Man of Sin

Kim Riddlebarger

Description

The doctrine of the Antichrist is one of the most interesting doctrines found in Scripture, says author Kim Riddlebarger. Unfortunately, it's also one which has been subject to far more speculation than sound biblical exegesis. Until now.Unlike other resources available on the Antichrist, The Man of Sin focuses on Scripture, not contemporary events, to uncover the truth about this mysterious entity. With skilled exegesis Riddlebarger asserts that, contrary to popular speculation, the Antichrist is not a singular individual but a series of beings that will arise to challenge Christ throughout the inter-advental age before culminating in an end-times Antichrist. Backing this claim first in Scripture, Riddlebarger also draws from historical teachings including those of the church fathers, the Reformation, and historic Protestantism, before contrasting this evidence to the sensational interpretations of many contemporary writers. Pastors, teachers, and study groups wanting to understand the doctrine of the Antichrist will find The Man of Sin to be a unique and comprehensive study.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441202123
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

© 2006 by Kim Riddlebarger
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2010
Ebook corrections 08.16.2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-0212-3
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked NASB is taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture marked NEB is taken from The New English Bible . Copyright © 1961, 1970, 1989 by The Delegates of Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission.
Scripture marked RSV is taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
C ONTENTS
Cover
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
A Word of Thanks
Introduction
1. A Morbid Curiosity: Misconceptions about Antichrist
2. Forerunners of the Antichrist: The Old Testament Background to the Doctrine of Antichrist
3. The Doctrine of Antichrist in the New Testament Era: Some Preliminary Considerations
4. Many Antichrists Have Already Come: The Doctrine of Antichrist in the Epistles of John
5. The Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet: The Doctrine of Antichrist in the Book of Revelation
6. The Man of Lawlessness: The Doctrine of Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12
7. Know Your Enemy: The Antichrist in Church History
8. The Antichrist: Figure of the Past or Future Foe?
Appendix: The Date of the Writing of the Book of Revelation
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Ad
Back Cover
A W ORD OF T HANKS
While I have been thinking about this topic for many years, the idea for this book was conceived during a church-planting conference in Reno, Nevada, when Dr. Robert Godfrey, president of Westminster Seminary California, gave a fascinating lecture on the millennial views of the seventeenth century. Not only did Dr. Godfrey suggest helpful ways to resolve some of the issues in the amil-postmil debate: he briefly touched on some of the Antichrist speculation of the English Puritans. Godfrey’s lecture led me to Christopher Hill’s book Antichrist in Seventeenth Century England , 1 and I was off and running.
A word of thanks goes to those of you who endured my lectures and public musings on this topic, as well as to the consistory of Christ Reformed Church for giving me the time to complete my research. Thanks, as always, go to the White Horse Inn crew, Michael Horton, Rod Rosenbladt, and Ken Jones, for all of the stimulating discussion. Thanks also to our producer, Shane Rosenthal, for his helpful suggestions and corrections with the manuscript. Thanks to my wife, Micki, for managing to put up with all the “creepy” books lying around the house while I was doing my research. Thanks also to our church administrator, Winona Taylor (the “church lady”), for all of her help and proofreading of the manuscript.
Thanks also to Don Stephenson, my editors Chad Allen and Paul Brinkerhoff, and the rest of the kind folks at Baker for letting me do this!
I NTRODUCTION
We live in an age when far too many Christians learn their doctrine from Christian novels and from American popular culture. This is a sad situation because Christians are supposed to learn their doctrine from the pages of Holy Scripture. One doctrine where far too much Christian thinking is informed by Christian fiction and popular culture than by Holy Scripture is the doctrine of the Antichrist. The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth about the Antichrist seeks to be a corrective to this unfortunate situation.
In those circles where Christians are especially interested in Bible prophecy and the relationship between current events and end times, it is common to hear people engaging in speculation about the dreaded archenemy of Jesus Christ. Is the Antichrist already alive? How will he deceive Israel into making a peace treaty with the nations of a revived Roman Empire? Will Christians be around to face this dreaded foe? Or will they be removed from the earth by the rapture before the seven-year tribulation begins, leaving only those “left behind” to face the wrath of Antichrist? 1 What is the “mark of the beast”? Is it tied to some current form of technology? How will this mark be applied to all those who serve the Antichrist and do his bidding? And what about the mysterious number 666? Can we “crack the code” and use this number to identify the Antichrist before he shows himself in public? These are all common, interesting, and important questions.
Much of this kind of speculation is promoted by adherents of dispensational premillennialism, which is the system of understanding the end times set forth in the hugely successful Left Behind novels written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Sadly, the dispensational approach to biblical prophecy generally, and to the doctrine of Antichrist specifically, has drifted far afield from the teaching of Scripture and from the way in which Christians throughout the ages have understood this doctrine.
The church fathers, by and large, believed that the Antichrist would be an apostate Jew who would appear after the fall of the Roman Empire and who would claim to be the Messiah in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. The medieval church was rife with speculation regarding the Antichrist. After the time of Constantine and the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, any foe who attacked Christendom was labeled “Antichrist”—from the marauding Vandals and Huns, who threatened to sack the city of Rome, to the armies of Muhammad from the east, sweeping throughout the Mediterranean and threatening Christendom with conquest and subjugation. But as Christendom suffered repeated military and political setbacks and needed almost constant reform from internal corruption and apathy, there were those who actually dared to think it possible that the Antichrist might arise from within. Perhaps Antichrist would be a pope who would somehow manage to deceive the faithful before truth finally prevailed.
The Reformers and their theological descendants were of one mind on this subject: the Antichrist is the pope—the so-called “historicist” interpretation. Since the pope claimed to be the Vicar of Christ and promulgated doctrines Protestants did not believe to be biblical, the pope was considered the Man of Sin foretold by Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians (2 Thess. 2:3). In response, Roman Catholic theologians argued that the pope could not be the Antichrist because the manifestation of the Antichrist was yet future. It was Protestantism, Rome argued, with its undermining of church authority and sacred tradition that was actually preparing the way for Antichrist’s appearance.
While the majority of popular Christian writers today who address the subject believe that there is an Antichrist yet to be revealed, as do I, an increasing number of writers (preterists of various sorts) contend that the Antichrist has already been revealed at the time of the cataclysmic events associated with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple by the Roman legions in AD 70. Preterists (those who believe most of the prophecies of the New Testament have already been fulfilled and who thus see all the NT, not just Revelation, through this lens) are quite correct to take seriously the “time is near” language throughout the New Testament (e.g., Rev. 1:3), unlike the dispensationalists, who push most prophetic fulfillment off into the distant future. But preterists are quite wrong to assert that the events of AD 70 exhaust those prophecies related to our Lord’s second advent. Rather, these prophecies speak of events that precede our Lord’s coming at the end of the age or are directly tied to it, including those prophecies that deal with Antichrist. Many preterists believe that Nero was the Antichrist (the beast). This would mean that the Antichrist is not a future foe; he is a relic of history. The Antichrist has already made his appearance on the scene and has been defeated by the power of Christ and his kingdom.
A word of clarification about preterism is in order, since we shall be referring to the “preterist” interpretation throughout this study. So-called “full” or “hyper” preterists believe that the Lord returned in AD 70, ending the curse and bringing about a nonbodily resurrection and the final judgment—a position too extreme for so-called “partial” preterists, who believe that while Christ returned in judgment upon Israel in AD 70, he will nevertheless return again bodily at the last day to raise the dead and judge the world. Since hyper-preterism denies both the bodily resurrection of believers and the bodily advent of our Lord at his second coming, hyper-preterism is heretical. Partial preterism, however, is not heretical and is held by many Reformed and evangelical Christians. 2 Throughout this study I speak of preterism in the generic sense of those who tie the fulfillment of the prophecies regarding Antichrist directly to the events of AD 70.
Given the nature of this topic—always controversial and often prone to wild speculation—my goal is to examine the biblical data regarding the Antichrist and the way in wh