The Rise of the Apostasy and the Revelation of the Man of Sin Must Precede the Second Advent
T. Croskery 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first… This fact would assure them that a period of time of at least indefinite extent would intervene before the day of the Lord. "Let no man deceive you by any means." I. THE COMING OF THE APOSTASY. "Because the day will not set in unless there come the apostasy first." 1. The apostasy is so described because it was already familiar to their minds through his oral teaching. "Remember ye not, that, when I was with you, I was telling you of these things?" 2. It points to a signal defection from the Christian faith. We imagine that the primitive Churches were signally free from error or fault of any sort. The apostle himself notes the signs of beginning apostasy even in his own day. (1) "The mystery of lawlessness doth already work." (2) There were for himself "perils from false brethren." (3) There were in the Church itself "enemies of the cross of Christ." (4) Later still "many deceivers had entered into the world." (5) The apostle foresaw that the evil "would increase unto more ungodliness." (6) This apostasy was to precede the revelation of the man of sin, not to be regarded as identical with it. Yet the two movements were not to be regarded as independent of each other, except in the order or time of their development. (7) The signs of the apostasy in Christendom are to be seen principally in the Papacy, but likewise in the kindred errors and corruptions of the Greek Church as well as in the delusions of Mohammedanism. The elements of the apostasy were, however, to be gathered up and concentrated at last in a single person as their final embodiment. II. THE REVELATION OF THE MAN OF SIN. "And that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above every one called God, or an object of worship." His characteristics are here distinctly described. 1. He does not represent a system of error, like Romanism, or the papal hierarchy, or a succession of Popes, but a single person. The man of sin has not yet appeared. Yet Romanism, or the papacy, comprehends much that is involved in the idea of this terrible person, who, however, goes beyond it in the appalling extent of his wickedness. The passage is not symbolic, but literal. It is a literal person who is described. 2. He is "the son of perdition." (1) Not because he brings ruin to others, but (2) because he is himself doomed to ruin - going literally to "his own place," like Judas, who may be regarded as a type of him. 3. His boundless and blasphemous assumptions. (1) His opposition to every God, true and false. (2) His self-elevation above every God, true and false. His action recalls the prophecy of Daniel: "The king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods" (Daniel 11:36). This prophecy refers to a polytheistic king. The apostle refers to the man of sin as repudiating all worship, as if he represented a higher divinity than anything worshipped on earth. (a) The description does not apply to the pope or the papacy: (α) Because the pope, though the head of a system of idolatry, does not oppose God or exalt himself above him, but rather owns himself "a servant of servants of the most high God," and blesses the people, not in his own name, but in the Name of the Triune God. (β) Because, instead of exalting himself above God or objects of worship, he multiplies the objects of worship by the canonization of new saints, and submits, like the humblest of his followers, to the worship of the very saints he has made. (γ) Because the pope, though guilty of arrogating almost Divine powers to himself, does not supersede God so as to make himself God. The man of sin "sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Though votaries of the papacy have often given Divine titles to the popes, the Popes have never assumed to be God, but only vicars of Jesus Christ on earth. They have claimed to be viceroys of God. The temple of God cannot be the Vatican; nor the Christian Church, which is an ideal building; nor can Rome be regarded as the centre of the Christian Church. (δ) Because this prophetic sketch contains no allusion to strictly papal peculiarities, such as idolatry, either as to the Virgin Mary, saints, angels, or relics, the invention of purgatory, priestly absolution, bloody fanaticism, debased casuistry, lordship over the world of spirits. (b) The description applies to the man of sin - the lawless one - for whom the Papacy prepares the way by a long course of apostasy from the truth. (α) This terrible person is to oppose God and all worship of every sort, and may therefore be regarded as an impersonation of infidel wickedness. (β) He is to sit down in the vacated "temple of God" and claim all the attributes of divinity. He sits down in God's place - for the temple is God's dwelling - in some actual temple, and appropriates it to his own use. Wherever the scene of this marvellous usurpation may be, it signifies the obliteration of all Christian interests and the triumph of atheistic malignity. When the Lord comes, "shall he find faith in the earth?" We see how Positivism in our own day has forsaken the worship of a personal God and betaken itself to the worship of concrete humanity. The man of sin will use the papacy as Anguste Comte travestied it in constructing forms of Positivist devotion, by turning it into some darker shape and. making it the tremendous instrument of the world's final ruin. III. THE CHECK TO THE FULL DEVELOPMENT OF THE MAN OF SIN. "And now what restraineth ye know, in order that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of iniquity is already working only till he who now restraineth be taken out of the way." These words imply: 1. That the apostasy was already in being; for "the mystery of lawlessness is already working." The two, if not identical, are closely connected together. (1) It antagonizes Christ, who is "the mystery of godliness" (1 Timothy 3:16). The mystery is a process, not a person, yet it works against the person of Christ. (2) Many of the elements of the "apostasy" were in existence in the days of the apostles, at least in the germ state. The Epistle to the Colossians and the Second Epistle to Timothy point to an early development of Gnostic error which found its place in due time in the papal system (Colossians 2; 2 Timothy 3.). The self-deifying Tendency was manifested in the conduct of several of the Caesars. 2. The words imply that the working of the apostasy was still undefined and as yet unguessed at. It was still "a mystery," to be revealed in due time. Nothing is more remarkable than the gradual growth of error in the patristic age. False opinions held by pious Fathers in one age were held by errorists in the next age to the exclusion o! the truth. 3. The words imply that, as the apostasy would last through ages, the check would likewise exercise a continuous effect. The common opinion is that the Roman empire was the restraining power upon the development of the man of sin. It was certainly such upon the course of the apostasy, which was to prepare the way for the man of sin. It held the Papacy in check till it was itself swept away by barbarian violence. Because it has passed away, it does not follow that the man of sin must have been revealed at once; for other checks have been supplied, and are being still continuously supplied, in the polity of nations and in the face of Divine truth, to restrain the last terrible manifestation of his power. IV. THE DOOM OF THE MAN OF SIN. "Whom the Lord Jesus shall consume with the breath of his mouth, and shall destroy with the appearance of his coming." 1. This does not refer to the Word and Spirit of Christ working in the minds of men for the destruction of antichristian error and antitheistic wickedness, but to the actual personal advent of Jesus Christ. 2. The language implies the suddenness and the completeness of the overthrow of the man of sin, who thereby becomes "the son of perdition." 3. The picture presented may be identical with the Got and Magog conspiracy which is to follow the millennium. (Revelation 20:7, 8.) The Lord puts the question, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith in the earth?" (Luke 18:8). Thus the apostle assures the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord cannot have come, because all the events here pictured must happen before that great and terrible day. - T.C. Parallel Verses KJV: Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; WEB: Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the departure comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction,