With Mike Pence, a professed evangelical Christian, publicly declaring Pope Francis the “Holy Father,” and with the world’s attention seemingly riveted on a hospital in Rome, where the pontiff’s health is failing and his death possibly looming, I felt compelled this morning to write this Wilderness Voice to warn you of the malignity of the papacy. Far from being benign, it is, according to the Bible, malignant. Please, take the time to read this Wilderness Voice carefully and prayerfully, for it is in my opinion essential reading for all wannabe children of Issachar; that is, for all who want to understand the times and know what they ought to do (1 Chronicles 12:32).   

In 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, the Apostle Paul predicts a coming “man of sin” or “son of perdition.” Most modern-day translations translate this predicted coming one as “the man of lawlessness.” The popular interpretation of this passage is that Paul is predicting within it the coming of the so-called Antichrist, the end-time world’s beastly one world ruler. However, the word “antichrist” is nowhere to be found in this passage; in fact, it is only found four times in all of the New Testament, three times in 1 John and once in 2 John. Neither our Lord, the Apostle Paul, nor any other New Testament author ever mentioned the word “antichrist,” only the Apostle John, and he in only two of his three short New Testament epistles. Interestingly, John never uses the word “antichrist” in his Gospel nor in the book of Revelation, the most important prophetic book of the Bible.

According to premillennial dispensationalism—the most popular end-time school of eschatology among modern-day evangelicals—Paul is predicting here, not only the soon coming of the Antichrist, but also the secret rapture of the Christian church, which like the word “antichrist” is nowhere to be found in this passage. Still, it is alleged to be cryptically and indirectly referred to in verses 6-7, which premillennial dispensationalists claim predicts the coming removal of the Holy Spirit, the lone restrainer of evil, from the world. Obviously, the premillennial dispensationalist contends, if the Spirit is to be removed from the world, in order to pave the way for the Antichrist to be revealed, then, the Spirit-indwelled church must be removed from the world as well. 

The fatal flaws with this fanciful interpretation of this important prophetic passage of Scripture are twofold. First, nowhere does the Scripture teach that the Holy Spirit is in this world to restrain evil. That the Holy Spirit is in this world to constrain the saints from sinning and to convict sinners of their sin is definitely taught in Scripture, but nowhere does the Scripture teach that the Holy Spirit is restraining evil in this fallen world or restraining a coming evil world ruler from being revealed. Indeed, Scripture teaches that iniquity will not only abound in this fallen world, but that evil men will also wax worse and worse (Matthew 24:12; 2 Timothy 3:13). If, as the premillennial dispensationalist argues, the Holy Spirit is in the world today to restrain evil, then, we must all admit that He is miserably failing in His mission, since our fallen world is becoming more and more evil all the time.

The second fatal flaw in the premillennial dispensationalist’s presumptuous interpretation of this important prophetic passage is found in the fact that the only thing the Bible teaches that God has ordained to restrain evil in this fallen world is human government (Romans 13:1-7). Therefore, we are forced to conclude, by Scripture itself, which is always the best commentary on itself, that Paul is referring here to human government as the restrainer restraining the “man of sin” or “son of perdition” from being revealed. This, unlocks for us the mystery of Paul’s question to the Thessalonians in verse 5: “Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?”

What was it that Paul refused to put in his public letter to the Thessalonians that he secretly told them about in private when he was with them? It was that the Roman Empire, the world governing power of their day, was soon to be removed and taken out of the way, paving the way for the coming Man of Sin to suddenly appear in the church, who would not only do so as though he were God, but would also be called all that God is called. Obviously, Paul did not want to pen this incredible and divinely inspired prediction in his public epistle to the Thessalonians, lest he bring down on them, as well as on himself, the wrath of the very real and still existing iron fisted Roman Empire of his day.

Now, with this proper understanding of this important prophetic passage, thanks to us ridding ourselves of the blinders of premillennial dispensationalism’s presumptions, we can look back over our shoulder with twenty-twenty hindsight and clearly see this Pauline prophecy perfectly fulfilled in history. When the western Roman Empire ended, as Paul predicted, marking the end of ancient Rome, the Dark Ages began, lasting until the beginning of the Renaissance. In the Dark Ages, the Roman Catholic Church, an apostate church, which Paul refers to as a great “falling away” (verse 3), rose to dominate the western world, as well as to plunge it into the dark night of religious superstition. 

During this dark night of human history, the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church rose to become the most powerful figure in the world. Again, as Paul predicted, the Pope suddenly appeared in the church as though he were God, not only being universally proclaimed “the Vicar of Christ”; that is, Christ’s infallible representative upon the earth, but also being crowned with the triple tier tiara, which, to this day, is the symbol of the papacy. Each tier of this papal crown represents a title of the Pope. The first represents the Pope as the “Holy Father,” which equates him with God the Father. The second as “Pontifex Maximus,” our High Priest, which equates the Pope with God the Son. And the third represents the Pope as “Counselor,” which equates the Pope with God the Holy Spirit. There you have it; the Pope is Paul’s predicted “man of sin” or “son of perdition” who ushered in the great falling away by enthroning himself in the church as God and ascribing to himself the three titles of the Trinity. 

Permit me to conclude this deep dive into Bible prophecy with another critical clarification. Having divorced 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 from the presumptions of premillennial dispensationalism and its confusion of Paul’s “man of sin” with its so-called Antichrist, no one should mistake what I’ve written as a suggestion that a Roman Catholic Pope will foot the bill for the premillennial dispensationalist’s version of a coming end-time world ruler. Although I do believe that a Pope of the Roman Catholic Church is the prime candidate to fulfill the role of the coming second beast of Revelation 13, the predicted “false prophet,” who will head an end-time apostate church and one world religion, as well as mandate that all the world bow before the image of an end-time one world government, I do not believe a Pope will prove to be the first beast of Revelation 13, the head of the Biblically predicted beastly world power of the end-time, who will be wondered after and worshiped by an entire, end-time, and Christ-rejecting earth.