B. Paul’S Response (2:3-12) 835
B. PAUL’S RESPONSE (2:3-12)835
At issue, then, is the “when” of the day of the Lord as a future event rather than a present reality, an issue that is complicated (for us) by two factors: (a) Paul has already spoken to this issue in his first letter, and (b) he is not sure of the source of the present misguided teaching. But in either case, he now proceeds to set the matter straight by recalling for these believers what they have already been taught. In so doing he reminds them of three matters: first, certain events, which have not yet occurred (vv. 3-4), will precede that day; second, what/who is holding back that day has thus not yet been revealed (vv. 5-7); and third, the nature of the events that will actually transpire on that day needs to be described (vv. 8-12). Although it is not blatant, one can detect a minor degree of frustration on Paul’s part. Thus the material comes to us with no fewer than two broken sentences (vv. 3 and 7); and in verse 5 Paul resorts to the only first person singular in the entire letter (until the sign-off in 3:17), as he reminds them specifically of what he himself had taught when present among them.
Two other preliminary matters need to be noted, by way of reminder, so as to read the passage on Paul’s and the Thessalonians’ terms, and thus avoid a great deal of eschatological misinformation. First, the basic content of the passage ends up having to do altogether with “those who are perishing,” not with believers themselves, whose future had been addressed in the first letter (1 Thess 4:13-18 and 5:4-11). This is true even of the mention of the Lord Jesus in verse 8, where his coming has to do with his overthrowing “the lawless one.” Second, the purpose of the passage is not to inform the Thessalonians about the future, but to comfort them in light of serious misinformation to which they are being subject. Finally, one should also note that the presentation shifts back and forth from the future (vv. 3b-4) to the present (vv. 5-7), then back to the future (vv. 8-10a) and again to the present (vv. 10b-12),836 all of which is related to the preceding point, that Paul’s aim is to comfort them in the present with regard to what lies still in the future — and all of this in response to the misinformation about the day of the Lord just noted (that it “has already come”). Everything that follows must be understood as Paul’s response to this misinformation rather than as “teaching” about the future in its own right.
Many of our present difficulties, one therefore needs to be reminded, stem from the fact that Paul had already taught them all of this when he was present among them. This is particularly true of the nominal participle katechon/katechōn (TNIV, “hold back”), which appears in the neuter in verse 6 and as a masculine noun in verse 7 — a term on which an enormous amount of ink has been spilled, with very little consensus as to resolution. The reason for this seems simple enough. Most of this is not new teaching for the Thessalonian church; thus there is much they already know, which will help them to “connect the dots” as it were, but which is simply not available to us. So here in particular is a place where too much certainty on the part of the interpreter should be less visible.838
1. What Will Precede That Day (2:3-4)
3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness837 is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple,839 proclaiming himself to be God.
With these words our difficulties multiply, difficulties related to our distance from Paul and the Thessalonians. Nonetheless, even if there is a lack of certainty about some of the particulars, one can at least describe what Paul understands will take place. As verse 5 makes plain, he has already taught them that before the day of the Lord itself is revealed, there will be a general rebellion (presumably against God and his Christ) led by one whom Paul designates as “the man of lawlessness.”840 Moreover, the Thessalonians already know what is holding him/it back; so this is simply a reminder. Not only so, but the reader/interpreter must constantly keep in mind that the purpose of the present passage is comfort, not information; therefore, for the Thessalonian believers there was probably no new information here at all. Our difficulties lie with the fact that nowhere else in his extant letters does Paul come close to saying anything like the content of this sentence; thus we are here dealing with a truly singular moment, without help from other passages.
Furthermore, and whatever else may be heard or learned from this passage, the reader/interpreter must keep in mind that its intent is to reassure those who have become anxious through misinformation. And Paul does this by calling to remembrance what the Thessalonians had previously been told, not by offering new information about the end times. Thus his concern is several leagues removed from the kinds of concerns that some later generations have brought to this passage. The reader, therefore, needs regularly to ask one of the primary exegetical questions: besides “what does all this mean?” at issue is “why was Paul reminding them of all this that they already knew?” — even if one will lack certainty regarding the latter.
3a Paul begins his response to the misinformation to which the Thessalonians have been subject by referring to it as “deceit”:841 “Let no one deceive you in any way.” Although it is unlikely that the “deceit” is intentional in this case,842 the very fact that they could have been taken in by such “teaching” lends weight to the possibility that its source had been a prophetic word, and thus a “Spirit-utterance” — which at the same time would have appeared to them to be a source of “authority” a step higher than that of the apostle.
Paul’s own consternation becomes evident in two subtle ways. First, he adds the otherwise unnecessary “in any way” to his opening clause, referring specifically to the three options in verse 2, but in any other way as well. In its own way this clause, besides expressing Paul’s dismay, effectually eliminates any teaching opposed to or different from his. Second, and equally telling, what follows ends up as a “broken” sentence843 — a long “if/unless” clause (vv. 3b-4a) without a corresponding future indicative.844 Thus Paul’s clause does not have “that day will not come” in it; supplying these words (or something similar)845 is necessary for the sake of the reader in English — and all other Indo-European languages, it should be noted.
3b Paul’s explanation as to why they should not be deceived begins with a reminder about what must take place “first,”846 namely, “the rebellion,” which includes “the revelation of the man of lawlessness”847 (= “the Rebel”), who is at the same time “the son of destruction,” where the first descriptor deals with his character and the second with his ultimate destiny.848 The present clause begins with a “because,”849 which thus introduces the long explanation that follows. The Thessalonians are not to be deceived “because” of what Paul now goes on to remind them about the very visible events that must transpire before the day of the Lord itself, especially the great rebellion that is to precede it. Even though Paul himself does not use the term “Antichrist,” 850 one of the reasons the Rebel is frequently referred to by that name here is that the language Paul uses, “the revelation” of this figure, is a pickup of what he says of Christ in 1:7.
The Greek word rendered “rebellion” (apostasia) occurs in the New Testament only here and in Acts 21:21. In Acts it clearly means “to turn away from,” thus “to become ‘apostate,’” picking up in its English expression the same meaning as in the Greek. Furthermore, the several occurrences of the cognate verb851 usually refer to a “turning away” that amounts to “apostasy,” a deliberate and antagonistic rejection of Christ. But despite the usual meaning of this noun in Acts 21, it can hardly have that sense here, its earliest usage, since Paul clearly expects perseverance on the part of these believers. After all, nothing in the context indicates that believers will be deceived by the “lawless one.” Therefore, this noun, which was rendered “falling away” in the KJV,852 in more recent English translations has been correctly rendered “rebellion.” 853 In secular Greek, in fact, the word was used to refer to a political or military revolt, not in the sense of “falling away” from a position once held, but of a rebellion against a power or deity to whom one was not committed.
Historically, therefore, this word has been understood to refer to some of God’s own people (either believers or Jews) who have chosen to rebel against God and Christ in one way or another. But that seems to place far more emphasis on the primary meaning of the word as such, and not enough on its usage in the present context. Moreover, one should note further that in verses 10-12 part of “the revelation of the Rebel”854 involves his powers and deceptions among “the perishing,” not among believers. Therefore, in the present case, just as “the mystery of lawlessness” is already at work (v. 7), to be revealed in all its fullness and intensity with the “parousia” of the Rebel, so the language “rebellion” is used at the outset to describe this great satanic event.
But Paul is not one to leave such a description as his main focus, so he follows the descriptor “the Rebel” with the comforting word (for the Thessalonians) that he is “the man doomed to destruction.” Again, the T/NIV has properly rendered the sense of Paul’s semitism, “the son of destruction,” into appropriate English. As elsewhere in the New Testament, the language “son of ” is a Hebraism for one who shares in, or stands in close relationship to, someone or something. So Paul follows the description of the Rebel’s character, “man of lawlessness,” with a phrase that describes his ultimate destiny. He does so by (apparently) picking up language from Isaiah 57:4 LXX,855 language also used by John (in the mouth of Jesus) to describe Judas in John 17:12. Thus Paul designates “the Rebel” — from the divine perspective and in the ancient language of the KJV — as “the son of perdition,” meaning the “man doomed to destruction.” This appositional descriptor, one should note, is typical of Paul, who is loathe to give the last word to the evil one. Thus the one who in his rebellion would play havoc by means of his evil powers is also the one whose ultimate destiny is his own “destruction.”
The rest of the passage (through v. 12) is basically an explication of the Rebel’s activities and of his ultimate overthrow by the coming of the Lord Jesus. First up is his “anti-God” character (v. 4), then his current “hidden-ness” (vv. 5-7) and anti-God activities when he does come (v. 9a), which include his success among the wicked (vv. 9b-10a), who themselves will perish along with the Rebel at the coming of Christ (vv. 10b-12). Only the content of verse 8 breaks up this sequence by indicating that the Rebel will ultimately be destroyed by Christ at his coming. But before Paul moves on to these matters, he concludes his present broken sentence with a description of the Rebel’s activities when he “is revealed.”
4 The clause that constitutes our verse 4 sits in apposition to the twofold description of the Rebel that has preceded (“the lawless one/doomed to destruction”). Thus what Paul does next is to describe the Rebel’s activities in a way that offers the divine reason for his doom. Everything about him reveals him as “anti-God,”856 not in titular terms, but in terms of his activities. For much of the rest of the sentence Paul is indebted to the language of Daniel 11:36 LXX and Ezekiel 28:2. The first passage is a description of the self-exaltation of Antiochus IV, who styled himself as “Epiphanes” (the divinely manifested one); thus Daniel described him as “exalting himself against every deity and against ‘the God of gods,’ ” meaning the one God above all others that might be thought of as “gods.” This is both the language and the imagery that Paul uses in the first half of this clause (v. 4a). The description of the Rebel as “opposing and exalting himself over everything that is called857 God or is worshiped”858 is, as in the Old Testament passages, a way of describing his total arrogance. Thus with this adoption of the language of Daniel, Paul reveals his understanding of that passage as referring to an event that was yet to come,859 as a reduplication of one of the truly awful tragedies in Jewish history, when Antiochus did this very thing.
The Ezekiel passage is a prophecy against the king of Tyre, who “in the pride of [his] heart” said, “I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god.” Using Ezekiel’s language and imagery, Paul thus reminds the Thessalonians that the evidence of the Rebel’s arrogance will be to “set himself up860 in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”861 The temple, of course, is the one in Jerusalem, 862 which by this time had already been desecrated three times. The Holy Place had been entered by Antiochus in the third century BCE, by Pompey in the first century BCE, and by the Roman emperor Caligula in 41 CE. What cannot be known from our distance is whether in the present passage Paul expected this to happen yet another time, or whether he was simply using well-known “anti-Christ” events to describe the Rebel’s self-deification. More likely it is the latter, since by the time Paul wrote this letter the temple in Jerusalem no longer held any importance to him, except in a symbolic way to remind others of God’s past presence with his people.
Thus in this opening description, Paul emphasizes the Rebel’s opposition to God; indeed, when he does appear on the scene, he will stand in opposition to every known religious expression. The second description of the Rebel in verses 9-10 will emphasize his relationship to those who are to perish with him. But before that, Paul continues to remind the Thessalonians of previous instruction, in this case about the fact that the Rebel will be kept at bay until the appointed time.
2. What Holds Back That Day (2:5-7)
5 Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.
With what appears to be a degree of personal frustration with the Thessalonians for his needing to speak to this issue at all,863 Paul now moves on to give a bit of detail as to what must yet take place before the Parousia will occur. Thus he follows his reminder about the fact of the Rebel’s appearing with a further brief reminder as to why it has not yet — indeed, cannot have — happened. And here in particular those of us who read this letter at a much later time, and without their inside knowledge about “these things” that Paul “used to tell” them, are generally left with more questions than answers. One can understand the argument as such easily enough; our problems lie with some of the details, to which the Thessalonians had access but we do not.
Thus, after the reminder about his former teaching (v. 5), Paul recalls the basics of that teaching as to what must happen before the Parousia itself takes place.864 At the center of this reminder is the fact that something is “holding him back,” which turns out to be someone, a person who is to be revealed “at the proper time” (v. 6). The content of verse 6 is then repeated (v. 7) with further elaboration to the effect that “the mystery of lawlessness” that is “already at work” will continue until the one who holds it back is removed. Since all of this is what “you (Thessalonians) know,” we are left mostly in the dark at this point. Thus we can describe what it is they knew, but with almost no insight as to what it meant to them.
5 The question with which this part of Paul’s response begins is also the beginning of our lack of information. “Don’t you remember that when I865 was with you I used to tell you these things?”866 he asks. What is striking is the matter-of-fact way this is asked, striking in the sense that the eschatological details that follow appear to have been a part of his teaching regarding the death, resurrection, and eventual return of “our Lord, Jesus Christ” (v. 1). Yet it occurs here with details not found elsewhere in any of Paul’s letters, so we are left with a large amount of guesswork.
This in turn highlights the ad hoc nature of this letter — and the others as well. It should be a constant reminder that there is much about Paul’s theology, and especially his eschatology, that we do not know. In the present case our distance from these data is highlighted by his “when I was with you I used to tell867 you these things.” When one is reminded that the content of the present letter can be read aloud in about fifteen minutes, and that Paul had spent at least a few weeks there, it is perhaps more noteworthy that we learn as much as we do from his letters.868 But on the present matter, his “when I was with you” leaves us with a measure of uncertainty regarding details about the coming of Christ, but about whose certainty as an event both Paul and the rest of the New Testament are in full agreement.
6 Not one to leave it there — simply reminding them that he had taught them about “these things” — Paul goes on to spell out the bare details as to what is “holding back” the appearance of the Rebel. And again this is something “you know,”869 which also means that here in particular we are on the outside looking in, as it were.870 Paul’s sentence begins with an unusual “and now” — unusual in the sense that he is seldom given to parataxis (beginning sentences with “and”), but understandable in the present situation as a way of emphasizing his concern for the Thessalonian community. But in using the neuter accusative participle here (“what is holding back”), followed by the masculine singular in the next clause (“the one who holds back”), Paul let loose a long history of interpretation, trying to decipher what or who Paul had in mind, not to mention what the relationship might be between this neuter and the following masculine noun. Most likely Paul is not here intending two different realities but one, which in this clause emphasizes the event itself, while with the second phrase he emphasizes who is responsible for it.871
Furthermore, Paul’s following his “and” with the adverb “now” is equally ambiguous and has thus led to two different understandings, depending on whether the adverb is truly “temporal,” having to do with “the present time” in some way or another, or whether it is “logical,” having to do with the nature of the argument.872 That is, did Paul intend, “and you now [= already] know what is holding back,” or “and now [= to move the argument along] you yourselves know. . . .” Although a good case can be made for the latter option,873 both the use of this adverb at all and its position in the sentence argue strongly for a “temporal” sense. But if so, the question still remains as to what it is intended to modify, the Thessalonians themselves as “now [= already] knowing” this, or “what is now [= presently] holding him back”?874 To be sure, the house is rather evenly divided on this, but Paul’s present concerns seem to favor the latter understanding, since at issue is not their already knowing what he is talking about, but the fact that something or someone is “now” (= currently) holding the Rebel back, so that he will appear at a later time.875
The end result876 of the Rebel’s currently being “held back” is that “he will (then) be revealed,” which will happen “at his own time.” But this clause also turns out to be one of the more obscure in the Pauline corpus, resulting from the reality that this is merely a reminder of what they “know” already. “Do you not remember?” he begins. What they know (or at least should remember) is that something is currently holding back the Rebel, so that “he may be revealed ‘at his own time.’ ”877 Although some interpreters would see the adjective “his own” to be emphatic, and render it “his appointed” time, that seems to put too much emphasis on purposeful, perhaps even divine, design. Most likely Paul intended nothing more than to describe the time of Christ’s coming as that which will be his time to appear, but which is not presently the case. And since the Thessalonians “know” this, what follows is thus the bare bones of what they are to recall regarding the present time.
7 With an explanatory gar (“for”) Paul goes on to spell out in the briefest of detail what were for him and his readers the two present realities, both of which are for later readers still full of “mystery.” First, “the mystery of lawlessness is already at work”; and second, that condition will prevail “until he/it is taken out of the way.” Or at least that seems to be what Paul’s somewhat obscure sentence is intended to say. In one of the more difficult moments in the Pauline corpus, this final (broken) sentence reads (literally): “Only the one who restrains now from the midst has happened.” Most likely, as with most English translations, Paul intended something like (beginning with v. 6): “And now you know what is restraining (him), so that he might be revealed in his own time; for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work — (but will) only (be so) until878 the one who restrains (is removed) from our midst.” Thus Paul describes the present situation as one in which “the mystery of lawlessness” is currently being restrained.
What Paul intended by “the mystery of lawlessness” has proven to be something of a “mystery” on its own, especially for English readers for whom the word “mystery” probably means something quite different from Paul’s own usage. Rather than having to do with anything “mysterious,” the Greek word mystērion usually referred to something now hidden that would in time be revealed. But it is not certain whether that is Paul’s intent here. More likely it refers to a much greater revelation of “lawlessness” that is still in the future, but which has already made its presence felt in the world.
It is precisely because they did know what Paul meant that we do not; and therefore it is also of very little value for one to speculate regarding Paul’s intent here. Nonetheless, this lack of knowledge is also what has opened the door to any number of speculations. One of the more common, and one which from historical distance could be argued to make a great deal of sense, is the possibility that Paul intended the Roman Empire itself as “that which restrains” and the emperor himself as “he who restrains.” At the same time this very common option is suggested from considerable historical distance; it also assumes what cannot otherwise be known from Paul’s letters, namely that he looked upon the Empire as a great evil. After all, he was himself a citizen of the Empire, an empire that on the one hand had crucified his Lord but on the other hand had made possible the far-reaching spread of the gospel in his own day. So, at the end of the day, we should probably leave the sentence as it is — something that he and they both knew, and because they did know, we do not, and most likely never will this side of eternity.879
This also means that all speculations about later applications to one’s own present realities, whether it be Luther’s to the pope or twentieth-century North Americans’ to Hitler or Russian communism, are idle speculations. From our present distance the best position would seem to be, “Wait and see.”
3. What Will Take Place on That Day (2:8-12)
8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus880 will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts881 of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
Although some details remain obscure, Paul’s basic concern in this conclusion to the question of the “when” of the day of the Lord is easy enough to discern. In the preceding sentences he has made basically two points: first, that the day of the Lord cannot have come already, because it will be preceded by certain observable events known to them, events that have not yet happened; and second, that they already know this, because they also know what is holding back the revelation of the Rebel whose appearing will precede that of Christ. Thus our verses 3 and 4 were basically given over to describing the Rebel’s “anti-God” character, while the content of verses 5- 7 had basically to do with what the believers themselves had previously been taught about the “revelation”882 of the Rebel prior to Christ’s own coming.
Paul’s point in all of this is to reassure the Thessalonians that, given these realities about the coming of the Rebel before that of Christ, they should not let anyone “deceive” them to the contrary about the Parousia (v. 3). What now follows is a brief, but vivid, description of what will transpire when the Rebel does appear — which seems to have a twofold purpose in the present letter: first, to continue to reassure the Thessalonian believers that the “Coming” has not yet come; and second, to emphasize for their sakes that their present persecutors will in time get theirs, as it were. Thus the bulk of these two long sentences (vv. 8-10 and 11-12) focuses on what will happen to unbelievers at the Parousia.
Everything about the passage suggests that Paul is here offering a word of encouragement to these persecuted believers, since the emphasis is now altogether on God’s ultimate, righteous judgment of their persecutors. Typically, however, Paul fronts his first sentence (v. 8) with Christ’s own “coming” and his ultimate overthrow of the Rebel. But thereafter the passage deals exclusively with the way things will be when the Rebel appears just before Christ’s parousia. The remainder of the first sentence (vv. 9-10a) thus begins by focusing on the nature of the “coming” of the Rebel, including his powerful deceptions. But the ultimate focus of the sentence (v. 10b) is on those who will perish. This is almost certainly aimed in part at the Thessalonian believers’ present opponents; thus they are described as those “who are perishing,” because “they refused to love the truth and so be saved.”
The second sentence in turn (vv. 11-12), typical of Paul’s understanding of things, puts the emphasis on God’s activity in all this — who will cause many of the believers’ enemies to “believe the lie” and thus be doomed “to perish.” So an argument that began with emphasis on the “still future” reality of Christ’s coming ends up by reminding the believers that things will only get worse before they get better, with the reassurance that their present persecutors will be among those who perish “by the splendor of [Christ’s] coming.”
8 The “and then” with which this clause begins appears to stand as an emphatic way of saying, “and not before,” over against whatever was currently circulating in Thessalonica that Paul noted at the beginning (v. 3). It is only after the events enumerated in verses 3b-4 have occurred that the Rebel himself will be “unveiled.” But having got that far, and in typical fashion, Paul immediately shifts his focus onto Christ. To be sure, at the proper time “the lawless one will be revealed”; but Paul is simply incapable of giving him top billing. Thus the rest of the sentence (through v. 10) is composed of two relative clauses, where the “whom” of our verse 8 and the “whose” of verse 9 describe, in turn, first (v. 8), what will happen eventually to the Rebel himself, and, second (vv. 9-10), the nature of the Rebel’s coming that is responsible in turn for his being overthrown by the Lord at his coming.
So what Paul says first about the Rebel is that he will eventually be slain by Christ at his Parousia. The rest of this clause is a moment of rare intertextuality in Paul’s letters, rare because he here uses kyrios (“Lord”) to refer to Christ in a passage whose primary language carries overtones of Jewish messianism.883 As with 1 Thessalonians 1:10 (q.v.), this appears to be an allusion to Christ as Messiah, speaking of him as presently in heaven awaiting his role in the final judgment of the wicked. In making this point, Paul does two things.
First, he picks up the language of Isaiah 11:4 (LXX) and applies it to Christ’s (second) coming:
Paul Whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and will abolish at the manifestation of his ComingIsaiah and he will strike the land with the word of his mouth, and with the breath of his lip s he will slay the ungodly
Here Isaiah had prophesied that the coming “shoot from the stump of Jesse” would be characterized by righteousness and justice that will include his slaying of the wicked with “the breath of his mouth.” With help from Psalm 32:6 (for the form of the phrase “the breath of his mouth”884) Paul combines the two lines of Isaiah’s poetry into one and attributes this messianic future judgment to “the Lord = Jesus.”
But, second, Paul is not finished; so reflecting his own Semitic (and biblical) background, he turns his own prose into a moment of Semitic poetry, so that the rest of Paul’s sentence functions in very much the same way that synonymous parallelism does in the Psalter. Thus the second part clarifies the first by Paul’s speaking of the Rebel’s destruction in terms of Christ’s “abolishing” him at his (Christ’s) coming. That this is a poetic moment is demonstrated both by the redundancy of this clause in its own right, and by the (otherwise unnecessary) amplification of the “coming” itself. In plain prose Paul could easily have said simply, “at his coming”; but in this more poetic moment, the singular reality is amplified into “the manifestation of his coming,” where “manifestation”885 is intended to emphasize not just the fact of his coming, but especially its unmistakable and evidential character. That is, Christ’s coming will hardly be “secret,” since this word disallows such an option; rather, Christ’s Parousia will be openly manifest to all, both those who await his coming and those who will be “abolished” when he comes.
At the same time, the poetic nature of this sentence seems to disallow altogether that these two lines of (now poetic) prose intend two different events. Indeed, it is the nature of such synonymous parallelism in Hebrew poetry that the second line usually simply elaborates or intensifies what is said in the first line. Thus it is the poetic nature of this clause that reinforces for the Thessalonian believers that their present persecutors are destined for divine judgment; they will be “slain” by Christ and thus “abolished” at his coming.
Finally, one should note that the poetic nature of this sentence, and especially Paul’s deliberate borrowing of language from the Greek translation of Isaiah, likewise disallows speculation as to whether “the slain” are truly “abolished” in terms of ongoing existence. Given what Paul says elsewhere about the future of the wicked, one should probably not press what he says here beyond his immediate intent: to reassure a persecuted minority that God has not forgotten either them or their persecutors. Just as the Thessalonian believers have a sure future, so also do their persecutors, but not a future that they should look forward to!
9-10 With this clause Paul goes on to describe the “parousia” of the anti-Christ figure, which will immediately precede that of Christ. His “coming,” Paul says, will first of all be “in accordance with how Satan works.” Thus the implacable enemy of humanity, who at an earlier time hindered Paul from coming to Thessalonica (1 Thess 2:18), will be responsible for the phenomena that will accompany the “coming” of the Rebel, the “lawless one.” Elsewhere in the New Testament the present language (“miracles, signs and wonders”) is used as authenticating the ministry and person of Jesus (Acts 2:22); and these phenomena are the same in kind as those mentioned else-where as accompanying (and in part authenticating) Paul’s own apostolic ministry (Rom 15:19; 2 Cor 12:12). But according to Mark 13:32 (cf. Matt 24:24), Jesus himself predicted the rise of “false christs [plural],” who would perform great signs and wonders, which is probably the source of the traditional material reflected here by Paul.
For understandable reasons it has been common among English translations to treat Paul’s prepositional phrase as a triplet, since without punctuation it reads “with all power kai [“and”] signs kai wonders of falsehood.” Thus the KJV rendered it “with all power and signs and lying wonders,”886 while the more contemporary NRSV (typical of most) has “all power, signs, lying wonders.”887 This kind of literalism, however, poses several difficulties, since by this understanding the “all” is seen to go with all three nouns, while the genitive “of falsehood” is made into an adjective modifying only the final word, “wonders.” But this seems to miss Paul’s own intent by too much. Since the first of these nouns is singular and the other two are plural, it seems far better to go the route of the TNIV,888 which takes the two kai’s to mean “both/and.” In this reading “both signs and wonders” stand, in apposition to “with all power,” while the final genitive “of falsehood” (correctly, it would seem) is seen to modify the common doublet, “signs and wonders.” Thus Paul most likely intended, “with every kind of powerful display, both signs and wonders based on falsehood” (which the TNIV has correctly put into better English, “signs and wonders that serve the lie”).
Paul then follows this preposition with a second, companion one that creates a typical doublet, which most recent English translations have noted. When the two prepositional phrases are put “literally” they appear as:
with every kind of power, both signs and wonders of falsehood and with every kind of deception of wickedness
The two sets of key words in this doublet are “power / deception” and their inimical source, “falsehood / wickedness.” Paul thus clearly understands that “signs and wonders” can accompany falsehood as well as truth. Indeed, that Satan can match the Spirit when it comes to displays of power is a foregone conclusion for Paul. Therefore, by his describing those of the Rebel as stemming from falsehood, he does not mean that they are “counterfeit” in the sense of not really occurring.889 To the contrary, miracles they are indeed; but they issue from falsehood and as such are intended to deceive, to lead people astray after Satan.890 In both instances (the true and the false), therefore, the “signs and wonders” are the work of “spirit,” either the false spirit, as here, or the Holy Spirit, as in Paul’s case. The key to Paul’s understanding in the present passage rests with the last phrase, “those who are perishing.” They are so, he continues, because they “refused to love the truth,” on the one hand, and chose “to believe the lie,” on the other. Since Satan has the power to do “signs and wonders,” the key to Paul’s usage lies with the two words “truth” and “lie,” the two words that Paul will elaborate on in the rest of the passage. Thus he concludes the present sentence with a word of explanation regarding “those who are perishing.” They are headed for “destruction”891 precisely because they “were not receptive”892 to a love for the truth,893 while at the end (v. 12) they are simply those “who have not believed the truth.”
Although the construction “to love the truth and so be saved” has for many something of an un-Pauline sound to it, especially for those who read Paul only through the lens of his battle with the Judaizers in Galatians and elaborated considerably in Romans, this is nonetheless a very Pauline way of speaking. This emphasis on “the truth” is the direct result of what has just been said in context regarding Satan’s influence on nonbelievers. Satan is all about “believing the lie”; the logical — and therefore legitimate — contrast to that is “to love the truth and so be saved.”
11 With the two clauses of this final sentence Paul goes on to offer the divine response to “those who are perishing because they refused to love the truth.” One should note that all of this is a continuation of Paul’s elaboration on the coming of the Rebel (vv. 8-9). And once again the reader must also remember that all of this is intended not as a threat to the Thessalonians, but as comfort for them in the midst of present persecution. Because people such as those who are persecuting them have already committed themselves to “loving” falsehood rather than the truth, “God sends them [literally] a working of delusion.” The present tense of the verb needs to be noted. People’s own failure to love the truth results in a divine response. God thus sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie;894 that is, what they receive from God is a delusion of such power that they will believe in what is utterly false. And this is not about just any falsehood, but the lie, the ultimate falsehood generated by the Evil One, that has caused them to reject the one and only God, who has been revealed in his Son, the savior of the world.
12 The final result895 of people’s resistance to God’s mercy that has come through Christ will be “condemnation.”896 Paul’s emphasis lies here, since the verb sits in first place in his sentence (lit. “will be condemned all . . .”). The verb is then followed by the not/but contrast that identifies them as God’s own opponents, not just the Thessalonians’. Picking up the preceding themes of “delusion” and “lie,” Paul announces their judgment negatively as coming because they “have not believed the truth.” Indeed, their rejection of the truth, which for Paul has to do with the gospel itself, has led them also to have taken delight “in wickedness.”
There is a sense, of course, in which with these final two clauses (vv. 11 and 12) Paul seems to have strayed considerably from the concerns with which this passage began — someone’s having announced that “the day of the Lord” has already dawned. But that “sense” is the result of our own perspective, which differs considerably from his perspective — and theirs. A (probably prophetic) announcement such as that, in a community undergoing considerable presecution, is going to do precisely what Paul urges they should not let happen to them: to cause them to “be shaken.” These final sentences, which deal altogether with the lot of their persecutors — and others — are thus fully understandable. While the Thessalonians themselves are not to be shaken by false prophecies, their opponents have every right to be so, even if that is not in fact presently happening to them. This, then, is the reason for Paul’s singular emphasis in this final section, an emphasis which at the same time should serve to bolster the believers’ resolve. Just before the much-awaited Parousia of the Lord himself, their enemies will be deceived by Satan’s own “lawless one,” whom the Lord will destroy at his own coming.
As one comes to the end of these corrective (not primarily instructive) words, several reflections come to mind. First, this passage has been the hotbed of every imaginable eschatological movement in the history of the church; and that in turn has caused a large part of the church to avoid the passage with benign neglect. On the one hand, what was intended by Paul to be corrective of a false eschatology has in turn become the basis of later competing eschatologies; on the other hand, because Paul’s eschatological outlook and language have made some later Christians uncomfortable, they have simply acted as if it were not a part of inspired Scripture. But neither of these views is fair either to Paul or to the Thessalonians.
What needs to be noted from this passage, second, is the Apostle’s absolute certainty about the believers’ future, despite the various forms of false teaching that may come along. And nowhere in the passage does Paul either mention or encourage heated expectation; indeed, the passage is not about expectation per se, but about an informed understanding regarding God’s own future for those who are his. Thus this passage, which served as correction for the Thessalonians, should serve the later church as encouragement of the highest order.
God can be trusted with the future; and for those who so trust him, there is an underlying certainty that they too will be part of that future. And Paul’s primary point needs regularly to be stressed. If the timing of the great coming day of the Lord is not known, believing in its certainty — and waiting patiently and expectantly for it — is part and parcel of the Christian gospel, as that comes to us through the New Testament.
Third, even though it is not a central point in any way, one should perhaps note the thoroughly presuppositional way Paul refers to what one might term “the miraculous.” Granted that the reference to such in this passage has to do with miracles that advance falsehood, Paul uses such language only because he presupposes that miracles produced by the Holy Spirit are part and parcel of the Christian faith he knew and experienced. But it is the very “in passing” way they are referred to that in the end indicates how presuppositional such working of the Holy Spirit was for him and his churches — a presupposition that seems to have been lost in much of later Christendom. Fervent expectation has tended to be replaced with benign nonexpectation that God can (or will) do anything out of the ordinary. I for one think Paul and his churches had the better of it.