The dreadful person Jesus warned the Jews about in John 5:43: "I am come in My Father's Name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive," is none other than he whom John calls "Antichrist" in chapter two of his first epistle. "Antichrist shall come" (1 John 1:18), and then, "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 1:22). He is a liar in denying Jesus is the Messiah, the form of Israel's apostasy; he is a complete apostate in denying God, revealed in Christianity as "the Father and the Son."

He is also referred to as the "man of sin…the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God"! (2 Thess. 2:3,4).

It is implied that he will be a Jew in Daniel 11:36,37. He is called the "King" i.e., of the Jews, and the one who shall not "regard the God of his fathers"—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, "nor the desire of women"—to be the mother of the coming Messiah. He will seek to imitate the true Shepherd, the Lord Jesus, but will rather show himself to be spurious, selfish, cruel and worthless, with no thought of the sheep at all (Zech. 11:16,17).

The Beast Out Of the Earth
In Revelation 13:11-18, John depicts this person as a beast coming up out of the earth, a symbol of Israel. With all his other counterfeit titles, he is also the False Prophet of Revelation 19:20, the Antichrist that unbelieving Israel will receive as their Messiah. He will also deceive the whole world by his Satanic powers to do great wonders. Alas, he will be the one all Christless professors will receive as God, and thus believing "the lie" that he is God, will be damned. See 2 Thess. 2:3-12.

The Beast Out Of the Sea
In Revelation 13:1-10, John depicts an entirely different person. He is seen as a beast coming up out of the sea, a symbol of the Gentile nations. The ten horns and ten crowns he will wear mark him out as the Political Ruler of the revived Roman Empire, prophesied by Daniel in chapter 7 as "the little horn" (Daniel 7:8-25). Daniel 9:26 also speaks of him as the coming Roman Prince, the head of that which we see developing now as the European Community of western Europe.

The Purpose of the Two Beasts
The Jewish Antichrist and the Gentile Political Ruler will make a covenant with each other, presumably to protect Israel from her surrounding enemies. It will be made for a seven year period, but after 31