Continued from The Present Antichrist By Rev. Fred J. Peters – Part 2.

The Temple of God

The phrase “The Temple of God” examined in the original Greek repudiates the idea of a Jewish Temple. It is “Ho Naos tou Theou” (ὸ ναὸν τοῦ θεοῦ), while the word used for the Temple is “Hieron” (iepov). Dr, A. J. Gordon writing of this says, “There is no undisputed instance in the New Testament where this word ‘Naos’ is applied to the Jewish Temple.

In the lexicons the prime meaning given for “Naos” is “a dwelling.” Now a careful study and comparison of the following Scriptures conclusively demonstrates that this temple or dwelling is the Church,—Eph. 2:20-22; 2 Thess. 2:4; 1 Cor. 3:16,17; 2 Cor. 6:16. Seeing that all these passages were written by the apostle Paul, it would be inconsistent with the Pauline spirit and method to interpret three passages as applying to the Church, as all expositors do, and one passage as applying to some future Jewish Temple as futurists do. The Word “Naos” is the word Paul uses in all these passages. Indeed so evident is this to all readers of the original that we feel compelled to lay these passages side by side with the Greek word inserted in such a way that even the simplest Bible student will see and understand. This we now proceed to do:

I Cor. 3:16, 17	II Thess. 2:3, 4.
“Know ye not that ye are the NAOS (TEMPLE) of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” “If any man defile the NAOS (TEMPLE) of God him shall God destroy: for the NAOS (TEMPLE) of God, is holy, which NAOS (TEMPLE) ye are.”	“That man of sin (shall) be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in) the NAOS (TEMPLE OF GOD,) showing himself that he is God.”

A simple reading of these passages placed thus in parallelism reveals several startling facts:

1. That, Paul distinctly tells us that this Naos or temple is the Church, “ye are the Naos or temple.” “Which Naos (temple) ye are.”

2. That, it was possible for this Naos or temple to be defiled, and if defiled, one would be destroyed. 1 Cor. 17.

3. That, the man of sin or Antichrist, was to appear in this Naos or temple, exalt himself in it above all that is called God, and be worshipped therein; that is, in the professing Church.

If we examine the other Scripture quoted above, the conviction will be further deepened that, this Temple (NAOS) is the very church of God, and it is impossible to apply it to anything else. In 2 Cor. 6:16 we read, “And what agreement hath the NAOS (TEMPLE) OF GOD with idols? for ye are the NAOS (TEMPLE) OF GOD.”

In Eph. 2:19-21 Paul writes, “Ye are… the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone; in whom all the building… groweth unto an holy NAOS (TEMPLE) in the Lord.”

There is no doubt whatsover as to the application of this. It tells us unequivocally that the Church of Christ is the Temple, Naos, Dwelling of God. This is Paul’s use of the word. It can in no way or sense be applied to the Jewish Temple, for all these Epistles of Paul are written to ultra-gentile Churches, who were taught by Paul to regard the Church as the Temple of God.

Seeing then that this is a divinely given interpretation which none can deny, upon whose authority is this Naos, which is God’s dwelling, changed into a Jewish Temple? Such treatment of God’s Word is “handling the Word of God deceitfully.” We beg our readers to study these passages carefully for the more he does so, the more he will be convinced that this is the truth of God according to Scripture. He will also be convinced that some enemy has put leaven into the pure meal of sound doctrine upon which God’s children are to be fed. And because this poison has been working in the Church for so long, things are not going well with her. It is because this God-given interpretation, which buoyed up the reformers and made them like lions against Antichrist, has been abandoned, that today Rome lifts her shameless head with such audacity in this “Land of the Pilgrims’ pride.” We need to sound the alarm indeed. But we need above everything to come back to the true Protestant interpretation of the prophecies, which were given for our help and warning upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

This study has now made positively sure that Antichrist will never sit in a Jewish Temple. Seeing that this is so, we shall have to revise a great deal of that which we have spoken and written. And the sooner that this is done the better for the true church of Christ. Let us put honest hands to this work, dear brothers, and scrap some of the theories and teachings that have brought to pass the present state of things. Back to the teachings of the Reformers on this subject as on others.

Not a Private Interpretation

For fifteen hundred years this interpretation has been developing. All the Reformers held it. It is not possible in this little work to quote extensively, for that would defeat the object we have in view. But to show how long this has been developing in the Church we quote from well known Christian writers of the fourth and fifth centuries.

Athanasius taught that Antichrist would be a person making a Christian profession, assuming Christ’s place and character and saying “I am Christ.” Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers asked, “Is it a doubtful thing that Antichrist will sit in Christian Churches?” Cyril of Jerusalem says, “Antichrist will sit in the temple of God; not that which is in Jerusalem, but in the Churches everywhere.” Jerome interpreting the 2 Thess. 2 declares that “The Man of Sin is to sit in the temple; that is in the Church.”

And from that time till the present the greatest saints and martyrs and reformers have held the same views. They held them because they saw them in God’s Word as they were anointed with Christ’s eye-salve, and were not looking at God’s Word through a perverted interpretation foisted on the Church by cunning Jesuits in-breathed by Satan.

We believe we have made the foregoing clear, the sum of which is,—The Apostle Paul declares that a Man of Sin, an Antichrist, was to arise in the apostate Church who would,—

1. Oppose God by exalting himself above that which is called God, etc.

2. Sit in the temple of God (Church) showing himself that he is God.

Our inquiry now is, has anything like this ever taken place in the professing Church of Christ? We believe it has been more than fulfilled in the Papacy during the past thirteen centuries. And as this is stoutly denied by some uninformed Protestants, we want to be very careful in our presentation of the evidence.

Antichrist as God. The Fulfillment

He was to “exalt himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped.” “Sit in the temple (Naos, church) of God, showing himself as God.”

Notice carefully the wording, “exalt himself above that is called God.” What is there in the Roman Church that is called God or worshipped? We know of only one thing so called, and that is the “Host.”

There are multitudinous idols in that church, but only one thing called God, and that is the piece of bread or wafer used in the Mass, which is truly worshipped by all faithful Catholics.

The writer was invited with others by a certain earnest Catholic woman to witness a procession of the Corpus Christi from her house which faced a great cathedral. After witnessing a great number of enormous images come forth, she suddenly cried out: “Oh! there comes the Most Holy One (El Santissimo),” and immediately fell down on her knees and crossing herself began to pray it. I asked her which was the Most Holy One, and she pointed to a canopy borne by four priests, under which was the bishop carrying the host. The thousands of people who were in the large square had at the same time fallen on their knees praying. This prevails everywhere in Catholic lands where Rome still dominates. In this land (U.S.A.) such things are enacted inside the churches. Thus there is no doubt whatsoever that Catholics worship the host. It is their God, on earth.

Now for the fulfilment of this prophecy.

At the time of the coronation of a new Pope, the host is consecrated and placed on the high altar in St. Peter’s at Rome. It is now God. Above the high altar there is a throne built into the architecture. When the mass is over the Pope invested with his scarlet robes, and the host is upon the altar, the following takes place:

“The Pope rises, and wearing his mitre, is lifted by the cardinals, and is placed by them upon the altar to sit there. One of the bishops kneels and begins the Te Deum (we praise thee Oh! God). In the meantime the cardinals kiss the feet of the Pope, etc.” This ceremony is called by Roman Catholic writers “the Adoration,” it has been observed for many centuries. For Pius IX a medal was struck to celebrate the occasion, and on it is the inscription,— “Quem creant adorant,” “whom they create (viz., the Pope) they adore.” Such language is blasphemous in the extreme.

During the coronation of a new Pope there are no less than five distinct adorations, at each of which the canons and clergy of St. Peter’s, with their cardinal high-priest leading them, come and kneel before the Pope and kiss his feet. At this time also the Pope is carried up to the throne above the high altar where he sits literally “above that which is called God.”

That there be no mistake concerning the fulfillment of this prophecy we will quote words of past Popes. Among volumes written on this, let these words suffice: “I am all in all and above all, so that God Himself, and I, the Vicar of God, have both one consistory, and I am able to do almost all that God can do… Wherefore, if those things that I do be said not to be done of man, but of God, WHAT CAN YOU MAKE ME BUT GOD? Again, if prelates of the Church be called and counted of Constantine for gods, I then, being above all prelates, seem by this reason to be ABOVE ALL GODS. Wherefore, no marvel if it be in my power to dispense with all things, yea, with the precepts of Christ.” End of Age, p. 191 Words of Pope Nicholas.

If these doings and these words are not the fulfillment of prophecies concerning Antichrist, then we cannot see how they will ever be more definitely fulfilled. Ponder it long and carefully, dear reader, and ask yourself if it does not correspond to the prophecies and completely fulfill it. And this being has been on the stage for thirteen centuries deceiving untold multitudes of souls.

Again we ask, Art thou the Antichrist, art thou he that should come, or look we for another?

Assuredly not, there is no other.

This is he who was to come, there will be no other.

The Papacy exhausts all the prophecies.

This is the Antichrist.

Antichrist a Persecuting Power

“He shall wear out the saints of the Most High.”—Dan. 7:25. “He had power to cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.”—Rev. 13:15. See also Rev. 17:6; 18:24.

Most Protestants have a vague idea of the persecutions of Rome in past days, with its Inquisitions, autos de fe (public penance of the accused), etc., but not many have adequate knowledge of the depths to which Rome has sunk in her hatred of those who dared to oppose her errors with the authority of God’s Word.

When Daniel saw the power of the Antichrist under the symbol of the little horn, he saw that it would “wear out the saints,” a statement that cannot be understood on any short time interpretation. The wearing out was to be a process of long duration. It was to occupy nearly all the period of the Church’s existence on earth, and these prophecies cover more than a thousand years, and not some little, pigmean (very small, short) epoch that may happen in our days.

It is so hard for us in our conceit to convince ourselves that the Great God is not specially interested in our generation because, forsooth, we happen to be alive.

It is so easy, on the contrary, to fall into the mistake of applying all prophecies to the days in which we live, or the near future, and imagining we are to see the whole fulfillment thereof. We are all such egotists that we carry our egotism into the very Holy of Holies of God’s Word.

But the fact is that God was just as much interested in the Church of the fourth, or tenth, or fifteenth centuries as in our time, and He gave prophecies for them. And it is an incontrovertible fact that they were mightily helped and heartened by them.

Now in Dan. 7:8 we read of the little horn (kingdom) which sprang up among the ten horns or kingdoms into which the Roman Empire was divided at or after its fall. This little horn is recognized by all schools of interpreters to be the kingdom of Antichrist. It was to spring up among the ten. It was to be like them yet different, for it had “eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.” It was a power or kingdom with an overseer as indicated by the eyes. Nothing has appeared to fit this but the Papacy, which indeed fits it like the key the lock. Shall we throw away the clue we have because the Jesuits offer us an interpretation they have manufactured to protect the Pope from the condemnation of God’s Word?

Now this power was to “wear out the saints of the Most High,” Dan. 7:25, and they should be “given into his hands until a time and times and the dividing of time.” That is three and a half times, in prophetic hieroglyphic language equals 1260 years. Now this is a long time and the wording demands a long time. Antichrist was to “wear out the saints,” that necessitates a long drawn out period. No little three and a half ordinary years is this.

Now let us suppose an Antichrist were to come as foretold by our futurist brethren. He is to continue his work against the saints during 3^1/2 literal years. If that man were to do his worst he could not equal the black record of the papacy during the 1260 long years of its awful reign. The futurist Antichrist is a lilliputian, a pygmy, a caricature compared with him who has already come and accomplished such terrible work. Listen to the inspired prediction again and weigh it well:

“He shall wear out the saints of the Most High.” “Drunken with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus.”

These words demand long centuries for their fulfillment. Nothing but long periods of time will justify such language as this. Nothing but a long drawn out age justifies the awful wonder of the apostle John, as he gazed upon and comprehended the figures shown by the angel. He says in Rev. 17:6 “When I saw her I was amazed beyond measure.” (20th Century Trans.) Something more awful than the Great War produces this wonder and amazement. And we affirm that the record of the Papacy is far worse. So terrible is it that the mind reels as it contemplates it, and one would fain reject it as an impossibility, or the product of a superheated imagination.

The Awful Fulfillment

The question now is, has this terrible persecuting power come? Has this wearing out of the saints of the Most High, etc., been fulfilled or is it still future? Listen to the record history and judge ye. We quote from “End of Age, by Grattan Guinness, pp. 202-212:

“The massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day (in 1572) is a history of unparalleled atrocity, when according to some writers 100,000 were killed. In Paris alone the blood of 10,000 innocent Protestants deluged the streets, and for a whole week the shouts of “kill, kill,” resounded on every hand. These Protestants perished on account of their faith, in the month of August, 1572. Pope Gregory III, who was privy to the plot, celebrated a Te Deum (Latin for ‘Thee, God, we praise’) on hearing the news, ordered a jubilee and a solemn procession which he himself accompanied, to thank God for this glorious success. He had a medal struck in memory of the happy event, and a picture of the Massacre painted and hung in the Vatican.

“A century after this a worse persecution began in France against the Protestants. A Huguenot historian writes of it: ‘Never did hell in the direst persecution invent or employ means so diabolical and inhuman as the dragoons (mounted infantry) and the monks who head them, have used to destroy us.’

“Pope Clement XI did all in his power to secure their utter extinction. For three years this cruel crusade continued till the Protestants were completely crushed.

“Look at Ireland in 1641, when the Romanist Bishops proclaimed a ‘war of religion’ and incited the people by every means in their power to massacre the Protestants. North, south, east and west, throughout the island, Protestant blood flowed in rivers. Popish children were taught to pluck out the eyes of their Protestant playmates, to hack their little limbs and hunt them to death. Some were forced to murder their own relatives, and then were butchered themselves over the bleeding remains; the last sounds that reached their dying ears being the savage assurance of the priests that these agonies were but the commencement of eternal torment.

“In Armagh 4000 Protestants were drowned: in Cavan the road for twelve-miles together was stained red with the gory track of the wounded fugitives. In Ulster upward of 154,000 Protestants were massacred or expelled from Ireland. O’Neil, the Romish Primate of all Ireland, declared this rebellion to be ‘a pious and lawful war,’ and Pope Urban VIII by a bull, dated May, 1648, granted ‘full and absolute remission of all their sins,’ to those who had taken part in it.”

We will conclude this section with the following quotation from Dr. Guinness which history more than substantiates:

As some Emperors of Rome exhausted the art of pleasure, so have Romanish persecutors exhausted all the arts of pain, so that it will now be difficult to discover or invent a new kind of it, which they have not already practiced upon heretics.

“They have been shot, stabbed, stoned, drowned, beheaded, hanged, drawn, quartered, impaled, burnt or buried alive, roasted on spits, baked in ovens, thrown into furnaces, tumbled over precipices, cast from the tops of towers, sunk in mire, and pits, starved with hunger and cold, hung on tenter hooks, suspended by the hair of the head, by the hands or feet, stuffed and blown up by gunpowder, ripped with swords and sickles, tied to the tails of horses, dragged over streets and sharp flints, broken on the wheel, beaten on anvils with hammers, blown with bellows, bored with hot irons, torn piecemeal by red-hot pincers, slashed with knives, hacked with axes, hewed with chisels, pricked with forks, stuck from head to foot with pins; choked with water, lime, rags, urine, excrement, or mangled pieces of their own bodies crammed down their throats, shut up in caves and dungeons, tied to stakes, nailed to trees, tormented with lighted matches, scalding oil, burning pitch, melted lead, etc.

“They have been flayed alive, had their flesh scalped and torn from their bones; they have been trampled and danced upon till their bowels have been forced out; their entrails have been tied to trees and pulled forth by degrees; their heads twisted with cords till the blood or even the eyes started out; strings have been drawn through their noses and they led about like swine and butchered like sheep.

“To dig out eyes, tear off nails, cut off ears, lips, tongues, arms, breasts, etc., has been but ordinary sport with Rome’s converters and holy butchers. Persons have been compelled to lay violent hands on their dearest friends, to kill or to cast into fire their parents, husbands, wives, children, etc., or to look on while they have been most cruelly and shamefully abused. Women and young maids have also suffered such barbarities, accompanied with all the imaginable indignities, insults, shame and pungent pangs to which their sex could expose them. Tender babes have been whipped, starved, drowned, stabbed and burnt to death, dashed against trees and stones, torn limb from limb, carried about on the points of spikes and spears and thrown to the dogs and swine.”

Let the impartial and unbiased reader calmly consider this evidence and weigh it well, comparing it carefully with the prophetic picture of Antichrist and he will be overwhelmingly convinced that it fulfills all the terrible demands of prophecy. And remember, Rome has never repented of these things. If she has we would like to know the name of the Pope who had the courage to do it, for it certainly has escaped the attention of the public.

“If such treatment as this, inflicted on successive generations of disciples of Christ, for centuries together be not ‘wearing out of the saints of the Most High,’ what could be? History affords no parallel, for the Pagan persecutions were brief in comparison to the Papal.”

These evidences are more than sufficient to condemn a criminal many times over, but the following single statement makes all other arguments on the subject needless: “It has been calculated that the Popes of Rome have, directly or indirectly, slain on account of their faith, fifty millions of martyrs.”

Ponder that well. Fifty millions of souls faithful to Jesus and the Word of God, slain by Antichrist. Fifty millions of blood-washed souls who would rather die than bow to the idolatry of Rome. Fifty millions of our dear brethren “who loved not their lives unto the death.” Fifty millions whose blood has flowed in rivers at the command of the Papacy, and that blood is even now crying to God for vengeance.

With all this and more before us, we are bold enough to take our stand with God’s Word and its visible fulfillment and say to our beloved brethren THERE WILL BE NO FUTURE ANTICHRIST APART FROM THE PAPACY. It is vain to look for another. Thou Antichrist on the Tiber, we recognize thee. THOU ART HE THAT SHOULD COME.

Continued in part 4.