Category Archives: Apologetics

Is a Rebuilt Temple on God’s Agenda?

Apologetics,

Is a Rebuilt Temple on God’s Agenda?

According to popular prophecy teaching, the antichrist, an evil political figure, who will come out of one of the great world powers, (thought at one time to be from the European Union, the ten horns of Daniel 7:7) will appear on the world’s stage at some time during the great tribulation. He will be revealed after the church is secretly raptured and out of the way, setting himself up in God’s rebuilt temple in Jerusalem and proclaiming himself to be God.
Is there any Biblical justification for this teaching?

”Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day (the day of the Lord – vs 2) will not come until the rebellion (the falling away – apostasia) occurs, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4 (NIV).

If we read this passage without referring back to the discussions on the antichrist, the man of lawlessness and the man doomed to destruction, we could erroneously interpret this as referring to a specific individual. However, we have already seen, from John’s identification of antichrist and Paul’s identification of the man of lawlessness, the man doomed to destruction, that they are both referring to more than one person, a category of people who deny the deity and humanity of Jesus, who have Judas-like characteristics and who have fallen away from the faith.

Once again, in order to understand Paul’s teaching correctly, we must examine his use of words in the original language. One English word is used to translate two Greek words for ‘temple’. The Greek word ‘hieron’ from the root meaning ‘hallowed’ or ‘holy’, is used in the New Testament to refer to the physical structure of the temple, that which is devoted to God, and everything outside of the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. It is never used figuratively.

A second Greek word, ‘naos’, from the root word meaning ‘to dwell’, is always used with reference to the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary which is the dwelling place of God. The ‘naos’ was the place where only the priests ministered.

After the Book of Acts, the word ‘hieron’ is only used once (1 Cor 9:13), referring to the physical temple. In the Book of Revelation, only one word, ‘naos’, is used for the temple.

In John 2:19, 21, Jesus spoke of His body as the temple (naos). “Destroy this temple (naos), and I will raise it again in three days…But the temple He had spoken of was His body.”

If we allow Paul to interpret his own writings, we will see clearly that he equated the naos with the people of God, both individually and collectively. In his explanation about the problem of sexual immorality, he wrote, ‘All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple (naos) of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God.’ 1 Corinthians 6:18,19 (NIV).

Not only is each individual a temple of God, but also the church collectively. Paul said, “In Him (Jesus) the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple (naos) in the Lord. And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.” Ephesians 2:21,22 (NIV).

Without using the word naos, Peter explains the same concept in 1 Peter 2:5, “…you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

Since the naos in the New Testament is used of believers as the dwelling place of God, Paul’s reference to the naos in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 can only refer to a succession of individuals who deny the deity and humanity of Jesus, who have fallen away from the faith and who operate in a Judas-like, treacherous way to set themselves up in the church as God, usurping the place and authority of Christ and speaking in His name. Therefore, Paul cannot possibly be talking about a single, evil, political figure arising from outside the church who proclaims himself to be God in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem after the rapture. Accurate interpretation of the language and context does not allow it.

Before we conclude this examination of the Biblical facts, we must ask the question, what would be the purpose of a rebuilt temple? Is it in God’s agenda to have the temple rebuilt in Jerusalem?
The book of Hebrews is an extended and comprehensive apologetic regarding the completed work of Christ on earth. To sum up, the writer says, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins…First He said, “sacrifices and offerings you did not desire”…then He said, ‘”Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Hebrews 10:4,8-10 (NIV).

“He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but He entered the Most Holy Place, once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.” Hebrews 10:12.

To have the temple rebuilt and to re-introduce the sacrificial system would be to negate everything Jesus did on the cross and to step out of the freedom of grace and back into the slavery of the Law.
(To be continued…)

Who is the ‘Man of Lawlessness’?

Apologetics,

Who is the ‘Man of Lawlessness’?

“Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.” 2 Thessalonians 2:3

Is the ‘man of lawlessness’ the same person as the man ‘doomed to destruction’?

We have already explored the identities of antichrist and the man doomed to destruction and argued for the case that both John and Paul were referring to the same category of people — not an individual but rather a succession of people who manifest the same characteristics. They are people who have apostatised from the faith, having once been in it but subsequently have fallen away as did Judas whom Jesus described as the man ‘doomed to destruction.’

According to John, antichrist is a spirit already present in the world in his day, arising from within the group of believers. The spirit that denies both the full deity and the full humanity of Jesus is the spirit of antichrist.

The title, ‘man of sin’ or ‘man of lawlessness’ (2 Thessalonians 2:3) has led millions to believe that he will be a single evil individual called the Antichrist. How does this tie up with John’s ‘many antichrists’ and Paul’s man ‘doomed to destruction’?

Paul uses different terms, man of sin, man doomed to destruction and the lawless one, to describe the same phenomenon, paralleled by John’s antichrist, Daniel’s ‘little horn’ of Daniel 7:8 and ‘the beast’ of Revelation 13:2. It is generally accepted that these all refer to the same thing.

The question is, is the Bible referring to a single individual and if so, who is this person? In Daniel 7, the little horn is not a man. Rather, it will have eyes like a man. Revelation refers to the beast which, (according to Daniel 7:17, ‘The four great beasts are four kingdoms that will rise from the earth,)’ is a kingdom, not a man. Therefore, to be true to the way the Bible interprets itself, all these references point to a category of people rather than an individual.

The next question we must answer is, ‘Is the term, ‘man of’, used elsewhere in Scripture and, if so, how is it used?’ Did Paul ever use the expression in such a way that it does not refer to only one man? In 2 Timothy 3:16,17, Paul wrote, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Can this expression possible refer to only one man? No. It makes sense that it refers to every person, man or woman, who is equipped through the word of God for good work. It cannot be understood any other way. In the same way Paul uses the expression ‘he is God’s servant’ in Romans 13:4, to refer to all civil officers throughout history who restrain evil under God’s authority.

If we allow Paul to interpret his own writings, in the light of the above Scriptures, we must conclude that the expression, ‘man of lawlessness’ or ‘man of sin’ could apply to a category or succession of people who place themselves above or outside of the Word of God.

Both John and Paul are telling us that there is a spirit in the world that was already at work in the early church, arising from within the church that represents a kingdom that sets itself against or above Christ.

Why is this a warning and why is it relevant for believers of every age? To relegate the ‘antichrist’ to some future evil person and to some future date is to leave the church vulnerable to both apathy and deception. Paul and John’s warnings are relevant for the church of every age so that we are not caught up in the subtle deception of this kingdom that is administered by Satan to fulfil his desire to rule in the place of Christ.

(To be continued)

Who or What is the ‘Restrainer’?

Apologetics, ,

Who or What is the ‘Restrainer’?

“Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so until he is taken out of the way.” 2 Thessalonians 2:5-7 (NIV).

Up to this point we have established that the spirit of antichrist operates in a category of people who were already in the world during the days of the apostles. They had Judas-like characteristics, traitors from within the church who fell away, denying both the deity and humanity of Jesus. Before the coming of Jesus and the rapture of the church, they would take their place in the church, usurping the place of God. They would head up a powerful and destructive kingdom which would make war on the saints but Jesus would return and destroy them with the breach of His mouth.

According to Paul, there was a ‘restrainer’ who was holding antichrist back. Paul does not identify the restrainer but his readers knew who he was because Paul had discussed it with them when he was with them in Thessalonica. He confirms that the secret power of lawlessness, obviously people who were acting outside the law of God within the church, was already at work.

Before Paul was martyred, he warned the Ephesian elders who had come to say goodbye to him before he proceeded to Jerusalem where he would be arrested and taken to Rome for trial and execution, “I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.” Acts 20:29-31 (NIV).

What was it that was holding back the unleashing of this onslaught against the church? When we discover what it was, we will realise that Paul did not disclose it in his letter for obvious reasons. It would have been politically dangerous for him to do so.

Popular prophecy teachers interpret this ‘person’ to be either the Holy Spirit or the church or perhaps both since the Holy Spirit will leave the earth with the church when the church is secretly raptured. This puts a spanner in the works of the idea that there will still be an opportunity for people to believe in Jesus during the seven years of tribulation after the church is raptured. Since it is the work of the Holy Spirit to apply salvation to people’s lives, how can they be saved if He is no longer on the earth? The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, makes us alive and gives us the assurance that we are the sons of God. Without Him no-one can be given new life in Christ.

We have to look elsewhere for the identity of the restrainer. The Reformers all agreed that the restrainer was the Roman government. As long as the Caesars were in power, the antichrist spirit operating through people was being held back. Paul uses the word ‘he’ collectively as we have already discussed regarding the ‘man of lawlessness’, indicating that it was a succession of individuals, representing a kingdom, that held back the tide of people headed by a succession of spiritual leaders who would manifest the antichrist spirit. They would be functioning within the church but not be a part of it because of their apostasy.
(To be continued…)

Who is the ‘Man Doomed to Destruction’?

Apologetics,

Who is the ‘Man Doomed to Destruction’?

According to popular prophecy teaching, the antichrist and the man of lawlessness, the man doomed to destruction, are one and the same person, an evil political individual who will be revealed after the church is secretly raptured, who will sign a peace treaty with Israel but will usher in a time of tribulation during the second half of the last week of Daniel’s ‘seventy weeks’.

Both Paul and John speak of these sinister characters. To John he is the antichrist and to Paul the ‘man of lawlessness’ (sin) ‘doomed to destruction’ (2 Thess 2:3). But we have to ask, are they speaking about the same person? Do these individuals match in Scripture or are they two different characters?

From the writings of the Apostle John we have learned that antichrist is a spirit, present in the world from John’s time; that it operates in people who were in the church but left; and that every spirit that denies that Jesus is God or that He has come in the flesh, is antichrist. John was dealing with heresies already circulating in the early church and warning believers to be aware of them but not afraid of them because the One in them is greater than the one in the world.

Who is the man ‘doomed to destruction’ of whom Paul wrote? Paul was also dealing with an error in the church. People were teaching that Jesus had come again secretly and that believers still present on the earth had missed His coming. Believers were worried that those who had died before Jesus returned would be left behind.

In his first letter to the Thessalonians Paul explains that Jesus’ coming will not be secret because it will be accompanied by shouting and trumpet blowing (a fulfilment of the Feast of Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets which prepared the people for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, or the Day of Judgment) – 1 Thess 4:16. Those believers who had already died would rise first and those still alive would be caught up with them to meet the Lord in the air.

Before this cataclysmic event happens, certain things have to take place:

Firstly, there would be a ‘falling away’ of believers from the faith (2 Thess 2:3). Unlike the current teaching about a massive end-time harvest, Jesus warned that “because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most would grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). The Greek word for ‘falling away’ is ‘apostasia’, which means apostasy. People can only fall away from the faith if they have once been a part of it.

Secondly, the man doomed to destruction, would be revealed after the falling away and, by implication, out of and as a result of the apostasy. Two questions have to be answered. Firstly, when does (or did) this ’falling away’ happen and secondly, who is the man ‘doomed to destruction’?

Since both answers tie together, I will examine the second question first which makes it easier to answer the first.

Paul used a code word to identify the man doomed to destruction. It is used only once in the rest of Scripture, by Jesus in His high-priestly prayer in John 17:12: “While I was with them I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.” It is quite clear that Jesus was speaking of Judas Iscariot who betrayed Him. Who was Judas?

1. He was one of the Twelve, chosen by Jesus after a night of prayer – Luke 6:12,16.
2. He was given power and authority, as were the other disciples, to drive out demons, heal the sick and preach the good news of the kingdom – Luke 9:1.
3. He was present with, and in close proximity to Jesus at the Last Supper – Luke 22:21.
4. Satan entered into him – Luke 22:3, John 13:27.
5. He went out from them and schemed with the chief priests to hand Jesus over to them – Luke 22:4-6; John 13:30.
6. He betrayed Jesus with a kiss – Mark 14:44,45.

From these references it is clear that the identity of the man  ‘doomed to destruction’ was easily recognisable as coming from within the circle of those who followed Jesus. He was not some mystery political figure to come sometime in the future but a person or persons identifiable by the same characteristics as Judas displayed.

Does Paul’s man ‘doomed to destruction’ match John’s ‘antichrist’ who comes from within the fellowship of believers, someone who was in and is now out? If we understand the terms correctly, the answer is yes. This means that antichrist cannot be a political figure from outside the church as we will see in the next episode.
To be continued…

Why is Current Prophecy Teaching About Antichrist Unbiblical – Part 2

Apologetics, ,

Why is Current Prophecy Teaching About Antichrist Unbiblical – Part 2

“Rome’s answer to the Protestant Reformation was twofold, though actually conflicting and contradictory. Through the Jesuits Ribera, of Salamanca, Spain, and Bellarmine, of Rome, the Papacy put forth her futurist interpretation. Almost simultaneously Alcazar, Spanish Jesuit of Seville, advanced the conflicting preterist interpretation.” (1)

Both of these interpretations were intended to counter the historical interpretation of the Reformers. Although they were actually opposite and conflicting, they were both designed to take the attention away from applying prophecy to the papacy and placing the fulfilment of prophecy either in the past (preterism), stopping short of Papal Rome’s career, or in the distant future (futurism) so that it leaps over papal dominance and squeezes Antichrist into a short period of time, just before the consummation of the ages – therefore often called the ‘gap theory’.

The Reformers’ interpretation of the vision of Babylon and the Beast of Revelation 17 rested clearly on the Roman Church – “the apostate woman, the Roman Church; the city – seven-hilled Rome; the many waters, the many peoples; the Beast, the fourth, or Roman beast of Daniel 7:7; the sixth head, the Caesars and the seventh, the popes”. (2)

“Roman Catholics as well as Protestants agree as to the origin of these interpretations. The Roman Catholic writer G.S. Hitchcock says:
• “The Futurist School, founded by the Jesuit Ribera in 1591, looks for Antichrist, Babylon, and a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, at the end of the Christian dispensation.
• “The Praeterist School, founded by the Jesuit Alcasar in 1614, explains the Revelation by the Fall of Jerusalem, or by the fall of Pagan Rome in 410 A.D.” (G.S. Hitchcock, The Beasts and the Little Horn, p. 7.)” (3)

Francisco Ribera (1537-1591)
“About 1590 Ribera published a 500-page commentary on the Apocalypse, denying the Protestant application of Antichrist to the Church of Rome. Ribera’s death at fifty-four halted the preparation of further commentaries. Those that were printed passed through several revised editions—at Salamanca about 1590, Lyons and Antwerp in 1593, Douay in 1612, and Antwerp in 1603 and 1623.

“Since its inception his basic thesis has been virtually unchanged. He assigned the first few chapters of the Apocalypse to ancient Rome, in John’s own time; the rest he restricted to a literal three and a half year’s reign of an infidel Antichrist, who would bitterly oppose and blaspheme the saints just before the Second Advent. He taught that antichrist would be a single individual, who would rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, abolish Christian religion, deny Christ, be received by the Jews, pretend to be God, and conquer the world—all in this brief space of three and one half years!

• Places Antichrist’s coming at the close of the seals
• Places trumpets under the seventh seal
• Death of the witness in literal time
• Antichrist’s persecutions last three and one half years
• Judgements upon Rome for ultimate apostasy—in Revelation 17

Ribera admits the woman to be not only pagan Rome but also Rome Christian after a future falling away from the pope. (Francisco Ribera, Sacram Beati Ioannis … Apocalypsin Commentarij, chap. 14, pp. 282, 283).

• Repudiates Augustinian earthly millennium
• Antichrist’s reign counted by literal days
• Babylon is Rome past and future, not present” (4)

Alcazar’s preterist interpretation fell into disrepute and is not therefore relevant for this discussion.

What is the relevance of this information for the Church today?
1. The motive for Ribera’s interpretation of prophecy was not to interpret Scripture accurately but to take the attention away from the Reformers’ identification of the Papacy and the Roman Catholic system as the Antichrist and the Scarlet Women of Revelation 17 and place it on some fictional character far in the future.

2. The Reformers suffered and paid a high price for believing and propagating the truth of salvation by grace through faith alone and for making the Scriptures available to the man in the street.

3. The Roman Catholic Church spilt the blood of millions of Protestant Christian martyrs during the Inquisition – in the name of the Church!

4. The Protestant Church has now joined hands with the Roman Catholic system in propagating the same lies Rome used to turn the attention of the Christian world away from their apostasy, lies and wickedness with which they control the consciences of millions of devotees.

5. In the name of unity – the large part of the Church of the Lord Jesus has climbed into bed with the great prostitute of Revelation 17:3-6. This what Jesus has warned: “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.” Revelation 18:4,5.

(Quotes 1-4 taken from the website http://gospel-herald.com/futurism_history.htm, (captured 01/10/2102), (LeRoy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic faith of Our Fathers, The Historical Development of Prophetic Interpretation, Vol. 2, Review and Herald, Washington, D.C., 1948, excerpted, pp. 464-532.)
(Please refer to the article “Who is the Man Doomed to Destruction?” for a brief examination of this interpretation).