Historical View of Antichrist
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Martin Luther (1483-1546) (Lutheran): "Martin Luther was the first to identify the papacy as such with the Antichrist. At first he discounted the value of John's Apocalypse. But then he saw in it a revelation of the Church of Rome as the deceiving Antichrist who secretly served Satan … a view that was to become dogma for all Protestant Churches." Newsweek, November 1, 1999. p. 71.
"Luther... proved, by the revelations of 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 ... And all the people did say, Amen! A holy terror seized their souls. It was Antichrist whom they beheld seated on the pontifical throne. This new idea, which derived greater strength from the prophetic descriptions launched forth by Luther into the midst of his contemporaries, inflicted the most terrible blow on Rome." Taken from J. H. Merle D'aubigne's classic work, History of the Reformation of the Sixteen Century, book 6, chapter 12, p. 215.
On August 20, 1520, Luther declared, "We here are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist." Quoted in LeRoy Froom's monumental work, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 2, p. 121.
John Calvin (1509-1564) (Presbyterian): "Daniel and Paul had predicted that Antichrist would sit in the temple of God. The head of that cursed and abominable kingdom, in the Western Church, we affirm to be the Pope." Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin. Vol. 2, pp. 314, 315 (1561 edition).
"Some persons think us too severe and censorious when we call the Roman pontiff Antichrist. But those who are of this opinion do not consider that they bring the same charge of presumption against Paul himself, after whom we speak and whose language we adopt... I shall briefly show that (Paul's words in II Thess. 2) are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the Papacy." Ibid. p. 410.
John Knox (1505-1572) (Scotch Presbyterian): John Knox wrote about "that tyranny which the pope himself has for so many ages exercised over the church." Along with Martin Luther, Knox finally concluded that the Papacy was "the very antichrist, and son of perdition, of whom Paul speaks." The Zurich letters, by John Knox, p. 199.
Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) (Anglican): "Whereof 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." Taken from Works by Cranmer, Vol. 1, pp. 6-7.
Roger Williams (1603-1683) (First Baptist Pastor in America): Roger Williams spoke of the Pope as "the pretended Vicar of Christ on earth, who sits as God over the Temple of God, exalting himself not only above all that is called God, but over the souls and consciences of all his vassals, yea over the Spirit of Christ, over the Holy Spirit, yea, and God himself...speaking against the God of heaven, thinking to change times and laws; but he is the son of perdition (II Thess. 2)." Quoted in Froom's The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 3, p. 52.
The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647): "There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalteth himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God." Reproduced in The Creeds of Christendom, With a History and Critical Notes, by Philip Schaff. Vol. 3, p. 658, 659, Chapter 25, Sec. 6.
Cotton Mather (1663-1728) (Congregational Theologian): "The oracles of God foretold the rising of an Antichrist in the Christian Church: and in the Pope of Rome all the characteristics of that Antichrist are so marvelously answered that if any who read the Scriptures do not see it, there is a marvelous blindness upon them." The Fall of Babylon, by Cotton Mather. Quoted in Froom's book, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. 3, p. 113.
John Wesley (1703-1791) (Methodist): Speaking of the Papacy, John Wesley wrote, "He is in an emphatic sense, the Man of Sin, as he increases all manner of sin above measure. And he is, too, properly styled the Son of Perdition, as he has caused the death of numberless multitudes, both of his opposers and followers... He it is...that exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped...claiming the highest power, and highest honor...claiming the prerogatives which belong to God alone." Antichrist and His Ten Kingdoms, by John Wesley, p. 110.
A Great Cloud of Witnesses: "Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, Cranmer; in the seventeenth century, Bunyan, the translators of the King James Bible and the men who published the Westminster and Baptist confessions of Faith; Sir Isaac Newton, Wesley, Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards; and more recently 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." Taken from All Roads Lead to Rome, by Michael de Semlyen. Dorchestor House Publications, p. 205. (1991).