Is the Pope the Antichrist? A Reformed Perspective
The 1.3 billion Catholics in the world have a new Pope. Leo the XIV. In the time of the reformers, he would have been welcomed by the protestants of the day as the Antichrist. As modern-day protestants, we can, and should agree, that at the very least the Pope is the leader of an idolatrous theology, which includes the rejection of justification of faith alone, the claims of papal infallibility and the veneration and/or outright worship of Mary and the saints.
But is Pope Leo XIV the Antichrist?
Because I grew up in a Pentecostal charismatic church, it follows that I had a Dispensational Premillennial understanding of end-time events. This means that the Antichrist was always just over the horizon. He would be a charismatic political leader, possibly from Europe, who would one day sign a peace treaty with Israel, rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and unleash global deception during a seven-year Tribulation. Scriptures like Daniel 9, 2 Thessalonians 2, and Revelation 13 were interpreted through this lens, painting a scary picture of one man who would rule the world and begin a mass persecution of Christians.
I read all of the Left Behind series of books by Tim LaHaye, and my parents took me to see the A Thief in the Night series of movies. I watched them as a preteen in a school hall at a special showing by other Pentecostal churches in the area. I had nightmares about those movies for a long time. It was so deeply embedded in my belief system that even as a child, I remember crying on the street of our town when one day my mother went into a shop without me knowing, and I couldn't find her. I assumed she'd been raptured, and I’d been “left behind”.
But as I have become reformed, so too has my understanding of end times and the Antichrist.
The only place the term antichrist actually appears is in the letters of the Apostle John. And in his writings, John doesn’t describe the Antichrist as a future global figure. He says, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come” (1 John 2:18). John speaks of antichrist not as a person who will come in the future, but as a present reality already at work in the early church. In 1 John 4:3, he writes, “Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.”
Theologian Kim Riddlebarger says this in his book A Case for Amillennialism on page 149, “According to John, many antichrists had already come and gone by the time he wrote this epistle at some point after AD 70. John says many more antichrists will come until the return of Jesus Christ. In this sense, then, antichrist is a past, present, and future foe,”
As opposed to the Dispensational Premillennialism I grew up with, the Amillennial view teaches that we are living in the ‘millennium’ now—the reign of Christ from heaven through His church. Christ’s return will be a single, final event and not preceded by a secret “rapture”.
According to the Apostle John, the spirit of the Antichrist is not a single individual in the future. Antichrist was already here in John’s time. Antichrist denies Christ and is a deceiver. Also, note that the Antichrist is not a single person but many. Many Antichrists have come.
John Calvin wrote: “Daniel and Paul foretold that Antichrist would sit in the temple of God… we affirm him to be the Pope.” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.7.25)
And the Westminster Confession of Faith, “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.” (WCF 25.6)
But how do we reconcile John’s statement that there are “many antichrists” with the Reformers’ claim that the Pope is the Antichrist?
The key is to understand that John uses the word “antichrist” to describe a category, not just a single individual. Many deny Christ and distort the gospel, these are all antichrists in that sense. However, within that larger category, some stand out as more dangerous because of their massive reach or influence.
The Reformers believed the papal office, with its claims of divine authority, was the main spirit of antichrist in the church during their time. Not the only one, but the most dangerous. In their view, the Pope wasn't just another antichrist, but he was representative of the one who “sits in the temple of God” (2 Thess. 2:4) and exalts himself above Christ.
So when the Westminster Confession or reformers such as Calvin, Luther, and Knox say the Pope “is that Antichrist,” they are not denying the biblical teaching that many antichrists exist. They are recognising that the office of the papacy fulfils the warnings of both the Apostle John and the Apostle Paul.
The Spirit of Antichrist is in many more places than just the Vatican. It’s in prosperity preaching, in teaching that promises healing or riches but doesn’t preach repentance and faith in Christ. Wherever the gospel is distorted and Christ is blasphemed, the spirit of antichrist is at work.
So I urge you, dear Christians, don’t be caught up trying to interpret modern headlines with the prophecy you see in scripture; instead, keep your eyes on Jesus. The papacy remains one of the clearest expressions of the Antichrist spirit in the world today, but so is all the evil and false teaching out there. We need to study God’s word and learn so that we can be ready to defend the truth.
“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” (2 Cor 10:4-6)
Soli Deo Gloria
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