Douggg, the efficacy of the Reformation understanding and doctrine of antichrist in the spiritual liberation of the true Church is beyond dispute. The success of the Reformation speaks for itself.
That efficacy was so overwhelming that it drove the papal antichrist to attempt to counter it by commissioning the Jesuit Francisco Ribera to produce a counterfeit deception of a future antichrist.
His effort was thankfully futile for 200 years.
For the past nearly two centuries, however, his effort has been overwhelmingly successful in futurism's embrace of his deception.
There is not one jot or tittle of the Reformation understanding and doctrine of antichrist that resembles what you propose.
Had it so resembled, the Reformation would have been a spectacular failure.
Thankfully, by God's grace, mercy, and assistance, it was not.
This forum and your presence on it is unassailable testimony to that reality.
jgr,
John wrote the epistle of 1John in the first century. Before the RCC, before the papacy, before the reformation, before the Jesuits, before Covenant theology.
John and his fellow Christians were aware that antichrist shall come, before John wrote his letter.. A singular person.
The only biblical basis they had for the concept they had about that one singular person - is that he comes in his own name. And that he is instead of and against, the Christ, the King of Israel, who came in the name of the Lord.
The antichrist is one single person who will be anointed the King of Israel, but coming in his own name.
Irrespective of the Reformers, the Jesuits, the Covenant theologists, the dispensationalists, the Seventh Day Adventists, etc.... all of whom came after John wrote the epistle.
The Pope is not qualified to be the antichrist because he is not qualified to be anointed the King of Israel. Wrong religion, and is not a Jew. The Mahdi for the same reason.
Donald Trump for the same reason.
The anitchrist is one single person. John emphasized that there is one single person antichrist that John and his fellow Christians were aware of that shall come, by saying even now there are many antichrists - persons displaying the traits of the antichrist. Which are
fore shadows of that one specific person.
There is not one jot or tittle of the Reformation understanding and doctrine of antichrist that resembles what you propose.
That's my point. They did not go by the original concept of the antichrist which John and his fellow Christians had. The reformers created their own version of the antichrist. Their version is wrong. As are the many other versions people have come up with - that departs from John and his fellow Christians concept of the antichrist.
That doesn't mean that the reformers were wrong about the evil nature of the popes, the Vatican, and all them involved in carrying out that evil. And the need to break away and out from under that system.
But don't conflate the true concept of the antichrist with the reformation. Don't let covenant theology's war against dispensationalism's theology cloud the issue.
It is all about the first century, the concept that John and his fellow Christians had of the antichrist.