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THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

OLD TESTAMENT.

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We now come to the inquiry, What do the Script- ures teach us respecting the Antichrist? We begin by asking whether the Old Testament speaks of him as the Antimessiah? and this leads us to enquire as to the Messianic expectations of the Jews in our Lord's day. These, as based upon the cove- nants and the prophets, had their culmination in the Kingdom to be set up by the Messiah. Into the con- ception of the Kingdom there entered three chief elements: (a) the authority of Jehovah, their cove- nant God, would be established over all the earth; (b) to the Jews as the covenant people would be given the highest place among the nations; (c) the government under Jehovah would be administered by a Son of David, under whose rule all peoples would dwell in unity and peace. Jehovah would every- where be honoured as the supreme God, but in Jeru- salem would be His temple, and the centre of all worship.

In regard to the time and manner of the setting up of the Messianic Kingdom, it was believed that it

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Note—Passages speaking of the Kingdom of the Messiah:

(a) Its King, a Son of David, Jer. xxiii, 5, xxxiii, 15; Isa. ix, 7; Isa. xi, 1.

(b) Under it the Jews will be saved, Jer. xxiii, 6, xxxiii, 7; Isa. xxvii, 6, lx, 21.

(c) Under it all nations will dwell in peace, Ps. lxxii; Is. Lx, 8; Isa. ii, 4.

(d) Under it all people will worship Jehovah, Isa. ii, 8, xi, 9, lxvi, 28; Zech. xiv, 16.

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would be when the Jews were in great trouble and distress (Dan. xii, 1). They would be scattered abroad in all lands, and subject to cruel oppres- sion, and encounter the hostility of all nations. But the Messiah would appear, and through Him Jehovah would deliver them from their oppressors, gather them together into their own land, and fulfill to them all the promises made through the prophets of the prosperity and glory of the Messianic King- dom. The period of trial and judgment immediately introductory to the Kingdom would be one of brief duration. At its beginning, the enemies of the Messiah would be active and triumphant, but at the end would be overthrown, and the authority of the Messiah everywhere be recognized. This period of trial, preceding the coming of the Messiah, and fol- lowed by the Kingdom, was known by various names, "the day of wrath," "the day of judgment," "the great and terrible day," "the time of the birth- throes"; as the end of the age or dispensation, it was "the last day," or "last days;" and as forming the transition to the Messianic age, it was the con- clusion or "end of this world" and "the beginning of the world to come."

It was in "the last days" that both good and evil would come to the full, and the distinction between them be most manifest, and, therefore, the hostility the greatest. Among all peoples there would be division and strife and hatred; and in the physical world, great disturbances and cosmical changes (Joel ii, 30; Zech. xiv); the end of all being "new heavens and a new earth" in which the righteous would dwell (Isa. lxv, 17).

But whilst the Jews believed that the nations would

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assemble together, and fight against the Messiah at His appearing (Ps. ii, Joel ii, Zech. xiv, 2), did they believe that their enemies would then be united under one head—the Antimessiah? It is not wholly clear what the Jews believed on this point.* The prophecies of Daniel were much read, and largely moulded the popular expectations as to the future. This prophet uses the symbol of a beast to represent the kingdoms which wasted and oppressed his people. He saw four different beasts coming up from the sea —four successive kingdoms—each with its special characteristics, but all hostile to the Jews (Dan. vii). In the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. ii, 81), four kingdoms were symbolized by its differing parts of gold, silver, brass, and iron. That the fourth and last is the Roman has been generally held. This beast (vii, 24) has ten horns (the horn being every- where a symbol of some form of power), which here represent the fullness of its kingly power: "The ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise." Among these came up "a little horn," having eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows, and who thinks to change times and laws. That this eleventh horn symbol-

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*What is said by Bertholdt (Christologia, 16) of the Anti- christus is taken from later, and for the most part Christian, sources. Eisenmenger, "Entdecktes Judenthum," quotes only from the later Rabbis. It is said by Jowett, "Essay on Man of Sin": "It was a current belief of the time in which St. Paul lived that the coming of Messiah would be preceded by the com- ing of Antichrist;" referring to Gfrörer as his authority.

Dr. Todd "Discourses" affirms that the fourth kingdom is that of the Antichrist. Against this interpretation there are very strong objections.

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ized some great persecutor is plain from the words spoken of him; and it is not likely that the Jews of the Lord's day believed that they had had their ful- fillment in Antiochus Epiphanes, or in any persecutor of the past. It is more probable that they saw in Antiochus a type of a greater enemy to come, and the last, for after his destruction the kingdom would be given to the saints of the Most High. Understand- ing the one "like unto a Son of Man" (vii, 18) to be the Messiah, who now takes the Kingdom, this would certainly lead to the conception of this last enemy as an antimessiah; but that the Jews so under- stood it, is more than we can positively affirm.

The same may be said of "the little horn" (Dan. viii, 9), and interpreted as a symbol of "a king of fierce countenance," who "shall destroy the mighty and the holy people." And also of "the willful king" (xi, 36), though not a few now understand the fulfill- ment of this prophecy to be wholly in the future. Of the prediction of the "one that maketh desolate" (ix, 24—) we shall speak in considering the Lord's teachings.

If we turn to the other prophets, the words of Isaiah xi, 4: "With the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked," are translated in the Targum, "With the breath of his lips shall he slay Armilus." This shows that at the time of this translation there was a belief that the Messiah would be confronted by a chief personal enemy whom He would destroy. St. Paul applies this to the man of sin (2 Thess. ii, 8). Of this passage Delitzsch ("Messianic Prophecies") says, "We have an indication that the apostasy of the earth will finally culminate in the Antichrist." Other typical references to the Antimessiah in this

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prophet are found by many interpreters in x, 6, where the "Assyrian" is mentioned; and in xiv, 12, where "Lucifer," " the shining one," or "son of the dawn," is spoken of, who says, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. . . I will be like the Most High." In the mention of Leviathan (xxvii, 1), "the swift serpent," "the crooked serpent," "the dragon that is in the midst of the sea," some find a symbolic pointing out of the Antimessiah.

A reference to an Antimessiah is found by some in Psalm cx, 6. "He shall wound the heads over many countries" (in R. V. "He shall strike through the head in many countries"). The singular "head" being used in the Hebrew, they understand it as equivalent to "prince," and to foretell that many countries are to be united in that day—"the day of God's wrath" when He shall judge among the nations—under one man as their chief.

A union of many peoples under one head is spoken of by Ezekiel, xxxviii, 2. But it is not easy to identify Gog, "the chief prince of Meshech," with the blasphemous oppressors of Daniel. He seems rather to be a distinct enemy, and not improbably a Chris- tian power, hostile to the Jews, who will invade their land and oppress for a short time the Jewish people; but at what time or under what conditions we cannot now understand.

Whilst then we do not find in the Old Testament any distinct mention by name of an Antimessiah, we do find predictions that at the time when the Messiah was expected to appear and take the Kingdom, there would be arrayed against Him the nations acting together in unity. This implies a head, some one

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who is the leader, and possessed of great, if not supreme power. (See Joel iii, 2. "I will gather all nations against Jerusalem," and Zech. xiv, 2, "I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle," also Ps. ii.) The characters of the oppressors mentioned by Daniel, their hatred of the holy people, their selfish exaltation, their contempt of God and of His times and laws—all mark a period when "wickedness is come to the full," and the most bitter enemies of God and His Christ appear. It is not without ground that we may believe that the imprecatory Psalms, especially cix, may prophetically refer to this man in whom would be concentrated all hostility to Jehovah and the Saints.

We may, then, accept the language of Prof. Briggs ("Messianic Prophecy"), "It is not unnatural, but rather in accordance with the analogy of prophecy, that the hostile kingdoms should not only in- crease in extension, but also increase in intension; we might reasonably expect that a great hostile monarch, an Antimessiah, would precede the advent of the Messiah Himself. . . The sufferings of the people of God would reach their climax under the Antimessiah."

That the Jews of the Lord's day, or at least many of them, believed that the general hostility of the nations to them as the Covenant people, would find its last expression in some mighty one, their leader, who would be overthrown by the Messiah, although nowhere distinctly asserted by the prophets, cannot well be doubted. But was this Antimessiah to be a heathen man, or an apostate Jew? Some have seen a prophetic intimation that he would be a Jew, in the mention by the prophet Zechariah (xi.

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17) of "the idol (foolish) shepherd." Thus Delitzsch says: "If the good shepherd is the image of the future Christ, the foolish shepherd is the counterpart of Christy that is, the lawless one in whom the apos- tasy from Christ culminates. A heathen ruler is not meant, but one proceeding from the people having the name of the people of God." But on the other hand, those whom the later Jews regarded as types of the Antimessiah were heathen, as Balaam and the Assyrian. It is not likely that the Jews believed that anyone of their number would so fall from the faith as to deny the special calling of his people; or that an apostate Jew would be received by the heathen as their head. They saw rather in the Anti- messiah, if, indeed, they had any definite conception of him as an individual, one who did not recognize their claim to be God's chosen people, or the claim of their Messiah; a Gentile who hated the Jews for their religious exclusiveness and pride, and who pre- sented himself as the leader of their heathen enemies.

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* It was long before said by Jerome: Pastor stultus aut imper- itus haud dubium quin Antichristus sit, qui in consummatione mundi dicitur esse venturus, et qualis sit venturus, indicatur.

THE TEACHINGS OF THE LORD.

In considering these teachings, we must distinguish between those spoken to His own disciples and those spoken to the Jews. So far as His words concern us here, they refer to three points. First, His own Messianic relations to the Jews, and their national future; Secondly, The future of the Church, imme- diate and remote, down to His return; Thirdly, The person and work of the Antichrist.

I. (a) We have seen what were the Messianic expectations of the Jews in the Lord's day. Present- ing Himself to them as their Messiah, the Son of David, He asserted His prerogative, as Judge and King. "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father." (John V, 22—.) The time of this judgment is at His return. "When the Son of man shall come in His glory . . then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory." (Matt, xxv, 31. See also in same dis- course the parables of the "Talents," and of the "Virgins "; and of the "Nobleman," Luke xix, 12—.)

(b) He confirmed the predictions of the pro- phets that at this time the Jews would be scattered abroad, and Jerusalem trodden down by the Gentiles, and the temple left desolate. (Luke xxi, 24; Matt, xxiii, 38.) He confirmed, also, the predictions that this would be a time of great trouble, and distress of

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THE TEACHINGS OF THE LORD. 11

all nations. "Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." (Matt, xxiv, 21—.) "These be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled." "There shall be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people." "Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved."

(c) He confirmed God's promise that after these judgments had brought them to repentance, the Jews would be gathered to their own land, and acknowledge Him as their King. This is plain from His promise to the Apostles of the circumcision:— "In the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Matt, xix, 28 ; Luke xxii, 29-30.)

II. The Future of the Church, immediate and remote.

We must, as already said, distinguish those teach- ings of the Lord addressed to the Jews respecting their national future, from those addressed to His disciples respecting their immediate future, and the future of the Church; though much which He said concerned both the Jews and the Church as standing to Him in like Covenant relations. His return to establish His kingdom would equally concern both, but would present to^ each its special aspect. Now, His words respecting His Church, its relations to the world, its history and its spiritual condition at the time of His return, demand our most careful con- sideration.

We may best consider these teachings under sev- eral particulars.

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1. The permanent antagonistic relation of the Church to the world. As not of the world, but called out of it, and witnessing against it as evil, the rela- tion is one of inherent hostility. The Lord in His last discourse to His disciples emphasises this. "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The ser- vant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also." (John xv, 19-20.) In His intercessory prayer, He says: "I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." (John xvii, 14—.) He also foretells how deadly this hostility will be: "They shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." (John xvi, 2.) That this was not a transient outburst of enmity, and confined to the Jews, and only for a brief period at the beginning, but the result of a permanent antagonism between sin and holiness, righteousness and unrighteousness, truth and falsehood, and, therefore, an antagonism between the Church and the world to the end, appears everywhere from His teachings ; of which the parable of the tares and the wheat may be taken as an illus- tration. That this antagonism is not one of abstract principles simply, but is embodied in persons, the Lord shows by His recognition of the fact that there is "a Power of darkness," the head of which is Satan —"the prince of this world," the personal adversary of God and of His Son. To the special attacks of

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this great enemy He had Himself been exposed, and knew that so long as Satan continued to be the prince of this world, His disciples would have no exemption from his subtle temptations and deadly assaults. They were in an enemy's country, and he would not cease in his attacks until he was cast out of the earth. All expectations of peace between his followers and the followers of the Lord were vain; but he might disguise his hostility and assume the attitude of a friend, and so lull the Church into security, and into a forgetfulness, or even a denial of his existence. But this peace was only seeming. The more the Church manifested the holiness of her Head, and affirmed the sinfulness of human nature, and the necessity of His atonement; the more clearly she proclaimed Him as the incarnate Son of God through whom alone is salvation; the more pronounced and bitter would this hostility become. The only way in which this antagonism could be set aside, was either by the conversion of the world to faith in Christ, which would deprive Satan of all his following and power; or by the entire apostasy of the Church from that faith, which would make Satan's power supreme. Either the Church or the world must lose its dis- tinctive character before there could be peace between them.

As to the conversion of the world through the preaching of the Gospel, it must be noted that although the Lord gave the command that the Gospel should be preached to all nations, He nowhere speaks of it as being universally received. In sending forth His Apostles upon a temporary mission during His earthly ministry. He said to them, in words which plainly looked forward beyond that mission, and

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embrace all missionary labour, that every form of opposition and suffering would meet them. (Matt, x, 5—.) "I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. . . Ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake. . . Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword." Even the closest family bonds would be severed: "A man's foes shall be they of his own household." All who would be His followers must bear His cross, and be willing even to die for His sake.

Nowhere in all His teachings did the Lord say, that this hostility of the world to the Church would cease through the conversion of the world. On the contrary, it would continue, though it might be in a latent condition, and would become most intense at the time of the end; for then His actings in prepa- ration for His return, the assertion of His authority, and the quickened faith of many, would call forth the latent hatred, and rouse into activity "the prince of this world" who would put forth every power of evil to destroy. His disciples could not be "hated of all nations for His name's sake," until "the gospel had been preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations." The tares would grow and ripen till the harvest came.

If peace would not be made by the conversion of the world to the Gospel, could it be through the whole Church becoming worldly in her spirit and aims? Of a total apostasy we cannot think. The Lord has said that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church." She cannot cease to be the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Ghost. But though the Church cannot ever become wholly apostate, and

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therefore she cannot be at absolute peace with the world, she may become worldly-minded; and thus the enmity of the world to her may be blunted, and the appearance of peace exist. The Church may forget her high calling, and become earthly in her spirit. She may corrupt the Gospel, mingling the leaven of error with the truth, may refuse to set forth the claims of Christ in their fulness, may seek the honour which Cometh from men, and in many ways propitiate the world ; and the line of distinction be thus almost effaced. She may become "the unjust steward," lowering her Lord's claims upon the faith and obe- dience of men in order to gain their favour. Those who have the spirit of this world, the world will not hate. To His own brethren, who did not then believe on Him, the Lord said (John vii, 7): "The world cannot hate you, but Me it hateth, because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil." A seeming con- cord may be established between the Church and the world on the basis of a common worldliness, but it is superficial and unreal. The true antagonism will reappear so soon and so far as the Church bears a faithful witness in word and life to her living Head. And as the consciousness of her high calling is reawakened and strengthened in the last day, and she rises into her true heavenly position, so will the antagonism then be sharpest and most intense.

We have dwelt the longer upon this point of essen- tial and permanent hostility, because the belief that the Church and the world can dwell peaceably to- gether, and jointly serve God, though in different ways; and that to this end the claims of Christ, as held at first in the Church, may now be greatly modi- fied, and His headship made of little account, is one

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very powerful means, as we shall see later, in pre- paring the way of the Antichrist.

2. Let us now note what the Lord said of the spiritual condition of the Church just before His return. It would be one of great worldliness. "The love of the many shall wax cold." (Matt, xxiv, 12.) It would be at the coming of the Son of man as in the days of Noah and of Lot, when the ordinary pursuits of life, building, planting, marrying, and the like—things in themselves right and necessary—so engrossed men that they were wholly unmindful of God's warnings, and therefore His judgments would come upon them unawares. (Luke xvii, 26—.) He speaks of the time as one of greatest temptation, when false Christs and false prophets would arise, showing great signs and wonders, and through them many would be deceived.* (Matt, xxiv, 23-4.) Iniquity—lawlessness—would abound, and many be offended, and hate and betray one another. The faith that prays for His return, though greatly

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* There seems to be good reason for believing that the clause in the prayer of the Lord which He gave His disciples: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," "Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one," (R. V.), refers to the great temptation, and to the power of Satan, at the time of the end. As the second petition is a prayer for the coming of the kingdom, so the last petition a prayer that the dis- ciples may escape the great and final temptation immediately preceding it, and be delivered from the Tempter, who would then put forth all his power through "the son of perdition." (See Rev. xii, 12 : xiii, 6—.) This is wholly in accordance with the Lord's general teaching with reference to the fu- ture, and especially to the tribulation of the last days. This time of trial and temptation He does not put far distant, but would have it ever remembered, and it was clearly in the mind of the disciples as near at hand.

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strengthened in a few, would be well nigh extin- guished in most; and that day come upon all that dwell upon the face of the whole earth, as a snare. It would be a time so fearful, that He commands His disciples "to watch and pray always that they may escape the things which shall come to pass"; for there are some who, like Noah and Lot, shall escape the sore judgments. (Luke xxi, 86 — .)

Let us consider the Lord's actings as Judge at His return. The time having come when the tares and the wheat must be separated, the Lord begins with His Church, and separates in several successive judicial acts the faithful from the unfaithful, and gathers the faithful to Himself. (Matt, xxiv, 40; xxv, 10, 11, 31—) This done. He proceeds to set the Jews in their place, separating in like manner the believing from the unbelieving among them; and finally judges the nations, making a like separation among them. Thus His kingdom is fully established —all things that offend and them which do iniquity being gathered out, and all classes of His subjects put in their right places—and the predictions of the prophets are fulfilled. These events, doubtless, occupy a considerable period of time, and this whole period is "the day of judgment," "the great day of the Lord."

This summary of the Lord's teaching shows us that anything like a conversion of the world before His return by the preaching of the gospel, was not in His thoughts. Had it been. He could not have failed to comfort His mourning disciples, and encourage them to vigorous action by assurances of the success of their mission. But he persistently holds up before them hatred, persecution, death. His life on earth

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was prophetic of the history of the Church; and the greatest manifestation of hostility to her, as to Him, would be at the end. Then would she go down into her Gethsemane; then would be "the hour and the power of darkness " ; and it would be the time of "the per- plexity and distress of the nations." Only His return could bring deliverance; for that she must ever watch and pray.

III. The person and work of the Antichrist.

1. Let us examine the Lord's words to the Jews. We have already seen reason to believe that the Jews looked for some great one to appear in the last days, in whom the enmity of the nations against them would be headed up, and by whom they would be grievously persecuted and oppressed; and who would set himself in opposition to the Messiah, and finally be destroyed by Him. Does the Lord in His teachings to the Jews allude to such a person? The only passage bearing on this point is that in John (John v, 43), "I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." It is here clearly inti- mated that someone would come presenting himself to the Jews as their Messiah, and would be received by them. Jesus, the true Messiah, had come in His Father's name, and they had rejected Him; another would come claiming in his own right the Messianic rule, and him they would receive. The Lord does not say that he would be a Jew, and yet we can scarce suppose that, with the then prevalent conceptions of their high place as God's covenant people, they could have thought of a heathen Messiah. It is possible that he may be both a Jew and a Christian, an apostate from both covenants.

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2. The Lord's words to His disciples. In these does the Lord speak of an individual in whom the enmity of the world to the Church would be headed up? We find no distinct reference to one, except in the words already quoted which were spoken to the Jews, and have no direct reference to His Church. He speaks of false Christs, but not of an Antichrists Yet there may be one implied in His reference to Daniel. (Matt, xxiv, 15.) "When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand),—then let them," etc. The question arises, what did the Lord mean by "the abomination of desolation"? The phrase occurs three times in the prophet, (ix, 27 ; xi, 31 ; xii, 11.) In the last two it is rendered "the abomination that maketh desolate"; but in the first (R. V.), "and upon the wing of abominations shall come one that maketh desolate; and even until the consummation, and that determined, shall wrath be poured out upon the desolator." Most interpreters suppose that the Lord referred to this passage of the prophet, and if so, He intended to have the disciples understand that some one person would come—an abominable desolator—who would stand in the holy place. Thus understood, this teaching of the Lord would serve as the foundation of the later teaching of St. Paul (2 Thess. ii, 4).

If, however, we suppose the Lord to have referred to all the passages in which "the abomination that maketh desolate" is spoken of, and His general warning—"Let whoso readeth, understand," im- plies this, we can scarce avoid the conclusion that He would teach us that at the end the enmity against

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God would be summed up in a person. What He said to the Church after His ascension respecting the beast and false prophet, will be considered when The Revelation is before us.

This brief surrey of the Lord's words will serve to shew the importance of His Person and work as dis- tinguished from His teachings. These were neces- sarily adapted to the spiritual and mental under- standing of those to whom He spake. But He Him- self was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The salvation of the world was not to be effected by the mere enlargement of its religious knowledge, but by its acceptance of Him as the Saviour. Not by His words, but by His works must it be saved. What He said was to explain who He was, and what He was then doing, and what He was still to do; and one stage of His work prepared the way for another; the Cross for His priesthood, the priesthood for His Kingdom; all must be done by Him personally. To substitute His teachings, spiritual or ethical, as the means of saving society or the world, is to hide Him and His future work from sight, and thus tends powerfully, as we shall see, to prepare the way for the Antichrist.

THE TEACHINGS OF THE APOSTLES

COLLECTIVELY.

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Before entering upon the enquiry aa to the teaching of the Beveral Apostles, whose Epistles we have, in regard to the Antichrist, and the spiritual condition of the Church before the coming of the Lord, let us first note what they all have in common. And in our examination we must bear in mind that they all looked for the return of the Lord in their own life- time, or in the lifetime of some then living. This must affect our interpretation of their words so far that we may not impute to them a conception of a long period as interrening.*

Accepting their Lord's words as the very truth of God, the Apostles make them the rule of all their teachings to the Church. What He said of the future of the Jewish people, and of His Church, they repeat ; and as time went on, and His words became more and more clear through their partial fulfilment ; and the Holy Ghost also gave new light through the Christian prophets (John xvi, 18 ; 1 Tim. iv, 1), they bring forth some particulars which He had not made known. This gradual enlargement of prophetic knowledge need not surprise us, for it lies in the very nature of prophecy that, as the purpose of God goes on from stage to stage. He makes known to His children what He is about to do, that they may be His helpers.

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* It Is well said by Bengel: "Gradatim profetica procedit, apocalypsis explicatius loquitur quam Paulus; Paulus explicatius quam Dominus ante glorificationem.

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1. The Apostles agree in affirming that the return of the Lord was to be continually watched for by the Church as an event that might occur at any moment. This was only to repeat His express teach- ings. (Matt, xxiv, 44; Luke xii, 35—.) They, therefore, so taught the Church. St. Peter said: "The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. . . What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy con- versation and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God."

St. Paul said: "The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night . . therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober." "The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light." St. James said: "Be ye patient, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh: the Judge standeth before the door."

It is often said that in their expectation of the nearness of the Lord's return, the Apostles were mis- taken, as the long centuries since have shown. Mis- taken in this, they may also have been mistaken in other matters. The objection is invalid. The Lord commanded them to watch for Him alway on the ground that of the day of His return neither Him- self, nor any man, nor any angel knew, but the Father only. (Matt. xxiv, 36; Acts 1, 7.) Not to have watched for Him, and not to have taught the disciples to do so, would have been in the face of His command; and would have brought upon them the judgment pronounced upon the evil servant, who said: "My Lord delayeth His coming." (Matt.

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xxiv, 48.) But the Apostles also knew from the Lord's own words, and from the light given them by the Holy Spirit, that, as the harvest is not reaped until it is ripe, so there must be a certain spiritual ripening, a going on unto perfection, in those ready for His appearing. Not upon the unready and un- prepared could the great and sudden change from the mortal to the immortal pass. (1 Cor. xv, 51 —.)

So great is the dislike now felt to the Lord's return by many, and so little the faith in it, that His command to watch must be explained away. By some it is said that the Apostles misunderstood Him. He used words in the spiritual, not literal, sense; and did not mean that He would ever return to earth, but that at their death they would come to Him. Thus Prof. Jowett ("Essay on Belief in the Coming of Christ,") says: "St. Paul at first was waiting for and hastening to the day of the Lord, but in the course of years He grew up into a higher truth, that to die and to be with the Lord is far better." *But

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*How wholly foreign the patient waiting for the Lord is to the modern spirit, may be seen in Jowett's words: "The language which is attributed in the epistle of St. Peter (3 Pet. iii, 8— ) to the unbelievers of that age, has become the lan- guage of believers in our own. . . No one can now be daily looking for the visible coming of Christ, any more than in a land where nature is at rest, he would live in expectation of an earthquake. The experience of eighteen hundred years has made it impossible, consistently with the laws of the human mind, that the belief of the first Christians should continue among ourselves." Prof. Jowett overlooks the essential distinction that to wait for the Lord is to wait for a living Person who has promised to return, and therefore may be daily looked for; but an earthquake is an event which may or may not be, and of the time of its occurrence we know, and can know, nothing.

24 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

others more bold say, that the Lord was Himself mistaken. He shared the common but erroneous Messianic expectations of His day. He thus led the Apostles into error, and they led the Church.

It was when the Apostles discerned that the churches under them did not, as a whole, leave the things that were behind, and press onward toward the mark, the goal, the perfected likeness to Christ, that they knew that the Lord, though "not slack concerning His promise,'' would delay His return, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." But how long He would delay, they did not know. They, therefore, did not cease to hold up before the Church His speedy return, for this was ever the highest incentive to spiritual sobriety and watchfulness. Whilst there was the growing consciousness that they them- selves would not be able to present the Church as one body to Christ, yet they knew not but some might be made ready through His special spiritual dealings with them. The Lord had taught them in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, that some at His return would be ready, and some not ready to meet Him; and, as in the wheat field, some stalks ripened before others, so would it be in the Church; and they knew not when His all-discerning eye would see His wise virgins. His first ripe fruits, and come to take them to Himself. This done, an interval might elapse during which He would purify those not ready yet not apostate, by the fires of the great tribulation. These last, many or few, would, like the builders of wood, hay, and stubble, "suffer loss, but be saved, yet so as by fire." (1 Cor. iii, 12 —.)

Of the two chief Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul,

THE TEACHINGS OF THE APOSTLES COLLECTIVELY. 25

the first knew from His Lord's words (John xxi, 18) that he himself would not live to His return. But his knowledge of his own death did not prevent him from keeping the Lord's speedy coming before the Church, rather it made him more earnestly do so. (2 Peter i, 18—.) So St. Paul knew that he would not live to present the Church to Christ, but the knowledge only redoubled his desire to warn it of its perils, and exhort it ever to watch for the Lord. (2 Tim. iv, 6—.)

2. The Apostles agree in teaching that the preaching of the Gospel—the sinfulness of men, the call to repentance, the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and salvation through His death and resurrection,—is offensive to our fallen nature; and that His disciples, therefore, must always be exposed to hostility and hate. In this, also, they only repeat what He had taught them. Says St. Paul: "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness." "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." "For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake." "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." Says St. Peter: "For even hereunto (suffering) were ye called; because Christ also suffered for us." St. James says: "Take, my brethren, the prophets . . f or an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure." In the apostolic teaching, the offense of the cross is never to cease. "The friendship of the world is enmity with God," and this enmity will reach its highest point just before the Lord's return. " In the last days perilous times shall come." "Evil men

26 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

and seducers will wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived." "There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lust, and saying, where is the promise of His coming? "Remember the words which are spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that there shall be mockers in the last time."

If the Apostles expected that the preaching of the Gospel would bring all men, or a very large part of them, to repentance and faith, they would not have spoken in this way. How long would be the period of the Lord's absence, they did not know, or how many would be gathered into the Church. Had they looked for any conversion of the world, or the reception of the gospel by all nations, they could not have looked for the Lord's return in their own lifetime. They knew the Church to be an election, and it might be speedily gathered. But the whole period, whether longer or shorter, they knew to be one of trial and suffering for those faithful to their absent Lord. Of honour, wealth, power, rule, they say not a word, but shame, reproach, persecution—these are ever on their lips.

8. The Apostles agree in teaching that Satan is "the prince of this world," and that he will continue to show to the Church the same hostility that He showed to the Lord. He will remain to the end the enemy and tempter. St. Paul says: "The God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not." "I fear lest, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtility, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." "The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." "Put

THE TEACHINGS OF THE APOSTLES COLLECTIVELY. 27

on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." St. Peter says: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adver- sary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." St. John says: "He that is begotten of God, keepeth himself, . . and the evil one tempteth him not." "The whole world lieth in the evil one." (R. V.) "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil."

The supremacy of Satan as the prince and god of this world continuing to the end, the Church must expect to be tempted as the Lord was tempted, and to meet with every form of subtle deception as well as of open opposition. He would come in "the guise of an angel of light." He would even suffer himself to be scoffed at as a nonentity. He would make use of all devices to deceive and to destroy. The Church, therefore, must never think herself secure, but be always on the watch, "putting on the whole armour of God." (Eph. vi, 11 —.)

ST. PAUL AND HIS TEACHINGS.

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Having briefly examined the teachings of the Apostles collectively as to the religious character of the last days, we proceed to examine those passages in each where mention is made of an individual man as the great enemy of God and of His Son at the time of the end. And, as St. Paul speaks most fully and distinctly on this point, we begin with him.

This Apostle, in his second Epistle to the Thessa- lonians (written about 54 or 55 A. D.), speaks of the apostasy or falling away, out of which would come "the man of sin," "the son of perdition," "that wicked." This man, it is said by Prof. Eadie, "the fathers as a body identified with Antichrist." (Com. on Thessalonians.) As a chief source of our knowl- edge respecting him, the right understanding of St. Paul's words is of the highest importance in our enquiry.

It is not necessary here to go into exegetical details, we need note only the chief points of the Apostle's statement: These are. First, The working of the mystery of iniquity in his day. Secondly, The apostasy, or falling away. Thirdly, The coming of the man of Sin, or of the lawless one. Fourthly, The hindrance to his revelation. Fifthly, His destruction at the Lord's coming.

First, "The mystery of iniquity," or, as in the R. V., "the mystery of lawlessness." (2d Thess. ii, 7.)

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Here two things are affirmed by the Apostle, the fact of a lawless spirit already working in the Church, and that this working was "a mystery." A mystery is not a thing in itself unknowable, but something hidden from the general knowledge and revealed only to the initiated. (Arcanum iniquitatis Tertul.) Thus the Lord spoke of "the mysteries of the kingdom" which His disciples alone could know; from others they were hidden. (Matt, xiii, 11, Eph. iii, 3.) It is said by Campbell ("Four Gospels"), "The spirit of antichrist hath begun to operate, but the operation is latent and unperceived." And it is said by Bishop Wordsworth in loco," What St. Paul was thus describing was then a mystery, and not as yet revealed, but working inwardly." It was made known to the Apostle by the Holy Ghost because of his position as a ruler under Christ over the Church. In like manner the Apostle John saw the spirit of antichrist already active. (1 John iv, 8.) Both discerned, what was hidden from others, that there was already working a spirit of lawlessness, a rejec- tion of apostolic authority, which, if fully developed, would set aside the rule of the Head, and make the Church her own lawgiver and ruler; and in its last manifestation would reject not only Christ's authority, but all authority of God over men. Out of it would come "the lawless one," who would make his own will the supreme law of his action. As said by Bishop Ellicott: " In the apostasy of the present, the inspired apostle sees the commencement of the fuller apostasy of the future."

But, in what form did this incipient lawlessness so early manifest itself? We have only to read St.

30 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

Paul's Epistles to find the answer.* In almost all of them we find complaints that his apostolic authority was not recognized, and that he could not effectually fulfill his ministry. As the fundamental condition of all true obedience in the Church there must be love. The Lord said: "If ye love Me, keep my command- ments." Obedience based on any other motive was seeming, not real. And St. Paul himself speaks of the ministers of the Church as able to build it up only in gr through love. (Eph. iv, 16.) As this point will again meet us, we need not dwell upon it here. It is sufficient to say that in the loss of "the first love," we find the hidden root of the lawlessness, the first workings of which the apostles saw.

Secondly. The apostasy, or falling away.

This means, generally, a falling away from some given standard ; a defection; Here it means a falling away from the true standing of the Church as ap- pointed by Ood. This meaning is confirmed by the use of the word elsewhere (Acts xxi, 21), "thou teachest the Jews to forsake Moses"; literally, "apos- tasy from Moses.'' The word is used by St. Paul (1st Tim. iv. 1), "Some shall depart from the faith," "shall apostatize from the faith." This general mean- ing leaves undetermined the degree of the apostasy or

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*See Bernard, "Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament," Lecture viii: "In the Epistles we seem, as it were, not to witness some passing storms which clear the air, but to feel the whole atmosphere charged with the elements of future tempest and death. Every moment the forces of evil shew themselves more plainly. . . New assaults are being prepared, new tactics will be tried, new enemies pour on, the distant hills are black with gathering multitudes."

As to the meaning of this term in the Fathers, see Todd's note, p. 206 ; in Vul. discessio; Tertullian, abscessio.

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falling away, whether a total or partial denial of the truth. In its culmination, as represented in the man of sin and in his adherents, it is undoubtedly a total denial of the Christian faith. He denies both the Father and the Son. The Apostle distinguishes two forms of the apostasy, one being the corruption of Christianity, the other its absolute rejection. At the first, the working of evil was rather in the heart than in the intellect; and was seen not so much in the loss of truth as in the loss of love. The great Creeds of the Church, and their continued repetition in the past, are the witness that "the Spirit of truth " has worked powerfully in it, preserving the form of sound words, and true rites of worship. But fulness of truth can be held only where is fulness of love; and Church history teaches us that many were early in- fected with doctrinal error, and rejected more or less of the truth without absolutely denying the Father or the Son. But any falsehood cherished, like the un- clean spirit of the Lord's parable, soon takes to itself seven other falsehoods; and thus it is that at the end, when the development of truth and falsehood is com- pleted, we have the absolute truth and the absolute lie standing face to face. Antichrist and his adherents will contemptuously reject whatever the Church has believed respecting the Father and the Son, and all the articles of her faith.

But the falling away, beginning with the loss of love, is not to be confined to doctrine; it embraces the whole spiritual life; and therefore the whole external order of the Church. There cannot be a loss of life without a corresponding decay in the entire ecclesias- tical constitution, its ministries, its sacraments, its activities, and also, in practical godliness.

32 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

We may now ask in what relation does the mystery of lawlessness stand to the apostasy? Are they to be distinguished or identified? There seems no good reason to doubt that they are essentially the same, the same spirit ruling in both. The distinction is one of development, the lawlessness of the first days cul- minating in the apostasy of the last. What St. Paul saw in his day was but the beginning of the apostasy, manifesting itself in disobedience to Christ's rule, and discernible only by the Apostles in the light of the Holy Ghost. As it progressed, there would enter into it other elements, so that at the end "the lawless one" is, also, "the man of sin," "the son of perdi- tion,"—the representative of all that is evil in man. That this initial lawlessness is for a time checked by some hindrance, so that the lawless one does not appear until the end, does not show that the mystery of lawlessness did not continue active after the Apostle's day, but only that its activity was, and continues to be, partially repressed.

We must, therefore, reject the interpretation of those who separate "the mystery of iniquity "from "the falling away" as essentially distinct in nature, and separated by a long period of time; and who affirm that the apostasy is caused by the man of sin, and cannot take place till he appears. This point will meet us again.

The question arises here, does the Apostle in the use of the article, "the apostasy," refer to some apostasy already predicted, and known to the Thes- salonians? This is most probable. This knowledge may have come from the Lord's predictions known to them, where He speaks of the spiritual condition of the Church just before His return, or from the pre-

ST. PAUL AND HIS TEACHINGS. 33

vious teachings of the Apostle, or from words of prophecy spoken in the Church, or possibly from traditional interpretations of Old Testament pro- phecies. (See 2 Thess. ii, 5.)

Again, The numerical extent of the apostasy. It is clear that the Apostle expected that many would be infected by the spirit of lawlessness already work- ing, and fall away from their heavenly standing. In other and later epistles, he expresses his fear that the Church will fall as Eve fell, and that he could not present the disciples as a chaste virgin unto Christ. (2 Cor. xi, 2—.) He often speaks as if many of those he had gathered were unfaithful. Thus he says, writing to the Philippians (iii, 18), "Many walk, of whom I have told you often, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ." Again (ii, 21) "All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." To the elders of Ephesus he said (Acts XX, 29): "I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." In his last Epistles he speaks of "the perilous times" to come and of those who would yield to the tempta- tions, in terms that imply large numbers.

Thirdly. The Man of Sin. ("Man of lawless- ness." Westcott & Hort.) The question which first meets us is, Does the Apostle speak of an individual, or of a series of persons, or of anti-christian princi- ples? As we have seen, it was the early belief that he spake of a person, and this is justified by his language. The use of the article in the designations, "the man of sin," "the son of perdition," "the law- less one, " does not of itself show that an individual

34 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

must be meant, but, taken in connection with the other parts of the Apostle's description, it makes this conclusion certain. It is said by Bishop Ellicott: "Antichrist, in accordance with the almost uniform tradition of the ancient church, is no mere set of principles, or succession of opponents, but one single personal being." This man seats himself in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God. This could not be said of a polity, much less of princi- ples, and not naturally of a series of persons, but of one person only. There is, also, a clear contrast drawn between Christ and this His rival; as Christ has His revelation "in His day," so the man of sin is to be revealed in "his own time." As Christ has His coming, irapovaia, so the man of sin has his com- ing, irapovaia. As the Lord received power from the Father to do His works, so he is endowed by Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and he is to be destroyed by Christ at His coming.

All this points decisively to a person, and as we shall see, this is confirmed by all that we find in the other Epistles, and in The Revelation. But this does not forbid that the antichristian spirit may have been working in individuals all along from the beginning, and so there have been already many antichrists, as said by St. John in his Epistle.

If, then, St. Paul speaks here of the last antichrist in whom the antichristian spirit. culminates, we next ask, In what relation does he stand to the apostasy? It is said by some, and in general by Roman Catholic commentators, that he is its cause. He leads the Church astray by the miracles and signs he is able to do in confirmation of his lies. The apostasy, therefore, does not really begin until he appears, and

ST. PAUL AND HIS TEACHINGS. 35

so is still future. But we have already noted that the beginning of the apostasy was seen by the Apostle in the mystery of lawlessness then working. There was then, indeed, some restraining power, something that hindered its full development; and we may say that so long as this hindrance remains, the apostasy is not folly manifested. The mystery of lawless- ness still continues. In this sense it is still future. The last and greatest of the antichrists has not yet come. But it is nevertheless true that he is not the cause of the apostasy; on the contrary, he is its product. The spirit of lawlessness is consummated in the lawless one, and he cannot, therefore, appear until its last stage—the last time—and thus will be its last and truest representative. And the influ- ences that will mould his character, will also prepare the way for his reception. This interaction permits him to be both product and, in a limited sense, the cause, as Napoleon was both the child of the Revolu- tion and its leader. These influences moulding him and preparing his way, will be considered later.

Although the term, "lawless one," expresses most clearly the characteristic and leading feature of this last enemy, yet the other terms applied to him by St. Paul must be considered as adding many import- ant particulars to our knowledge. He is called "the man of sin," the man in whom sin is, as it were, embodied. In him the fallen nature of man, which is not subject to the law of God, nor can be, is most fully summed up and revealed. As the risen Christ is the representative of the redeemed and holy humanity, so is the man of sin of the sinful humanity which refuses redemption. As the essence of sin is "lawlessness," avofiia (1 John iii, 4, R. V.), this

36 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

lawlessness, in its final development, is the absolute rejection of the law of God. Thus, as the man of sin, fully pervaded by it, he is, on the one hand, fitted to be the perfect instrument of Satan, and can be endowed by him with all power; and so, on the other hand, is he fitted to be the head of all lawless men, and the leader of all the enemies of God and Christ.

He is also called, "he who opposes," the opposer, the adversary. As Satan is God's inveterate enemy, so is he. He sets himself in opposition to all that God would do.

He is also "the son of perdition." This designa- tion was applied to Judas by the Lord. (John xvii, 12.) It implies that he who is so described, is by his own acts devoted to perdition, one to whom above all, perdition is the proper retribution; he cannot escape it.

He is, also, one who "exalteth himself above" ("against," R. V.) " all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." The spirit of pride, of self-exaltation is so developed in him that he claims Divine honour. He will not worship any God, but will be himself worshipped.

As to this claim to be God, three suppositions may be made. That he claims to be the God of the Jews, Jehovah, and therefore seats himself in the Jewish temple, and as such is to be worshipped. This, though affirmed by some early fathers, is wholly incredible. Still more is it incredible that he claims to be the Christian God, the Father. Antichrist denies both the Father and the Son.

That he claims such limited Divinity as was

ST. PAUL AND HIS TEACHINGS. 37

affirmed of the Roman emperors—apotheosis. But the emperor was deified because he was regarded as the embodiment of the State, which had a sacred or divine character. As such embodiment he was enrolled among the Gods. This apotheosis was an honour originally given by the Roman senate, and only to the emperor, and usually after his death; though later given by the emperor himself, in occa- sional instances, to some member of his family. It is said by Tiele ("Hist. of Religion") that "the Cultus of the emperors was pursued with such zeal that games were instituted in their honour, temples were built, and special priests appointed." But it clearly appears from the Apostle's words that this man does not regard himself exalted by any act of man, or as merely one of many deified men. He comes not in the name of another, but " in his own name." He exalts himself above all that is called God, or is an object of worship. He claims a hom- age that is paid to none beside. He shews himself that he is God, and thus is exalted above all that is called God, above all polytheistic deities, all deified men, whether demons or spirits of heroes; above every being who can be an object of worship. A fuller discussion of the ground on which this asser- tion of Divinity is made, will come up when we speak of the pantheistic tendencies of our time.*

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*As all prophecy which finds its complete fulfillment in the remote future, has something in the present which serves as its foreground, and gives it form and meaning, so is it here. It is said by Burton (Church Hist.), that the Gnostic philosophy in St. Paul's day was beginning to be widely spread, and that he probably alluded to it in the passage now before us. It is generally agreed that in Simon Magus (Acts viii, 9), we meet a representative of this philosophy. The Gnostics occupied them

38 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

We have still to speak of the relation of the man of sin to Satan. His "coming is after the working —energy—of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders." As his endowments are super- human, so also his energy. (This term is said in G. and T. Lexicon, to be used in the N. T. only of superhuman power.) Here, also, he appears as the counterpart of the Lord. As the Son received power from the Father to do His works, so does Antichrist from Satan. As the Son had no will of His own, but did the Father's will, and so was His perfect instrument; so the man of sin is the perfect instru- ment of Satan, doing in all things his will. As to his endowment with all satanic power and author- ity, this point will meet us again in our examination of the teaching of The Revelation.

But it is said by some that the Apostle here speaks of pretended miracles, wonders, and signs, which are only illusions and deceptions. This is affirmed on the ground that Satan has not the power to work miracles, God giving to His messengers only this power, in order to serve as their infallible credential. But in calling them "lying wonders," the apostle does not affirm that they are unreal, but that they are wrought to confirm lies. This appears from the con-

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conselves with the old problem how to pass from the Infinite to the finite. This they did by means of a series of emanations, or of spiritual beings, interposed between God and the human race, and appearing as occasion demanded in the human form. Such a being was Simon Magus. He was believed to be the greatest of these, "the great power of God." It is, therefore, not im- probable that the Christians to whom St. Paul wrote, may have better understood his words about "a man claiming Divine honour," than later generations wholly ignorant of Gnostic ideas. (See note of Meyer, Com. in loco.)

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text: "And with all deceivableness of unrighteous- ness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth." As they who had the love of the truth, believed the Lord's words, and needed not the miracle for confirmation, so they who have not the love of the truth, will believe Antichrist's word; but as the Lord confirms the words of His servants by signs following, so Satan will confirm his lies by miracles that he may take all captive. (See Mark xvi, 20; Rev. xiii, 13, 14.)

Fourthly. The hindrance to his revelation. The Apostle, enlightened by the Spirit of God, saw the mystery of lawlessness then working, and knew what its ultimate product would be; yet he, also, saw that its speedy development would be hindered by an ob- stacle; and that the lawless one could not be revealed until it was taken out of the way. What was the obstacle he does not say, but it seems to have been made known by him earlier to the Thessalonians, and therefore was no secret. "And now ye know what withholdeth." A very common interpretation, dating from the time of Tertullian (Quis, nisi Romanus status?), is, that the Roman Empire as the preserver of political order in the earth was intended by the Apostle, but not expressed lest the mention of its be- ing " taken out of the way," or, in other words, its overthrow, might be offensive to the Roman rulers. In favour of this interpretation is the use of the mas- culine and neuter articles, "what withholdeth" and "he who withholdeth." But this interpretation, though approved of by many, was by no means uni- versally received, and is not well sustained. The Apostle is speaking of lawlessness then working in the Church, of disobedience to spiritual rulers and to

40 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

Christ their Head; and with this the preservation of legal order in a heathen State had nothing to do. Obedience of Christians to Christ and to His apostles was based on faith and love, and dependent on no po- litical institutions. It remained the same whether the Roman Empire survived or perished. It may, in- deed, be said that the regard for law which marked the Roman State, and the habit of obedience enforced, were opposed to the lawlessness of the man of sin, and so an obstacle to his revelation. Without doubt the habit of obedience, whether to civil rulers or to parents, tends to help obedience to God. But the Apostle is not speaking of him in relation to civil au- thority, or as himself a political power. It is in the Church that this lawlessness is seen, and in the Church the hindrance is to be sought. The disposi- tion to find the hindrance in something external, arose at a later period; and, as we shall see, from the unwillingness to believe that the apostasy began so early in the Church, and would continue to develop itself until it ended in the man of sin. And it is to be borne in mind that, as the Apostle expected the Lord to return in the lifetime of some then living, and that by Him the Antichrist would then be de- stroyed, if the hindering power were the Roman Em- pire, it must be overthrown before the Antichrist could appear. Did St. Paul look for any such speedy over- throw? It is scarcely credible that he did.*

* A friend has made some remarks on this point from which I quote: "I can not help thinking that the hindrance and the hin- derer or restrainer must include a spiritual element, must imply some long-suffering acting of God which at last comes to an end. . . In many passages of Scripture I see the possibility of such a departure of the Holy Spirit from an apostate Christ

ST. PAUL AND HIS TEACHINGS. 41

If, then, the lawlessness spoken of by the apostle was within the Church, and found here the sphere of its activity, we must find that which hindered it, also, in the Church. What can this have been but the presence and power of the Holy Ghost? That He could be grieved and not able to do His full work, the Epistles shew us, and thus we understand how the spirit of disobedience could so early manifest itself. But He, nevertheless, continued in the Church, and His presence has been in all the past the power re- straining the tendencies to lawlessness. That He is called both "what withholdeth" and "he who now withholdeth," may refer to Himself in person, and to His work in ministries and ordinances. But, how- ever this may be, there is no ground for supposing the Apostle to have referred to a Roman emperor as the hindering power. Civil authority could do nothing in repressing spiritual lawlessness. It was the authority of Christ as represented in His Apostles which was re- jected. Any fixed legal order may, indeed, serve as

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tendom as would justify the view that the restrainer is in some sense the Holy Spirit. . . Putting all these hints together, I am led to think that, while the Roman Empire may be the out- ward and mechanical hindrance, the more efficient and spiritual hindrance is found in these faithful ones in whom the Holy Ghost can work His full work."

If we believe that St. Paul distinguished in thought between those who would escape the tribulation under Antichrist, and those who would pass through it, as intimated in the Lord's teachings (Luke xxi, 36; Matt. xxv, 1—), and more clearly brought out in The Revelation under the symbols of "the first fruits" and "harvest" (xiv, 1, 15), and in the two companies,— those who escape and those who pass through the great tribula- tion (vii, 4, 9,) —we find a ready solution of the question of the hindrance. It is seen in this first company which must be taken away before Antichrist can be revealed.

42 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

an obstacle to the lawless one in his political action, for such order rests upon the Holy Spirit who acts both in the Church and in the State; and if lawless- ness prevail in the former, it will do so also in the latter. But the apostle is not speaking of the Anti- christ in his political relations.

Some other questions remain. What is meant by "the temple of God "in which the man of sin seats himself? This was understood by many from the Apostles' days as the temple at Jerusalem, which will be rebuilt before his time, or which he will rebuild. (So Malvenda.) This is supposed to find confirma- tion in the words of Daniel (xi, 45), "He shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain"; and, also, in the words of the Lord respecting "the abomination of desolation standing in the Holy Place." But most of the earlier interpreters affirm the Christian Church to be meant, and think this to be another form of the statement as to the generality of the apostasy. A few, however, do not understand this of the Church as a spiritual body, but of the church edifices, taken collectively, in which Divine honours will be paid Him. (Suicer, Thesaurus, in omni divino templo sedebit.)

Fifthly. The destruction of the man of sin by the Lord at His return: "Whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and bring to naught by the manifestation of His coming." (R. V.) Those who apply the Apostle's words respecting the apostasy to the Papacy, understand by "the breath of His mouth" the power of the Gospel by which the Church is delivered from papal errors. The Revised Version gives the true force of the verb by substituting "slay" for "consume" in the author-

ST. PAUL AND HIS TEACHINGS. 43

ized version; it is not a conversion but an act of judgment. (Isa. xi, 4.) A distinction is to be taken between the Lord's "epiphany" or manifestation, and His "coming"; and some make it to be that His com- ing, or bodily presence, precedes the manifestation of that presence to the world. He fulfills the promise to His disciples: "I will come again and receive you unto Myself," before He reveals Himself to the world, and executes judgment upon His enemies. The first of these judgments is that upon the man of sin. In The Revelation xix, 20, the beast and the false prophet are cast alive into the lake of fire before the binding of Satan. But with an inquiry as to the exact order of events we are not here concerned.

Godet, Article "Revelation," in Johnson's Cyclo- pedia, 1895, thus writes: "Antichrist's theological system may be summed in the three following theses: 1. There is no personal God without and above the Uni- verse. 2. Man is himself his own god—the god of this world. 3. I am the representative of humanity by worshipping me humanity worships itself."

THE TEACHINGS OF ST. JOHN, OF ST.

PETER, AND OF ST. JUDE.

_____________

ST. JOHN.

This Apostle alone makes mention of the Antichrist under this name (1 John ii, 18, 22, iv, 3; 2 John 7). The same question meets us here that we have met in considering St. Paul's Epistle: "Does St. John speak of one individual as the Antichrist, or only of many in whom is manifested the antichristian spirit ? We find the expressions, "Antichrist," "the Anti- christ," "many Antichrists," "the spirit of the Antichrist." (R. V.) Comparing the teachings of the Apostle we reach the general result: 1. That which constitutes the essential characteristic of Anti- christ, or of the antichristian spirit, is the denial that "Jesus Christ has come in the flesh," or that "Jesus is the Christ,"—a denial of the Incarnation. 2. This spirit of the Antichrist was already in the world, and had infected many: "Even now have there arisen many antichrists." 8. This antichristian spirit would find its last and highest manifestation in some one man, distinctively, the Antichrist. This clearly appears from the words, ii, 18. "As ye have heard that Antichrist cometh." Upon this Westcott remarks, "The absence of the article shows that the term has become current as a technical or proper name." 4. The appearing of the Antichrist marked

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THE TEACHINGS OF ST. JOHN. 45

"the last hour." 5. The many antichrists were apostate Christians. " They went out from us."

As this Apostle twice speaks of the knowledge which his readers had of the Antichrist, we must con- clude that he had already taught them verbally, or that the knowledge came from the earlier teaching of some other of the apostles. As St. Paul had so long before written to the Thessalonians, what he had taught may have become known to all the congrega- tions of Greece and Asia Minor. But we cannot doubt that this point was more or less explained by all the apostles, and not by St. Paul only, and was familiar to the early disciples, so that the Antichrist could be alluded to without express description.

Does St. John give us any datum as to the time of the Antichrist? He says: "It is the last time (hour); and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now there are many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time" (hour). Is it the object of the Apostle to prove from the appearance of the many antichrists that it is the last time? If so, it shows how clear in his mind was the belief that the last days would be marked by the prevalence of the anti- christian spirit. But his meaning may be that, being the last time, antichrists are to be expected. By "the last time "—hour—we are to understand the whole Christian dispensation, all the period from the ascension of Christ to His return; the duration of which was wholly unknown to the Apostle, but be- lieved by him to be brief.* He could, therefore, well speak of it as if near its end, the last hour. This

____________

*" The last hour, i, ., the end of this age, and very near the return of Christ from heaven. "Grimm's Lexicon, by Thayer.

46 THE TEACHINGS OP THE SCRIPTURE.

whole period, longer or shorter, is the time of the trial of the world in regard to Christ, His acceptance or rejection.

"Every spirit which confesseth not Jesus, is not of God ; and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh, and now it is in the world already." (R. V.) No earlier form of hos- tility to God could have been antichristian; Christ must appear in the world before His claims could be rejected. As the Incarnate Son, and God's repre- sentative, it is the hostility to Him,—the antichristian spirit—which distinguishes this whole dispensation, but comes into highest manifestation at the end. It is the Christian apostasy which produces the Anti- christ.

As St. Paul had spoken of "the mystery of lawless- ness" working in the Church in his day a few years earlier, so St. John speaks of its further development. "Even now are there many antichrists. . . They went out from us, but they were not of us." This marks them as apostate Christians. They had a name among the disciples, but had fallen away from the faith. They were the first fruits of "the scoffers and mockers" predicted by St. Peter and St. Jude. Some of the early writers speak of them as Gnostic teachers and leaders.

The mention of the Antichrist is not that the Apostle may speak of the last Antichrist in detail, but that he may warn the Church against the workings of the antichristian spirit already active. As said by Ebrard, "the Apostle's design is warningly to testify that the many antichrists then appearing were in their character like the nature of the Antichrist to come." There is no good reason to doubt that he,

THE TEACHINGS OF ST. JOHN. 47

like St. Paul, looked to see this spirit reach its full development in an individual Antichrist, who should deny both the Father and the Son. (I. ii, 18, 22.) All who had yet appeared were but his heralds and fore- runners; the growing, but not the ripened tares. The Apostle's teaching is doctrinal, to show in what the spirit of Antichristianity consisted—the denial that Jesus had come in the flesh, or the denial of the Incarnation. It is from the knowledge which his readers already had of the Antichrist to come, that he can explain the true character of the errors now seen among them, and their great significance and danger.

It deserves to be noted in considering the emphasis which this Apostle lays upon love in his Epistles, that he wrote at Ephesus, and that it was he by whom the Lord sent the Seven Epistles to the Seven Churches; in the first of which, addressed to the Church at Ephesus, he reproved it for "the loss of the first love." Whether his own Epistles were written earlier or later than the Seven, it is evident that he marked the same loss; and therefore enforced the value of this grace, both in its relation to the Head of the Church, and in that of the members to one another. ^* God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us." The loss of this love opened the way to many forms of evil, both doctrinal and practical.

Note.—It is said by Prof. Stevens ("The Johannine The- ology," 1894), that the prevailing view in the Church in the past, tliat Antichrist in this epistle designates a person, is not well founded, because "the man of sin'' of St. Paul, "the Anti- christ" of St. John, and "the beast" of The Revelation, are

48 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

representatives of different forms of evil ; the first being the rep- resentatiye of Jewish hostility, and the last of the persecuting power of Rome. But our examination of St. Paul's words has shown us that he is speaking of the spirit of lawlessness in the Church, and not of Jewish hostility ; and that the beast does not symbolize Roman persecution, will clearly appear in the exam- ination of The Revelation. That the Gnostic heresy was in the mind of the Apostle John, may be admitted, and the Apostle Paul seems, as we have seen, to have alluded to it ; but this is wholly compatible with its union with other, forms of evil, and all these are to be summed up in the Antichrist. It is observed by Plummer ( "The Epistles of John " ) that "there is a strong preponderance of opinion in favor of the view that the antichrist of St. John is the same as the great adversary of St. Paul." Bishop Wordsworth (Com. in loco) thinks that "the man of sin and the Antichrist do not correspond accurately to each other," but it is not "impossible that they may eventually coalesce." He identifies the man of sin with the Beast (Rev. xiii, — ).

THE TEACHINGS OF ST. PETER.

There is no mention of an individual antichrist by this Apostle, but much is said of the evil tendencies which he saw already active. In his first Epistle he speaks fully of the trials and sufferings, present and future, of those to whom he wrote, but very little of false teachers and their heresies. He tells them that though already tried by manifold temptations, there was a time of " fiery trial " yet to come before the glory of the Lord could be revealed. This trial by fire is doubtless the same as that spoken of by St. Paul, when " the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." (1 Cor. iii, 13.) It is the same as the day when the Lord returns " in flaming fire" to punish His enemies, and to be glorified in His saints. (2 Thess. i, 8.) When this shall be, St. Peter does not say, but he says : "The end of all things is at hand." (1 Pet. iv, 7.)

THE TEACHINGS OF ST. PETER. 49

It is to be noted that St. Peter knew through the word of the Lord spoken to him (John xxi, 18) that he himself should not live till His return, but this did not prevent him from warning the disciples to be ever expecting Him and hoping to the end. (2 Peter i, 12—.) He, no more than St. Paul, speaks of a long interval before that revelation, but he knew that, however short the interval, the Church would be subject to manifold temptations through the craft and malice of its great adversary, "walking about as a roaring lion."

It is in his second Epistle that he speaks distinctly of the false teachers who would arise and bring in damnable heresies, whose pernicious ways many would follow. (2 Peter ii, 1—.) He speaks prophetically, yet evidently the present mirrors for him the future. He saw in his own day the germs of the heresies which would ripen into all evil fruits. He describes the leading features of these false teachers and their followers, "walking after the flesh in the lust of un- cleanness," despising governments, presumptuous, self-willed, speaking evil of dignities, servants of cor- ruption, though boasters of liberty. He is not speak- ing of heathen enemies, but of Christians, those who, having "escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour, are again en- tangled therein and overcome; those who have forsaken the right way, and have turned from the holy com- mandment delivered unto them." That these are the same as those mentioned by St. Paul (2 Tim. iii, 1—) as "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof," and by St. John as the antichrists who "went out from us," there can be no doubt. That St. Peter expected this apostasy to increase, is plain from his words that there would "come in the last days

50 THE TEACHINGS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying. Where is the promise of his coming?" As scoffers and scorners are the ripened tares—the last and high- est product of the apostasy—so, on the other hand, there must be the ripened wheat, those "looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God," those "dili- gent to be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless."

But St. Peter does not speak of any individual as the head of these apostates, or of them as forming an organized body, unless the mention of "false teach- ers" implies this. As he himself was soon to end his ministry—"knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle"—others whom the Lord would raise up, must be the guides of the Church in the coming days of the great antichristian trial. Both St. Paul and himself had given the churches full warning, and he could therefore say: "Beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware, lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked (, the lawless), fall from your own stead- fastness."

THE TEACHINGS OP ST. JUDE.

This Epistle, like the second of St. Peter, speaks of a class already existing, who had crept into the Church unawares, against whom he would warn the faithful. They were "ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ," "speak- ing evil of the things they knew not," "defiling the flesh, despising dominion, and speaking evil of dig- nities," "clouds without water," "raging waves of the sea," "wandering stars." He calls to mind the

THE TEACHINGS OF ST. JUDE. 51

words of the Apostles foretelling that there would be in the last time "mockers," "separatists," "sensual," "having not the Spirit." But he does not speak of one who should be the leader among them. The refer- ence to the prophecy of Enoch (v. 14) shows that the separation of these from the faithful would not be till the Lord came. Till that day the disciples must build themselves up on their most holy faith, and keep themselves in the love of God.