Let's open with a word of prayer. Our Father in Heaven, we pray that you would sanctify us in your truth, and we know that your word is truth. We pray that it would be powerful as a light in whatever dark places remain in our own thoughts and our own hearts, that it would enlighten our way, that it would show us a more clear picture of the precious promises that are found in the Lord Jesus Christ, our savior, our head and husband, our king, our prophet and our priest. And at the same time, that you would make us wise as serpents and innocent and harmless as doves as we live not of this world, but certainly in it in the midst of many deceptions, in the midst of much that is against your word. We pray, Lord, that we would have a true and discerning conscience, that we would represent the Lord Jesus Christ well in applying his truth and in knowing him, which is our greatest joy. Bless our lesson now as we seek to understand truth and error in the light of your word. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Our topic for Theological Foundations this month is Antichrist in Scripture. And as you may be able to discern from that, This is a topic that deals with biblical eschatology. And eschatology is derived from a Greek word that refers to the last things, the final things, the end times. It's a study of future prophecies in the Bible, the things that God's promised to do in history leading up to the end of history, the last day, the final judgment, and eternity in heaven or in hell. Given that we're dealing with biblical eschatology, which is really, can be a thorny sort of doctrine, I wanted to open just with some introductory considerations that hopefully will help set some boundaries and some focus on what we're gonna be looking at in this study, however long in God's providence it takes us. So, the first thought here as we look at the biblical doctrine of Antichrist, The first thing I want to say is that this subject calls for godly sobriety and self-discipline. Whenever we talk about the end times, there's a danger of a number of extremes. I can think of three of them. The first extreme that I'm always trying to avoid myself is obsescatology. And that is when we focus so much upon the end times, especially those details. I mean certainly we want to be loving the appearing of Christ. There are certain elements of biblical eschatology that we should be thinking about on a daily basis, but there are some other aspects that maybe are either not as clear or they're more controversial. Some of the finer points in these things and we need to avoid becoming obsessed and overzealous to the point where we're focusing on the things We put most of our energy into things that have the least practical value and application for our own lives. We need to avoid that. And the tendency to just go on tangents and so on and so forth. So we're going to try to avoid that. You might say, well, the fact you're even raising this issue is a tangent. Well, I think we'll see. This is at the heart of the apostolic message. They refer to Antichrist, if not by name, in principle, again and again. It's not a tangent, but it certainly can be abused, and let's try to avoid that. Secondly, the second extreme is lescatology. Of course, this is an overreaction to obsescatology. When we get overzealous and we have these, you know, mile-wide charts and graphs and what we've seen in the last hundred years with dispensationalism and so on and so forth, there is a reaction against that to the point where we're suspicious. of any kind of discussion about identifying the Antichrist, or we're just suspicious and reactionary and almost agnostic, as if nobody could really ever decipher these things that are repeatedly, repeatedly mentioned in the New Testament, not just in visions and revelation, but in letters, you know, just straight up prose, letter, form. We think, well, nobody could ever know this, and so we become ambivalent, And perhaps we have a tendency just to oversimplify things, where we say, well, we just want to avoid the obsession. And so any passage that seems to have any kind of specific details, we're just going to kind of sand off the rough edges and fit it into our blissful ignorance. And I think largely, to be fair, and trying to be charitable here, but I think largely in the Reformed camp, before dispensationalism started arising, especially in the 1800s, you had perfect level of comfort in being straightforward and dogmatic about topics like we're going to consider, but there's a reactionary response of lescatology since then where we're just kind of not comfortable with these things. So just let me encourage you, it's safe, the water's fine, let's consider this topic and give it its due. And the third thing to be aware of here, the extreme is imprescatology. impress scatology, and that of course refers to the tendency of ourselves, especially in these theoretical sorts of how do we decipher the meaning kind of questions, we can begin to puff up our own pride and arrogance, and we can even become condescending and scornful toward people who hold other views. We want to avoid that. This is not merely intellectual. The apostles wouldn't mention this repeatedly in their letters, if it didn't have a practical value to humble us and at the same time to inform us in decisions we make in our practical Christian life. We need to know this because the early church needed to know it and, you know, we're part of the same church they are. And it was recorded for our instruction. So let's not get obsessed. Let's not just run the other direction. And let's not just use it as, you know, if you learn something from these messages, for instance, let's try to stay humble about what we're learning. Something else, by way of introduction, recognize that these lessons are primarily constructive, not remedial. The purpose of these lessons is not because I think I have, you know, there's this burning problem in the congregation and we have to address some kind of issue where people are falling into heresy and so on. I think we're very strong and solid on these kinds of issues. I think we will be bringing to light some things that maybe we haven't discussed a lot in the life of our congregation, but it's constructive, building on what God's doing and has done in our midst. It's not as though, you know, I'm addressing, it's not like one of you and I had some big argument over who is the Antichrist and now we're selecting this topic. It's not anything like that. Thirdly, by way of introduction, this is still part of our series on thinking biblically. This is not a deviation. We talked about abortion, we talked about LGBT, and probably we'll get to just war theory and some of these other issues of worldview, of biblical thinking in the modern world, how to understand the times, so on and so forth. And this is part of that because If you look at the passages that relate to this topic, you'll find that in almost every case, the apostles are sharing this teaching for the purpose of having the Christians in the early church think biblically about the historical events in their own day and moving forward toward the second coming. And so in just some examples here, in 1 Timothy 4 verse 1, It says, now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith, et cetera. Now we'll look at that at a certain point, but the point is here, latter times, here we're dealing with history, we're dealing with events, we're dealing with the new covenant period, the last days, as Hebrews 1 tells us. So if we're gonna understand the times in which we live, we need to understand this apostasy. And 1 John 2, verse 18, Little children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come by which we know that it is the last hour." See that reference to time, history, events. This is part of the apostles equipping the early believers to view their world in a biblical way. And 2 Thessalonians 2 verses 6 through 8 again, we'll get to that at a future point, but it's the same idea of time, history, and events. So this is still about thinking biblically. And I don't want to fill you up with appetizers, but my fourth introductory consideration is that these lessons are not intended to directly impact your millennial view. In other words, there are many faithful Christians and preachers throughout history who have believed in at least the very essence of Reformed theology in terms of the doctrines of grace who have been premillennial, who have been postmillennial, who have been amillennial. If you're not aware of what those terms mean, that's fine. In fact, that's the point. We're not getting into where you place the millennium on the timeline or how you define it. because there's actually a unanimity, an agreement between faithful, reformed preachers and teachers on this question that goes even beyond that millennial position. Charles Spurgeon, for instance, who I'm pretty sure was a premillennialist, possibly Amill, I'm pretty sure he was premill, I could be wrong, but he'd be an example of someone who would still agree in substance with what I'm going to teach here, and certainly Amill, Postmill, reform people as well. So we'll leave the millennium out for now. In addition to that, I just want to also clarify that my goal here is not to persuade you of every jot and tittle of my own eschatology. I think that that's not a helpful tendency where You know, I want to pass along the information, the biblical teaching that I've found to be helpful and true, but let's keep it within bounds. The goal here is actually for all of us to be biblically faithful Reformed Presbyterians. And so to the extent that I can, I'm going to try to equip you and teach in a way that promotes biblically faithful Reformed Presbyterians, which raises the question of what do our biblically faithful Reformed Presbyterian standards say about this question? And I have a number of quotes here we'll be looking at today, and I just want to say that I will try to email out my notes for this later, so don't feel like you have to write these down, but just try to listen. First of all, to our Confession of Faith, Chapter 25, Section 5, which says this, there is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ, nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalteth himself in the church against Christ and against all that is called God. and a number of scripture references are given there. And so I want all of us to be biblically faithful Reformed Presbyterians and this is part of my duty to promote that because this is the official position of the RPCNA. And I think it's important to recognize that in some cases our Reformed Presbyterian testimony rejects certain things in the original confession. And there's a statement in the testimony that sort of explains that, that the certain parts are rejected by the testimony, and so the official position of the RPCNA does not fully agree with certain parts of the original confession. That needs to be understood. But I also want to make clear that nowhere does our testimony ever say we reject Chapter 25, Section 5 of the Confession. And what that means, according to the RP testimony's own definition of itself, is that the official position of the RPCNA is that the Pope is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, et cetera, et cetera. So that's, you know, if I were to take exception to that and so on and so forth, there's a procedure for that, but if I take the Reformed Presbyterian standards as we have them written, then I would need to agree with that. And the RPCNA testimony does have a qualifying statement which helps to expound and supplement the doctrine of the confession And that comes in chapter 25, section 18, where it says this, many antichrists, notice the plural, will be present in the world throughout history. So right off the bat, it's speaking from the perspective of the New Testament books because it's not saying, well, here we are in the 21st century and many antichrists will come, they haven't come yet. No, it's saying really from the perspective of the New Testament material, the New Testament is looking ahead to many antichrists throughout history. Please understand the future tense there. is meant to refer to the whole New Testament age, where there are many plural lowercase antichrists. Then it says this, prior to Christ's coming, the final man of lawlessness will be revealed. Now again, will be doesn't mean it hasn't happened yet necessarily, as with the antichrists, we know they're already here. But from the New Testament perspective, this man of lawlessness will appear, he will be revealed, this singular, definitive, final, antichrist, as opposed to the individual multitude of lowercase antichrists, plural. Then it says this, he will be destroyed by Christ. And as we look at some of the passages, especially 2 Thessalonians 2, it'll become very obvious that, in fact, our testimony is just desiring to summarize that passage. Just because if you read the passage, In connection with 1 John, you know there are many antichrists, you know that there's this one man of lawlessness, and you know that he will be destroyed by Christ. And it's very simple. It doesn't reject the original testament or the original confession. It simply wants to remind us, biblically speaking, that the Pope of Rome is not the only person who can have that term applied. that Antichrist, but there are other Antichrists as well, which we'll see. I don't want to, this is not a church history class, I don't want to bog you down with extra-biblical sources, but that's what I'm operating from. I'm a Reformed Presbyterian pastor, and I'm teaching the Reformed Presbyterian position. Sixthly, just final word of introduction, the Bible was written to make sense. If I had just one axiom to say, the Bible was written to make sense. It's not that complicated. And I know we can take that to the extreme. If you look up Isaiah 30, verse 25, it will speak of certain things happening in the days when the towers fall. And of course, you know, you Google that and people think it's 9-11 or something. So, okay, I realize people can abuse some of these verses to make them sound modern or contemporary. But honestly, the Bible was written for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages, the New Testament period, has come, and it was written to make sense. And I think if there's any drawback to the material I'm going to present to you, it's this, it almost sounds too obvious. It almost, honestly, and I remember when I first heard this doctrine, I laughed at it, I scorned it, I thought, you know, this is ridiculous. But the more I studied it over the years, You know, the only complaint I could have, if any, is, really? It's that simple? And I think, hopefully, we'll see that, whether we agree or not. The position is just very simple from a biblical standpoint. It's not a fringe issue. In 2 Thessalonians 2, in 1st Timothy 4, in 1st John 2, in every one of these passages, the apostles actually say, remember when we taught you all this stuff? I mean, this is one of the doctrines that you get the sense everywhere they planted a church, this was a core element of eschatology that they taught. They taught it in Thessalonica, they taught it in Ephesus where Timothy was, and they taught it in all the churches in Asia Minor to whom John is writing. So, the Bible was written to make sense, let's keep that in mind. Now, at this point, what we're going to do is spend the remainder of our time this afternoon We're going to be looking at 1 John chapter 2 and basically 1 John, the epistles of John. We're going to look at how this is addressed just in that biblical context. And next time, next month, Lord willing, we'll try to consider some of these other passages. But let's just think about John's epistles as he's writing to the churches in Asia Minor. And just at face value, let's just look at the passage. If thus far you say, there's no way I'm gonna ever buy into this, this is total nonsense, I'm already poisoned against it, okay, fair enough, we can still be friends, but look at the text, because I don't think it's that, at least difficult to focus on the words. So, 1 John 2 verse 18 says this. Little children, it is the last hour, and you have heard that the Antichrist is coming. Even now, many Antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour." So let's just look at the words of the text and see what they do to our minds. First, let's look at the term Antichrist, and we'll start with the word in that, the part of that word that's most obvious to us, and that is the word Christ, Christ. What does the term Christ mean? It's a title that's given to our Lord Jesus. What does it actually mean? Well, it actually means, it refers to anointing, anointing. It refers to Jesus as the Lord's anointed, anointed with the Holy Spirit, And in particular, the imagery points us to the Old Testament where there were three offices that were anointed with the anointing oil, three anointed ones, three Christs, if you will. And that was the prophet, the priest, and the king. When we say that Jesus is the Christ, we're saying that he alone is the prophet, the priest and the king of his church. And if you look in our larger catechism, it says, why is Jesus called the Christ? Because he was anointed with the Holy Ghost above measure, and so he's been furnished with all the gifts and graces necessary to execute the offices of prophet, priest, and king of his church. So that's what Christ means, prophet, priest, and king of the church, the head of the church as well. ante or ante or anti mean. We're taught in America, because of the way this prefix is used in modern English, we're taught to think it means against, that it just means against. If I'm anti-slavery, I'm against slavery. I mean, you can apply it to so many different things. But in fact, in the Bible, that's not the primary meaning of this prefix. If you were to do a Greek word study where you find this prefix used, even when you find this word ante used as a word itself, you find that the primary meaning of this word is instead of, or in place of, or over, against. In other words, if it does mean against, it means someone who takes the place of, sort of a violent takeover, where someone takes the place of another. But just to illustrate this, and the Old Testament passages that I'm using here, obviously we're dealing with the Greek Septuagint, the translation in Greek, because anti is a Greek word. But for instance, in Genesis 4.25, we're told, and Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, for God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed. So the idea is this word anti simply means it's instead of. The one replaces the other. The one replaces the other. And in Genesis 22, 13, then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it for a burnt offering instead of his son. That's our word. And there's so many dozens of examples of this. These are just some memorable ones in the Old Testament. But this term also is used in a very technical sense to refer to one king who takes rule or reign, takes the throne in place of another king. So it has a royal element to it, 1 Kings 5, 1. Now Hiram, king of Tyre, sent his servants to Solomon because he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hiram had always loved David. There you see the idea of the Christ as a king, and you see the word anti, or anti, or ante, however you want to say that, used as the phrase instead of. instead of, to rule instead of, that is what the term actually means. 2 Kings 14.21, just giving some examples here. And all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was 16 years old, and made him king instead of his father, Amaziah. So that's, I mean, it's used throughout all these transfers of power again and again and again. In fact, in the New Testament, because obviously we wanna know that this is part of New Testament Greek. In Matthew chapter two, verse 22, it says, but when Joseph heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. So a king ruling instead of somebody else. And then in Matthew 24, it's kind of interesting, Matthew 24, Verse five, Jesus says, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many. Now that should be a puzzling statement, because you would think if someone comes and says, I am the Christ, our first thought is, well, this person's actually saying, I'm the Christ, not Jesus. But he's, no, he's saying it in Jesus' name. Here I am on behalf of Jesus, and in fact, I am the Christ. Jesus predicts that this would happen. So let's just think about that for a second. Many will come in my name, so they're professed followers, teachers of the gospel of Christ, they're in Christ's name, and yet they say, I am the Christ, and seek to deceive many. Well, again, it's not mere opposition, it's deceit. You're supposed to believe that I'm here on behalf of Christ, but in fact, I'm taking to myself the title Christ. Well, what does the word Christ mean? Again, prophet, priest, king of the church. So in other words, Jesus is saying, many will come in my name, and will claim to be the prophet, priest, and king of the church, and will deceive many. They'll claim it in my name, that they have this authority from me, and Jesus warned against it. Now again, right now, we're dealing with many. So this phenomenon happens on a broad scale. Now getting back to 1 John 2.18, he says this is the last hour, it is the last hour. Now the last hour, as I already alluded to, is the New Covenant period. It's that final period between Christ's first and second coming, the final period in which God has dealings with mankind before the final judgment. It's the last period. And Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 and 2 talks about we're living in these last days, these last times. It's not just saying the tail end of the New Testament age right before the second coming, but it's the last time. We live today, 2016, in the last days in that sense. What John says, he says, little children, it is the last hour, so here we are, the New Testament period has commenced, and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, let's stop there. The early church had been taught again and again by the apostles that there is this figure, this false Christ, claims to be prophet, priest, and king of the church, in the name of Christ, that he is coming. He is the Christ who tries to rule instead of Christ, yet on behalf of Christ, and he opposes Christ by trying to take his place. And this will happen at some point in the New Covenant period. There will be this entity which does that, and it's a singular entity. And it's future to John writing in the first century. So there's this future replacement Christ that's coming at some point, this entity in the New Testament age in this last hour. But he hasn't come yet. And notice it says the antichrist, not just an antichrist or lots of antichrists. The apostles thought there was this one entity that was coming and it's a definite article. One of the reasons why it's important that we have the manuscripts that God preserved in the church throughout church history, because the King James and the New King James rightly have the correct reading, which is the Antichrist. Even if you had the, though, even if the definite article wasn't there, it's still clear that he's distinguishing between a singular Antichrist and the many Antichrists. And the reason we know that is because the many Antichrists are different in one respect from this singular entity which is to come because even now many Antichrists have come. The Antichrist is yet to come, but the many Antichrists have already showed up on the scene. They're already here, even now in the first century. And there are those who, to one extent or another, again, they're not the quote unquote capital letter Antichrist, but as our testimony writes it out, sort of the lowercase Antichrist who embody this principle of taking Christ's place as God's mouthpiece and deceiving people into heresy. That's what's happening. and it's all in the name of Christ. And you can see the logic here of his pastoral exhortation. What he's saying is, look, you guys are all up in arms about this entity that's coming in the future, the Antichrist. We've taught you all about him. You're all ready to fight against it. And when's he coming? Because we're going to repudiate him. But you need to recognize that these false teachers that are going around, they're actually just a smaller form of what he's going to be like. So harness all of your emotion and outrage at the coming Antichrist and use it to fight these current false teachers that are currently, even now, invading the church and promoting false teaching and leading people astray. So harness your anger at the future Antichrist by fighting these mini-Antichrists. And if we look at our own day, we see the RP testimony hits the nail on the head, that there are many antichrists. There are many groups that, to one extent or another, follow this pattern of claiming to speak in Christ's name, claiming to honor Christ, claiming that Christ is a true prophet, or claiming that Christ is, in some sense, the Son of God, and yet leading people into soul-damning heresy. This is a common thing, and the Bible predicts it. But who is the Antichrist? How do we answer this question? And how do we interpret Bible prophecy? How do we do that? Well, let's just think for a second here about another Bible prophecy and how we would answer and see the fulfillment of it. In Matthew chapter 24, Verses one and two, Jesus says this, or it says, then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came up to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down. Jesus is predicting the destruction of that temple where he was standing. Well, how do we know the fulfillment? How do you know what the fulfillment is? Well, you look at history. It's the same way they recognize Jesus as the Messiah. There are these prophecies. We look at unfolding providence. Are these prophecies applying to these unfolding events? Wait, here's Jesus of Nazareth. He fits the description. Therefore, he's the Messiah. In this case, Jesus predicted that the temple would be destroyed. Well, we see in AD 70 that those predictions were literally fully fulfilled. And so it would be foolish for us to look at this and say, well, we really just can't know. We really just can't know the fulfillment of this prophecy. No, we look at history and we say, is there just an obvious, like even in just saying the words, it's obvious what the fulfillment is. I mean, the temple will be destroyed. Anyone who knows church history knows, I mean, just saying that means AD 70, boom, immediate recognition. So is it the case when we look at John's epistle here, and he says, yeah, there's going to be this one entity who comes in New Testament history, claims in the name of Christ to have authority as prophet, priest, and king over the church, and he deceives many people into heresy. For pretty much every reformed confessional pastor up until the mid-late 1800s, I mean, that was a no-brainer, just like AD 70 with the temple. It's the papacy. That's why it's included in our confession, and that's why it just rings true even when you just say it. Antichrist, in place of Christ, who could that be? Now, let's be fair, let's be fair. Let's look at what the Pope actually claims for himself. Roman Catholic Church Catechism number 882 says this. The Pope, Bishop of Rome, and Peter's successor, is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful. For the Roman pontiff, by reason of his office as vicar of Christ," and really, if you wanted to translate that into Greek, it would literally be Antichrist. I mean, Again, I said that it might be a drawback that it's so simple, but the phrase vicar of Christ means someone in behalf of instead of Christ. So to actually wear a fancy hat that says vicar of Christ. It actually says Antichrist if you translate that into Greek. It's actually very simple that he's actually claiming on behalf of Christ to be functionally the Christ, the prophet, priest, and king of the church. But it says, for the Roman pontiff, by reason of his office as vicar of Christ and as pastor of the entire church, has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole church. a power which he can always exercise unhindered. And my question to you is, if we were to ask one of the apostles, who has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered, and as pastor of the entire church, they would say Christ, prophet, priest, king, and head of his church. So, here's a man a man who had an entity, an office held by men that is one of the most significant developments in all of world history and certainly church history throughout the last 2,000 years who openly claims to be ruling the church instead of in place of Christ. Vatican I, the council that dealt with infallibility says this, we teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff, he has a lot of titles, that's one of them, so it's referring to the Pope, when he speaks ex cathedra or from his throne, he actually has a throne, the See of Peter, he rules the church from a throne, he has a crown, he's speaking from that throne and from the authority of the church, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are irreformable of themselves and not from the consent of the church. But if anyone which God may avert, presumed to contradict this our definition, let him be anathema. So, he who has the pope has life, he who does not have the pope does not have life. That's the position. They're giving to the papacy divine infallibility, and really, if you're not on board with him, you are anathema, the divine curse of destruction. Well, Roman Catholic Catechism number 2035 says this, the supreme degree of participation in the authority of Christ is ensured by the charism, that's from the same word Christ, it's actually from the Greek, charism, it means anointing. So let's just say anointing. ensured by the anointing of infallibility. This infallibility extends as far as does the deposit of divine revelation, so he has equal authority as the Bible. It also extends to all those elements of doctrine, including morals, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, or observed. In other words, if you don't have the infallible pope telling you what the Bible means, you can't, Understand, you can't preserve, explain, or observe the saving truths of the faith. His anointing, his chrism, his Christ anointing, makes his teaching infallible as a prophet, a mouthpiece of God, without which we cannot be saved. Now let's go to 1 John 2, 19. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that they might be manifest, that none of them were of us." Here we're dealing with, not the future Antichrist, but the current multitude of Antichrists, false teachers in that day. Who is the they? Who's the they here? They went out from us. Well, it's not just talking about the teachers, it's talking about the teachers of heresy who denied the person and work of Christ, who undermined it in his own name, and their followers. They went out from us. These are entire sects of heretics, false teachers and their followers, who cut themselves off from the true church of Jesus Christ, they went out from us, the apostolic church, the church that holds to the true gospel and to the true doctrine of Christ. They went out, they began within the church, but they departed. Now, whatever the future Antichrist is, it tells us here that The example we have in John's day is someone who was in the church but who then went out of the church. So Antichrist can't just be some world leader who denies the faith and, you know, wants to invade our oil fields or something like that. The Antichrist is someone who starts in the church. As Paul elsewhere calls him a son of perdition, a Judas who has apostolic sort of authority as a minister, but eventually falls away from the faith, goes out from us with all of his followers. He begins within the church and then he departs. It says they were not of us. They were not of us. Even when they were with us, once they left, we realized they were actually not truly saved. They had abandoned the truth of the gospel and left the true church. And so they're not true Christians. They never were. They didn't lose their salvation. They never had it. Now he says then that this was made manifest, but they went out that they might be made manifest And this refers to the outward indication of their inward spiritual condition. So what John's saying is those who followed these false teachers and the false teachers themselves, they looked good for a while, they transitioned away from the gospel, out of the church, and it shows what was in their heart originally. Then he says this, that what was made manifest was that none of them were of us. None of them. So this tells us that those who adhere to a false religion, a false, you know, gospel-denying form of Christianity, denying the gospel in the name of Christ, denying the Trinity, things like this, those who adhere to these false religions or who intentionally remain outside the true church, right, because they've left the church to follow their heresy and they don't want to be with us, they've gone out from us, that by doing so they manifest that they're not true Christians. And though certainly we can't say we know the heart condition of every single person in every non-Christian or anti-Christian cult, we can say that our default, John's default, is that they left, they're gone, they're in a false church, they're not true Christians. Maybe at the last judgment we'll see that they were in the process of faith and repentance and God delivered them from this sect, but the default position is let's evangelize them. Just a few minutes left, so let's look at verses 20 and 21. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth." And then he goes on in verses 24 through 27 to hit on this same theme of the fact that the true Christian has the Spirit of God, that the true Christian is anointed, in Christ and has the capacity to discern truth from error. Therefore, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he has promised us, eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. But the anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you. But as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in him." What this is saying is Antichrist is going to claim to have this charism, this anointing. that apart from this anointing you can't understand the gospel, you can't understand the saving truths of the Word of God. You must have an infallible church with an infallible head of the church on earth for you to have that knowledge. But John is saying, look at the contrast. The real Christ has anointed you as an individual believer to hear the Word of God preached, to study the Word of God, to read it, and through the Holy Spirit's power, applied in the ordinary means of study, you can know what's true, you can know what's false. You don't need an infallible antichrist in place of Christ, who is anointed with infallibility. And so again, if you look at who the Pope actually claims to be, and the context of 1 John, it's very clear. He's saying this is what Antichrist is going to be, someone who tries to deny you that individual private judgment that you have as a believer. And I have a number of quotations from the Roman Catholic Catechism here about the authority of the Pope to command our conscience, but let me just read one, Catechism number 2039. Personal conscience and reason should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the magisterium of the church, in other words, the pope and the bishop. So, very clearly, this has all the marks of antichrist in trying to overturn the individual believer in his conscience. Now, let's, we have a couple minutes here, let's conclude with verse 22. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. We'll get to 1 John 4 next time. Let's just finish with this verse. Who is a liar? In other words, who's the antichrist? It's the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. And I think most Christians today would read that and say, well, this is someone who denies that Jesus fulfilled messianic prophecy. And if you look at the text, the whole chapter is about Jesus fulfilling messianic prophecy, but it's actually not. It's not even talking about Old Testament prophecies. What it's saying is, the one who denies, that is, undermines and rejects the idea that Jesus Christ alone is the prophet, priest, and king of his church who anoints his people to discern truth from error for themselves. And the Antichrist, the liar, is the one who comes in and undermines that, who rejects that, who says, no, on Christ's behalf, I am the anointed prophet, priest, and king, and head of the church. And he deceives with subtlety and lies to direct people to himself as Lord of the conscience. Well, he is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. What have we said? Antichrist means a replacement Christ in the name of Christ. To deny the father and the son, therefore, would be to replace the father and the son, and to deny that the son is exclusively the head and king of the church. That's the denial. He's replacing Christ and his father. And then, what's this reference to the father and the son? I mean, if I'm saying that the pope is the antichrist, well, yeah, he claims to be the vicar of Christ, That's pretty obvious, it's on his hat, but in what sense does he claim to be the father? I mean, how can you prove that? In what sense does the pope actually claim to be the father of the faithful? Well, of course, the word pope means father, papa. I mean, again, it's almost too easy. Who denies the uniqueness of God as father and the uniqueness of Christ as head of the church? it would be the Pope who claims to be the vicar of Christ. And many people look at the Westminster Confession and say, these guys are just proof texting, and you know what? They're way out in left field. But let's be honest and say, or at least ask the question, have you looked up the proof texts that they give? Because the proof text, one of the proof texts they give is Matthew 23, verses eight through 10, where Jesus says this to the Pharisees. But you do not be called rabbi, for one is your teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father, for one is your father who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers, for one is your teacher, the Christ. We have one infallible teacher of the church universal. We have one God and father. the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus seems to be concerned, and later, again, chapter 24 we saw, he's warning of these false Christs. He seems to be concerned, he is concerned, that we be careful of a leader, a church figure, who in his name would rise up and claim to be our infallible teacher and our Father. And that is precisely what it means to deny the Father and the Son to take their place, and that's why the Confession cites that passage. They're being exegetical, they're being biblical. So I'm going to leave it there, and we can come back next time and look at 1 John chapter 4, just to sort of tie up the loose end, and then we'll look at another of these two or three passages that we're going to look through in our study. Does anyone have any questions that they would like to ask about the material? Okay, good question. So, when we get to 2 Thessalonians 2, I think the case can be made that the Antichrist, or the man of sin, same entity, is something that was already stirring in Paul's day, was about to come forth and be revealed, and yet is destroyed at the appearance of Christ's coming. So in other words, the historic, and I'm not speaking against people today who hold this, but I'm saying the historic Roman Catholic interpretation is that the Antichrist is a singular individual, either someone in the distant past or someone in the distant future. But the Protestant interpretation historically has been that it's an office, such as if the Bible mentions the high priest. It's not a specific high priest, it's anyone holding that office. And so 2 Thessalonians 2 seems to indicate that it's something that began early in church history and will in some sense continue to be destroyed at the second coming, which means that it's not an individual, but an office. So I would say, and the Westminster Confession is saying, that in fact, The papacy is the Antichrist, it's the entity which for John was to come, which for Paul was on the horizon, and which arrived in its fullness maybe around the 600s, we talked about this in the church history class, around the 600s, and continues even today. So it's a figure who holds an office, not an individual person, because how could it span Paul's day, or at least soon to happen in Paul's day, to the end of history? So that, yeah. I don't know, more powerful? After a while? I'm not going to speak dogmatically beyond the essence of what the Confession is saying because I don't want to be divisive, but with that said, 2 Thessalonians 2 says that the man of sin will be defeated by the breath of Christ's mouth, which Isaiah chapter 11 is the preached word of God, and the appearance of his coming. So I think it's likely, again, It's likely that there will be a great victory through the preaching of the gospel, and we should expect that. The Reformation was a big part of that, and we should be seeking to have that happen. But that at the last apostasy in Revelation 20, at the end, right before the second coming, there appears to be sort of a resurgence of these same ideas and principles that would take place. So I would say we have great hope through the preaching of the gospel, but that ultimately Christ's final coming will defeat all of these things. As far as details, I just, I think so many have been impaled on those kinds of details, and I don't want to fall into that. What's the big benefit here? How can we understand the importance of why we should know this well? Yes, okay. I think I opened a sermon a couple weeks ago with the great Chinese military guy, Sun Tzu, who said, basically, the first rule of combat is to know your enemy. So I think it dovetails into our spiritual warfare sermon series in the afternoons, where we want to know I mean, the Antichrist is such a monumental figure. As Christians, here we are. I mean, wouldn't you think, whatever you thought of the Antichrist in the past, wouldn't you think that when he showed up, people would know who he was? In fact, his whole MO is deception. So if we don't even know who the Antichrist is, we're going to start to be deceived by him. And I would say if you look at Protestantism, Evangelicalism today, in principle, we've backslidden. We're not as strong on the core points of the law and the gospel. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is not as strong today. We have Rick Warren calling the Pope our Pope. The doctrine of worship in most evangelical churches and the doctrine of evangelism is straight out of Rome. Let's go into a non-Christian pagan or worldly context and synchronize and synthesize the gospel with the culture. That's why in Haiti you have Roman Catholic churches with voodoo. But that's what we're doing in America today as the church. Our doctrine of worship has strayed from the regulative principle according to the Bible, and we're just saying that essentially the church can tweak the worship of God however it wants. So I would say in many ways, if this is Satan's magnum opus, then it's going to have implications for all of his other side projects as well. And we're going to understand different heretical groups and just different errors and deceptions within the church, even in a faithful church. You know, what's Satan's M.O.? And I think that's, for me, that was one of the more practical things that I felt like I learned in studying this. And 1 John 4, and when we get into that, it's gonna get into some more practical things as well that we just didn't get to. All right, let's close in prayer. Father in heaven, we ask that you would give us that anointing, that knowledge, wisdom, understanding from your Holy Spirit. We desire to understand the doctrine of Antichrist, But we pray even more broadly that we would have that anointing to understand the saving truth of the gospel in our own conscience, to know that our Redeemer lives, to know to have that assurance of salvation, to have that confidence that we can read your word and study it diligently and actually have truths imparted to our own minds that we can cling to and apply. We pray that you would make us holy and blameless and diligent in our study, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.