2 Thessalonians 2:5,6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Remember ye not, &c. These things were not asserted now merely to serve the present occasion: the apostle had spoken, yea, and borne a faithful testimony concerning them while he was at Thessalonica. Indeed, the rise and progress of this apostacy, with the various heresies connected with it, and the evils which were about to be occasioned by it, were matters of such offence and scandal, that unless the disciples had been forewarned concerning them, their happening might have led the weak to fancy that God had cast away all care of his church. The apostle, knowing this, made the prediction of these events the subject even of his first sermons to the Thessalonians, after they had embraced the gospel; and doubtless he followed the same course in all other places where he preached with any degree of success. See 1 Timothy 4:6. Beza observes that this prophecy was often repeated and earnestly inculcated in the first age, but is overlooked and neglected in modern times. And now ye know By what I told you when I was with you; what with-holdeth Restraineth the man of sin from exercising his impious tyranny. It seems the apostle, when at Thessalonica, besides speaking of the apostacy and of the man of sin, had told them what it was that hindered his appearance. But as he has not thought fit to commit that discovery to writing, we cannot determine with absolute certainty what it was; but if we may rely upon the concurrent testimonies of the Christian fathers, it was the Roman empire. Indeed, the caution which the apostle observes with respect to speaking of it, renders it highly probable that it was somewhat relating to the higher powers. He mentioned it in discourse, but would not commit it to writing. As he afterward exhorts the Thessalonians to hold the traditions which had been taught them, whether by word or his epistle, it is likely this was one of the traditions which he thought it proper to teach them. The apostle's manner of speaking here, ( that he might be revealed in his time, or in his own season, as εν τω εαυτου καιρω properly signifies,) seems to imply that there were reasons for permitting the corruptions of Christianity to proceed to a certain length. “Now what could these reasons be, unless to show mankind the danger of admitting any thing in religion but what is of divine appointment? For one error productive of superstition admitted, naturally leads to others, till at length religion is utterly deformed. Perhaps also these evils were permitted, that in the natural course of human affairs, Christianity being first corrupted and then purged, the truth might be so clearly established, as to be in no danger of any corruption in time to come.” Macknight.