2. Apostasy lays the Church open to attacks from her enemies. The "man of sin" could not arise before the Church had fallen, nor if he had appeared could he have had any power against a faithful Church.
III. THE MAN OF SIN PRECEDES THE SECOND ADVENT OF CHRIST. It was a mistake on the part of the Thessalonian Church to suppose that "the day of the Lord" had arrived, because the dreadful appearance of the man of sin which was to precede that day had not yet been seen. St. Paul warns us that apostasy and the frightful life of this wicked man—whoever he may be—must come before Christ returns. He does not encourage us to look for a gradual, unbroken progress of Christianity. The growth of the harvest fruit is arrested and delayed by frost and storm. Christ even wondered whether he should find any faith left on the earth at his return (Luke 18:8). The glorious consummation of all things to which the Christian looks forward is not to be expected as the result of quiet improvement without relapse. Between the present and that "great Divine event" dark chasms of iniquity yawn. Every age has thought it could detect signs of this evil in its midst. So the unbelief and corruptions of our own day are taken by some to be "signs." Unhappily the language of the apostle warns us to expect more terribly demonstrative signs than any yet seen.
IV. THE APPEARANCE OF THE MAN OF SIN IS A SGN OF THE APPROACHING ADVENT OF CHRIST. Here is some encouragement for the Church to endure the trials of the darkest times. These times are to usher in the great and glorious day of the Lord. Evil, when most triumphant, is nearest defeat. Dreadful as may be its transient success, it will soon be swept away. When the horror of sin is blackest, the judgment which is to sweep it away is nearest at hand. Christ will come again when he will be most needed.—W.F.A.
2 Thessalonians 2:7, 2 Thessalonians 2:8.—The mystery of lawlessness.
The exact, objective application of this prediction, like that of the preceding description, is not easy to discover. But principles are involved which are susceptible of general application.
I. THERE IS A MYSTERY OF LAWLESSNESS. By this expression the apostle probably means a mystery the character of which is lawless.
1. We may expect to meet with new mysteries. While time and inquiry resolve some mysteries, they bring upon us fresh ones. We are not to expect to be able to understand all the forces and influences with which we are surrounded. It is enough that we are in the hands of God who knows all, and trusting in Christ who can lead us safely through the darkness.
2. New mysteries may be characterized by new lawlessness. The answer to our inquiries may be very unsatisfactory in revealing only evil. There are strange novelties which are obscure in all points but their moral character, and that is plainly evil. If so, we may hope for no good from them, and need not further interest ourselves in them.
3. All lawlessness is mysterious. How did it originate? How is its existence possible? Why does not God sweep it away? These questions have perplexed men in all ages. We bow before them in helpless, pained wonder.
II. THERE IS A RESTRAINT ON THE MYSTERY OF LAWLESSNESS.
1. Its full power is not yet revealed. There are those who treat all sin with unbecoming levity, because they do not yet see its terrible fruits. They are playing with a torpid adder, that may awake at any moment and inflict a fatal wound. No one knows what hidden possibilities of harm lurk in the deep caverns of undeveloped sin. There are volcanoes in the hearts of some quiet men which may burst into destructive fires.
2. Human means may be used to restrain the mystery of lawlessness. Government, law, society, healthy habits of the majority, keep it down for a time.
3. God holds the mystery of lawlessness in check. He is supreme over its wildest raging. "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh." God restrains the superabundant wrath of man (Psalms 76:10).
III. THE HIDDEN MYSTERY OF LAWLESSNESS WILL BE REVEALED. The volcano must break into eruption some day. Evil cannot slumber forever. Hypocrisy will tire of its meek, innocent demeanour. The harvest of sin will have to be reaped. Let not any man put his confidence in the secretness or slowness of the processes of evil. The more they are hidden now, the worse will be the appalling outburst of them when the restraint under which they groan at present is released. The longer the wild horses are held in by the leash, the fiercer will be their mad gallop when they break loose.
IV. CHRIST WILL CONQUER THE MYSTERY OF LAWLESSNESS. Evil will not long be rampant. One fearful rebellion and then a tremendous defeat.
1. Christ is to be the Conqueror of it. He came to destroy the works of the devil. We could not effect this great work. He, our Saviour, does it for us.
2. Christ is to come again for this object. When the mystery is revealed, Christ's "manifestation" follows.
3. Christ conquers with a breath. His first work was difficult, involving his death. His last work will be divinely simple, and yet sublimely successful.—W.F.A.
2 Thessalonians 2:10-12.—The love of the truth.
The reason for the doom of those who are to be destroyed at the second coming of Christ here given, is that they do not receive the love of the truth.
I. GOD EXPECTS US TO RECEIVE THE LOVE OF THE TRUTH.
1. Truth is good in itself. Truth is to the soul what light is to the body. It is natural for men to love the day, unnatural for them to shun it. In a right and healthy state we should love truth simply as truth, whatever else it be.
2. Christian truth is peculiarly attractive. Scientific truth is beautiful, philosophic truth is valuable; but the truth of the gospel has far deeper attractions, because it contains revelation of the love and fatherhood of God, of the grace and goodness of Christ, of the redemption of the world, of the way of salvation, of the heavenly rest, etc.
3. Truth should be welcomed with love. We cannot accept it to any advantage until we love it; for
II. IT IS AN EVIL HEART THAT PREVENTS MEN FROM RECEIVING THE LOVE OF THE TRUTH. St. Paul traces back the bad condition of those who reject the love of the truth to the fact that they "had pleasure in unrighteousness." The pleasures of sin cannot exist side by side with the love of the truth. Evil hates the light (John 3:19). Moral corruption has no sympathy for the lofty thirst for truth of a pure soul. Hence it may be concluded that indifference to truth is a sign of moral evil. The corrupt life is a false life, and its departure from truth reveals the baseness of the character beneath. This is why the rejection of the truth is culpable. Intellectual doubt is of quite a different character. Indeed, it often arises from genuine love of truth, while self-satisfied orthodoxy is often quite indifferent to verifiable facts, preferring respectable error to painful truth.
III. THE PENALTY OF REJECTING THE LOVE OF THE TRUTH IS INCAPACITY TO KNOW TRUTH FROM ERROR. God punishes men in this condition by sending "them a working of error, that they should believe a lie." This is an awful fate. Truth is too precious a pearl to be cast before swine. They who do not love it shall not have it. Liars become incapable of knowing truth. The habit of indifference to truth so grows upon some people that the whole idea of truth becomes obscure and meaningless to them, and they ask with Pilate, half bewildered, half scornful, "What is truth?" Is not this a veritable destruction—the spiritual eye blinded and burnt out by the fires of falsehood and unrighteousness; the highest intellectual faculty, that of grasping truth, killed by corruption and falsehood? God save us all from this hideous doom!—W.F. A,
2 Thessalonians 2:13, 2 Thessalonians 2:14.—The Divine work of salvation.
We are to be thankful to God for the happy spiritual prospects of our fellow Christians, because they all spring from his good purpose and work. The most striking characteristic of the description before us is its attributing the whole process from beginning to end to the will and action of God.
I. THE BEGINNING.
1. An initial Divine choice. This dates back to the dim ages of an awful antiquity. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. In the beginning was the Word. In the beginning God chose his people for himself. Salvation is no after thought coming in to redeem the failure of creation. It was all planned from the first. When God made man he foresaw sin and determined on redemption. Each one of us is thought of by God from the first. We come into the world to fulfil vocations which God designed for us when he first planned the universe.
2. A present Divine call. The choice would be of no use if it were not made known to us. But when the time for executing God's great design has arrived, he makes it sufficiently known for us to be able to follow it. He calls by the preaching of the gospel. The gospel, then, is an invitation. It is good news, but only for those who will accept the invitation. This new gospel came to bid men fulfil an ancient destiny. The latest work accomplishes the oldest thought of God.
II. THE PROCESS.
1. Sanctification of the Spirit. This is the Divine side of the process. Prior to it is the great atoning work of Christ. But that work is done for us that we may receive the Spirit of God as its fruit. Now we are looking at the work of God in us. God purifies and consecrates his people by an inspiration of his own Spirit. No safety is possible to the guilty, no glory to the unholy. The cleansing process must come before the great end can be reached.
2. Belief of the truth. This is our side of the process. It is useless for us to wait for our sanctification and for the baptism of the Holy Spirit which is to produce it. It will not come without our active reception of it. There is no magic about the process of the descent of the Holy Ghost. It comes on certain conditions being fulfilled by us.
(1) Truth is the vehicle that conveys it into our hearts.
III. THE END.
1. Salvation. Take this word in the largest, roundest sense, as deliverance from all evil. It is painfully true that in our greatest joy and thankfulness we have to recollect that at best we are plucked as brands from the burning. No blessing can be enjoyed till the awful ruin into which our souls were all of them sinking through our great and dreadful sin has been stayed.
2. Glory. Salvation is the beginning of God's work in us; glory is the completion of it. We can have no glory while we are in the mire of sin and wretchedness. But when we are delivered, God will not leave us like drowning men on a barren rock, saved from present destruction indeed, but with dreary future prospects. He will not have ended his work with us till he has exalted us into the region of his own glory.—W.F.A.
2 Thessalonians 2:16, 2 Thessalonians 2:17.—A benediction.
I. THE SOURCES OF THE BENEDICTION. A true benediction is more than an expression of good wishes. It is a prayer by one who has especial weight in intercession, although it is expressed to the person for whom it is offered. The benediction of so great and good a man as St. Paul is of great value, because the "effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." But the blessings desired by the apostle are not given by him any more than the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to their children were given by the patriarchs. The sources of the blessings of a benediction are not human nor earthly at all. Here they are declared.
1. The personal influence of Jesus Christ. This is strikingly expressed by the reference to "our Lord Jesus Christ himself." His brotherhood and his love lead him to bless us. His Divinity, his goodness, and his sacrifice give him authority in heaven. In his own right he blesses. And he does not delegate the blessing. He confers it himself.
2. The fatherhood of God. Because God is "our Father" we may expect blessings from him. Fears and doubts arise from partial views of God, and views which leave out of account his great fatherly nature. He does not bless as a Master paying wages, but as a Father dealing affectionately with his children.
II. THE ASSURANCES OF THE BENEDICTION. Grounds for believing that God will give the blessing are given for the encouragement of faith.
1. Love in the past. He has revealed his character by his providence, and he has proved in this way that he loves his children. But a parent's love is distinguished from all other kinds of love by its permanence. If God ever did love, he still loves.
2. Eternal comfort. This we have now in the peace of forgiveness and the rest of faith. The peace is such that the world can neither give nor take away. The rest is beneath the shadow of a great rock that outlasts even the seemingly everlasting hills.
3. Hope for the future. God has uttered promises and encouraged hopes. We cannot believe that he will mock the expectations which he has raised.
III. THE OBJECTS OF THE BENEDICTION.
1. Heart comfort. We have eternal comfort; nevertheless we need more comfort. No soul is yet perfectly at rest. Sorrow distresses the most trustful.
2. Stability in work and word. We must not stop at comfort. We are consoled in distress that we may be free and strong and glad for service.
EXCURSUS ON THE MAN OF SIN
£
THIS is one of the most remarkable prophecies in the New Testament. It occurs in the writings of St. Paul, whose practical mind constituted him rather the preacher of the present than the prophet of the future. There is an obscurity in the language which, as already observed, could not have been so great to those to whom the apostle wrote, for he had previously instructed his readers in the nature of the occurrence (2 Thessalonians 2:5, 2 Thessalonians 2:6); but our ignorance of these instructions renders the passage to us enigmatical and difficult to understand; and perhaps, also, this obscurity is increased by reason of our distance from the time when the apostle wrote. There are in this prediction several points requiring consideration: the apostasy or falling away which was secretly working even in the apostle's days; a withholding or restraining influence which prevented its open manifestation and full development; the advent of the man of sin, his characteristics and final doom. We shall, first, give a history of the various opinions concerning this subject in past ages, and then consider those views which are most prevalent in our days.
The following is a literal translation of the passage, in accordance with the exposition given in the foregoing pages: "But we beseech you, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our assembling together unto him, that you be not soon shaken from your sober mind, nor be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by epistle as from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is imminent.£ Let no man deceive you by any means, because that day shall not come, except there come the apostasy first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God, or is an object of worship; so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember you not that when I was with you, I told you these things? And now you know what restraineth, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already working, yet only until he that restraineth is removed;£ and then shall the lawless one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and annihilate by the appearance of his coming; even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, in all power and signs and wonders of falsehood, and in all deceit of unrighteousness for them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sends to them the working of error, that they might believe the lie; that they might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
According to these words, this much is evident—that the apostle expected a falling away from the purity of Christianity. Nor is this the only passage where St. Paul alludes to such a declension from primitive faith and holiness; there are allusions to it in his other Epistles, but especially in the Pastoral Epistles, where he describes the apostasy of the latter days: "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth" (1 Timothy 4:1-3). So also, in his Second Epistle to Timothy, he alludes to the impending nature of this period of apostasy—the mystery of lawlessness was already working: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come," or rather, "are present" (2 Timothy 3:1-5). And St. Peter affirms that there shall arise in the Church false teachers, who shall privily "bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and shall bring upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Peter 2:1); and that "in the last days there shall be scoffers, walking after their lusts" (2 Peter 3:2). And a similar declaration is made by St. Jude: "Remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts" (Jude 1:17, Jude 1:18). And our Lord himself, in his eschatological discourse, warned his disciples that there should arise false Christs and false prophets (Matthew 24:24)—a declaration which probably lies at the root of all similar apocalyptic assertions.£ In these passages, however, it is to be observed that a plurality of false teachers is asserted; whereas, in our passage, they are concentrated in an individual—the Man of Sin.
Especially in the Epistles of St. John—there is express mention of Antichrist of a person (or persons) who is the opponent of Christ. It is only in these Epistles that the word occurs, and it does so four times: "Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that [the] Antichrist shall come, even now there are many Antichrists." "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son." "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an Antichrist" (1 John 2:18, 1 John 2:22; 1 John 4:3; 2 John 1:7). Now, the Man of Sin of St. Paul has been identified with the Antichrist of St. John. They agree in several points: in both he is described as an individual, whose coming will be foreshadowed by many forerunners;£ in both his advent is future, but the evil principle, the apostasy or spirit of Antichrist, is already at work; and in both there is open opposition to God and Christ. It is, however, to be observed that in St. John the Antichristian error is more positively stated as consisting in the denial that Jesus Christ came in the flesh,—accordingly, as Gnosticism, which we know was already secretly corrupting the Church; and hence the reason why some have connected the Man of Sin with the errors of the Gnostics, whereas it does not appear from St. Paul's words that the characteristics of the Gnostics correspond with the characteristics of the Man of Sin; but, on the other hand, the denial of the Father and the Son is common to both.
It would far exceed the limits of this excursus to compare the Man of Sin with the declarations concerning the manifestations of evil in the Apocalypse of St. John. In that mysterious book there appears to be two centres or impersonations of evil: the one described as the beast coming out of the sea, to whom the dragon gave his power and seat and great authority (Revelation 13:1, Revelation 13:2); and the other, as another beast coming out of the earth, who had two horns like a lamb, and spake like a dragon (Revelation 13:11), and who has been identified with the false prophet (Revelation 16:13; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10).£ Whether there is a resemblance between the Man of Sin and either or both of these beasts, we do not inquire; in both a manifestation or revelation of evil, and the concentration of it in an individual or individuals, is predicted.
The prediction of St. Paul bears a still more striking resemblance to the vision of Daniel concerning the wicked and persecuting king (Daniel 11:1-45.) than to either the Antichrist of St. John or the beasts of the Apocalypse. That prophecy of Daniel received its primary accomplishment in Antiochus Epiphanes, the great persecutor of the Jews, but the concluding portion is applicable to a future opponent of God and his people, and finds its full accomplishment in him.£ Now, the imagery employed by the prophet and the apostle is the same. Paul predicts a falling away; and Daniel tells us that the king shall "have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant" (Daniel 11:30). Paul tells us that the Man of Sin shall sit in the temple of God, displaying himself as God; and Daniel, in the passage quoted by our Lord, speaks of the abomination of desolation being set up in the holy place (Daniel 11:31). Paul foretells that the Man of Sin shall oppose and exalt himself against all that is called God or is an object of worship; and Daniel tells us that the king shall exalt and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished (Daniel 11:36). This resemblance between the persecuting king of Daniel and the Man of Sin is repeatedly noticed by the early Fathers. Thus Origen observes, "What is stated by Paul in the words quoted by him when he says, 'so he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God,' is in Daniel referred to in the following manner: 'And on the temple shall be the abomination of desolation, and at the end of time an end shall be put to the desolation'" (Origen, 'Contra. Cels.,' 6:46).£ There can hardly, then, be a reasonable doubt that Paul in his prediction had this prophecy of Daniel in view.£
The prediction of St. Paul concerning the Man of Sin made a deep impression upon the early Fathers, and the references to it in their writings are numerous. There is also a comparative unanimity in their sentiments. In general, they considered that the fulfilment of the prediction was future; that the Man of Sin was Antichrist, and an individual; and that the restraining influence was the Roman empire. Justin Martyr speaks of the Man of Sin as the man of apostasy, who speaks strange things against the Most High, and shall venture to do unlawful deeds on earth against Christians. Irenseus observes "that he, being an apostate and a robber, is anxious to be adored by God; and that, although a mere slave, he wishes himself to be proclaimed as a king. For he, being endued with the power of the devil, shall come, not as a righteous king in subjection to God, but as the lawless one; concentrating in himself all Satanic apostasy, and, setting aside all idols, he shall persuade men that he himself is God" ('Adv. Haer.,' Daniel 5:25. 1). Tertullian alludes to the Roman empire as the restraining power: "What obstacle is there but the Roman state, the falling away of which shall introduce Antichrist, for then shall be revealed the lawless one?" ('De Resurr.,' e. 24). And again, "We Christians are under peculiar necessity of praying for the emperors and for the complete stability of the empire, because we know that dreadful power which hangs over the world and the conclusion of the age, which threatens the most horrible evils, is only retarded by the continued existence of the Roman empire. This is what we would not experience. And, while we pray that it may be deferred, we hereby show our good will to the perpetuity of the Roman state" ('Apol.,' c. 32). Hippolytus supposes that Antichrist wilt be a Jew, belonging to the tribe of Dan:£ "As Christ springs from the tribe of Judah, so Antichrist is to spring from the tribe of Dan" ('De Antichristo,' c. 14). Cyprian regards Antiochus Epiphanes as the type of Antichrist. And Jerome observes, "As the Saviour had Solomon and other saints as types of his coming, so we may rightly believe that Antichrist had, as a type of himself, that most wicked king Antiochus, who persecuted the saints and profaned the temple" (on Daniel 11:35). There was a diversity of opinion among them regarding the meaning of the temple of God, in which the Man of Sin was to seat himself. Some of the Fathers interpreted the expression figuratively as denoting the Christian Church; whilst others (Irenaeus, Cyril) took it literally, and referred it to the temple of Jerusalem, supposing that the Man of Sin would rebuild the temple.
It was an opinion in the early Church, continuing even to the date of the fourth century, that Nero was Antichrist. Of course, such an opinion cannot refer to the Man of Sin, as this would involve an anachronism; but can only be applied to Antichrist as described in the Apocalypse. Too much has been made of this Nero myth, as it is seldom alluded to by the early Fathers until the close of the third century. Nero was the first emperor who persecuted the Christians, and was therefore peculiarly obnoxious to them. After his death, there was a general impression throughout the Roman world that he was not really dead, but was living in concealment in Parthia, and would return to regain his empire. "About this time," observes Tacitus," a report that Nero was still alive, and on his way to the East, excited a false alarm throughout Achaia and Asia" ('Hist.,' Daniel 2:8). And Suetonius mentions that it was thought that Nero was still alive, and would shortly return to Rome, and take vengeance on all his enemies ('Nero,' 57). Mention is made in history of three impostors who personated Nero: one in Achaia and Proconsular Asia, in the reign of Otho; a second, also in Proconsular Asia, in the reign of Titus; and a third, protected by the Parthians, in the reign of Domitian. From this notion appears to have arisen the Christian idea that Nero would be again raised up as Antichrist.£ The earliest notice of this opinion appears in the fourth of the Sybilline books (A.D. 80), which, however, is considered by critics to be not of Christian, but of Jewish origin. In the fifth Sybilline book, supposed to be of the time of Hadrian, according to some by a Jewish Christian, and according to others by an Egyptian Jew, the Antichrist Beliar is identified with Nero.£ Not until the close of the third century does Victorinus, Bishop of Pettau, in his exposition of the Apocalypse, identify the beast rising out of the sea with Nero: "Now that one of the heads was, as it were, slain to death, in this he speaks of Nero;" and Chrysostom regarded Nero as the type of Antichrist.£ The great reason, however, on which certain writers ground their opinion that the author of the Apocalypse considered Nero to be Antichrist, was the declaration contained in Revelation 17:10, Revelation 17:11, "And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast which was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition"—a passage referred to by Victorinus.£ By the five kings they understand the five emperors who had already reigned—Augustus, Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and Nero; by the sixth, Galba (or, according to others, Vespasian: Galba, Otho, and Vitellius being omitted, as their reigns were short); by the seventh, Otho (or, according to others, Titus); and by the eighth, who was also one of the seven, Antichrist or Nero restored to life. This passage is still appealed to by recent writers who adopt the Nero hypothesis.£ Lactantius, on the other band, repudiates this hypothesis as extravagant: "Some persons of extravagant imagination," he observes, "suppose that Nero, having been conveyed to a distant region, is still alive; and to him they apply the Sybilline verses concerning 'the fugitive who slew his own mother, being to come from the uttermost boundaries of the earth;' as if he who was the first, shall also be the last persecutor, and thus prove the forerunner of Antichrist. But we ought not to believe those who, affirming that the two prophets, Enoch and Elijah, have been translated into some remote place, that they might attend our Lord when he shall come to the judgment, also fancy that Nero is to appear hereafter as the forerunner of the devil, when he shall come to lay waste the earth and overthrow mankind."£
The opponents of hierarchical power in the Middle Ages regarded the pope as Antichrist, and considered the passage in question as a prediction of the origin and growth of the papal authority. Thus as early as the close of the tenth century, Arnulph, Bishop of Orleans, declared at the Council of Rheims that if the Roman pontiff was destitute of charity, and puffed up with knowledge, he was Antichrist. This view was entertained by Robert Grostete the celebrated Bishop of Lincoln, by Savonarola, by the Albigenses, the Waldenses, Wickliffe and the Wickliffites, the Hussites, and all those sects who were in opposition to the Roman hierarchy. Even St. Bernard uses this bold language: "The ministers of Christ are become the servants of Antichrist, and the beast of the Apocalypse has seated himself in the chair of St. Peter."£
The Reformers in general adopted this opinion. Such was the view of Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, Melancthon, Beza, and Bucer; and, among English Reformers, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper, and Jewell. According to them, the apostasy is the falling away from evangelical doctrine to the traditions of men and the corruptions of popery; the Man of Sin, or Antichrist, is not, as the Fathers conceived, an individual, but the succession of popes—series et successio hominum; and the restraining power is the Roman empire, out of whose ruins the papacy arose. The Lutheran Church inserted this opinion as an article in their creed (Articl. Smalc., Revelation 2:4). In the dedication of the translators of the Authorized Version to King James, it is assumed that the pope is the Man of Sin; and that monarch is complimented for writing in the defence of the truth, which gave "such a blow unto that Man of Sin as will not be healed." And the assertion that the pope is Antichrist and the Man of Sin forms one of the articles of the Westminster Confession: "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" (ch. 25:6).
The Romanists, on the other hand, were naturally led by opposition to consider the passage as a prediction of the rise and growth of Protestantism. The apostasy was the falling away from the Romish Church by the doctrines of the Reformation. The Man of Sin denoted heretics in general, but especially Luther, the chief of the Reformers. The restraining influence was the German empire, considered as a continuation of the Roman empire. This, however, was not the general opinion of the Church of Rome; most of their theologians supposed that Antichrist, or the Man of Sin, was an individual whose coming is yet future.
The Greek Church was naturally led to regard the prophecy as a prediction of Mohammedanism; the apostasy was the falling away of many Greek and Oriental Churches to Mohammedanism; the man of sin was Mohammed; and the restraining influence the power of the Roman empire.£ Some of the Reformers (Melancthon, Bucer, Musculus) considered that there were two Antichrists—one belonging to the Eastern Church and the other to the Western; the Eastern Antichrist was Mohammed, and the Western was the pope. It is a remarkable circumstance that all three—the Greeks, the Romans, and the Protestants—were at one as regards the restraining influence; this they regarded as the imperial power—the Roman empire, either in itself or continued in the Greek and German empires.
The modern views concerning the Man of Sin are chiefly four: the Rationalists, who consider that there is no prophecy; the Praeterists, who consider the prophecy as already fulfilled; the Progressionists, who regard it as being fulfilled or in the course of fulfilment; and the Futurists, who regard the fulfilment as still future.