Andrew of Caesarea offers two possibilities for understanding 2 Thessalonians 2:4. He presents the common (but not unanimous) view among the church fathers that the Antichrist will come from the tribe of Dan, rebuild the Jewish temple and deceive the Jews (and possibly some Christians) into believing that he is the Messiah. He also offers the possibility that the Antichrist will take his seat in the true temple of God--the Christian Church. History has demonstrated that this second interpretation is the correct one. The papacy is the seat of the Antichrist. Because of Luthers own historical situation, he seemed to believe he was living in the very last days. This turned out not to be true but the papacy still bears the marks of the Antichrist given in Scripture. The events of the Reformation prefigure in many ways the events in Revelation but I dont believe we should necessarily view them as the complete fulfillment of them. It seems very likely that those things attributed to the Antichrist will be fulfilled in the future in a more literal way by the papacy. Anyhow, I have some revising of my commentary to do. If you think Ive completely lost my mind, critiques are welcome. Ive noticed that more recent Lutheran commentaries tend to shy away from identifying the Pope with the Antichrist. Luthers interpretation of the seals and other things in Revelation probably arent right but his identification of the Pope with the Antichrist seems pretty solid.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 02:17:26 +0000
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