An anti-Christ is anyone who has the name of Christ but does not have His Spirit and
Life, who, with His name, is carnally and earthly minded, for the spirit of the anti-Christ
is precisely the same spirit that is in the world, only that it has taken on a new stamp or
character, and each institutional-Christian is also an oppositionist-Christian because
thereby the kingdom of God is reversed into an outward form, concerning which the
worshipers of the beast are very obstinate and hate and persecute the real Christians.
This spirit was at work already in the time of the apostles. More and more feigned and
half—confused members continually forced their way into the church of Christ and
leavened the whole of it, up to the time of Constantine, 300 years later, out of which
then the Roman bishop went forth as a pope and head, who set himself above and rose
up against all gods and lords of the earth (II Thessalonians 2), in that the dragon, under
the name of Christ (viceroy of Christ), gave him his throne and great might.
For that reason, we shall be fearful not only of the anti—Christ who will come at a
future time, but of the real one whose kingdom is actually in the world, that we obey not
his human commands, by which he has displaced and weakened the commandments of
Christ. These have to do with that which is within, with a holy life; those, with that
which is outward. Now, if one has that which is outward, practices and accepts it and
does not have the life of Christ, he is an anti—Christ, appear he as lovely as ever he will. Samuel Froehlich Pg. 113 John
