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22 The Antichrist Most Definitely Is Not a Person!

ters, p. 199). In public challenge Knox said: “As for your Roman Church, as it is now corrupted...I
no more doubt but that it is the synagogue of Satan, and the head thereof, called the Pope, to be that
man of sin whom the apostle speaketh.”

Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575). A friend of Zwingli, Bullinger is regarded as one of the greatest
prophetic expositors of his time. He explained that the kingdom of the popes rose up among the di-
visions of Rome, that the Pope is Antichrist because he usurps the keys of Christ and his kingly and
priestly authority (Froom, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 343-344).

William Tyndale (1484-1536). The first translator of the Bible from Greek to English, Tyndale
was a reformer and martyr who taught that the Papal church was Babylon and that the Pope was the
man of sin or Antichrist, seated in the temple of YEHOVAH, i.e., the church. Repeatedly he cited II
Thessalonians 2 in this regard (ibid., p. 356).

Years later in 1611, the translators of the King James Version of the Bible also recognized
the Papacy as the man of sin and the Catholic Church as Antichrist, and that the open publication of
scriptural truth was dealing a great blow to this Satanic system. Therefore, in their dedication to
King James, they wrote: “...the zeal of your majesty toward the house of God doth not slack or go
backward but is more and more kindled, manifesting itself abroad in the fartherest parts of Christen-
dom by writing a defense of the truth which hath given such a blow to that man of sin as will not be
healed.” It is quite evident these men did not think the man of sin was an individual to be revealed at
some FUTURE time!

John Jewel (1522-1571). One of the great intellectuals of the English reformation, Jewel listed
some of the MISCONCEPTIONS held by the Roman Catholic Church regarding the Antichrist:
that he would be an Israelite of the tribe of Dan, born in Babylonia or Syria, or Mohammed, or that
he would overthrow Rome or rebuild Jerusalem. “These TALES have been craftily devised to
BEGUILE our eyes, that, whilst we think upon these guesses, and so occupy ourselves in beholding
a shadow or probable conjecture of Antichrist, he which is Antichrist indeed may unawares
DECEIVE us.” He was referring, of course, to the Papacy.

Jewel then mentions that if we took the term “man of sin” by itself, we might suppose that an
individual man is meant. But taking all of the evidence into consideration, we understand that a
SUCCESSION of men is the proper understanding. He pointed out that pagan Rome was the hin-
dering power that prevented the development of Antichrist and that “Paul saith, Antichrist shall not
come yet; for the emperor letteth him: the emperor shall be removed; and then shall Antichrist
come.” This system of apostasy shall continue until it is destroyed at the coming of Yeshua. “He
meaneth not, therefore, that Antichrist shall be any one man only, but ONE ESTATE OR
KINGDOM of men, and a continuance of some ONE POWER and tyranny in the church” (Jewel,
An Exposition Upon the Two Epistles to the Thessalonians, Vol. 2, p. 813).

LeRoy E. Froom sums up the evidence in these words: “We have seen the remarkable una-
nimity of belief of Reformation leaders in every land that the Antichrist of prophecy IS NOT to be a
single individual -- some sort of superman -- who will wrack and well-nigh wreck the world just be-
fore the second event of Christ. Instead, they found that it was a VAST SYSTEM OF APOSTASY,

The Berean Voice July-August 2002