Can a System or a series of men be “THE antichrist” (singular) ?

…thinking beyond the Reformation

To ask the question is to answer it. Those who like short answers will have to settle for a quick “No.”

But don’t run off. Let me explain myself. I know that the only ones in disagreement with this obvious truth are those of Reformed heritage who believe the Papacy (not any one Pope) is that which the Bible is pointing to when it talks of the man of sin.

Reformed folks need to understand that not everything that came out of the reformed Era is Gospel truth. How grateful we are to the Reformers, but they didn’t take us all the way back to Scripture, nor have they yet. Reformers squabbled among themselves. Those fights formed denominations that are separate to this day. Which Reformer will you follow?

Most of you reading this piece would not even be accepted in a Reformed church of the Reformers’ time! Anabaptist, or just Baptist? Are you kidding? Methodist, or anyone who even dared think along with Arminius? Bye-bye! Independent? What! How dare you separate yourself from US! The “us” being the Reformer in charge of an area.

We all know this is true. It is an unpleasant truth, not much thought about. The reason being, perhaps, is that SO MUCH of what the reformers gave us is pure gold! Oh my, and then it was passed on to the Puritan preachers, who also had some issues, but who did indeed preach as pure a Gospel and Bible as the world had seen until then. One of their products was a man named Spurgeon.

We love, but we don’t worship – I hope – the Reformation. The Mama church had fed them much of what they knew, and it’s hard to reject Mama en toto. Capital punishment for wrong doctrines, infant baptism, certain beliefs of the Lord’s Table, all come to mind quickly as areas that reformers needed, and still need, to be delivered from, updated about.

(Now if you can forgive those ending prepositions, I will move on to the original purpose of this article).

One teaching they most certainly did not inherit from Rome but thought they were seeing with their own eyes, was the identification of a system called the Papacy, with the Bible’s clear teaching about a coming man.

Honest mistake. We all would have done it, living back there, and even seeing the carryings-on of Rome today. After all,

Much of Roman teaching is anti-Christ, anti-Bible.

Much of Roman practice is pagan and therefore also anti-Christ.

Popes sit in God’s house claiming to be “Lord God the Pope,” “Holy Father,” “Vicar of Christ.”

As with the coming antichrist, the reign of the Popes has been material, and universal (hence “catholic”)

But none of this gives any of us the right to change the written Revelation God has given us of who is coming. Daniel points to a man. John the revelator points to a man. It is a man thrown into the lake of fire. Systems are not thrown in this manner. Paul talks about the man of sin, not the men. Small point, but it is unfaithfulness to “small points” through the church’s ages that has caused all our trouble, all our divisions.

Rome has enough problems divorcing itself from the title of “Babylon” at the end of Revelation 18. I personally believe this is enough for her. Rome is Babylon. Babylon is Rome.

Her leaders have indeed been antichrists, but even in the first century there were many antichrists, who were not Roman at all. But John, who gives us this information, makes a distinction between the antichrist (singular) who is coming, and the antichrists that are. False teachers of all sorts are antichrists. Governmental leaders can be against Christ.

But one man comes in the end and shows us pure evil, for he will be filled with Satan. The Revelation is clear about this. We all need to go back and read it, and surrender our long-held notions as just that, notions, not doctrines from heaven.