Now we beg you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him,
Paul opens this chapter with a plea, and he bases it on hope — the return of the Lord Jesus and the gathering of His people to Him. Everything that follows about the man of sin and the day of the Lord rests on that hope, which raises two questions: is Paul naming a topic or pleading by that hope, and are the coming and the gathering one event or two?
Some translations open the verse with "Now concerning," as if Paul were naming a topic. Others read "we beg you by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Commentators here argue for the second sense: Paul pleads with his readers by reason of that hope.
Paul presents here, as a foundation upon which to base their certainty, the two phases of the second coming of the Lord. The little word "by" has the meaning, "by reason of." What he means is this: "By reason of the Lord's coming, please don't be disturbed about false teaching concerning the day of the Lord." ... In 1 Thessalonians 4 he had shown how Christians will come to be in the Lord's presence — an event commonly called the "rapture," our gathering together to Him.
Another writer tests the Greek word, then draws two conclusions from Paul's plea.
In 2 Thessalonians 2:1 the true force of the word is certainly "we beseech you by" and not "as concerning." ... When the word is used with words of prayer and request, its regular meaning in Greek is "by," "for the sake of." ... So the apostle gives two reasons why they should not believe that the day of the Lord had come. First, the rapture of the saints has not happened yet. Second, the object of the judgment has not been revealed.
Older English versions insert a second "by" before "our gathering together." The Greek does not allow it.
Christ's coming and our gathering together to Him are bound together, as closely linked events of the deepest importance to the saints... The older translation has instead inserted a word which, however small, separates two things that the form of the original could only mean to be in the closest union.
Because the two are joined, His movement decides ours. He cannot arrive without His people being drawn to Him.
Impossible that He should come, and we not be gathered to Him! His place always decides ours. If He is "outside the camp," we must go forth unto Him. If He comes, we must be gathered to Him. When He moves, we move. When He moves from the throne on which He sits, to the air, we move from the earth to the air — our new gathering point, where He is coming to take us back with Him to the Father's house.
Paul names the One believers are gathered to. Even the archangel is not the centre of that scene.
This word tells us of that great gathering, when all true believers, living or asleep, will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. What a gathering together that will be, and all to Him! Not one saint, from the thief on the cross to the last one brought to the Saviour before He comes again, will be missing then... The archangel will be there, and will utter his voice: but he is not the Centre or Object, the One to whom that vast throng is gathered! No! It is unto the Lord Himself, the Lord alone.
The Greek word for "gathering together" is rare. It appears again in the call not to neglect meeting together.
The Spirit points to the dangers of these closing days in the two Scriptures that speak of our "assembling together" (Episunagōgē): 2 Thessalonians 2:1 and Hebrews 10:25. The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is in view in both. The word means literally "the complete collection." The first speaks of the gathering of the saints to the Lord Himself when He returns. The second speaks of the gathering together of those who believe now, as the day of His coming draws near.
Someone had told the Thessalonians the day of the Lord had already come. Paul answers with the hope itself.
Satan had tried to terrify them by telling them that the day of the Lord was already present... No, says the apostle, I beg you, by the coming (in the Greek, the presence) of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him — which will come before that day — that you should not be quickly shaken in mind. This day will come upon the lawless one, and not upon you; you will already have been caught up to Him, and you will accompany Him personally in that great day when He will appear.
Verse 1 speaks of His coming. Verse 8 speaks of the appearing of His coming. Why the change?
When the destruction of the man of sin is in question, Paul speaks not of His coming only, but of the appearing, the shining out, of His coming. If His coming to gather His saints were a public display, why is "the appearing" of it mentioned only in verse 8?
- By, not about. Paul is not opening a topic; he is pleading with them on the strength of a hope they already hold.
- Bound. The Greek ties His coming and our gathering into one idea — no translator may split them.
- To Him. The gathering has one Centre. Not the archangel — the Lord Himself, with not one believer missing.
- Now and then. The same rare word covers believers meeting together today and the whole company assembled to Him at His return.
- Therefore, calm. That day falls on the lawless one, not on you; you will already be with Him — so refuse to be shaken.
that ye be not soon shaken in mind, nor troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as [if it were] by us, as that the day of the Lord is present.
The believers in Thessalonica were under heavy persecution. Then a report reached them that the day of the Lord had already begun. Paul writes to steady them — and the way he does it tells us both how the lie spread and why it could never be true.
The two words Paul uses describe people knocked off balance by fear. They were not impatient for Christ's return. They were afraid of a judgment they thought had already begun.
By then some people had stirred up the Thessalonians. They told them that their persecutions and other trials were the start of the day of the Lord. They were passing through severe trouble. So the claim was not that the day was close, as people often say, but that it had arrived. This troubled and shook them badly. Paul writes this new letter to drive out their fears and settle them again in the confidence of their hope... It was certainly not the excitement of hope but of anxiety and terror.
Older English versions read "the day of Christ is at hand." That suggests something still future. But the sense is stronger. The claim was that the day was already here, and the ESV reflects this: "has come."
Beyond all argument it should read, "as though the day of the Lord were present." The word is the one translated present elsewhere, as the opposite of things still to come. They were troubled and upset because they thought the day of the Lord, that great and terrible day, had arrived.
Their suffering seemed to confirm the rumour. That day means darkness and trouble for the world. Trouble was what they were living through. The conclusion looked obvious.
The Thessalonians were suffering great trouble and persecution for the truth's sake. The false teachers turned this into that day, claiming that the day of the Lord had come... So the believers who were watching for that day, as the first letter shows, were troubled by this cry and shaken in mind. As we have seen, false teachers shake the righteous instead of comforting and steadying them.
What they feared is real enough — but it is not the believer's portion.
This idea that the day of the Lord had come brings nothing but trouble. Paul is not holding back the excitement of an empty hope. He is answering the gloom that comes from dread... That day is a time of judgment for sin. Yet God's mercy also makes it a time of new birth for Israel, and for many other nations too. But it is "a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time" (Daniel 12:1).
Paul names three routes the error took. One of them was deliberate fraud.
The attack was three-pronged: by spirit, by word and by letter. "By spirit" would mean someone claiming a supernatural revelation. John warns about this when he says, "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1). A fake revelation has an evil spirit behind it. "By word" would mean oral teaching. "By letter" would be, of course, a written message. About this he adds a specific detail — "as if it were by us."
Commentators point out that Paul does not say our letter. He says a letter claiming to be from us. So this was not a misreading of his first letter. It was a forgery.
He does not say it was his letter. If he had referred to the First Epistle, he would have said, the letter from us... Claiming that something false came from God is the worst kind of dishonesty. Forgery is a great sin... How often men stop being truthful once they lose the truth!
He does not begin by arguing. He appeals to what they already loved — the Lord's coming and their gathering to Him — and uses that hope as the answer to the fear.
They pretended in various ways that they had a revelation for it. They even claimed Paul himself as the author of their error. He utterly denies it... "Don't you know," he suggests, "that the Lord is coming to gather you all to Himself?" With this he appeals to the heart. With this he stirs their spiritual feelings against the lie. When the Lord does come, the first thing He will do is to gather those He loves to Himself.
The whole tangle unravels once two things are kept apart.
They did think that His "day" was not merely "at hand," which is true, but "present," which is false. Identify "the coming" with "the day" of the Lord, and all is confusion; keep them apart, and light comes at once.
- Pressure — real suffering made a false report believable. Hardship is when the enemy twists the meaning of what God is doing.
- Panic — "shaken" and "alarmed" describe fear, not eagerness. They thought the day of judgment had already begun.
- Present, not near — the claim was that the day had already arrived, and that single word is where the error sat.
- Three doors — a claimed revelation, spoken teaching, and a forged letter. Lose the truth, and truthfulness goes with it.
- Anchor — Paul steadies them with their hope, not with argument alone. The Lord comes to gather His own before that day breaks.
Let not any one deceive you in any manner, because [it will not be] unless the apostasy have first come, and the man of sin have been revealed, the son of perdition;
Paul writes to steady a church shaken by a report that the day of the Lord had already arrived. His answer is not reassurance but a timetable: two things must happen first, and neither has. (The writers below use older wording. They say "the falling away" for "the rebellion," "the man of sin" for "the man of lawlessness," and "son of perdition" for "son of destruction.")
The verse opens with a command. One writer says believers already hold all they need to obey it.
With the Word of God in our hands, the saints have no excuse for being deceived. Honest self-judgment and a real desire to do the will of God will keep the soul from falsehood, with the Word of God open before us… This passage tells us of Satan's masterpiece of deception. It will be shown publicly only after the Church is taken to glory, though its false teaching has gone before him into the world.
The words "that day will not come" were added by the translators. And "that day" is not the same event as the gathering of the saints.
The coming of the Lord is bound up closely with the gathering of the saints. The day of the Lord is bound up with the carrying out of judgment on His enemies here below… "That day shall not come" was put in by our translators, and so it is printed in italics, though I believe it is substantially correct. The "day" will come after the apostasy — the public abandonment of Christianity throughout the Christian world.
Much hangs on one small word: "the." It points to a definite event, not a general drift into sin.
The Authorised Version translators completely weakened the sense by rendering it "a" falling away. Beyond doubt it is "the apostasy." There is no ground at all for stripping the phrase of its deliberately definite force… It means abandonment, not corruption — just as in politics the word means revolt against authority.
The scale sets it apart, and so does how far it goes.
In 2 Thessalonians 2 it is no such partial turning away. It is the extreme and widespread desertion of the gospel. It will boldly end in the throwing off of all revealed truth. It will also throw off what may be called natural religion — the witness to God's divine nature in creation and in man's conscience.
The apostasy and the man of sin are two different things, and they come in order.
The first thing is the apostasy — not of the Jews (we have seen that in Daniel), but of the Christian world. It must happen before the judgment falls, before the day of Christ. So must the appearance of the "man of sin." He is clearly not the apostasy itself, but, I judge, follows it and brings it to its finish… He is the son of perdition, a name that belongs to him by his nature, his character, and his acts.
His title marks a deliberate opposite.
The abandonment of the Christian faith leads to another and worse development of evil: the revelation of "the man of sin, the son of perdition." He is to be the clear and personal contrast of Christ, the Man of righteousness, the Saviour of the lost. He will concentrate in himself the wickedness of man and the destructive power which Satan wields.
One writer explains what sin is at its root:
Now sin is lawlessness — the creature breaking loose from the control of the Creator, to assert and carry out its own will.
The second title links him to Judas.
He is called the "man of sin," because in this man we will see what happens when a man is left to do his own will, with no restraint from God or man. As in the case of Judas, he is called the "son of perdition," for just as Judas was a traitor among the favoured band of disciples who went about with the Lord, so this man will arise from the ranks of professing Christians. Both men are doomed to perdition, or utter destruction (John 17:12).
Commentators differ over naming this figure. Many have applied him to the Pope; Kelly refuses, and points instead to what really produces the apostasy.
I am aware that many people apply this to the Pope of Rome. I do not for a moment agree with them, though I regard that system as a frightful delusion… No, the apostasy is the result of despising the gospel, of playing with the truth, of keeping up forms that are not real, and then throwing them off with shame.
- Deceive — the verse begins with a warning. An open Bible and honest self-judgment guard the soul against Satan's masterpiece of deception.
- Abandon — "the apostasy" is definite. It is not slow corruption but open revolt: truth once professed and then thrown off.
- Reveal — the apostasy comes first. The man of sin follows it and brings it to its finish.
- Contrast — he is the opposite of Christ, the Man of righteousness. He is a man doing his own will, with no restraint from God or man.
- Perish — "son of perdition" was Judas' name too. Like Judas, this traitor rises from inside the circle of professed faith, and like Judas he is doomed to utter destruction.
who opposes and exalts himself on high against all called God, or object of veneration; so that he himself sits down in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Paul has just named the coming figure: "the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction." This verse tells us what he does. He sets himself against every object of worship and takes God's own seat. Two questions press: which temple is meant, and how could anyone accept such a claim?
The man refuses every god, then takes God's seat. One writer shows how the two acts belong together.
He "opposes and exalts himself above (or 'against') all that is called God." Every denial of God is in itself self-exaltation. Pride and self-will are behind it. Yet notice he opposes "all that is called God or that is worshipped." We know that alongside a true idea of God there are many false ideas. People call their many idols "God." But the man of sin will refuse all of these together, true or false, and make himself the object of veneration. "Sitting in the temple of God, he shows himself that he is God." The temple was not a place to sit, even for the high priest: "every priest stands daily at his service" (Heb. 10:11). But this man, who is not even a priest, will take the throne that belongs to God.
The passage is often read as a description of tyranny in government. One writer insists the emphasis falls elsewhere.
The character of the wicked one is religious here, or rather anti-religious. The apostle does not speak of a secular power of the world, whatever its wickedness may be. The man of sin takes on a religious character. He exalts himself against the true God, but he shows himself as God in the temple of God. Notice here that the sphere is on earth. He is not a god for faith. He shows himself as a god for the earth. The profession of Christianity has been abandoned. Sin then marks out an individual, a man. He fills up the measure of human nature's turning away from God. As a man, he proclaims his independence of God.
Some have taken "the temple of God" to mean the church. One writer gives two reasons for reading it as the building in Jerusalem instead.
Here we might think of the Church as the temple of God, except for two things. (1) He is an apostate. He does not profess Christianity at all, as we have seen the antichrist does not. (2) The connection with an abomination of desolation standing in the holy place is so simple, and it fits the conditions so well, that it is hard to suppose any temple other than the Jewish one is meant.
Others have applied the verse to the papacy. One commentator argues that the claim here goes far beyond it:
The lawless one is to be a sinner beyond sinners, the man of sin, who wants to be God. He claims the honour of the Supreme One on earth, in His temple. It is not a matter of mere earthly things or personal vain glory, like Herod in Acts 12… It is a mere imposture for the Pope to call himself vicar of Christ and head of the church on earth, while formally acknowledging the Lord in heaven. But for this reason he does not match the arrogant self-exaltation of this future enemy. That enemy raises himself above all that is called God, or any object of religious veneration.
Older English versions add two words here: "he as God sits in the temple of God." One writer explains what those words change.
There is not enough support for the words "as God"… They soften the force, where the true text leaves the claim in its full arrogance.
Line by line, this man inverts the life of Jesus.
On the page of Scripture and of eternal history, two men stand out as exact opposites. One is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Man of righteousness. The other is the man of sin, in whom the wickedness of the race comes to its peak. Jesus, being God, emptied Himself to become a servant. The other, only a man, shows himself in the temple that he is God… When they wanted to make Jesus king, He refused, for He had come to suffer, not to reign. The other takes the place of king and will exalt and magnify himself… Jesus was rejected and crucified. The man of sin will be accepted and worshipped.
Why would anyone welcome such a man? One writer says it is a further step beyond rejecting the true Messiah.
By and by the Jews will take the further step of receiving one who comes in his own name, and this as their Messiah. This will no doubt be the depth of moral darkness, for Scripture is not silent about the righteous and holy character of the LORD's Anointed.
- Opposes — he refuses every object of worship, true or false. He clears the field so that he can stand in it alone.
- Sits — priests stood and served. He takes the seat, claiming the throne that belongs to God.
- Where — commentators point to a temple in Jerusalem, not the church. This man gives up the Christian profession completely.
- Claims — the stronger reading drops "as God" and leaves the boast bare: he shows himself that he is God.
- Inverts — Christ, being God, emptied Himself and was rejected. This man, only a man, exalts himself and is welcomed.