Every reformer, from the 12th to the 18th century, from Wycliffe to Luther, from Calvin to Cranmer, and dozens in between, pointed their collective fingers at Rome and proclaimed the Roman papacy as the Antichrist of prophetic scripture. Were they right? Judging by today’s views, the reformation was a major mistake, and the reformers all religious radicals deceived and influenced by the times in which they lived. If they were right, then why do so few proclaim it today? If however they were wrong, then why don’t we all forsake the title “protestant” (who’s protesting today anyway?) and return to Rome?
From the time of Wycliffe (known as the morning star of the reformation) there were some who held the view that the papacy was the antichrist of prophetic scripture. A follower of John Wycliffe, one John Purvey, wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation, this being nearly 150 years before Luther. In 1528 Luther reprinted or republished this commentary, and inserted the following preface.
“This preface, noble reader, you may understand was written by us for this reason–that we might make known to the world that we are not the first to interpret the Papacy as the kingdom of the Antichrist. For many years prior to us, so many and so great men (whose number is large, and their memory eternal) have attempted this so clearly and openly, and that with great spirit and force, that [those] who were driven by the fury of the papal tyranny into the farthest boundaries of the earth, and suffering the most atrocious tortures, nevertheless bravely and faithfully persisted in the confession of the truth.”
In a statement from the Westminster Confession of Faith, ratified by the British parliament in 1647:
“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.”
(Phillip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom–With a History and Critical Notes, vol. 3, pp 658, 659)
In his book, All Roads Lead to Rome, (pp205,206) Michael de Semlyen says:
“Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, Cranmer; in the seventeenth century, Bunyan, the translators of the King James Bible and the men who published the Westminster and Baptist Confessions of Faith; Sir Isaac Newton, John Wesley, Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards; and more recently, Spurgeon, Bishop J. C. Ryle and Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones; these men among countless others, all saw the office of the Papacy as the antichrist.”
