The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland seeks to maintain a vigorous witness against all false religion, and especially against the Roman Catholic apostasy headed up by the Pope. Along with the Reformers of the sixteenth century and the Westminster divines of the seventeenth century, the Church has no reservations in identifying the Papal system as not merely antichristian but as the very Antichrist and Man of Sin spoken of in Scripture, in particular in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12:
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin 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 temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. . . . For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Accordingly the Westminster Confession of Faith states (in chapter 25, paragraph 6):
There is no other head of the Church, but the Lord Jesus Christ; nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God.
In 2010, in advance of the Pope’s visit to the United Kingdom, the Free Presbyterian Church produced a booklet entitled Pope Benedict XVI and the United Kingdom. Chapters of this publication are available online by following the links below: