In order to properly understand the historical development of Futurism, one must first have a general knowledge of the religious climate of the times in which the Roman Catholic Church was most dominant in Europe. Many Bible students of the 13th and 14th centuries accepted the “Historicist” interpretation of prophecy. This included many teachers who were loyal to the Church of Rome. Many of that time who adhered to the Historicist school of thought taught that the Beast of Revelation was a symbol of the Roman Papacy. It was this interpretation that was later adopted by the Reformation fathers of the 14th to 16th centuries. This list includes such worthies as:
John Wycliff 1329-1384 – The “Morning Star of the Reformation”
John Knox 1514-1572 – Scottish Presbyterian Reformer
William Tyndale 1494-1536- Reformer, Bible translator, martyr
Martin Luther 1483-1546 – German Reformer
John Calvin 1509-1536 – French theologian and Reformer
Ulrich Zwingli 1484-1531 – Swiss Reformer
Philip Melanchthon 1497-1560 – wrote the Augsburg Confession
Sir Isaac Newton 1642-1727 English Scientist and Bible Scholar
John Huss 1373-1415 – Bohemian Reformer
John Foxe 1516-1587 – wrote “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs”
John Wesley 1703-1791 – Father of Methodism
Jonathan Edwards 1703-1758 – Pastor, “First Great Awakening”
George Whitefield 1714-1770 English Evangelist
Charles G. Finney 1792-1875 American Evangelist
Charles H. Spurgeon 1834-1892 – English Baptist Pastor
Matthew Henry 1662-1714 – Welsh Bible Scholar
The above names are far from being a complete list of great Bible scholars, pastors and evangelists who believed the Historicist approach to prophecy with some lasting through the 19th century and well into the 20th century. The advocates of Historicism view the seventy weeks of Daniel as being completely fulfilled in the old Judah nation and ending in A.D. 34. It also views the Book of Revelation as portraying a survey of the overall history of the Christian Church. It would include the major events of European history including the Roman Empire, Papal Rome, the rise of Mohammedanism, the Protestant Reformation, the development of Christian Western Civilization and the future consummation of God’s plan of the ages in the city of New Jerusalem of Revelation 21-22.
For a more thorough explanation of the Historicist interpretation and the book of Revelation please order the book entitled, “The Book of Revelation – From an Israelite and Historicist Interpretation” which is available from this ministry.
With the brutality and iniquity of the Papacy being exposed for so long through the powerful influence of the Reformers, Rome was forced to do something to counter-act this campaign in order to maintain its strangle-hold on the common people and monarchs of Europe. A short and clear explanation is given in the book, Revelation – Four Views, a Parallel Commentary, edited by Steve Gregg. Pp 31-32.
“Coming to the defense of the papacy, Spanish Jesuits presented two alternative approaches to the historicism of the Reformers. One response was that of Francisco Ribera (1537-1591), a professor at Salamanca,(Spain) who taught that John in Revelation only foresaw events of the near future and of the final things at the end of the world, but had none of the intervening history in view. The antichrist was defined as a future individual who would arise in the end times. Babylon was seen as Rome – not under the popes – but in a future corrupted state. This was the beginning of many of the ideas that are now a part of the Futurist approach to Revelation.”
In 1826, the Librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury, S.R. Maitland discovered Francisco Ribera’s writings and published them. This theory of the postponement of the antichirst and the tribulation period into the future had already been taught for 250 years by the Jesuits. To add fuel to the fire of Futurism, another Jesuit named Emanuel Lacunza published his book entitled, “The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty” in 1816. Lacunza, along with other fellow Jesuits, had been expelled from Chile for their encouragement of treachery and violence. He wrote his book under the name of “Rabbi Ben Ezra,” a supposedly converted Jew. He added a prayer asking the Almighty to use his book for the enlightenment of the Jewish people. Lacunza set forth the theory that Jesus was to have a future two stage coming; once for His saints and then with His saints at a later date. The ultimate result of the writings of Ribera and Lacunza were that:
the events of Revelation 4:1 and following were to take place in the future;
the appearance of the Antichrist and the two witnesses and relative prophecies also in the future;
all these prophetic events are scheduled to transpire in a very short space of seven years between the first and second comings of Jesus;
the rapture of the church is to take place as a future event which will be the starting point for all the other events to follow.
Lacunza’s book came into the hands of Edward Irving, a young and brilliant Scottish Presbyterian minister during the 1820’s. He accepted the task of translation of this devious theory from Spanish into English. Irving was aware of the true identity of Lacunza as being a Spanish Jesuit and not a converted Jewish Rabbi. Still, he continued to translate and publish a theory that would turn out to be one of the most detrimental misconceptions of Scripture in the 2,000 year history of the Christian Church. When he published his English version in London in 1827, he claimed he heard a voice telling him to preach a secret rapture of the church with the two-stage theory of Christ’s future comings.
Watchmen On The Pod 