Before
2 Thessalonians 2.1-12 KWL - 1 We should ask you, fellow Christians, about the second coming of our Master, Christ Jesus,
- and how we’ll be gathered together with him.
- 2 It’s so your minds won’t be shaken up, nor go into a panic,
- whenever some spirit, message, or letter (like those from us) claims the Lord’s Day has come.
- 3 Don’t let anyone trick you in any way: Nothing happens till the apostasy comes first,
- till the lawbreaking person, the child of destruction, is revealed—
- 4 the antagonist, the one exalting himself over everything called “god” and “worshipful,”
- so much so he sits in God’s temple and claims he’s a god himself.
- 5 Don’t you remember the things I told you when I was still with you?
- 6 Now, you know who holds him back so he can be revealed in his own time:
- 7 The secret of the lawbreaker is already working—
- but only till the one holding him back can come out of the way.
- 8 Then the lawbreaker will be revealed—whom Master Jesus will take out with his mouth’s breath.
- He’ll abolish the lawbreaker at the manifestation of his second coming:
- 9 This is the coming against Satan’s works in every power, “miracle,” and fake wonder;
- 10 in every unrighteous trick towards those destroying themselves.
- For fake miracles don’t accept the love of truth in their salvation.
- 11 Through it, God sends them off with their belief in fakes, in powerful error.
- 12 Thus everyone can be judged who didn’t trust truth, but were pleased with wrongness.
Popular Christian culture tends to call this “lawbreaking person” the Antichrist (with a capital A, as opposed to
But Christians are actually disagreed as to whether such an Antichrist still needs to show up first. After all, it’s been 20 centuries since the apostles wrote to the Thessalonians, and many antichrists, many lawbreakers, have come and gone… and fulfilled this prediction many, many times already. And if this is the case,
Still, some Christians really have their hearts set on this Bizarro Jesus version of the beast, and are anxiously awaiting him far more than they’re hopefully awaiting Jesus.
Their future—our past.
- Preterist /'pret.ər.əst/ adj. Believes the bible’s prophecies [about the End Times] have already been fulfilled.
- [Preterism /'pret.ər.iz.əm/ n.]
Every Christian believes in preterism to one degree or another. Fr’instance, Jesus fulfilled the prophecies about Messiah being born, dying, and getting resurrected. And Jesus’s prophecy that the temple’d be destroyed
Now as for the stuff at the very end
The futurists’ ideas about the End are so widespread in Christian popular culture, loads of Christians imagine this must be what happens. Including Christians who believe God never did turn off the miracles. I know plenty of Pentecostals who believe darn near everything the futurists claim about the End.
Why’s this? Mostly it’s because they’ve heard the futurist point of view over and over again, from all sorts of sources, from every sort of direction, so they’e grown to believe it’s valid. They’ve no idea it’s founded on cessationism—and even when they find out this uncomfortable fact, it’s still a long-held belief, one they’re comfortable with, so it’s one they fall back upon.
And much of it is because they don’t know history. They know history is full of lawless people, but they never thought to connect those lawbreakers with the beast, or with the lawbreaker of 2 Thessalonians. They just assumed the beast shows up in the future, so they ignored all the other beasts throughout history. Ignored how these prophecies have been fulfilled over and over again, ’cause
Same with a future time of apostasy.
In just about every generation of Christians, one of our preachers looks around at all the sin in the world, and laments, “Why don’t people follow Jesus with all the fervor of the good old days?” They don’t realize the “good old days” are a figment of their imagination: They grew up surrounded by devout Christians, and assume everybody useta live like that; or they were told stories about the great saints of the past, and assume everybody useta have such faith; or they read about a time when religion was mandatory, assume it was voluntary like it is now, and are outraged that the percentage of believers in the population has dropped so low. (Hate to tell you: The people in those polls who claim to believe?
Nope, all the things the apostles predicted have happened. Kinda are still happening. The secret of the lawbreaker
Thanks to
So if you’re expecting all these things are future events, look around a bit and pay attention. For once.
Whose law?
I’ve head it claimed that when the apostles wrote on lawlessness, they actually meant the legal code of the city of Thessaloniki. Not the Law handed down to Moses by the L
Which is bonkers. Plenty of things violate God’s Law which were totally legal under Thessalonian law. (And the laws of the United States, for that matter.) Like idolatry, adultery, coveting what you can’t have, breaking Sabbath, dishonoring parents. You know,
Others will claim Paul and the apostles meant
The problem with making this assumption: We have no evidence this is what the apostles meant. On the contrary: Any city in the Roman Empire with a significant Jewish population had a synagogue, where the Law was taught.
Like I said, lawbreaking is all around. Including among Christians. Including Christian teachers.
There’s a popular myth that the Beast is gonna rebuild the Jerusalem temple, then sit down in it like a king on his throne. But let me remind you that’s not what sitting down in temple meant. There was no throne in the L
If you’re waiting for a single great antagonist to show up and lead the church astray, you’re looking for an individual, and missing all the antichrists running amok in the world.
Jesus is returning for them too.
Our focus on a single antagonist, misses the fact the apostles referred to both a lawless individual
We need to demonstrate our allegiance to Jesus by purging this evil behavior from among us. It has no place in his church, nor his kingdom. Those who teach lawlessness may as well strap a millstone to their students and toss ’em into the sea.
So fight lawlessness. Not by demanding people follow the Law, or punishing them if they don’t; never by legalism. But get away from anyone who claims we needn’t worry about the Law anymore—and therefore we’re permitted to keep sinning, ’cause grace makes up for it.
