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.
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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
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*" 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
