2 Thessalonians 1

Ver. 5. Which is a manifest token &c.] “Which” your suffering “is a manifest token” or evidence “of the righteous judgment of God” that is to come, these persecutions and tribulations befalling you now, that by reason of your patience and faithfulness, “ye may be” then “counted worthy of the kingdom of God,” which

Anno DOMINI 34. Paul comforteth them in persecution, and exhorteth to stedfastness. Anno DOMINI 34. angels of his power. yielding. searchafe.

&c.] When He shall come in wonderful and inconceivable glory, which He shall not reserve to Himself, but impart to His saints; in whose brightness, and conformity to the glorious body of Christ, His infinite goodness and mercy shall be then admired, even in the glorification of all that believe; amongst whom ye also have your part, forasmuch as ye believed the Gospel which we delivered unto you. Bp. Hall. 12. That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you,] That His Gospel may be propagated, His church and kingdom upon earth defended and enlarged, His doctrine received, His laws obeyed, His praises celebrated, His servants encouraged, and His supreme authority and dominion owned, admired, and feared by all, that “every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Bp. Beveridge. Chap. II. The former chapter was occupied in a consolation against trouble; this in a caution against erreurs, or to rectify the judgment of the Thessalonians concerning the true time of Christ’s second coming. An error had crept in among them, concerning the speedy and immediate coming of Christ to judgment, whilst they were yet alive. To guard them against this error is the Apostle’s object in this chapter. Burkitt. Ver. 1. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord &c.] Rather, ‘concerning the coming,’ or, ‘as to the coming.’ Pyle. The preposition ought to have been translated ‘concerning,’ as it signifies in other places of Scripture, and in other authors. The coming of Christ to judgment is the subject of which the Apostle is speaking; and in relation to this subject, he desires them not to be disturbed or affrighted, either by revelation, or by message, or by letter, as from him, as if the day of Christ’s coming was at hand. In the former Epistle the Apostle had exhorted the Thessalonians to moderate sorrow for the dead, by the consideration of the resurrection and the general judgment, chap. iv. 13, &c.; v. 1, 2. Some persons having mistaken his meaning, and inferred from some of these expressions, that the end of the world was now approaching, the Apostle sets himself in this place to rectify that erroneous notion, and beseeches the Thessalonians not to be shaken from their steadfastness, nor to be troubled and terrified, as if it were now at hand. It was a point of great importance for the early Christians not to be deceived in this particular; because, if they were taught to believe, that the coming of Christ was at hand, and He nevertheless did not come according to their expectation, they might be staggered in their faith, and finding part of their creed to be false, might be hasty enough to conclude that the whole was so. Bp. Newton.

— and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.] The article joined to these appellations is emphatically, importing that the ancient Prophets had spoken of these persons, though under different names; particularly the prophet Daniel, whose descriptions of the little horn, and the blasphemous king, agree so exactly in meaning with St. Paul’s description of the man of sin, and the son of perdition, that there can be little doubt of their being the same person. Dr. MacKnight.

Literally, ’the man of sin,’ with the like article, and the like emphasis, as in the former clause: and St. Ambrose, that he might express the force of the article, hath rendered it, as Erasmus remarks, ’that man,’ as have also our English translators. The like arrogant and tyrannical power is described in the passages referred to in the last note by Daniel, from whom St. Paul hath not only borrowed his ideas, but hath even adopted some phrases and expressions. ‘The man of sin,’ may signify either a single man, or a succession of men. The latter, being meant by Daniel, is probably intended here also: and this is agreeable to the phraseology of Scripture. See Dan. vii, viii; Rev. xvii; Heb. ix. 7, 25. As ’the apostasy’ points out the idolatry of the church of Rome, so ’the man of sin’ is the pope; not meaning this or that pope in particular, but the pope in general, as the chief head and supporter of this apostasy. The apostasy produces him, and he again promotes the apostasy. He is properly ’the man of sin,’ not only on account of the scandalous lives of many popes, but by reason of their more scandalous doctrines and principles, dispensing with the most necessary duties, and granting or rather selling pardons and indulgences to the most abominable crimes. Or, if by ‘sin’ be meant idolatry particularly, as frequently in the Old Testament, it is evident how he hath corrupted the worship of God, and perverted it from ‘spirit and truth,’ to superstition and idolatry of the grossest kind. He also, like the false apostle Judas, is ’the son of perdition,’ whether actively, as being the cause and occasion of destruction to others; or passively, as being destined and devoted to destruction himself. Bp. Newton.

— so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, &c.] ‘The temple of God,’ means the Christian church in the usual style of the Apostles. See 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; 2 Cor. vi. 16; 1 Tim. iii. 15; Rev. iii. 12. The man of sin’s ‘sitting in the temple of God,’ that is, in the church of Christ, implies his ruling and presiding there; and ‘sitting there as God,’ implies his claiming Divine authority in things spiritual as well as temporal; and ‘shewing himself that he is God,’ implies his doing it with great pride and pomp, with great parade and ostentation. The pope is in profession a Christian, and a Christian bishop, having a seat or cathedra in the Christian church; and he ‘sitteth there as God,’ especially at his inauguration, when he sitteth upon the high altar in St. Peter’s church, and maketh the table of the Lord his footstool, and in that position receiveth adoration. At all times he exerciseth Divine authority in the church, ‘shewing himself that he is God,’ affecting Divine titles and attributes, as holiness and infallibility, assuming Divine powers and prerogatives in condemning and absolving men, in retaining and forgiving sins, in asserting his decrees to be of the same or greater authority than the word of God, and commanding them to be received under the penalty of the same or greater damnation. He has been styled, and pleased to be styled, ‘Our lord god, the pope; another god upon earth; king of kings and lord of lords.’ The same is asserted to be the dominion of God and the pope. These and the like blasphemias have been not only allowed, but are even approved, encouraged, rewarded, in the writers of the church of Rome; and they are not only the extravagances of private writers, but are the language even of public decretals and acts of council. So that the pope is evidently the god upon earth; at least there is no one like him, who ‘sitteth as god in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.’ Bp. Newton.

2 Thessalonians 1:3

3. — except there come a falling away first,] The Apostle here assures the Thessalonians, that other memorable events will take place before the coming of the Lord. The day of Christ shall not come, ’except there come the apostasy first.’ The apostasy here described, is plainly of a religious nature; a defection from the true religion and worship, “a departing from the faith,”

2 Thessalonians 1:4

4. Who opposeth and exalteth himself &c.] This is manifestly an allusion to Daniel. See as above. ‘Above all,’ that is, above every one, ’that is called God or that is worshipped.’ He shall oppose, for the Prophets speak of things future as present; he shall oppose and exalt himself not only above inferior magistrates, who are sometimes called ‘gods’ in holy writ, but even above the greatest emperors, and shall arrogate to himself Divine honours. This has been the character of the pope. ‘He opposeth,’ he has been the great adversary to God and man, excommunicating and anthelmating, persecuting and destroying by crusades

2 Thessalonians 1:6

6. And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed &c.] The man of sin therefore was not then ‘revealed.’ ‘His time’ was not yet come, or the