LESSON 10 The Antichrist

OPENING PRAYER

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT REVIEW

THE ANTICHRIST • Read 1 John 2:18-23 • What does John say about many of the antichrists that appeared in his day? (1 John 2:19)

• Look again at 1 John 2:22-23. What is the main lie of the antichrist?

• How have many done this, even in our own day?

• Read 1 John 4:1-3. • Read 2 John 7

The doctrine of THE ANTICHRIST is revealed in four main New Testament passages: • 1 John 2:8-29 • 1 John 4:1-3 • 2 John 7 • 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12

THE MARKS OR CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ANTICHRIST Read 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. Five distinctive marks of the Antichrist are given. What are they?

  1. v. 3 =
  2. v. 4 =
  3. v. 4 =
  4. v. 9 =
  5. v. 8 = THE THREE PERIODS IN THE HISTORY OF THE ANTICHRIST In verse 5-12 St. Paul sketches three periods in the history of the Antichrist. What are they?
  6. (v. 7)
  7. (v.8a,9,10)
  8. (v.8b) WHO IS THE ANTICHRIST? To confessional Lutherans it seems obvious that there is only one phenomenon in the history of the Church that has all the marks of the Antichrist given in Paul’s prophecy. That is the Roman papacy. In the 16th century Luther and all the other reformers were convinced that the Roman papacy was the very Antichrist. They confessed their convictions in the Smalcald Articles of 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. - Smalcald Articles, part 2, Article 4, #10. Melanchthon, too, in his tract on The Power and Primacy of The Pope singled out the Roman pontiff as the very Antichrist, “The Marks of Antichrist plainly agree with the kingdom of the Pope and his adherents” (Smalcald Articles 514.39). Why were these Lutherans so convinced of this identification? Here is why:

  1. The Antichrist sits in the temple of God. The antichrist will thus be found within the Christian Church, in the temple of God. He is a liar and deceiver working within Christianity itself. The Roman Catholic church can still be called Christian. It still maintains many Christian doctrines, such as the Trinity, the efficacy of baptism, the inerrancy and inspiration of the Bible, and the real presence in the Lord’s Supper. There are still pious Christians in Roman Catholicism, who, solely by the grace of God, have come to trust in Christ as their Savior. The Roman papacy would seem to fill this mark of the antichrist.

  2. The Antichrist assumes the power and authority of God. The word of God teaches that the antichrist claims for himself prerogatives, power, and authority that only belong to God: “He opposes and exalts himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped… proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). Only God has the power to determine what is right and what is wrong. God alone can say what is sin and what is not. Only God has the power and authority to determine what is to be believed and taught in His Church. However, the antichrist opposes God and, exalting himself, claims for himself the authority and supremacy of God. The antichrist claims to be the head of the Christian Church, while, in reality, Christ is the Church’s only Head. Christ alone rules and directs His Church (see Matthew 28:18-20; Romans 14:8-9; Eph. 1:20-23; Phil.2:9-11; 1 Tim. 5:15; Heb. 2:7-8). Christ alone establishes the Church’s doctrine. At Luther’s time the papacy opposed Christ’s teaching and authority and claimed supremacy for itself. In the papal decree Unam Sanctam, issued November 18, 1302, the papacy declared: “We are compelled to believe and hold the one Holy Catholic and itself apostolic church with urgent faith…. outside of which there is neither salvation nor remission of sins… moreover that every human creature is to be subject to the Roman pontiff, we declare, we say, we define, and we pronounce, to be altogether necessary for salvation.” In 1870 the first Vatican Council approved this decree under the direction of the pope: “And so, if anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has only the office of inspection or direction, but not the full supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole church, not only in matters that pertain to faith and morals, but also in matters that pertain to the discipline and government of the church throughout the whole world, or if anyone says that he has only a more important part and not the complete fullness of this supreme power; or if anyone says that this power is not ordinary and immediate over each and every church or over each and every one of the pastors and the faithful, let him be damned.” At Vatican II (1962-1965) in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the papacy declared: “But the college or body of Bishops has no authority unless it is simultaneously conceived of in terms of its head, the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, and without any lessening of his power of primacy over all, pastors as well as the general faithful. For in virtue of his office, that is, as vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Christian Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme, and universal power over the church, and he can always exercise this freely.” The pope claims infallibility for himself in matters of doctrine. In the decrees of the Vatican I, the papacy declares: “We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in discharge of the office of pastor or teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal church, is, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not from the consent of the church, irreformable.” With this unconscionable demand the Roman pontiff was in fact “proclaiming himself to be God”, as St. Paul had foretold. He enforced his outrageous claim by imposing excommunication or the interdict on those who dared to impose him. In 1077 Henry IV, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, stood for three days outside the pope’s residence at Canossa, barefoot and bareheaded in the bitter January cold, begging the forgiveness of Gregory VII whose authority he had defied. The pope claimed that he alone, as the vicar of Christ and successor of Peter, possessed the keys to the kingdom of heaven. This was his key to power. With this weapon he tyrannized men’s consciences and set himself up in God’s temple.

  3. Counterfeit signs and wonders The Antichrist will deceive many with counterfeit miracles and wonders. We know about healings at shrines, graves, images of saints, and other miracles that are part of the Catholic world. That is satanic fraud, or if supernatural things do occur, they are done by satanic powers.

  4. Opposed to God and The Saving Truth. Paul speaks about a final mark of the antichrist. Paul says that the antichrist is the man of sin who epitomizes the rebellion against revealed truth of the Gospel. Paul also says that the antichrist opposes God by powerfully, craftily and boldly teaching lies. These Satanic lies of the antichrist are in direct opposition to the will of God that all men be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. Antichrist’s satanic lie is that a sinner is not saved by grace alone. Thus the antichrist opposes God’s doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone in the atoning work of Christ. The papacy has declared: “If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be damned. If anyone says that Justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be damned.” This statement is in direct opposition to the clear statement of God: “You are saved by grace through faith, and this is not of your own doing, it is the gift of God, not of works, so no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). This position of the papacy has not changed one iota in the years since the Council of Trent declared it. Vatican I & II declared this statement to be infallible and irreformable. The devil’s doctrine of work-righteousness had reared its ugly head already in the days of the apostles. Repeatedly Paul wielded the sword of the Spirit against it in his letters to the churches. It is an error that inheres in the sinful heart of man by nature. Is the papacy the very antichrist mentioned in Scripture? As little as one can prove the doctrine of the incarnation or the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ to the satisfaction of human reason, so little can one prove the doctrine that the papacy is the antichrist. But those who treasure the doctrine of justification will also with the eyes of faith recognize the arch-antagonist of this doctrine as the antichrist. The marks of the antichrist were given to the church in order that a positive identification of the antichrist may be made. Only the papacy fulfills those marks. What other antichristian force except the papacy can claim all at the same time to have existed as one human being for hundreds of years, rule in the midst of believers, replace the word of God, deny that Jesus is the Christ, and cause the greatest falling away from the Christian faith ever?

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