Revelation 13:3-4

Revelation 13:3: “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.”

At some point around the middle of the Tribulation, the antichrist will be killed and then resurrected from the dead. Some have argued that the phrase ‘deadly wound’ just means that he was gravely injured, but we see similar phraseology in Revelation 5:6, where it refers to Jesus. In that verse it describes Jesus as “stood a Lamb as it had been slain”. The idioms in these two verses are actually the same, and we all know that Jesus really was slain. He was not just fatally injured; He actually died. So, since Revelation 5:6 uses the same idiom to refer to Christ (who really did die), it is safe to assume that this verse means that the antichrist actually will be killed and then raised back to life.

If the beast is the counterfeit Christ, then this would be his counterfeit death and resurrection.

This causes all the world to be greatly amazed:

Revelation 13:4: “And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?”

Because he is killed and then raises back to life, the world will worship the antichrist and tremble before him. They will decide that it’s futile to fight someone who has the power to rise from the dead.

Of course, the Christians will know that this is a great deception. The antichrist is not worthy of worship because his power comes straight from the devil himself. God is allowing the devil to do things that ordinarily cannot be done so that God can judge the world and bring it to an end.

Let it also be known that God foretold all of this thousands of years before it happened. This event will not take God by surprise; it is all part of His plan. This counterfeit resurrection is not proof of the antichrist’s divinity. This is God fulfilling His promise to deceive those who had no love for the truth; He is giving them a lie that they will believe, so that all those who hated the truth might be damned.