“Anti” means “against” or “opposed to,” also means “in place of” or “instead of.”
All mentions of “antichrist” are in 4 verses in the New Testament, revealed by God through the apostle John, the last surviving disciple (of the original 12)of Christ, who wrote these Scriptures before AD 90. They are:
1) 1 John 2:18
Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour.
2) 1 John 2:22
Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ (I.e., the Messiah)? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.
From this we see that antichrist is a singular individual preceded by many, who would increase.
3) 1 John 4:3
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
__________
Look at the contrast in v. 1-6:
the Spirit of God:
- he who knows God
- he who is from God
- the spirit of truth listens & hears the truth
- every spirit that confesses that Jesus Crist has come in the flesh
- have overcome spirit of antichrist because greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world
the spirit of antichrist:
- already in the world
- not from God
- the spirit of error
- does not listen to us or truth
- does not confess Jesus as coming in the flesh
- speaks as from the world & the world listens to them
- he who is in the world
In v. 1 John warns believers to not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; (why?) because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Then he proceeds to show how to test the spirits.
4) 2 John 7
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.
I know you didn’t ask for a “dissertation” on the subject, :) but it was a good exercise for me to review and might be helpful to someone on this thread—even more importantly, we not only must know God, but we must know what His Word says in order to not be deceived in these last days. It would be helpful to read these verses in the context of the books they were written in.