The Protestant Reformers, including John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, John Calvin,, John Knox, Roger Williams, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, and John Wesley and many others as well as most Protestants believers held to the view of Historicism in Christian eschatology. That the Early Church of Christ and the Apostles, had been led into the Great Apostasy by the Papacy and identified the Pope with the Antichrist. This caused a problem for the Roman Catholic church so they turned to their most devoted scholars to come up with a different interpretation of Bible prophecy to come up with a different view. So they turned to two who were summoned to push back the reformers' teachings, and we see their work today.
Spanish Jesuit Francisco Ribera published a commentary on the book of Revelation which proposed that the bulk of the prophecies would be fulfilled in a brief three-and-one-half-year period at the end of the Christian era, known as Futurism. In that short space a single individual, according to Ribera, would rebuild the Temple, deny Christ, abolish Christianity, be received by the Jews, pretend to be god, and conquer the world. Thus the Protestant contention that the apocalyptic symbols pointing to the Roman Catholic church as an apostate religious system was push aside, and the focus of the prophecies was diverted from that time to the far distant future.
Then you have another Spanish Jesuit, Luis de Alcazar come up and published a scholarly work on Revelation, to also refute the Protestant Reformation view. Alcazar's wrote that all the prophecies of Revelation had been fulfilled in the past in the early centuries of Christianity. Alcazar writings were developed into a system of interpretation known as preterism.
Over time these specific systems of counter interpretations of the Antichrist spread and began to penetrate Protestant thought. Preterism was the first; it began to enter Protestantism in the late eighteenth century. Preterist interpretations of the prophecies have today become very widespread today in Protestantism. Then the ideas of futurism, although refuted at first, eventually spread into Protestantism during the nineteenth century. So the questions becomes, if these interpretation were deliberate works by these 'priests' of the Roman Catholic church to counter the Reformation, should Christians even be using it?
Spanish Jesuit Francisco Ribera published a commentary on the book of Revelation which proposed that the bulk of the prophecies would be fulfilled in a brief three-and-one-half-year period at the end of the Christian era, known as Futurism. In that short space a single individual, according to Ribera, would rebuild the Temple, deny Christ, abolish Christianity, be received by the Jews, pretend to be god, and conquer the world. Thus the Protestant contention that the apocalyptic symbols pointing to the Roman Catholic church as an apostate religious system was push aside, and the focus of the prophecies was diverted from that time to the far distant future.
Then you have another Spanish Jesuit, Luis de Alcazar come up and published a scholarly work on Revelation, to also refute the Protestant Reformation view. Alcazar's wrote that all the prophecies of Revelation had been fulfilled in the past in the early centuries of Christianity. Alcazar writings were developed into a system of interpretation known as preterism.
Over time these specific systems of counter interpretations of the Antichrist spread and began to penetrate Protestant thought. Preterism was the first; it began to enter Protestantism in the late eighteenth century. Preterist interpretations of the prophecies have today become very widespread today in Protestantism. Then the ideas of futurism, although refuted at first, eventually spread into Protestantism during the nineteenth century. So the questions becomes, if these interpretation were deliberate works by these 'priests' of the Roman Catholic church to counter the Reformation, should Christians even be using it?
