2011-12-27

Pope as Antichrist




Antichrist (historicism)

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Antichrist is the view among certain historic Reformation communities that the papacy or the Pope is the Antichrist. This article is a general overview of the Antichrist in the eschatological view of historicism.

Origin Of Idea - Biblical Identifying Characteristics

Nine identifying characteristics of Antichrist are found in Daniel 7.

Development of Idea Throughout History

Over time, Protestant Reformers saw these characteristics as matching the papacy. (See below for statements).

Daniel 7:8 - "came up among" the 10 kingdoms of Western Europe.

Daniel 7:8 - It would have a man at its head who speaks for it.

Daniel 7:8 - Uproot three kingdoms.

Daniel 7:24 - Different Kingdom

Daniel 7:25 - Persecution of the saints.

Daniel 7:7-8 - Emerges From Roman Empire

Daniel 7:25 - Times time and half a time

Daniel 7:25 - Blasphemy

Pre-Reformation use

The Waldensians

Reinerius Saccho (died 1259), a Roman Catholic who wrote two reports for the Inquisition, Summa de Catharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno (roughly) "Of the Sects of Modern Heretics" (1254) States that the Waldensians believed that "the Church of Rome is the Harlot in the Apocalypse". That the Pope is the head of all errors. And that no one is greater than another in the church. Matt. 23. "All of you are brethren."

Articles of the Lollards

The first of the twenty-five articles of the Lollards from 1388 is:

Protestant Reformation

Views of the reformers

Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483–1546) (Lutheran): "Luther ... proved, by the revelations of Daniel and St. John, by the epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Jude, that the reign of Antichrist, predicted and described in the Bible, was the Papacy ... And all the people did say, Amen! A holy terror seized their souls. It was Antichrist whom they beheld seated o­n the pontifical throne. This new idea, which derived greater strength from the prophetic descriptions launched forth by Luther into the midst of his contemporaries, inflicted the most terrible blow o­n Rome."

Based on prophetic studies, Martin Luther finally declared, "We here are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist." (Aug. 18, 1520).

John Calvin

John Calvin (1509–1564) (Presbyterian): "Some persons think us too severe and censorious when we call the Roman pontiff Antichrist. But those who are of this opinion do not consider that they bring the same charge of presumption against Paul himself, after whom we speak and whose language we adopt... I shall briefly show that (Paul's words in II Thess. 2) are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the Papacy."

John Knox

John Knox (1505–1572) (Scotch Presbyterian): John Knox sought to counteract "that tyranny which the pope himself has for so many ages exercised over the church." As with Luther, he finally concluded that the Papacy was "the very antichrist, and son of perdition, of whom Paul speaks."

Thomas Cranmer

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) (Anglican): "Whereof it followeth Rome to be the seat of antichrist, and the pope to be very antichrist himself. I could prove the same by many other scriptures, old writers, and strong reasons." (Referring to prophecies in Revelation and Daniel.)

Roger Williams

Roger Williams (1603–1683) (First Baptist Pastor in America): Pastor Williams spoke of the Pope as "the pretended Vicar of Christ o­n earth, who sits as God over the Temple of God, exalting himself not o­nly above all that is called God, but over the souls and consciences of all his vassals, yea over the Spirit of Christ, over the Holy Spirit, yea, and God himself...speaking against the God of heaven, thinking to change times and laws; but he is the son of perdition (II Thess. 2)."

The Westminster Confession of Faith

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647): "There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalteth himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God."

Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather (1663–1728) (Congregational Theologian): "The oracles of God foretold the rising of an Antichrist in the Christian Church: and in the Pope of Rome, all the characteristics of that Antichrist are so marvelously answered that if any who read the Scriptures do not see it, there is a marvelous blindness upon them."

John Wesley

John Wesley (1703–1791) (Methodist): Speaking of the Papacy, John Wesley wrote, "He is in an emphatical sense, the Man of Sin, as he increases all manner of sin above measure. And he is, too, properly styled the Son of Perdition, as he has caused the death of numberless multitudes, both of his opposers and followers... He it is...that exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped...claiming the highest power, and highest honour...claiming the prerogatives which belong to God alone."

Protestant Reformers

A Great Cloud of Witnesses: "Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, Cranmer; in the seventeenth century, Bunyan, the translators of the King James Bible and the men who published the Westminster and Baptist confessions of Faith; Sir Isaac Newton, Wesley, Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards; and more recently Spurgeon, Bishop J.C. Ryle and Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones; these men among countless others, all saw the office of the Papacy as the antichrist."

The Centuriators of Magdeburg

The Centuriators of Magdeburg, a group of Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg headed by Matthias Flacius, wrote the 12-volume "Magdeburg Centuries" to discredit the papacy and identify the pope as the Antichrist. The fifth round of talks in the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue notes,

In calling the pope the "antichrist," the early Lutherans stood in a tradition that reached back into the eleventh century. Not only dissidents and heretics but even saints had called the bishop of Rome the "antichrist" when they wished to castigate his abuse of power.

Reformation confessions of faith

The Reformation allowed for more confessions of faith to be written. Previously, this was prevented by a prohibition on creed writing in the Council of Nicea. Lutherans, Reformed, Anabaptists, and Methodists all included references to the Papacy as the Antichrist in their confessions of faith:

Smalcald Articles, Article four (1537)

...the Pope is the very Antichrist, who has exalted himself above, and opposed himself against Christ because he will not permit Christians to be saved without his power, which, nevertheless, is nothing, and is neither ordained nor commanded by God. This is, properly speaking to exalt himself above all that is called God as Paul says, 2 Thess. 2, 4. Even the Turks or the Tartars, great enemies of Christians as they are, do not do this, but they allow whoever wishes to believe in Christ, and take bodily tribute and obedience from Christians... Therefore, just as little as we can worship the devil himself as Lord and God, we can endure his apostle, the Pope, or Antichrist, in his rule as head or lord. For to lie and to kill, and to destroy body and soul eternally, that is wherein his papal government really consists... The Pope, however, prohibits this faith, saying that to be saved a person must obey him. This we are unwilling to do, even though on this account we must die in God's name. This all proceeds from the fact that the Pope has wished to be called the supreme head of the Christian Church by divine right. Accordingly he had to make himself equal and superior to Christ, and had to cause himself to be proclaimed the head and then the lord of the Church, and finally of the whole world, and simply God on earth, until he has dared to issue commands even to the angels in heaven...

1800 To Present Day

Confessional Lutherans

Confessional Lutheran church bodies, such as the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Church of the Lutheran Confession teach that the Roman papacy or office of the pope is the Antichrist, including this article of faith as part of a quia rather than quatenus subscription to the Book of Concord. In 1932 the LCMS adopted A Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod. Statement 43, Of the Antichrist:

Lutheran Churches of the Reformation

The Lutheran Churches of the Reformation, the Concordia Lutheran Conference, the Church of the Lutheran Confession, and the Illinois Lutheran Conference all hold to Brief Statement.

Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod

In 1959 the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) formally issued its Statement on the Antichrist, a doctrinal statement that declared, "we reaffirm the statement of the Lutheran Confessions, that 'the Pope is the very Antichrist'".

Seventh-day Adventists

Seventh-day Adventists teach that the anti-Christ is the office of the Papacy. In 1798, the French General Berthier exiled the Pope and took away all his authority, which was restored in 1813, destroyed again in 1870 and later restored in 1929. This is taken as a fulfillment of the prophecy that the Beast of Revelation would receive a deadly wound but that the wound would be healed. Adventists have attributed the wounding and resurgence in Revelation 13:3 to the papacy, referring to General Louis Berthier's capture of Pope Pius VI in 1798 and the pope's subsequent death in 1799.

Adventists have interpreted the number of the beast, 666, as corresponding to the title Vicarius Filii Dei of the Pope. The number 666 is calculated by using gematria.

Ian Paisley

Ian Paisley, MEP and the leader of the Free Presbyterian Church, loudly denounced then-Pope John Paul II as an antichrist in 1988 while the pontiff was giving a speech at a sitting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

References

  1. Revelation Reveals The AntiChrist (video from mainstream Protestant site)
  2. Who Is The AntiChrist?
  3. W. E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, Volume 2, p. 40.
  4. Alexander Clarence Flick, The Rise of the Medieval Church, pp. 148, 149.
  5. Adolf Harnack, What is Christianity? (New York: Putnam, second edition, revised, 1901), pp. 269, 270.
  6. The Amplified Bible, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan 1962.
  7. Joseph Deharbe, S.J., A Complete Catechism of the Catholic Religion (New York: Schwartz, Kirwin & Fauss, 1924), p. 279.
  8. Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter "The Reunion of Christendom" (dated June 20, 1894) trans. in the Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII (New York: Benziger, 1903), p. 304.
  9. R. Allen Anderson, Unfolding the Revelation, p. 137.
  10. ^ Reinarius Saccho, Of the Sects of the Modern Heretics 1254. e-text of this list of Waldensian beliefs
  11. See On The Twenty Five Articles and English Historical reprints p.25
  12. Marvin Harris. Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches. p. 196.
  13. Taken from J. H. Merle D'aubigne's History of the Reformation of the Sixteen Century, book vi, chapter xii, p. 215.
  14. Taken from The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, by LeRoy Froom. Vol. 2., pg. 121.
  15. Taken from Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin.
  16. The Zurich Letters, by John Knox, pg. 199.
  17. Works by Cranmer, Vol. 1, pp. 6-7.
  18. The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, by Froom, Vol. 3, pg. 52.
  19. Taken from Philip Schaff's, The Creeds of Christendom, With a History and Critical Notes, III, p. 658, 659, ch. 25, sec. 6.
  20. Taken from The Fall of Babylon by Cotton Mather in Froom's book, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 3, pg. 113.
  21. Antichrist and His Ten Kingdoms, by John Wesley, pg. 110.
  22. Taken from All Roads Lead to Rome, by Michael de Semlyen. Dorchestor House Publications, p. 205. 1991.
  23. See Building Unity, edited by Burgess and Gross
  24. Smalcald Articles, Article 4 in the Triglot translation of the Book of Concord
  25. Treatise on the Power and in the Triglot translation of the Book of Concord
  26. The Confession of Faith of Scotland, or The National Covenant
  27. Col. 1:18; Matt. 28:18-20; Eph. 4:11-12; 2 Thess. 2:2-9
  28. See Section 3 - Our Doctrinal Standards and General Rules
  29. See section of the book commentating on the Book of Revelation on the United Methodist Church website, or Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament, p.715 from Google Books
  30. "Of the Antichrist". Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. 1932. http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=579.
  31. "Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod". Concordia Publishing House. 1932. http://www.lcrusa.org/brief_statement.htm.
  32. "Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod in the By-Gone Days of Its Orthodoxy". 1932. http://www.concordialutheranconf.com/doctrine/brief_1932.cfm.
  33. "A Brief Statement of our Doctrinal Position". 1932. http://clclutheran.org/library/BriefStatement.html.
  34. "Doctrinal Position". http://www.illinoislutheranconference.org/our-solid-foundation/doctrinal-position-of-the-ilc.lwp/odyframe.htm.
  35. "Statement on the Antichrist". http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?2617&collectionID=795&contentID=4441&shortcutID=5297.
  36. 666 Truth
  37. ^ Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, 223
  38. Uriah Smith, The United States in the Light of Prophecy. Battle Creek, Michigan: Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association (1884), 4th edition, p.224.
  39. The Three Angels of Revelation XIV. 6-12, p.109. 1877 reprint. Cited from Adventist Bible Commentary
  40. Decree of Paul VI elevating the Prefecture Apostolic of Bafia, Cameroon, to a Diocese: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Commentarium Officiale, vol. LX (1968), n. 6, pp. 317-319. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. ISBN 8820960680, 9788820960681.
  41. http://www.adventistarchives.org/docs/AAR/AAR19751027-V80-43__C.pdf#view=fit
  42. http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/endtimeissues/et_145.htm
  43. http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/endtimeissues/et_146.htm

External links


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