What is the mystery of iniquity?

It is, then, revealed that the mystery of lawlessness will have its course. Here it is not a question of counsels, but of an evil done in time. The question here is of this mystery of lawlessness; the apostasy or falling away is not a mystery. There is no need of a revelation to inform us that a man who denies Jesus Christ is not a Christian; he says it. But in this case, it is an evil that has commenced working in the bosom of Christendom, in relation with Christianity; a mystery of which the lawless one will be the full revelation, as the glory of Christ and of the Church will be the full accomplishment of the mystery of Jesus Christ. The words translated, in most versions, "iniquity," and "wicked one," are the same in the original; save that one indicates the thing, and the other the person. It is "lawlessness" and the "lawless one" pre-eminently. This mystery of lawlessness commenced working in the apostle's time: later the veil would be removed. The apostasy would be then: and at length the lawless one would come to his end by the appearing of the coming of Christ. Thus is the dispensation to be brought to an end: this is what we have revealed in this passage. Hence, as we see elsewhere, this will be to introduce the glory and reign of Christ, so that all the earth may be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God.

80 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. In verse 3 Antichrist is the son of perdition. He goes to perdition. Antichrist, the wicked one, has brought the iniquity of man to its height. To have sinned against God, violated the law, and rejected Jesus, although nothing morally was wanting to the sin of man - all this was not yet the height of iniquity. The mystery of iniquity is that evil which acts in a hidden manner in the bosom of the church, as a germ destined to grow until the revolt - a revolt which will pursue its course till it rises up openly against Christ manifested in glory. While men were slumbering, the enemy has sown the tares. The mystery of iniquity, which had already begun at the time of the apostle, ends in the revolt of Christianity, the professing church. God does not judge what is only yet in a state of mystery. The mystery is that which is known only by its revelation, and without this it remains hidden to all human intelligence. It is the same also with the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh, and with the mystery of the union of Christ and the church. What a mystery of iniquity it is, that the church should have been made the nest where Satan has begun and brought forth the fulness of the iniquity of man! Jude wished to write of the salvation common to them, but he could not. The evil had begun, and he urges them to contend earnestly for what they had. The evil had begun. He warns them, "for certain men have crept in among you unawares, who have turned the grace of God into lasciviousness," and who end in denying the Lord Jesus. Those were the same of whom Enoch had prophesied. It is to deny the Saviour recognised according to the testimony given by the Holy Ghost, and to revolt against Him: this will be the fulness of iniquity; after that comes the judgment.

It is quite erroneous to confound "the apostacy" with "the mystery of lawlessness." The apostacy is future, and only just precedes the revelation of the man of sin, both of which must be before the day of the Lord. But here (ver. 7) we are expressly told that "the mystery of lawlessness doth already work." The apostacy will be an open abandonment of all revelation, after that the coming and work of the Lord Jesus, and the consequent presence of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, had made divine truth manifest in the richest grace to man on earth. When the unfaithfulness of Christendom has corrupted the testimony and made the church utterly and hopelessly despicable, to the shame of the Lord Jesus, men will rise up in rebellion, not merely against the faithless church, but yet more against the holy revelation itself, spurning God's grace and hating the truth, and resolved on nothing so much as their own will and way. "The mystery of lawlessness" is the hidden energy of Satan meanwhile in mingling error with truth under Christ's name, either swamping grace by legalism or prostituting it to licence. Even then this lawlessness was secretly at work in apostolic days, soon to rot inwardly and foul contagion spread, as we see in Acts 20:29-30 in these Epistles, and almost all the others, especially those called catholic, where the evil germinating from the first is no longer a matter of prediction, but of fact and denunciation in the darkest colours and the most solemn notes of sure judgment. It is lawlessness secretly at work, and so called its "mystery," in contrast with the revelation of the lawless one when the resisting power no longer acts, and his own season is arrived.

The Apostle had warned the Thessalonians of these things when he had been with them on that brief first visit, preaching the Gospel amongst them. We may wonder that he found time to speak of such a matter to them in so short a visit, and that he thought it appropriate to do so within not many days of their being converted; but so it was. Paul knew right well that "the mystery of iniquity" was already at work, as he tells us in verse 7. The meaning of this is that "iniquity" or "lawlessness" in its "mystery" or "secret" form was even then moving in men's hearts. The lawless self-assertion which is to blaze forth in the light of day at the end of the dispensation was there at the beginning, though hidden in the dark. Hence the warning was necessary.

When the apostle was with them he had spoken to them about those things. "The mystery of lawlessness (not iniquity) already worketh," he informed the Thessalonians. Sin is lawlessness, and that has been at work from the beginning, man having forsaken God and exalted himself in self will. This works on till it works out into open lawlessness in an out-and-out opposition to God and His Son, culminating in the man of sin, the false Christ, "to give the world its long-sought liberty from divine restraint and bring its vaunted progress to perfection, which under Christianity it has found impossible to attain." The mystery of lawlessness will cease to be a mystery when the lawless one, the man of sin, is manifested. But what keeps back the manifestation of this lawless one? Who or what is it that restrains it? Who is to be taken out of the way before the lawless one can be revealed? Many answers have been given to this question which we do not need to investigate. It is self evident that that which restraineth must be a power superior to man and Satan and of a nature totally different to the man of sin. The restraining one is a power and a person. It is the Holy Spirit of God.

Already in the days when Paul wrote, “the mystery of iniquity was already at work, the secret evil that will come out publicly when the man of sin appears. At the present time there are the restraining forces of God’s government, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, but when the church has gone, and evil is no longer restrained, the evil that has longed worked in secret will come to a head and be publicly manifested in the wicked antichrist.

Yet already "the mystery of lawlessness" was at work striving to accomplish its destructive ends. This is but one of the "mysteries" of Scripture, but allowed of God for the present in order that He might perfectly accomplish His own divine will. The involvements of all this may greatly puzzle men's hearts, and it is well if this causes serious soul-exercise before God on the part of believers, but our great God is in perfect control, and even this will yet be seen to glorify His Holy Name, though Satan and men had used it with the opposite object in view, their hearts only moved by hatred toward the blessed Son of God. But God will allow this to reach its full development only when the Spirit of God is gone from the world. "And then shall that wicked be revealed."

From the Psalmist's day to our own, throughout the three millenniums, this wickedness has been manifested. Today it is evidently working up to a climax. We will let the New Testament sum up the situation for us: "The mystery of iniquity [or, lawlessness] doth already work: only he who now lets will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed" (1 Thess. 2:7-8). The lawless pride of man has been working, but being held in check it has taken on mysterious or secret forms. The greatest activity of this evil has been in and amongst the Christianized nations; but just there the restraining power of the Holy Spirit, indwelling the saints, has been most felt.

There is restraint at the present time, as the Apostle shows: "And now ye know what withholds, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only He Who now lets will let, until He be taken out of the way" (2 Thess. 2:6-7). Evil intruded itself into the sphere of Christian profession very early, but though it is steadily but surely working, there is restraint, that it come not yet to a head. The "what" in verse 6, unnamed by the Apostle, is probably government. It is still true that "the powers that be are ordained of God" (Rom. 13:1); and while this is so there is at least a measure of check on human will. But presently Rom. 13:1 will cease to be true, for the supreme power in Christendom will receive his throne and authority direct from the Dragon (Rev. 13:1-4); then the way will be open for evil to show itself in its most extreme form.

Verse 6. "What withholdeth." It is not in order to prevent the revelation of the lawless one that God has put a restraint; it is to prevent his being revealed before his time. The adversary is always ready for evil. In the day that God takes away the bridle, Satan will immediately shew himself at work to drag men into apostasy.

"That which restrains;" the Greek means a thing. What is it? God has not told us what it is, and this, doubtless, because the thing which restrained then is not that which restrains now. Then it was, in one sense, the Roman empire, as the fathers thought; who saw in the power of the Roman empire a hindrance to the revelation of the man of sin, and thus prayed for the prosperity of that empire. At present the hindrance is still the existence of the governments established by God in the world; and God will maintain them as long as there is here below the gathering of His church. Viewed in this light, the hindrance is, at the bottom, the presence of the church and of the Holy Spirit on the earth.