The Antichrist in Bible Passages
The first time the Antichrist is mentioned in the Bible is in Genesis 49:16-18, during Jacob’s last words to his sons. He states that,”Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that is rider shall fall backward.”
You might ask, what does Dan have to do with the Antichrist? Dan is one of the twelve son’s of Jacob i.e. Israel who was the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. God promised Abraham that He would make his people a great nation by which all of the families of the earth will be blessed. He would multiply his descendants as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Jesus is born of the tribe of Judah while the Antichrist will rise from the tribe of Dan. There are many contrasts in the Bible of Jesus and the Antichrist.
Jacob states of Judah, in whose bloodline the Messiah would come, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes.” Here Jacob foretold the coming of Jesus Christ. Judah is also referred to as a lion, which is a symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Antichrist on the contrary rises from the tribe of Dan and judges his people. The word judge in the Hebrew means to act as a judge, to minister judgment, to contend, strive, and quarrel. More specifically, according to the Hebrew Lexicon, to judge means to condemn or punish. This judgement occurs during the Tribulation when the Antichrist sets out to annihilate the Jews.
Elaborating further the verse states that “Dan shall be a serpent by the way.” In the Bible, the serpent is a picture of the Devil. It bites the heels of the rider so that the rider falls backward. Dan was the tribe steeped in idolatry from the time he settled the land until the Babylonian captivity. Dan’s idolatry no doubt influenced the other tribes and caused them to go astray into idol worship. The Antichrist declares himself a god and seeks to have the world and masses worship him. He acts as the final, ultimate idol.
What about Genesis’s reference to Satan in the garden when God cursed the serpent and foretold his end at the end of the age? Is this a reference to the Antichrist? No, this prophecy deals with Satan directly. Jesus is the woman’s Seed who crushes the head of the Devil’s seed. Genesis 3:15 states: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed, He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel. Again this reference to the Devil bruising His heel parallels with Dan as the serpent by the way which bites at the rider’s heels so that the rider falls backwards. This is a picture of spiritual warfare and the battle of the ages. In this passage we see similarities of the Antichrist with his father the Devil.
While Genesis 3:15 refers to the Devil, Genesis 49:16-18 refers to the Antichrist and is the Bible’s first mention of the Antichrist.
The Antichrist is part of the unholy trinity, Satan, is the head, the Antichrist is the son of Satan and the False Prophet, who is mentioned in Revelation 13:11, acts as the unholy spirit.
Both the Devil and the Antichrist are a thorn to Israel’s heels, as the old adage states, like Father like Son. Thus we have the first mention of the Antichrist in the Bible, which is mentioned in contrast to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.