Facts of Faith

All Agreed On Antichrist

Up to the close of the Reformation God’s people were generally agreed that the Papacy was the Antichrist foretold in prophecy. The Waldenses taught it. (See page 122) About 1384 A. D. John Wycliffe wrote a book against the papal system entitled: “Of Antecrist and His Meynee.” In fact, the English Reformers, - Tyndale, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, - all agreed in pointing to the Papacy as the Antichrist. John Huss of Bohemia, in his “De Anatomia Antichristi,” did the same. Turning to Germany we find Dr. Martin Luther strong in his convictions on this subject. He says: FAFA 199.6

“The Pope is ... the true Antichrist, of whom it is written, that he sitteth in the temple of God, among the people where Christ is worshiped.... FAFA 199.7

“But Papists want to divert this passage from themselves, and they say that Christ and Paul speak about the temple at Jerusalem, and that Antichrist shall sit there and rule; that will not do..... It cannot be understood otherwise than of the new spiritual temple, which he says we are. FAFA 200.1

“There shall the Pope sit and he honored, not above God, but above all that is called God.... So also we see it before our eyes, that many princes and the world regard his law higher and more than the commandments of God.... Cannot this rightly be termed exalting and honoring Antichrist above God?” — “Luther’s Church Postil,” “Gospels,” 25th Sunday after Trinity, par. 24, 25, Part 2, pp. 734, 735. Stavanger, Norway: 1862. FAFA 200.2

Luther further declares: FAFA 200.3

“Therefore, let whosoever will doubt, God’s word and the proper divine worship convinces me sufficiently that the Pope is the Antichrist, and the ecclesiastical orders are his disciples, which deceive the whole world.” — Id., Part 1, p. 379. FAFA 200.4

“I hope that the last day is at the door. Things could not become worse than the Roman see makes it. It suppresses the commandments of God, it exalts its own commandments above God’s. If this is not Antichrist, then some one else must tell what it is.” — “Luther’s Reformatory Works,” p. 280. Copenhagen: 1883. FAFA 200.5

“The Pope is the real Antichrist.” — Id., p. 278. FAFA 200.6

Dr. Charles H. H. Wright, in speaking of the Bible prophecy of “antichrist,” says: FAFA 200.7

“In all ages of the Church, from the days of Gregory the Great down to the present, men have pointed to the Papacy as the fulfillment of the prophecy. That interpretation is set forth in the Homilies of the Church of England and by all the Reformed Churches. The interpretation, however, has been ignored or rejected by critics, for reasons which need not be specified. It can, however, stand all the tests of criticism.” —

“Daniel and His Prophecies,” p. 168. London: 1906. (See also Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. I, p. 561, art. “Antichrist.”) FAFA 201.1