“Who is the Antichrist?”

 

Prepared by Darryl Eberhart, Editor of ETI & TTT Newsletters // Website: www.toughissues.org

A 1-Page Handout about the Antichrist // All emphasis is mine unless otherwise stated. // January 1, 2011

 

            “Some persons think us too severe and censorious when we call the Roman pontiff Antichrist.

            I shall briefly show that ([Ed.: the Apostle] Paul’s words in II Thessalonians [Ed.: Chapter] 2) are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the Papacy.” – John Calvin (1509-1564; French Protestant reformer)

 

            “Wherefore it followeth Rome to be the seat of antichrist, and the pope to be very antichrist himself. I could prove the same by many other Scriptures, old writers, and strong reasons.” – Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556; English churchman; archbishop of Canterbury; burned at the stake during the reign of Queen Mary I)

 

            [Ed.: German theologian and Reformation leader Martin] Lutherproved, by the revelations of [Ed.: the prophet] Daniel and St. John, by the epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Jude, that the reign of Antichrist, predicted and described in the Bible, was the Papacy.” – J.H. Merle D’Aubigné (“History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century”)

 

            [Ed.: John] Wycliffe, [Ed.: William] Tyndale, [Ed.: Martin] Luther, [Ed.: John] Calvin, [Ed.: Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas] Cranmer; [Ed.: and] in the seventeenth century, [Ed.: John] Bunyan, the translators of the King James Bible and the men who published the Westminster and Baptist confessions of Faith; [Ed.: and] Sir Isaac Newton, [Ed.: John] Wesley, [Ed.: George] Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards; and more recently [Ed.: Charles Haddon] Spurgeon, Bishop J.C. Ryle and Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones; these men, among countless others, all saw the office of the Papacy as the antichrist.” – Michael de Semlyen (All Roads Lead to Rome?: The Ecumenical Movement”; Publisher: Dorchester House Publications; 1993; Pages 197, 198)

 

            [Ed.: The Pope of Rome is] the very antichrist, and ‘son of perdition’, of whom [Ed.: the Apostle] Paul speaks.” – John Knox (1505-1572; Scottish Protestant clergyman and religious reformer)

 

            “We here are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist.” – Martin Luther (1483-1546; Former Augustinian monk and Roman Catholic priest; German theologian and Reformation leader)

 

            “There are two great truths that stand out in the preaching that brought about the Protestant Reformation – the ‘just shall live by faith’ (not by the works of Romanism or any other religion) and ‘the Papacy is the Antichrist revealed in Scripture.’ It was a message for Christ and against Antichrist. The entire [Ed.: Protestant] Reformation rested on this twofold testimony

            Iain Murray, in his book ‘The Puritan Hope’, described the Reformers as ‘unanimous in their belief’ that the Papal system is both the ‘man of sin’ and the Babylonian whore of which Scripture forewarns. [Ed.: Papal] Rome was the great Antichrist, and so firmly did this belief become established that it was not until the nineteenth century that evangelicals seriously questioned it.” – Michael de Semlyen (“The Foundations Under Attack: The Roots of Apostasy”; Publisher: Dorchester House Publications; 2006; Page 3)

 

            “If you do not contend with your whole heart against the impious government of the Pope, you cannot be saved. Whoever takes delight in the religion and worship of popery will be eternally lost in the world to come.

            If you reject it [Ed.: i.e., popery, Romanism], you must expect to incur every kind of danger, even to lose your lives – but it is far better to be exposed to such perils in the world than to keep silence! So long as I live, I will denounce to my [Ed.: Christian] brethren the sore and the plague of Babylon [Ed.: i.e., Papal Rome – the Romish “Babylon”] for fear that many who are with us should fall back like the rest into the bottomless pit.” – Martin Luther (1483-1546; Former Augustinian monk and Roman Catholic priest; German theologian and Reformation leader; this quote is taken from the “History of the Reformation of the 16th Century” by J.H. Merle D’Aubigné; Volume 15, Page 208)

 

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