Original Meaning
Has the “Day of the Lord” Already Arrived? (2:1–2)
THE MAIN TOPIC to which Paul now turns is stated in 2:1: “the coming [parousia] of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him.” The first element is the same one discussed in 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11; indeed, “it seems nearly impossible not to see” the discussion here “as related to some kind of misunderstanding” of that passage.2 The second element is apparently the same event described in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (the specific term used here echoes the Old Testament motif of the scattered exiles being gathered together again, as in Isa. 43:4–7; 56:8; Jer. 31:7–8; 2 Macc. 2:7; cf. Matt. 23:37; Mark 13:27).
Paul goes on to reveal his specific point of concern (v. 2): At least some of the Thessalonians have become “unsettled” (i.e., have lost their mental composure) or “alarmed” (perhaps “agitated”; cf. Mark 13:7) by a claim—in some way attributed to the apostle himself—“to the effect that” (NRSV; NIV “saying that”) the “day of the Lord has already come.”3 The available evidence regarding the meaning of the verb used here in the perfect tense indicates that it cannot mean anything other than “has come” or “is present” (cf. Rom. 8:38; 1 Cor. 3:22; Gal. 1:4; Heb. 9:9). This observation stands strongly against attempts to find here only a sense of imminence or nearness rather than presence. In other words, at least some in the congregation had come to the conclusion that the event that Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11 spoke of as yet future had already in some way begun.4
This conclusion was apparently based either on misinformation or (more likely, in view of 2:15) on a misunderstanding of Paul’s previous teaching on the subject. For all that Paul knows (and it clearly isn’t much), this misunderstanding may have arisen or come to the Thessalonians in one of three ways. It may have come (2:2) via a “prophecy” (lit., “a spirit”; i.e., presumably a prophetic utterance, perhaps spoken by one of the congregation or a visitor; cf. 1 Thess. 5:19–20), or a “report” (lit., “word”; i.e., a nonecstatic spoken message or teaching), or a “letter” (i.e., 1 Thessalonians, though the claim is so far removed from anything he actually taught that the possibility of a forged letter crosses his mind). But Paul’s primary concern is not with how the claim reached them, but with its content (i.e., the claim that “the day of the Lord has already come”), which apparently has been attributed to him.5
Bridging Contexts
A SUBJECT THAT Paul felt no need to write about in the first letter—when the Day of the Lord would occur (1 Thess. 5:1)—he does write about in the second letter. He does so because at least some members of the Thessalonians congregation had become persuaded that the Day had already arrived. In response, Paul basically says that is impossible because certain events that must first occur have not yet occurred, and thus the Day cannot have already arrived.
So far, so good. But at this point we begin to encounter difficulties, not so much because of what Paul said, but because of what he did not say. That is, in communicating with the Thessalonians, Paul took for granted information that both he and they already knew, and consequently he did not spell it out in his letter. No doubt his meaning was clear to his readers. But because he did not spell out certain critical details, his meaning is not clear to his later readers. The passage, therefore, presents a major obstacle: How does one bridge between the original meaning and contemporary significance when the original meaning at some points cannot be determined?
What we do know. Framing the question in this way (i.e., in terms of what we don’t know) may not be the most effective way to approach the task of bridging contexts. Rather than worry initially about the information we lack, it may be more productive first to focus on the information we do have and what we do know about the meaning of the passage, which is considerable.
(1) To begin with, even though we do not know the cause or source of the Thessalonians’ (mis)understanding of the Day of the Lord (nor, so it seems, did Paul; cf. 2:2), we do have a good idea of what the problem was: Apparently some of the Thessalonians thought that the “Day of the Lord” had already arrived. While unusual, this view is not without parallels today (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christ’s coming occurred on October 1, 1914, but that it was invisible rather than public and involved a change of location in heaven)—though in Christian circles, one is unlikely to encounter this view. Instead of arguments among Christians today about whether the Day of the Lord has already come, one is much more likely to encounter arguments about when it will come.
(2) Paul’s answer is relatively straightforward: The “day of the Lord” and “our being gathered to him” will not come until after certain other things happen. These things (which could be two sequential items, but more likely are components of a single complex event) are “the rebellion” and the revealing of “the man of lawlessness” (2:3). What is interesting about this answer is that in speaking to the Thessalonians’ uncertainty about whether the Day had come, Paul speaks directly to the question of when it will come. Thus even though the issue in Thessalonica is different from the dominant question today, Paul’s answer speaks to both.
(3) Although Paul says nothing more about the first item (the rebellion), he does say a fair amount about the character and activity (though not the identity) of the “man of lawlessness.” From the description given—a lawless individual doing the deceptive work of Satan, who not only opposes God but actually seeks to push God aside and exalt himself in God’s place—it is clear that Paul has in mind the same figure referred to in 1 John 2:18 as the “antichrist” and in Revelation 13 as the “beast.”21
Thus, to summarize the key elements in (2) and (3), Paul lays out a clear sequence of events. First comes the “rebellion” and the appearance of “the man of lawlessness,” and then the return (parousia) of the genuine Christ and the gathering up of believers to be with him.
For some readers, a number of questions may well arise at this point. For example, doesn’t what Paul says here contradict 1 Thessalonians 5:2, where he wrote that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night”? Not at all; Paul wrote that the Day of the Lord will “come like a thief” only for unbelievers (cf. 5:3). Believers, he writes, “are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief” (5:4).
But if the Antichrist comes before the Day of the Lord (i.e., the return of Christ), couldn’t someone simply add seven years (or three and a half years, depending on one’s perspective) to the date of Antichrist’s appearing and calculate the time when Christ will return? And would that not contradict Jesus’ statement (in Matt. 24:36//Mark 13:32) that “no one knows about that day or hour”? Not at all, because Jesus also stated that “for the sake of the elect,” the days of the great distress and tribulation following the appearance of Antichrist “will be shortened” (Matt. 24:21–22). By how much that time will be shortened no one knows; thus, no one will know the “day or hour” when Jesus will return.22
But what about the Rapture? Don’t the Scriptures teach that believers will be “caught up” before the outbreak of the Tribulation? No, not really. Admittedly, the view that Jesus could come at any moment to take up believers carry them to heaven prior to the Tribulation, and will then come again in judgment at the end of the Tribulation, is widely publicized and wildly popular. But apart from the embarrassment this creates by having two “second comings” (or, if you will, both a second and a third coming), Paul in both 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians links the “catching up” (1 Thess. 4:17) and the “gathering” (2 Thess. 2:1)—terms that for Paul are synonyms—as closely as possible to the coming of the Lord on the Day of the Lord (1 Thess. 4:16; 5:2; 2 Thess. 2:1–3). And since Paul explicitly says that the Day of the Lord will not occur until after the revealing of the Antichrist, it follows that the “catching up” or “Rapture” will not occur until after the revealing of the Antichrist. In short, first the appearance of the Antichrist, and only then the coming of the genuine Christ and the “catching up” of believers to be with him.23
(4) An important implication can be drawn from what Paul says here about the sequence of events: Believers ought to be prepared to experience persecution and distress for the sake of the gospel during the time of the rebellion and Antichrist’s appearing. Indeed, believers ought to be prepared to experience such things even before the appearance of the Antichrist, because, as Paul points out in 2:7, “the secret power of lawlessness is already at work.” This explains (at least in part) why Paul took it for granted that believers “would be persecuted” (1 Thess. 3:4)—a truth that the Thessalonians certainly were ready and able to confirm in light of their own experience. To put the matter a bit differently, the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) for which we wait is not, as some contend, a “rapture” or escape from persecution. Rather it is, as Titus 2:13 makes clear, “the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”—an appearing that will bring vindication and relief to God’s people in the midst of persecution (2 Thess. 1:5–10; 2:8).24
(5) The mention of vindication brings us to an important point Paul makes in this passage, one that is even clearer than what he says about the sequence and timing of events: in the end, Jesus wins (2:8). In the midst of all the details about the man of lawlessness and his activities, we must not miss what Paul says about the lawless one’s ultimate fate. Paul first hints at this in 2:3, where he describes him as a “man doomed to destruction,” and he states his point clearly in 2:8: Jesus will “overthrow” and “destroy” him. Despite his strenuous efforts to deceive and mislead, despite “counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders” of all sorts, despite his efforts to proclaim himself God over all, the man of lawlessness will eventually fail. The outcome of the struggle between Christ and Antichrist is certain beyond any shadow of doubt: in the end, Jesus wins!
(6) Repeating a point he had made in chapter 1, Paul again makes it clear that people are responsible for their own fate. For some readers the language Paul uses in 2:11 (“God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie”) is troubling and seems to raise questions about God’s fairness (e.g., if God sends the delusion, why are people held accountable for being deluded?). But even as in chapter 1 God’s judgment was a response to people’s refusal to obey the gospel (1:8), so here. Whatever action God takes is a response to people’s refusal to love the truth (2:10); his judgment falls upon those “who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness” (2:12).
Paul makes the same point in Romans 1. Those whom God “gives over” to their own sinful desires (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28) are those who have already “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (1:25; cf. 1:21, 23). In short, “whatever one may say about divine predestination, the lost carry the responsibility for their own perdition.”25
A pitfall to avoid. In view of what is clear or what we do know about this passage, the things we do not know (esp. the identity of the restraining influence and of the man of lawlessness) constitute not so much an obstacle as a temptation—to speculate about what we do not know. In one respect, this temptation to speculate, driven by our intense desire to know the identity of the man of lawlessness, is understandable; after all, curiosity is a powerful and well-known human characteristic. In other respects, however, there seem to be at least three problems associated with this temptation to speculate about the unknown.
(1) Such speculation distracts our attention from and obscures what we do know. It is all too easy to get so caught up in speculation about the identity of the Antichrist that one loses sight of the main points of the passage. One of the clearest points of the passage is the one discussed under (5) above: In the end, Jesus wins. In light of this, it is deeply ironic that some people get so caught up in speculation that they end up giving more attention to a doomed Antichrist than they do to the victorious Christ.
(2) Speculation on the identity of the Antichrist is, in my opinion, a waste of time, effort, and resources. The record of attempts to determine the identity of Antichrist is a long one, stretching back well over a millennium and a half. Likewise, the list of those confidently identified as Antichrist is a long one. It includes various Roman emperors, the leader of the Vandal invaders who sacked Rome, Mohammed, various popes, the papacy itself, Emperor Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX (each of whom viewed the other as the Antichrist), Martin Luther, King George II of England, Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III, each side in the American Civil War, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, the League of Nations, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, the United Nations, Khruschev, the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev (the birth mark on his forehead allegedly being the mark of the beast), King Juan Carlos of Spain, Pope John Paul II, Anwar Sadat, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, the New Age Movement, theologian Matthew Fox, Henry Kissenger, and former presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Wilson Reagan (six letters in each name = 666 [cf. Rev. 13:18], and Reagan recovered from a serious wound [13:3]).26
This sad history of the unsuccessful attempts to identify the Antichrist suggests that any attempts we might make will be no more successful. Surely we deceive ourselves if we think that we will be able to identify this master deceiver. Yet efforts persist, and in some quarters are even encouraged and welcomed. Most of the Christian bookstores I visit have far more shelf space devoted to the latest books and novels about the Antichrist and related topics than they do to discipleship, for example, or Christology or Bible study helps—a reflection, apparently, of reader interest and demand.
In view of the dismal record of failed attempts at identification, this persistent eagerness to read the latest speculation about the Antichrist reminds one a great deal of Paul’s prediction to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3–4 (using NIVILE):
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Surely there are better ways to invest our time, energy, and money (for there can be no doubt that there is big money to be made by speculating about Antichrist) than in a fruitless attempt to predict or to read about the identity of the Antichrist. “Church history is littered with incautious, self-confident but mistaken attempts to find in Paul’s text a reference to some contemporary person and event. Let this be a warning to us.”27
(3) Jacob W. Elias suggests a third problem with speculation about what we do not know, this one involving speculation about when Christ will return. Despite the explicit statement of Jesus that no one knows the day or the hour, people have persisted in efforts to determine the time of Christ’s coming (David Koresh of the Branch Davidians was only one of the more recent in a long line of date-setters). In persisting in this effort, however, Elias suggests that they run the risk of infringing on God’s authority. “Date-setting essentially constitutes a usurping of God’s role. God knows the future, we don’t…. Ironically, Paul and his co-workers depict the antagonist as usurping God’s authority.”28
A broader perspective. I. H. Marshall makes an important observation with regard to 2:12.
The effect of v. 12 is to generalise to some extent what Paul has been saying. We do not have to wait until the point when we can, as it were, identify the arrival of the final climax of evil in order to see the outworking of the divine process of judgment. It is true at all times that sin consists in delighting in what is wrong…. It follows that the primary significance of the passage is not that we should be trying to calculate whether or not the End is near but that we should be concerned about the moral and spiritual issues which are involved.29
In other words, Paul’s final generalizing comment returns the focus from the future to the present: Our fate then will be determined by how we respond to the truth of the gospel now. Thus Paul reinforces a point already made in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 and 5:1–11: Knowledge of the future ought to shape and influence how we live in the present.
Contemporary Significance
AS IN THE case of chapter 1, what one covers in applying this section of the text depends to some extent on whether 2 Thessalonians is being studied independently of or in sequence with 1 Thessalonians. For example, if 2 Thessalonians is being studied independently, it will probably be necessary to cover in some detail what Paul takes for granted in 2:1–3 regarding the return (parousia) of Jesus and the gathering of believers to him (for details see the discussions of 1 Thess. 4:13–18; 5:1–11).
If, however, 2 Thessalonians is being treated after 1 Thessalonians, then one might move directly to more distinctive aspects of this passage, two of which I would like to highlight. It offers an opportunity (1) to emphasize the importance of focusing on Jesus, and (2) to reflect on the deceptive character of evil. In addition, (3) the passage provides an opportunity to revisit the question of preparation versus speculation and (4) offers an important word of encouragement in the midst of turmoil: In the end, Jesus wins. (For the importance of holding firm to the apostolic testimony and teaching, a point that arises out of 2:5, see comments on 2:15.)
Keep the focus on Jesus! In 1933, as the storm clouds of war gathered and speculation about Antichrist rose accordingly, Arno Gaebelein, the noted evangelical leader and editor of Our Hope magazine, wrote:
The Editor has no use for day-and-year-setters, nor has he any use for figuring out the duration of the times of the Gentiles, nor has he any sympathy with men who prophesy that Mussolini, Hitler, Feisal or any other person is the Antichrist. It is a morbid condition which seems to suit certain minds. We wonder whom they will name next. At any rate why should a Christian have any interest at all in that coming man of sin? We have nothing to do with that lawless one. Our interest must be in Christ and not in Antichrist.30
Today, decades later, at a time when interest in and speculation about Antichrist is, if anything, even more intense—a time when well-known Christian leaders are writing novels whose main character is Antichrist—Gaebelein’s words are no less timely, especially his final sentence: “Our interest must be in Christ and not in Antichrist.”
Second Thessalonians 2 is the only passage in all his letters where Paul discusses the “man of lawlessness,” and he does so here only because the extraordinary circumstances in Thessalonica required him to do so. Furthermore, even as he discusses this figure, he leaves no doubt about his ultimate fate: He will be defeated by the Lord Jesus himself (2:8). Moreover, his discussion is bounded on either side by prayer or thanksgiving reports (1:11–12; 2:13–14) that focus on Jesus. The pattern Paul models here—he keeps his primary focus on Jesus and speaks of Antichrist no more than he has to—is a pattern we would do well to follow. When novels about Antichrist outsell books about Jesus, it seems to me that there is something seriously out of balance. Christ our Savior, not Antichrist his antagonist, deserves our attention.
The manner in which Paul emphasizes in 2:10–12 the importance of truth reinforces the importance of focusing on Jesus. Paul describes those perishing as those who refused to love or to believe “the truth.” In this context, “the truth” is virtually a synonym for the gospel. And who is its focus? Jesus, of course. Moreover, Jesus himself is the truth (John 14:6; cf. Eph. 4:21). In other words, to love or believe in the truth is to love or believe in Jesus. Since our response to the truth that is, to Jesus—determines, as Paul here makes clear, our ultimate destiny, we have all the more reason to focus on Jesus, the true Christ, and not on his antagonist, the Antichrist.
The familiar little song by Helen H. Lemmel, “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus,” expresses clearly what we need to do:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
If we turn our eyes upon Jesus, “the things of earth”—including speculation about the identity of the Antichrist—“will grow strangely dim” in comparison to the light of Jesus’ glory and grace, the very things Paul emphasizes in 1:12 and 2:14. As Gaebelein emphasized, our focus needs to be on Jesus.
The deceptiveness of evil. From Paul’s description of the character and activities of the “man of lawlessness,” it is clear that he is describing nothing less than a counterfeit christ. This counterfeit christ—“Antichrist,” to use the more common terminology—seeks, by means of his own parousia (“coming”), counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders (2:9), and declarations that he is divine (2:4), to deceive people into believing that he is the genuine Christ. (He is not, of course; his activities are “in accordance with the work of Satan” [2:9], not God.)
The effectiveness of a counterfeit depends, of course, on how closely it approximates that which it is imitating. A counterfeit $100 bill produced on a black and white copier will likely not fool anyone. But it is possible (or at least was, until the introduction of new safeguards in the late 1990s), using the right tools and equipment, to produce counterfeit $100 bills good enough to fool even experts on occasion. A good counterfeit so closely imitates the real thing that it is able to deceive us into thinking it is the real thing. This is how the “man of lawlessness” will work his destruction: He will so closely counterfeit the coming, power, and character of the Lord Jesus Christ that people will be duped into thinking he is the real thing. As Stott observes, “the coming of Antichrist will be such a clever parody of the coming of Christ that many will be taken in by the satanic deception.”31
Paul’s description of this satanic antagonist as a “counterfeit christ” (rather than as Antichrist) invites us to reflect on an important characteristic of evil: It is inherently and fundamentally deceptive. The effectiveness of evil has much to do with how it presents itself: not so much as the polar opposite of something good, but as a clever counterfeit of it. I suspect that most of us would like to think that if we were openly confronted by Satan and invited to become partners in evil, we would unquestionably reject the offer and inform him in no uncertain terms where he should go. But in view of the evil perpetrated by Christians in the world today, it is clear that we are not rejecting the devil’s invitations to become partners in evil. Why not? Perhaps because they most often come not as clear invitations to do evil, but as camouflaged invitations to do something that appears to be good, but really isn’t.32 If “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14), we should not be surprised if invitations to do evil are similarly masked.
How does evil mask itself? One way is by counterfeiting the good, the real, the genuine. As Cornelius Plantinga Jr. perceptively observes, when at the movies (or, frighteningly, sometimes in real life) we
cheer for fleeing bank robbers, we do not focus on any of the damage, disturbance, or offense. We notice only those features that sin has pirated from goodness—energy, imagination, persistence, and creativity. Everything sin touches begins to die, but we do not focus on that. We see only the vitality of the parasite, glowing with stolen life.33
Instead of going for the real thing, we are deceived by the counterfeit, the parasite that imitates it.
The classical “seven deadly sins” offer another example of how evil masks itself. One well-known analysis views each one as an instance of “misdirected love.” For example, the sins of lust, gluttony, and greed (covetousness) are seen as instances of excessive love; sloth (related to despair) is associated with defective love; and anger, envy, and pride result from perverted love (love for self rather than for others). The deceptive character of evil is clear: It can hide itself behind even one of the classical Christian virtues, love.
Other examples of evil hiding deceptively behind something that in and of itself is good, or at least morally neutral, might include the following:
• using legitimate concerns or arguments about “quality of life” issues to hide the realities of euthanasia;
• using the language of personal privacy and choice to obscure the fact that abortion involves the destruction of life;
• the way “political figures and nation states arrogate to themselves Christian symbols to legitimate their unjust and oppressive practices such as apartheid, militarism, and imperialism—to which one could well add, in view of current events, racism and genocide.34
• the way business organizations use the abstract language of cost-benefit ratios and analysis to obscure the fact that what is really being discussed is a tradeoff between human lives and safety on the one hand and greater profits on the other. Confronted with specific human beings, we would almost certainly not deliberately choose to harm them. Yet repeatedly people have knowingly and consciously made decisions for the sake of economic gain that have resulted in injury or death for other people—decisions, for example, to sell cars known to have dangerous safety defects, to sell overseas pesticides banned at home because of their toxicity to humans, or to conceal evidence of a new drug’s harmful or fatal side-effects in order to win product approval and get it to the market. Evil, by turning people into abstractions, generalizations, and ratios, routinely deceives us into choosing courses of action that result in harm and even death for other human beings.35
One final consequence of the deceptive character of evil should be noted—the risk we run of overlooking what Hannah Arendt termed the “banality of evil.” By this she means the way in which so much evil is the consequence of ordinary but unthinking everyday human behavior. A central example involves the Holocaust. The world was rightly shocked by Nazi extermination of six million Jews, but what is nearly as shocking is how many ordinary citizens of Germany, France, and other countries unthinkingly contributed in one way or another to the programs that led to those deaths. The most common excuse? “I was just following orders.” To be sure, following orders is generally a good thing, but not when it is perverted by evil and used to bring about the deaths of other human beings.
By focusing on one of the grand masters of counterfeit and deception, the evil “man of lawlessness,” who will seek to deceive people by presenting himself as nothing less than an imitation Christ, Paul reminds us of the fundamentally counterfeit and deceptive character of all sin and evil. Though it attempts to present itself as the truth, it is not; it is a cunningly deceptive parasite, whose seeming delightfulness (2:12) leads not to life but to death. Truth and life are found only in the genuine Christ, the Lord Jesus. As we reflect, therefore, on the deceptiveness of evil, let us keep our focus on Jesus.
Preparation versus speculation. This topic was discussed earlier in connection with 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11; it arises here in view of point (4) above in the Bridging Contexts section. There I suggested that the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) for which we wait is not escape from persecution, but rather vindication and relief in the midst of persecution. This in turn suggests that as we look forward to the return of Jesus, we should not be speculating about the identity of the lawless one but instead should be preparing ourselves for the possibility that we might be called to endure affliction and suffering for the sake of the gospel.
Applying this point will require considerable pastoral sensitivity, for it touches on a much-disputed and highly controversial question about the future, specifically, the relationship of believers to the rebellion and turmoil unleashed by the “man of lawlessness.” According to one widely held belief, believers will be “caught up” or “raptured” to be with Jesus prior to the outbreak of the rebellion led by the man of lawlessness, and they will thus avoid the persecution and suffering associated with this event. On this “pretribulation rapture” view, while those who remain on earth experience the horrors associated with this time of tribulation, believers will be safely ensconced in heaven with their Lord, safe above the terrible turmoil and suffering.
One reason for the popularity of this view is the vision of the future it offers: escape from suffering and affliction. Indeed, it is not unusual to encounter people who acknowledge that they hold this view precisely because it offers a vision of safety and comfort. But we should hold to our beliefs not because we like them (or their implications), but because we are convinced they are biblical. If the interpretation of Paul’s teaching offered above is correct, believers will not be “gathered” to Jesus (2:1) until after the appearance of the man of lawlessness and the rebellion he leads. This means that believers, rather than anticipating escape from tribulation, should instead be preparing to endure it with perseverance and faith (see 1:4).
Because this point touches on a controversial question about the future, application of it requires an attitude of humility rather than dogmatism. At the same time, the circumstance that the view is controversial is no excuse to shy away from dealing with its implications. If Paul is warning believers to be prepared for persecution, as I believe he is, then we as interpreters have an obligation to point this out, regardless of the popularity (or lack thereof) of such a view.
A reason for hope in the face of oppression. In the discussion of 1 Thessalonians 2:17–3:8, I discussed how and where Christians around the world are facing persecution and affliction—and in some cases, martyrdom—for the sake of Jesus and the gospel. As C. A. Wanamaker puts it, the Thessalonians’ “experience of powerlessness and alienation in the face of pervasive evil within the socio-economic and political structures” of their day “is not unknown to many Christians today.”36 To all believers who find themselves in analogous situations, who find themselves so oppressed by systemic evil that there seems to be no way out, Paul offers in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 an important word of hope and encouragement: In the end, Jesus wins the battle against the forces of evil. No matter how dark the situation, in the long run Jesus will be triumphant.
This does not guarantee that we will live to see it. We may be like those Old Testament heroes described in Hebrews 11, who “were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance” (Heb. 11:13; cf. 11:39). But regardless of whether we live to see the victory or only “welcome it from a distance,” Paul assures us that it will come, and that those who remain faithful will share in their Lord’s triumph. Thus Paul encourages us to stand fast and faithful in the face of oppression, because in the end, Jesus wins.
Original Meaning
Paul’s Response: The Day Has Not Arrived (2:3–4)
WITH RESPECT TO this misunderstanding, Paul emphatically denies both its attribution to him (cf. 2:15, where he urges them to stand firm in what he had originally taught them, not some later misunderstanding of it) and its content: “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way” (2:3a; cf. Mark 13:5). Any claim that the Day of the Lord has arrived is false, he insists, because certain things that must happen first (before the Day comes) have not yet happened (and therefore the Day cannot have already arrived).6
These things that must happen first (which probably should be taken as components of a single complex event, but could be two sequential items) include (1) the occurrence of “the rebellion” (v. 3), and (2) the revealing (cf. vv. 6, 8) of “the man of lawlessness” (v. 3b). Paul takes it for granted (cf. v. 5) that his readers know what he means by “the rebellion [apostasia]” and says nothing further about it. The term could denote either political or religious rebellion; here the two ideas are likely combined, with the emphasis on the latter.7 Paul, like other New Testament writers (cf. Matt. 24:10–12; Mark 13:5; Luke 8:13; Jude 18), probably has in view a time of increasing wrongdoing and general opposition to God (cf. 2 Tim. 3:1–9).
The leader of this rebellion is described in 2:3b–4 by means of a series of parallel phrases. He is first of all a “man of lawlessness” (cf. Ps. 89:22 [LXX 88:23], lit., “son of lawlessness”). That is, this person is characterized by anomia (cf. 2:8), a word that describes willful opposition to God as well as a sinful condition (cf. 1 John 3:4).8 (Because of this opposition he is, whether he realizes it or not, a “son of destruction,” i.e., “doomed to destruction” [NIV],9 in the sense of 1:9; the idea is developed further in verse 8 below.) Paul further characterizes this individual as one who not only “opposes” God but also “exalts himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped” (2:4a; NRSV, “every so-called god or object of worship”; cf. Acts 17:23), a description that echoes Daniel 11:36–37.
The result (“so that”) and climax of this arrogant and audacious self-exaltation is the attempt by this person to usurp the very power and position of the one true God. This occurs when “he sets himself up in God’s temple” (lit., the naos, the sanctuary itself, the holiest part of the temple complex), a symbolic action that involves nothing less than “proclaiming himself to be God” (cf. Ezek. 28:2). Moreover, like the Lord Jesus himself, this man of lawlessness will have his own “revealing” (2:3, 6, 8) or “parousia” (2:9), a devilish imitation of the real thing. This suggests that he is nothing less than a rival messiah or antichrist (cf. 1 John 2:18).10
The identity of the “temple” in which the lawless one sets himself up is a matter of some debate. In view of the way Paul’s language echoes earlier attempts (some successful) to desecrate the sanctuary in Jerusalem,11 it may be that he meant the Jerusalem temple (destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70). Other suggestions include a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, the church (on the analogy of 1 Cor. 3:16–17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16), or a heavenly temple (cf. Ps. 11:4; Isa. 14:13–14; 66:1 [cited in Acts 7:49]; Mic. 1:2; Hab. 2:20; 1 Enoch 14:15–20; Heb. 8:1–2; 9:24).12 I. H. Marshall observes that Paul takes up a well-known motif that was derived from Ezekiel and Daniel and was given concrete illustration in previous desecrations of the Jerusalem temple (both actual and attempted), and that he uses this language metaphorically and typologically
to portray the character of the culminating manifestation of evil as an anti-theistic power which usurps the place of God in the world. No specific temple is in mind, but the motif of sitting in the temple and claiming to be God is used to express the opposition of evil to God.13
Bridging Contexts
A SUBJECT THAT Paul felt no need to write about in the first letter—when the Day of the Lord would occur (1 Thess. 5:1)—he does write about in the second letter. He does so because at least some members of the Thessalonians congregation had become persuaded that the Day had already arrived. In response, Paul basically says that is impossible because certain events that must first occur have not yet occurred, and thus the Day cannot have already arrived.
So far, so good. But at this point we begin to encounter difficulties, not so much because of what Paul said, but because of what he did not say. That is, in communicating with the Thessalonians, Paul took for granted information that both he and they already knew, and consequently he did not spell it out in his letter. No doubt his meaning was clear to his readers. But because he did not spell out certain critical details, his meaning is not clear to his later readers. The passage, therefore, presents a major obstacle: How does one bridge between the original meaning and contemporary significance when the original meaning at some points cannot be determined?
What we do know. Framing the question in this way (i.e., in terms of what we don’t know) may not be the most effective way to approach the task of bridging contexts. Rather than worry initially about the information we lack, it may be more productive first to focus on the information we do have and what we do know about the meaning of the passage, which is considerable.
(1) To begin with, even though we do not know the cause or source of the Thessalonians’ (mis)understanding of the Day of the Lord (nor, so it seems, did Paul; cf. 2:2), we do have a good idea of what the problem was: Apparently some of the Thessalonians thought that the “Day of the Lord” had already arrived. While unusual, this view is not without parallels today (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christ’s coming occurred on October 1, 1914, but that it was invisible rather than public and involved a change of location in heaven)—though in Christian circles, one is unlikely to encounter this view. Instead of arguments among Christians today about whether the Day of the Lord has already come, one is much more likely to encounter arguments about when it will come.
(2) Paul’s answer is relatively straightforward: The “day of the Lord” and “our being gathered to him” will not come until after certain other things happen. These things (which could be two sequential items, but more likely are components of a single complex event) are “the rebellion” and the revealing of “the man of lawlessness” (2:3). What is interesting about this answer is that in speaking to the Thessalonians’ uncertainty about whether the Day had come, Paul speaks directly to the question of when it will come. Thus even though the issue in Thessalonica is different from the dominant question today, Paul’s answer speaks to both.
(3) Although Paul says nothing more about the first item (the rebellion), he does say a fair amount about the character and activity (though not the identity) of the “man of lawlessness.” From the description given—a lawless individual doing the deceptive work of Satan, who not only opposes God but actually seeks to push God aside and exalt himself in God’s place—it is clear that Paul has in mind the same figure referred to in 1 John 2:18 as the “antichrist” and in Revelation 13 as the “beast.”21
Thus, to summarize the key elements in (2) and (3), Paul lays out a clear sequence of events. First comes the “rebellion” and the appearance of “the man of lawlessness,” and then the return (parousia) of the genuine Christ and the gathering up of believers to be with him.
For some readers, a number of questions may well arise at this point. For example, doesn’t what Paul says here contradict 1 Thessalonians 5:2, where he wrote that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night”? Not at all; Paul wrote that the Day of the Lord will “come like a thief” only for unbelievers (cf. 5:3). Believers, he writes, “are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief” (5:4).
But if the Antichrist comes before the Day of the Lord (i.e., the return of Christ), couldn’t someone simply add seven years (or three and a half years, depending on one’s perspective) to the date of Antichrist’s appearing and calculate the time when Christ will return? And would that not contradict Jesus’ statement (in Matt. 24:36//Mark 13:32) that “no one knows about that day or hour”? Not at all, because Jesus also stated that “for the sake of the elect,” the days of the great distress and tribulation following the appearance of Antichrist “will be shortened” (Matt. 24:21–22). By how much that time will be shortened no one knows; thus, no one will know the “day or hour” when Jesus will return.22
But what about the Rapture? Don’t the Scriptures teach that believers will be “caught up” before the outbreak of the Tribulation? No, not really. Admittedly, the view that Jesus could come at any moment to take up believers carry them to heaven prior to the Tribulation, and will then come again in judgment at the end of the Tribulation, is widely publicized and wildly popular. But apart from the embarrassment this creates by having two “second comings” (or, if you will, both a second and a third coming), Paul in both 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians links the “catching up” (1 Thess. 4:17) and the “gathering” (2 Thess. 2:1)—terms that for Paul are synonyms—as closely as possible to the coming of the Lord on the Day of the Lord (1 Thess. 4:16; 5:2; 2 Thess. 2:1–3). And since Paul explicitly says that the Day of the Lord will not occur until after the revealing of the Antichrist, it follows that the “catching up” or “Rapture” will not occur until after the revealing of the Antichrist. In short, first the appearance of the Antichrist, and only then the coming of the genuine Christ and the “catching up” of believers to be with him.23
(4) An important implication can be drawn from what Paul says here about the sequence of events: Believers ought to be prepared to experience persecution and distress for the sake of the gospel during the time of the rebellion and Antichrist’s appearing. Indeed, believers ought to be prepared to experience such things even before the appearance of the Antichrist, because, as Paul points out in 2:7, “the secret power of lawlessness is already at work.” This explains (at least in part) why Paul took it for granted that believers “would be persecuted” (1 Thess. 3:4)—a truth that the Thessalonians certainly were ready and able to confirm in light of their own experience. To put the matter a bit differently, the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) for which we wait is not, as some contend, a “rapture” or escape from persecution. Rather it is, as Titus 2:13 makes clear, “the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”—an appearing that will bring vindication and relief to God’s people in the midst of persecution (2 Thess. 1:5–10; 2:8).24
(5) The mention of vindication brings us to an important point Paul makes in this passage, one that is even clearer than what he says about the sequence and timing of events: in the end, Jesus wins (2:8). In the midst of all the details about the man of lawlessness and his activities, we must not miss what Paul says about the lawless one’s ultimate fate. Paul first hints at this in 2:3, where he describes him as a “man doomed to destruction,” and he states his point clearly in 2:8: Jesus will “overthrow” and “destroy” him. Despite his strenuous efforts to deceive and mislead, despite “counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders” of all sorts, despite his efforts to proclaim himself God over all, the man of lawlessness will eventually fail. The outcome of the struggle between Christ and Antichrist is certain beyond any shadow of doubt: in the end, Jesus wins!
(6) Repeating a point he had made in chapter 1, Paul again makes it clear that people are responsible for their own fate. For some readers the language Paul uses in 2:11 (“God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie”) is troubling and seems to raise questions about God’s fairness (e.g., if God sends the delusion, why are people held accountable for being deluded?). But even as in chapter 1 God’s judgment was a response to people’s refusal to obey the gospel (1:8), so here. Whatever action God takes is a response to people’s refusal to love the truth (2:10); his judgment falls upon those “who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness” (2:12).
Paul makes the same point in Romans 1. Those whom God “gives over” to their own sinful desires (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28) are those who have already “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (1:25; cf. 1:21, 23). In short, “whatever one may say about divine predestination, the lost carry the responsibility for their own perdition.”25
A pitfall to avoid. In view of what is clear or what we do know about this passage, the things we do not know (esp. the identity of the restraining influence and of the man of lawlessness) constitute not so much an obstacle as a temptation—to speculate about what we do not know. In one respect, this temptation to speculate, driven by our intense desire to know the identity of the man of lawlessness, is understandable; after all, curiosity is a powerful and well-known human characteristic. In other respects, however, there seem to be at least three problems associated with this temptation to speculate about the unknown.
(1) Such speculation distracts our attention from and obscures what we do know. It is all too easy to get so caught up in speculation about the identity of the Antichrist that one loses sight of the main points of the passage. One of the clearest points of the passage is the one discussed under (5) above: In the end, Jesus wins. In light of this, it is deeply ironic that some people get so caught up in speculation that they end up giving more attention to a doomed Antichrist than they do to the victorious Christ.
(2) Speculation on the identity of the Antichrist is, in my opinion, a waste of time, effort, and resources. The record of attempts to determine the identity of Antichrist is a long one, stretching back well over a millennium and a half. Likewise, the list of those confidently identified as Antichrist is a long one. It includes various Roman emperors, the leader of the Vandal invaders who sacked Rome, Mohammed, various popes, the papacy itself, Emperor Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX (each of whom viewed the other as the Antichrist), Martin Luther, King George II of England, Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III, each side in the American Civil War, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, the League of Nations, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, the United Nations, Khruschev, the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev (the birth mark on his forehead allegedly being the mark of the beast), King Juan Carlos of Spain, Pope John Paul II, Anwar Sadat, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, the New Age Movement, theologian Matthew Fox, Henry Kissenger, and former presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Wilson Reagan (six letters in each name = 666 [cf. Rev. 13:18], and Reagan recovered from a serious wound [13:3]).26
This sad history of the unsuccessful attempts to identify the Antichrist suggests that any attempts we might make will be no more successful. Surely we deceive ourselves if we think that we will be able to identify this master deceiver. Yet efforts persist, and in some quarters are even encouraged and welcomed. Most of the Christian bookstores I visit have far more shelf space devoted to the latest books and novels about the Antichrist and related topics than they do to discipleship, for example, or Christology or Bible study helps—a reflection, apparently, of reader interest and demand.
In view of the dismal record of failed attempts at identification, this persistent eagerness to read the latest speculation about the Antichrist reminds one a great deal of Paul’s prediction to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3–4 (using NIVILE):
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Surely there are better ways to invest our time, energy, and money (for there can be no doubt that there is big money to be made by speculating about Antichrist) than in a fruitless attempt to predict or to read about the identity of the Antichrist. “Church history is littered with incautious, self-confident but mistaken attempts to find in Paul’s text a reference to some contemporary person and event. Let this be a warning to us.”27
(3) Jacob W. Elias suggests a third problem with speculation about what we do not know, this one involving speculation about when Christ will return. Despite the explicit statement of Jesus that no one knows the day or the hour, people have persisted in efforts to determine the time of Christ’s coming (David Koresh of the Branch Davidians was only one of the more recent in a long line of date-setters). In persisting in this effort, however, Elias suggests that they run the risk of infringing on God’s authority. “Date-setting essentially constitutes a usurping of God’s role. God knows the future, we don’t…. Ironically, Paul and his co-workers depict the antagonist as usurping God’s authority.”28
A broader perspective. I. H. Marshall makes an important observation with regard to 2:12.
The effect of v. 12 is to generalise to some extent what Paul has been saying. We do not have to wait until the point when we can, as it were, identify the arrival of the final climax of evil in order to see the outworking of the divine process of judgment. It is true at all times that sin consists in delighting in what is wrong…. It follows that the primary significance of the passage is not that we should be trying to calculate whether or not the End is near but that we should be concerned about the moral and spiritual issues which are involved.29
In other words, Paul’s final generalizing comment returns the focus from the future to the present: Our fate then will be determined by how we respond to the truth of the gospel now. Thus Paul reinforces a point already made in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 and 5:1–11: Knowledge of the future ought to shape and influence how we live in the present.
Contemporary Significance
AS IN THE case of chapter 1, what one covers in applying this section of the text depends to some extent on whether 2 Thessalonians is being studied independently of or in sequence with 1 Thessalonians. For example, if 2 Thessalonians is being studied independently, it will probably be necessary to cover in some detail what Paul takes for granted in 2:1–3 regarding the return (parousia) of Jesus and the gathering of believers to him (for details see the discussions of 1 Thess. 4:13–18; 5:1–11).
If, however, 2 Thessalonians is being treated after 1 Thessalonians, then one might move directly to more distinctive aspects of this passage, two of which I would like to highlight. It offers an opportunity (1) to emphasize the importance of focusing on Jesus, and (2) to reflect on the deceptive character of evil. In addition, (3) the passage provides an opportunity to revisit the question of preparation versus speculation and (4) offers an important word of encouragement in the midst of turmoil: In the end, Jesus wins. (For the importance of holding firm to the apostolic testimony and teaching, a point that arises out of 2:5, see comments on 2:15.)
Keep the focus on Jesus! In 1933, as the storm clouds of war gathered and speculation about Antichrist rose accordingly, Arno Gaebelein, the noted evangelical leader and editor of Our Hope magazine, wrote:
The Editor has no use for day-and-year-setters, nor has he any use for figuring out the duration of the times of the Gentiles, nor has he any sympathy with men who prophesy that Mussolini, Hitler, Feisal or any other person is the Antichrist. It is a morbid condition which seems to suit certain minds. We wonder whom they will name next. At any rate why should a Christian have any interest at all in that coming man of sin? We have nothing to do with that lawless one. Our interest must be in Christ and not in Antichrist.30
Today, decades later, at a time when interest in and speculation about Antichrist is, if anything, even more intense—a time when well-known Christian leaders are writing novels whose main character is Antichrist—Gaebelein’s words are no less timely, especially his final sentence: “Our interest must be in Christ and not in Antichrist.”
Second Thessalonians 2 is the only passage in all his letters where Paul discusses the “man of lawlessness,” and he does so here only because the extraordinary circumstances in Thessalonica required him to do so. Furthermore, even as he discusses this figure, he leaves no doubt about his ultimate fate: He will be defeated by the Lord Jesus himself (2:8). Moreover, his discussion is bounded on either side by prayer or thanksgiving reports (1:11–12; 2:13–14) that focus on Jesus. The pattern Paul models here—he keeps his primary focus on Jesus and speaks of Antichrist no more than he has to—is a pattern we would do well to follow. When novels about Antichrist outsell books about Jesus, it seems to me that there is something seriously out of balance. Christ our Savior, not Antichrist his antagonist, deserves our attention.
The manner in which Paul emphasizes in 2:10–12 the importance of truth reinforces the importance of focusing on Jesus. Paul describes those perishing as those who refused to love or to believe “the truth.” In this context, “the truth” is virtually a synonym for the gospel. And who is its focus? Jesus, of course. Moreover, Jesus himself is the truth (John 14:6; cf. Eph. 4:21). In other words, to love or believe in the truth is to love or believe in Jesus. Since our response to the truth that is, to Jesus—determines, as Paul here makes clear, our ultimate destiny, we have all the more reason to focus on Jesus, the true Christ, and not on his antagonist, the Antichrist.
The familiar little song by Helen H. Lemmel, “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus,” expresses clearly what we need to do:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
If we turn our eyes upon Jesus, “the things of earth”—including speculation about the identity of the Antichrist—“will grow strangely dim” in comparison to the light of Jesus’ glory and grace, the very things Paul emphasizes in 1:12 and 2:14. As Gaebelein emphasized, our focus needs to be on Jesus.
The deceptiveness of evil. From Paul’s description of the character and activities of the “man of lawlessness,” it is clear that he is describing nothing less than a counterfeit christ. This counterfeit christ—“Antichrist,” to use the more common terminology—seeks, by means of his own parousia (“coming”), counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders (2:9), and declarations that he is divine (2:4), to deceive people into believing that he is the genuine Christ. (He is not, of course; his activities are “in accordance with the work of Satan” [2:9], not God.)
The effectiveness of a counterfeit depends, of course, on how closely it approximates that which it is imitating. A counterfeit $100 bill produced on a black and white copier will likely not fool anyone. But it is possible (or at least was, until the introduction of new safeguards in the late 1990s), using the right tools and equipment, to produce counterfeit $100 bills good enough to fool even experts on occasion. A good counterfeit so closely imitates the real thing that it is able to deceive us into thinking it is the real thing. This is how the “man of lawlessness” will work his destruction: He will so closely counterfeit the coming, power, and character of the Lord Jesus Christ that people will be duped into thinking he is the real thing. As Stott observes, “the coming of Antichrist will be such a clever parody of the coming of Christ that many will be taken in by the satanic deception.”31
Paul’s description of this satanic antagonist as a “counterfeit christ” (rather than as Antichrist) invites us to reflect on an important characteristic of evil: It is inherently and fundamentally deceptive. The effectiveness of evil has much to do with how it presents itself: not so much as the polar opposite of something good, but as a clever counterfeit of it. I suspect that most of us would like to think that if we were openly confronted by Satan and invited to become partners in evil, we would unquestionably reject the offer and inform him in no uncertain terms where he should go. But in view of the evil perpetrated by Christians in the world today, it is clear that we are not rejecting the devil’s invitations to become partners in evil. Why not? Perhaps because they most often come not as clear invitations to do evil, but as camouflaged invitations to do something that appears to be good, but really isn’t.32 If “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14), we should not be surprised if invitations to do evil are similarly masked.
How does evil mask itself? One way is by counterfeiting the good, the real, the genuine. As Cornelius Plantinga Jr. perceptively observes, when at the movies (or, frighteningly, sometimes in real life) we
cheer for fleeing bank robbers, we do not focus on any of the damage, disturbance, or offense. We notice only those features that sin has pirated from goodness—energy, imagination, persistence, and creativity. Everything sin touches begins to die, but we do not focus on that. We see only the vitality of the parasite, glowing with stolen life.33
Instead of going for the real thing, we are deceived by the counterfeit, the parasite that imitates it.
The classical “seven deadly sins” offer another example of how evil masks itself. One well-known analysis views each one as an instance of “misdirected love.” For example, the sins of lust, gluttony, and greed (covetousness) are seen as instances of excessive love; sloth (related to despair) is associated with defective love; and anger, envy, and pride result from perverted love (love for self rather than for others). The deceptive character of evil is clear: It can hide itself behind even one of the classical Christian virtues, love.
Other examples of evil hiding deceptively behind something that in and of itself is good, or at least morally neutral, might include the following:
• using legitimate concerns or arguments about “quality of life” issues to hide the realities of euthanasia;
• using the language of personal privacy and choice to obscure the fact that abortion involves the destruction of life;
• the way “political figures and nation states arrogate to themselves Christian symbols to legitimate their unjust and oppressive practices such as apartheid, militarism, and imperialism—to which one could well add, in view of current events, racism and genocide.34
• the way business organizations use the abstract language of cost-benefit ratios and analysis to obscure the fact that what is really being discussed is a tradeoff between human lives and safety on the one hand and greater profits on the other. Confronted with specific human beings, we would almost certainly not deliberately choose to harm them. Yet repeatedly people have knowingly and consciously made decisions for the sake of economic gain that have resulted in injury or death for other people—decisions, for example, to sell cars known to have dangerous safety defects, to sell overseas pesticides banned at home because of their toxicity to humans, or to conceal evidence of a new drug’s harmful or fatal side-effects in order to win product approval and get it to the market. Evil, by turning people into abstractions, generalizations, and ratios, routinely deceives us into choosing courses of action that result in harm and even death for other human beings.35
One final consequence of the deceptive character of evil should be noted—the risk we run of overlooking what Hannah Arendt termed the “banality of evil.” By this she means the way in which so much evil is the consequence of ordinary but unthinking everyday human behavior. A central example involves the Holocaust. The world was rightly shocked by Nazi extermination of six million Jews, but what is nearly as shocking is how many ordinary citizens of Germany, France, and other countries unthinkingly contributed in one way or another to the programs that led to those deaths. The most common excuse? “I was just following orders.” To be sure, following orders is generally a good thing, but not when it is perverted by evil and used to bring about the deaths of other human beings.
By focusing on one of the grand masters of counterfeit and deception, the evil “man of lawlessness,” who will seek to deceive people by presenting himself as nothing less than an imitation Christ, Paul reminds us of the fundamentally counterfeit and deceptive character of all sin and evil. Though it attempts to present itself as the truth, it is not; it is a cunningly deceptive parasite, whose seeming delightfulness (2:12) leads not to life but to death. Truth and life are found only in the genuine Christ, the Lord Jesus. As we reflect, therefore, on the deceptiveness of evil, let us keep our focus on Jesus.
Preparation versus speculation. This topic was discussed earlier in connection with 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11; it arises here in view of point (4) above in the Bridging Contexts section. There I suggested that the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) for which we wait is not escape from persecution, but rather vindication and relief in the midst of persecution. This in turn suggests that as we look forward to the return of Jesus, we should not be speculating about the identity of the lawless one but instead should be preparing ourselves for the possibility that we might be called to endure affliction and suffering for the sake of the gospel.
Applying this point will require considerable pastoral sensitivity, for it touches on a much-disputed and highly controversial question about the future, specifically, the relationship of believers to the rebellion and turmoil unleashed by the “man of lawlessness.” According to one widely held belief, believers will be “caught up” or “raptured” to be with Jesus prior to the outbreak of the rebellion led by the man of lawlessness, and they will thus avoid the persecution and suffering associated with this event. On this “pretribulation rapture” view, while those who remain on earth experience the horrors associated with this time of tribulation, believers will be safely ensconced in heaven with their Lord, safe above the terrible turmoil and suffering.
One reason for the popularity of this view is the vision of the future it offers: escape from suffering and affliction. Indeed, it is not unusual to encounter people who acknowledge that they hold this view precisely because it offers a vision of safety and comfort. But we should hold to our beliefs not because we like them (or their implications), but because we are convinced they are biblical. If the interpretation of Paul’s teaching offered above is correct, believers will not be “gathered” to Jesus (2:1) until after the appearance of the man of lawlessness and the rebellion he leads. This means that believers, rather than anticipating escape from tribulation, should instead be preparing to endure it with perseverance and faith (see 1:4).
Because this point touches on a controversial question about the future, application of it requires an attitude of humility rather than dogmatism. At the same time, the circumstance that the view is controversial is no excuse to shy away from dealing with its implications. If Paul is warning believers to be prepared for persecution, as I believe he is, then we as interpreters have an obligation to point this out, regardless of the popularity (or lack thereof) of such a view.
A reason for hope in the face of oppression. In the discussion of 1 Thessalonians 2:17–3:8, I discussed how and where Christians around the world are facing persecution and affliction—and in some cases, martyrdom—for the sake of Jesus and the gospel. As C. A. Wanamaker puts it, the Thessalonians’ “experience of powerlessness and alienation in the face of pervasive evil within the socio-economic and political structures” of their day “is not unknown to many Christians today.”36 To all believers who find themselves in analogous situations, who find themselves so oppressed by systemic evil that there seems to be no way out, Paul offers in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 an important word of hope and encouragement: In the end, Jesus wins the battle against the forces of evil. No matter how dark the situation, in the long run Jesus will be triumphant.
This does not guarantee that we will live to see it. We may be like those Old Testament heroes described in Hebrews 11, who “were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance” (Heb. 11:13; cf. 11:39). But regardless of whether we live to see the victory or only “welcome it from a distance,” Paul assures us that it will come, and that those who remain faithful will share in their Lord’s triumph. Thus Paul encourages us to stand fast and faithful in the face of oppression, because in the end, Jesus wins.
Original Meaning
Additional Information About the “Man of Lawlessness” (2:5–12)
ONE REASON FOR some of the uncertainty regarding 2:4 is that Paul takes for granted that the Thessalonians know what he is talking about. As 2:5 indicates, he had taught them about this matter previously. Clearly, then, he felt no need to repeat the details of what he is reminding them about. As a consequence, however, later readers are left in the dark regarding some aspects of what he writes. This is even more evident in what follows. Having discussed briefly in 2:3b–4 the “man of lawlessness” who must be “revealed” before the coming of the Day of the Lord, Paul alludes in 2:6–8 to what is “holding … back” or “restraining” (NRSV) his appearing until “the proper time” (lit., “his time”). But he only alludes to this, since the Thessalonians already know what he is talking about. As a result, 2:6–8a are among the most difficult in the Pauline corpus.
The basic structure of what Paul says in these verses is clear enough: (1) “The secret power of lawlessness [lit., the mystery of lawlessness] is already at work” (2:7a), but (2) it is operating in a manner that is somehow restrained or held back (2:6, 7b). (3) At some future time, however, “the lawless one [= ‘the man of lawlessness’ of 2:3] will be revealed” (2:8a; cf. 2:3, 6) or have his own “coming” (i.e., parousia, 2:9), at which point (4) he will be overthrown and destroyed by the far greater power and splendor of the Lord’s own parousia (2:8b). In 2:7 Paul confirms that evil is currently at work in the world (as evidenced, e.g., by the persecutions the Thessalonians are experiencing) and is satanic in origin (2:9),14 but it is nonetheless in some way limited or hindered. Here we come to a difficult question, that of the identity and/or character of the restraint that is currently keeping the “secret power of lawlessness” in check.
Paul first refers to this restraining influence in 2:6 as to katechon (a neuter participle meaning “that which restrains”) and then in 2:7 as ho katechōn (a masculine participle meaning “the one who restrains”). What or who did Paul have in mind that he could refer to it in both impersonal and personal terms? Suggestions range widely, as is evident from the following list:15
(1) the Roman empire as personified in the emperor;
(2) the principle of law and order (personified in v. 7);
(3) the Jewish state;
(4a) Satan;
(4b) a force and person hostile to God (taking the verb in the sense of “possess, occupy,” or “hold sway”);
(5a) God and his power;
(5b) the Holy Spirit;
(6) the proclamation of the gospel (the neuter participle) by Christian missionaries, especially Paul himself (the masculine participle);
(7) an angelic figure restraining evil until the gospel has been preached to all nations (cf. Mark 13:10).16
Despite a few proposals to the contrary, there is a general consensus that the restraining influence must be a force for good rather than evil, a conclusion that eliminates suggestions like (4a) or (4b). None of the other suggestions, however, have convinced more than a minority of scholars, and none is free from difficulties. In short, as Augustine observed,
[Paul] was unwilling to make an explicit statement, because he said that they [the Thessalonians] knew [what he was referring to]. And thus we, who don’t know what they knew, desire to understand what the apostle referred to, but even with hard work are not able, especially as his meaning is made still more obscure by what he adds [i.e., vv. 7–8a].17
In such circumstances, it is difficult to avoid Augustine’s conclusion: “I frankly confess I do not know what he means.”
Once the restraining influence (whatever or whoever it is) “is taken out of the way” (2:7), “then [Gk. tote, which has a clearly temporal force here] the lawless one will be revealed” (2:8a; cf. 2:3, 6). That is, he will have his parousia (2:9). No longer working in secret (cf. 2:7), this one whose activity is in accord with “the work of Satan” will openly manifest himself by means of “all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives” (2:9–10a). The parallel with the coming of Jesus is obvious; this is nothing less than the “anti-Parousia” of the Antichrist, an evil parody of the true coming of the genuine Christ, the Lord Jesus.
The combination of miracles and signs and wonders as the work of God is common in both Testaments (e.g., Ex. 7:3; Isa. 8:18; Jer. 32:20–21; John 4:48; Acts 2:43; 6:8; 15:12; 2 Cor. 12:12; Heb. 2:4); for their association with false messiahs and prophets see Matt. 24:24//Mark 13:22 (cf. also Rev. 13:13–14; 16:14; 19:20). The real thing Paul attributes to the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:19), whereas these he just as clearly attributes to Satan. If “counterfeit” describes the character of the lawless one’s actions, then the following phrase (2:10a, “evil that deceives”) indicates their effect (cf. Mark 13:22; Rev. 13:13–14).
Though the parousia of the lawless one may be both grand (the terminology evokes the pageantry, pomp, and circumstance attending the arrival of the emperor) and cunningly deceptive, it will nonetheless be short-lived, for he is “the man doomed to destruction” (2:3b), “whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming” (2:8b).18 This imagery recalls Isaiah 11:4 (cf. 30:27–28; 66:15–16a; Mal. 4:1), while the two verbs emphasize both the destruction of the evil one and especially the shattering of his power (cf. 1 Cor. 15:24, 26; also Rev. 19:11–21). The phrase “splendor of his coming” is composed of two nouns, epiphaneia (“appearing”; cf. 1 Tim. 6:14; 2 Tim. 4:1, 8; Titus 2:13) and parousia (“coming”), which have the same basic meaning. Together they suggest (esp. in view of epiphaneia) the suddenness or unexpectedness of Jesus’ coming (cf. 1 Thess. 5:2–3) and its overwhelming greatness and glory (cf. Acts 2:20) in comparison to its counterfeit imitation. Moreover, in some contexts epiphaneia means “dawn” or “daybreak,” a nuance particularly appropriate in view of its association here with the “day of the Lord.”
The counterfeit signs and wonders of the lawless one (2:9) exercise their deceptive effect on “those who are perishing” (2:10; cf. 1 Cor. 1:18; 2 Cor. 2:15; 4:3), a group (in contrast to those who are being saved) clearly not part of the community of faith. They are perishing specifically “because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2:10); that is, their fate is a consequence of their own choice. As I. H. Marshall observes, “Whatever one may say about divine predestination, the lost carry the responsibility for their own perdition.”19 When presented with an opportunity to “receive the love of the truth” (NASB; the unusual form of the phrase “love of the truth” probably reflects an intended contrast to the “deception of wickedness” in 2:10a) and thereby experience salvation, these people instead rejected it (cf. 1:8). As Paul puts it emphatically in 2:12b, when they could have “believed the truth,” they instead “delighted in wickedness” (cf. John 3:19; Rom. 2:8).
Verses 11–12a discuss the consequence (not the cause) of this choice: “For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie [i.e., the counterfeit parousia of the lawless one, cf. 2:9] and so that all will be condemned.” (For what condemnation involves, see the discussion of 1:9.) The basic idea here is similar to that expressed in Romans 1:18–32 (especially vv. 23–28): God’s actions are a response to, not the cause of, their actions.
An implication of 2:10 is that the saved will not be deceived by the false wonders.20 This implication functions as an exhortation to remain faithful: Those who do “love the truth” should not be deceived by the counterfeit miracles and wonders.
To recapitulate: verses 1–2 introduce the general topic (the coming of the Lord) and Paul’s particular concern (that the Thessalonians had become unsettled by rumors that the event has already happened). Verses 3–4 present Paul’s emphatic response: the Day of the Lord cannot have yet occurred because the “man of lawlessness” (whose appearance precedes the Parousia of the Lord) has not yet been revealed. The balance of the passage (vv. 5–12) provides further information about this satanic figure, including his inevitable destruction, along with those whom he has deceived, by the Lord Jesus.
Bridging Contexts
A SUBJECT THAT Paul felt no need to write about in the first letter—when the Day of the Lord would occur (1 Thess. 5:1)—he does write about in the second letter. He does so because at least some members of the Thessalonians congregation had become persuaded that the Day had already arrived. In response, Paul basically says that is impossible because certain events that must first occur have not yet occurred, and thus the Day cannot have already arrived.
So far, so good. But at this point we begin to encounter difficulties, not so much because of what Paul said, but because of what he did not say. That is, in communicating with the Thessalonians, Paul took for granted information that both he and they already knew, and consequently he did not spell it out in his letter. No doubt his meaning was clear to his readers. But because he did not spell out certain critical details, his meaning is not clear to his later readers. The passage, therefore, presents a major obstacle: How does one bridge between the original meaning and contemporary significance when the original meaning at some points cannot be determined?
What we do know. Framing the question in this way (i.e., in terms of what we don’t know) may not be the most effective way to approach the task of bridging contexts. Rather than worry initially about the information we lack, it may be more productive first to focus on the information we do have and what we do know about the meaning of the passage, which is considerable.
(1) To begin with, even though we do not know the cause or source of the Thessalonians’ (mis)understanding of the Day of the Lord (nor, so it seems, did Paul; cf. 2:2), we do have a good idea of what the problem was: Apparently some of the Thessalonians thought that the “Day of the Lord” had already arrived. While unusual, this view is not without parallels today (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christ’s coming occurred on October 1, 1914, but that it was invisible rather than public and involved a change of location in heaven)—though in Christian circles, one is unlikely to encounter this view. Instead of arguments among Christians today about whether the Day of the Lord has already come, one is much more likely to encounter arguments about when it will come.
(2) Paul’s answer is relatively straightforward: The “day of the Lord” and “our being gathered to him” will not come until after certain other things happen. These things (which could be two sequential items, but more likely are components of a single complex event) are “the rebellion” and the revealing of “the man of lawlessness” (2:3). What is interesting about this answer is that in speaking to the Thessalonians’ uncertainty about whether the Day had come, Paul speaks directly to the question of when it will come. Thus even though the issue in Thessalonica is different from the dominant question today, Paul’s answer speaks to both.
(3) Although Paul says nothing more about the first item (the rebellion), he does say a fair amount about the character and activity (though not the identity) of the “man of lawlessness.” From the description given—a lawless individual doing the deceptive work of Satan, who not only opposes God but actually seeks to push God aside and exalt himself in God’s place—it is clear that Paul has in mind the same figure referred to in 1 John 2:18 as the “antichrist” and in Revelation 13 as the “beast.”21
Thus, to summarize the key elements in (2) and (3), Paul lays out a clear sequence of events. First comes the “rebellion” and the appearance of “the man of lawlessness,” and then the return (parousia) of the genuine Christ and the gathering up of believers to be with him.
For some readers, a number of questions may well arise at this point. For example, doesn’t what Paul says here contradict 1 Thessalonians 5:2, where he wrote that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night”? Not at all; Paul wrote that the Day of the Lord will “come like a thief” only for unbelievers (cf. 5:3). Believers, he writes, “are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief” (5:4).
But if the Antichrist comes before the Day of the Lord (i.e., the return of Christ), couldn’t someone simply add seven years (or three and a half years, depending on one’s perspective) to the date of Antichrist’s appearing and calculate the time when Christ will return? And would that not contradict Jesus’ statement (in Matt. 24:36//Mark 13:32) that “no one knows about that day or hour”? Not at all, because Jesus also stated that “for the sake of the elect,” the days of the great distress and tribulation following the appearance of Antichrist “will be shortened” (Matt. 24:21–22). By how much that time will be shortened no one knows; thus, no one will know the “day or hour” when Jesus will return.22
But what about the Rapture? Don’t the Scriptures teach that believers will be “caught up” before the outbreak of the Tribulation? No, not really. Admittedly, the view that Jesus could come at any moment to take up believers carry them to heaven prior to the Tribulation, and will then come again in judgment at the end of the Tribulation, is widely publicized and wildly popular. But apart from the embarrassment this creates by having two “second comings” (or, if you will, both a second and a third coming), Paul in both 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians links the “catching up” (1 Thess. 4:17) and the “gathering” (2 Thess. 2:1)—terms that for Paul are synonyms—as closely as possible to the coming of the Lord on the Day of the Lord (1 Thess. 4:16; 5:2; 2 Thess. 2:1–3). And since Paul explicitly says that the Day of the Lord will not occur until after the revealing of the Antichrist, it follows that the “catching up” or “Rapture” will not occur until after the revealing of the Antichrist. In short, first the appearance of the Antichrist, and only then the coming of the genuine Christ and the “catching up” of believers to be with him.23
(4) An important implication can be drawn from what Paul says here about the sequence of events: Believers ought to be prepared to experience persecution and distress for the sake of the gospel during the time of the rebellion and Antichrist’s appearing. Indeed, believers ought to be prepared to experience such things even before the appearance of the Antichrist, because, as Paul points out in 2:7, “the secret power of lawlessness is already at work.” This explains (at least in part) why Paul took it for granted that believers “would be persecuted” (1 Thess. 3:4)—a truth that the Thessalonians certainly were ready and able to confirm in light of their own experience. To put the matter a bit differently, the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) for which we wait is not, as some contend, a “rapture” or escape from persecution. Rather it is, as Titus 2:13 makes clear, “the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”—an appearing that will bring vindication and relief to God’s people in the midst of persecution (2 Thess. 1:5–10; 2:8).24
(5) The mention of vindication brings us to an important point Paul makes in this passage, one that is even clearer than what he says about the sequence and timing of events: in the end, Jesus wins (2:8). In the midst of all the details about the man of lawlessness and his activities, we must not miss what Paul says about the lawless one’s ultimate fate. Paul first hints at this in 2:3, where he describes him as a “man doomed to destruction,” and he states his point clearly in 2:8: Jesus will “overthrow” and “destroy” him. Despite his strenuous efforts to deceive and mislead, despite “counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders” of all sorts, despite his efforts to proclaim himself God over all, the man of lawlessness will eventually fail. The outcome of the struggle between Christ and Antichrist is certain beyond any shadow of doubt: in the end, Jesus wins!
(6) Repeating a point he had made in chapter 1, Paul again makes it clear that people are responsible for their own fate. For some readers the language Paul uses in 2:11 (“God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie”) is troubling and seems to raise questions about God’s fairness (e.g., if God sends the delusion, why are people held accountable for being deluded?). But even as in chapter 1 God’s judgment was a response to people’s refusal to obey the gospel (1:8), so here. Whatever action God takes is a response to people’s refusal to love the truth (2:10); his judgment falls upon those “who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness” (2:12).
Paul makes the same point in Romans 1. Those whom God “gives over” to their own sinful desires (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28) are those who have already “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (1:25; cf. 1:21, 23). In short, “whatever one may say about divine predestination, the lost carry the responsibility for their own perdition.”25
A pitfall to avoid. In view of what is clear or what we do know about this passage, the things we do not know (esp. the identity of the restraining influence and of the man of lawlessness) constitute not so much an obstacle as a temptation—to speculate about what we do not know. In one respect, this temptation to speculate, driven by our intense desire to know the identity of the man of lawlessness, is understandable; after all, curiosity is a powerful and well-known human characteristic. In other respects, however, there seem to be at least three problems associated with this temptation to speculate about the unknown.
(1) Such speculation distracts our attention from and obscures what we do know. It is all too easy to get so caught up in speculation about the identity of the Antichrist that one loses sight of the main points of the passage. One of the clearest points of the passage is the one discussed under (5) above: In the end, Jesus wins. In light of this, it is deeply ironic that some people get so caught up in speculation that they end up giving more attention to a doomed Antichrist than they do to the victorious Christ.
(2) Speculation on the identity of the Antichrist is, in my opinion, a waste of time, effort, and resources. The record of attempts to determine the identity of Antichrist is a long one, stretching back well over a millennium and a half. Likewise, the list of those confidently identified as Antichrist is a long one. It includes various Roman emperors, the leader of the Vandal invaders who sacked Rome, Mohammed, various popes, the papacy itself, Emperor Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX (each of whom viewed the other as the Antichrist), Martin Luther, King George II of England, Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III, each side in the American Civil War, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, the League of Nations, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, the United Nations, Khruschev, the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev (the birth mark on his forehead allegedly being the mark of the beast), King Juan Carlos of Spain, Pope John Paul II, Anwar Sadat, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, the New Age Movement, theologian Matthew Fox, Henry Kissenger, and former presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Wilson Reagan (six letters in each name = 666 [cf. Rev. 13:18], and Reagan recovered from a serious wound [13:3]).26
This sad history of the unsuccessful attempts to identify the Antichrist suggests that any attempts we might make will be no more successful. Surely we deceive ourselves if we think that we will be able to identify this master deceiver. Yet efforts persist, and in some quarters are even encouraged and welcomed. Most of the Christian bookstores I visit have far more shelf space devoted to the latest books and novels about the Antichrist and related topics than they do to discipleship, for example, or Christology or Bible study helps—a reflection, apparently, of reader interest and demand.
In view of the dismal record of failed attempts at identification, this persistent eagerness to read the latest speculation about the Antichrist reminds one a great deal of Paul’s prediction to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3–4 (using NIVILE):
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Surely there are better ways to invest our time, energy, and money (for there can be no doubt that there is big money to be made by speculating about Antichrist) than in a fruitless attempt to predict or to read about the identity of the Antichrist. “Church history is littered with incautious, self-confident but mistaken attempts to find in Paul’s text a reference to some contemporary person and event. Let this be a warning to us.”27
(3) Jacob W. Elias suggests a third problem with speculation about what we do not know, this one involving speculation about when Christ will return. Despite the explicit statement of Jesus that no one knows the day or the hour, people have persisted in efforts to determine the time of Christ’s coming (David Koresh of the Branch Davidians was only one of the more recent in a long line of date-setters). In persisting in this effort, however, Elias suggests that they run the risk of infringing on God’s authority. “Date-setting essentially constitutes a usurping of God’s role. God knows the future, we don’t…. Ironically, Paul and his co-workers depict the antagonist as usurping God’s authority.”28
A broader perspective. I. H. Marshall makes an important observation with regard to 2:12.
The effect of v. 12 is to generalise to some extent what Paul has been saying. We do not have to wait until the point when we can, as it were, identify the arrival of the final climax of evil in order to see the outworking of the divine process of judgment. It is true at all times that sin consists in delighting in what is wrong…. It follows that the primary significance of the passage is not that we should be trying to calculate whether or not the End is near but that we should be concerned about the moral and spiritual issues which are involved.29
In other words, Paul’s final generalizing comment returns the focus from the future to the present: Our fate then will be determined by how we respond to the truth of the gospel now. Thus Paul reinforces a point already made in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 and 5:1–11: Knowledge of the future ought to shape and influence how we live in the present.
Contemporary Significance
AS IN THE case of chapter 1, what one covers in applying this section of the text depends to some extent on whether 2 Thessalonians is being studied independently of or in sequence with 1 Thessalonians. For example, if 2 Thessalonians is being studied independently, it will probably be necessary to cover in some detail what Paul takes for granted in 2:1–3 regarding the return (parousia) of Jesus and the gathering of believers to him (for details see the discussions of 1 Thess. 4:13–18; 5:1–11).
If, however, 2 Thessalonians is being treated after 1 Thessalonians, then one might move directly to more distinctive aspects of this passage, two of which I would like to highlight. It offers an opportunity (1) to emphasize the importance of focusing on Jesus, and (2) to reflect on the deceptive character of evil. In addition, (3) the passage provides an opportunity to revisit the question of preparation versus speculation and (4) offers an important word of encouragement in the midst of turmoil: In the end, Jesus wins. (For the importance of holding firm to the apostolic testimony and teaching, a point that arises out of 2:5, see comments on 2:15.)
Keep the focus on Jesus! In 1933, as the storm clouds of war gathered and speculation about Antichrist rose accordingly, Arno Gaebelein, the noted evangelical leader and editor of Our Hope magazine, wrote:
The Editor has no use for day-and-year-setters, nor has he any use for figuring out the duration of the times of the Gentiles, nor has he any sympathy with men who prophesy that Mussolini, Hitler, Feisal or any other person is the Antichrist. It is a morbid condition which seems to suit certain minds. We wonder whom they will name next. At any rate why should a Christian have any interest at all in that coming man of sin? We have nothing to do with that lawless one. Our interest must be in Christ and not in Antichrist.30
Today, decades later, at a time when interest in and speculation about Antichrist is, if anything, even more intense—a time when well-known Christian leaders are writing novels whose main character is Antichrist—Gaebelein’s words are no less timely, especially his final sentence: “Our interest must be in Christ and not in Antichrist.”
Second Thessalonians 2 is the only passage in all his letters where Paul discusses the “man of lawlessness,” and he does so here only because the extraordinary circumstances in Thessalonica required him to do so. Furthermore, even as he discusses this figure, he leaves no doubt about his ultimate fate: He will be defeated by the Lord Jesus himself (2:8). Moreover, his discussion is bounded on either side by prayer or thanksgiving reports (1:11–12; 2:13–14) that focus on Jesus. The pattern Paul models here—he keeps his primary focus on Jesus and speaks of Antichrist no more than he has to—is a pattern we would do well to follow. When novels about Antichrist outsell books about Jesus, it seems to me that there is something seriously out of balance. Christ our Savior, not Antichrist his antagonist, deserves our attention.
The manner in which Paul emphasizes in 2:10–12 the importance of truth reinforces the importance of focusing on Jesus. Paul describes those perishing as those who refused to love or to believe “the truth.” In this context, “the truth” is virtually a synonym for the gospel. And who is its focus? Jesus, of course. Moreover, Jesus himself is the truth (John 14:6; cf. Eph. 4:21). In other words, to love or believe in the truth is to love or believe in Jesus. Since our response to the truth that is, to Jesus—determines, as Paul here makes clear, our ultimate destiny, we have all the more reason to focus on Jesus, the true Christ, and not on his antagonist, the Antichrist.
The familiar little song by Helen H. Lemmel, “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus,” expresses clearly what we need to do:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
If we turn our eyes upon Jesus, “the things of earth”—including speculation about the identity of the Antichrist—“will grow strangely dim” in comparison to the light of Jesus’ glory and grace, the very things Paul emphasizes in 1:12 and 2:14. As Gaebelein emphasized, our focus needs to be on Jesus.
The deceptiveness of evil. From Paul’s description of the character and activities of the “man of lawlessness,” it is clear that he is describing nothing less than a counterfeit christ. This counterfeit christ—“Antichrist,” to use the more common terminology—seeks, by means of his own parousia (“coming”), counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders (2:9), and declarations that he is divine (2:4), to deceive people into believing that he is the genuine Christ. (He is not, of course; his activities are “in accordance with the work of Satan” [2:9], not God.)
The effectiveness of a counterfeit depends, of course, on how closely it approximates that which it is imitating. A counterfeit $100 bill produced on a black and white copier will likely not fool anyone. But it is possible (or at least was, until the introduction of new safeguards in the late 1990s), using the right tools and equipment, to produce counterfeit $100 bills good enough to fool even experts on occasion. A good counterfeit so closely imitates the real thing that it is able to deceive us into thinking it is the real thing. This is how the “man of lawlessness” will work his destruction: He will so closely counterfeit the coming, power, and character of the Lord Jesus Christ that people will be duped into thinking he is the real thing. As Stott observes, “the coming of Antichrist will be such a clever parody of the coming of Christ that many will be taken in by the satanic deception.”31
Paul’s description of this satanic antagonist as a “counterfeit christ” (rather than as Antichrist) invites us to reflect on an important characteristic of evil: It is inherently and fundamentally deceptive. The effectiveness of evil has much to do with how it presents itself: not so much as the polar opposite of something good, but as a clever counterfeit of it. I suspect that most of us would like to think that if we were openly confronted by Satan and invited to become partners in evil, we would unquestionably reject the offer and inform him in no uncertain terms where he should go. But in view of the evil perpetrated by Christians in the world today, it is clear that we are not rejecting the devil’s invitations to become partners in evil. Why not? Perhaps because they most often come not as clear invitations to do evil, but as camouflaged invitations to do something that appears to be good, but really isn’t.32 If “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14), we should not be surprised if invitations to do evil are similarly masked.
How does evil mask itself? One way is by counterfeiting the good, the real, the genuine. As Cornelius Plantinga Jr. perceptively observes, when at the movies (or, frighteningly, sometimes in real life) we
cheer for fleeing bank robbers, we do not focus on any of the damage, disturbance, or offense. We notice only those features that sin has pirated from goodness—energy, imagination, persistence, and creativity. Everything sin touches begins to die, but we do not focus on that. We see only the vitality of the parasite, glowing with stolen life.33
Instead of going for the real thing, we are deceived by the counterfeit, the parasite that imitates it.
The classical “seven deadly sins” offer another example of how evil masks itself. One well-known analysis views each one as an instance of “misdirected love.” For example, the sins of lust, gluttony, and greed (covetousness) are seen as instances of excessive love; sloth (related to despair) is associated with defective love; and anger, envy, and pride result from perverted love (love for self rather than for others). The deceptive character of evil is clear: It can hide itself behind even one of the classical Christian virtues, love.
Other examples of evil hiding deceptively behind something that in and of itself is good, or at least morally neutral, might include the following:
• using legitimate concerns or arguments about “quality of life” issues to hide the realities of euthanasia;
• using the language of personal privacy and choice to obscure the fact that abortion involves the destruction of life;
• the way “political figures and nation states arrogate to themselves Christian symbols to legitimate their unjust and oppressive practices such as apartheid, militarism, and imperialism—to which one could well add, in view of current events, racism and genocide.34
• the way business organizations use the abstract language of cost-benefit ratios and analysis to obscure the fact that what is really being discussed is a tradeoff between human lives and safety on the one hand and greater profits on the other. Confronted with specific human beings, we would almost certainly not deliberately choose to harm them. Yet repeatedly people have knowingly and consciously made decisions for the sake of economic gain that have resulted in injury or death for other people—decisions, for example, to sell cars known to have dangerous safety defects, to sell overseas pesticides banned at home because of their toxicity to humans, or to conceal evidence of a new drug’s harmful or fatal side-effects in order to win product approval and get it to the market. Evil, by turning people into abstractions, generalizations, and ratios, routinely deceives us into choosing courses of action that result in harm and even death for other human beings.35
One final consequence of the deceptive character of evil should be noted—the risk we run of overlooking what Hannah Arendt termed the “banality of evil.” By this she means the way in which so much evil is the consequence of ordinary but unthinking everyday human behavior. A central example involves the Holocaust. The world was rightly shocked by Nazi extermination of six million Jews, but what is nearly as shocking is how many ordinary citizens of Germany, France, and other countries unthinkingly contributed in one way or another to the programs that led to those deaths. The most common excuse? “I was just following orders.” To be sure, following orders is generally a good thing, but not when it is perverted by evil and used to bring about the deaths of other human beings.
By focusing on one of the grand masters of counterfeit and deception, the evil “man of lawlessness,” who will seek to deceive people by presenting himself as nothing less than an imitation Christ, Paul reminds us of the fundamentally counterfeit and deceptive character of all sin and evil. Though it attempts to present itself as the truth, it is not; it is a cunningly deceptive parasite, whose seeming delightfulness (2:12) leads not to life but to death. Truth and life are found only in the genuine Christ, the Lord Jesus. As we reflect, therefore, on the deceptiveness of evil, let us keep our focus on Jesus.
Preparation versus speculation. This topic was discussed earlier in connection with 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11; it arises here in view of point (4) above in the Bridging Contexts section. There I suggested that the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) for which we wait is not escape from persecution, but rather vindication and relief in the midst of persecution. This in turn suggests that as we look forward to the return of Jesus, we should not be speculating about the identity of the lawless one but instead should be preparing ourselves for the possibility that we might be called to endure affliction and suffering for the sake of the gospel.
Applying this point will require considerable pastoral sensitivity, for it touches on a much-disputed and highly controversial question about the future, specifically, the relationship of believers to the rebellion and turmoil unleashed by the “man of lawlessness.” According to one widely held belief, believers will be “caught up” or “raptured” to be with Jesus prior to the outbreak of the rebellion led by the man of lawlessness, and they will thus avoid the persecution and suffering associated with this event. On this “pretribulation rapture” view, while those who remain on earth experience the horrors associated with this time of tribulation, believers will be safely ensconced in heaven with their Lord, safe above the terrible turmoil and suffering.
One reason for the popularity of this view is the vision of the future it offers: escape from suffering and affliction. Indeed, it is not unusual to encounter people who acknowledge that they hold this view precisely because it offers a vision of safety and comfort. But we should hold to our beliefs not because we like them (or their implications), but because we are convinced they are biblical. If the interpretation of Paul’s teaching offered above is correct, believers will not be “gathered” to Jesus (2:1) until after the appearance of the man of lawlessness and the rebellion he leads. This means that believers, rather than anticipating escape from tribulation, should instead be preparing to endure it with perseverance and faith (see 1:4).
Because this point touches on a controversial question about the future, application of it requires an attitude of humility rather than dogmatism. At the same time, the circumstance that the view is controversial is no excuse to shy away from dealing with its implications. If Paul is warning believers to be prepared for persecution, as I believe he is, then we as interpreters have an obligation to point this out, regardless of the popularity (or lack thereof) of such a view.
A reason for hope in the face of oppression. In the discussion of 1 Thessalonians 2:17–3:8, I discussed how and where Christians around the world are facing persecution and affliction—and in some cases, martyrdom—for the sake of Jesus and the gospel. As C. A. Wanamaker puts it, the Thessalonians’ “experience of powerlessness and alienation in the face of pervasive evil within the socio-economic and political structures” of their day “is not unknown to many Christians today.”36 To all believers who find themselves in analogous situations, who find themselves so oppressed by systemic evil that there seems to be no way out, Paul offers in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 an important word of hope and encouragement: In the end, Jesus wins the battle against the forces of evil. No matter how dark the situation, in the long run Jesus will be triumphant.
This does not guarantee that we will live to see it. We may be like those Old Testament heroes described in Hebrews 11, who “were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance” (Heb. 11:13; cf. 11:39). But regardless of whether we live to see the victory or only “welcome it from a distance,” Paul assures us that it will come, and that those who remain faithful will share in their Lord’s triumph. Thus Paul encourages us to stand fast and faithful in the face of oppression, because in the end, Jesus wins.