2 Thessalonians 2:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For this cause God shall send them That is, shall judicially permit to come upon them; strong delusion The strong working of error in their hearts. From this we learn that, as a punishment of their sins, God suffers wicked men to fall into greater sins; and as the sin of the persons described in this passage consisted in their not loving the truth, what could be more just or proper than to punish them, by suffering them to fall into the belief of the greatest errors and lies? Thus the heathen, mentioned Romans 1:24, were punished by God's giving them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts; that they should believe a lie Or, as the words εις το πιστευσαι αυτους τω ψευδει may be translated, so that they will believe a lie. The lie here intended by the Spirit of God, Macknight thinks, “is the monstrous lie of transubstantiation, or of the conversion of the bread and wine in the Lord's supper into the real identical body and blood of Christ, through the will of the priest accompanying his pronouncing the words of institution; notwithstanding there is no change whatever produced in the accidents or sensible qualities of these substances. This impudent fiction is not only a palpable contradiction to the senses and reason of mankind, but a most pernicious falsehood, being the chief foundation of that fictitious power of pardoning sin, and of saving or damning men according to their own pleasure, which the Romish ecclesiastics have blasphemously arrogated to themselves, and by which they make men utterly negligent of holiness, and of all the ordinary duties of life.” That they all might be damned Ινα κριθωσι, might be judged, or condemned; that is, the consequence of which will be, that, having filled up the measure of their iniquity, they will at length fall into just condemnation; who believed not the truth Received not the gospel in faith, love, and obedience; but had pleasure in unrighteousness In corrupt passions and vicious practices. The original expression, ευδοκησαντες signifies both to take pleasure in a thing, and to approve of it. “From this we learn that it is not the simple ignorance of truth which exposes men to damnation. In many cases this may be no fault in the ignorant. But it is men's refusing to believe, through their taking pleasure in unrighteousness, which will prove fatal to them; for a disposition of that sort renders the wicked altogether incurable.” Such is the interpretation which Bishop Newton, in his admirable work on the Prophecies, Dr. Macknight, and many other approved commentators, have given of this famous prophecy; an interpretation which applies with great ease to all the facts and circumstances mentioned in it, and is perfectly consistent in all its parts, which no other interpretation invented by learned men can be shown to be. The passage is evidently a prediction, as the above-mentioned divines have fully proved, of the corruptions of Christianity, “which began to be introduced into the church in the apostle's days, and wrought secretly all the time the heathen magistrates persecuted the Christians, but which showed themselves more openly after the empire received the faith of Christ, A.D. 312, and by a gradual progress ended in the monstrous errors and usurpations of the bishops of Rome, when the restraining power of the emperors was taken out of the way, by the incursions of the barbarous nations, and the breaking of the empire into the ten kingdoms prefigured by the ten horns of Daniel's fourth beast.” To be convinced of this, the reader need only compare the rise and progress of the Papal tyranny with the descriptions of the man of sin, and of the mystery of iniquity here given, and with the prophecies of Daniel. In the bishops of Rome all the characters and actions ascribed by Daniel to the little horn, and by Paul to the lawless one, are clearly united. “For, according to the strong working of Satan, with all power and signs, and miracles of falsehood, they have opposed Christ, and exalted themselves above all that is called God, or an object of worship; and have long sat in the temple of God as God, showing themselves that they are God; that is, they exercise the power and prerogatives of God. And seeing, in the acquisition and exercise of their spiritual tyranny, they have trampled upon all laws, human and divine, and have encouraged their votaries in the most enormous acts of wickedness, the Spirit of God hath, with the greatest propriety, given them the appellations of the man of sin, the son of perdition, and the lawless one. Further, as it is said that the man of sin was to be revealed in his season, there can be little doubt that the dark ages, in which all learning was overturned by the irruption of the northern barbarians, were the season allotted to the man of sin for revealing himself. Accordingly we know that in these ages the corruptions of Christianity, and the usurpations of the clergy, were carried to the greatest height. In short, the annals of the world cannot produce persons and events, to which the things written in this passage can be applied with so much fitness, as to the bishops of Rome. Why then should we be in any doubt concerning the interpretation and application of this famous prophecy?” Macknight.