If I am alive when Jesus comes again, how will I know it’s him so I can follow him?

I want to answer this in two ways. (1) How can you recognize Jesus? (2) How can you recognize the deceiver (the antichrist)?

(1) How can you recognize Jesus?

When John was on the island of Patmos, Jesus came to him in a vision. At first John was terrified. Revelation 1:17 says that John fell at Jesus’ feet as if he was dead! I remember when I was 16 and backpacking in the woods. I ran into a bear, and it charged me. I was so scared it felt like my legs were full of sand and I couldn’t move at all! Well, John was so scared that he completely fell down.

Right away (still in verse 17), Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” Still, don’t you wonder why someone who has spent his whole life following Jesus would be so afraid of Jesus? Verses 12 through 16 tell us what John saw, and help us to understand. When John turned to see Jesus, John saw the light from seven great lamps. If you take seven really strong lights and look directly into them, maybe that’s kind of like what John saw! Standing in that super bright light was Jesus, his eyes “were like blazing fire,” his head and hair “white like wool.” Jesus’ feet were “like bronze glowing in a furnace.” His face was “like the sun shining in all its brilliance.” Everything, including Jesus, was just bright, bright, bright!

Then in Revelation 19:11-16, John writes about Jesus’ return. John describes Jesus as a rider on a white horse, and he gives Jesus several different names in those verses – that’s to try to describe how awesome Jesus is. Jesus is called “Faithful and True” and “Word of God” and Jesus has written on him two other names. One is “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” and the other one we don’t know (vs. 12). It says that Jesus is wearing a robe, and he is being followed by the armies of heaven, all on white horses, and all wearing clean, white robes. Wow! What a picture!

Remember, this is from John’s vision. Jesus doesn’t have to look exactly like that for this to make sense. Maybe that is exactly how Jesus will appear, or maybe John is simply doing his best to describe for us the awesomeness of Jesus’ return. John is definitely more concerned with what happens than exactly what Jesus look like.

So if you ask me how we will recognize Jesus when he comes again, I think we can know the answer from how John describes Jesus – Jesus will be absolutely unmistakable! When we see Jesus, even though right now we don’t know exactly what he will look like, we will for sure know it’s him!


(2) How can you recognize the deceiver (the antichrist)?

The Bible also doesn’t tell us exactly what the antichrist looks like. But John in his letters (1 John and 2 John) does say some important things that will help us know who the antichrist is so we don’t follow him. The Bible doesn’t say exactly, but the antichrist may be one person, or it may be a group of people. It doesn’t matter, though, because the Book of Revelation tells us that Jesus wins and Satan loses!

1 John 2:22 and 1 John 4:3 and 2 John 1:7 tell us clearly how to know who is the antichrist. Those verses tell us that those who deny that Jesus is our Savior, that Jesus is real, or who say that Jesus didn’t really come to earth are the antichrists. Wow! So what does that mean for you and me? Don’t ignore Jesus, or don’t accept a substitute religion that will turn your attention away from Jesus. That is what we would do if we were to follow the antichrist.

So what do you do? You do what you are doing right now. You are doing the right thing because you have faith in the right person – Jesus. Continue to ask me hard questions – that’s good. Continue to learn – that’s good too. Continue to worship God. Continue to have faith in Jesus – even though you can’t exactly understand everything about God and faith – that is exactly what faith is. You see, our Lord did not give John the command to write the Book of Revelation, or tell us about antichrists, or tell us about his return just to satisfy our curiosity. He has two reasons for sharing that stuff with us. One is to challenge us to be faithful to him. The other is to encourage us with the message that Jesus wins, Satan loses. Cool, huh?