By Joseph Smith’s day the idea of an antichrist had evolved into the idea of an Anti-Christ. The word antichrist is the Bible term for the false teachers in the Church who taught a false Christ instead of a true Christ. The Greek preposition anti, roughly translated, means instead of. It also carries the meaning “face to face” or mirror image. The image in the mirror, looking back at you, is face to face with you. It looks like you. Yet it has no substance. It is a counterfeit you, in a sense. It only appears to be you. So when God is a substanceless spirit rather than a resurrected being (1 John 2.18-22, 4.1-3, 2 John 1.7). Such a god is like the image in the mirror-really nothing, a counterfeit. Through the centuries thereafter, the term antichrist became Anti-Christ, and by Joseph Smith’s day it referred to those who opposed Christ. (Glenn Pearson and Reid E. Bankhead, Building Faith with the Book of Mormon, 1986, p. 74-75.
2020-07-05