The Search for Antichrist

THE SEARCH FOR ANTICHRIST

Richard O. Govier

Copyright © 2020 by Jeff Govier

Bible quotations unless otherwise identified are taken from

the King James Version with emendations by the author.

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP)

Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

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CONTENTS

Introduction

The Origin Of The Name - Antichrist

The Antichrist Foretold In Daniel

The Antichrist Of Revelations

Antichrist In Roman History

The Reformation - A Landmark

The Counter Reformation

The Ministry Of Edward Irving

The Ministry Of John Nelson Darby

The English Reformation

The World As We See It Today

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

The Reformation Fathers all died in the belief that they had solved the age old mystery of Antichrist, the man of sin, sitting in the Temple of God saying he was God. Indeed, their conviction was so strong in this belief that they suffered every indignity, even the death of being burned alive, to resist what they believed to be an insidious evil power that had taken possession of the universal Church. Their resistance to what they considered to be blasphemy was the basic cause of the Reformation that ripped apart the States of Europe causing a war that lasted for thirty years. Never was there a contest that fueled such atrocities and bitterness as that which marked that of the Thirty Years War.

The Jesuit Movement was raised up for the sole purpose of defending the Catholic Church from the accusations that were being hurled by the Protestants that the Papal system of the Church was Antichrist. Nor were Protestants lacking in information to that effect, for even the earlier bishops of the Catholic Church, itself, had predicted such an occurrence. But the Jesuits launched a Counter Reformation, accusing the Protestants of being heretics, launching the Inquisition that caused the death and mutilation of thousands of Protestants. The contest finally ended in a truce by the signing of a treaty by France, Sweden, and the Holy Roman Empire at the end of the Thirty Years War in1648. The nations of Europe were tired of war, and wanted peace at any price. The Protestants began to modify their position against the Catholic Church, while the Catholic Church lost much of its control over the State. Today there exists a spirit of toleration, a new ecumenicity between Protestants and Catholics that has caused the World Council of Churches to recommend dropping the name Protestant from their vocabulary.

Today the Protestant churches have completely forgotten their roots, and what brought the movement into being. The idea that fueled the Reformation was the idea of Antichrist sitting in the Temple of God. The Protestant Movement has been lulled to sleep by a new form of eschatology completely foreign to that of the Reformation Fathers. Ironically, it is the very same form of eschatology launched by the Jesuits to counter the Reformation doctrine of Antichrist. Says Dr. C.H.H. Wrig, The Futuristic School of prophetic interpretation has been, to no small degree, responsible for the success which has attended the modern onslaught on the credibility of the prophecies of the Old and New Testament scripture. The interpreters of that narrow school of thought, however, imagine themselves to be the only real defenders of Holy Scripture. The origin of that school, in its modern phase, may be traced back to Ribera, a distinguished Jesuit expositor (1585), and to the other remarkable Jesuit interpreters of the seventeenth century. Futurist views of prophecy, as was natural, were soon accepted by the theologians of the High Church School, and were also caught up by many poplar preachers of the Evangelical party in the National Church. The interest, however, in prophetic studies, did not long continue to be a general characteristic of the High Church party, but their prophetic views spread among writers of the so called Plymouth Brethren.¹

The spread of this prophetic doctrine was due, to a great degree, to an Anglican preacher by the name of John Nelson Darby (1800 to 1882) who resigned his curacy in the liberal Irish Anglican Church to promote his views of Bible prophecy. Darby’s teaching became the mainstay of the Plymouth Brethren Movement that enjoyed its golden era from 1830 to 1845. From that time on the movement became so exclusive that it nearly excluded itself out of existence.

But by 1875 there arose what is called the Keswick Movement which was a series of deeper life conferences at Keswick, England, that began to spread the teachings of Darby beyond the limits of the Brethren assemblies. One of the proponents of the Darbian idea of eschatology was C. I. Scofield who published the Scofield Reference Bible with its corresponding notes conveniently placed along side of scripture. During recent years the Darbian view has been popularized through the publication of many books that date back to early Brethren writers. Read any of the twenty-five foremost deeper life writers in print today, and you are reading the teachings of John Nelson Darby.

Today, the American public is being deluged by this teaching through books, Bible schools, and the pulpit, saying nothing of the media. It is a form of teaching that appeals to the curiosity of man. Its literalistic approach to scripture is more understandable to the human mind. But God never intended that the mysteries of God should be understood with the natural mind, but through a revelation of the Spirit upon which Christ has built His Church. The Darbian view promotes the idea of a restored temple at Jerusalem in which the Antichrist will sit ruling the world until Christ comes with His saints to depose him from his throne.

The teachings of Darby have changed the dynamics of the Christian Church in placing Israel and the temple at the center of God’s purpose and relegating the Antichrist to a single individual. Such a view would be more indicative of Jerusalem before Jesus came the first time when a false priesthood did sit in the temple of Jerusalem. Indeed, what happened at Jerusalem with its false priesthood sitting in the Temple of Herod is an exact pattern of what happened to the spiritual Temple, the Church that Paul referred to.

What is strange about the whole thing is how quickly the Protestant Church forgot the lessons learned by the Reformation. Dr. H. Grattan Guiness confirms the view held by C. H. H Wright that this Futurist view of eschatology that In its present form it may be said to have originated at the end of the sixteenth century with the Jesuit Ribera, who, moved like Alcazar to relieve the Papacy from the terrible stigma cast upon it by the Protestants interpretation, tried to do so by referring these prophecies to the distant future, instead of, like Alcazar, to the distant past.² Revelation E. B. Elliott, in his commentary says: The Futurist scheme was first, or nearly first, propounded about 1590 by the Jesuit Ribera, as the fittest one whereby to turn aside the Protestant application of the Apocalyptic prophecy from the Church of Rome.³ If the Futurist, and consequently the Darby view of Eschatology is a scheme of the Jesuits, then a great part of Protestantism has fallen right into it. The Futurist and the preterist views of eschatology avoid a confrontation with the present, hence more acceptable by the faint of heart. The Protestant Reformation was a confrontation with the errors and the abominations of Rome, not an escape into the future or an escape into the past. The Reformation Fathers based their doctrine on historical and scriptural truth, and they gave their lives defending it. That is not to say that the Reformation brought a complete restoration of truth, but it did restore the original foundation of justification by faith, and the unwavering belief that the Catholic Church had departed from the faith, hence, the seat of Antichrist.

It is not my purpose here to open old wounds. The Thirty Years War is long past, and the Catholic Church is no longer the Church of the middle Ages. But that does not necessarily remove its culpability as a Church that once knew the power of God. Not only did that Church leave its original foundation laid by Christ and His apostles, but it incorporated into its structure the paganism of Rome. The world today is still being impacted by its defection from the truth and that goes also for the Jesuits, who, in their attempt to deflect the claims of the Protestants, have given birth to another scheme of eschatology which surprisingly is being adopted by a large segment of the Evangelical Movement.

It is not my intention at this stage to go into detail about the Preteristic, or the Futuristic interpretation of Bible prophecy. The only view that makes any sense to me is that taken by the Historicists whose view of Bible prophecy is that view taken by the Reformation Fathers. There is no way that I shall ever be able to improve on the research of these great scholars other than to show what has been happening since their time. But I do believe that certain historic landmarks are being removed from present day eschatology that has led to a false direction for the Church. For this reason, I have ventured into the fray with the hope of persuading some of God’s children to re-examine their theology and not be carried away by the present day theatrics of so called Bible Prophecy.

Notes

1. C. H. H. Wright, Daniel and his Prophecies, William and Norgate, 1906

2. H. Grattan Guiness, Approaching End of the Age

3. E. B. Elliott, Horae Apocalyptica

I. THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME - ANTICHRIST

The biblical meaning of the word Antichrist occurs only in the Johannine Epistles, but there are parallel occurrences in the Apocalypse, in the Pauline Epistles, and less explicit ones in the Gospels and the Book of Daniel.

The Johannine Epistles

There are certain indications that there already existed among the Jews a teaching about a coming man of sin, or Antichrist, e.g., You have heard that Antichrist cometh (I John 2:18): This is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh (I John 4:3).

It is evident by John’s statement that such an idea already existed among the people, perhaps from Apocryphal literature, or the Book of Daniel. But John also makes it clear that there existed in his day those who had the spirit of Antichrist. For many seducers are gone out into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: this is a seducer and an Antichrist (2 John 7). Again John says he is now already in the world (I John 4:13). John recognized that this so called Antichrist would arise from among false brethren who had joined themselves to the Body of Christ much in the same way that Judas was one of the Twelve Apostles. John says: They went out from us, but they were not of us (I John 2:19).

There were many in John’s day who accepted Jesus as their Messiah, but who denied the incarnation. They accepted Jesus only as a son of Joseph and Mary who kept the Law of Moses in its entirety, but not as the Son of God. Such a group was the Ebionites who were a thorn in the side for the early Christians. John was here warning the early disciples against such people. Who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is Antichrist, who denies the Father, and the Son (1 John 2:22). It is evident that even in the very beginning of the Christian Church there was the leaven of the Pharisees at work planting error among the Christians that would later develop into a full-blown tree in their midst, the tree of good and evil. In other words, a bastard growth that was only a half truth. Such a bastard growth produces the worst kind of fruit, for while it appears to be good fruit to the natural eye, it actually contains the seeds of spiritual death. It was the kind of fruit that deceived Eve, and it is the kind of fruit that is deceiving millions today. It was the kind of fruit that the Pharisees manifested, for Jesus said to them: "You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For