The Pope’s Titles
The Pope receives various titles in Scripture. In 1 John 2:18, he is referred to as the Antichrist, and in 2 Thessalonians 2 as the Man of Sin (v 3), the Son of Perdition (v 3), and the Wicked (v 8). The papal system itself is the Mystery of Iniquity (v 7). There is an obvious contrast here with the “mystery of godliness” (1 Tim 3:16), as if the papal system were a satanic attempt to mimic and to displace the gospel. This suggests that the Pope’s titles are perversions of Christ’s titles, and it is instructive to consider what these might be.
The title “Antichrist” obviously contrasts with “Christ”, with the word “anti” meaning both “against” and “in the place of”. Both these are true of the Pope – he is not openly against Christ, but secretly he is, and he and his system have been smuggled into the Christian Church to come in the place of Christ and the gospel. The title “Man of Sin” may stand in contrast with “the man of Thy right hand”, given to Christ in Psalm 80:17. Christ is both the “power” (1 Cor 1:24) of God, put forth in God’s right hand (Ps 98:1), and the One who is honoured by being exalted to the right hand of God (Ps 110:1). The Man of Sin, by contrast, is the instrument of Satan and receives his honour from Satan.
The title “Son of Perdition” is seen by Patrick Fairbairn (Prophecy, p 368) as contrasting with Christ’s title “Son of Man” (Dan 7:13). The Son of Man is the new Covenant Head after Adam, in whom honour and dominion are restored (Ps 8:4-6) and who receives His people to glory (Acts 7:56). The Son of Perdition is the head of a satanic system who draws his followers with him down to ruin.
The title “Wicked” stands in contrast to “Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 Jn 2:1, compare 1 Tim 1:9). The underlying Greek word means “without law” or “lawless”, and the same word is translated “iniquity” in “mystery of iniquity”. In most modern versions, the “Man of Sin” is changed to “Man of Lawlessness”, reflecting an erroneous change in the underlying Greek text. In relation to the Pope, the meaning seems to be one who considers himself above God’s law, which he may change or suspend at his pleasure. Christ, by contrast, was “made under the law” (Gal 4:4), and came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it (Mt 5:17). His people are “under the law to Christ” (1 Cor 9:21), and Christ was sent “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom 8:4).
God’s ultimate purpose in allowing the papacy is to bring out aspects of the glory of Christ. It is good if we can get spiritual food from meditating upon things at first sight so unpalatable and poisonous as papal titles. There is “death in the pot” but, in the titles of Christ, the Holy Spirit has cast in meal and believers “may eat” (2 Ki 4:40-41). “Unto the pure all things are pure” (Tts 1:15).
DWBS
John Henry Newman: Faithful to Scripture or Captive to Rome?
The Vatican has announced that John Henry Newman (1801-1890) is soon to join the distinguished list of “Doctors of the Universal Church”. There have only ever been 38 such doctors, each one being deemed by Rome to be eminent in doctrine, outstanding in holiness of life, and proclaimed such a doctor either by a pope or one of their church councils.
Newman had been a leading Anglican in the nineteenth-century Oxford Movement, who apostatised to Rome in 1845, became a “priest” two years later and was made a cardinal in 1879. In 2010, Rome made him a “saint”. Newman was the first English “saint” created by Rome since the “Forty Martyrs”, who were executed under laws enacted during the English Reformation and canonised in 1970.
Newman’s elevation to Roman “sainthood” follows the “miraculous recovery” of two individuals in the USA who had “prayed” to him for healing in 2000 and 2013. In an article published in 2019, entitled “Cardinal John Henry Newman: How did he become a saint?”, the BBC gave brief reports on the two “miracles” that led to Newman becoming a “saint”.
The first individual was a seminarian from Boston who, “struck by crippling back pain”, explained, “I certainly needed a divine favour at that moment, so I prayed: ‘Please, Cardinal Newman, help me to walk so that I can return to classes and be ordained’”. He told the BBC that “when he woke the next morning, the pain had gone, allowing him to complete his third year of classes before the pain returned, on the final day of the academic year.”
The second was a mother-to-be, “suffering from unstoppable internal bleeding that threatened the life of her child in the womb, according to the Birmingham Oratory. ‘In prayer she directly and explicitly invoked Newman’s intercession to stop the bleeding,’ it said. ‘The miraculous healing was immediate, complete and permanent.’”
Whilst their recovery is not questioned, it is impossible that these improvements in health were due to prayer being addressed to a man who died over a century earlier, especially as John Henry Newman had himself expressed in earlier years great scepticism about such “miracles”, as appears in the following paragraphs.
Charles Hodge, in the concluding volume of his Systematic Theology, published a few years before he died in 1878, refers, in his comments on the Ninth Commandment, to Professor Newman and the interesting views he had on Scriptural miracles, compared to those of the post-apostolic Church.
“Of the former, he [Newman] says, ‘The miracles of Scripture are, as a whole, grave, simple, and majestic: those of ecclesiastical history often partake of what may not unfitly be called a romantic character, and of that wildness and inequality which enters into the notion of romance’.” He further states, “It is obvious to apply what has been said to the case of the miracles of the Church, as compared with those in Scripture. Scripture is to us a garden of Eden, and its creations are beautiful as well as ‘very good’, but when we pass from the Apostolic to the following ages, it is as if we left the choicest valleys of the earth, the quietest and most harmonious scenery, and the most cultivated soil, for the luxuriant wildernesses of Africa or Asia, the natural home or kingdom of brute nature, uninfluenced by man.”
On these two statements, Charles Hodge observes, “A more felicitous illustration can hardly be imagined. The contrast between the Gospels and the legends of the saints, is that between the divine and the human and even the animal.” Further to Hodge’s assessment, we should issue a warning. Many competent, eloquent, and profoundly intelligent men profess respect for the Holy Scriptures and yet harbour serious and blasphemous errors. These men may be esteemed for their erudite scholarship and admired for their gracious demeanour. However, they lack the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom (see Proverbs 9:10): the grace they possess is natural, not the spiritually transforming grace of God the Holy Spirit.
John Henry Newman, the new “Doctor of the Universal Church”, was such a man. While recognised by many for speaking with angelic eloquence and writing with compelling, persuasive force, he nonetheless wholeheartedly and with great vehemence embraced all the extreme, nonsensical follies of Rome, even though they most blasphemously undermined, and were utterly repugnant to, the sole, supreme, and infallible authority of the divinely inspired Holy Scriptures.
Was Newman in his life faithful to the Holy Scriptures? Sadly, he was not. He rejected the truth: joined the Synagogue of Satan and became a captive to Rome. Most solemnly, it is to be feared that Newman died out of Christ and thus is not in heaven, nor in Rome’s purgatory, but in hell, where he and all who die without a genuine, scriptural saving interest in the finished work of the only Saviour of sinners, Jesus Christ, will be ultimately found.
DPR