THE ANTICHRIST: PART NINE

Yesterday, I suggested that the seminal event which will result in all Israel being saved (Rom. 11:26), will be the abomination of desolation, which marks the middle of the seven year Tribulation (Dan. 9:27; Matt. 24:15; etc.), also known as Daniel's Seventieth Week (Dan. 9:24-27), and the Time of Jacob's Trouble (Jer. 30:7). Today, I would like to explain what the abomination of desolation is, but the problem is, I can't. I can only share some thoughts as to what it might be, based upon the Bible passages concerning it, and from extra-biblical sources.

Only Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 use the term "abomination of desolation." In Daniel 9:27, it is called "the overspreading of desolations," while Daniel 11:31 and 12:11 call it "the abomination that makes desolate." The only clue we get from the Daniel passages is that it is "set up" (V. 12:11). This leads me to think it is an idol of some sort. Matthew gives us nothing specific, but Mark 13:14 says, "But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not...." This also suggests an idol.

In contrast, the Apostle Paul wrote, "...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, shewing himself that he is God" (2 Thes. 2:4).

In Rabbinical literature, some rabbis say the expression refers to the desecration of the Temple by the erection of a statue of Zeus in the Holy of Holies by Antiochus Epiphanes. Other rabbis, however, see in it an allusion to Manasseh, who set up "a carved image...in the house of God" (2 Chron. 33:7). The Book of 1 Maccabees, and Josephus, the Jewish historian, both use the term as it relates to the actions of Antiochus Epiphanes, who is said to have made a "sacrifice (of) swine's flesh upon the alter" (Josephus, vol. 1, pp. 10-11).

So, the abomination is either an idol, swine's flesh, or the man himself declaring himself to be God in the Holy of Holies. Here's a novel thought; what if the antichrist, who is said to have a serious head wound (Rev. 13:2-3), mortal in that the Word says he is here, gone, and back ruling again (Rev. 17:11), what if he is killed when he sits in the Temple declaring himself to be God (2 Thes. 2:4)? What if he is dead for three days and nights, and miraculously comes to life again? Would not his blood contaminate as much as the blood of swine? And since the world will begin worshiping him as God following his miraculous recovery, and the Jews will become hunted following his declaration (Rev. 13:1-9), could that be the abomination of desolation? That's as good a theory as any I have heard, but it is only a theory.