Last week, we studied 2 Thessalonians 1 and heard Paul reassuring the people of the Thessalonian church that their eternal future was secure, whenever Jesus returned, as they continued to trust not in themselves and their goodness and efforts, but in the grace of God and what He had already done for them in Christ Jesus their Savior. In contrast, those who lived and died without faith, apart from Christ, would continue always apart from God and all His blessings in Christ.
As Chapter 2...
Last week, we studied 2 Thessalonians 1 and heard Paul reassuring the people of the Thessalonian church that their eternal future was secure, whenever Jesus returned, as they continued to trust not in themselves and their goodness and efforts, but in the grace of God and what He had already done for them in Christ Jesus their Savior. In contrast, those who lived and died without faith, apart from Christ, would continue always apart from God and all His blessings in Christ.
As Chapter 2 begins, Paul spoke about “the coming or our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him.” Apparently, some people were confused and thought that Jesus had already come back again and they had somehow missed Him. Some may have thought that they had received a direct message from some sort of “spirit” who told them this. Others may have have heard this from someone claiming to be a Christian disciple like Paul. Still others may have heard this from a letter claiming to be from Paul and yet which was not genuine or true (2 Thess. 2:1-2).
Paul told the Thessalonians “not be be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed" by such messages. “Let no one deceive you in any way,” he said. The return of Christ has not yet come, and “That day will not come” until other things have taken place (v.3). Paul also reminded the people that when he had been with them before, he had told them “these things” (v.5). There would be “rebellion” against God and “the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction” would be revealed. This one would “oppose and exalt himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (v.3-4).
Something was “restraining him," this evil one, at the time Paul wrote. However, “the mystery of lawlessness” was already at work in the world (v.6-7). All of this seems to be a reference to the work of sin and Satan in what are called in other places “antichrists” - people rejecting Christ Jesus and God’s plan of salvation through Him, revealed in God’s Word.
Such opposition to God and His will was prophesied in the Old Testament and in the rebellion of many of God’s own chosen people against Him. See passages in Ezekiel and in Daniel, for example. (See Daniel 7:23-27, 8:23-25, 9:27, 11: 31,36-37, 12:11, etc. If you want to study this more, go back in the podcasts to the study of Daniel and see comments there.)
Jesus also had predicted such troubled times ahead and opposition to Him and His Gospel. See Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, where there are predictions of weeds being planted among wheat, where Satan will try to do his evil work among believers. See also the predictions in Matthew 24:4-5,15-16,24-25. Paul was likely quoting from Jesus in 2 Thess. 2:2-3, for he uses some of the same words that Jesus uses in Matt. 24. See predictions that the Apostle John also made in 1 John 2:18-20 and 4:1-6, about “antichrists” and “antichrist” and “false prophets."
Go back to 2 Thess. 2:6-7 now. We do not know just what Paul meant by someone or something “restraining” the lawlessness for a time. Some think it was the power and control of the Roman Empire, until it collapsed. The Romans persecuted Christians at times and were very opposed to them. The Romans also did some good, too, with good roads and some peace and stability in the Empire, allowing Christianity to spread to many places, through the witness of Christian people about Jesus and His Word.
In the Dark Ages and Medieval times that followed, much power became concentrated in the Roman Catholic Church in the Western world. Popes grew in power and many traditions and new teachings were added that went far beyond Scripture and contradicted the Biblical teaching of salvation through Jesus and what He did for us. By 1302, Pope Boniface VIII declared in Unam Sanctam that “It is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff” (the Pope). One could not be saved without following what the Pope said, whether it agreed with Scripture or not.
By the time of the Reformation in the 1500’s, Luther and others concluded that the Office of the Papacy (the Pope) sounded a lot like what Paul warned about in 2 Thess. 2:4: “he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself” almost “to be God” and taking on powers that belong only to God and making laws and decrees that are not Scriptural and making salvation dependent upon our works, in addition to the grace of God.
Since that time, there have been changes in the Roman Church, but still concerns about mixing faith and works as the means of salvation and about other teachings. Sadly, some Lutherans and other Protestant groups have drifted away from God’s Word, too. Note what Paul warned about in 2 Thess. 2:8-12, as well, in describing this “lawlessness." “Sin is lawlessness,” John wrote (1 John 3:4). This does not refer to breaking the laws of our government, though that can also be sin. This passage refers to breaking any of the laws and will of God and anything God tells us and wishes for us in the Scriptures.
The one behind all lawlessness is Satan himself. Jesus said to those who opposed Him, ”You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me” (John 8:44-45).
Satan wants to keep unbelievers in unbelief and draw believers away from the truth of God and His Word and from Jesus and pull them into error and unbelief.
Paul put it this way: The coming of the lawlessness is by the activity of Satan, “with false signs and wonders and all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thess. 2:9-10). Paul also gave the sober warning that if people “do not believe the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness," they can eventually have “strong delusion” and really “believe what is false,” ending up in “condemnation” (2 Thess. 2:11-12).
Other Scriptures warn about the same dangers. See Romans 1:18-32. People “suppress” the truth of God and His Word and begin to “worship and serve things in the created world, rather than the Creator.” Over time, “they become futile in their thinking," though, “claiming to be wise.” They “do what ought not to be done.” (Here is one of the strongest Biblical condemnations of homosexual behavior, with its possible consequences. But, if you read on, Paul mentions “all manner of unrighteousness," and all of us can find our own sins and struggles in the list, for which we too need to repent and return to our Lord for His mercy and forgiveness. Verse 32 warns that if we follow down the wrong path, away from our Lord, we continue to do much wrong and even “approve of those who practice” the wrong things. Doesn’t that sound too much like our own society today?)
See 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 to see what Satan and “the man of lawlessness” want to do - to blind people to the truth and try to pull them away from God. But read also what God continues to do, in 2 Corinthians 4:1-2 and 5-6. God provides His Word, and the Holy Spirit working through that Word, to give us the truth, as we keep reading and studying it, as we are doing right now. And He provides teachers like Paul, “who proclaim not themselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord,” with the eternal “light” He brings us, “out of the darkness.”
As we go back to 2 Thess. 2, then, remember what Paul also said in v.8. The "lawless one will be revealed,” but Jesus has already won the ultimate victory for us, as our Savior, and when He returns on the last day, He will “kill” all this evil “with the breath of His mouth” and “bring it to nothing” and “gather” us and all believers, living and dead, to Himself in everlasting life and joy (v.1 and 1 Thess. 4:16-18). That is our hope and confidence in Christ.
