Having just finished a novel, the third of a series, I have a somewhat deeper understanding of things involving Israel’s Messiah. It’s probably just enough knowledge to get me in trouble with scholars on the subject. But anytime you write fiction, you, if you are wise, will dig into the known facts before beginning and while writing.
Thus it was in writing MESSIAH: The Prince That Shall Come. It is the third of the trilogy I call REVELATIONS, the first of the series being REVELATIONS and the second being MICHAEL: Last-Days Lightning.
The title, MESSIAH: The Prince That Shall Come, is, of course, oxymoronic. Messiah is Jesus Christ, and the prince that shall come is the one who will be Antichrist. One could not put together terms more contradictory!
However, I sensed that presenting the title in such a way might bring the two terms together in a way that would pique the prospective reader’s curiosity. You want folks to want to read your stuff, so you must employ literary strategy and so forth at every opportunity.
We know from Bible truth that Israel’s Messiah won’t return until a certain point to rescue the remnant of Israel. We see that in the following passage:
“And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).
This recognition of their Messiah, their Mashiach, won’t take place until the end of the Tribulation–Daniel’s seventieth week—at the time of Armageddon. Until then, we are told that Israel, as a people, is unable to see who is their true Messiah or Mashiach. Paul writes about this:
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Romans 11:25).
This blindness has been evident since the time much of Israel thought Jesus would be the Messiah, considering His miracles and other things while he ministered as the God-Man. When He didn’t deliver them from the oppressors—the Roman government—the Jews, except for a very few, rejected Him. The Lord then, of course, was crucified, becoming the sacrifice that provided redemption once and for all, for all the sins of mankind—past, present, and future.
Jesus said that the Jews would reject Him, but another would come, one whom they would accept. And this is where the prince that shall come steps into the prophetic picture for the wrap-up of things leading to Christ’s Second Advent.
It is more than interesting—and I had a good time playing with the whole matter—that there are two people in Scripture that have been given the title “the son of perdition.”
I know that many of you who study Bible prophecy have wondered about this anomaly (if that’s the appropriate term).
The first usage is, of course, for Judas Iscariot. We find that here:
“While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:12).
The second usage is in reference to the Antichrist.
“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposed and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3–4).
The interesting thing is that the Word of God doesn’t say these two entities are “a” son of perdition. It says each is “the” son of perdition.
And, I believe in some sense that the use of the word “entities” here is proper. These two people, Judas Iscariot and the one who will be Antichrist (if you want to learn his name, you will have to read the novel) are enigmatic, to be sure. Judas is said to have gone “to his own place,” and the Antichrist is said to have come out of the bottomless pit (Revelation 17:8).
Interestingly, it is provocative, as my friend Chuck Missler would have said, that Antichrist and his associate, the False Prophet, are thrown into the lake of fire without going before the Great White Throne to receive their judgment and sentence. They were summarily cast into that final place of eternal torment and were the first to go there.
There is room in this fact to consider whether the Antichrist and False Prophet will be other than human –that is, to speculate whether they might be Nephilim. All other human beings, so far as we know of Scripture, are given judgment before either the Bema (Judgment Seat of Christ) or the Great White Throne. The first and second beasts of Revelation chapter 13 are afforded no such judgment.
Another fascinating point about Judas is that Jesus indicated Judas, “the son of perdition,” was lost from the beginning (John 6:70–71; 17:12).
There will no doubt be corrective measures sent my way with the thought toward changing my meanderings here. But these are just fodder for exploring the strange things we have in Scripture about Antichrist and Judas with regard to Israel’s Messiah and the prince that shall come.
And exploration is what fiction allows to some extent. You will surely want to explore MESSIAH: The Prince That Shall Come!