WHO DID THE EARLY REFORMERS BELIEVE THE ANTICHRIST WAS?
PART 2/2
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. What Lutherans understood as a
papal claim to unlimited authority over everything and everyone reminded them of the
apocalyptic imagery of
Daniel 11, a passage that even prior to the Reformation had been applied to the pope as the Antichrist of the
last days.
[14]
The identification of the Pope with the Antichrist was so ingrained in the
Reformation Era, that Luther himself stated it repeatedly:
"This teaching [of the supremacy of the pope] shows forcefully that 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".
[28]
and,
"nothing else than the
kingdom of Babylon and of the very Antichrist. For who is the man of sin and the son of perdition, but he who by his teaching and his ordinances increases the sin and perdition of souls in the church; while he yet sits in the church as if he were God? All these conditions have now for many ages been fulfilled by the papal tyranny."
[29]
John Calvin similarly wrote:
"Though it be admitted that Rome was once the mother of all Churches, yet from the time when it began to be the seat of Antichrist it has ceased to be what it was before. 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."
[30]
John Knox wrote on the Pope:
"Yea, to speak it in plain words; lest that we submit ourselves to Satan, thinking that we submit ourselves to Jesus Christ, for, as for your Roman kirk, as it is now corrupted, and the authority thereof, whereon stands the hope of your victory, I no more doubt but that it is the synagogue of
Satan, and the head thereof, called the pope, to be that man of sin, of whom the apostle speaks."
[31]
Thomas Cranmer on the Antichrist wrote:
"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."
[32]
John Wesley, speaking of the identity given in the Bible of the Antichrist, wrote:
"In many respects, the Pope has an indisputable claim to those titles. 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, destroyed innumerable souls, and will himself perish everlastingly. He it is that opposeth himself to the emperor, once his rightful sovereign; and that exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped - Commanding angels, and putting kings under his feet, both of whom are called gods in scripture; claiming the highest power, the highest honour; suffering himself, not once only, to be styled God or vice-God. Indeed no less is implied in his ordinary title, "Most Holy Lord," or, "Most Holy Father." So that he sitteth - Enthroned. In the temple of God - Mentioned Rev. xi, 1. Declaring himself that he is God - Claiming the prerogatives which belong to God alone."
[33]
Roger Williams wrote about the Pope:
"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."
[34]
The identification of the Roman Catholic Church as the apostate power written of in the Bible as the Antichrist became evident to many as the Reformation began, including
John Wycliffe, who was well-known throughout Europe for his opposition to the
doctrine and practices of the Catholic Church, which he believed had clearly deviated from the original teachings of the early Church and to be contrary to the Bible. Wycliffe himself tells (
Sermones, III. 199) how he concluded that there was a great contrast between what the Church was and what it ought to be, and saw the necessity for reform. Along with John Hus, they had started the inclination toward ecclesiastical reforms of the Catholic Church.
When the
Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli became the pastor of the
Grossmünster in
Zurich (1518) he began to preach ideas on reforming the Catholic Church. Zwingli, who was a Catholic priest before he became a Reformer, often referred to the Pope as the Antichrist. He wrote: "I know that in it works the might and power of the Devil, that is, of the Antichrist".
[35]
The
English Reformer William Tyndale held that while the Roman Catholic realms of that age were the empire of Antichrist, any religious organization that distorted the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments also showed the work of Antichrist. In his treatise
The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, he expressly rejected the established Church teaching that looked to the future for an Antichrist to rise up, and he taught that Antichrist is a present spiritual force that will be with us until the end of the age under different religious disguises from time to time.
[36] Tyndale's translation of 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, concerning the "Man of Lawlessness" reflected his understanding, but was significantly amended by later revisers,
[37] including the
King James Bible committee, which followed the
Vulgate more closely.
Exactly as prophecy had given, in 1798
Pope Pius VI was taken prisoner by the armies of
Napoleon I, and died in captivity in France, and it appeared the Papacy had been dealt a death blow, or its power taken or wounded and yet it was restored: "One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the Beast" (
Revelation 13:3).
In 1870, the newly formed
Kingdom of Italy annexed the remaining
Papal States, depriving the Pope of his
temporal power. However, the Papal rule over Italy was later
restored by the
Italian Fascist regime[38] (albeit on a greatly diminished scale) in 1929 as head of the
Vatican City state;
[38] under
Mussolini's
dictatorship, Roman Catholicism became the
State religion of Fascist Italy
[38][39] (see also
Clerical fascism), and the
Racial Laws were enforced to outlaw and persecute both
Italian Jews[40] and
Protestant Christians,
[39][41][42][43] especially
Evangelicals and
Pentecostals.
[41][42][43] Thousands of Italian Jews and a small number of Protestants died in the
Nazi concentration camps.
[40][43]
Today, many Protestant and
Restorationist denominations still officially maintain that the Papacy is the Antichrist, such as the
conservative Lutheran Churches[44][45][46] and the
Seventh-day Adventists.
[47][48][49][50][51] In 1988
Ian Paisley,
Evangelical minister and founder of the
Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, made headlines with such a statement about
Pope John Paul II.
[52] The
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod states about the Pope and the Catholic Church:
[44]
There are two principles that mark the papacy as the Antichrist. One is that
the pope takes to himself the right to rule the church that belongs only to
Christ. He can make laws forbidding the marriage of priests, eating or not eating meat on Friday, birth control, divorce and remarriage, even where there are not such laws in the Bible. The second is that he teaches that salvation is not by faith alone but by faith and works. The present pope upholds and practices these principles. This marks his rule as
antichristian rule in the church. All popes hold the same office over the church and promote the same antichristian belief so they all are part of the reign of the Antichrist. The Bible does not present the Antichrist as one man for one short time, but as an office held by a man through successive generations. It is a title like King of England.
[53]
God bless.
