Daily Devotion

 

 

This is undoubtedly one of the most difficult passages in the whole New Testament because it is using terms and thinking in pictures that were perfectly familiar to those to whom Paul was speaking but are utterly strange to us.

The general picture is this: Paul was telling the Thessalonians that they must give up their nervous, hysterical waiting for the Second Coming. He denied that he had ever said that the Day of the Lord had come. That was a misinterpretation of his words which must not be attributed to him. He told them that before the Day of the Lord could come much had still to happen.

 

First, there would come an age of rebellion against God; into this world, there had already a secret evil power that was working in the world and on men to bring this time of rebellion. Somewhere there was being kept one who was as much the incarnation of evil as Jesus was the incarnation of God. He was The Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, The Lawless One. In time, the power that was restraining him would be removed from the scene; then this devil incarnate would come. When he came, he would gather his own people to him just as Jesus had gathered His. Those who had refused to accept Jesus were waiting to accept him. Then would come the last battle in which Jesus would utterly destroy The Lawless One; Jesus' people would be gathered to Him and the wicked people who had accepted the Lawless One as their master would be destroyed