Is the Antichrist already on the earth right now?

A popular assumption

A question that most often gets asked in end times studies is whether the foretold Antichrist of the tribulation period is already roaming the earth in preparation for his revealing as described in 2 Thess. 2:3.  In this verse he is described as the so-called Man of Lawlessness and Paul says that the day of the Lord will not come until we see this man revealed and sitting in the Jewish temple.  The thinking goes that if we are very close to the end (which I believe we are) then the Antichrist must have already been born and have grown up somewhere.  He could be one of seven billion people alive right now.

My thinking and the thinking of many Bible scholars is that Christ will come at the end of 6000 years since creation and it can quite easily be proven from the Bible that that 6000 years is almost up.  In fact, in my calculations, we are less than a decade away from the last seven-year period beginning.  We also have the double proof because Jesus said that this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things happen.¹  In my opinion, Jesus is talking about that last generation since when Israel became a nation in May 1948.  In the Bible, a generation can either be 70, 80 or 100 years in length.  Also, another piece of evidence that the end is near is in Hosea 6:2 which says that God will restore Israel on the third day, after two days or 2000 years.  He states that He is going back to his place² referring to when Jesus said that He will be going back to the one who sent him in heaven.  This occurred when He ascended to the Father in heaven in May, AD 30  which means that the third day is extremely close.  So one might conclude that if we are that close then surely the Antichrist must be a man who has already been born and maybe is even already an adult waiting for his time to be revealed.

The Antichrist must be a man resurrected from history

Well, I don’t think that is the case at all.  I don’t believe he has been born but I do think that he will return to the earth, back from the dead.  We are waiting, I believe, firstly for the second coming of the Antichrist before we see the second coming of Christ.  This is because the Bible is quite clear from Rev. 17:11 that the beast is an eighth king and must be someone who once was and now is not and yet will come.  That is a riddle from John which suggests that the future coming beast or Antichrist will be a man from history who will be resurrected at the halfway mark of the last seven years.  He will then have 3 ½ years to reign in terror and defeat the people of God.  To reiterate, the beast is not on earth at this moment but he is still dead.  The beast along with with his demonic counterpart in the abyss will be released just in time to kill the final two witnesses upon his exit and rising.³  This all happens at the fifth trumpet judgment when Satan is given the key to the shaft of the abyss and releases his demonic locust type forces⁴ along with the beast.⁵  Satan is waiting for him when he arises and comes up out of the sea.⁶

The beast must be a resurrected man from one of the seven kings/antichrists who has already proven himself to be a man of lawlessness.⁷  At the time of writing, John says that five kings have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come.  The candidates are the kings/rulers/dictators from the seven kingdoms who have oppressed the Jewish nation.  The five that have fallen are in order Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece.  The one that “is” is Rome because that was the current kingdom when John had his apocalyptic vision in AD 96.  The one that was to come and would only be very short in length was the Nazi Empire from 1933-1945 (only 12 years in length).  So it must be a man from one of these kingdoms, a man of terrifying history and a man who had a fatal wound from a sword/weapon.⁸  To be clear no other king/ruler/dictator of one of these seven possible empires has died in this way except Adolf Hitler.    In my opinion, the only man who matches all these clues is Adolf Hitler.  He will have a second coming if you like almost exactly 100 years after he first became German chancellor on January 30th, 1933.  This 100 years is amazingly significant in light of the fact that Hitler himself when speaking frankly to his propaganda minister Goebbels, said that he had a prophetic vision of the future: ‘Germany as master of the world. Job for a century.’⁹  This indeed could quite well come true maybe not in the sense that Hitler intended though.

The glaringly obvious is staring us in the face

Of course, if you don’t see the Nazi Empire as being the seventh kingdom prophesied¹⁰ and hence the eighth as well then you would either have to see one of the other kings/rulers from one of the six other ancient historical kingdoms from Egypt to Rome come back to life or have to see another very short term ruler arising between now and the end which only gives us about 10 years or so.  He would need to severely oppress the Jews, die of a fatal head wound by a weapon, and come back to life.  That would indeed mean that he is probably alive right now.  The likelihood of this to me is very small because there just doesn’t seem to be anyone on the political horizon at this time.  It takes years for politics to ferment to the point of war, for antisemitism, and for a dictator to arise.  In my opinion, it has already happened during World War 2 which interestingly led to the formation of the Jewish nation shortly thereafter in 1948 which in itself is a prophetic sign.  I think we need to be careful in trying to find other answers when the glaringly obvious is staring at us in the face.

Conclusion

So, no, I don’t believe that the final end-times Antichrist is alive now.  The Bible says that he will be a man with a second coming, resurrected from the abyss and who later is thrown alive into the Lake of Fire upon his defeat.  There will be no need for him to be judged 1000 years later at the Great White Throne like every other human being because his judgment has already been made.¹¹  Why do you think he was thrown alive into the fire?  Because he had already been resurrected at the midpoint 3 ½ years earlier.  Mankind is only destined to die once and then face judgment.¹²  His resurrection will absolutely astonish the world⁵ when they see him because in a sense he will more than likely say that he is God because who can come back after being dead for over 90 years?  It has never happened before in history.  But of course, the truth is that he hasn’t defeated death at all–he is only 3 ½ short years away from his second death.  God has allowed him to be resurrected 1000 years earlier than the rest of unsaved mankind and consequently be judged 1000 years earlier along with his false prophet.