Is Obama the antichrist?

Watching yesterday's extravagant, elegant, exciting, enduring, exhausting--take your pick--inauguration brought to mind a question I'd heard a couple of times through the campaign: Is Obama the anti-Christ? The question is often posed with suspicions of his religious background or just his overwhelming and (in my opinion) puzzling international popularity. I remain quite neutral toward the man, aside from my critiques of his stance on abortion and stem-cell research. But on to the question this post's title poses: Is Obama the anti-Christ?

Wrapped up in this question is a belief that just prior to the return of Jesus a leader will emerge (often from Europe) who will draw many people to himself, accepting forms of worship, and demanding that people receive some sort of mark that reveals their allegiance to him. This person, the anti-Christ, is also called the Beast in Revelation. His overwhelming power and blasphemy will prove bad news for Christians as they refuse to take his mark (sometimes thought of as a computer chip or another form of embedded code). Times will deteriorate for a period of seven years until Christ returns. Some believe Christians will be rescued from this time of horrid persecution (called the "Tribulation") before it starts; others at the mid-point; others right at the very end. Of course, some Christians hold various parts of this narrative without holding the whole thing. The Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins has expanded and dramatized this narrative, fleshing it out over a series of popular books and movies.

It may surprise some North American Christians that this narrative of end-times is not universally held either in this time or throughout history. Let's take a quick look at the passages which talk about the anti-Christ. The name itself, of course, simply means against the Christ, against Jesus. The word is only found in the Bible five times, all in the letters of John. Here are the passages:

1 John:
2.18: Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.

2.22: Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son.

4.2-3: This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

2 John
Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.

What immediately stands out is that John is more concerned the spirit of antichrist and the work of antichrist rather than identifying a specific person. He says that many antichrists have come; he says that any person who denies the presence of Jesus or his kingship is antichrist. He is also concerned with the perseverance of the church to whom he writes. There has been a church split of sorts that forces John to write (2:19, 26-27) and he wants those who have stayed to remain faithful to the kingship of Jesus. We do well to remain faithful in our day, as well, when the world tries to live by any King or politician opposed--in word or deed--to Jesus.

But what about Revelation and the beast John describes? What about the number 666? First we have to remember that John is a symbolic writer. Revelation 13 gives an initial description of the beast, one having elements of a leopard, lion, and bear. John takes this description from Daniel's description of four beasts in Daniel 7, combining all these elements to make this beast the worst of any before. In my opinion the beasts are connected with different political reigns that Daniel has seen and is seeing in the history of Israel. When John picks up these pictures he is describing a political power worse than any of those Daniel saw. Second, we must see that John has included clues to the identity of the beast because, as he tells us, if anyone has insight, he can figure out who he is talking about (Revelation 13:18).

So, what clues has John given? First, John tells us that the beast has seven heads and ten horns (13:2). Rome was known as the city settled on seven hills and John connects these seven heads with the seven hills (17:9). Perhaps John is alluding to Rome. Let's keep reading. Second, John tells us that one of the heads has a fatal wound (13:3), but that it had been healed. If John is talking about Rome, does this make sense? Consider that John also says that the beast itself had a fatal wound (13:12). In some way this head on the beast that suffers a fatal wound is both part of the seven-headed monster and yet captures its essence in itself. Is this a clue from John? Yes. In the first century, the first major persecutor of the church was the Emperor Nero who had Paul and Peter executed. Nero exemplified the concern that power had with the early Christians who often acted in countercultural ways, like treating slaves as brothers and meeting with other people around the worship of another King. Nero also suffered a head wound and died, but there was a belief that he had come back to life--that's how scary the early Christians considered him. But all of this isn't quite yet convincing that the beast of Revelation is Nero, although it's certainly a good fit. Is there another clue? Yes, in fact, the clearest one. John tells us that the beast is a man and that his number is 666 (13:18). It used to be common practice that numbers would be assigned to letters of the alphabet. (For example, A=1, B=2, etc.) This was called "gematria." Nero Caesar written in Hebrew letters come out like transliterated like this: nron qsr. The numerical value assigned to these letters is, respectively, 50, 200, 6, 50, 100, 60, 200. Those added up equals to 666. Of course, this is also a symbolic number of being just prior to the number of perfection(7), tripled, like when God is proclaimed as Holy, Holy, Holy. Not only has John identified this beast of a man, but has used these same numbers to describe his beastly mockery of perfection.

So, is Obama the antichrist? No. I believe the beast of Revelation was a real man, Nero, who exhibited the spirit of antichrist by his persecution of Christians and rebellion against Jesus. Obama, just like any one of us, is confronted with this same spirit of antichrist and we as Christians must pray for him and his leadership and offer, in addition to our words of prayer, our words of thoughtful, constructive criticism when we believe he is going astray. Christians owe this to all leaders whose political reigns mirror, however imperfectly, the Kingdom of our Lord and of His King (Rev. 11:15).