Can we fix down the description of the man of sin to any one system or person? or ought we simply to say, with Augustine, that we must remain in total ignorance as to the Apostle's meaning? Between these two extremes we may occupy a middle position.
I. The theory must be set aside which declares these words have been long ago fulfilled. It would, in no sense, be either easy or useful to trace this view through its many varieties and intricacies. It is enough to say that the passage presents to us no mere allegory, refusing to be minutely scanned. The description is far too minute and specific to be thus explained away.
II. Nor is the question to be solved by supposing the words to be descriptive of a growing tendency, which the Apostle may have noticed in the Church, to fall back into the beggarly elements of Judaism, or to be seduced by any grotesque manifestations of the Judaistic spirit which might take place before the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.
III. The points in which the identification of this passage with the Church of Rome is held to be complete are well known. They are undeniably striking. The prominent errors of the Church of Rome, the gradual growth of these from principles and practices which can be traced in their germ to the very earliest Christian times the gathering together of the power and authority of the Church into one head, the despotic pride and pomp which clung to that Church as prominent characteristics, the imposture which in lying wonders, is so conspicuous in that Church, all these have often been marshalled in order, so as to appear a long line of evidence which cannot be broken. None the less it is to be observed, and more candidly acknowledged than it often is, that there are aspects of the case which the explanation by no means fits. It would be the spirit of antichrist itself at work if we were to deny the many elements of true Christianity in the Church of Rome. Besides, even the corrupt elements in Romanism do not in all respects correspond with the clauses of this passage. We seem rather to be directed to look for the coming of one who shall combine in himself in what way we cannot know the two elements of unbelief and superstition, and will work towards the overthrow of all that is good and true. Thus drawing men after him to destruction, he is himself to be destroyed.
J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians,p. 292.
References: 2 Thessalonians 2:7. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 236; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. iv., p. 86.