Revelation 17:8 “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.”
What else does scripture reveal to us about this individual? In the book of Revelation his number is revealed to us as 666, which the scripture tells us is the number of a man (Revelation 13:18). And so we know that the Anti-Christ is a man. However, although the Anti-Christ is a man he is not an ordinary man. For in the above passage the scripture says that he (referring to the Anti-Christ) “was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit”. In other words, this passage reveals to us that he was on the earth once before and that he is currently being held captive in the bottomless pit, and that he will be released in his time to come back to the earth. We read earlier where the apostle Paul revealed to us in his letter that the Anti-Christ is currently being restrained. The reason that he is being restrained is because he is currently being held captive in the bottomless pit. The apostle Paul also told us that the lawless one will be revealed once the one who is restraining him is taken out of the way. In other words, he will only be revealed to the earth once the angel of the bottomless pit releases him from captivity.
Michael E.B. Maher
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