The Antichrist Is a Nice Guy
The Antichrist will embody humanity's centuries-long rebellion against God—rooted in Enlightenment materialism, secular "goodness," and the rejection of divine truth—appearing as a charming, tolerant, and philanthropic leader who promises earthly salvation without the Holy Trinity, only to reveal his tyranny once power is secured.
In the person of the Antichrist will reside the culmination of a whole spiritual trajectory of fallen humanity and its rebellion against God. He is the ultimate manifestation of mankind’s desire to live without God. This desire is not strictly atheistic, that is, a complete and total rejection of the idea of God. The spirit of antichrist has long been at work in the world. It has been, is currently at work, and is still coming in the world (cf. 1 John 4:3).
Humanity is created by God for the good. Existing as a created and contingent creature, humanity receives the good from outside of itself. To be a participant in good, it must receive the good, and the source of all Good is God.
At some point, concentrated in Western Europe, enlightenment philosophies, humanity purportedly began to free itself from the confines of God (to be specific: the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). Again, this was not in total a blatant rejection; it was, and is, more nuanced than that. Alexander Solzhenitsyn observes,
We turned our backs on the Spirit and embraced all that is material with excessive and unwarranted zeal. This new way of thinking, which had imposed on us its guidance, did not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man nor did it see any higher task than the attainment of happiness on earth. It based modern Western civilization on the dangerous trend to worship man and his material needs. Everything beyond physical well-being and accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of a subtler and higher nature, were left outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any superior sense. That provided access for evil, of which in our days there is a free and constant flow. Merely freedom does not in the least solve all the problems of human life and it even adds a number of new ones.
Following the 1500s, many emergent sects of Christianity began to reinterpret the Gospel in terms of almost strictly earthly living and practicality. Christianity’s worth was weighed out in material sums. They posited that Christianity was useful only inasmuch as it was compatible with or added something of “value” to contemporary worldly living. “The good” became not so much seeking that which is from above and eternal, but creating a “socially just” earthly existence.
Soon, the cult of progress professed that Christianity was but an innovation of men, an innovation that added very little material “good” to society. True heavenly life was slipping from the earth. A fundamental precept of antichrist was germinated, tended, grown, and firmly established: humanity should work for “the good” on its own, and even find a new salvation through its own powers. The pursuit of the “good life” in an exclusively mundane and base sense emerged as the greatest goal of human existence. In reality, it is the pursuit of “the goods life,” or more clearly, a materialistic life.
This basic principle is common to all modern governance, no matter the seemingly diversified names they bear: democracy, communism, socialism, capitalism, and so forth. The gospel of material salvation has been preached with fervor by the European West for the past few centuries. There is nothing greater than material well-being! This well-being is always just around the corner.
A “good” person is no longer one who is seeking God above all else. In fact, one may be good and nice without God. Devoid of the unchanging and eternal revelation of God as the Good, “the good” is endlessly restructured according to the fleeting and subjective desires of those who hold power. This path almost certainly leads to tyranny. The “anti-good” can only be maintained through force and tyranny. Accept a little more tyranny, and “the good” just around the corner may be gained!
Antichrist is the concentrated corporate desire of humanity to replace the God-Man, Jesus Christ. St. John Maximovich says, "Antichrist is a man who desires to be in place of Christ, to occupy His place and possess what Christ should possess. He desires to possess the attraction of Christ and authority over the whole world."
Antichrist will be a nice guy. He will personify humanity’s deep desire for a “goodness”–a niceness–devoid of God. This “goodness” that excludes the Holy Trinity will seemingly be achieved in Antichrist. He will be tolerant and offer equality (at least in the beginning). St. Ephraim the Syrian describes the nice coming of the Antichrist:
The most despicable one will come as a robber, in a manner such as to deceive all: he will come as one humble, meek, a hater (as he will say of himself) of unrighteousness, despising idols, giving preference to piety, constant, gracious to all ... But together with all this he will work signs and miracles and dreadful spectacles with great authority; and he will use sly means to please all, so that the people will quickly fall in love with him. He will not accept bribes, speak with anger, show a gloomy countenance, but with a decorous exterior he will take to deceiving the world, until he has become king.
He embodies the material “good” that the world seeks.
St. John Maximovich elaborates,
He will be very intelligent and endowed with skill in handling people. He will be fascinating and kind. Fascinating, intelligent, kind, he will be merciful—he will act with mercy and goodness; but not for the sake of mercy and goodness, but for the strengthening of his own authority. When he will have strengthened it to the point where the whole world acknowledges him, then he will reveal his face.
He will be a seeming philanthropist. He will be deeply “spiritual.” He will have a mighty gravity about him. He will show humanity that it can have great “supernatural” power and be its own master. He will be the final manifestation of “having a form of piety, but denying the power of it” (2 Tim. 3:5).
Out of the orchestrated chaos, he will bring a sort of balance and harmony. Long encouraged social tensions will find a place of resolution. He will appear to calm the stormy waters of world conflict.
He will allow forms of Christianity to operate, as long as they acknowledge him. He will be an ecumenist. He will facilitate an apparent unity between the seemingly many voices of Christianity and, moreover, the many religions of the world. Finally, everyone will be nice and tolerate one another.
Compromise of the truth will become the new and most exalted virtue, even within “Christian” groups (yes, even Orthodoxy!). We must all compromise for the “greater good!” There will be no shortage of well-sounding justifications to compromise the standard of Truth and right teaching. Its sacrifice will be justified for the greater material well-being of humanity.
St. John further elucidates, "The search for compromise will be the characteristic disposition of men. Straight-forwardness of confession will disappear. Men will cleverly justify their fall, and gracious evil will support such a general disposition. There will be the habit of apostasy from truth and the sweetness of compromise and sin in men."
Antichrist will nicely accept everyone just the way they are. There will be no offensive standards of Truth; no narrow-minded and divisively competing confessions of faith.
"Together with the falling away from life will be a weakening of moral life. There will be an exhaustion of good and an increase of evil," instructs St. John.
Antichrist will do superbly nice things, seemingly all through a human-based “goodness.” People will love him because he will provide a human way of progress toward a purported “good.” Hope will stir. Hearts will swell, and desires will seem to be fulfilled. Humanity is great and good in and of itself. It no longer needs the heavenly God-Man Jesus Christ because it has become the man-god to itself. The world will be “good,” not because God created it so in the beginning, but because men have now made it “good” according to their own image.
Since he is able to fill the stomach of humanity–material need and desire–he will be lauded as a savior.
As soon as his power is sure, the mask of niceness will be removed. Exclusively materialistic and humanistic niceness and philanthropy always end in totalitarian slavery. The Twentieth century makes this clear. Mankind blindly forges its own chains of destruction and bondage in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, they will bring elusive “freedom.” Niceness in and of itself, detached from God, is but a sad and cheap charade of authentic goodness. We are being trained to swallow it whole.
The nice spirit of antichrist is already at work in the world. Antichrist will be nice. You will be mean and a hater if you choose to withstand him and his spirit. Those who stand for Truth will be villainized as extremists and radicals, fanatics who do not understand how to be nice.
Secular niceness has its ultimate end in utter evil. It has the same fate as the swine rushing madly into the deep waters (cf. Mat. 8:28ff).
“God may be fought: that is one of the meanings of the modern age; but He may not be conquered, and He may not be escaped: His kingdom shall endure eternally," said Fr. Seraphim Rose.
A slight aside as an end: the meaning of the word “nice” originally was “foolish, ignorant, frivolous, and senseless.” In the late 1800s, it began to mean “agreeable, kind.” In some sense, to be nice could insinuate to deceive through a false appearance. It could then be a hollow form impersonating “kindness” but in reality is filled with utter foolishness and senselessness. It is utter foolishness to throw off God as the ultimate source of all things, for God alone is Good. To be nice, in this sense, is to imitate kindness but with the intent to bring another to the depths of foolishness. And so, the Antichrist will be the nicest fellow ever.
Originally published at The Inkless Pen. Republished here with the author's gracious permission.
