Who or What Is the Antichrist?
1) Direct Answer
The Antichrist is Satan’s religious spirit that opposes and replaces the Word of Jesus Christ. It began as a spirit working among believers, grows into a churchly system, and will finally be embodied in a man—the “man of sin”—who sits in the temple of God and exalts himself as God.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- The Bible says the antichrist is first a spirit: “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God… this is that spirit of antichrist” (1 John 4:3). “Even now are there many antichrists” (1 John 2:18).
- It denies the true revelation of Jesus Christ: “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
- It will climax in a person: “That man of sin… who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God… so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). “The mystery of iniquity doth already work” (verse 7), and then it appears “after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders” (verses 9-10).
- It is religious and blasphemous power: the beast “was given… a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies… and it was given unto him to make war with the saints” (Revelation 13:5-7). Another beast looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon (Revelation 13:11)—religious appearance, satanic voice.
- It speaks great words against God, persecutes saints, and thinks to change times and laws (Daniel 7:8,25).
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- “Anti” means against and instead-of. So the Antichrist doesn’t just fight Christ; it takes His place—claiming authority over the Word and over the worship of God.
- Notice where it sits: “in the temple of God.” That shows it operates in the realm of worship. If it were merely political or atheistic, why does Scripture place it inside the temple and describe religious signs and wonders?
- John said it was already working in his day (1 John 2:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:7). So it began as a spirit in the church, organizing around teachings that deny Jesus Christ as God manifested in flesh and replacing the Scriptures with human creeds. In time it becomes a powerful system, and in the end it is headed by a man who exalts himself.
- God’s safeguard is the love of the truth and the seal of the Holy Spirit. The true Church stays with the plain Word. Any spirit, system, or leader that adds to it, takes from it, or puts a man in Christ’s place is antichrist.
4) Reinforcing Statement
Now notice, it’s not the outside world that deceives the elect—it’s a look-alike, so close it would deceive if possible. Stay with the Scripture: Jesus Christ is God manifested in flesh, and His Word is final. Anything that denies that revelation or substitutes man’s authority for Christ’s is the Antichrist spirit, and it will culminate in the man of sin exactly as the Bible says.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
The Seal of Antichrist
55-0311 §21
...rning back to hell, taking with him the unrepented sinner, you get it? Now, Christ, when He came on earth, and then when He went back, "A little while, and," He said, "the world will see Me no more; yet ye shall see Me, for I will be with you, even in you, to the end of the world." Now, about the time that the Holy Spirit came back upon the church to pull out a people for the bride, the antichrist came back also. Now, read in I John 4:3, and He said, "Little children, every spirit that confesses that Jesus has not...
The god of this evil age
65-0801M §85
And Satan will soon take his intellectual bride and exalt this great one which is the antichrist, the hierarchy, and set him upon a throne, and the whole world will wonder after him. And then Christ will come, and two cannot exist in the same time. And his kingdom will be taken. He will be destroyed, and Christ, the Word of God... Which the woman is a part of the man's body. They're not two; they're one. And the bride, church Word, of people called out from here and there for His namesake will unite in the body of...
The Seal of Antichrist
55-0311 §24
And when a man ever crosses that line and borned again of the Spirit of God, he becomes a son of God. And then he believes what God says to be the truth. And he says, "All the Word's inspired." Borderline, half-way, watch that religious spirit. You say, "Brother Branham, do you mean to tell me that the antichrist spirit will be a religious spirit?" Jesus said, "It'd be so close, like the real thing, till it would deceive the very elect, if possible." Matthew 24. That throws a little different light to it, doesn't i...
The mark of the beast
56-0715 §18
...beloved. And sat up there weeping over Jerusalem. Said, "How oft would I have hovered you as a hen does her brood, but you would not?" Now, what was it? The Spirit of God working down through the prophets, till it come to full manifestation in Christ Jesus. And He was God, made manifest in flesh. And the spirit of antichrist come down through the religious teachers, down through Cain, Nimrod, and on down through each one, until it finally made itself manifested in a character called Judas Iscariot. And just about...
Proving His Word
64-0816 §106
The Bible said that the beast upon the earth ... that's the denominational antichrist coming on the earth, forming the beast at Rome, which was the first denomination. And this World Council of Churches forms an image unto the beast, just exactly what we just put in the book there the other day. Notice, it forms that, see, the antichrist. And the Bible said, "All whose names were not written on the Lamb's book of Life," (When, at the revival?) " slain before the foundation of the world" (your name was put on there)...