who are alive and remain unto the parousia (presence) of our Lord (John 21:22.); and he tells us that it is common to every theory and class claiming to be Christ's followers and soldiers of the cross, who are really opponents to and counterfeits of the true body of Christ. Remember that the individuals in these great counterfeit systems, and bound by their errors, are not all of them, and do not all properly belong to them, and hence it is, that by the truths now being uncovered and presented to such, as "meat in due season," God is calling his people out of those systems to which they do not really belong, saying "Babylon is fallen! Come out of her, my people."
But what, you inquire, is this one notable point of error upon which all antichrist systems agree, and which blinds many to other truths, and opens the way to errors? Surely, we answer, it is a point long and deeply covered under hoary traditions which are esteemed venerable and sacred. The adversary buried this first and deepest, realizing the necessity for keeping the truth out of sight and of arousing prejudice against it. This being the case, prepare yourselves to find it a test which you would never have thought of had the Apostle not pointed it out, but which, once clearly seen, proves to-day, to be an oracle in the light of which every system of doctrine may be quickly tried, whether it be of the spirit of truth or of the spirit of error, the spirit of antichrist.
The passage to which we refer is found in 1 John 4:3, which in the oldest and the most correct, the Sinaitic MS. reads thus:
"Every spirit [theory, doctrine] that confesseth not that Jesus the Lord is come in flesh, is not of God: and this is the spirit [theory] of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it cometh; and even now already is it in the world."
Ah! you say, that is not a test, for all Christians and all theories, even the worldly, confess that. Not so, we answer; you do not get the depth of the Apostle's statement; your view of his words would make them and him foolish indeed. The world does not confess Jesus to be "Lord;" so that shuts the world out; and as we examine closely we will find few of the professed Christian systems ready to confess that Jesus, our Lord, came in flesh. To do so, would contradict their creeds old and new. it is the general view, that the real man is not flesh, but a spirit being which lives for a while in a body or house of flesh; hence by such the flesh is no more recognized as the person, than the garments put on and off. Moreover it is claimed by many, that in our Lord Jesus' case, he was really and truly the Father, Jehovah, who thus for a time appeared in flesh, but that he himself was not flesh; that he appeared to be tried and tempted in all points, but was not really tried at all; that he appeared to suffer and die, but did not actually suffer, nor did he really die for our sins, but merely dropped the flesh as a garment remaining really alive as before, for, they say, God is immortal and cannot die, and their claim is that in leaving the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, he did not become flesh or "come in flesh," but still remained a spirit being and came into a flesh body and only appeared like men, like the seed of Abraham, though all the while really was the almighty immortal Jehovah. They say that it was the God Christ Jesus who appeared to or pretended to die for our sins, and contradict the Apostle's statement that it was "the man Christ Jesus" who gave himself a ransom, a corresponding price [Greek, antilutron] for all. (1 Tim. 2:6.) Yet we see some go to a further extreme and hear them sing—
"Well might the sun in darkness hide And shut his glories in, When God the mighty Maker died For man the creature's sin."
But in this poetic slip only a few can recognize the inconsistency. Some even going so far as to deny God's immortality, claim that it required the death of a God to atone for the sin of man, not seeing that this is contrary to scripture which demands not a God's life for the life of a man, but a perfect man's life, as a ransom or substitute for the forfeited life of the first perfect man—a corresponding price.
Still others, anxious apparently to get away from the straightforward, simple doctrine of ransom, figure the dying out of their way by saying that the real, spiritual Christ died to sin, and let his flesh body die as an example of how we should do the same. They do not stop to account for the uselessness of such an example, to those who cannot avoid dying.
But all these, with their various shades of difference, stand firmly, shoulder to shoulder, on the one point mentioned by the Apostle—they deny that Jesus the Lord "came in flesh" or "was made flesh," as the same writer elsewhere states it. (John 1:14.) That his body was flesh and bones cannot be denied directly, hence their claim that the spirit being came into the flesh, but was always separate and distinct, and not flesh. But this does not fit: the Apostle does not say into [Greek eis] flesh, but "in [Greek en] flesh" and "was made flesh" [Greek sarx egeneto—literally, "became flesh."] (Jno. 1:14). So we see that the test of believing that Jesus the Lord came in flesh, i.e. became flesh, would draw the line outside of so called "Orthodox" doctrines. The theory of Universalists and Unitarians, as generally held, is likewise opposed to Jesus being "made flesh," for they generally claim that our Lord had no existence before, and that he was born after the ordinary manner of men: these, then, make no confession which would imply a pre-existence of our Lord in order to be made flesh or to come in flesh. Swedenborgians, Spiritists, etc., etc., all come in on the same side of the question—all deny that the Lord Jesus was "made flesh," "came in flesh"—became flesh.
Next notice that all these are not only without Scriptural sanction for their theories, but are positively and directly contradicted by the Apostles. We need not again quote the many passages in which our Lord and the Apostles declare that the Father and the Son are not the same person, etc., but notice the fact that the death, even the death of the cross, was the death of the real person, and not a pretended death of a body, while the real person or being slipped out alive and watched the proceedings. Every text touching on the subject,
