2 Thessalonians 2:4

“he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God”

“He”: The man of sin. “That opposeth exalteth himself against all that is called God”: “He actually supersedes all forms of religion and demands divine worship for himself alone” (Erdman p. 90). “ He demands religious veneration” (Morris p. 222). “Or that is worshipped”: “Paul meant to convey the idea that the antichrist would arrogate to himself all the reverence then claimed by the great civil lords of the earth such as emperors, or kings. Today men bow down before the pope in the same manner that men used to bow down before kings” (Fields p. 199). “So that”: So great will be his arrogance and defiance of God's law. “Sitteth in the temple of God”: Some say that the temple of God under consideration is the temple that existed in Jerusalem, yet that temple was destroyed in A.D. 70. Some argue for. rebuilt temple near the time when Jesus would come, yet the temple was part of an inferior system,. covenant that could never forgive sin (Hebrews 8:6; Hebrews 9:1). Why would God want it restored? Christians would understand the language here, for the New Testament refers to the church as the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:21). Hence there is. corruption that will happen within the church. The man of sin is. "professed Christian",. religious man, who assumes. role in the church which exclusively belongs to God.

“Setting himself forth as God”: “It is hard to see how the man of sin could be an atheistic communist and still sit in the temple of God and represent himself as God” (Fields p. 200).

Many have tried to identify the man of sin. Most make the same mistake of thinking that this character will not appear on the world scene until shortly before Jesus comes, yet nothing in the context demands that interpretation, in fact the context demands the opposite.. offer the following lines of evidence connecting the man of sin with the papacy of the Roman Catholic Church:

· His arrival and the apostasy are linked together (2 Thessalonians 2:3). The Roman Catholic Church was the first great apostate body. It introduced countless corruptions-bishops over elders, infant baptism, many heathen rituals, such as the use of candles, incense, robes in worship, the deification of Mary as the “Mother of God”, confession of sins to. human priest, the Lord's Supper became. mass,. human head of the church, transubstantiation, indulgences, idolatry, tradition made equal to the Scriptures, purgatory, members deprived of the cup in communion, mandatory celibacy for the priests, sprinkling instead of immersion, the infallibility of the pope.

· The problem with Premillennialists is that they are still waiting for. great apostasy to come upon the church, without realizing that the vast majority of professed "Christian" churches are already in apostasy! Including the churches they are members of!

· Since the falling away has already taken place, centuries ago, then we must conclude that the man of sin is not one person (for he will still exist when Christ comes 2 Thessalonians 1:8), but. succession of individuals.

· What would produce this man of sin was already at work in Paul's time (2 Thessalonians 2:7). Fields notes, “That being so, surely then Paul could not have been referring to things that would not happen until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (p. 196).

· In other passages, the "details" of this coming apostasy includes false doctrines that the Roman Catholic church has taught and still presently teaches (1 Timothy 4:1).

· The man of sin claims to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:5). “The popes have called themselves by titles as great or greater than those of God. Note this title which has been used: ‘Our Lord God the Pope, another God on earth--doeth whatsoever he listeth, even things unlawful, and is more than God'” (Fields p. 200).

· The papacy did assume. position that the Bible reserves for Jesus Christ, that is, head over all things to the church (Ephesians 1:22).

·“Biblical use of language permits us to call. series or group of men by the term ‘man of sin'. For example, Peter says, ‘Fear God. Honor the king' (1 Peter 2:17). Did he refer to one particular king or the whole succession of kings in any given land?” (Denton Lectureship p. 251).

· And lastly, but not least, this is not. new or weird view: “The early Reformers (Wycliffe in England, the Waldensians in Italy and John Hus in Bohemia) all referred the prophecy to the Pope. the sixteenth-century Reformers, including Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, Knox and Cranmer believed that the papacy itself was Antichrist” (Stott p. 166).

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