B. B. Warfield on "Antichrist"

One of the most thought provoking discussions of “Antichrist” comes from B. B. Warfield. In one of his last essays written for publication before his death in February of 1921, Warfield addressed the matter of the biblical use of the term “Antichrist” as found in John’s epistles. The Lion of Princeton acknowledges that there is a broader use of the term (the so-called theological use, i.e., “the Antichrist”), which he describes as a composite photograph made up of John’s “antichrist” (found in his epistles), Paul’s “man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12), and the beast and false prophet from the Book of Revelation (chapter 13). Warfield finds the evidence for such a composite photograph of an Antichrist far from compelling.

In this essay (re-printed in B. B. Warfield, “Antichrist” in Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 1, ed John E. Meeter (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1980), Warfield addresses John’s use of the term “Antichrist” in his epistles. Warfield asks and answers the question, “to what does John refer when he speaks of Antichrist?”

Warfield begins with an important qualification—the context for John’s warning about this foe.

We read of Antichrist nowhere in the New Testament except in certain passages of the Epistles of John (1 John ii. 18, 22; iv. 3; 2 John 7). What is taught in these passages constitutes the whole New Testament doctrine of Antichrist. It is common it is true, to connect with this doctrine what is said by our Lord of false christs and false prophets; by Paul of the Man of Sin; by the Apocalypse of the Beasts which come up out of the deep and the sea. The warrant for labeling the composite photograph thus obtained with the name of Antichrist is not very apparent . . . .The name of Antichrist occurs in connection with none of them, except that presented in the passages of the Epistles of John already indicated; and both the name and the figure denoted by it, to all appearance, occur there first in extant literature.[1]

Warfield’s point is an important one and rarely considered. There is a specific biblical usage of the term Antichrist as found in John’s epistles, the only place where the word appears in Scripture. Warfield contends that this evidence ought to be considered quite apart from Paul’s “man of lawlessness” and John’s beast and false prophet.

When seen in this light, it is clear that Antichrist was already a source of controversy in the apostolic church. John does not identity a specific individual who warned of a coming Antichrist, but he does allude to false teaching then present in the churches of Asia Minor. Says Warfield . . .

We learn merely that there were people who declared “Antichrist is coming!” It appears to be implied that Antichrist was thought of as an individual, and his coming as, though certain, yet still future– as apparently, in fact, a sign of the impending end. We cannot go beyond that; perhaps not quite so far as that. And as to who it was who were asserting, “Antichrist is coming!” John leaves us completely in the dark. Possibly he is adducing a current Christian belief . . . . It appears far more probable, however, that John is adducing not an item of Christian teaching, but only a current legend–Christian or other–in which he recognizes an element of truth and isolates it for the benefits of his readers.[2]

Warfield then asks, “is the Antichrist a future foe, or a present reality?”

The phrase which, John tells us, his readers heard–“Antichrist is coming!” does not in its very language, to be sure, project his coming into the future. It is the certainty rather than the futurity of Antichrist’s coming which it emphasizes; and it perhaps, as heard by his readers, put them in a quiver of expectation of his coming–creating some situation as that against which our Lord had warned his followers (Mark xiii. 21 f.) . . . . John meets the situation thus produced by a very definite assertion, that, so far from being a matter of future expectation, the coming of Antichrist had already taken place. Antichrist is not a future, but a present phenomenon; not a thing to be looked forward to in nameless dread, but a thing to be courageously met in our every day living.[3]

Warfield’s point is too often overlooked. We must face Antichrist now and not wait for him to come in the distant future.

But Antichrist, says Warfield, is not a person, but is a pernicious heresy—the denial of Christ’s incarnation.

John not only erases the individual Antichrist from the scroll of prediction, but reduces him just to a heresy. “Who is the liar,” he demands, “but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist–he who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John ii. 22). “Every spirit,” he declares, “which confesses that Jesus Christ come in the flesh is of God; and no spirit which does not confess Jesus, is of God: and this is that Antichrist of which you have heard that it is coming: and it is now in the world already” (iv. 3). “There are many seducers,” he declares again, “who went out into the world, even those who do not confess Jesus as Christ coming in flesh.” This is the Seducer and the Antichrist (2 John 7). In one word, “Antichrist” meant for John just denial of what we should call the doctrine, or let us rather say the fact of the Incarnation. By whatever process it had been brought about, “Christ” had come to denote for John the Divine Nature of our Lord, and so far to be synonymous with “Son of God.” To deny that Jesus is the Christ was not to him therefore merely to deny that he is the Messiah, but to deny that he is the Son of God; and was equivalent therefore to “denying the Father and the Son”–that is to say, in our modern mode of speech, the doctrine–the fact–of the Trinity, which is the implicate of the Incarnation. To deny that Jesus is Christ come–or is the Christ coming–in flesh, was again just to refuse to recognize in Jesus Incarnate God. Whosoever, says John, takes up this attitude toward Jesus is Antichrist.[4]

According to Warfield, Antichrist then is not so much a person, but any heresy denying the incarnation (and by implication, the Trinity). To deny that Jesus is God in flesh is to do the work of Antichrist. This applied to the proto-Gnostics of John’s day and certainly to the Arians in the centuries which followed.

I think Warfield is correct regarding how we ought to understand “Antichrist” in this narrow sense—John does speak of him and associates him with a particular heresy already present in the first century and which has plagued the church’s since.

Despite Warfield’s reservations, I remain convinced that the “composite photograph” is the best way to frame the broader doctrine of Antichrist. John’s Antichrist (the Spirit of Antichrist is still an ever present reality) fits nicely within a theological composite (the doctrine of Antichrist) which also includes Paul’s Man of Sin, and the beast and the false prophet found in the book of Revelation. Someone ought to write a book about this! Wait, its been done. The Man of Sin

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[1] B. B. Warfield, “Antichrist” in Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 1, ed John E. Meeter (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1980), 356.

[2] Warfield, “Antichrist,” 357.

[3] Warfield, “Antichrist,” 356-57.

[4] Warfield, “Antichrist,” 360-361.