The Antichrist and Apostasy

It seems to most of us that history and present day news is filled with examples of lawless ones, men and women who make their own laws about what is right and what is wrong. And yet the Apostle Paul writes to the young Thessalonian congregation (2 Thess. 2:8) about the lawless one ! And he doesn't seem to write about this personage in any of his other letters. What in all the world is he getting at? Time to do a little digging.

We must assume that Scripture interprets Scripture since all of it is given to us by the revealing work of the Holy Spirit. Problem: nowhere else is there a single passage about this lawless one. So we must examine the context for clues. What was Paul writing about?

He wants to comfort the Thessalonians who had heard that the LORD Jesus had already come, the final Day of the LORD had already arrived. No, not at all. Can't be, said Paul. First must come the rebellion. What? Rebels, rebelling against what and against whom? The word translated as rebellion in the ESV is really that word I wrote about a couple blogs back. It is the apostasy, the falling away from the truth, the preeminent false teaching. You will remember that apostasy is the sign that the end is approaching. The word is used only one other time in the N.T. to describe when Paul came to Jerusalem to report on his missionary journeys to James and the other elders. They told him that there was a rumor being spread about him that he was teaching apostasy from Moses, teaching the Jews and Gentiles alike not to circumcise their children. This was shocking indeed to the Jewish Christians since circumcision had been the sign marking them as the covenant people of God. Later Paul had to clarify for all in the early church that circumcision availed them nothing.

For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. - Rom 2:25-29 ESV

Paul goes on from there to discuss the value of circumcision, emphasizing the far greater value of faith in the promises of the Lord. It is faith in the Lord that was counted to Abraham as righteousness, not merely circumcision. Likewise all who believe in him who raised from the dead our Lord Jesus will also be counted as righteous, justified and forgiven. This then is the clue to what or about whom Paul is writing to the the Thessalonians. Someone whom he calls the lawless one will arise among the believers to teach apostasy, teaching that righteousness before God and the forgiveness of sins comes not by grace alone and faith in Jesus who has won such forgiveness upon the cross. Something more is required, something like circumcision.

So it was that Martin Luther and those who worked with him in the days of the Reformation of the church in the 16th century insisted that the Roman Church under the leadership of the Pope in those days was teaching apostasy, especially when they taught that worship and the Mass was something that we do to please or placate God. So the reformers embraced Philip Melanchthon's words in the defense of the Augsburg Confession as he wrote,

"For Scripture calls traditions doctrines of demons when it is taught that religious rites serve to merit the forgiveness of sins and grace. For they are then clouding over the Gospel, Christ's benefit, and the righteousness of faith." —Apology XV:4

The Lutheran Confessions go on to denounce the Roman Papacy for such teachings, making it the Antichrist as depicted by Daniel 7-8; Daniel 11:31-38. Many passages in the Lutheran Confessions speak about this. Continuing in the article quoted above, for instance, we read,

"Why do we need words on a subject so clear? If the adversaries defend these human services as meriting justification, grace, and the forgiveness of sins, they simply set up the kingdom of Antichrist . . . So the papacy will also be a part of the kingdom of Antichrist if it defends human services as justifying in this way. For honor is taken away from Christ when they teach that we are not justified freely through faith, for Christ's sake, but by such services. This is especially true when they teach that such services are not only useful for justification, but also necessary, as they maintain in Article VII. There they condemn us for saying that for true unity of the Church it is not necessary that rites instituted by human beings should be alike everywhere. . ." —Apology XV:18 

More on this matter of apostasy, the antichrist and whether Lutherans still teach and believe that the Roman Church's Pope is the antichrist in my next posts.