Remembering that there is but one Antichrist, but many
Antichrists has great significance. Now examine the power of Satan:
And the Lord said unto Satan, “Whence comest thou?” Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, “From going to and fro in the Earth, and from walking up and down in it” (Job 1:7)
Then Satan left Job alone for he could not enter Job because of his faith. As James said years later, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (Jas 4:7). Job had submitted himself to God, but Satan and his demons would not leave him alone. Satan came back the second time, God queried him as to where he had been, and the same response was forthcoming: “From going to and fro” and still walking the Earth (Job 2:2).
Although Satan can move between the realms of heaven and Earth with ease and can transverse without resistance in the first heaven, according to Enoch, on the Earth’s surface, he is severely limited.
If Satan had been able to enter Job, Job would have been Antichrist as he was once “good” and could rebel or defect (apostasy) from God just as Lucifer had done.
Like Lucifer, Job was a “familiar friend” of God, but he remained a friend and kept the faith. Not only had Job believed in God as the demons and Satan did, but unlike them, he trusted God for safety until the temptations were over and certainly afterwards. Never forget that Job could have failed God and defected to Satan. That was what his trial was all about!
That explains the dynamics of Satan and is how evil could flow from him to Job and his family. That contrasts with the virtue (dynamis in the Greek) that flowed from Jesus to overcome the world. Just as Satan and Jesus has such different dynamos, so does Antichrist from Christ in that Satan is the innermost being of the former and the Holy Ghost the innermost Being of the latter.
Satan, therefore, is less dynamic and would choose only those persons who could do the most harm to Christians. At that time, Job was the most faithful of the faithful, so Satan selected him to test and use to diminish the Almighty God. Job was a wealthy and influential figure in his time and if Job fell, so would his God and others would follow Job to damnation. That was the plan devised by Satan.
Of course, Nero, Caligua, and Herod were not faithful like Job but they each did good to the Jews at one time, and Nero had even been benevolent to Christians.
Herod tried to kill Christ, Caligua had killed the Jews, and Nero the Christians. They were all adversaries (Satan’s) of God just as Freidrich Nietzche, although, as written previously, Niestzche may have been merely a tool of the Antichrist, like the demons alongside Satan confronting Job.
It is difficult to discern just who is the Antichrist and who are the lesser principalities (arche; angels and demons who rule).
Just as Michael and Gabriel are archangels of God, high ranking demon-possessed leaders are “principalities” who do the word of Satan among significantly powerful people.
As it occurred, the philosophy of Nietzche was quite powerful, and now the Christian God is all but dead to mankind. Some have written that England, once a hotbed of Christianity, is now as defective as the putrid Laodician Church that would make God vomit (Rev 3:16).
Many accuse popes of being the Antichrist. Since they are successive in power, then that would be possible. Since popes have been the Church’s (universal/catholic) authority since apostolic times, they have spiritual authority over the whole world.
Some have been benevolent and others malevolent. Protestants may deny it, but some Catholics, despite their heresies, remain faithful Christians in much the same manner as the seven churches of Asia in Revelation. Churches are imperfect, Roman Catholics are the imperfect church, and so are Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Baptists, Campbellites, and even Pentecostals. Your own church is the imperfect church, and your doctrine is imperfect as well.
Why is that? Doctrine is immutable and internally consistent as it is inspired by God. There are many versions of inspired Words of God, but it was spoken in the languages of their ages: Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. This may come as a blow to extreme denominations, but Jesus did not speak the King James English! So why is it the last word, when the Hebrew and Greek are the received text (Textus Receptus)?
Although it is possible that all popes were Antichrist, each in their day, only the worst of the worst would be the Antichrist, and probably one that considered himself a “Caesar” (Pontificus Maximus).
Of course, they all now claim to be Pontiff, but true Pontiffs were in the days when kings were subservient to the Pontiff. That was both during the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire which was built on the foundation of the first. Voltaire said that the latter was “neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.” It was a loose confederation of Gentiles, speaking in different tongues, whose kings bowed to the Pope. They were all about as unholy as they get!
Catholics have chosen Peter as their first “Pope” although popism would follow several hundred years later out of arrogance of the Bishop of Rome. That was when Damasus, Bishop of Rome, was referred to as “Pope” (Father) in the 4th century.
“Father” was even more heretic than “Pontiff” because the
latter belonged to Caesar but the former to God. The Pharisees sought power and
glory, but Jesus set them straight when He corrected their errors:
7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. 8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. 9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. 10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. 11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. (Mat 23:7-11)
So, each pope who takes pride in that title are disobedient and maybe arrogant, but that would not make them Antichrist, albeit some surely were. Logical candidates for Antichrist in their times, were each Pope that would be so intolerant so much to kill Christians for not recognizing them as the authority. Hence, there were many Antichrists during the “Inquisition, “beginning in France in the 12th century in the papal states, ending only after the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s.
The foremost adversary of “heretics” (those who would not bow to popism and their church) was Pope Gregory IX. At least during the Inquisition, popes who enforced death for heretics, worked with the kings for that purpose, and were each Antichrist because they endeavored to wipe out true Christianity as practiced by the Waldenses and others.
Later, Popish Antichrists were those who tolerated murderous regimes. Pope Pius VI was the unfortunate pope during the age of revolutions in Europe that nearly killed the Church and even Christianity when the Jacobian Club became the unofficial church.
Pius was not Antichrist but someone who destroyed the Church most certainly was! Everyone always look for popes to be Antichrists but actually some were protectors of the faith, albeit a very imperfect faith!
If there was an Antichrist during the Age of Revolution; then it would be Maximilien Robespierre who was noted for his disdain of Christianity, authority, and the ideology of that time.
The bay outside of Paris was full of headless bodies of his opponents, even those who were innocent of any seditions at all.
The executioner’s tool was the guillotine whereunder thousands
upon thousands were beheaded because they would not deny Christ, the king, or
civility. Like Herod long before, Robespierre conducted the Slaughter of the
Innocents. If he was not the Antichrist, then nobody before him was! Why make
such a declaration?
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands… (Rev 20:4)
Doing evil as Robespierre was surely done, not because there was a demon in him, but because, at least for a time, until he was next to be beheaded, he was “Antichrist.”
That “broken cross” (baton) would have been passed to one of those who continued the atrocities until Napoleon received it.
More so than Marx who was a coward and never executed anyone himself but only suggested it; Robespierre dictated it and enforced the rule of his law. He was the “Beast” and those who worshiped the Goddess of Reason (Libertas) were the principalities. Robespierre was the instigator of a 19th century attempt of the “Great Reset” with a new god, a new government, and even with a new calendar. The revolutionaries were so hateful of God that they threw away the Julian Calendar and developed their own rational calendar.
And finally, Miss Liberty, a decadent opera singer dressed as such, was worshiped in Notre Dame Cathedral after the “merchants of Christ” were thrown out. Miss Liberty had become “Jesus” to those so enlightened during the “Enlightenment” of the Age of Reason.
Unfortunately, although the United States perfected a better form of government in the years before that under God with life, liberty, and justice for all; it has been contaminated by the French socialists who made for us and idol which stands tall in New York Harbor; albeit God is no longer welcome of these divided states of America.
America was founded on Christian principles, but it too was an imperfect union. Somehow Satan slipped under the carpet of the room where the Constitution was written. More on that later, but next, Napoleon will get dishonorable mention.
(picture credit: Wikipedia; Maximilien Robespierre)
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