p. 34 | THE MAN OF SIN by H. A. St. John

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 21, 1902

“THE MAN OF SIN.”

By H. A. St. John

ELDER H. A. ST. JOHN.

1. His Birth.—The “Man of Sin” is a personage of great age. He is still living, however, and quite well preserved, possessing all his old-time characteristics and aspirations by which he induced the whole world to wonder for long centuries. He was born in the Old World somewhere, but the exact locality and the precise date of his birth are not definitely recorded in the annals of human history. Because of this lack of exact data, many are suspicious that his beginning was illegitimate. But he is in the world, and has been for about two thousand years, and it seems that he has come to stay. It is this fact that should most deeply concern us.

2. His Parentage.—As to the parentage of the Man of Sin, we have some definite information. The great apostle Paul, a writer of unquestionable veracity, has recorded the fact that the Man of Sin is the son of Perdition. 2 Thess. 2: 3. Now Perdition is an old mother of numerous family, having many children of note, whose names and deeds have found a conspicuous place on the pages of history. But this son, the Man of Sin, far excels all others in assumption and presumption. The husband of Perdition, and hence the father of the Man of Sin, is that noted and notorious personage who appeared at the very beginning of human life, and poisoned the streams thereof by his deadly bite. Jesus called him the “Devil”—the “father of lies.”

3. His Names.—The Man of Sin has more than one name, or title, by which he is designated in the word of God,—he is called “beast,” “horn,” “that wicked,” “mystery of iniquity,” “son of perdition,” etc.,—all of which are given with reference to their signification. Taken together, they signify power, discernment, shrewdness, cunning, and cruelty. And in the Man of Sin all these characteristics stand out with wonderful distinction.

4. His Prototype.—Judas Iscariot was called by Christ to be a disciple—yea, more, an apostle. This was a high and holy calling. Judas accepted the call and the position, took upon himself the name and profession of Christ, was numbered with the twelve, and followed Jesus in body and pretension, if not in heart and in truth. He was treasurer for Christ and the apostles, carried the bag, and handled the money. But he was covetous, very covetous, yea, more, he was a thief. He appropriated to his own selfish purposes money intended for others. He was a slave to avarice, and his love for mammon had overbalanced every good aspiration of his soul, all of which culminated in the selling of his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus said of him, “He is not clean,” he is a son of Perdition. He fell, lost his bishopric, and came to a terrible end. “Falling headlong, he burst asunder, . . . all his bowels gushed out,”—an abhorrence to every passer-by. Now this man, Judas, was a faithful prototype of the Man of Sin, another son of Perdition. The Man of Sin professes to follow Christ. His avarice, love of mammon, and love of power have swallowed up every good trait, and he has long handled immense treasure for his own aggrandizement. May we not safely conclude that he, too, will sell his Lord, fall headlong, burst asunder, and become an abhorrence to all flesh?

5. His Growth.—The Man of Sin, it appears, was in existence when the apostle Paul wrote his second letter to the Thessalonians, for he says of him: “The mystery of iniquity doth already work.” But he must have been quite young, and the period of his revelation to the world was still in the future. But the child developed rapidly, and waxed stronger in spirit continually, and grew mighty in wealth and power, so that by the beginning of the fourth century, he began to attract the attention of the Roman empire by his presence and doings.

6. His Marriage.—Early in the fourth century, the wealth, power, and admirers of the Man of Sin had so increased that a proposal of marriage to the Roman empire was made, accepted, and shortly consummated. No less a personage than Constantine the Great performed the ceremony. And never was a wife more obedient to her husband than was the Roman empire to the Man of Sin for many long centuries. The long millennial honeymoon predicted as the sequel of this union, did not come. But in its place came the Dark Ages, the world’s midnight gloom. The cruel apocalyptic Beast was then uncaged, and turned loose upon the true people of God.

7. His Career.—True to his name and nature, the Man of Sin had from his youth a strong leaning toward the superstitious rites and mysteries of the pagan religion, and consequently early adopted many of them, with but little change except in name. He was not contented simply to adopt and observe these heathen ideas and rites himself, but sought to compel all mankind reverently to regard the same, or rapidly make their exit out of the world under the curse of his anathema. Being clothed with great wealth, power, and influence by his union with the Roman empire, he at once entered with vigor upon a career of presumption, persecution, blasphemy, and disloyalty to God; and for a period of more than twelve hundred years he was constituted the master of religious assemblies, the director of religious services, and the true and only corrector of heretics. So great was the slaughter of innocents during his long career of triumph, that the inspired seer, beholding him in his latter days, exclaimed, in astonishment, “Drunken with the blood of saints!”

8. His Wound.—But at last, after a long period of unrestrained rule, there came a sudden change. The Man of Sin had the saints of the Most High in his hands, the laws of the Most High in his hands, and almost everything in this world in his hands, and from this dizzy and dangerous height he fell, and thus received a deadly wound. His spiritual and his temporal power were lost. Thus did the mighty one fall.

9. His Recovery.—In prophetic vision the seer of Patmos beheld this fall, and the deadly wound thus inflicted, and then, as he looked farther on down the stream of time, he saw the same Man of Sin stride forth like a newly awakened giant,—his deadly wound healed. He was a veritable Samson, coming out of prison with his locks grown. He feels for a time, in his spiritual blindness, for the pillars of spiritual and temporal power; finds them, and straightens himself with all his former pride and presumption. But the period of his former greatness, while his deadly wound is healed, is short. The pillars of all earthly power and glory begin to tremble. There is a great earthquake, greater than ever before since men were upon the earth. The cities of the nations fall, and the sins of the great Man of Sin come in remembrance before God.

10. His Demise.—Not long did this long-lived mystery of iniquity regale himself in his recovered powers. Not long did he hold the place of restored supremacy. Not long did he escape the execution of the righteous judgment

of God. All the pillars of the great temple of human greatness, pomp, and power are broken, and the entire superstructure falls with a terrible crash upon the shelterless heads of kings, captains, great men, rich men, and the entire host of unrighteous revelers therein; and the notorious Man of Sin, amid the ruin he has wrought, sinks into the abyss, to rise no more.