The Pattern of the Antichrist
By Jean-Philippe Gabriel — frameworklove.com | March 19, 2025
Across history, empires have risen claiming divine sanction. Each believed it was on the side of the “true” God — whether Babylon, Rome, the Caliphate, Christendom, or a modern nation-state. The names change, the symbols change, but the pattern remains.
Scripture’s visions — the beasts, the horns, the feet of iron and clay — are not just mysterious lore. They are a mirror. They expose the recurring structure of human power: the belief that God is “with us,” and therefore our cause is just, even to the detriment of others. This is the logic of the antichrist — systemic, recurring, and capable of appearing anywhere. It has taken shape in pagan kings, in religious movements, in political revolutions, and even in the church itself.
Faith at Risk of Empire
The prophecies clearly speak of powers, of empires, and at times even of religions. Some interpreters have pointed to the Papacy or the Caliphate as the “final antichrist.” Others, in more recent readings, have viewed secular Zionism or the modern state of Israel with suspicion. And because the language of prophecy is symbolic, almost any system can appear to fit — just as Babylon, Greece, Rome, and many others once did. That is precisely the point: prophecy’s symbols are not meant to lock us into a single identification, but to expose the recurring structure of power when religious authority merges with political force.
The true danger is not in naming one faith or institution, but in recognizing how easily even a religion — whose mission is to turn people toward God, righteousness, and justice — can become a tool of empires, and in doing so, achieve the opposite. The lesson is not about targeting religions themselves, but about the irony that even religions can be absorbed into the machinery of power — and once they are, they no longer serve God but power. And power, in every age, reveals the same pattern.
The Prophecies and the Logic of Love
And that is the true power of prophecy, not to name empires, but to reveal the dangers of achieving justice by command. And this idea is both represented in Daniel as well as Revelation and the Antichrist.
Daniel, in many ways, is clearer than Revelation. His visions simply trace the succession of empires — one after another, each collapsing in turn, until the final kingdom comes. There is no hidden timetable, no coded message waiting to be solved. If God is love, and love holds no secrets, then prophecy is not about riddles or predictions. Ontologically, if love is our guide, the value of prophecy is not secret knowledge but the assurance that every power fades — only love endures.
That is why, during the canonization of Scripture, the compilers of the Bible hesitated over Revelation. Its cryptic nature can mislead us into thinking the Christian task is to decode empires, name beasts, or calculate history’s calendar. But prophecy’s worth is found elsewhere. Just as important as what is spoken is to whom it is spoken. The Protoevangelium — God’s first prophecy in Genesis — was not addressed to Adam and Eve, but to the serpent. It widened the story beyond humanity, retelling creation as part of a cosmic conflict that included the angels, and foreshadowing the cross as the resolution not only of human salvation, but of creation itself.
Revelation, in contrast, is addressed broadly to the church. Daniel, however, was directed to a king. It was not a call to repentance for God’s people but a vision given to Nebuchadnezzar, the head of Babylon — a favor that answered his curiosity about the future of his realm.
Taken this way, prophecy offers no action items, except one: to remember that power never lasts. No matter how great an empire, how wise a system, or how absolute a ruler, it will fall. What endures is only love. God is not power — He is love. And yet, love “crushes” every other power in the end, not through domination, but through truth. Only love sustains life, and only God, who is love, has the abundance to hold creation together forever.
The Common Thread
In the end, the lesson is not about naming empires or religions, or any single institution as the antichrist. Revelation’s power is not in pointing fingers but in exposing a pattern. What is given are not secret names but recognizable structures: systems of power that promise good, yet trample the weak, suppress dissent, and even kill, all in the name of truth.
This is why the warning matters. The antichrist is not only a distant villain to identify, but a recurring possibility whenever love is abandoned for control. Any empire, church, ideology, government, corporation — even our own — can take on that role if it demands allegiance at the expense of love.
And the danger, as the prophecies reveal, is not only in those who hold power, but also in those who support it blindly, trading faithfulness for protection or gain, only to be devoured by the very system they upheld (Revelation 17:16). Revelation calls us not to revolt, accuse, or chase the antichrist, but to refuse his logic altogether. The call is to remain steadfast in love, even when it costs us, and to bear fruit — the lasting evidence of God’s kingdom.
The greatest deception is not simply being ruled by the antichrist. It is to become part of his work while believing we serve the truth.
Revelation in Plain Sight
Revelation’s warning then is not a secret code waiting to be decoded, but a warning in plain sight. There has always been an antichrist. John says it plainly: “Even now many antichrists have come.” The danger the antichrist, is not “out there” in some future oppressor — it can be us, whenever we betray love for the sake of winning.
Antichristos (ἀντίχριστος) can mean not only “against Christ” but also “in place of Christ” or “a counterfeit Christ.” This means the danger is not always open hostility, but substitution — claiming Christ’s role while distorting his way. If Christ is the truth, the way, and the life, embodying justice and righteousness through love, then the antichrist is anyone or any system that claims to speak for truth, justice, or righteousness while severing them from love. In this sense, the antichrist is not the voice that shouts against God, but the counterfeit voice that imitates him — pursuing justice without grace, righteousness without love, and order without life.
The implication, then, is as John said: the antichrist is here — within us. Under the banner of justice or truth, we could end up wounding the very people we claim to defend. In the name of protecting a righteous cause, we may silence prophets, wound the innocent, or uphold systems that exploit. That is when loyalty to the cause replaces loyalty to Christ.
Jesus’ way is the opposite. “If they take you, let them.” He did not call us to preserve our lives or our power, but to be faithful to love, even unto death. That is the true resistance to the antichrist spirit: not chasing it, naming it, or conquering it, but refusing to become it.
Don’t go looking for the antichrist. Don’t be the antichrist.