Can We Identify Antichrist?

Chapter 5

The Man of Sin Revealed

Since it is necessary that the “Lawless One will be revealed” before the Lord returns, has this prophecy (2 Thessalonians 2:8) been fulfilled? The answer is yes. The Man of Sin was understood and “revealed” in the writings of the sixteenth century Reformation. The historic Protestant identification of Antichrist is not a matter of superficial arguments against a common adversary—the Papacy. The Reformers comprehended root causes and serious consequences of sin in man and his institution. The Romish Church is the religious personification of fallen human nature.

The noted historian D’Aubigne observed, “We cannot reproach Rome with anything which does not recoil upon man himself.”[21] For good reason, the Apostle Paul calls Antichrist the Man of Sin. The Little Horn (Daniel 7:8) had “eyes like the eyes of man.” The leopard-like beast which all agree is the same power as the Little Horn—is said to have “the number of a man” (Revelation 13:18). The Papal system was developed by man—not God. But many were very good men. They might even have worked with great energy and self sacrifice to build up the Church of God on earth. But they gradually shaped the development of the church according to “the eyes of man”— man’s carnal wisdom and understanding. More and more the Church of Rome bore the image and superscription of “Man” until it sat in the temple of God acting as if it were God. The Papacy was the embodiment of the singular sin of all ages—man taking the place of God. “They glorified him not as God…but became vain in their imaginations” (Romans 1:21).

Lest we become haughty in identifying the Man of Sin, we must realize the Antichrist succumbed to the same struggle that every individual leader in the Church of God faces to this day. The temptation was and still is to dominate and rule.

The Reformation

Although many pre-Reformation writers perceived Papacy as the Man of Sin, the leaders of the sixteenth century Reformation wove this identification into a larger prophetic mosaic. That Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation, recognized the Papacy as the Man of Sin is obvious, “We are convinced that the Papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist.”[22] The Protestant Church of the Reformation saw Papacy as more than the apostate church. Prophecy became the rallying point of the Reformation. Protestants identified the Papacy as the prophetic Antichrist of Daniel and Revelation. They acted on that belief and many died for that conviction:[23]

From the first, and throughout, that movement [the Reformation] was energized and guided by the prophetic Word. Luther never felt strong and free to war against the papal apostasy til he recognized the pope as antichrist. It was then he burned the papal Bull. Knox’s first sermon, the sermon which launched him on his mission as a Reformer, was on the prophecies concerning the papacy…All the Reformers were unanimous in the matter…It nerved them to resist the claims of that apostate church to the uttermost. It made them martyrs, it sustained them at the stake. And the views of the Reformers were shared by thousands, by hundreds of thousands.

Not only did the Reformers proclaim the mighty truth of justification by faith for the liberation of men’s souls, but they nerved thousands to break from the tyranny of the dark ages of the Papacy by explicitly identifying the Antichrist of Bible prophecy. The symbols of Daniel, Paul and John were applied with tremendous effect. The realization that the incriminating finger of prophecy rested squarely on Rome aroused the consciousness of Europe. In alarm, Rome saw that she must successfully counteract this identification of Antichrist as the Papacy——or lose the battle.

The Counter Reformation

Jesuit scholarship rallied to the Roman cause by providing alternatives to the historical interpretation of the Protestants:

“Futurism”—Antichrist, a Man in the Future

Doesn’t this 1590 presentation sound like a page right out of Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth—or some other current evangelical’s writings on the Antichrist and the 7-year tribulation?

Joseph Tanner in 1898 made these observations on the origin of Futurism:[24]

The Jesuit Ribera tried to set aside the application of these prophecies to the papal power by bringing out the Futurist system, which asserts that these prophecies refer properly not to the career of the papacy, but to that of some future supernatural individual, who is yet to appear, and to continue in power for three and a half years. Thus, as Alford says, the Jesuit Ribera, about A.D. 1580, may be regarded as the Founder of the Futurist system in modern times.

Ribera’s futurism was polished and popularized by the great Papal controversialist, Cardinal Bellarmine (1542-1621) of Italy. He took up the battle against Protestantism and became the foremost apologist for Rome in the Counter Reformation. Bellarmine insisted that the prophecies concerning Antichrist in Daniel, Paul and John had no application to the Papal power. Between 1581 and 1593 he published the most detailed defense of the Catholic faith ever produced. The following quotation summarizes:[25]

For all Catholics think thus, that Antichrist will be one certain man; but all heretics teach…that Antichrist is expressly declared to be not a single person, but an individual throne or absolute kingdom, and apostate seat of those who rule over the church.

For 300 Years Protestants “Revealed” Antichrist

The Reformation Cry identifying Papacy as the Antichrist predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 nerved countless thousands to leave the Roman Catholic Church. The concept fabricated by Catholic Jesuits that an individual Antichrist seated in a literal temple in Jerusalem would reign for 3 ½ years had little effect. So clearly was Papacy “revealed” as the Man of Sin that Protestants stood united for nearly 300 years in declaring this fact. Dr. L. E. Froom, the accepted authority on prophetic exposition in the Christian Church, noted that in the nineteenth century, three centuries after the Reformers first revealed Papacy as the Antichrist, all the leading prophetic expositors (62 European and 57 American) were “a unit in identifying the Antichrist as the Papacy.”[26]

Wake Up, Protestants!

Two hundred and forty years after the Jesuit Ribera founded the Futurist school (individual man of Sin who will reign in a literal temple for 3 ½ years), John Darby, embraced Ribera’s Futurist concepts.

Darby, a founder of the Plymouth Brethren, embellished the idea of a future Antichrist with a Pre-tribulation-Secret-Rapture concept. S. P. Tregelles, whose scholarly works are still highly esteemed among evangelicals, was an associate of Darby in the Plymouth Brethren. Tregelles identified the origin of the Secret Rapture idea:[27]

I am not aware that there was any definite teaching that there should be a Secret Rapture of the Church at a secret coming until this was given forth as an “utterance” in Mr. Irving’s church from what was then received as being the voice of the Spirit. But whether anyone ever asserted such a thing or not it was from that supposed revelation that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology respecting it arose…it came not from Holy Scriptures, but from that which falsely pretended to be the Spirit of God.

The Pre-tribulationist-Secret-Rapture-Antichrist-Superman concept is not scriptural. Furthermore, this concept traces back to a Protestant, John Darby. He ironically utilized the Catholic idea of a one-person Antichrist to counter the historic Protestant belief of Papacy as Antichrist, which had stood for 300 years. However, Darby’s Catholic view did not become popular among born-again Christians until after World War II.

Although a vociferous minority currently has yielded the 300-year-old historic Protestant view of Antichrist in favor of a Catholic view, the Antichrist was still unmistakably identified. That the Papacy is Antichrist was the rallying cry of the Reformation! There can be no doubt that the Man of Sin, The Antichrist, was completely “revealed” to the Christian Church as a necessary prerequisite to the second advent of Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:8).

But Antichrist will again take center stage at an “end-time drama” before it’s complete demise.

Introduction • Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Endnotes