Who is the false prophet of the end times?

— “And the False Prophet that was with him.” This is the Antichrist, the embodiment of religious apostasy. His fellow, the Beast, is the distinguished Gentile chief on whom Satan conferred almost boundless political authority. Three times is the title “the False Prophet” used of the Antichrist as descriptive of his seductive teachings in Judea and in Christendom generally.”* “Was with him,” i.e., the Beast, intimates that they were acting together. The Beast supplied the strength, the False Prophet the counsel. The latter is by far the more energetic of the two.

— “Who wrought the signs before him” (i.e., the Beast) by which he deceived them that received the mark of the Beast, and those that worship his image. He deceived them by the miraculous signs he wrought, his grand effort being to get world-wide worship for the Beast, his superior in temporal power, although his inferior in craft and malignant satanic influence. The diabolic work of the “False Prophet,” that which had been his special work as the coadjutor of the Beast, is the main subject of Revelation 13:11-17, there entitled “another Beast,” here “the False Prophet,” but one and the same person.

Many think that when the Antichrist comes he will reign over the whole world, but a more careful study of prophecy will show that this is a mistake. There is a trinity of evil that works together: "the dragon," that is Satan himself, and these two beasts. The first beast is the political head of Rome and the United Kingdoms of Europe, with the Jews also in league with him. The second is the head of the Jews at Jerusalem. He exercises the power of the first beast politically as his delegate, but religiously he seems to exercise a power far beyond the Jews. He works great miracles through the power of Satan by which he deceives the world and imposes the worship of the first beast and his image upon all. That is why he is also called "the false prophet" (Rev. 16:13; 19:20; 20:10; but compare with Acts 7:37 and Deut. 18:15-19). He is Satan's counterfeit prophet as he is also the counterfeit lamb or messiah. "He causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he does great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceives them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life (breath) unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name" (Rev. 13:12-17).

The second personality of prophecy is the Jewish False Prophet or the "beast out of the earth" (Rev. 13:11-18)—from Israel. A study of "the land" or "the earth" will show this to be a picture of the stable nation, even now a nation against impossible odds, in the place God gave them, first to their "father" Abraham (Gen. 13:12-15). No other people have gotten back a nation they lost for 2000 years! This future Jewish "king" is called the "False Prophet" in Revelation 16:13; 19:20 and 20:10. He is the one who will come in his own name and the Jews will receive him (John 5:43), although they rejected their true Messiah. He will actually sit in the future Jewish temple at Jerusalem and claim to be God the Son, so he is called the man of sin or man of lawlessness (2 Thess. 2:3-4).

This little horn is another Satan-possessed person who takes the leadership politically of the coming federation of nations, the revived Roman Empire . He is "the prince that shall come" of Daniel 9:26. The beast out of the sea in Rev. 13:1-10 is the revived Roman Empire ; the ten horns on that beastly empire correspond to the ten horns on Nebuchadnezzar's prophetic dream image and the ten horns on the fourth beast of Daniel's vision. The little horn, the domineering head of the revived Roman Empire , comes first into prominence and is soon followed by the second beast out of the earth, having two horns like a lamb, but speaking as a dragon. Rev. 13:11-18 describes this second beast and the work he does, in which he is helped by the first beast. This second beast is the man of sin, the son of perdition. Read now Daniel 11:36-39, This is another description of the same person. He is called a king because, as the false Christ, he will claim kingship among the Jews. He is also called in Revelation "the false prophet." He is the one of whom our Lord spoke in John 5:43, "I am come in My Father's name and ye received Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive."

The man of sin, the son of perdition, issues from the apostasy and is its crown of shame. He is John's antichrist, though most confound him with the first Beast of Revelation 13, the head of the civil power in defiance of God at that day, whereas he is clearly the quasi-religious (but really most irreligious) Jewish chief who rivals Christ's position, no longer as Priest, but as Prophet and King. Accordingly, he does not have seven horns and seven eyes (the seven Spirits of God), nor even three, but “two horns like a lamb.”

That judgment we shall look at directly; but first as to the "false prophet." Apart from all interpretation he is manifestly the same as the second beast of the 13th chapter, as again Mr. Morris truly says. His character and time and end couple him unmistakably also with the "man of sin" in Thessalonians, and who, however much he too may represent a "polity," is plainly yet (or should be so) a man.

A "false prophet" hardly even can represent a polity; save as it represents one who may be identified with it. His miracles are Elias-like: he makes fire come down from heaven in the sight of men; he exercises all the power of the first beast in his presence; he gives breath to an image of the beast; he causes all to receive the latter's mark. Why and upon what warrant we should believe that this is not a personal agent, who can tell us? And when we find such an one united with the beast and kings of the earth in opposition to the Lord and cast alive with the beast into the lake of fire into which first Satan and afterward all the wicked are cast, and suffering torment there for ages and ages, why should we allow the dreams of men, who seem only to know how to darken daylight itself; turn us from or make us hesitate in the assured belief, that these two are men, and nothing but men?

The imperial beast will therefore again be seen on the earth, and in all the earth they will wonder after it. But we have also read that the second beast, by the great wonders which he does, seduces the inhabitants of the earth. This second beast will appear at the end under the character, not of a beast, but of a false prophet; all his secular power will be lost. He will no longer be a beast ravishing, devouring; this feature will be entirely effaced. And he will be seen as the false prophet, who will be recognised as the second beast already spoken of, by the perfect resemblance of his character, as the person, in short, who has done the things which the second beast has done, but who appears at the close under this new form. Compare Revelation 13:14, with Revelation 19:20. If we take the moral side of the events already accomplished, we know who has exercised all the power in presence of the civil authority; but there will be one also who will do great wonders and seduce the inhabitants of the earth.

But the harlot is not the last phase of the world's religion. She may be burnt, but there remains much apostasy. They who aided the harlot to deceive men by her sorceries are themselves deceived by the lying miracles of the false prophet. If the false church is swept away it only makes room for open and direct antagonism to Christ. The Beast from the earth may have arisen before the harlot was destroyed, he is beyond question, the little horn that came up among the ten and displaced three of them; for he is characterised by intelligence, eyes like a man, and has a mouth speaking great things, just as the false prophet does who only assumes the place and position of prophet after the corrupt church is destroyed. Not even the shameless harlot could provide a place for him. Such is his open and undisguised enmity to Christ that no system that admits the name of Christ as Lord, however corrupt and vile, could subsist side by side with his blasphemous assumption. This wretched being is called "false prophet" because he is the special opponent of Christ the True Prophet. Christ declared God, His truth, and love. This man denies the Father and the Son, that is, the special revelation of God as in the Person of Christ. For how should we know the Father save by the Son whom the Father sent? It is the denial of the special truth of the gospel, that he might sit in the temple as God. He is also called the king that does his own will, and disputes the right and title of Christ as king to reign over the earth. He is not called false priest. And in what he is called he is evidently the tool of Satan.

79 Firstly, the Roman empire in its eighth head, the chief of the last form of the beast at the time of the Gentiles. Secondly. This chief does his own will, and will establish his throne at Jerusalem. Thirdly. He is the wicked one; iniquity has reached to the full. The false prophet is the second beast in chapter 13, which had horns like the lamb and spoke like the dragon. Babylon has disappeared from the scene.

Before that day there must be, first the falling away, or the abandonment of the truth, next the revelation of the lawless one, in contrast with the mystery or secret of lawlessness at work in the church even when the apostle wrote. These three must not be confounded. The man of sin is the future adversary of the Lord, the Man of righteousness, the Antichrist of the First and Second Epistles of John, the wilful king of Daniel 11:36-39, and the second Beast of Revelation 13, identical with the False Prophet of Rev. 19, as he is the antithesis of the true Prophet of Deuteronomy 18, if we heed the apostle Peter (Acts 3). The restraining power and person (for both are true) is the Holy Spirit in His governing action providentially, not limited to the Roman empire (for He still restrains, though the empire exist not); and when it reappears under the dragon's influence, it is exactly when the Spirit ceases to restrain. Till then the powers are ordained of God; after it, Satan will be allowed to set up the lawless man as God even in His temple, whom the Lord Jesus will slay (or, consume) with the breath of His mouth and annul by the manifestation of His coming, having already gathered His saints to Himself on high.