2 Thessalonians 2:12

that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. [God permits Satan to present lies to those who, because of their love for sin, desire to be deceived (Deuteronomy 13:1-5). Having given our exposition of the above passage, we should like also to give a history of its exposition, but must content ourselves with referring the reader to those given by Newton, Lunemann, Alford, Gloag, etc. We should like also to discuss the theory of most commentators who identify the man of sin with the beast at Rev. 13, and the Roman Empire with the red dragon at Rev. 12, and who find in the Antiochus of Daniel the prototype of this lawless one. See Newton on the Prophecies, Dissertation 22. But we will content ourselves with the presentation of the antichrist, and remarks on this prophecy. The term "antichrist" conveys not only the idea of one who is opposed to Christ, but also of one who is the antithesis of Christ. This latter idea has been touched upon, but not fully developed. The antichrist is a counterfeit or caricature of Christ, and his life is an elaborate parody of that part of the Christ life which may be so contradicted, contorted and adapted so as to comport with worldly ambition. The antichrist is the personification of sin (verse 3), whereas Christ is the incarnation of righteousness (Acts 3:14). He is the son of perdition (verse 3), just as Jesus is the Prince of life (Acts 3:14). He opposes his will against God, and exalts himself against God, and enthrones himself in the temple of God, and displays himself as God (verse 4), while Jesus resigned himself to the Father's will (Luke 22:42) and humbled himself in complete obedience (Philippians 2:5-8), and, though truly claiming to be divine (John 14:8-11), waited until he was exalted of God (Phil 2:9), when he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in the true temple on high, because he was divine (Hebrews 1:3-5; Hebrews 8:1-2). Antichrist has a season or time for revelation (verse 6), just as Jesus had (Galatians 4:4), and still has a proper time for revealing himself (Acts 1:6-7). He first exists as a mystery, and then has his open revelation (Greek, apocalypse)--verses 7, and 3, 6, 8; and so also did Jesus (Romans 16:25-26). Moreover, as a mystery the antichrist existed as lawlessness, and finally came forth the lawless one, while Jesus was first concealed in the mysterious types of the law (John 5:46; Romans 3:21-22), and was born under the law (Galatians 4:4) and was the very incarnation of law (Romans 10:4; Matthew 5:17-18), and is the mystery of godliness (1 Timothy 3:16). He has a coming (Greek, parousia)--verse 9, just as Christ has (verse 8). His coming is according to the working of Satan with lying power, signs and wonders (verse 9), while Jesus came after the working of God (John 5:19-20; Ephesians 1:19-20), with God's real powers, signs and wonders-- Acts 2:22 ("powers" being translated "mighty works"). With these lying miracles he established an anti-gospel, formed in the deceit of unrighteousness and producing death (verse 10); while Jesus, as is shown by the same verse, brought the gospel of truth that men might he saved. And finally, his kingdom rests on belief--the belief of a lie (verse 11)--just as Christ's rests upon the belief of the truth. Thus, step by step, the antichrist parodies the glories, but not the humiliations of the Christ, but he fails to rise to the last step, for he has no manifestation (Greek, epiphany) answering to that which Christ has, as shown by verse 8. That is to say, he has no divinity to subdue all things by the outburst of its glory. He can assume the figure of Christ, but can not rival Christ transfigured. In interpreting this passage commentators divide themselves into three parties: 1. Those who think the prophecy long since fulfilled. 2. Those who regard it as in process of fulfillment. 3. Those who look upon it as yet to be fulfilled in the future. The first class fail to note that the antichrist is to be destroyed by the epiphany of Christ's coming. Hence antichrist can not have come and gone, since this epiphany is yet to take place. The great body of Protestant commentators are found in the second class, who look upon the long line of popes as the antichrist, and the church of Rome as the apostasy. The third class, of whom Alford and Olshausen are exponents, look upon the pope as a prefiguration or forerunner of the antichrist, having many of his characteristics, but not filling up all the Scripture details by which he is described; Olshausen urging that the pope can not be antichrist, because, contrary to John 2:22; he confesses that Jesus is the Christ; and Alford objecting on the two grounds that the pope does not oppose God, and exalt himself above God, according to verse 4, for the pope is found to be very worshipful; and because the Papacy has existed for some fifteen hundred years, and Christ has not yet come, though the revelation of the antichrist is to immediately precede the coming of Christ. Taking up these three objections in their order, we would note, first, that a mere verbal, formal or ceremonial confession of Christ certainly will not relieve any one from being charged by the Spirit with having denied Christ. To really confess Jesus as Christ, is to look to him as the supreme Priest, to be guided by him as the all-authoritative Prophet or Teacher, to be ruled by him utterly as the divine and absolute King. Does the pope's confession answer to this? Secondly, the language of verse 4 should not be so strained as to make it stronger than it is. It must be borne in mind that antichrist is a man, and not a deity, and hence his opposition to God, exaltation of self against God, etc., must be such as is possible to man. Alford so construes verse 4 as to demand not only one who lifts himself against God, but even above God, so as to make himself the sole object of worship. But Whedon justly remarks, "If this prophecy is to wait for a being who literally exalts himself above the Omnipresent and Omnipotent, it waits for an impossibility." Moreover, in permitting the worship of saints and of the virgin, the pope does not avoid the charge of opposing all that is worshiped, for it must be borne in mind that the very spirit of worship demands an unseen element. If the pope should entirely deny all the unseen, then worship itself would be at an end. Since he must permit some continuance of this unseen element or defeat his own purposes, he contents himself with dictating as to it, deciding for himself in what it shall consist. Too rigorous a denial of all worship would destroy that which he seeks to parody, and obliterate his title as antichrist, Lastly, the third objection, that the Papacy has existed for fifteen hundred years, carries no weight; for the word "immediately," on which Alford founds it, is neither in the text nor in the thought, and prophecy has very little perspective at best. It is sufficient that the Papacy still exists, and if it continues to exist till the Lord comes, and is brought to naught by that event, it will fulfill that part of the prophecy under consideration. In short, while we will not attempt to say that the final form of antichrist, Papal or otherwise, may not exceed in wickedness all that we have yet seen (for prophecies are certainly iterative), yet we are constrained to contend that if no other form appears, the Papacy has already fulfilled the prophecy, for it agrees in all the points, as follows: 1. It has one official man ever at its head, and the arrogancy of its claims are centered in him. 2. That man came with and out of all apostasy, and the very kind of an apostasy which Paul elsewhere describes (1 Timothy 4:1-3; 2 Timothy 3:1-9). Can that apostacy exist for all these centuries, and antichrist be still unborn of it? 3. The spiritual pride and lawlessness which worked and would have produced antichrist in Paul's day, was curbed by the person of the Cæsar whose superior spiritual pride and lawlessness restrained that of the church by contempt and persecution. 4. When, notwithstanding the overshadowing emperor, the bishops of Rome began to assert themselves spiritually, they were still checked and restrained from revealing themselves as earthly potentates by the temporal power of the empire, just as the language of verses 6 and 7 so carefully distinguishes. 5. When the power of the Roman Empire was taken away, the pope appeared, and has since been unceasingly in evidence. Paul's readers could readily see how the emperor and the empire would check the antichrist; but Paul could not openly write that emperor and empire were to fall, for, had he done so, the Romans would have appealed to his words as affording a just cause for persecuting the church. So thought Tertullian (A. D. 150-240), Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386), Ambrose (340-397), Jerome (342-420), Chrysostom (347-407), Augustine (354-430), etc. 6. The pope is careful to keep up his line of succession, so as to establish his identity and claims; and arising out of the fall of Rome and the apostasy of the church, which accompanied that event, he has continued for centuries with little change, and certainly none for the better. 7. He exalts himself against God and Christ, calling himself the vicar, or infallible substitute for Christ, and permitting and encouraging his followers to speak of him thus: "Our Lord God the Pope, another God upon earth... doeth whatsoever he listeth, even things unlawful, and is more than God." Under these titles he presumes to set aside divine laws in favor of his own. Thus as a substitute person he makes substitute laws, and arrogates to himself divine power, as did Pope Clement VI. when he commanded the angels to admit certain souls to paradise. 8. He sits in the temple of God, i. e., he has his sphere of dominion in the church, and the temple or church which he occupies is still a temple erected to God, albeit the Spirit and presence of God may have long since departed from it. 9. He proves his supreme claims by fraudulent miracles, signs and wonders; of which cures effected by relics and shrines and pictures; prayers, made effectual by blessed beads; indulgences; souls prayed out of purgatory for money; absolution, and transubstantiation are fair samples.]