THE ANTICHRIST BY ROBERTO BARROS

Wednesday August 16, 2023

We are just imagining about certain things that roll in time like a valuable treasure that in everything and for everything begins a beautiful story in which we can validate in all nature a flower of high esteem that in all formalities and relativities of life relatively I believe that everything is a restart of an achievement as a source of life that in everything and for everything was created on various studies and research that in my view things certainly in life are not fully extinct and that life is like in a simple circumstances to be in fact morbid that, due to a relevance of life, paradise is formatively fuller to mix with the superb life that we can inevitably find a path that is fuller and aimed at society that does not hide the failure of perdition on the struggle of the living being the search for a god that is a more contagious, profound and realistic artifact to the various contradictions that today we can see, feel and think for an

unforgettable moment of pleasure that the resumption of life has always been or can be a path of perfection for the great development of the human being who see life as broader as others are intended and do not see the true path of perfection that is more effective man's great relationships with nature both godly and socialist that we can here understand an existing factor about man's life that may have been illuminated when others tried to undo about their imaginable processes that made him cross the most real barriers of life and all resistance while some men tried to defraud his mechanism and existence with all nature that proposed him better knowledge about life who cherished him and provided him with a true way of living and creating something superlatively more dynamic and efficient about life that we can understand the passage of time over a short space in which logic teaches us to conserve all the rights of life and knowledge better the relations of man with the sciences where we can understand and have a fuller notion about any obstacle or worthless thing that is destructive to life itself when one does not have a good understanding of its particularities and that there are no good bonds of friendship about the hard and unfaithful greed that we can know and tell about the maturation of man in life that is capable of everything about a feeling more focused on love, respect and friendships as the best fruits in life for the flower of maturity when there may be uncertain causes who are frustrated by an imperfect attempt to know life better and that evil does not desire high value and perseverance, scientific and technological developments that may be of a common nature when it comes from a well-intentioned being, interested in life and its relativities of man with nature or who was unable to show himself and help to better value life and others about such consequences that cannot be compared to the normalities of a human being and that his mind is weakened against God, here I leave a story well related that we can understand from the bottom of all logic that paradise can conceive us as it says in the bible the best way of

subsistence when we have high faith and that we can find God above all things when there is really a good relationship with God that does not and let us never be frustrated by sin or perdition and that the serpent reveals itself perhaps on a more challenging image of man who learns to really know the way of God about its dynamics that can show us faithful life and that is desired by the enemy as a livelihood that rests on the moral and emotional fluids of man's maturation in search of God as always when God gave life and the key to knowledge that cannot be taken and desired by the enemy when the bible says that he persecutes men of well, those who govern life and who try to keep it ahead of God and that's how the whole history of the world began.

It was summer where a source materialized that from knowledge we could understand the virtues and restlessness of life that it is said that it is the fruit of pleasure that preserves the most intimate existence of life and that we can understand about the relativities of life and that the world can you tell us how much more there is to know and explore and what god makes us think about all the logics and monotonies that roll over life that give us escapes and others that hold us back perhaps due to a metamorphosis and challenges of all resistance in which man, due to a certain relevance, is a conqueror of himself against all the voracities that roll around and want to enjoy the fruit of paradise and that evil has always existed behind life because consistency can conceive in us the value of all forms of self live and that are above all things and that the serpent can be linked to the great dazzle of the human conscience since the time of God and that he never stopped chasing, destroying the plans and relationships of the human being with life because he came to kill, stealing and destroying all human perfections, creations and love for life.

We are talking about the antichrist who hides in his face and mind a purpose to make man perish under his power in which almost

everyone becomes his slave as the key to his evil attribution and that he was born from the beginning of the world to attack conscience and development of the living being before God and that we have to recognize ourselves before God because only God will free us from the bond of the accursed and from the pernicious plague, from the valley of death and from all the injustice caused in life, the antichrist hides under seven keys that open seven doors of hell that lacks the unfortunate and dangerous assassins that today are shown in their role by a deficiency generated by life on such a death penalty due to unemployment, detachment and lack of social education that we can rarely still believe in religion that honestly embraces the world as a source of love and peace over mortals that survive almost all of original sin that dresses in society like the devil himself there is such a crumble in constitutional nature that we can seldom understand its value on human beings in life when evil remains behind disabilities and today society is a slave to failure, fear and belief in the devil, perhaps because of a feeling that has remained bankrupt about God's plans and that it is said that the antichrist appears as a farce about the truth of life that cannot remain hidden and silent about the social foundation that keeps us ahead of everything and that lying is an evil thing and that its plans are hidden behind the disabilities generated by man when he doesn't feel like he's stepping right on the ground and look at the heights forgetting God, when there is no deep love in your heart that everyone will someday still understand among their high esteem that capacity springs from perseverance and that they do not look with uncertainty at the restlessness that they conceive in life because evil keeps ahead of almost everything and wants to bring everyone to an end because its purposes are doubtful about its capabilities and that it sees the dark world and that lives on failure and madness that we can rarely believe in its existence against the god that has always emanated unchanging light on human beings and he came to distract and possess the minds of the innocent who struggle with

life and almost everyone is burdened with uncertainties and I can see a path of light on life that few still fail to understand and see why they fail perhaps due to uncertainty and weakness of spirit and evil is born of restlessness that show us in current times a mismatch against life that is impious, clear and kind on some phalanges that are built in the passage of time that from the heights we can contemplate the path of peace, love, life and courage.

The antichrist was born from the shadows of hell on a constellation of evil that unfolds on a path of always possessing the mind of the human being against diligence and inconsequences when a sick person is conceived out of nowhere and weakens on an emotional guilt generated by a fear or anguish socialized by the reality of life that gives him the hatred and the inability to live and conceiving failure and madness due to an act or effect of the evil that possessed his emotions due to such temptations.

God said!

Who conceived the key of life to man who kept him in his mind who felt alone amidst a vast world of solitude and who showed his deepest love which is from the heights of heaven that he lightened from the sun on earth to illuminate man at daybreak and that the accursed one will never pervert against his divine existence and that man was made in his image and likeness and that everything will remain on all the promises of Christ forever with everyone and so let us be praised forever.

I believe that we are going through the portal of time to know from the bottom of our souls that our integrity can tell us simply what we are and the reason that conceives us the right to preserve our qualities and innocence and that it is said that we are born of dust to another life that by divine perseverance we can contemplate from the fire of our souls the fundamental essence of living and knowing deeply the plans of god and thus we will preserve everything that

god has given us and that god is a factor that reveals to us in our magnitudes the high faith over the world of the living and the dead well let us be strong forever as god be praised by us always getting all the evil of life destroyed and thus defeated the devil who has always deceived man in the passages of life who simply is the antichrist who wants to take the key of the world and the alliance of God on men and women who love life and conserve the nature of God against the enemy, leaving man victorious and blessed with God's plans.

We are talking about the antichrist who hides in his face and mind a purpose to make man perish under his power in which almost everyone becomes his slave as the key to his evil attribution and that he was born from the beginning of the world to attack conscience and development of the living being before God and that

we have to recognize ourselves before God because only God will free us from the bond of the accursed and from the pernicious plague, from the valley of death and from all the injustice caused in life, the antichrist hides under seven keys that open seven doors of hell that lacks the unfortunate and dangerous assassins that today are shown in their role by a deficiency generated by life on such a death penalty due to unemployment, detachment and lack of social education that we can rarely still believe in religion that honestly embraces the world as a source of love and peace over mortals that survive almost all of original sin that dresses in society like the devil himself there is such a crumble in constitutional nature that we can seldom understand its value on human beings in life when evil remains behind disabilities and today society is a slave to failure, fear and belief in the devil, perhaps because of a feeling that has remained bankrupt about God's plans and that it is said that the antichrist appears as a farce about the truth of life that cannot remain hidden and silent about the social foundation that keeps us ahead of everything and that lying is an evil thing and that its plans are hidden behind the disabilities generated by man when he doesn't feel like he's stepping right on the ground and look at the heights forgetting God, when there is no deep love in your heart that everyone will someday still understand among their high esteem that capacity springs from perseverance and that they do not look with uncertainty at the restlessness that they conceive in life because evil keeps ahead of almost everything and wants to bring everyone to an end because its purposes are doubtful about its capabilities and that it sees the dark world and that lives on failure and madness that we can rarely believe in its existence against the god that has always emanated unchanging light on human beings and he came to distract and possess the minds of the innocent who struggle with life and almost everyone is burdened with uncertainties and I can see a path of light on life that few still fail to understand and see why they fail perhaps due to uncertainty and weakness of spirit and

evil is born of restlessness that show us in current times a mismatch against life that is impious, clear and kind on some phalanges that are built in the passage of time that from the heights we can contemplate the path of peace, love, life and courage.

Now let's look for certainty that we are entering a matter of time and that all the trials transcribed and prescribed in our life are a real foundation of an existence that can deduce a mere contradiction between two terms that would be that which denies the Father and the Son and here I want to tell and show a great context that is spoken about the antichrist. Thanks!

Antichrist, in Christian eschatology, refers to people prophesied by the Bible to oppose and replace Christ before the second coming. The term antichrist (including the plural form) is found five times in the New Testament, in the first and second Johannine Epistles alone. Antichrist is announced as "one who denies the Father and the Son".

Etymology

Antichrist is translated from the combination of two ancient Greek words ἀντί + Χριστός (anti + Christos). In Greek, Χριστός means "the anointed one". "Ἀντί" means not only anti in the sense of "against" and "opposite of", but also "in place of".

History

new testament

"Antichrist" referring to an individual in the New Testament is questionable. The Greek term antikhristos originates in 1 John. The similar term pseudokhristos ("false messiahs") was also first found in the New Testament, but was never used by Flavius Josephus in his accounts of various false messiahs. The five uses of the term "antichrist" or "antichrists" in the Johannine Epistles do not clearly present a single individual antichrist of the last days. "The deceiver"

or "the antichrist" are generally seen as marking a certain category of people, rather than an individualː

Little children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, many antichrists have already arisen, by what we know that it is the last hour. —1 John 2:18

For many seducers have appeared in the world, who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: this is the seducer and the antichrist. —II John 1:7

Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? The antichrist is the one who denies the Father and the Son. —1 John 2:22

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of whose coming you have heard, which is now in the world. —1 John 4:2–3

Attention to an individual figure of antichrist is concentrated in the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians, although the term "antichrist" is never used in this passage:

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we beseech you, brethren, not to be easily moved from your mind, nor be troubled either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle, as sent from us, as if the day of the Lord was already near. No one in any way deceive you; for the day will not come until the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, the one who opposes and exalts himself above everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sits on the throne. sanctuary of God, claiming to be God. —2 Thessalonians 2:1–4

For the mystery of iniquity is already at work; only until the one who now holds it is removed. Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom

the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the manifestation of his coming. The coming of that wicked man is according to the working of Satan with all power, and with signs, and with lying wonders, and with all the seduction of unrighteousness to those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, in order to be saved. —2 Thessalonians 2:7–10

Although the word "antichrist" (Greek antikhristos) is only used in the Johannine Epistles, false christs (Greek pseudokhristos, meaning "false messiah") is used by Jesus in the Gospels:

So if anyone says to you: Here is the Christ! or: Hey there! do not believe; for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, which, if it were possible, would deceive even the elect. —Matthew 24:23–24

So if anyone says to you: Here is the Christ! or: Hey there! do not believe; False Christs and false prophets will arise, and will perform miracles and wonders, to deceive the elect, if possible outside. —Mark 13:21–22

early Christianity

The only one of the late 1st/early 2nd century Apostolic Fathers to use the term is Polycarp (c. 69–155), who warned the Philippians that anyone who preached false doctrine was an antichrist. His use of the term antichrist follows that of the New Testament in not identifying a single antichrist but a class of people.

Irenaeus (2nd century 202) wrote Against Heresies to refute the teachings of the Gnostics. In Book V of Against Heresies, he addresses the figure of the antichrist by referring to him as the "recapitulation of apostasy and rebellion." He uses "666", the ˞Number of the Beast of Revelation 13:18, to numerologically decode several possible names. Some names he vaguely proposed were "Evanthos", "Lateinos" ("Latin" or belonging to the Roman Empire). In

his exegesis of Daniel 7:21, he stated that the ten horns of the beast will be the Roman empire divided into ten kingdoms before the arrival of the Antichrist. However, his readings of the Antichrist were more in broader theological terms than in a historical context.

The non-canonical apocryphal Ascension of Isaiah presents a detailed exposition of the antichrist as Belial and Nero.

Tertullian (c. 160–220) claimed that the Roman Empire was the restrictive force that Paul wrote about in 2 Thessalonians 2:7–8. The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the disintegration of the Roman Empire's ten provinces into ten kingdoms would open the way for the Antichrist.

Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170–236) claimed that the Antichrist would come from the tribe of Dan and rebuild the Jewish temple on the Temple Mount to reign from it. He identified the Antichrist with the Beast that came out of the Earth in the Book of Revelation.

Post-Nicene Christianity

Cyril of Jerusalem, in the middle of the fourth century, delivered his 15th Catechetical Lecture on the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, in which he also spoke of the Antichrist, who would reign as ruler of the world for three and a half years and would be killed by Jesus Christ shortly thereafter. end of his reign, shortly after which the second coming of Jesus Christ would take place.

Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 298–373) wrote that Arius of Alexandria would be associated with the Antichrist, saying: "And ever since [the First Council of Nicaea] the error of Arius has been considered a more than common heresy, being known as the Enemy of Christ and forerunner of the Antichrist".

John Chrysostom (c. 347–407) warned against speculating about the Antichrist, saying, "Let us not, therefore, inquire into these things".

He preached that by knowing Paul's description of the antichrist in 2 Thessalonians, Christians would avoid deception.

Jerome (347–420) warned that those who substituted false interpretations for the real meaning of Scripture belonged to the "synagogue of antichrist". "He who is not of Christ is of Antichrist," he wrote to Pope Damasus I. He believed that "the mystery of iniquity" written by Paul in II Thessalonians 2:7 was already at work when "each one chatted about his views ". For Jerome, the power that restrained this mystery of lawlessness was the Roman Empire, but as it fell that restraining force was removed. He warned a noble woman from Gaul:

He who leaves is taken out of the way, but we do not realize that the Antichrist is at hand. Yes, the antichrist is near whom the Lord Jesus Christ "will consume with the spirit of his mouth." “Woe to those,” he cries out, “that are with child, and to those that suckle in those days.” ... Wild tribes in countless numbers invaded all parts of Gaul. The whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, between the Rhine and the Ocean, was devastated by hordes of Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herulas, Saxons, Burgundians, Alemanni and - woe to the people! - even from Pannonia.

In his Commentary on Daniel, Jerome observed, "Let us not follow the opinion of some commentators, and suppose him to be the Devil or some demon, but one of the human race, in whom Satan will reside in bodily form." Instead of rebuilding the Jewish temple to reign, Jerome thought that the antichrist would sit in the temple of God, since he "made himself look like God". He refuted Porphyry's idea that the "little horn" mentioned in Daniel chapter 7 was Antiochus IV Epiphanes, noting that the "little horn" is defeated by an eternal, universal ruler just before the Last Judgment. Instead, he argued that the "little horn" was the Antichrist:

We must therefore agree with the traditional interpretation of all commentators on the Christian Church, that at the end of the world, when the Roman Empire is destroyed, there will be ten kings who will divide the Roman world among themselves. Then an eleventh insignificant king will rise and vanquish three of the ten kings... after they have been slain, the other seven kings will also bow their necks to the victor.

Around 380, a pseudo-apocalyptic prophecy falsely attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl describes Constantine as victorious over Gog and Magog. He later predicts:

When the Roman Empire ceases, the Antichrist will be openly revealed and will sit in the House of the Lord in Jerusalem. While he reigns, two very famous men, Elijah and Enoch, will arise to announce the coming of the Lord. The antichrist will kill them and after three days they will be resurrected by the Lord. Then there will be a great persecution, such as never was or will be. The Lord will shorten those days for the sake of the elect, and the antichrist will be killed by the power of God through the archangel Michael on the Mount of Olives.

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) wrote "it is uncertain in what temple [the Antichrist] is to be found, whether in the ruins of the temple which was built by Solomon, or in the Church".

Pope Gregory I wrote to Maurice in 597, regarding the titles of bishops: "I say with confidence that everyone who calls or wishes to call himself 'universal priest' in self-exaltation is a forerunner of antichrist."

At the end of the tenth century, Adso de Montier-en-Der, a Benedictine monk, compiled a biography of the Antichrist based on a variety of exegetical and Sibylline sources; his account became one of the best-known descriptions of the antichrist in the Middle Ages.

Woodcut, showing the Antichrist, 1498

Pre-reform charges

Arnolfo, Archbishop of Reims, disagreed with the policies and morals of Pope John XV. He expressed his views while presiding over the Council of Reims in 991. Arnoldus accused John XV of being the antichrist while also using the passage from 2 Thessalonians about the "man of lawlessness", saying: "Certainly, if he is void of charity and full of vain and lofty knowledge, he is the antichrist sitting in the temple of God and showing himself as God". This incident is the oldest record in history of anyone identifying a pope with the Antichrist.

Pope Gregory VII (1015 or 1029–1085), fought against, in his own words, "a robber of temples, a perjurer against the Holy Roman Church, notorious throughout the Roman world for the vilest of crimes, namely, Guilbert , plunderer of the holy church of Ravenna, the antichrist and arch-heretic".

Cardinal Beno, on the opposite side of the Investiture Question, wrote lengthy descriptions of abuses committed by Gregory VII, including necromancy, torture of a former friend on a bed of nails, ordering an assassination attempt, executions without trial, wrongful excommunication , doubt the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and even burn it. Beno maintained that Gregory VII was "affiliated with the antichrist or the antichrist himself".

Eberhard II von Truchsees, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg in 1241, denounced Pope Gregory IX at the council of Regensburg as "that man of perdition, whom they call the antichrist, who in his extravagant ostentation says: I am God, I cannot err" . He argued that the ten kingdoms the Antichrist is involved with are the "Turks, Greeks, Egyptians, Africans, Spaniards, French, English, Germans, Sicilians and Italians who now occupy the provinces of Rome". He held that the papacy was the "little horn" of Daniel 7:8:

"A little horn grew" with "eyes and mouth speaking great things", which is reducing three of these kingdoms (i.e. Sicily, Italy and Germany) to subservience, is persecuting the people of Christ and the saints of God with intolerable opposition , is confusing things human and divine, and is trying unspeakable, execrable things.

Protestant Reformation

From a series of woodcuts (1545) commonly referred to as Papstspotbilder or Papstspottbilder in German or Depictions of the Papacy in English, by Lucas Cranach, commissioned by Martin Luther. Title: Kissing the Pope's Feet. German peasants respond to a papal bull by Pope Paul III. The caption reads: "Don't scare us Papa with your ban, and don't be such a mad man. Otherwise we'll turn around and show our backs."

Passional Christi und Antichristi, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, by Luther, 1521. The Pope as the Antichrist, signing and selling indulgences.

Protestant reformers, including John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, John Thomas, John Knox, Roger Williams, Cotton Mather and John Wesley, as well as most Protestants of the 16th to 18th centuries, felt that the Early Church had been led into the Great Apostasy by the papacy and identified the pope with the antichrist. Luther declared that not only was a pope from time to time antichrist, but the papacy was antichrist because they were "the representatives of an institution opposed to Christ". A group of Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg led by Matthias Flacius, wrote Magdeburg Centuries to discredit the Catholic Church and lead other Christians to recognize the Pope as the Antichrist. Therefore, rather than expecting a single antichrist to rule the earth during a future tribulation period, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other Protestant reformers saw antichrist as a present feature of the world of their time, fulfilled in the papacy.

Among others who interpreted biblical prophecy historically were many Church Fathers; Justin Martyr wrote of the Antichrist: "He whom Daniel foretold would rule for a time and times and a half is even now at the door." Irenaeus wrote in Against Heresies about the coming of the antichrist: "This antichrist... will devastate everything... But then, the Lord will come from Heaven in the clouds... for the righteous". Tertullian, looking at the antichrist, wrote: "He shall sit in the temple of God and boast that he is god. In our opinion he is the antichrist, as taught us in the old and new prophecies; and especially by the apostle John, who says that 'many false prophets have gone out into the world' as the forerunners of the antichrist". Hippolytus of Rome, in his Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, wrote: "As Daniel also says (in the words) 'I considered the Beast, and behold! There were ten horns behind him—among which shall arise another (horn), a branch , and will uproot the three (that were) before her by the roots.' And under that was meant nothing less than Antichrist." Athanasius of Alexandria clearly holds the historical view in his many writings; in the Testimony of Arius he wrote: "I addressed the letter to Arius and his companions, exhorting them to renounce their impiety... Into this diocese went forth some lawless men - enemies of Christ - teaching an apostasy which one might justly suspect and designate as a forerunner of the Antichrist". Jerome wrote: "Says the apostle [Paul in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians]: 'Unless the Roman Empire first be made desolate and antichrist proceed, Christ will not come'". He also identifies the little horn of Daniel 7:8 and 7:24-25 that "He will speak as if he were God".

Some Franciscans considered Emperor Frederick II a positive antichrist who would cleanse the Catholic Church of opulence, wealth, and clergy.

Historicist interpretations of the Book of Revelation usually include identifying one or more of the following:

the antichrist (I John and II John);

the beast of Revelation 13;

the man of lawlessness, from 2 Thessalonians 2 2:1–12;

the "little horn" of Daniel 7 and Daniel 8;

the abomination of desolation of Daniel 9, 11 and 12; It is

the harlot of Babylon of Revelation 17.

Protestant Reformers tended to believe that the power of Antichrist would be revealed so that all would understand and recognize that the Pope is the true Antichrist and not the Vicar of Christ. Doctrinal works of literature published by Lutherans, Reformed Churches, Presbyterians, Baptists, Anabaptists, and Methodists contain references to the Pope as the Antichrist, including the Smalcald Articles, (1537), the Treatise Concerning the Power and Primacy of the Pope Written by Philip Melanchthon (1537), the Westminster Confession of Faith, (1646), and the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, In 1754, John Wesley published his Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, which is now an official Doctrinal Standard of the Church United Methodist. In his notes on the Book of Revelation (chapter 13) he commented: "The whole succession of Popes from Gregory VII are undoubtedly Antichrists. However, this does not prevent but that the last Pope in this succession will be most eminently the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, adding to his predecessors a peculiar degree of wickedness from the abyss".

So ingrained in the Reformation Age was the Pope's identification with the Antichrist that Luther himself repeatedly stated:

“This teaching [of the supremacy of the pope] shows forcibly that the Pope is the very antichrist, who exalted himself and opposed Christ, because he will not allow Christians to be saved without his

power, which, however, is nothing , is not ordained or commanded by God."

"nothing else than the kingdom of Babylon and Antichrist himself. For who is the man of sin and the son of perdition but he who by his teaching and his ordinances increases the sin and perdition of souls in the church; while he still sits in church as if he were God? All these conditions were fulfilled for many years by papal tyranny."

"The Pope wants to extinguish the light of the Gospel destined to illuminate the world. He is, therefore, the antichrist predicted by Daniel, by the Lord Jesus Christ, Peter, Paul and the Apocalypse."

John Calvin wrote similarly:

Although it is admitted that Rome was once the mother of all churches, from the moment it began to be the seat of antichrist, it ceased to be what it was before. Some people consider us too severe and censuring when we call the Roman Pontiff Antichrist., But those who are of this opinion do not consider that they bring the same charge of presumption against Paul himself, after whom we speak and whose language we adopt... briefly (Paul's words in II Thess. 2) are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the papacy.

John Knox wrote of the Pope:

"Yes, to speak in plain words; lest we submit to Satan, thinking that we submit to Jesus Christ, for as for his Roman church, how now it is corrupt, and his authority, on which is the hope of his victory, I no longer doubt that it is the synagogue of Satan, and its head, called pope, to be the man of sin, of whom the apostle speaks."

Thomas Cranmer on the Antichrist wrote:

"From this it follows that Rome is the seat of antichrist, and the pope is antichrist himself. I could prove the same from many other scriptures, ancient writers, and strong reasons."

John Wesley, speaking about the identity given in the Bible of the antichrist, wrote:

In many respects, the Pope has an indisputable claim on these titles. He is, in an emphatic sense, the man of sin, as he increases all kinds of sin above measure. And he is, also, aptly styled, the son of perdition, for he caused the death of countless multitudes, both his opponents and his followers, destroyed countless souls, and will perish forever. It is he who opposes the emperor, since his rightful sovereign; and who exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped - commanding angels and putting kings under his feet, both of whom are called gods in scripture; claiming the highest power, the highest honor; suffering, not once only, to be styled God or vice-God. Indeed, nothing less is implied by their common title, "Most Holy Lord" or "Most Holy Father." So that he sits down - Enthroned. In the temple of God - Mentioned Rev. xi, 1. Declaring himself to be God - Claiming the prerogatives which belong to God alone.

Roger Williams wrote of the Pope:

"the pretended Vicar of Christ on earth, who sits as God in the Temple of God, exalting himself not only over all that is called God, but over the souls and consciences of all his vassals, yea, over the Spirit of Christ, over the Holy Ghost, yea, and God himself... speaking against the God of heaven, thinking to change times and laws; but he is the Son of Perdition."

In the Irish Confession of Faith (1615; Episcopal Church): "The Bishop of Rome is, far from being the head of the Universal Church of Christ, what his doctrine and works do indeed reveal, that he is that "man of sin" foretold in the holy Scriptures, whom the Lord will consume with the spirit of His mouth, and abolish with the brightness of His coming." In the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647; Presbyterian Church).

"There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ: (Colossians 1:18; Ephesians 1:22). In no sense can the pope of Rome be the head of it, but that he is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, who exalts himself in the Church against Christ and against all that is called God." (Matthew 23:8–10; 2 Thessalonians 2:3–9; Revelation 13:8)

In the London Confession of Faith (1689; Baptist Church).

"The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the Church, who, by appointment of the Father, all power for the calling, institution, order, or government of the church has been supremely and sovereignly invested; nor can the pope in any way be the head her, but he is Antichrist, that man of sin, and the son of perdition, which exalteth himself in the church against Christ, and against all that is called God; whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. "

The identification of the Roman Catholic Church with the apostate power written in the Bible as the Antichrist became evident to many when the Reformation began, including John Wycliffe, who was well known throughout Europe for his opposition to the doctrine and practices of the Catholic Church. , which he believed clearly deviated from the original teachings of the early Church and was contrary to the Bible. Wycliffe himself tells how he concluded that there was a stark contrast between what the Church was and what it should be, and saw the need for reform. Along with Jan Hus, they began to lean toward ecclesiastical reforms in the Catholic Church.

When the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli became pastor of Grossmünster in Zurich (1518), he began to preach ideas about reforming the Catholic Church. Zwingli, who was a Catholic priest before becoming a reformer, often referred to the pope as the antichrist. He wrote: "I know that the strength and power of the Devil, that is, of the Antichrist, is at work in this."

The English reformer William Tyndale maintained that although the Roman Catholic kingdoms of that time were the empire of the antichrist, any religious organization that distorted Old and New Testament doctrine also showed the work of the antichrist. In his treatise The Parable of the Evil Mammon, he expressly rejected the established Church teaching that looked to the future for an antichrist to arise, and he taught that the antichrist is a present spiritual force that will be with us until the end of time under different guises. religious from time to time. Tyndale's translation of 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, concerning the "Man of Lawlessness" reflected his understanding, but was significantly altered by later revisers, including the King James Bible Committee, who followed the Vulgate more closely.

In 1973, the United States Conference of the Catholic Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the U.S. National Committee of the Lutheran World Federation on Official Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue officially signed an agreement on Papal Primacy and the Universal Church, including this passage:

In calling the pope "Antichrist," the early Lutherans stuck with a tradition that dated back to the 11th century. Not only dissidents and heretics, but even saints called the Bishop of Rome "Antichrist" when they wished to punish his abuse of power. What Lutherans understood as a papal claim to unlimited authority over everything and everyone reminded them of the apocalyptic imagery of Daniel 11, a passage that even before the Reformation had been applied to the pope as the end-time antichrist.

In 1988, Ian Paisley, evangelical minister and founder of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, infamously made headlines when he accused Pope John Paul II of antichrist during one of the Pope's speeches before the European Parliament, which at the time Paisley was a member of. . His accusation and the reactions of Pope John

Paul II and other members of the European Parliament were recorded on video.

The Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Wisconsin states about the Pope and the Catholic Church:

There are two principles that mark the papacy as the antichrist. One is that the pope assumes the right to govern the church that belongs to Christ alone. He can make laws forbidding the marriage of priests, eating or not eating meat on Friday, birth control, divorce and remarriage, even when there are no such laws in the Bible. The second is that he teaches that salvation is not by faith alone, but by faith and works. The present pope upholds and practices these principles. This marks his rule as anti-Christian rule in the church. All popes hold the same office over the church and promote the same antichristian beliefs, so they are all part of the reign of the antichrist. The Bible does not present the Antichrist as a man for a short period of time, but as an office held by a man for successive generations. It's a title like King of England.

Today, many Protestant and Restorationist denominations still officially maintain that the Papacy is the Antichrist, such as conservative Lutheran churches and Seventh-day Adventists.

counter-reformation

In the Counter-Reformation, views of preterism and futurism were put forward by Catholic Jesuits in the early 16th century in response to the identification of the papacy as the antichrist. These were rival methods of prophetic interpretation: the futurist and preterist systems are both in conflict with the historicist method of interpretation.

Historically, preterists and non-preterists alike agree that the Jesuit Luis del Alcázar (1554-1613) wrote the first systematic

preterist exposition of prophecy - Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi (published in 1614) - during the Counter-Reformation.

Christian views

catholic

From the Fifth Lateran Council, the Catholic Church teaches that priests may not "preach or declare a fixed time for [...] the coming of antichrist. The church also teaches that it must pass through trials before the second coming, and that the final proof of the church will be the mystery of iniquity.In Judaism, iniquity is a sin committed by moral failing.

The mystery of iniquity, according to the church, will be a religious deception: Christians receiving supposed solutions to their problems at the expense of apostasy. The ultimate religious deception, according to the church, will be the messianism of antichrist: humanity glorifying itself rather than God and Jesus. The church teaches that this supreme deception is committed by people who claim to fulfill Israel's messianic hopes, such as millennialism and secular messianism.

popes

Pope Pius IX in the encyclical Quartus Supra, quoting Cyprian, said that Satan disguises the Antichrist with the title of Christ. Pope Pius X in the encyclical E Supremi said that the hallmark of the antichrist is to claim to be God and to take his place. Pope John Paul II, in his August 18, 1985 address on his Apostolic Tour of Africa, said 1 John 4:3 evokes the danger of theology separated from holiness and theological culture separated from servitude to Christ. Pope Benedict XVI said at the Angelus on Sunday, March 11, 2012 that violence is the tool of the Antichrist. At the November 12, 2008 General Audience, Benedict XVI said that Christian tradition has come to identify the son of perdition as the Antichrist. Pope

Francis, in his morning meditation on February 2, 2014, said that the Christian faith is not an ideology, but that "the Apostle James says that the ideologues of the faith are the antichrist". In his September 19, 2014 morning meditation, Francis said that the antichrist must come before the final resurrection. In his January 7, 2016 morning meditation, he said that the evil spirit mentioned in 1 John 4:6 is the Antichrist. In his morning meditation on November 11, 2016, Francis said that anyone who says that the criterion of Christian love is not the incarnation is the antichrist.

Speculation

The Prophecy of the Popes states that Rome will be destroyed during the pontificate of the last Pope, implying a connection with the Antichrist.

Fulton J. Sheen, a Catholic bishop, wrote in 1951:

Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers... he will come in the guise of a Great Humanitarian; he will speak of peace, prosperity, and abundance not as a means to bring us to God, but as ends in themselves... He will tempt Christians with the same three temptations with which he tempted Christ... He will have a great secret which he will not tell anyone: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will establish a counter-church... It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of Antichrist which in all outward respects will resemble the mystical body of Christ.

orthodox

In a Christmas 2018 interview on Russian state television, Patriarch Cyril I of Moscow warned that "The Antichrist is the person who will be at the head of the worldwide network of control of all mankind.

This means that the structure itself poses a danger. There shouldn't be a single center, at least not for the foreseeable future, if we don't want to trigger the apocalypse." He urged listeners not to "fall into the bondage of what is in your hands [...] You must remain free inside and not fall into any addiction, neither alcohol nor narcotics nor electronic gadgets."

Old Believers

After Patriarch Nikon of Moscow reformed the Russian Orthodox Church during the second half of the 17th century, a large number of Old Believers claimed that Peter the Great, Tsar of the Russian Empire until his death in 1725, was the Antichrist because of his treatment of the Orthodox Church, notably subordinating the Church to the State, requiring clergymen to conform to the standards of all Russian civilians (shaved beards, being fluent in French), and requiring them to pay state taxes.

Enlightenment

Bernard McGinn noted that complete denial of the Antichrist was rare until the Age of Enlightenment. After the frequent use of charged "Antichrist" rhetoric during religious controversies in the 17th century, use of the concept waned during the 18th century due to the rule of enlightened despots, who as European rulers at the time wielded significant influence over official state churches. These efforts to purge Christianity of "legendary" or "popular" accretions effectively removed Antichrist from discussion in mainstream Western churches.

mormons

In Mormon doctrine, the "antichrist" is anyone or anything that falsifies the plan of salvation and openly or secretly opposes Christ. The great antichrist is identified as Lucifer, but he has many helpers both as spirit beings and mortals." Mormons reference from

the New Testament, 1 John 2:18, 22; 1 John 4:3-6; 2 John 1:7 and from the Book of Mormon, Jacob 7:1–23, Alma 1:2–16, Alma 30:6–60, in their exegesis or interpretation of the antichrist.

Seventh Day Adventists

Seventh-day Adventists teach that the "Power of the Little Horn", which (as predicted in the Book of Daniel) came into being after the dissolution of the Roman Empire, is the papacy. The Western Roman Empire collapsed at the end of the fifth century. In 533, Justinian I, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire, legally recognized the bishop (pope) of Rome as the head of all Christian churches. Because of the Arian domination of part of the Roman Empire by barbarian tribes, the bishop of Rome could not fully exercise this authority. In 538, Belisarius, one of Justinian's generals, managed to withstand a siege of the city of Rome by the Arian Ostrogoth besiegers, and the bishop of Rome was able to begin to establish universal civil authority. Thus, through the military intervention of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Bishop of Rome became all-powerful over the entire area of the former Roman Empire. The Ostrogoths promptly recaptured the city of Rome eight years later in 546 and Siege of Rome (549–550).

Seventh-day Adventists understand the 1260 years to be from 538 to 1798 as the duration of the papacy's rule over Rome. This period is seen as beginning with one of the defeats of the Ostrogoths by General Belisarius and ending with the successes of the French General Napoleon Bonaparte, specifically, with the capture of Pope Pius VI by General Louis-Alexandre Berthier in 1798.

Like many Protestant leaders of the Reformation era, Adventist pioneer Ellen G. White (1827–1915) spoke of the Catholic Church as a fallen church in preparation for its nefarious eschatological role as an antagonist against the true church of God; she saw the pope as the antichrist. Protestant reformers like Martin Luther, John Knox,

William Tyndale, and others held similar beliefs about the Catholic Church and the papacy when they split from the Catholic Church during the Reformation. Ellen White wrote:

His word warned of impending danger; ignore this and the Protestant world will learn what Rome's intentions really are, only when it is too late to escape the trap. She is silently growing in power. Its doctrines are exerting influence in the legislative halls, in the churches, and in the hearts of men. She is piling her towering, massive structures into the secret recesses from which her earlier pursuits will be repeated. Stealthily and unexpectedly, she is building up her forces to further her own ends when the time comes to strike. All she wants is advantageous ground, and that's already being given her. We will soon see and feel what the purpose of the Roman element is. Whoever believes and obeys the word of God will thus incur reproach and persecution.

Seventh-day Adventists see the period of time that the unbridled power of the apostate church was allowed to rule, as shown in Daniel 7:25: "The little horn would rule for a time and times and half a time" - or 1,260 years. They consider papal rule supreme in Europe from 538 (when the Arian Ostrogoths withdrew from Rome into temporary oblivion) until 1798 (when the French general Louis-Alexandre Berthier took Pope Pius VI captive) - a period of 1260 years- including the 67 years of the Avignon Papacy (1309–1376).

Other Christian Interpretations

Martin Wight

Martin Wight, writing immediately after World War II, advocated a revival of the antichrist doctrine; not as a person, but as a recurring situation characterized by "demonic concentrations of power".

Like the Man of Iniquity

Antichrist has been equated with the "man of lawlessness" of II Thessalonians 2:3, although comments on the identity of the "man of lawlessness" vary widely. The "man of lawlessness" has been identified with Caligula, Nero, and the end-time antichrist. Some scholars believe that the passage does not contain any genuine predictions, but rather represents speculation by the apostle himself, based on contemporary antichrist ideas.

Several American evangelical and fundamentalist theologians, including Cyrus Scofield, have identified the Antichrist as being associated with (or equal to) several figures in the Book of Revelation, including the Dragon (or Serpent), the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Harlot of Babylon. Emerging church voices such as Rob Bell reject identification of the antichrist with any person or group. They believe that a loving Christ would not see anyone as an enemy.

like satan

Bernard McGinn described several traditions detailing the relationship between the Antichrist and Satan. In the dualistic approach, Satan will incarnate in the Antichrist, just as God incarnated in Jesus. However, in orthodox Christian thought, this view was problematic because it was so similar to the incarnation of Christ. Instead, the "resident" view has become more accepted. It stipulates that the antichrist is a human figure inhabited by Satan, since his power should not be seen as equivalent to that of God. Luca Signorelli's fresco The Sermon and Actions of the Antichrist (above) depicts the inner vision. Satan whispers in the ear of this Christ-like figure and his left arm is thrust into the antichrist's robes as if he is manipulating him.

Non-Christian views

Jewish

There are warnings against false prophets in the Hebrew Bible, but no anti-Messiah figures.

An anti-Messiah-type parody figure known as Armilus, considered the offspring of Satan and a virgin, appears in some non-legalistic philosophical schools of Jewish eschatology, such as the 7th-century Sefer Zerubbabel and the 11th-century Midrash Vayosha (also: " Midrash wa-Yosha"). He is described as "a monstrosity, bald, with one large and one small eye, deaf in the right ear and mutilated in the right arm, while the left arm is two and a half arms long". As the successor of Gog, his inevitable destruction by a "Messiah ben Joseph" (Messiah, son of Joseph), symbolizes the final victory of good over evil in the Messianic Age. This is confronted with the medieval Christian Antichrist and the Islamic Dajjal, who will conquer Jerusalem and persecute the Jews.

islamic

Al-dajjal (Arabic: الدّجّال, literally "the Deceiving Messiah"), is an important figure in Islamic eschatology. Absent in the Qur'an, this figure is mentioned and described in the Hadith. As in Christianity the Dajjal is said to emerge from the east, the specific location varies between sources. He will try to imitate miracles performed by Jesus, such as healing the sick and raising the dead, the latter done with the help of demons (Shayatin). He will deceive many people, such as weavers, magicians, half-breeds and children of harlots, but most of his followers will be Jews in foreign clothes.

Eventually the Dajal will be killed by Issa (Jesus) who upon seeing the Dajal will cause it to slowly dissolve (like salt in water). Jesus will eventually kill him at the gate of Lude.

Ahmadi

Prophecies about the rise of the Antichrist are interpreted in Ahmadi teachings as designating a specific group of nations centered

on a false theology (or Christology) rather than an individual, with reference to the Antichrist as an individual indicating their unity as a class or system. rather than your personal individuality. As such, Ahmadis identify antichrist collectively with the missionary expansion and colonial rule of European Christianity around the world that was driven by the Industrial Revolution.

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad has written extensively on this topic, identifying the Antichrist primarily with colonial missionaries who, he feels, should be fought through argumentation rather than physical warfare and whose power and influence would gradually disintegrate, ultimately allowing for the recognition and worship of God throughout Islamic ideals to prevail throughout the world in a period similar to the period of time it took for nascent Christianity to emerge during the Roman Empire. The teaching that Jesus was a mortal man who survived crucifixion and died a natural death, as proposed by Ghulam Ahmad, has been seen by some scholars in this regard as a move to neutralize the Christian soteriologies of Jesus and project the superior rationality of Islam .

Baha'i

Antichrist is regarded as subverting the religion of God from man's inner reality, as `Abdu'l-Bahá narrates: "Christ was a divine Center of unity and love. Wherever discord prevails instead of unity, where hatred and antagonism takes the place of love and spiritual communion, antichrist reigns instead of Christ."

in popular culture

The enthronement of the Antichrist is associated with conspiracy theories, and particularly a satanic conspiracy to destroy the Christian faith.

The apocalypse:

An apocalypse (Greek: ἀπό and Greek: καλύπτω, literally meaning "a discovery") is a disclosure or revelation of great knowledge. In religious terms, an apocalypse usually reveals something very important that was hidden or provides what Bart Ehrman called "A vision of heavenly secrets that can make sense of earthly realities." In addition, certain pagan cultures often have similar views on this topic even though the pagan apocalypse has changed over time.

Fasting, particularly as part of a spiritual discipline, can lead a person into an apocalyptic prophetic vision. An example of this is found in the book of Daniel, which is the first account of the apocalypse in the Protestant Bible. After a long period of fasting, A part about God's final judgment deals with the forces of evil and the forces of good and in the Bible, God defeats a force of evil forever and brings justice and mercy to the world. Rev 20–22. Article “Day of the Lord”.

Numerology

Apocalyptic writing often makes extensive use of symbolism. An instance of this occurs when gematria is employed, either to obscure the writer's meaning or to heighten it; how several ancient cultures also used letters as numbers (i.e. the Romans with their use of "Roman numerals"). Hence the symbolic name "Taxo", "Assumptio Mosis", IX. 1; the "Number of the Beast" (616/666), in the book of Revelation 13:18; the number 666 ('Iησōῦς), Sibyllines, I.326-30.

time periods

Similar is the frequent prophecy concerning the period of time during which predicted events are to be fulfilled. So the "time, times and a half", Daniel 12:7, which was considered by dispensationalists to be 3 years and a half in duration; the "fifty-eight times" of Enoch, XC.5, "Assumptio Mosis", X.11; the announcement of a certain number of "weeks" or days, whose starting point in Daniel 9:24, 25 is "the issue of the commandment

to restore and build Jerusalem for Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks", a mention of 1290 days after covenant/sacrifice is broken (Daniel 12:11), 12; Enoch XCIII.3–10; 2 Ezra 14:11, 12; Apocalypse of Baruch XXVI – VIII; Revelation 11:3, which mentions "two witnesses" with supernatural power, 12:6; compare Assumption Mosis, VII.1.

Descriptions

Symbolic language also occurs in descriptions of people, things, or events; thus the "horns" of Daniel 7 and 8; Revelation 17 and following; the "heads" and "wings" of 2 Esdras XI and following; the seven seals of Revelation 6; trumpets, Revelation 8; "bowls of God's wrath" or "cup..." judgments, Revelation 16; the dragon, Revelation 12:3-17,[Revelation 20:1-3; the eagle, Assumptio Mosis, X.8; and so on.

end of era

In the Hebrew Old Testament, some images of the end times were images of the judgment of the wicked and the glorification of those who received righteousness before God. In the Book of Job and in some Psalms, the dead are described in these Hebrew texts as being in Sheol, awaiting final judgment. The wicked will then be condemned to eternal suffering in the fires of Gehinnom, or the lake of fire mentioned in the Christian Book of Revelation.

Apocalypse (Bible):

The Book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse of John or the Book of Revelation, is a book in the Bible — the holy book of Christianity — and the last of the selection of the biblical Canon. It was written by John on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea.

The word apocalypse, from the Greek αποκάλυψις, apokálypsis, means "revelation", formed by "apo", taken from, and "kalumna", veil. An "apocalypse", in the same terminology of Judaism and Christianity, is

the divine revelation of things that hitherto remained secret to a prophet chosen by God. By extension, the written accounts of these revelations began to be called "apocalypse", which constitute a literary genre of its own (apocalyptic literature). Due to the fact that most bibles in Portuguese use the title Apocalypse and not Revelation, even the meaning of the word has become obscure, sometimes being used as a synonym for "end of the world".

The title of the book may suggest "The Revelation of Jesus Christ", the basic idea being that the events described in the book were revealed to Jesus Christ, and he showed his servants over 2000 years ago the things that would theoretically happen. , shortly. John, the writer of the book, is not its author, only the scribe, who wrote the book dictated by the author, Jesus. Twice John reports that the contents of the book were revealed through angels.

In this book of the Bible, it is told that before the final battle, the armies gather on the plain below "Har Megiddo" (the hill of Megiddo). However, the translation was botched and Har Megiddo was mistranslated to Armageddon, causing the armies to assemble on the plain before Armageddon, the final battle.

Authorship

Main article: Authorship of João's works

Exegetes, Catholics and Protestants attribute its authorship to John, the same author of the Gospel According to John, as described in the book itself:

“I, John, your brother and companion with you in the tribulation, in the kingdom and in the perseverance in Jesus, was in the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, "Write what you see in a book and

send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and Smyrna. , Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. ”

However, there are currents that believe that the John mentioned here (referred to as "John of Patmos") is another individual, different from the apostle John. According to Clarence Larkin, the fact that the style of this book is totally different from the epistles of John is because the author of the book is Jesus Christ, John being only his scribe.

Interpretations

Christianity

Main article: Christian eschatology

For Christians, the book has the prediction of the last events before, during and after the return of the Messiah of God. The interpretation, made by Protestants and some Catholics, is divided into three groups: preterist (the revelations occurred in the past), historicist (the revelations occur over the course of history) and futurist (the revelations will occur in the future).

Apocalyptic literature has considerable importance in the history of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, as it conveys beliefs such as the resurrection of the dead, the Day of Judgment, heaven, hell and others that are referred to there in a more or less explicit way.

“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him, to show his servants things which must shortly take place; and he sent them by his angel, and told his servant John; Who testified of the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, and all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads, and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein; because the time is at hand.”

Revelation 1:1-3

amillennial theology

Since the book is written in symbolic, prophetic language, it gives rise to numerous interpretations by different Christian segments.

Amillennial theology brings with it the non-literal interpretation, that is, the images that appear in the book mean something, and, therefore, understands that the Millennium will not be made up of a literal thousand years, but an indeterminate period of time (3 years and a half, a time, two times and half a time, 42 months and 1260 days are synonymous and represent inaccuracy of time). In this inexact time, peoples will be called to serve Christ and those who follow him will be marked for salvation.

John on the island of Patmos

Thus, we are already in the Millennium and the Great Tribulation is yet to come, despite the saved already living the tribulation within a corrupt and evil world. The Great Tribulation is being implemented as the era of gospel preaching (Millennium) ends. At the end of the Millennium, the Antichrist will appear (who will bring the Great Tribulation) and will be eliminated by the Word of the Lord, that is, Jesus Christ. The end is described with the definitive imprisonment of the beast, the false prophet, Satan and his demons in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone. This is followed by the Last Judgment and the eternal destiny of the saved - the New Jerusalem.

premillennial theology

The premillennial theology (meaning that Jesus would come before the Millennium), brings with it the literal interpretation of the images/figures and, therefore, understands that the seven years of the great tribulation, where after the rapture of the church, the Earth would go through three and a half years of peace (with the reign of the Anti-Christ - who would persecute Christians who did not have the Number of the Beast, which would enable free trade

between people. Such a mark, says the prophet, would be placed on the forehead or in the hands of people and there would be three and a half years of great affliction. After that period, the beginning of the Millennium would occur (where the church would reign with Christ on Earth). After the Millennium, the Final Judgment would begin, where the Messiah would reign definitively, throwing Satan and his angels (demons) into the lake of fire.

In this book, the author discusses the consequences of complying or not with the appeals of the New Testament ("turn to God", "repent of your sins"), then dividing the saints (those who converted to God, through faith in Jesus Christ) and those who refused to live with him.

There are basically four lines of study about the interpretation of the apocalyptic book:

symbolic language

In the symbolic understanding, they basically say that they refer to the persecutions that Christians suffered from the Romans and would suffer throughout history. According to this understanding, John used symbology to detail the suffering they were going through, and used this means to talk to other Christians and thus make it difficult for their oppressors to understand.

prophetic language

In the prophetic, according to a common theology of the Protestant churches, John would have received visions through Jesus Christ through an angel, who showed him what would happen during the period of the present dispensation (until the end of the world). Among these events, the most famous is the Last Judgment, which would be the (eternal) result of the fulfillment or not of the New Testament appeals, which are:

Turn to God.

Repentance of sins.

Confess Jesus Christ as Messiah.

Baptism.

Dividing, then, humanity between the saints (those who accepted) and the sinners who refused to hear the appeals and change their attitude.

According to the prophetic vision, the "Last Judgment" will bring eternal heaven for the saints and eternal hell for the sinners.

Still according to the prophetic understanding of the book, we have the following eschatological line:

Letter to the churches.

Principle of pain (small catastrophes).

Opening of the seals (Knights of the Apocalypse, cry of the martyrs, great earthquake and celestial tremors).

Rule of Antichrist for 7 years, (sign of the Beast, peace, wars).

Angels pour bowls over the Earth, which means the wrath of God in 7 stages (famine, pestilence, earthquakes, tidal waves, etc.).

Return of Jesus Christ and the Church to Earth.

Millennial Government of Jesus Christ.

Last Judgment.

New heaven and new earth.

The mark or mark of the beast is subject to several interpretations. There are those who say that the sign will literally be placed on the right hand or on the forehead, and accuse Verichip of being that sign. Others prefer a more symbolic view and interpret that the mark of the beast on the right hand or on the forehead would

respectively mean attitudes and thoughts according to the intentions of the beast, and contrary to God.

An example of such an interpretation has the Adventists, who believe that the mark of the Beast can be identified by identifying the opposite sign, that is, the "sign of God", which they believe to be the observance of the Sabbath. In this case, for them, the mark of the beast would be the observance of Sunday, recognized as the Lord's day by both Catholics and Protestants.

However, current currents consider that the sign of the Beast is nothing more than something comprehensible, that whoever receives it will know exactly what he is doing, since the expression "it is a man's number" refers to something common, notorious for all, because even illiterate people recognize numbers with ease, contrary to the current that a few years ago accused the bar code and now the Verichip. There is also the possibility of a number right in the center of the forehead written 666 (six hundred and sixty-six).

Spiritist Vision

According to the spiritist-Christian view of the Book of Revelations, John the Evangelist, under the guidance of Above, leaves a letter recorded for posterity in the form of a prophetic revelation - An authentic revelation about the near future at that time, and the times of the end . The messages and revelations contain figurative language, which hint at the spiritual realities around and behind the historical experience. Evidence found in the text itself would indicate that the Book of Revelation was written during a period of extreme persecution of Christians, probably in the period between the reign of Nero, in July 64, and the destruction of Jerusalem, in September 70, as reported by Stephen, in the book Revelation - A Spiritist Interpretation of Prophecies.

The central message of Revelation is that "the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns" (Rev. 19:6). The purpose of the apocalyptic

message was to provide pastoral encouragement to persecuted Christians, comforting, challenging and proclaiming the assured and certain Christian hope, as well as confirming the certainty that, in Christ, they shared God's sovereign method. Through spirituality in all its manifestations, they would achieve total overcoming of the forces of opposition to the new order that was being established, since this constituted the will of the Most High.

According to spiritualism, unfolding ("I was in the Spirit" Revelation 1:10), John received the revelations in the form of vivid figures and symbolic images, which resemble those found in the prophetic books of the Old Testament. He records his visions in the order he received them, many of which portray the same events from different perspectives. As such, it does not establish a chronological order in which certain historical events must necessarily take place, nor does it chain the prophecies of Revelation in chronological succession.

The character of the apocalyptic book is perfectly demonstrated already at the beginning of the chapter (Revelation 1:1). It is a revelation that the High provides, through mediumship, since it is transmitted to John through the intermediary of an elevated spiritual Messenger — the angel who presents to him, before his psychic vision, the purposes that Christ transmitted to him.

In the religious communities of the time, the so-called ekklesias, the work of the "man of sin" (Paul's expression used in II Thessalonians 2:3) began, that is, the penetration of human doctrines, which slowly became integrated into the primitive core of Christianity, to Christian communities. In the epistles to his disciples Timothy and Titus, as well as in the letter to the Hebrews, Paul already drew attention to the danger of deviating from "sound doctrine", as if foreseeing the difficulties that would befall the hard-built edifice of the doctrine Christian (cf. 1Ti 1:10, Titus 2:1, Heb 13:9).

It is in the midst of this climate that the warnings of the Apostle John came, in the book of Revelation.

Influence of other cultures

Christianity is influenced by Judaism evidently. The book of Daniel, belonging to the Bible, presents similarities with Zoroaster doctrine and thought.

I want here in this context that tells this very formidable story that I show that in everything the antichrist is based on a formulation of the beginning of the world that we can understand a great version of the bible and about the apocalypse that talk about a being that denies the Father and the son and who came into the world to unravel the lives of human beings and that we can understand in religion that everything is contracted as a fight of good against evil and evil against good, leaving this whole story for the ends of the world that portrays itself in a great history of our religion and I want to thank everyone here for this beautiful lesson of mine that I did to show with much love and work for everyone with a lot of research in the encyclopedia and that I spoke at the beginning about a great cause that distorts a foundation such as illuminating source of society that is not well increased by someone who is not happy or does not love God. Thank you all and a strong arm!

By: Roberto Barros