1. The spirit of antichrist was already at work in the early church. That spirit exemplified a desire for preeminence. In fact this haughty spirit would even exalt itself above God and sit in the church of God as though it had the authority of God.
2. Antichrist came out of the Christian community. It is a religious power that has fallen away, or apostatized, from the truth.
3. The presence of the antichrist power covers a large stretch of time - from the early church to the second coming of Christ.
4. Antichrist denies the Father and the Son, by denying that Jesus is the only way to the Father, having long claimed the superiority of human intercessors - priests - in Jesus place. In more recent years this power has added the blasphemous claim that we can approach the Father through Mary and the saints. This erroneous teaching not only supports aberrant views concerning the saints of old, but also the deadly and deceptive doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
5. Antichrist denies that Jesus came in the flesh as taught by Scripture. Catholicism teaches that Mary herself was immaculately conceived-born without sin. This teaching leads then to the sinister doctrine that Jesus was born of a sinless mother and conceived by the Holy Spirit, and therefore was not made like unto His brethren. However, Paul teaches us that God the Father sent His “own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Romans 8:3; see also Hebrews 2:14-18. Jesus did not receive that sinful flesh from the Holy Spirit, but from Mary. Catholicism denies this truth, because they have erroneously exalted Mary in her human nature.
Tragically, Protestants are proclaiming false ideas about antichrist to the world. As a result, antichrist will more easily come to power. And worse yet, Protestants are clasping hands today with antichrist, but they do not know it.
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