THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL: PART TWO

Daniel 9:24-27 speaks of "the people of the prince that shall come," and then connects him with the person who makes a covenant with Israel for seven years, only to break it after three and a half. We all recognize him to be Antichrist, or the Beast of Revelation. Ironically, the actual word “Antichrist” does not appear in the Book of Daniel, or the Book of Revelation. And it is never used by Jesus during his ministry, including His discussion about the signs of the “End of the Age” in Matthew 24 and parallels.

The words “Antichrist” and “Antichrists” appear only four times in the Bible, specifically in the Apostle John’s First and Second epistles, where he is described as the coming one (1 Jn. 2:18); the liar (1 Jn. 2:22); denier of Christ (1 Jn. 4:3); and the deceiver (2 Jn. 1:7).
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He is described as a false Christ (Matt. 24:5,24); the man of sin and the son of perdition (2 Thes. 2:3); the wicked or lawless one (2 Thes. 2:8); the first of the four horsemen (Rev. 6:1-2); the beast (Rev. 13:1-4; 16:13; 19:19-20; 20:10); and the beast having ten horns (Dan. 7:7, 20, 24; Rev. 12:3; 13:1; 17:3,7,12,16).

Although Daniel does not call him Antichrist, he described him as the fourth beast, the "Little Horn":

"After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things" (Daniel 7:7-8).

Daniel also describes the Antichrist through the typology. Both Jewish and Christian commentaries view Antiochus IV, or Antiochus Epiphanes, as a type of the future "little horn" (Dan. 8:9). Also, Daniel 8:9–12, 23–25; Daniel 11:21–35 are generally identified with Antiochus Epiphanes. More on him later.

Earlier, I described the first sixty-nine weeks of Daniel's Seventy-Week Prophecy as being completed at the crucifixion (Part One). There is one week left of that prophecy; there is "one week of years" yet to be fulfilled. Again, we know they are "weeks of years" because the first sixty-nine "weeks" were fulfilled by the 483 years between the command to rebuild Jerusalem and the Crucifixion. As we shall see, the Antichrist is the main character in Daniel's Seventieth Week.