Limapela Education Project
Faith in Action
This project aims to provide quality education to children in Zambia's Copperbelt Province.
Despite Jesus' warnings that no one knows the day or hour of his coming, some Adventist groups have set dates for his return, leading to disillusionment among their followers. In reaction, others have claimed that prophecies of the end have been fulfilled already. The Bible is more balanced, speaking instead of a time of great suffering still to occur on earth before Jesus comes again to put an end to it. In this tenth message in his series on biblical prophecy, given at Greyfriars' Classical Service on 28 June 2009, Rob Yule outlines what the Bible says about the deterioration in religious, moral and political conditions that will happen before Jesus returns.
Every now and again the strange view reappears on the fringes of the Christian church that the second coming of Jesus has already occurred.
One of the most notable examples in modern history is the teaching of the Jehovah's Witnesses that Christ came invisibly on 1 October 1914. This was a later rationalisation for his failure to appear on that date as Charles Russell, founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses, had predicted.
A variant of this notion is current in certain Reformed circles in the United States - and has been picked up by some Christian leaders in New Zealand. This is the argument that the New Testament prophecies about the end of the age were fulfilled long ago in AD 70, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.
Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians in AD 50, a few months after 1 Thessalonians, to correct a similar mistaken view that seems to have grown up among Thessalonian Christians, that the Day of the Lord, the return of Jesus, had already occurred.
To show that the day of the Lord hadn't yet occurred, Paul describes a number of social developments or world events that must happen first. This recalls Jesus' own teaching about the 'signs' that must precede his return. To help us recognise when Jesus' coming is approaching, he says that it will be preceded by a number of end-time events that will profoundly affect religious, moral and political conditions in society (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12):
'Great Revolt' is the Jerusalem Bible's translation of the word apostasia ('rebellion', 2 Thessalonians 2:3). In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word apostasia is used of Israel's religious apostasy and turning away from God. So it could mean 'apostasy' or 'falling away' - and refer to the great falling away from the faith that the Bible says will happen in the last days. 'The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits.' (1 Timothy 4:1). Jesus also foretold that this would happen because of the moral and social deterioration people would experience in the last days:
'At that time many will turn away from the faith, and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but whoever stands firm to the end will be saved.' (Matthew 24:10-13)
But here in this passage Paul seems to imply a more active 'rebellion' or 'revolt', as in classical Greek, where the word apostasia referred to a political defection or a military uprising. The Great Revolt will not just be a passive drifting away from God into apathy, but a deliberate defiance of God leading to outright opposition to him. Perhaps the former will create a climate for the latter, with religious apostasy, loss of religious belief, preceding and making possible a more widespread rejection of God in society at large.
Paul speaks of the emergence, during this time of general rebellion against God, of a 'man of lawlessness' or 'lawless one' (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 8) who will lead and be the focus of a great intensification of evil in the period immediately before Jesus' return.
Paul describes two essential features of this person's character: 'lawlessness' (anomia) and 'godlessness' (atheism, described here, though the actual word is not used). He will be opposed to law, both the moral law (rejecting moral absolutes) and the civil law (advocating anarchy or self-will). And he will be opposed to God: 'He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped . . . proclaiming himself to be God' - the ultimate blasphemy (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
By setting up his own will as law in defiance of both the laws of society and the rule of God, this coming world ruler will seek to overthrow the bases of civilised life. Bible commentator John Stott observes that 'the two principle targets of Antichrist's venom' are 'God and law, religion and ethics,' 'the two essential ingredients of culture. To oppose them is to undermine the foundations of society.' (The Gospel and the End of Time: The Message of 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press, 1991, p. 161).
This lawless ruler is described elsewhere in the Bible as 'the antichrist' (1 John 2:18, 22) or 'the beast' (Revelation 13:1-10). He will set himself up in defiance of God and arrogate authority to himself, both secular and sacred - demanding the total allegiance of people, including actual worship (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). The reference to his taking his seat in God's temple is a Semitic metaphor expressing his utter defiance and contempt of God. We have seen this arrogance described earlier in this prophecy series: the king of Babylon boasts in Isaiah 14:13-14, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. . . . I will make myself like the Most High', and the prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28:2 says 'I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god.'
But this defiance could well express itself in actually profaning the temple or what is holy. In 168 BC the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes erected an altar to Zeus in the Jerusalem temple and sacrificed a pig on it - an event that was prophesied by Daniel (Daniel 9:26-27, 11:31), is described in 1 Maccabees, and which precipitated the famous Maccabean Revolt. It also happened in AD 70, as Jesus predicted (Matthew 24:15), when the Roman general Titus brought Roman emblems into the Holy of Holies, before destroying the temple.
The lawless ruler is also described as 'the son of perdition', 'the man doomed to destruction' (2 Thessalonians 2:3, the same term used of Judas in John 17:12). He will be an 'incarnation' of Satan, a man Satanically inspired to perform counterfeit miracles and promote widespread deception, causing people to reject the truth and 'believe the lie' - the ultimate untruth that God does not exist (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12). People will be predisposed to accept him not so much because they are gullible but because they love wickedness. 'It is of great importance to observe that the opposite of "believing the truth" is "delighting in wickedness",' says John Stott. 'This is because the truth has moral implications and makes moral demands. Evil, not error, is the root problem.' (p. 173).
The emergence of the lawless ruler will not be a totally new or unprecedented development. It will be the ultimate manifestation of an evil power or principle that is 'already at work' in history. Paul calls it 'the mystery of lawlessness' or 'secret power of lawlessness' (2 Thessalonians 2:7), and John describes it as 'the spirit of antichrist' (1 John 4:3). At present, however, a 'restraining influence' is holding this evil power in check. Paul says the lawless ruler cannot appear until this restraining influence is removed (2 Thessalonians 2:6-7).
What is this mysterious influence that prevents the Antichrist from appearing? The Thessalonian Christians Paul was writing to must have been aware what it was from when Paul was living with them, because he takes it for granted that they know. Unfortunately for us he doesn't identify who or what this restraining influence is. A number of suggestions have been made:
Dispensationalist teachers identify the restraining influence with the Holy Spirit and the church. They maintain that the Spirit will be removed when the believing church is airlifted out at the Rapture. But we have seen that if church was removed before the rebellion it would not be there to meet Christ on his return, as Paul teaches it would be (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
Some missiologists think that Paul is referring to his missionary work and to the Christian mission to the Gentiles, which Jesus himself said must be completed before he returns. 'This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come.' (Matthew 24:14).
The traditional (and most likely) view is that the restraining influence refers to Rome and the state - the stabilising influence of law, public order and good government embodied in the Roman state, and by extension, the state in general. Bible commentator Alfred Plummer says, 'The natural restrainer of lawlessness is the law, and in the first century the great organiser and executor of the law was the Roman Empire.' (A Commentary on St Paul's Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, London, Scott, 1918, p. 61).
God has ordained human government to preserve order (Romans 13:1-5). Rebellion and lawlessness in the last days will sweep away stable government and allow the emergence of the demonic, defied, totalitarian state. This will lead to a brief period of social breakdown, anarchy and terrible evil that will only be brought to an end by the personal appearance of the Lord Jesus himself (2 Thessalonians 2:8).
This has two sombre implications for us:
Firstly, social conditions in the last days before Jesus returns will be so serious that normal human goodness will be powerless to deal with the situation or remedy it. Only the personal intervention of Jesus will overcome it. Jesus said, 'For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now - and never to be equalled again. If those days had not been cut short, no-one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.' (Matthew 24:21-22).
Secondly, if you are finding it hard to live a Christian life in favourable circumstances, how will you fare in the last days? The prophet Jeremiah once asked, 'If you have raced with people on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?' (Jeremiah 12:5).
This should give us cause for heart-searching and self-examination. There is no room for complacency or presumption. Jesus said, 'Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.' (Luke 21:36).
Rob Yule, 28 June 2009
© 2009, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church
