BIG IDEA:
FOUR MODES OF OPERATION FOR THE ANTICHRIST
INTRODUCTION:
Michael Martin: Restraint is mentioned twice in these verses. The first time (v. 6) the NIV translates a neuter present participle (to katechon), “what is holding him back.” The translation, like the neuter tense, implies not a person but a force that restrains. The second time (v. 7) the translation is “the one who now holds it back,” reflecting a change in the Greek to a masculine participle (ho katech n). Why did Paul change the gender, and how should we think of the restraint on the man of lawlessness?
Timothy Brookins: Paul proceeds to preview the events in which the man of lawlessness will participate: his restraint, his release and revelation, his works of deception, and finally his destruction.
I. (:6-7) MYSTERY MODE OF OPERATION – Presently Active during this Church Age … but Restrained
A. Presently restrained by the Archangel Michael
“And you know what restrains him now”
Gordon Fee: On the switch from neuter to masculine — Most likely Paul is not here intending two different realities but one, which in this clause emphasizes the event itself, while with the second phrase he emphasizes who is responsible for it.
Grant Osborne: The imagery is all apocalyptic and centers on God’s control of salvation history to bring all events to fruition at the time he has designated. Satan is trying to wrest control from God but failing due to the restraining force.
B. Awaiting Future Revelation and Intense Activity
“so that in his time he may be revealed”
C. Active Behind the Scenes Right Now
“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work”
Gordon Fee: With an explanatory gar (“for”) Paul goes on to spell out in the briefest of detail what were for him and his readers the two present realities, both of which are for later readers still full of “mystery.” First, “the mystery of lawlessness is already at work”; and second, that condition will prevail “until he/it is taken out of the way.”
Ray Stedman: “Paul goes on to say there is a mystery of evil at work in our world. He calls it ‘the mystery of lawlessness’ which is already at work. It is the strange secret of universal evil. Even secular prophets are puzzled by it. What is it about our race that makes it so difficult to correct the conditions that destroy it? Why is drug trafficking so impossible to stop when it is clearly evident what terrible things it does to people? Why is it that alcoholics will return again and again to their habit when they see that it is destroying their homes and families, and even their own lives? It is a mystery; the mystery of lawlessness; the strange secret of human evil. Why is it that as the centuries go by we have made zero progress in curing human wickedness? We are still wrestling with the problem just as people wrestled with it five thousand years before Christ. We do not make any progress in this area.”
D. Restraining Influence of the Archangel Michael Will Be Removed
“only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way”
Marvin Rosenthal: Argues persuasively for the Archangel Michael –
1) The archangel Michael has long been recognized by both Jewish and Christian scholars as having a special guardian relationship to Israel (Dan. 10:12-13). In relation to Israel, he is called “Michael, your prince” (Dan. 10:21). His name means Who is like God? Almost as if in contrast to Satan who desires to be “like the Most High” (Isa. 14:14). Daniel is told that Michael is “the great prince who standeth [present continuous tense; that is, he continues to stand] for the children of thy people” (Dan. 12:1).
2) Revelation 12 describes a war that occurs in heaven. The time for that conflict can be pinpointed at precisely the middle of the seventieth week of Daniel (Rev. 12:6-14). The woman represents Israel, who gave Christ (the male child) to the world (Rev. 12:5) and who will be severely persecuted during the Great Tribulation (Rev. 12:13-17).
3) Speaking of this one who will hinder the Antichrist, Paul said, “only he who now hindereth will continue to hinder until he be taken out of the way” (2 Thess. 2:7). The word hindereth means to hold down, and the phrase taken out of the way means to step aside. Therefore, the one who had the job of hindering the Antichrist will step aside; that is, he will no longer be a restraint between the Antichrist and those the Antichrist is persecuting.
4) The Bible is explicit that the archangel Michael is the personage who will step aside. Daniel records that event this way: “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who standeth for the children of thy people, and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time” (Dan. 12:1).
It is important to note when this event occurs. The preceding verse says, “And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain” (Dan. 11:45). This can only refer to the Antichrist, who will establish his headquarters between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea on the glorious mountain – Jerusalem. This occurs in the middle of the seventieth week in connection with his desecration of the temple and erection of a statue of himself. . .
5) That special guardian relationship which Michael has with Israel is again underscored in a sometimes obscure comment made by Jude, the half brother of the Lord. He wrote, “Yet Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses” (Jude 9). . .
The archangel Michael will step aside, he will desist from helping Israel. That is why this period is called “the time of Jacob’s [Israel’s] trouble.” That is what Daniel recorded what Michael would do (Dan. 12:1), and that is precisely what Paul affirmed (2 Thess. 2:7). When that occurs, “then shall that wicked one [the Antichrist] be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming [Parousia]” (2 Thess. 2:8). That destruction will occur during the Day of the Lord. The Antichrist’s coming, working, and power are detailed by Paul . . . The explanation for Michael’s inactivity on behalf of Israel – his desisting, his stepping aside – is then explained. Since Israel rejected her true Christ and refused God’s truth, God will send on them strong delusion so that they will believe the lie (the man is God – humanism) and accept the false Christ. . .
It is clear that the restrainer is neither human government nor the blessed Holy Spirit of God. The Word of God teaches that the restrainer is the archangel Michael, a faithful messenger and servant of God. Therefore, the pretribulational contention that the restrainer is removed when the church is raptured cannot stand. The restrainer is not the Spirit. The restrainer is not taken out of the world; he simply ceases restraining. The restrainer does not cease his activity at the beginning of the seventieth week but at the midpoint. All of this activity fits, unstrained and perfectly, into a prewrath rapture of the church.
John Stott argues for Rome and the power of the state (God’s agent for the punishment of evil). 4 arguments in favor of this view:
1) It makes good sense. As Plummer wrote, “the natural restrainer of lawlessness is the law, and in the first century the great organizer and executor of the law was the Roman Empire.”
2) It tallies with Paul’s known view and experience of the state.
3) The combination of the neuter and the masculine is easily explained. “Think”, wrote Hendriksen, “of the empire and the emperor, of justice and the judge, of law and the one who enforces it.”
4) The enigmatic reference would be explicable, since there were obvious prudential reasons for not openly and explicitly predicting that the state would be “taken out of the way” or “removed from the scene” (REB). . .
Were it not for some remaining restraints (which preserve a measure of justice, freedom, order and decency) these things would break out much more virulently. And one day they will. For when the restraint is removed, then secret subversion will become open rebellion under the unscrupulous leadership of the lawless one who will be revealed (8a). Then we can expect a period (mercifully short) of political, social and moral chaos, in which both God and Law are impudently flouted, until suddenly the Lord Jesus will come and overthrow him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by the splendour of his come (8).
Timothy Brookins: Among all possible solutions [for the identity of the restrainer], the most satisfactory is that proposed by Colin Nicholl (2000), who argues that the restrainer is an angel, probably specifically Michael, and that the restraining thing is also Michael, though with an emphasis on his qualities rather than on Michael as an individual. Based on known traditions about Michael in Jewish literature, Nicholl says, only Michael could be responsible for the actions that Paul attributes to the restrainer: he restrains the eschatological rebel’s revelation, executes God’s will, and is then removed from the action.
Jeffrey Weima: Paul’s description of the restraining entity here in 2:6–7 is similarly influenced by the role that Michael, the patron angel of the Jews, plays in the vision of Dan. 10–12. The apostle’s argument follows exactly the chronological schema found in Dan. 10–12: eschatological tribulation will come upon God’s people only when Michael, the guardian of God’s people, ends his protecting or restraining work.
The two references to the restraining entity in verses 6–7, therefore, can be understood as follows: the neuter attributive participle in verse 6 focuses on the restraining activity of the archangel Michael, and the masculine attributive participle in verse 7 has in view the archangel Michael as a person. If it is wondered why Paul does not simply use the word “angel” or the name “Michael,” the likely answer is that the apostle wants to emphasize for his readers not the identity of the katechon/katechōn figure but his restraining function. The readers, of course, already know both of these things, but it is the function of restraint that addresses head-on their specific fear over the claim that the day of the Lord has come. Such a claim is obviously false since there is a clear sequence of events that must take place before that eschatological day will arrive:
(1) The archangel Michael is restraining “now” (mentioned twice [v. 6, nyn; v. 7, arti] and thus emphasized) while the mystery of lawlessness is already at work in the world.
(2) Hence the apostasy and the man of lawlessness are still in the future.
(3) Thus the day of the Lord, the sequel to these two events, is even further in the future.
II. (:8) REVEALED MODE OF OPERATION – Revealed for a Brief Rampage during Daniel’s 70th Week … Then Terminated (marked for extinction)
A. Revealed for a Brief Rampage
“And then that lawless one will be revealed”
Michael Martin: The coming of the lawless one is the central feature of Paul’s argument in vv. 1–12. It was the fact that he was not on the scene that assured Christians that the day of the Lord had not arrived (vv. 3–4). After the parenthesis of vv. 5–7, Paul returned in v. 8a to the revelation of the lawless one he began describing in v. 4. Verses 8b–10 then elaborate on the coming of the lawless one, the effect it will have on unbelievers, and the final judgment upon him and all those who follow him.
Grant Osborne: This revelation will be a significant turning point, for it will mark the true beginning of the “great tribulation” (so called due to Rev 7:14, “these are they who have come out of the great tribulation”). He is presented as a human being who is completely possessed by Satan and becomes his personification on earth. The early church saw this “tribulation period” as the seventieth week of Daniel (Dan 9:24–27, and so a seven-year period), with the “covenant” or truce broken in the middle by the little horn. This end of the covenant coincides with the “revelation” of the true identity of this figure. He had deceived the world and come across as a man of peace, a holy person who was solving the world’s crises and bringing peace to the world. The revelation of his true nature and purpose will put an end to that folly, but the world will still flock after him. This revelation will likely consist of a worldwide proclamation that he is uniting all the nations of the world under his empire and amalgamating all the world’s religions under himself, with the “false prophet” of Revelation 13:11–18; 16:13 as the head of the one-world religion and himself with his father Satan as the gods of the new unifying religion.
B. Terminated at the Second Coming
- “whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth”
John MacArthur: Isaiah 11:4 says that the Lord “will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.” Isaiah 30:33 adds, “For Topheth has long been ready, indeed, it has been prepared for the king. He has made it deep and large, a pyre of fire with plenty of wood; the breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire” (cf. Hos. 6:5). Revelation uses the similar picture of a sword coming out of the Lord’s mouth to destroy His enemies (1:16; 2:16; 19:15, 21).
Grant Osborne: The ultimate destruction of the lawless one is portrayed two ways. First, the “Lord Jesus will overthrow [him] with the breath of his mouth,” built on Isaiah 11:4, where the branch of Jesse “will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.” This is a frequent theme, the destruction of the enemies of God and his people with the very breath of God (Isa 30:27–28; 1 Enoch 14:2; Psalms of Solomon 17:24–25; Rev 19:15). All ancient religions had a “god of the storms” (for instance, Baal), and the image was quite natural for destruction, as the tornadoes and hurricanes we see every spring and summer can attest.
- “and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming”
Gordon Fee: Everything about the passage suggests that Paul is here offering a word of encouragement to these persecuted believers, since the emphasis is now altogether on God’s ultimate, righteous judgment of their persecutors. Typically, however, Paul fronts his first sentence (v. 8) with Christ’s own “coming” and his ultimate overthrow of the Rebel. But thereafter the passage deals exclusively with the way things will be when the Rebel appears just before Christ’s parousia. The remainder of the first sentence (vv. 9–10a) thus begins by focusing on the nature of the “coming” of the Rebel, including his powerful deceptions. But the ultimate focus of the sentence (v. 10b) is on those who will perish. This is almost certainly aimed in part at the Thessalonian believers’ present opponents; thus they are described as those “who are perishing,” because “they refused to love the truth and so be saved.”
“manifestation” is intended to emphasize not just the fact of his coming, but especially its unmistakable and evidential character. That is, Christ’s coming will hardly be “secret,” since this word disallows such an option; rather, Christ’s Parousia will be openly manifest to all, both those who await his coming and those who will be “abolished” when he comes.
Timothy Brookins: The terms “appearance” and “parousia” could potentially be synonymous, but to avoid redundancy, it seems better to take the “parousia” as referring to Jesus’s arrival and his “appearance” as referring to the splendor of his presence, which the man of lawlessness cannot withstand.
III. (:9-10) SATANIC MODE OF OPERATION – What is Satan trying to Accomplish?
“that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan”
A. Outwardly Impressive – Supernatural WOW Impact
- “with all power”
- “and signs”
- “and false wonders”
John Piper: “The man of lawlessness is not Satan, but comes in the energy and power of Satan with supernatural signs and wonders. This is a warning not to make signs and wonders the ground of your faith or the criterion of truth. All these signs and wonders are counterfeit not because they aren’t miraculous — they have Satanic power — but because they don’t point to truth. They lie. They are no more to be trusted than the spirit of prophecy in verse 2 that said the day of the Lord had come.”
Grant Osborne: He will cement his rule and the universal worship he demands with “displays of power” (see Eph 6:12: “the powers of this dark world”), utilizing “signs and wonders” to anchor “the lie” that he is the legitimate ruler and god of this world. These supernatural miracles will be real but still counterfeit because they merely copy the truly God-sent miracles of Christ. Moreover, he will authorize the false prophet, the third member of the counterfeit trinity, to perform these same miracles in his name and so “deceive the inhabitants of the earth” (Rev 13:13–14; see also 16:14; 17:8; 19:20b). They are “signs” because they demonstrate the true nature of the one performing them, and “wonders” because the whole world is filled with astonishment and flocks after the lawless one.
B. Inwardly Deceptive, Destructive and Damning
- Deceptive
“and with all the deception of wickedness”
Michael Martin: Paul seems to explain the success of the lawless one by stressing the multitude of counterfeit signs and the varied deception he will use. But the lawless one’s effectiveness is also explained by the fact that his audience has already rejected the truth.
- Destructive
“for those who perish”
- Damning
“because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”
Jeffrey Weima: The fuller expression “love of the truth” (the genitive is objective) goes beyond the idea of accepting the gospel on an intellectual level as something that is factually true or accurate, moving deeply to a passionate, emotional attachment to the gospel: one is personally and fully devoted to this truth.
The past tense of “they did not accept” (ouk edexanto) is puzzling, since the time perspective in this section (vv. 8–10) involves future events. Some take the past tense to mean Paul is viewing events from the future point of view of the lawless one’s coming (Best 1977: 307; Malherbe 2000: 426). It is more plausible, however, that Paul views events from his current point of view such that the past tense refers to the apostle’s preaching of the gospel during his mission-founding ministry in Thessalonica: this was the time when the Thessalonian believers “accepted the word” (1 Thess. 1:6; 2:13) and when by contrast their persecutors “did not accept the love of the truth.” As Wanamaker (1990: 261) observes about the past tense edexanto: “It is probable that Paul is alluding broadly to those who refused to accept the gospel at the time it was preached at Thessalonica and became the persecutors of the Christians” (see also Menken 1994: 117). This past rejection of the gospel by the believers’ “fellow citizens” (1 Thess. 2:14) explains why they can justly be identified as “those [already] on the way to destruction” and also why the future comings of the lawless one and then of the Lord Jesus will not result (the construction eis to + infinitive can express either purpose or result: here result better fits this negative context) in their salvation (“so that they might be saved”).
IV. (:11-12) DIVINE MODE OF OPERATION – What is the Bigger Picture?
What is God Actually Accomplishing?
A. (:11) Deception Reinforcing Unbelief and False Worship
“And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that
they might believe what is false”
Grant Osborne: This doesn’t sound fair. Satan deceives the unsaved with his lies, then God anchors that by deluding them into believing those lies. What chance do they have? Where is the justice in that? Yet this is a major biblical theme, explained well in that major passage on depravity, Romans 1:18–32. Humanity knew the truth and deliberately rejected it, so God “gave them over” to their sins (Rom 1:24, 26, 28) so that they suffer the consequences of their folly. That is the case here as well. They have rejected the truth of the gospel (v. 10b), so God has turned them over to the lies of Satan.
Jeffrey Weima: At first glance, the words of these two past verses (vv. 11–12) are puzzling and problematic. Christians do not easily accept the idea that God sends a powerful work of delusion that leads people to believe the lie and ultimately results in their condemnation. However, at least three important points need to be remembered when hearing these words.
- First, the significance of the opening prepositional phrase in verse 11 (“because of this”) should not be overlooked: God acts not as a cause but as a consequence of people’s previous rejection of the truth of the gospel.
- Second, God’s action is similar not only to Paul’s statements elsewhere that God gives sinners over to their own sin ( 1:24, 26, 28; 11:8; 2 Tim. 4:4), but also to certain OT texts where God employs evil spirits to inspire false prophets and so carry out his just judgment against the wicked (2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Kings 22:23; Ezek. 14:9).
- Third, Paul’s purpose here is not to give a theological exposition of God’s role in the judgment of sinners, but to comfort the persecuted Christians in Thessalonica.
B. (:12) Guilt Validating Final Judgment for Unbelief and Wickedness
“in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness”
Jeffrey Weima: The result of people’s rejection of the gospel and of God’s subsequent sending of a powerful delusion is hardly surprising: “so that all who have not believed the truth but delighted in wickedness will be condemned.”