2 Thessalonians 2

2 Thessalonians 2:1

III. CONCERNING THE DAY OF THE LORD (2:1-12) A. An Appeal for Stability (2:1, 2) 2:1 Paul now undertakes to correct a misunderstanding that had arisen in the minds of the saints concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Day of the Lord. The saints were suffering such severe persecution that it was easy for them to think that they were already in the first part of the Day of the Lord, i.e., the Tribulation Period. And rumors were floating around that the apostle himself believed and taught that the Day of the Lord had arrived! So he must set the record straight. A crucial question arises in verse 1 concerning the small word which Paul uses: concerning (Greek huper). The problem is whether he is beseeching the saints about the coming of our Lord or by the coming of our Lord. If the first is the meaning, then the passage seems to teach that the Rapture and the Day of the Lord are one and the same event, since the following verses clearly deal with the Day of the Lord. If the second is the meaning, then Paul is appealing to them on the basis of the prior Rapture, that they should not think they were in the Day of the Lord. The question is debatable. We agree with William Kelly when he adopts the second view: The comfort of the Lord’s coming is employed as a motive and means for counteracting the uneasiness created by the false presentation that the day (of the Lord) was there. We understand Paul to be saying, I appeal to you on the basis of the Rapture that you should not fear that you are in the Day of the Lord. The Rapture must take place first. You will be taken home to heaven at that time and will thus escape the horrors of the Day of the Lord.The expression the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him seems to refer unmistakably to the Rapture. That is the time when we will be gathered to meet Him in the air. 2:2 It should be clear that the Rapture is not the same as the Day of the Lord. The Thessalonians were not worried that the Lord had come; they knew that He had not. But they were worried that the Day of the Lord had begun. The intense persecution they were enduring made them think they were in the Tribulation, the first phase of the Day of the Lord. Rumors had been circulating that Paul himself had said that the Day of the Lord had arrived. Like most rumors, they were very garbled. One version intimated that Paul had received the information by spirit, that is, by a special revelation. According to another report, the news had come by word, that is, the apostle had publicly taught that the Tribulation had begun. By letter as if from us is generally understood to refer to a forged letter, purportedly from Paul, that the Day of the Lord had started. The expression as if from us probably goes with spirit, word, and letter. None of these sources was to be trusted. According to the KJV and NKJV (following the majority of manuscripts), the saints were afraid that the day of Christ had come. The day of Christ and similar expressions usually point forward to the Rapture and the Judgment Seat of Christ (1Co_1:8; 1Co_5:5; 2Co_1:14; Phi_1:6, Phi_1:10; Phi_2:15-16). But the Thessalonians were not in fear that the Day of Christ was at hand. That would have meant release from their sufferings. Most pre-tribulationists prefer the reading in the RV: the day of the Lord is now present. Paul’s readers were afraid that the Day of God’s wrath had begun.

2 Thessalonians 2:3

B. The Man of Sin (2:3-12) 2:3 Now the apostle explains why they could not be in that Day. Certain events must take place first. After the Rapture, these events will begin to happen. First of all there will be the falling away, or the apostasy. What does this mean? We can only surmise that it refers to a wholesale abandonment of Christianity, a positive rejection of the Christian faith. Then a great world figure will arise. As to his character, he is the man of sin or lawlessness, that is, the very embodiment of sin and rebellion. As to his destiny, he is the son of perdition; he is doomed to eternal judgment. The Scriptures contain many descriptions of important personages who will arise during the Tribulation, and it is difficult to know when different names apply to the same person. Some commentators believe that the man of sin will be a Jewish Antichrist. Others teach that he will be the Gentile head of the revived Roman Empire. Here are the names of some of the great rulers of the end times: … the man of sin and son of perdition (2Th_2:3) … the Antichrist (1Jo_2:18) … the little horn (Dan_7:8, Dan_7:24-26) … the king of fierce features (Dan_8:23-25) … the prince who is to come (Dan_9:26) … the willful king (Dan_11:36) … the worthless shepherd (Zec_11:17) … the beast out of the sea (Rev_13:1-10) … the beast out of the earth (Rev_13:11-17) … the scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns (Rev_17:4, Rev_17:8-14) … the king of the North (Dan_11:6) … the king of the South (Dan_11:40) … the false prophet (Rev_19:20; Rev_20:10) … Gog, of the land of Magog (Eze. 38:2-39:11) [not to be confused with the Gog of Rev_20:8 who arises after the Millennium] … the one who comes in his own name (Joh_5:43) The man of sin has been given an intriguing variety of identifications down through the years. He has been equated with the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope, the Roman Empire, the final form of apostate Christendom, Judas reincarnated, Nero reincarnated, the Jewish State, Mohammed, Luther, Napoleon, Mussolini, and the embodiment of Satan. 2:4 He will violently oppose every form of divine worship and will enthrone himself in the temple of God in Jerusalem. This description clearly identifies him as Antichrist, the one who is opposed to Christ and who sets himself up in the place of Christ. Dan_9:27 and Mat_24:15 show that this blasphemous action of the Antichrist takes place in the middle of the Tribulation Period. Those who refuse to worship him will be persecuted and many will be martyred. 2:5 Paul used to tell the Thessalonians these things when he was still with them. However, with contradictory teaching being given to them which seemed to accurately describe the fierce persecutions they were then enduring, they had forgotten what the apostle had said. We all forget too easily and need to be constantly reminded of the great truths of the faith. 2:6 They knew what was restraining the full and open manifestation of the man of sin, and what would continue to restrain him until the appointed time. This brings us to the third great unanswered question in this chapter. The first is, What is the apostasy? The second is, Who is the man of sin? The third is, What or who is the restrainer?In the first part of verse 6, the restrainer is described in an impersonal way … what is restraining. But then in verse 7 it is a personHe who now restrains. E. W. Rogers puts it clearly: It is Something and Someone who wittingly, purposefully, and designedly holds it in check with the view to ensuring that the Man of Lawlessness is revealed in his own proper time. Seven of the more common views as to the identity of the restrainer are: (1) the Roman Empire, (2) the Jewish State, (3) Satan, (4) the principle of law and order as found in human government, (5) God, (6) the Holy Spirit, and (7) the true church as indwelt by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwelling the church and the individual believer seems to fit the description of the restrainer more completely and accurately than any of the others. Just as the restrainer is spoken of as Something and Someone in this chapter, so the Spirit is spoken of in Joh_14:26, Joh_15:26, Joh_16:8, Joh_16:13-14 as both neuter (the Holy Spirit) and masculine (He). As early as Gen_6:3, the Holy Spirit is spoken of in connection with the restraint of evil. Then later He is seen in this same role in Isa_59:19 b, Joh_16:7-11, and 1Jo_4:4. It is by the indwelling Spirit that believers are the salt of the earth (Mat_5:13) and the light of the world (Mat_5:14). Salt is a preservative, but it also hinders the spread of corruption. Light dispels darkness, the sphere in which men love to perform their evil deeds (Joh_3:19). When the Holy Spirit leaves the world as the permanent Indweller of the church (1Co_3:16) and of individual believers (1Co_6:19), the restraint of lawlessness will be gone. 2:7 Even when Paul wrote, the mystery of lawlessness was already at work. By this we understand that a tremendous spirit of disobedience to God was already stirring beneath the surface. It was at work in mystery formnot that it was mysterious but rather that it was not yet fully manifested. It was still in germ form. What has hindered the full display of this spirit? We believe that the presence of the Holy Spirit indwelling the church and indwelling every believer has been the restraining power. He will continue to exercise this function until He is taken out of the way, that is, at the Rapture. But here an objection is raised. How can the Holy Spirit be removed from the world? As one of the Persons of the Godhead, isn’t He omnipresent, that is, everywhere at all times? How then can He leave the world? Of course, the Holy Spirit is omnipresent. He is always in all places at one and the same time. And yet there was a distinct sense in which He came to the earth on the Day of Pentecost. Jesus had repeatedly promised that He and the Father would send the Spirit (Joh_14:16, Joh_14:26; Joh_15:26; Joh_16:7. How then did the Spirit come? He came as the permanent Indweller of the church and of every believer. Until Pentecost the Spirit had been with believers, but since Pentecost He has dwelt in them (Joh_14:17). Until Pentecost the Spirit was known to depart from believershence David’s prayer, Do not take your Holy Spirit from me (Psa_51:11 b). After Pentecost the Spirit remains forever in believers of the Church Age (Joh_14:16). The Holy Spirit will, we believe, leave the world in the same sense in which He came at Pentecostthat is, as the abiding Indweller of the church and of each believer. He will still be in the world, convicting people of sin and leading them to saving faith in Christ. His removal at the Rapture does not mean that no one will be saved during the Tribulation. Of course they will. But these people will not be members of the church, but rather the subjects of Christ’s glorious kingdom. 2:8 After the church has been Raptured to heaven, the lawless one will be revealed to the world. In this verse, the apostle skips over the career of the Antichrist and describes his ultimate doom. It almost sounds as if he will be destroyed as soon as he is revealed. But that of course is not so. He is allowed to conduct the reign of terror described in verses 9-12 before he is brought down at Christ’s coming to reign. If we are right in believing that the man of sin is revealed after the Rapture and that he continues until Christ’s Revelation, then his mad career lasts approximately seven yearsthe length of the Tribulation Period. The Lord Jesus will consume him with the breath of His mouth (cf. Isa_11:4; Rev_19:15), and will bring him to nothing by the manifestation of His coming. A word from Christ and the bright shining (Greek, epiphaneia) of His appearing (parousia) are all that are necessary to end the regime of this raging impostor. The manifestation of Christ’s coming, as has already been explained, is when He returns to the earth to take the throne and reign for one thousand years. 2:9 The coming of the lawless one is in accordance with the working of Satan. His career resembles that of Satan because he is energized by Satan. He will display all kinds of miracles and signs and lying wonders. Here it is important to note that not all miracles are of God. The devil and his agents can perform miracles. The man of lawlessness will also perform them (Rev_13:13-15). A miracle indicates supernatural power but not necessarily divine power. The miracles of our Lord proved Him to be the promised Messiah, not simply because they were supernatural, but because they fulfilled prophecy and were of such a moral nature that Satan could not have done them without harming his own cause. 2:10 The Antichrist will unscrupulously use every form of wickedness to deceive the perishing peoplethose who heard the gospel during the Age of Grace but who had no love for the truth. If they had believed, they would have been saved. But now they are deceived by the miracles of the Antichrist. 2:11 God actually will send them a working of error that they should believe the lie. The lie, of course, is the Antichrist’s claim to be God. These people refused to receive the Lord Jesus as God manifest in the flesh. When He was on earth, He warned men, I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me: if another comes in his own name, him you will receive (Joh_5:43). So now they receive the man of sin who comes in his own name and demands worship as God. Light rejected is light denied. If a person sets up an idol in his heart, God will answer him according to his idol (Eze_14:4). The Antichrist will probably be Jewish (Eze_28:9-10; Dan_11:37-38). Jews would not be deceived by one posing as the Messiah unless he claimed to be descended from the tribe of Judah and the family of David. 2:12 From this passage it seems that those who hear the gospel in this Age of Grace but who do not trust Christ will not have another opportunity to be saved after the Rapture. If men do not believe the Lord Jesus now, they will believe the Antichrist then. It says here that they all will be judged because of their unbelief and their love of evil. This is reminiscent of Luk_14:24, For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.We know that many people will be saved during the Tribulation Period. One hundred and forty-four thousand Jews, for instance, will be saved and will be God’s messengers in preaching the gospel of the kingdom throughout the world. Through their ministry many others will be saved. But it seems that those who will be saved are those who never heard the gospel clearly presented during this present age and who never deliberately refused the Savior.

2 Thessalonians 2:13

IV. THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER (2:13-17) A. Paul’s Thanks that the Saints Would Escape Judgment (2:13, 14) 2:13 In the first twelve verses, Paul described the doom of the Antichrist and his followers. Now he turns to the Thessalonian Christians and thinks of their calling and destiny by way of contrast. As he does so, he expresses thanks to God for these brethren beloved by the Lord, and proceeds to give a summary of their salvationpast, present, and future. God … chose you. The Bible clearly teaches that God chooses men to salvation, but it never teaches that He chooses some to be damned. Men are lost through their own deliberate choice. Apart from God’s intervention, all would be lost. Does God have the right to choose some to be saved? Basically His desire is for all to be saved (1Ti_2:4; 2Pe_3:9). However, the Bible does not teach Universalism, the theory that all will eventually be saved. From the beginning. This has two possible readings. First, it may mean that God’s choice was made before the foundation of the world (Eph_1:4). Second, the expression may also be read as first fruits, indicating that the Thessalonians, saved so early in the Christian dispensation, were chosen by God to be among the first of a great harvest of redeemed souls. For salvation. This should be contrasted with the preceding verses. Unbelievers are doomed by their unbelief to eternal destruction, whereas believers are chosen for salvation. Through sanctification by the Spirit. Here we have the Holy Spirit’s pre-conversion work. He sets individuals apart to God from the world, convicts them of sin, and points them to Christ. Someone has well said, If it had not been for Christ, there would have been no feast; if it had not been for the Holy Spirit, there would have been no guests!And belief in the truth. First you have God’s part in salvation; now you have man’s. Both are necessary. Some people can see only God’s election, and they imply that man can do nothing about it. Others overemphasize man’s part, and neglect God’s sovereign choice. The truth lies in both extremes. Election and human responsibility are both Bible doctrines, and it is best to believe and teach both, even if we can’t understand how both can be true. 2:14 To which He called you by our gospel. God chose us to salvation in eternity. He called us to it in time. The call refers to the moment when a person believes the truth. Our gospel does not mean that there are other genuine gospels. There is only one gospel, but there are many different preachers of it, and many different audiences. Paul is referring to the gospel of God which was preached by him. For the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here the apostle peers into the future and sees the ultimate outcome of salvationto be with Christ and be like Him forever. J. N. Darby captures the thought in his beautiful hymn: And is it soI shall be like Thy Son? Is this the grace which He for me has won? Father of glory, thought beyond all thought! In glory, to His own blest likeness brought! Thus in verses 13 and 14 we have a system of theology in miniature, a marvelous summary of the scope of God’s purposes with His believing people. He has shown us that salvation originates in a divine choice, is wrought out by divine power, is made effective through a divine message, and will be perfected in divine glory.

2 Thessalonians 2:15

B. Paul’s Prayer that the Saints Would Be Comforted and Established (2:15-17) 2:15 In view of their superlative calling, the saints are exhorted to stand fast and hold the traditions which they were taught, either by the apostles’ words or by their Letters. The important thing to notice here is that the only traditions which are reliable and authoritative are the inspired utterances of the apostles. Jesus condemned the scribes and Pharisees for nullifying the commandments of God by their traditions (Mat_15:6). And Paul warned the Colossians against the traditions of men (Col_2:8). The traditions we should hold are the great truths which have been handed over to us in the sacred Scriptures. This verse is sometimes used to justify the traditions of churches or of religious leaders. But any traditions which are contrary to the word of God are worthless and dangerous. If mere human traditions are accepted as equal with the Bible, who is to decide which traditions are right and which are wrong? 2:16 Having told out his message to the saints, the apostle now prays it in. He commonly follows his teaching with prayer (1Th_5:23-24; 2Th_3:16). The prayer is addressed to our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father. We are accustomed to Paul’s mentioning both divine Persons in the same breath, but it is unusual for him to mention the Son first. He is, of course, emphasizing their essential unity and complete equality. In the Greek, the plural subject (Christ and God) is followed by four singular verb forms (loved, gave, comfort, establish). What is this but a further indication of the unity of nature of the Son and Father in the Godhead? God’s past provision is introduced as an encouragement to trust Him for future courage and strength. He loved us and gave us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace. Doubtless this looks back to the greatest exhibition of God’s lovethe gift of His Son for us. Because we know that He settled the sin question at Calvary, we have eternal comfort now and the hope of a glorious futureand it is all through His marvelous grace. 2:17 The prayer itself is that God will comfort their hearts and establish them in every good word and work. Not just encouragement in the midst of distress, but strength to move forward in the battle. The word retreat wasn’t in the apostle’s vocabulary, and it shouldn’t be in ours either. Don’t miss the expression every good word and work. Truth on our lips is not enough; it must be worked out in our life. So in our lives there should be the order of teaching and doing, doctrine and duty, preaching and practice.