The Man of Sin

 •  9 min. read  •  grade level: 8
 
Men are abandoning the Christian faith, and large numbers, rapidly increasing, are giving up all real belief in Christ.
What is to be the end of it all? Will Christianity survive when robbed of every Christian doctrine? If Christ, the true Christ of God, be abandoned, who will take His place?
When Jesus was on earth He said to the unbelieving Jews, “I am come in My Father’s name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (John 5:4343I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. (John 5:43)). And why did they not receive Him? Was it from lack of evidence as to who He was? Not at all. The most ample testimony had been borne to Him, so that they were with., out excuse. Four unimpeachable witnesses declared that He was the Son of God, viz.—
John—verse 33
Christ’s own works – verse 36
The Father Himself—verse 37
The Scriptures—verse 39
And yet, notwithstanding all this accumulated evidence, Jesus has sorrowfully to declare, “Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life” (vs. 40).
Ah! here lay the secret of the whole matter, Man’s will was astray from God, and, further, “How can ye believe, which receive Honor one of another” (vs. 44)?
Two great principles therefore hinder faith and produce unbelief, and these are (1) a will at enmity against God, and (2) the fear of man, and the desire to stand well with his fellow. These principles are at work today distancing men from Christ.
But “If another shall come in his own name,” says the Lord, “him ye will receive” (vs. 43). It is not here distinctly asserted that another will come—other parts of Scripture show us this—but the sorrowful declaration of the Son of God here is, that if another should come and boastfully assert himself, such was the heart of man that he would receive him, while he rejected Him who was meek and lowly.
We propose examining some portions of God’s Word that speak of the coming of this “other one”; but we would do so in the fear of the Lord, deeply convinced that we are bordering on the very times when all these things may take place.
As we have seen, false teachers had crept in amongst the young converts at Thessalonica, they had been troubled by the thought that “the day of the Lord was present” (vs. 2).1
These evil men had tried to shake their faith by persuading them that the day of the Lord was actually come. This second epistle was written to correct this mistake, and not, as some suppose, to reprove them for waiting for the Lord as though He might come at any moment. They were right in waiting for His coming in the air, but wrong in thinking that the day of the Lord was already come. For before the day of the Lord shall come, three things must take place:
First, the Rapture (ver. 1).
Secondly, the Apostasy (vs. 3).
Thirdly, the Revelation of the man of sin.
At present we confine our attention to the last of these three.
A man is yet to appear upon this earth who is called by the Spirit of God— “that man of sin, the son of perdition.” Awful words! It is a solemn fact that all men are sinners. Both writer and reader are included in that well-known, though much-forgotten, statement of Scripture— “All have sinned” (Rom. 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)). But the distinguishing feature of this man will be that he is “the man of sin.”
He will in every detail be the direct opposite of Christ. Hence he is called the Antichrist.
Christ was “the Holy One and the Just” (Acts 2:27, 3:14, 7:52, 22:14, 1 Peter 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18)). Antichrist will be “the man of sin.” Just as holiness and righteousness characterized the One, so will sin, iniquity, and lawlessness characterize the other.
Jesus, though perfectly a Man, was, nevertheless, God. He was the eternal Son of the eternal God, “who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (Phil. 2:66Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: (Philippians 2:6)).
But Antichrist, who will be a mere man—a man, too, of such an awful character as we have before described—will take the place of God, “so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thess. 2:44Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:4)).
The language of this verse has led many to imagine that the Antichrist is none other than the Pope of Rome, or, at any rate, the Papacy. This we do not for one moment believe. We look with no favor on the Pope, nor do we sympathize with his blasphemous assumption of being the infallible vicar of Christ. We regard his claim to “holiness,” in the light of the hard facts of history, to be more akin to sarcasm than to truth. That the Papacy is marked by arrogance, assumption, and idolatry we fully admit; but for all that there are weighty reasons why we are not able to believe that the Antichrist and the Papacy are identical. These reasons vie proceed to lay before the reader.
There is much in verse 4 that suggests to the mind the idolatrous assumption of the Pope. Without doubt he assumes the place of God, and causes men to bow down before him as though he were God. But does he sit in “the temple of God”? Can St. Peter’s at Rome be called “the temple of God”? Surely not.
The temple is yet to be rebuilt. It will be rebuilt, not at Rome, but at Jerusalem. The mosque of Omar is not to stand forever upon Mount Moriah, nor will the Turk always hold possession of Jerusalem. The prophetic Word most clearly affirms2 that the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem, and that Israel and the Jews will once more be restored to their own land. But they will return in unbelief, and have yet to pass through the time of great tribulation, compared to which all their troubles of the past are as nothing.
No doubt our readers are aware that a movement of some importance has been taking place of late in reference to Palestine and the Jews. Large numbers of Jews have recently returned to their own land, but these for the most part hate Christ and Christianity with a bitter hatred. Such would readily fall under the deceptions of Antichrist, and it will be at Jerusalem, and over apostate Jews, that Antichrist will reign as king.
But, furthermore, whatever may be the errors of the Papacy, and they are neither few nor slight, the denial of the Father and the Son is not one of them; and yet this is a great distinguishing characteristic of the Antichrist. “He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:2222Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. (1 John 2:22)). The Antichrist, therefore, will form a connecting link between apostate Jews and apostate Christendom, for he will deny “that Jesus is the Christ” (Jewish infidelity), and he will deny the Father and the Son, or the special doctrine of Christianity (1 John 2:2222Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. (1 John 2:22)).
Reader, awful as it is to contemplate, these solemn times are near at hand! Infidelity is the order of the day; the denial of the Deity of the Son is widespread; the apostasy is rapidly rising to a head.
Another reason may yet be given why we cannot regard the Antichrist and the Papacy as identical. Few students of Scripture have failed to see in Babylon the Great of Revelation 17 an awful description of a vast ecclesiastical system which has had no parallel in the past outside of the Church of Rome. What religious organization has ever yet held such sway? Kings have bowed down at her footstool; empires have risen or fallen at her will. She has before now controlled the destinies of nations. She is aptly portrayed in the woman sitting upon the scarlet colored beast. We cannot here enlarge upon the many points which go to identify Babylon the Great with Rome, only let the reader observe that she is destined to be judged; but by whom?
In Revelation 17:1616And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. (Revelation 17:16) we read that “the ten horns which thou sawest and [not “upon”] the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.” The tyranny of her ecclesiastical oppression will at last be such that the Roman Empire (the beast), and the various European nations that will compose it in its last and resuscitated form, will rise in revolt and crush her completely. She who has burnt at the stake multitudes of the unresisting followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and who is described by the Spirit of God as “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (vs. 6), is destined herself to meet her well-earned doom at the hands of the beast and the ten kings; whereas these latter are reserved to a later, though not far-distant, period for their complete defeat and overthrow at the hands of the Lamb, who is Lord of lords, and King of kings (vs. 14).
But when and how will the Antichrist meet his awful judgment? Let 2 Thessalonians 2 answer the question. The Lord shall consume him “with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy him with the brightness of His coming.”
Let us for a moment recapitulate our reasons for not identifying the Antichrist with the Papacy.
1. The Antichrist will reign in “the temple of God” at Jerusalem, and not in Rome.
2. The Antichrist will deny that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel, and also will deny the Father and the Son; and neither of these is done by the Papacy.
3. The Antichrist will be destroyed by the brightness of Christ’s appearing when He comes in judgment, whereas the Papacy is doomed to an earlier fate.
But if the Pope be not Antichrist, shall we look elsewhere to find him? We believe the search would be in vain. But is he not alive? To that we reply, He may be. We call the reader’s most serious attention to this point.
(To be continued.)
 
1. The proper rendering of this verse should be, “That ye be not soon shaken in mind... as that the day of the Lord is present (not ‘at hand’).”
2. For a full discussion of this subject the reader is strongly recommended to procure a work entitled “ Plain Papers on Prophetic Subjects,” by the late W. Trotter. Price 4s. 6d. To be had of James Carter, 13 Paternoster Row, London, E.C.