ANTICHRIST IS ANTI-GRACE AND HIS MARK IS THE TEACHING OF WORKS-BASED SALVATION
We will take an aside here to examine some things that will help us identify this pernicious and lawless Antichrist. Going back to a verse we looked at briefly, that being the next verse from the pen of Paul:
“But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Th 2:13)
Remember that Paul is being as wise as a serpent, but as harmless as a dove (Matt. 10:16). He has purposely and openly declared to the Thessalonians who the evil restrainer is (Pagan Rome), but he has done so in a manner that would protect the church from undue persecution. Now, continuing in this fashion, and directly following his statements, he offers a further clue as to the identity of Antichrist:
(1.)That God has CHOSEN and predestined those who would be saved through His own power is a clue to the identity of the one who would be ANTI-CHRIST, because this Antichrist will also deny this critical element of our faith. Paul plainly exhorts the church at Thessalonica that they will not be deceived by this Antichrist, because GOD has chosen his elect, and has decreed that they will identify him. Whereas in verse 10 he plainly states that the un-elect (reprobate) will be deceived about the identity of the Antichrist because God has withheld the BELIEF OF THE TRUTH from them, saying, “they received not the love of the truth”, he now tells us that the gift of BELIEF OF THE TRUTH comes from God and is bestowed upon His elect alone! God has from the beginning chosen those who would be saved by giving them the gifts of sanctification of the Spirit, and BELIEF OF THE TRUTH!
(2.)By identifying the Doctrine of Election with the great deception concerning the identity of Antichrist, Paul further establishes the fact that the Antichrist system will be known principally by its opposition to the Doctrines of Grace.
Let us see if John agrees with this assessment:
“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” (1 John 2:18-22)
In his dissertation on Antichrist, John makes some important statements that we would do well to heed:
(1.) Antichrist (the Man and System) is still to come. John writes this epistle some time between 85-90 a.d., almost 20 years AFTER the destruction of the Jewish Temple. Just as in the book of Revelation, John makes NO MENTION of a current Temple standing in Jerusalem, in fact John’s only mentions of the Temple in the entire book of Revelation regards the Temple that is in heaven. There is no mention of the Jewish Temple AT ALL in John’s epistles, proving that the temple had already been destroyed, and that the revealing of Antichrist, and therefore the Antichrists destruction by the return of Christ was still future.
(2.) John states plainly that the Antichrist system is already in place (although in embryonic form), and that the System of Antichrist WENT OUT FROM US (verse 19) This agrees with Paul’s statement that the Apostasy was already beginning, and would precede the revealing of Antichrist. This also proves that the Antichrist would come from, and would claim CHRISTIANITY, and that their particular apostasy was one of false doctrine.
(3.) John asserts that the true believer has an UNCTION from the Holy One, and will not remain deceived about the identity of the Antichrist. This agrees with Paul’s teaching that;
a)Election is the key to understanding the identity of Antichrist, and,
b)The Elect will not be deceived because they are to receive this truth through the gift of BELIEF from God.
(4.) John states that we may identify the Antichrist because in doctrine and in action they “denieth the Father and the Son.” This is the evidence that we will examine next.
THE PAPACY DENIES THE FATHER AND THE SON
Let me first state that it is inconsistent and unacceptable that a teacher should commend the Authorized King James Bible as Holy Spirit given, while disdaining the plain statements of its principle human author (William Tyndale) and of its human translators (The King James Translators). We have already shown in our previous essay that the King James Translators identified the Papacy as Antichrist in their introduction to that book. Now let us read the words of Tyndale on this subject from his commentary on the 1st Epistle of John:
“Antichrist is one of the first who sees the light, and who comes and preaches Christ for a while, seeking his glory in Christ’s Gospel. But when he discovers that there will be no glory for himself besides that of preaching, then he goes and preaches that doctrine which is contrary to Christ. If he cannot disguise himself, nor his scheming, whereby his poisoned heresy is hidden under the bait of true doctrine, then is he a professed and open enemy.
The Apostles were clear-eyed and spied Antichrist at once, and put him to flight, weeding out his doctrine quickly. But when charity waxed cold, and the preachers began to seek themselves and to admit glory, and honor of riches, then Antichrist disguised himself after the fashion of a true Apostle and preached Christ with subtlety and cunning, bringing in first this tradition, later that tradition, darkening the doctrine of Christ, and setting up innumerable ceremonies, Sacraments and images, giving them significations at first, but later their signification was set aside, and works were instead preached as holy deeds to justify, to put away sin, and to save the soul. Antichrist taught that men should put their trust in works and whatsoever was unto his glory and profit; and under the name of Christ ministered, leaving Christ out altogether, becoming head of the congregation himself.”
Tyndale goes on to say,
“Christ in the Scripture is called the holy because he only sanctifieth and halloweth us. And he is called Christ, that is to say, anointed, because he anointeth our souls with the holy ghost and with all the gifts of the same. Ye are not anointed with oil in your bodies, but with the spirit of Christ in your souls; which spirit teacheth you all truth in Christ and maketh you to judge what is a lie and what is truth, and to know Christ from Antichrist. For except he taught your souls within, the pouring of words into your ears would be in vain. For they must be all taught of God, John 6:45. And the things of God no man knoweth, save the spirit of God; and the carnal man knoweth not the things of the spirit of God. On the contrary, the spiritual that is anointed with the spirit judgeth all things, 1 Cor. 2:11-15. Therefore, we are forbidden to call any of us Master upon earth, Matt. 23:10, seeing we have all one Master now who is in heaven who only teaches us with his spirit, though by the administration and office of a faithful preacher.”
And specifically concerning Antichrist and the Papacy, Tyndale says,
“Forasmuch as Antichrist and Christ are two contraries, and the endeavor of Antichrist is to quench the name of Christ, [it is asked by our adversaries] how can the Pope and his sects be Antichrist when they all preach Christ? Say I again to thee, how was Pelagius Antichrist, whose doctrine the Pope defendeth in the highest degree, and how were all other heretics Antichrist? Verily, Sylvester the Pope did what all heretics do –- he abused the name of Christ. He gathered offerings, tithes and rents in Christ’s name, bestowing them to his own honor and not Christ’s. He brought the conscience of the people into captivity through superstitious fear, as though such authority was given him by Christ. And every syllable [in Scripture] that sounded as though it fit his purpose, he expoundeth it falsely and fleshly, and therewith deceived and bewitched the ears of the people, making them his own possession, to believe what he wished, as though it made no difference to them if he preached true or false; so they believed and did as he biddeth them.
But all the texts which show the Pope his duty, he puts out of the way, including all the texts which set the conscience at liberty in Christ, as well as those which prove salvation to be in Christ only. With Pelagius he preacheth the justifying of works, which is the denying of Christ. He preacheth a false binding and loosing by confession to a priest which is not [grounded] in the trust and confidence of Christ’s shed blood. He preacheth the false penance of deeds, neglecting to preach that we rein the flesh so that we sin no more. Rather, he teaches that we make satisfaction to redeem our past sins. What else can this be but the denying of Christ, who alone made redemption for our sin? The Pope maketh of the works of the ceremonies, which were customarily used to be signs and remembrances of things to be believed or done, service unto God and his Saints which are spirits, to purchase with their merits whatsoever the blind soul imagines. All are the denying of Christ. For if thou wilt receive an anointing of grace or mercy from anywhere besides Christ, he is no longer Christ unto thee.”
So, concerning the 4th point we made above about John’s identification of Antichrist, Tyndale plainly states:
“Now, though the Pope and his sects give Christ these names, yet they rob him of the effect, taking their significations unto themselves, making of him a hypocrite, as they are themselves. They be right Antichrists who deny both the father and the son. For they deny the witness the father bare unto his son, as they deny the son of all power and glory that his father gave him.”
OCCLUDING THE IDENTITY OF ANTICHRIST – JESUIT PROPHECY TEACHINGS
We have shown previously where the Testimony of the Spirit concerning the identity of the Antichrist is uniform throughout the Church age. The martyrs of Christ, the reformed Bible translators, and the introduction to the Bible itself claim that the Papacy was the seat of Antichrist. Now let us look at how (as prophesied by Paul and John) this Antichrist, working in the spirit of the wicked one, would occlude his identity to those who had not received the gift of a love of the truth.
The Above articles are extracted from the website of Michael Bunker entitled The Doctrine of the Papal Antichrist. You can read the whole article by Clicking HERE.
Antichrist: A Very Present Danger
So then, in popular modern Christian doctrine the restrainer – be it the Church, the Holy Spirit or a political power – is now holding Antichrist back somehow. This doctrine has been aggressively articulated without ambiguity in modern Bible versions. A random sampling:
RSV (1946): For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.
New English Bible (1970): For already the secret power of wickedness is at work, secret only for the present until the Restrainer disappears from the scene.
New Jerusalem Bible (1985): The mystery of wickedness is already at work, but let him who is restraining it once be removed, 8and the wicked One will appear openly.
Any reader of these modern versions must think the Bible teaches that only when the restrainer is removed, or “disappears from the scene (NEB)”, can Antichrist rise to power and be identified. And what fear this causes in some circles, with people searching out who this evil man is going to be! But in fact, though it appears more and more aggressively in modern Bibles, this doctrine of a future Antichrist is not a modern teaching. It is many centuries old, and long predated Tyndale. It is a doctrine that arose early in the Church, and by the 16th century it was apparently as pervasive among Roman Catholics as it is now among Protestants, and also Mormons and other groups.
But William Tyndale departed from the common view. His warnings, which have been forgotten or suppressed, are that Antichrist is a spiritual thing, and always a very present danger. Furthermore, we must watch out for his coming as a Christian imposter. In Christian Churches he will seek authority, professing faith and assuming appearances of faith, but in fact teaching so as to undermine the faith. “Mark this,” Tyndale wrote, “above all things”:
Mark this also above all things – that Antichrist is not an outward thing, that is to say, a man that should suddenly appear with wonders, as our fathers talked of him. No, verily; for Antichrist is a spiritual thing. And is as much to say as against Christ; that is, one that preacheth false doctrine, contrary to Christ.
Antichrist was in the Old Testament, and fought with the prophets; he was also in the time of Christ and the apostles, as thou readest in the Epistles of John, and of Paul to the Corinthians and Galatians, and other Epistles. Antichrist is now, and will, (I doubt not) endure till the world’s end. But his nature is (when he is revealed and overcome with the word of God) to go out of play for a season, and to disguise himself, and then to come in again with new raiment. As thou seest how Christ rebuketh the Scribes and the Pharisees in the gospel, (which were very Antichrists,) saying, Woe be to you, Pharisees, for ye rob widow’s houses; ye pray long prayers under a colour; ye shut up the kingdom of heaven, and suffer them not that would enter in; ye have taken away the key of knowledge; ye make men break God’s commandments with your traditions; ye beguile the people with hypocrisy and such like; Which things all our prelates do, but have yet gotten them new names, and other garments, and are otherwise disguised.
There is a difference in the names between a pope, a cardinal, a bishop, and so forth, and to say a scribe, a Pharisee, a senior [elder] and so forth; but the thing is all one. Even so now, when we have exposed him, he will change himself once more, and turn himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. xi.).17
We can now see how Tyndale’s understanding would have led him to translate 2 Thessalonians 2 as he did, showing the restrainer as presently working the mystery of iniquity. He had looked in all the Scriptures and seen that in the past the work of Antichrist had been accomplished through the religious leaders and false prophets of the Old Testament who locked up God’s word, and then later through the scribes and Pharisees (“very antichrists”) of Jesus’ time. And in his own time it was being accomplished through popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, and monks.
Therefore as to Antichrist’s “new raiment”, should we not take care in our own Churches and professing Christian congregations concerning our own religious leaders and prophets, our pastors, priests, prophets, or elders, no matter by what names they call themselves or how they are clothed? For as Tyndale said, “the thing is all one” – or, in modern parlance, it is all one and the same thing.
Of course I am not suggesting that all pastors, priests, or elders are of Antichrist. They are not, thanks be to God. But we must be alert for signs of Antichrist now. He sends his emissaries to lodge in the branches of Christendom wherever and as high up as they can climb. The apostle Paul said that that which ‘holds back’
was at already work when he wrote. The Scriptures confirm that antichrist was at work in the 1st century and warn of false apostles:
For there are certain craftily crept in (Jude 1:4).
Little children, it is the last time, and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists come already. Whereby we know that it is the last time (1John 2:18).
These false apostles are deceitful workers, and fashion themselves like the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is changed into the fashion of an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his
ministers fashion themselves as though they were the ministers of righteousness (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
What Does Antichrist Withhold? How?
The questions that arise in response to Tyndale’s translation are now evidently answered. His translation again:
3Let no man deceive you by any means, for the Lord comes not, unless there come a departing first, and that sinful man be revealed…6And now you know what withholds, that he might be revealed at his time. 7For the mystery of that iniquity does he already work, which only locks until it be taken out of the way.
(1) What is withheld or locked up? There can only be one answer, for there could only be one thing worthy of Antichrist’s virulent attention: the word of God. For it is only by the true word that men are saved, rescued from captivity to Satan, and given eternal life. Only by the true word may we know God through Christ and worship in spirit and in truth. Nothing is as important as this, for God’s word is Spirit
and it is life (Deut 32:47). Tyndale’s great lament, as we have seen, was that God’s word was so badly locked up by the dominant Church that the people were denied salvation: the Church was apostate and sinful, was murderously opposed to reformation, and was teaching salvation by false means such as fasting, penance, and the purchase of indulgences. Tyndale wrote:
The kingdom of heaven, which is the scripture and word of God, may be so locked up, that he which readeth or heareth it cannot understand it: as Christ testifieth how the scribes and Pharisees had so shut it up (Matthew 23) and taken away the key of knowledge (Luke 11) that the Jews, who thought themselves within, were yet locked out, and are to this day, so that they cannot understand a sentence of the scripture unto their salvation.
Antichrist is ever seeking reason and occasion to suppress the word: it must be kept in Latin; it must be interpreted only according to his decrees; it must be locked away behind the Book of Mormon or the Watchtower. It is darkened by occult doctrine, as among the Charismatics. It is darkened by purpose-driven doctrine. It is denied by a ‘wiser’ morality that would affirm homosexuality, etc.
Antichrist will also suppress or destroy those things which serve the word and the faith of the word, such as the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion. These are diminished or distorted by false teaching, they are ignored or carelessly performed, or they are made the objects of false traditions: in times past, some persons delayed baptism until near death in order to avoid condemnation for later sin, and some insisted on nude immersion.
In the 16th century the Roman Church had so fallen that its tradition was to minister the Lord’s Supper only once per year, and then only the bread, keeping the cup for the priests. The service was glossed with superstitious notions, and whatever truth remained in the liturgy was lost because it was given in Latin. Thus Holy Communion, God’s ordained means of grace whereby we receive of and commune with the Living Word himself, was locked up and shut away. Nowadays the
Jehovah Witnesses, like their avowed enemies the Roman Catholics before them, will only celebrate the Lord’s Supper once a year. To such persons the Reformation martyr Thomas Cranmer wrote:
“In the beginning, when men were most godly and most fervent in the Holy Spirit, then they received the Communion daily. But when the Spirit of God began to be more cold in men’s hearts and they waxed more worldly than godly, then their desire was not so hot to receive the Communion as it was before… But to them that live godly, it is the greatest comfort that in this world can be imagined; and the more godly a man is, the more sweetness and spiritual pleasure and desire he shall have often to receive it.”18
Antichrist further suppresses Christian feast days – holidays, or “holy days” as Tyndale called them – cunningly characterizing them as false traditions, or, a thing very common today, as pagan. Thus ‘Easter’ becomes an evil word, and Christians fear that they are being unfaithful to the Lord if they celebrate Christmas. The Puritans, Jehovah Witnesses, and even some Evangelicals, do
greatly err when they anathematize and suppress Christmas as a pagan festival, thereby abetting the suppression of the knowledge of the incarnation of Christ. O what a subtle beast is the serpent! Indeed the subtlest of the beasts in the field.
Behold: that is false which suppresses the Gospel, not that which celebrates it. Examples of false
traditions are the preaching and sale of indulgences for salvation, or ministering Holy Communion once per year – not celebrating the birth of Christ. Further, even if Christmas were a problem, which it isn’t, the Apostle Paul said that no matter how Christ was preached, he rejoiced (Phil 1:18). But Antichrist will not suffer us to show forth or remember holy things, and leads us astray with
objections which have the appearance of piety, but serve only to suppress the faith. Beware objections that do not in reality serve the faith!
Tyndale's view on sacraments is worthy of consideration. He recognized baptism and the Lord’s Supper as supreme and divinely instituted, by which we, through faith, may receive grace for remission of sin through Jesus Christ our Lord. But he also regarded any “visible sign,” practice, or ceremony that could stir up faith
as a lesser sacrament of sorts, because it “provokes us and helps our weak faith”.19 This would include the observance of holy days, which are visible and public signs, especially when meaningfully celebrated, and which he obviously treasured in the Church’s calendar.20 He recognized also marriage,21 fasting,22 and more.23 Anything that puts us in mind of holy things and helps our faith may therefore be called sacramental, provided of course it is not to be understood in the same way as baptism and the Lord’s Supper, nor given superstitious “signification” or meaning. Tyndale further wrote that those who suppress or distort the sacraments are “destroyers”:
O a merciful God, and a most loving Father, how careth he for us! First, above all and beside all his other benefits, to give us his own Son Jesus, and with him to give us himself and all; and not content therewith, but to give us so many sacraments or visible signs, to provoke us and to help our weak faith, and to keep his mercy in mind: as baptism, the sacrament of his body and blood, and as many other sacraments as they will have, if they put significations to them (for we destroy none, but they destroy who have put out the significations, or feigned some [that have no meaning].24
Sacraments and holy days serve and support the faith and the word; therefore they become the targets of Antichrist along with God’s word.
(2) Who or what withholds God’s word? Who “locks” it? In the earth, the only ones who could do so are those who have control of it, those who possess it. Historically this has meant professing Churches of Judaism and Christianity. Thus Antichrist works the mystery of iniquity through a Church that wrongly keeps the word from men through persecutions, by withholding the Gospel, or through false teaching (as Tyndale would say, “false glosses”: distortion, diminishment, false interpretations, false applications).
Here we see the significance of the second sense of katÄ•cho: Antichrist possesses and locks up; he seizes control over the written word and then withholds it by various means, or he assumes authority as holy teacher and then locks its true sense away by false teaching. One of the most insidious forms of withholding is to provide all kinds of “bible teaching”, even much talk about the Gospel and the need for the Gospel, but to never actually give the Gospel. In such congregations the people may hear much that they think to be biblical, but they never hear the message of the great salvation bought for us by the blood of the Lamb. And yet that great preacher, the apostle Paul, determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified when he was among the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 2:2).
(3) Why is Antichrist referred to as ‘he’ or a ‘man’ if Antichrist never will be one particular individual? Or, how can Antichrist also be many antichrists as related by the apostle John (1 John 2:18)? Tyndale’s answer, as we saw above, is that Antichrist is a spiritual thing. ‘He’ is a spiritual power, often personified in Scriptures. He is opposed to Jesus Christ. He works through men. One of his major works in the last days, since Jesus rose from the dead and returned to be with the Father, is to profess faith in Christ while cunningly destroying Christ’s witness and testimony.
Antichrist and the iniquity he works are, of course, of Satan, the father of lies and implacable enemy of God, mankind, and truth. This writer is not a Greek scholar, but it is perhaps noteworthy that the Greek word translated ‘man’ in the ‘sinful man’ of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 is anthropos, which generally refers to the human face or countenance and is used to distinguish man from other species or orders,25 or the things of man from other things, but not to identify an individual. As Tyndale understood it, spiritual Antichrist ‘has’ a human face and assumes a human face, for he has power and dominion over men, and he works in earth through men against Christ to keep or lead all people (if it were possible) away
from God’s word. So then, Antichrist is not any single man, although he may be epitomized in certain men (or women), who at times are referred to as ‘very antichrists.’ Or an unfaithful and apostate person who is the head or highest ruler might be referred to as ‘the Antichrist,’ because in him the forces of darkness wield supreme authority.
When Martin Luther and William Tyndale lived and wrote, Christendom, though fraught with sects and division, was under a supreme and fierce pontiff who, by his laws, deeds, and doctrine, his indulgences, dispensations, inquisitions, and burnings, was revealed as the Antichrist of that kingdom. The power of any pope to hurt, burn, and maim has been diminished, but it will ever remain that antichrists may be among us, wielding greater or lesser power as they advance within their own kingdoms, secret traitors to the true faith, in a Christendom that is now greatly divided along denominational lines and scattered around the globe. The apostle John warned almost 20 centuries before our time, “Little children it is the last time, and as ye have heard how that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists come already. Whereby we know that it is the last time (1Joh 2:18).” We live in the last time of which the beloved apostle spoke, and if we believe him, we know to look out for “many antichrists.”
(4) How is the mystery of iniquity taken out of the way? It is ultimately by restoring truth that the mystery of iniquity is taken out of the way and Antichrist’s grip is broken, at least for the time being. This happened when the Lord came in the flesh in the 1st century. By then the departing had come, the apostasy of verse 3:
Let no man deceive you by any means, for the Lord comes not, unless there come a departing first, and that sinful man be revealed, the son of perdition which is an adversary, and is exalted above all that is called God, or that is worshipped: so that he shall sit as God in the temple of God, and show himself as God.
When the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees reigned in Jerusalem at Christ’s first coming, the Scriptures had been locked up, or “shut up”, by the teaching of those blind guides:
M’t 23:13: Woe be unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven before men: ye yourselves go not in, neither suffer ye them that come, to enter in.
M’t 23:16-19: Woe be unto you blind guides, which say whosoever swear by the temple, it is nothing: but whosoever swear by the gold of the temple, he offendeth. Ye fools and blind: which is greater, the gold
or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And whosoever sweareth by the altar, it is nothing: but whosoever sweareth by the offering that lieth on the altar, offendeth. Ye fools and blind: which is greater, the offering or
the altar which sanctifieth the offering?
Jesus taught his apostles great truths, and the Holy Spirit opened great mysteries to them. Then they taught others by preaching and by pen – despite the roaring of Antichrist against them. Through their faithful teaching the iniquity worked by false prophets in Judaism was taken out of the way for a time.
But the time of the pure and true faith was to pass, and apostolic teaching was progressively shut up by the Roman Church as the centuries progressed, until the full departure, or apostasy, of Tyndale’s era manifestly revealed Antichrist. Then Antichrist’s withholding was taken out of the way once more in the Reformation of the 16th century, during more times of roaring and intense struggle, when God through men like Martin Luther, William Tyndale, and Thomas Cranmer (to mention only a few of many) restored truth and brought much light to bear again upon the Scriptures and the sacraments. But then the process of locking up began again. The light has been darkened, often gravely so, in a great many places, including in so-called evangelical and Protestant Churches, let alone among such groups as the Mormons, Christadelphians, Christian Scientists, Jehovah Witnesses, and so on.
Therefore Tyndale taught that the restoration of truth is the “coming of the Lord” referred to in verse 2:3. He comes in truth to and for those who love truth. He comes notably when apostasy is at its worst. Apostasy displays the man of sin, Antichrist, for those who have eyes to see. Then comes the Lord through his prophets and faithful servants. This cycle has been repeated in world history, and we might expect it to end only with the Lord’s final and most glorious coming.
In my view, the withholding power of the man of sin may also be considered to be at least partly taken out of the way when his power and authority to persecute and suppress the saints is diminished.
A few final notes before leaving this section:
(1) A perhaps unintended difference between the KJV and Tyndale is at verse 2:4. Speaking of Antichrist, Tyndale put that he will sit as God in the temple of God, and show himself as God. This is logical, saying that Antichrist would make a display of himself as if he were God. Obviously he would be showing himself to others. But the KJV says (due to archaic or ungrammatical syntax or punctuation
perhaps?) that Antichrist shows himself to himself: “showing himself that he is God.” This rendering might put us off guard: if Antichrist’s posturing is inward only, why would we be concerned about the outward?
(2) Consider verse 2:3, where both Tyndale and the KJV committee supplied words that were missing in the Greek. Tyndale: the Lord comes not, unless there come a departing first, and that
sinful man be revealed…
With “the Lord comes not”, Tyndale used what grammarians call a “timeless present tense”. It points us neither to the future nor to the past, but simply makes a statement about when it is that the Lord comes, and thereby allows for one or more comings. This enables the understanding of the historical cycle of apostasy that we see in the Scriptures – the coming of the Lord in truth whenever apostasy is full blown. It also allows for the final coming.
However the King James Version is worded such that it points to the future, to a day that is yet to come: that day shall not come, unless there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed…
‘That’ in the KJV verse is a demonstrative adjective pointing out a particular day for consideration, and ‘shall’ is generally understood in the future tense, thus looking to a future day of apostasy and setting up the expectation of a future Antichrist.
In conclusion, I submit that Tyndale’s 1534 rendition of the man of sin passages in 2 Thessalonians 2 is logical, clear, internally consistent, and realistic. It admits of no ambiguity. It makes preeminent sense given the primacy of place that the Scriptures claim for themselves in true faith. It makes sense given what was historically evident in the Church when Tyndale wrote. And it makes sense considering what the Scriptures teach about the course of God’s word in the hands of men, who will ever apostatize.
Tyndale understood where we must spy out Antichrist: he was slain by a Church that called itself ‘holy’. But what a hard teaching it is, the mystery of iniquity that may be worked by Antichrist through a professing Christian Church. True, most of us in the West no longer suffer the vicious inquisitions and tribulations that Tyndale and so many others did. But seasons of relative peace ought not to blind
us to the warnings and proofs of history and of the Scriptures. The beast does not always show himself a wolf, but may speak like a lamb. We must watch and awake as the Scriptures do exhort us, so that we may remain among the faithful.
The Articles Above are extracted from the eBook entitled Tyndale’s Doctrine of Antichrist And His Translation of 2 Thessalonians 2 By R. M. Davis. You can Download and Read the whole book by Clicking HERE in PDF FORMAT or you can visit NewMatthewBible.org for more articles.
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