2 Thessalonians 2:3–4

Context

The passage is part of a letter that Paul, together with Silvanus and Timothy, sent to the church at Thessalonica. Some scholars hold that Paul did not write the letter himself. After the church received 1 Thessalonians, a claim began circulating that "the day of the Lord" had already come, and the believers were unsettled (2 Thessalonians 2:2). This passage corrects that claim. The author writes that the day will not come "except there come a falling away first" and the "man of lawlessness, the son of perdition," is revealed. This figure is described as one who "exalteth himself above all that is called God" and "as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (2 Thessalonians 2:4). Verses 6–8 go on to speak of what restrains him and of his destruction at the Second Coming.

Interpretations

• Futurist reading: Many of the early church fathers and many evangelicals today read the passage as referring to a single individual, the Antichrist, who will appear just before the end. Dispensationalism often understands "the temple" as a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem.
• Historicist reading: During the Reformation, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others identified this figure with the papacy. The original text of the Westminster Confession of Faith (25.6) likewise called the pope "that man of sin, and son of perdition." Some churches, including American Presbyterian bodies, later altered this language when revising the confession.
• Preterist reading: This view holds that the passage was already fulfilled in the first century. It identifies the figure with the Roman emperor Caligula, who sought to set up his own statue in the temple at Jerusalem, or with persons and events connected with the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70.
• Symbolic reading: Rather than a specific individual, this view reads the figure as a power or principle of rebellion against God that recurs throughout history.
• Catholic reading: The passage is connected with the teaching that before the end the Church must pass through a final trial in the form of a religious deception.

Debates and Issues

• The meaning of "falling away": Most interpreters read the Greek apostasia as apostasy, a departure from the faith. A minority of dispensationalist interpreters read it as the church's "departure" from the earth, that is, the rapture. This difference is bound up with the debate between pre-tribulation and post-tribulation views of the rapture.
• Textual variants: Some manuscripts read "man of sin" instead of "man of lawlessness." The King James Version's "man of sin" follows these manuscripts.
• Purpose of the text: Some point out that the passage is not meant as a basis for calculating the time of the end but as a response to the claim that the day had "already come."

In the Korean Church

The passage is frequently cited in sermons on eschatology and in discussions of the Antichrist. Shincheonji is reported to use this passage as a basis for its doctrinal framework of "betrayal, destruction, and salvation." Several denominations that have designated Shincheonji as heretical, along with counselors who specialize in heretical groups, criticize this as an interpretation that disregards the context.

Related Passages

• 2 Thessalonians 2:5–12
• 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11
• Daniel 11:36
• Matthew 24:15
• 1 John 2:18