Reading: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
When the apostle Paul and Silas
preached the gospel in the ancient city of Thessalonica (now called
Thessaloniki in northern Greece), and established a new group of believers
there, they could only stay for about three weeks, before having to be sent
away secretly by these new believers, because of the trouble that the local
Jews were stirring up against them (Acts 17:1-10).
However,
it is remarkable just how much teaching they had managed to convey to these
young believers in such a short space of time.
It is clear from 2 Thessalonians 2:5 that Paul thought it was important
to teach young believers about the subject of end-times prophecy. Sometime after leaving them, and around the
year 54 AD, Paul wrote his first epistle to them, that which we know as 1
Thessalonians. As we saw in chapter 3,
in this epistle he taught them about the return of the Lord for his bride in
the resurrection-rapture event (1 Thess. 4:13 – 5:11). So both from the time he spent with them and
from his first epistle, these young believers were certainly given a basic
knowledge about end-time events.
However,
it appears that they had at some point become unsettled, because they had
received some kind of written or verbal communication, supposedly from Paul
himself, which had confused them. So
Paul wrote a second epistle to them to state that this communication had not
come from him, but had been written falsely in his name by someone who was
trying to deceive them. In this second
epistle to them, he exposes this false teaching and puts it right (2:2-3).
The
false teaching that Paul addresses, and what these young believers were
believing, was that ‘the day of the Lord’ had already come, and that they had
therefore somehow missed the gathering of believers to Christ in the
resurrection-rapture event, and so they would have to go through the time of
God’s wrath (2:1-2). They were evidently
wrongly thinking and were afraid that they had somehow become the objects of
God’s wrath, rather than of his salvation! (cf. 1 Thess. 5:9).
So
Paul wrote this second epistle to the Thessalonians specifically to correct
this wrong thinking. The
challenge that we face in understanding 2 Thessalonians ch.2 stems from the
fact that it is a supplement to what Paul had
already taught these believers face-to-face when he was with them, but of
course, we don’t know
exactly what that was. However, if we
study carefully what this chapter teaches, then we can piece it all together.[1]
True
believers, the bride of Christ, who live a pure and God-honouring life in this
world, cannot miss the rapture. They will not be left behind. The bride of Christ cannot go through the
time of God’s wrath and judgement on earth.
She may go through persecution from time to time for the sake of her
Beloved, and she will certainly experience the common pressures and
tribulations of human life (Acts 14:22, 2 Tim. 3:10-12). We are not saved away from persecution for
our faith, so it is not a ‘pre-persecution rapture’! However, it is a
‘pre-end-times-tribulation’ rapture. It can
never be God’s will that the bride of Christ should go through the time of the
outpouring of his wrath on earth. As his
deeply loved bride, she can never be the object of his wrath! He will come for her before that time begins
and he will take her away, just as he promised:
‘…I will come back and take you to
be with me that you also may be where I am.’
(John 14:3)
‘…and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.’ (1 Thess. 1:10)
‘For God did not appoint us to
suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.’
(1 Thess. 5:9)
The
Greek verb rhuoamai, which is translated as ‘rescues’ in 1 Thessalonians
1:10 above, means ‘to rescue from’ or ‘to preserve from,’ and it was used of
delivering someone from people or circumstances. Perhaps a good way of rendering it might be
with the verb ‘to evacuate,’ much as we would evacuate people from an
encroaching enemy or from an approaching wildfire, for example. The rapture is the evacuation, the taking
away, or the delivering of the bride of Christ from the time of God’s wrath,
preserving them from it.[2]
Paul
reminds them of these things that he had taught them when he was with them, and
he exhorts them to stand firm and to hold on to these teachings, rather than
allowing themselves to be so easily deceived by wrong teaching:
‘Don’t you remember that when I was
with you I used to tell you these things?’ (2:5)
‘So then, brothers, stand firm and
hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by
letter.’ (2:15)
When
does ‘the day of the Lord’ occur?
The
phrase ‘the day of the Lord’ was often used in the Old Testament to describe a
period of God’s judgement (cf. Zeph. 1:17-18).
Similarly, it is used here in 2 Thessalonians 2:2 to refer to the time
of the outpouring of God’s wrath on the world which Paul had told these
believers would happen after their gathering to Christ in the
resurrection-rapture event (1 Thess. 5:2-3,9; 2 Thess. 2:1). This time of wrath is commonly known as ‘the tribulation
period.’[3]
To
set the record straight and to make things clear to these believers, Paul
reminds them of what he had taught them when he was with them:
·
The
day of the Lord cannot come unless the falling away occurs first. Also, the revealing and rise of the ‘man of
lawlessness’ (the coming world ruler, Antichrist) is evidence that the day of
the Lord has come (2:3 AV).
·
Although
the secret power of lawlessness is already working in the world, yet the
revealing of the man of lawlessness is held back and restrained, so that he may
be revealed at the proper time (2:6).
·
The
man of lawlessness will be revealed when that which restrains him is taken out
of the way (2:7-8).
So
Paul is saying to them that it was impossible for the day of the Lord to have
come already, because the things mentioned above had
not yet taken place.
What
is the falling away?
Paul reminds these believers that the day
of the Lord will not come unless ‘the falling away’ occurs first (2:3 AV). What did he mean by this?
The Greek word translated as ‘falling
away’ in verse 2:3 is apostasia which
means a rebellion, forsaking, or apostasy from the faith. So the day of the Lord will be preceded by a
widespread falling away from the Christian faith, culminating in the rise of
the man of lawlessness (2:3).[4]
For those who keep a watch on end-time
events, it is clear that we are beginning to see this in our own day. While the gospel is being preached worldwide
and the church is growing, yet at the same time, in the West in particular, we
are seeing several deeply concerning things: a marked and increasingly open
turning away from the Christian faith and from Judeo-Christian values; the
denial by so-called Christian leaders of the core doctrinal tenets of the
Christian faith (cf. 1 John 2:22); the widespread rise of ‘alternative spiritualities;’
the introduction into churches of false teaching on such things as sexuality
and marriage, and the uniting of Christianity with other faiths to form a
one-world religion.
‘At that time many
will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many
false prophets will appear and deceive many people.’ (Matt. 24:10-11)
This apostasy occurs first and
precedes the day of the Lord, and it therefore also precedes the removing of
the restrainer and the revealing of the man of lawlessness:
‘Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first…’ (2 Thess. 2:3 AV underlining my own for emphasis)
‘…and in
every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the
truth and so be saved. For this reason
God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie…’
(2 Thess. 2:10-11)
Who
is the man of lawlessness?
Whenever
the gospel is preached and the word of God is taught, Satan will always try to
bring about a denial of the word of God or some form of spiritual deception to
confuse people, in order to prevent them from coming to a knowledge of the
truth.
Teaching
about the antichrist was foundational to the life of the early church. The apostle John makes it clear in his
epistles that the spirit of antichrist, the working of the spiritual power of
lawlessness in human society which denies the basic truths of the Christian
faith, was already working in his day:
‘Dear friends, this is the last
hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many
antichrists have come. This is how we
know it is the last hour. They went out
from us, but they did not really belong to us.
For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but
their going showed that none of them belonged to us.’ (1 John 2:18-19)
‘Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist – he denies the Father and the Son.’ (1 John 2:22)
‘…every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not
from God. This is the spirit of the
antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the
world.’ (1 John
4:3)
‘Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ
as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the
antichrist.’ (2
John v.7)
This
spirit of antichrist, although it is certainly working at present in this
world, is restrained so that it cannot manifest fully in its destructive
lawless influence on society. However,
this restraint will one day be removed, and this spirit will then be able to
manifest itself fully in the form of the antichrist political-economic system
which will rule the world, with the man whom we call Antichrist (here called
‘the man of lawlessness’ by Paul, 2 Thess. 2:3) as its head. This is when the day of the Lord (the time of
God’s wrath and judgements on earth) will occur.
Paul
gives us several points of information about the man of lawlessness in this
passage:
·
Antichrist
is a man. We can see this by the use of
the word ‘man’ (2:3) and the use of the pronoun ‘he’ (2:4).
·
He
is ultimately doomed to destruction (2:3).
·
He
will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called God or that is
worshipped (2:4).
·
He
will set himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God (2:4). The
word ‘temple’ here does not refer to the church, the spiritual temple which is
the body of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 6:19), but to the actual physical Jewish temple
in Jerusalem. This implies that by the
time Antichrist rises up, the Jews will have returned to their land; that they
will have re-built their temple, and that Antichrist’s world system will have
some kind of spiritual or religious connection with this temple.
·
The
rise of Antichrist is held back and presently restrained, so that he may be
revealed ‘at the proper time’ (2:6).
·
The
power of lawlessness which would bring about his rise, is already working
secretly in the world (2:7). This power
of lawlessness is being presently restrained, and it will continue to be so
until that which is restraining it is taken out of the way (2:7).
·
When
this restraint is removed, then Antichrist will be revealed (2:8), and
his satanic power will be demonstrated in ‘all
kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders and in every sort of evil,’
thereby deceiving unbelievers with this powerful delusion (2:9-10).
·
Unbelievers
(who refuse to love the truth and so be saved, but rather delight in
wickedness) will be deceived by this powerful delusion and will believe the lie
of Antichrist, and so they will ultimately be condemned (2:10-12).
·
Antichrist
will be overthrown and destroyed at Christ’s Second Advent (2:3,8).
Who or what is the restrainer?
Furthermore, Paul goes on to say
that the revealing of the man of lawlessness is being held back or restrained:
‘And
now you know what is holding him back…’ (2:6)
‘…but
the one who now holds it back will continue to do so until he is taken out of
the way.’ (2:7)
It
is evident from verses 5-6 that Paul had taught these young believers what this
restraint was, but he does not state it clearly to them again in verse 6. Also, the use of the word ‘then’ in verse 8
shows that that the revealing of the man of lawlessness will occur only after
this restraint is removed:
‘And
then the lawless one will be revealed…’ (2:8)
There
have been several suggestions by commentators as to exactly what this restraint
is that Paul was referring to. Some have
believed it to be the power of the Roman Empire which was restraining the evil
of the pagan hordes beyond the borders of the empire; others have believed it
to be the nation of Judea-Israel, and yet others have believed it to be the
general principle of law and order in society.
However, for various reasons, these are all inadequate explanations.
We can find a real clue as to the
identity of this restrainer in Paul’s change of grammatical form from the
neuter pronoun (to katechon, meaning
‘that which is restraining,’ in 2:6) to the masculine pronoun (ho katechōn, meaning ‘he who is
restraining,’ in 2:7). This can only
mean one thing: that the restrainer is a person.
The
only thing which can restrain the power and lawlessness of Satan at work in
this world is the greater power of God himself.
It is he who keeps Satan under restraint. So it is perfectly reasonable to conclude
therefore that the restraining force which holds back the revealing of the man
of lawlessness, is the active presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the
believing body of Christ on earth. The
body of Christ is the light of this world and the salt of the earth (Matt.
5:13-14). The function of salt is to
preserve something in order to prevent it from decaying and going off. It is the righteousness and the power of God
in the life of the believing church, with its all-round influence for good in
society, that restrains and prevents the lawlessness and power of Satan from
having free rein in this world.
However, once this influence and restraint is removed, then there will
no longer be any restraint on Satan, so there will be freedom for the man of
sin to be revealed and for the power of lawlessness to take over.
It
is in the resurrection-rapture event, when believers are gathered together to
Christ (2:1) that this restraint will suddenly be removed, and it is after this
that the man of lawlessness will then be revealed to the world. So Antichrist cannot be revealed until the
rapture has taken place.
However, this does not mean that the working of the Holy Spirit is then utterly
removed from this world. Being God, the
Holy Spirit is omnipresent anyway. It
simply means that that which has hitherto restrained the power of Satan in this
world is removed. And
neither does it mean that non-believers cannot be saved in the tribulation
period. God will still be working to
bring people to saving faith even then (although this will be in the context of
increasing spiritual deception, persecution, and ultimately the delusion of
Antichrist and martyrdom). Many Jews
will certainly come to faith in Jesus as their Messiah during that time. The Holy Spirit will continue to work in the
world to save and redeem, but his presence in the believing Church, the bride
of Christ, will have been removed from this world through the rapture. The ultimate restraint on evil in this world
is removed through the rapture allowing the rise of Antichrist to take place.
‘…for you know that very well that
the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “Peace and safety,”
destruction will come on them suddenly, as labour pains on a pregnant woman,
and they will not escape.’ (1 Thess. 5:2-3)
So
the state of ‘peace and safety’ on earth cannot be describing the time
preceding the Second Advent of Christ, as this will be the tribulation period,
the time of wrath (1 Thess. 5:9). The
day of relative ‘peace and safety’ which suddenly comes to an end must be
describing the present time, i.e. the time before the tribulation. The suddenness of the change from ‘peace and
safety’ to ‘the day of the Lord’ is clearly caused by the rapture (1 Thess.
4:15-17), the sudden removal of the believing body of Christ which is
restraining the full manifestation on earth of the power of lawlessness (2
Thess. 2:7-8).[5]
Hence,
both of these passages in 1 and 2 Thessalonians essentially teach the same
thing: that believers are gathered together to Christ in the rapture at a time before
the pouring out of God’s wrath on earth.
They are saved from the day of God’s wrath and from the reign of the man
of lawlessness by the sudden event of the rapture. Hence the rapture of the bride and the
Second Advent of Christ must be two separate events. Believers are gathered to Christ in the
rapture before the period of tribulation, and they will then return to earth
with Jesus at his Second Advent (1 Thess. 4:14).
Figure 5.1 below gives a summary of the apostle Paul’s teaching in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12:
Figure
5.1 A summary of Paul’s teaching in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
So Paul wrote this second epistle to the Thessalonian believers to correct the deception and confusion they were in, to encourage them, and to renew their inward joy and peace in the Lord (2:16-17). His teaching about the rapture in his first epistle to them was also written to encourage them in the same way (1 Thess. 4:18, 5:11). The Lord does not want his bride to be living in fear, anxiety, deception and confusion. He wants us to be living every day in the deep inward assurance and anticipation that he is coming for us very soon. He wants us to be focused on him and on his coming for us, and to prepare ourselves for this, and therefore to be free from any fear that we will perhaps go through the time of the outpouring of God’s wrath in the period of tribulation.
The coming of the Lord to take his bride
is the time when the restraint on spiritual lawlessness in this world is
finally removed, and the man of lawlessness will then be revealed. So, to put it simply, the bride of Christ
will not be on earth when Antichrist is revealed and the mark of the beast is
forced upon people. She will have been
raptured away to heaven along with the dead in Christ before this happens.
So the focus of our heart should always be
on the coming of the Bridegroom for his bride, because this is the next
prophesied event in the word of God that will happen to the global body of
Christ. The living hope of
the rapture is an anchor for our soul, and keeping our eyes fixed on it
helps us to keep living in inward joy and peace. To live in anxiety and fear about what is
happening in the world, or that perhaps we will have to go through the period
of tribulation with all that that entails, is a misplaced focus and is therefore
deception. For us to believe for whatever
reason that the bride of Christ will go through the time of God’s wrath, is to
make the same mistake that these Thessalonian believers had fallen into. That will not happen to us, because
the rapture takes place before the tribulation.
[1] See Appendix A for a detailed
exegesis of 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8.
[2] Those who believe in a
pre-tribulation rapture, much as this book describes, are often accused by
post-tribulationists of treating the rapture as an ‘escape clause,’ in the
sense that, through it, believers will escape from the sufferings of the
tribulation period. Post-tribulationists
believe that the bride of Christ will go through God’s wrath in the tribulation
together with everyone else, just as they go through the daily pressures and
distresses common to human life (cf. Acts 14:22, 2 Tim. 3:12).
However, it is this very word
‘escape’ that is used in two separate passages in the context of the
rapture. Jesus likened the soon-to-come
Antichrist system and the associated end-times tribulation as a ‘trap’ which
will come upon the whole world. And he exhorted
us to pray that we will be worthy to escape from this trap and to stand before
the Son of Man (Luke 21:34-36). The word
‘escape’ is an appropriate word to use of avoiding being caught in the clutches
of an encroaching trap. Similarly, but
conversely, the apostle Paul describes non-believers as being unable to escape
from this very same end-times trap, the onset of the day of the Lord (1 Thess.
5:3).
So, although we do as believers
experience the pressures and distresses common to human life, yet we will not
go through the end-times tribulation period.
As the bride of Christ, we will escape from the day of God’s wrath by
being raptured away from it, but non-believers will be left inescapably in its
clutches, and they will go through it.
[3] There is a textual difference in
the underlying Greek in v.2. Whereas the
AV uses the phrase ‘day of Christ,’ other versions may use the phrase ‘day of
the Lord.’ Although many commentators
simply gloss over this by saying that these two phrases refer to the same thing
(vis. the tribulation period on earth), yet there is a significant
difference between them. The use of the
phrase ‘day of Christ’ elsewhere in the epistles refers to the time when
believers stand together before Christ at the bema seat judgement in
heaven after the rapture, and so believers are its focus (cf. 1 Cor. 1:8, 5:5;
2 Cor. 1:14; Phil. 1:6,10; 2:16). By
contrast, the phrase ‘day of the Lord’ refers to a time of God’s judgement on
earth, and so unbelievers are its focus (see above and cf. Acts 2:20, 1 Thess.
5:2-3; 2 Peter 3:10). My own conviction
is that these two phrases refer to the same period of time, and so they run
parallel to each other. One focuses on
believers in heaven from the rapture onwards and until they return with Christ
at his Second Advent, and the other on unbelievers on earth during the
tribulation. This is reflected in Figure
5.1 later in this chapter. However,
since the events described in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 focus on what happens on
earth, I have used the phrase ‘day of the Lord’ throughout this chapter for
clarity.
[4] The Greek word apostasia
can mean revolt, defection or apostasy.
It is used only twice in the New Testament, here in 2 Thessalonians 2:3
and also in Acts 21:21 where it signifies the forsaking of adherence to
religious faith. It was also used in
everyday speech to refer to political rebels.
However, there are some commentators who prefer to translate it here in
its secondary sense as ‘departure,’ and they then interpret this as referring
to the rapture, the departure of believers from this world when Jesus comes for
his bride. I do not hold to this view
myself. This view would then make verse
2:3 teach simply that the rapture precedes the day of the Lord (the
tribulation), and that Antichrist is then revealed. However, regardless of this, the fact of an
end-times apostasy from the Christian faith and from Judeo-Christian values,
leading ultimately into the spiritual deception and delusion of Antichrist’s
reign, is taught elsewhere by Jesus himself (Matt. 24:10-11,24).
[5] And see my comments about ‘peace and security’ in chapter 3.
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