Whether we are there now or not is a matter of conjecture, hopefully sanctified or biblically educated conjecture, but nevertheless conjectiure. I've been pretty convinced that we are right on the threshold of the last week or seven years of the Seventy Weeks of Daniel, which is the Tribulation period that follows the Rapture, but of course I could be wrong. Nevertheless such prophecy ministries as Jan Markell's have the same strong impression that it is right at the door, the recent events that are changing the world being taken as a major indicator, unprecedented events, the lockdown of whole nations for the COVID virus, and in America the rise of Marxist ideology in destructive riots under the guise of a civil rights movement.
It took me a while to shake off some other interpretations of end times prophecy and come around to the Pre-Tribulation Rapture point of view, and Markell's ministry was one influence, though I think John MacArthur's teachings were a bigger influence. In any case I'm persuaded. Nevertheless there are some issues where I differ, and the identity of the Antichrist is one. If it weren't for the odd signs that accompanied the election of this latest Pope, * however, I might not be as convinced as I am that he is likely to be THE final Pope and the Antichrist of the tribulation. Those signs include thirteens and a 666 in the timing of his election, a lightning bolt hitting the building where he was to be elected. and then the radical character of the Pope who has departed further from anything resembling Christian doctrine than even the most radical Popes that preceded him. NEVERTHELESS even these things might be misleading.
It was Chris Pinto who made me aware of the Reformers' view of the Antichrist and it is very compelling. It was from one of his teachings that I came to see that there were many Christian teachers throughout the centuries who identified the papacy as Antichrist, not just the Protestant Reformers of Luther's time.** And they derived their understanding of his identity from the Bible.
The timing of the revelation of the Antichrist is one place current thinking differs from the Reformers' view:
2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
Today this is usually interpreted to mean he has not yet been revealed though there is really nothing in the passage itself to make that the necessary interpretation. All it is saying is that the Day of the LORD will not come UNTIL the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed. The two are apparently connected in the verse. But the Reformers considered him to have been revealed when the Bishop of Rome, i.e. the papacy, was elevated to the status of Universal Bishop in 606 AD. And they understood the falling away, or the "great apostasy" as we sometimes call it, to be the corruption of doctrine of the Roman Church. Paul explicitly warned against teaching to come concerning the forbidding of marriage and the eating of meats, both of which are RC doctrine, the celibacy requirement for priests and what became fish on Friday in our time. If the Reformers' view is correct that the falling away came with the Roman Church and the Antichrist was revealed as the papacy, then the Day of the Lord could follow at any time.
There is also some question about how to interpret 2 Thessalonians 2:7
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.This is usually understood today to refer to the removal of the Holy Spirit with the Church at the Rapture, but the Reformers understood it to refer to Caesar. Paul is being very cryptic here, apparently avoiding naming the restrainer. He's being cautious and that was understood by the Reformers as necessary in the days of the Caesars when Paul was writing. If he was referring to the Holy Spirit he shouldn't have needed to avoid saying so since such caution presumably wouldn't be necessary in that case. The need to avoid alerting the Church's enemies of the day also explains the strange apocalyptic imagery to describe the heathen empires in the books of Daniel and Revelation. That imagery even frustrated Luther so it should also flummox an unbeliever trying to decipher it.
After the fall of the Roman Empire and the end of the line of Caesars, in 606 AD the Byzantine Emperor Phocas made the Bishop of Rome Universal Bishop, which was identified by many as the creation of the Antichrist. So Caesar was taken out of the way and the new Caesar as it were, the Antichrist, now appears on the scene as the head of a new phase of the Roman Empire, as many also understood that, especially since it came to rule over the West in a political sense, with power over the kings, and it took on many of the rituals and emblems of the Roman pagan religions.. So in contrast to some current prophetic views within the Pre-Tribulation Rapture camp, the Roman Empire is already revived, and the Antichrist has already been revealed. They're not hidden, they've been there all along, but it will take the absence of the true Church to bring them to the global prominence and power they've been waiting for.
I also don't think it makes much sense to suppose that the Holy Spirit will actually be removed from the earth since a huge number of people are going to be saved during the Tribulation and that isn't just a matter of intellectual assent, the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit is necessary.
So I still think the Man of Sin of the Tribulation period is most likely to be a Pope and most likely to be this current Pope. Again perhaps I'm wrong. in fact it's possible that calling this personality the "Antichrist" is wrong since scripture doesn't use that term for him. However, again, wait and see. The next thing on the prophetic timetable is the Rapture of the Church no matter who the Antichrist figure turns out to be. Whoever it is will make a seven-year covenant with Israel and then those seven years will count down to the return of Christ.
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