Papacy obsessed Protestants really want to have it both ways

 The foundation of identifying the Papacy with whatever term you want to use for the Big Bad Villain of Bible Prophecy is the argument that the “Temple of God” in II Thessalonians 2 is The Church just as it is every other time Paul uses that phrase in his Epistles.  What makes The Church The Temple of God is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Saints.

That means the “Man of Sin” the “Son of Perdition” is operating from within The True Authentic Church, not leading a false Church.  Paul didn't say a counterfeit Temple of God, he said the actual Temple of God. If only Protestants are real Christians then no The Pope isn't sitting in The Temple of God.

But they also want to deny that any Non Protestants can qualify as True Christians.  Now on my other Blog I already laid out the reasons I oppose denying that the Christians I disagree with are true Believers.  There is no New Testament promise that genuine believers will be perfect and never mistaken on doctrine.  The Book of Revelation’s entire framing device is a message to Seven Churches in Asia that are all over the place in how good they are, for two of them nothing good is said about them and for both their issues are today Protestant ones fare more than Catholic.

I agree with the gist of the above II Thessalonians 2 argument. I ultimately view it as about more than just the Pope but all Monoepsicopal Church Hierarchy as well as Civil Christian Monarchy.  But I do have a post on this Blog that does zero in on some specifically Papal application of the Prophecy.

Futurists are the ones who invented the idea of insisting all the Villains of various Bible Prophecies are a single “Antichrist”.  The Beast of Revelation I can’t see being the Papacy for a number of reasons big and small I'm not gonna into here.

What is truly Absurd is thinking you can make the Popes the “Antichrist” of the Johannine Epistles.

The Anti prefix in Greek has precedent for being used with both the “in place of” and “opposed to” meanings.  But the Context in these Epistles clearly intends the “opposed to” meaning, an Antichrist heresy is always defined by what they say Jesus is not never what they claim they are.

Those denials are

Denying that Jesus is The Christ.

Denying the relationship of the Father and the Son.

Denying that Jesus came in The Flesh.

You can’t accuse the Papacy of denying any of those things, not without constructing hyper specific versions of what those doctrines mean to force it so only Protestants truly believe them.  All of these Aspects of Who Jesus was are affirmed by the Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, Chalcedonian Confession and the so-called Athanasian Creed, all Creeds that most Catholics will call you Heretic for not accepting.

The original context of these Epistles I believe was about dealing with the Germ of what would become Marcionism and Gnosticism.  The scholarly term is Docetism. 

Do the Catholics believe some things that I think could become a Gateway Drug to Docetism like the Beatific vision of Pope Benedict XII?  Yes.  But they haven’t crossed that line yet.