Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,
The view here is that antichrist in his fullness has not yet appeared; although, as the apostle John said, "there are many antichrists."  If, as so many believe, there is to be a final and terminal antichrist who will be destroyed by the Second Advent of Christ, it is obvious that he has not yet appeared upon the earth.  Such men as Stalin, Hitler, Mohammed, Napoleon and many others who have been thought to be the objects of this prophecy, none of them were ever in "the temple of God," in the sense of being enthroned in it.  The one certainty regarding the antichrist is that he shall appear as the head, the usurper and the unscrupulous dictator over the apostate church itself.