The Scholars Behind the Promotion of the False Interpretations of the Books of Daniel and Revelation

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This is the continuation of the series, Antichrist And His Ten Kingdoms – By Albert Close and the previous post, Our Position Today in the Divine Program as Revealed in Prophecy.

Changing the Interpretation of Prophecy

A tragedy happened in the theological world of Britain and America about 100 to 116 years ago, or to be exact, in 1827 and 1844-45 A.D. Five leading scholars turned the finger-posts of Divine Prophecy round, so that ever since they have pointed the wrong way, and turned multitudes of ministers, scholars and students off the King’s highway down into two side lanes, whither they have led nearly the whole Christian Church.

The five scholars were, Rev. Edward Irving, a leading London Scottish Presbyterian Minister in 1827-32; Rev. S. R. Maitland, D.D., in 1827 A.D.; Prof. Lee of Cambridge, in 1830 A.D., Rev. Dr. Davidson, in 1844, in England; Rev. Prof. Moses Stuart, D.D., in America, in 1845 A.D.

These scholars did not turn these prophetic finger-posts the wrong way for the deliberate purpose of turning men astray. They tampered with Scriptures they did not understand. The gift of Prophecy (ie. the gift to interpret by Divine tuition (instruction) is a DIVINE gift (see 1 Cor 12:10), and no doubt these conflicting interpretations are due to scholars attempting to exercise a gift which they did not possess. This placed them at the mercy of any interpretation that they happened to fall in with either Jesuit or Rationalist. This gave the Christian Church invented interpretations instead of revealed. The one comes from the human brain; the other from the God of Heaven.

Many gifted expositors of the other books of the Bible are complete failures in their expositions of prophecy.

A common and delusive idea seems to be spreading today (just after WW II) of an Antichrist still looming in the future, who is to conquer the whole world and reign for three-and-a-half years. It may surprise many to hear that these erroneous ideas originated with the Jesuit Ribera, of Salamanca, in 1591 A.D., for the express purpose of confusing the teaching of the Reformers and of mixing up the Protestant Ministry. They have been powerfully propagated in our own days, chiefly by the Plymouth Brethren, mixed with much valuable truth, and also propagated by the followers of Mr. B. W. Newton, M.A., Sir Robert Anderson, and other leaders, who evidently were unaware that the Jesuit works of Ribera and Bellarmine were still preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Broadly speaking, there are three great Schools of interpretation, viz., the Preterist, Futurist and Historical, the vital difference lies in where each places the Antichrist.

THE Reformers’ Historical School view the books of Daniel and Revelation as a Prophetic history of the Jews and the Christian Church in the world, from St. John’s day to the end of all things. They regard the Papacy as Antichrist, and the Church of Rome as the Scarlet Woman of Revelation 17 and the APOLLYON of Revelation 9 as the Mohammedan (Islamic) woe.

THE Preterist School places Antichrist away back in Pagan Rome, and teaches that the Apocalypse was fulfilled by the Destruction of Jerusalem, and by the fall of the Roman Empire in A.D. 410-476.

THE Futurist School, looks for Antichrist, Babylon, and a rebuilt Temple at Jerusalem in the future. They also look for a revived Roman Empire divided into Ten Kingdoms, with Antichrist at its head. They deny that the Dynasty of Popes is the Antichrist.

In the South African war, Boers placed riflemen on the hill-tops firing black powder. At the foot of the hills they concealed their deadly snipers, firing smokeless powder. The British artillery furiously shelled the hill-tops where the smoke-puffs were seen, and of course fired clean over the heads of the real enemy. It was long before the ruse was discovered. Thousands of rounds had been fired at sham targets.

The same applies to Futurists and Preterits—they are firing at Rome’s two sham targets and shooting over the head of the real Antichrist. One school, comprised chiefly of University theological Professors and scholars, fires away at Alcasar’s imaginary Antichrist in old Pagan Rome, whilst the other fires clean across the centuries at Ribera’s Antichrist at the opposite end of the Age.

Rev. Edward Irving, as previously stated revived and published in England the Jesuit Ribera’s Futurist interpretation in 1827-30 A.D. The Oxford Movement to Romanize the Church of England burst out in 1833, and this movement seized on this new interpretation as an argument in favor of reunion with Rome. Rev. S. R. Maitland D.D., also propagated as true.

The Plymouth Brethren, founded by J. N. Darby in 1831 A.D., at Dublin and Plymouth, immediately laid hold of Irving’s interpretation, then new to the English world of literature, and have ever since powerfully propagated it as a Divine truth.

Eichhorn, the great German Rationalist, revived and republished the Jesuit Alcasar’s Preterist interpretation in 1791 A.D. British and American scholars since 1830 have followed Eichhorn and other German Preterist Professors.

The Spirit of God never inspired three different and conflicting interpretations. He is not like erring, changeable man, who interprets one way in one age, and another in a later age.

In the course of a powerful controversy on True and False Interpretations of Prophecy, carried on in the columns of The Life of Faith from April to September, 1917, Sir Rodert Anderson denied that he was a Futurist, and charged the author with inaccuracy and a lack of erudition in labeling him as such.

In a letter immediately following his, Rev. Dr. Griffith Thomas, on the same page, held up Sir Robert to readers as one of the two greatest living Futurists!

Dr. H. Grattan Guinness and the Rev. Joseph Tanner, M.A., of Oxford, also described him as a Futurist. For the author of The Coming Prince, i.e., the great Futurist Antichrist, to deny that he is a Futurist, came perilously near what Joseph Tanner in his Daniel and the Revelation, p.33, termed “sleight-of-hand” controversy, especially when the book was still being sold as his teaching.

John Wesley taught uncompromisingly that Antichrist and Babylon are the Popes and the Church of Rome respectively, but Wesley’s ministerial sons have long since abandoned the Reformers and Wesley for the Jesuit-German interpretation.

The Presbyterian Church has also abandoned the teaching of Knox for the Jesuit-German Preterist interpretation. Eichhorn, the German, and his disciples accepted it, so British scholars followed suit. See Elliot’s Horae, vol. iv., p. 480, for full account of the origin of these false systems.

When the Roman Bishop of Aberdeen was enthroned in Aug., 1918, the Aberdeen Professors officially attended the service! Antichrist’s Bishop! No wonder Scotland is losing her youth.

What Alford says about Futurism and Preterism.

In 1830 Professor Lee, of Cambridge, published the great French Roman Catholic Bishop Bossuet’s Preterist interpretation in England.

Prof. Moses Stuart introduced Preterism, after the German Heinrichs, into the United States in 1845. Dr. Davidson had introduced it into England in 1844.

Surely the parentage and genealogical tree is a good guide in estimating the true character and soundness of each of these two systems. Many really godly men have been deceived by these two Jesuit systems, just as many real Christians thought New Theology as Divine Truth, instead of recognizing it as a clever travesty of great cardinal truths.

It may interest many to read Rome’s claims on the question. Rev. G. S. Hitchcock, Doctor of Sacred Scripture, Rome, in his pamphlet, The Beasts and the Little Horn, page 7, says:—

“The Futurist School, founded by the Jesuit Ribera in 1591 looks for Antichrist, Babylon, and a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, at the end of the Christian Dispensation.

“The Preterist School, founded by the Jesuit Alcasar in 1614, explains the Revelation by the fall of Jerusalem, or by the fall of Pagan Rome in 410 A.D.”

Dean Alford, in the Prolegomena to his Greek Testament, p. 248, says :—

“The founder of this system (Futurist) in modern times appears to have been the Jesuit Ribera, about 1580 A.D.

“The Apostolic Fathers cannot with fairness be cited for it, seeing to them all was future. I cannot regard this interpretation with approval.”

“The Preterist view was hardly so much as thought of in the times of Primitive Christianity. This view is said to have on is promulgated by the Jesuit Alcasar in 1614 A.D.

Elliot states the same facts exactly. The correct dates are 1591 and 1614 A.D. The Bodleian Library copies are so dated.

In February, March and April, 1918, Rev. W. G. Scroggie, M.A., published a long series of articles in the Life of Faith on the Book of Revelation. Mr. Scroggie, who is a Futurist, simply repeated the long exploded Futurist theories of his predecessors. He quoted Alford’s remarks about the Jesuit origin of the Preterist School, but when he came to the Futurist School he left Alford’s remarks out! See Life of Faith, Feb. 27th, 1918.

This merely shows independent sources of information but the same conclusion. The whole controversy revolves round the same question whether the Holy Ghost guided the great Reformers when they used these prophecies to batter down the ramparts of the Devil at the Reformation or whether He guided the Jesuits instead.

Knox launched the Reformation in Scotland with a Sermon on the Little Horn of Daniel 7., at St. Andrew’s. He applied the Little Horn to the Papal Dynasty, and the Scarlet Woman of Revelation to the Church of Rome. The other great Reformers, also the translators of our Bible in 1611, did the same. So did the Westminster Divines in 1647. The Jesuits adopted an artillery ruse to draw the fire, and set up their two sham targets. Alcasar placed his Antichrist away back in Pagan Rome, and Ribera jumped to the other extreme and placed his Futurist Antichrist away in the future.

(Continued in The Mass an Abomination to God).