2 Thessalonians 2 - The Biblical Illustrator

Bible Comments
  • 2 Thessalonians 2:1 open_in_new

    Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    The coming of Christ

    I. The nature of it. Christ came. He comes. He is to come.

    1. He came in the flesh. The long line of predictions from Adam to Malachi were accomplished at last, after long delay and anxious expectation.

    2. He comes continually.

    (1) In the extraordinary manifestation of His presence and power, whether for judgment or mercy.

    (2) In the special manifestation of Him self to His people.

    3. He is to come.

    (1) Personally and visibly.

    (2) With power and great glory.

    (3) The dead shall rise, the just and the unjust.

    (4) The judgment will then be held.

    (5) The world destroyed.

    (6) The kingdom of God consummated.

    The consequences to His people will be--

    (a) Their redemption, i.e., their final deliverance from the power of death.

    (b) Their complete conformity to the likeness of Christ.

    (c) Their perfect enjoyment of that kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.

    II. The time.

    1. It is unrevealed.

    2. It is to be unexpected.

    3. It will not be until the conversion of the Jews and the calling in of the Gentries.

    Did the apostles expect Christ in their day?

    (1) They regarded His coming as they regarded the coming of death.

    (2) It was revealed to them that there should be a falling away first.

    We must distinguish between their personal expectations and their teaching. The latter alone is infallible.

    III. Points of analogy between the first and second comings.

    1. Both predicted.

    2. Anxiously and long expected.

    3. The subjects of much speculation as to time and mode.

    4. Disappointing in the one and the other.

    IV. The state of mind which the doctrine should induce.

    1. A firm belief in the revealed fact that He is to come. This faith should not be shaken by long delay. How long Abraham waited and died without the sight.

    2. Earnest desire. The hopes of the ancient people were concentrated on the coming of the Messiah. This led them to bear patiently what they had to suffer. To set their hopes on the future and not on the present. The same effect should be produced on us.

    3. Watchfulness and anxiety, lest that day should overtake us as a thief in the night. We should have our lamps trimmed and our lights burning. It would be a dreadful thing for Christ to come and find us immersed in the world.

    4. Prayer and waiting.

    5. Solicitous efforts to prepare others for His coming, and to prepare the way of the Lord. He will not come to the individual nor to the Church till His way is prepared. This includes--

    (1) Taking out of the way obstructions to His coming.

    (2) The accomplishment of the ingathering of His people. (C. Hodge, D. D.)

    The coming of Christ

    I. The coming of Christ to judgment is a truth--

    1. Well known by all the saints (Jude 1:14; Psalms 96:13; Psalms 98:9; Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

    2. Firmly believed (2 Peter 3:3-5; Titus 2:11-13).

    3. Earnestly desired (Song of Solomon 8:14; Revelation 22:20). Why?

    (1) In respect of Him who is to come--that we may see Him who is our great Lord and Saviour. All who believed anything of Christ before He came desired to see Him (John 8:56). And now Christians (1 Peter 1:8; 1 Peter 2:3).

    (2) In respect of the persons desiring--there is that in them which moves them to it.

    (a) The Spirit of Christ (Revelation 22:17). The Holy Ghost creates this desire: it is His great work to bring Christ and us together.

    (b) The graces planted in us--faith, which takes Christ at His word (John 14:2); hope, which is faith’s handmaid (1 Peter 1:3); love, which is an affection of union (Philippians 1:23).

    (c) Christian privileges; believers then find the fruit of their interest in Christ, and have their reward (Revelation 22:12; 2 Timothy 4:8; 1 Peter 5:4).

    II. When Christ shall come all the saints shall be gathered with him. There shall be--

    1. A congregation (Matthew 25:32; 2 Corinthians 5:10). Adam will then meet all his posterity at once. All distinctions of age, quality, wealth, nation, etc., will disappear.

    2. A segregation (Matthew 25:32-33). There may be some confusion now, but there shall be a complete separation then (Matthew 13:49).

    3. An aggregation: believers are gathered together for several ends.

    (1) To make up the number of Christ’s attendants (Jude 1:14; Zechariah 14:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:17).

    (2) To be presented to God by head and poll. We were given to Christ to be preserved for glory (John 17:6). Christ is to give an account (John 6:40). The form of presentation (Hebrews 2:13).

    (3) To be brought in one troop to heaven (John 14:3). Conclusion: There is much comfort in this.

    1. Real Christians seem few (Luke 12:32): but when there assembled they shall be a multitude that no man can number (Revelation 5:9; Revelation 7:9).

    2. Christian friends are now separated--then they shall meet to part no more (Matthew 24:31; 1 Thessalonians 4:17).

    3. The Church seems in a degenerate state--then it shall be without spot. (T. Manton, D. D.)

    Reunion

    1. The exact word occurs only again in Hebrews 10:25, and that gathering is typical of this. When we meet in the House of God, for prayer, praise, instruction and communion, we are practising for that other gathering, which shall be perfect. The verb, however, occurs in two other places: one is where our Lord reminds Jerusalem how He would have gathered her children together. That idea of safe keeping, cherishing under the wing of the mother, is involved in the “gathering” of the Second Advent. The other text is Mark 13:27, the interpretation of the text before us.

    2. The text is used not as a terror but as an attraction. “We beseech you by it,” as those who would not part with it for their life. The Advent, as a regathering, is full of consolation. But it implies--

    I. Dispersion. There are senses in which this is tolerable. The severance of nations by dividing seas and deserts, and by the Babel judgment of divided tongues, is no affliction. It is as a type that we must read it to enter into its significance for sorrow.

    1. It tells of sons and mothers parted for a lifetime by calls of duty or self-made necessities; of friends closer than brothers bidding each other a long farewell at a noisy station or a sea-washed pier; of vows of lifelong friendship broken in sudden passion; of discords which a breath would have healed; hence severance.

    2. There is a dispersion of divided tongues concerning Christ in God’s behalf. Men made offenders for a word; men unable to read in identical phrase some microscopic doctrine; men, kneeling in the name of one Saviour, imputing wilful blindness to one another.

    3. Then the uncharitableness of individual men must be made the watchwords and heirlooms of parties and Churches. Creeds and articles must adopt the quarrel, and anathematize the deviation as a crime. So Christ’s house is divided.

    4. Behind and beneath all these dispersions there lurks the giant disperser, Death. Those unaffected by the other dispersions are all doomed to suffer from this.

    5. But the greatest is sin. Brothers and friends may part and not part; even in this life they may be divided, and yet know that they have one home and Father. But sin divides even in its joining. Where sin is there is selfishness, and selfishness is severance.

    II. The regathering. To Paul, and to all whose hearts are large and deep, there was a peculiar charm in the thought of this. “I beseech you,” as though no motive could be more persuasive.

    1. The scene thus opened is august even to oppressiveness. Expanded from one end of heaven to the other, enhanced by multiplication of generations, till it has embraced all the living and dead who have possessed the one Divine faith which makes the communion of saints, it overwhelms and baffles the soul’s gaze.

    2. But we must seek to refine and decarnalize our conceptions. “There is a spiritual body,” doubtless like that of the risen Jesus which entered the room whose doors were shut. We must reassure ourselves by thoughts of the possibility of a communion in which mind shall touch mind, and spirit breathe into spirit, and soul kindle soul with no cumbersome machineries or limiting measurements.

    3. Even now we feel within ourselves an instinct of the regathering. There are those who profess to have the key of death, and to hold commerce with the departed. We could better believe them if we found in their supposed communications profiting or solemnity. But the instinct of reunion is there; we read it even in its follies.

    4. Still more do we long and yearn in ourselves for that kind of union which can come only to the immortal. Here we meet and part with a sense of unrest which leaves us to the end hungry and desolate. To the friend of our souls we cannot say one half of what we meant to say, and that was not fully understood. Our love he read not, and our passing humours he took as a changed affection. But then friend shall meet friend in absolute oneness, knowing as known, because loved as loving.

    5. The condition is “unto Him.” There are many human heavens for one Divine. We picture to ourselves a future bright with earth’s joys, and cloudless of earth’s troubles; but have we remembered that “the light thereof” is the Lamb. The promise of the text is vocal only to the Christian. Conclusion: Make now the great decision. If we will here trifle together, live for the world, neglect Christ, mock at sin, we must look abroad for some other hope: there is none for us in the gospel. The Advent regathering is for those only who in life “have loved the appearing.” (Dean Vaughan.)

    The Advent as a motive

    “By” is not a formula of adjuration. There would be no point in saying, “I beseech you by the day of the Lord, not to suppose that the day of the Lord is at hand.” It must be taken in the sense of “on behalf of,” as though he were pleading in honour of that day, that the expectation of it might not be a source of disorder in the Church. (Prof. Jowett.)

    Caution against error

    I. The error which the apostle disproves--that the day of Christ was then at hand.

    II. The effect which this error might produce--trouble and unsettledness of mind. This implies--

    1. That errors breed this disquietude.

    2. That Christians should be firmly established against them.

    III. A removal of the foundation of this error. The brethren were not to be shaken either by spirit, by word, or by letter. (W. Burkitt, M. A.)

  • 2 Thessalonians 2:2 open_in_new

    That ye be not soon shaken in mind

    A firm anchorage

    There lies a maritime figure in the word “shaken.

    ” Wordsworth well paraphrases it. “In order that you may not soon be shaken off from the anchorage of your firmly settled mind, and be drifted about by winds of false doctrine, as a ship in your harbor is shaken off from its moorings by the surge of the sea.” They are warned against being driven out of their ordinary state of mental composure--shaken out of their sanctified common sense. “Thrown off their balance,” is what we might say; “or be troubled:” the clause has a slightly climactic force--thrown into a state of unreasoning, and frenzied confusion (Matthew 24:6). (J. Hutchison, D. D.)

    Errors concerning the Second Advent

    I. From the error disproved, observe that the time of Christ’s coming must be patiently expected. Not rashly defined or determined. But is this such an error (James 5:8; 1Pe 4:7; 1 Corinthians 10:11; Romans 13:12)? Why then should the apostle speak so vehemently against the nearness of Christ? I shall show--

    1. That the apostle had reason to say that the day of the Lord was at hand.

    (1) With respect to faith: for faith gives a kind of presence to things which are afar off (Hebrews 11:1). Therein it agrees with the light of prophecy (Revelation 20:12). The Second Coming is as certain to faith as if He were already come (Philippians 4:5).

    (2) With respect to love. Love will not account it long to endure the hardships of this present world until Christ comes to set all things to rights (Genesis 29:20). Faith sees the certainty of it, and love makes us hold out till the time come about.

    (3) As comparing time with eternity (Psalms 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8). The longest time to eternity is but as a drop in the ocean. All the tediousness of the present life is but like one rainy day to an everlasting sunshine (2 Corinthians 4:17).

    (4) Paul speaks to particular men, whose abode in the world is not very long. Eternity and judgment are at hand, though Christ tarry long till the Church be completed (2 Peter 3:9). Now what is long, and afar off to the whole Church, considered in several successions of ages is short to particular persons. Christ is ready to judge at all times, though the world is not ready to be judged. The Coming of Christ is uncertain, that men in all ages might be quickened to watchfulness, and make preparation (Luke 12:40; Matthew 24:42).

    2. The seducers had little reason to pervert the apostle’s speech, and the apostle had good reason to confute their supposition that Christ would come in that age.

    (1) To inquire after the time is curiosity (Acts 1:7). It is a great evil to pry into our Master’s secrets, when we have so many revealed truths to busy our minds about. It is ill manners to open a secret letter. The practice of known duties would prevent this curiosity which tends not to edification.

    (2) Much more was it a sin to fix the time (Matthew 24:36).

    (3) The fixing of the time did harm--

    (a) It drew away their minds from necessary duties.

    (b) It pleased Satan who is the author of error.

    (c) It had a tendency to shake faith in other things when their credulity was disproved by the event.

    (d) It showed a diseased mind, that they were sick of questions when they had so much wholesome food to feed upon (1 Timothy 6:4).

    (e) It engendered strife.

    II. The effect this error was likely to produce. Trouble and unsettledness, in which is a two-fold metaphor, the one taken from a tempest, the other from the sudden alarm of a land fight.

    1. Errors breed trouble in the mind: they do not only disturb the Church’s peace (Galatians 5:12), but personal tranquility (Galatians 1:7). How?--

    (1) They are on unsound foundation, and can never yield solid peace. We only find soul rest in true religion; others are left to uncertainties (Jeremiah 6:16).

    (2) Because false peace ends in trouble. Every erroneous way is comfortless eventually. False doctrine breeds anxiety, and cannot quiet conscience; but truth breeds delight (Proverbs 24:13-14; Matthew 11:28-30).

    2. Christians should be so established as not to be easily shaken.

    (1) Let us see how this is pressed.

    (a) From the encouragement of the great hope (1 Corinthians 15:58; Acts 20:24).

    (b) From its absolute necessity (Colossians 1:28).

    (2) Let us inquire what is necessary to this establishment.

    (a) A clear conviction of the truth, not some fluctuating opinion about it (James 1:8; 1Th 5:21; 2 Peter 3:16-17; Ephesians 4:14).

    (b) A resolution to adhere to the truth. The heart must be established by grace as well as the mind soundly convinced (Heb 13:9; 1 Corinthians 7:37; Acts 21:13). This resolution of the heart is by faith and love (Heb 3:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:10; Ephesians 1:7).

    (3) The opposite to this is inconstancy (Galatians 1:6; Matthew 11:7; Proverbs 14:15), of which the causes are--

    (a) Want of solid roofing in the truth (Matthew 13:5; Matthew 13:20).

    (b) Want of mortification (2 Timothy 4:10).

    (c) A readiness of mind which disposes men to conform to their Company, as the looking glass represents every face that looks into it (Jeremiah 38:5).

    (d) Want of a thorough inclination to God, so that they are right only for a while or in some things (1 Kings 2:28; Hosea 7:8).

    (e) Want of holiness and living up to the truths we know (1 Timothy 3:9).

    (f) Libertinism. Men think they may run from one sect to another as the wind of interest blows. They would die rather than change their religion, but think nothing of the differences among Christians when their turn is to be served. (T. Manton, D. D.)

    Calmness in view of the Second Advent

    Two anecdotes of two very different men well illustrate that practical combination of energetic discharge of duty with Advent expectation which these Epistles have secured to the Church. When Francis of Sales was once, after intense labour, unbending himself at a game of chess, some morbid precisian who was near, asked him what he would do if he knew that the Lord’s coming was even at hand, “Finish the game,” said the bishop, boldly; “for His glory I began it.” General Lee wrote a striking story to his son, “Last century, in New England, a day of sudden and unaccountable gloom, known yet by tradition as ‘the dark day,’ occurred while the senate of the State was sitting. The universal impression was that doomsday had indeed come. Suddenly a well-known member stood up, ‘President,’ said he, ‘I propose that lights be brought in, and that we pass to the order of the day. If the Judge comes He had best find us at our duty.’” (Bp. Alexander.)

    Neither by Spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as that the day of Christ is at hand--

    Dangers of deception

    These are the three ways in which the Thessalonians were in danger of being deceived and so troubled. A fanatical spirit had insinuated itself, and, as in all such cases, fraud was sure to follow closely on its footsteps.

    I. Spirit. Voices had been heard in their assemblies which professed to come from those who had the gift of prophecy. These had to be tried, for they might be full of error (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

    II. Word. Not simply any rumour that might be gaining currency, or any reckoning as to the time which men might make; nor some unwritten saying of our Lord, or oral message from the apostle; but simply ordinary teaching in the Church. It would thus seem that unscrupulous or fanatical men, getting a footing in the Church, were busy in misleading and so troubling believers.

    III. Letter. “As from us,” is not to be connected with all three terms, for the spirit, as of the absent Paul, could not have been feigned. The manifestation must have been present in his own person. And so, if it cannot be attached to the first, it should not be to the second. Confining it to letter it refers not to some misconstruction of Paul’s former Epistle, but to actual fictitious letters. Such are hinted at in 2 Thessalonians 3:17. False or fanatical brethren had made such letters current in the Thessalonian community. Nor is this so very extraordinary. Literary forgeries, meant as pious frauds, were not uncommon, and the offence, daring as it was, is somewhat softened to our view when we reflect that Paul’s letters, while they had the authority, were not yet invested with all the sanctity with which we now regard them. It is quite conceivable, then, that there were some who thought they were serving a good purpose, one that Paul had himself at heart, in circulating, perhaps anonymously, as a representation of Pauline teaching, letters which, as they thought, cleared up the obscurities of his instruction. (J. Hutchison.)

    Dissuasives against error

    I. Ways and means God has appointed to settle choice and opinion in religion.

    I. The light of nature antecedently to external revelation will sufficiently convince us of the being of God and our dependence upon Him (Romans 1:19-20). For I must know there is a God, or else I cannot believe in a revelation from Him. Nature will tell us that there is a First Cause of all things, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, that it is reasonable that He should be served by His creatures; that He will reward or punish men as they disobey or serve Him: but how He is to be served, and how after disobedience return is possible is revealed in the Word of God.

    2. The written Word shows us the true way of worshipping and pleasing God, and being accepted with Him: therefore it is a sufficient direction to us. There is enough to satisfy conscience, though not to please wanton curiosity (2 Timothy 3:15; Psalms 119:105). There we have many things evident by the light of nature made more clear, and that revealed which no natural light has shown.

    3. The natural truths of the Word of God are evident by their own light. The supernatural truths, though above natural light are not against it, and fairly accord with principles which are naturally known, and are confirmed--

    (1) By antecedent testimony (John 5:39; 2 Peter 1:19).

    (2) By evidence in their own frame and texture (2 Corinthians 4:2-4).

    (3) Subsequent evidence, that of the apostles (Acts 5:32).

    4. The Word being thus stated and put into a sure record is intelligible on all necessary matters (Psalms 25:8). To think otherwise were blasphemy or folly.

    5. Besides, the illumination of the Spirit accompanies the Word and makes it effectual (2 Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 1:17-18; 1 Corinthians 2:14).

    6. There are promises of direction to humble and sincere minds (Psalms 25:9; Proverbs 2:4-5; John 7:17; James 1:5).

    II. The Christian who is thus established is fortified against--

    1. Pretended revelations, “Spirit”; because:--

    (1) Having his mind thus settled, he may boldly defy all revelations pretended to the contrary (Galatians 1:8). Any doctrine if different from, or besides the written Word, a Christian may reject.

    (2) A Christian is on better terms, having the written Word, than if God dealt with him by way of revelations (2 Peter 1:19).

    (3) It is not rational to expect new revelation, now the canon of faith is closed up (Hebrews 2:1-2; Matthew 28:20; Joh 17:29).

    (4) If any such be pretended, it must be tried by the Word (Isaiah 8:20; 1 John 4:1).

    (5) They that despise ordinary means, and pretend to vision or inspiration are usually such as are given over to error as a punishment (Micah 2:11).

    2. Unwritten tradition “Word.” This should not shake the mind of a settled Christian, for it has no evidence of its certainty, and would lay us open to the deceits of men, blinded by their own interests and passions; and if such tradition be produced as has unquestionable authority it must be tried by the Scripture.

    3. Epistle as from us--

    (1) Supposititious writings which the Church in all ages has exploded, having received only those which are theirs whose names they bare.

    (2) False expositions. These are confuted by inspection of the context, scope of the writer, comparing of obscure places with plain and clear. (T. Manton, D. D.)

    Spirits to be tried

    Genuine enthusiasm is the zeal of love for Christ and for human souls, guided by the Word of God. It is a very different thing from that blind zeal which is the fire and fervour of an overheated imagination, which exalts itself above the written Word, and is more properly named fanaticism, which is not a virtue but a vice. Wesley besought his followers to shun this rock in sober faith, saying, “Give no place to a heated imagination. Do not hastily ascribe things to God. Do not easily suppose dreams, voices, impressions, visions, or revelations to be from God. They may be from Him. They may be from nature. They may be from the devil Therefore, ‘Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they be of God.’ Try all things by the written Word, and let all things bow down before it.”

  • 2 Thessalonians 2:3 open_in_new

    Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first

    Christ and Antichrist

    The most marked Features in this passage are--

    I. A caricature of Christ; an exact counterpart and mockery of Christ in the man of sin. The latter has, like the former--

    1. An apocalypse (2Th 2:8. cf. verses 6-8).

    2. A solemn coming on the stage of human history (2 Thessalonians 2:8).

    3. An advent (2 Thessalonians 2:9).

    4. Power, signs, wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:9).

    5. Designation (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

    6. A definitely appointed season of His own (2 Thessalonians 2:6).

    II. A caricature of Christianity. As some of the leading glories of Christ are studiously travestied in the “lawless one,” and described in language which forces us to think of Christ; so several of the leading features of the Christian system are powerfully travestied by imitative anti-Christianity. This latter is--

    1. A mystery (2 Thessalonians 2:7), imitative of the mystery of godliness.

    2. Has an energy, an inworking (2 Thessalonians 2:7; 2Th 2:11, cf. Ephesians 2:2), imitative of the energy and inworking of the Word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:12; Hebrews 4:12), of God (Philippians 2:18; Galatians 2:8), of the indwelling Spirit (Colossians 1:29). He shall work in them by such an energy as that of the Holy Ghost, who witnesseth in us concerning God; not a mere apprehension, but an inworking of error, a regeneration into the faith of the lie” (E. Irving)

    .

    3. Has a faith--a solemn making of an act of faith--imitative of the faith of Christians (2 Thessalonians 2:11).

    4. The words eudokein, eudokia are used of God’s good pleasure in His sinless Son, and of His goodwill toward men (Matthew 3:17; Matthew 12:18; Matthew 17:5; Luk 12:32; 1 Corinthians 1:21; Galatians 1:15), or the good will of Christians in holiness and acts of love (1 Thessalonians 2:8, etc.). The imitative good pleasure of anti-Christianity is in unrighteousness (2 Thessalonians 2:12). (Bp. Alexander.)

    Signs of the Second Advent

    I. A caution: “Let no man deceive you.” A man may be deceived on this momentous subject.

    1. All admit that Christ will come; but few invest it with sufficient importance. Paul thought so much about it that he made it the main subject of these Epistles, and the New Testament is full of it. Little is said about death but much about the Second Advent.

    2. There were false teachers who preached that the event was at hand, and many were abandoning the ordinary duties of life, and were troubled and shaken in mind. False expectations were calculated to produce such results. What awful disturbance there would be in the mind of every unconverted man were it now infallibly announced that Christ would come tomorrow. But Paul was writing to the Church. How, then, could they be troubled who were encouraged to look for and hasten unto that event? It is one thing to live in quiet expectation of Christ, and another to feel that He will come tomorrow. We are forbidden to inquire into the day and hour. That is to keep the Church in a state of calm expectation. Think of the trouble many good people would be in were it known that Christ would come directly. Who would have any relish for work. And then there are many true believers whose evidence is not always clear; how it would trouble them. How agitated we should be about the condition of our friends. To prevent these evils, the hour is unrevealed.

    II. The events which must transpire before Christ comes.

    1. “The gospel must be first preached to all nations as a witness,” as our Lord said. His object was the formation of a Church as His witness. This Church, like a pilgrim, has gone from place to place. Churches have been formed, and then after a while the candlestick has been removed, as in the case of those of Asia. The effect of this has been the gathering of a people, generation after generation, to “the general assembly of the first-born.” This, too, is the work of every preacher. He does not convert congregations, but individuals. The net is cast and fish are gathered of every kind forming what we call Christendom. With this body our Lord will deal when He comes, and then the final severance will take place. But before then there will be a great moral separation, viz.

    2. “A great falling away.” This will be of mere professors who, by withdrawing, will leave the whole body of believers sharply defined and intact (Revelation 13:8). This apostasy will not be of one or two, here and there; that began in Paul’s time, and has been going on ever since; but one of a great and striking character. The cause of this will be the portentous development of the mystery of iniquity which began the work one thousand eight hundred years ago, ripening into all sorts of sin, Romanism, infidelity, religious indifference and worldliness, preparing the visible Church for the reception of a great pretender who is--

    3. “The man of sin.” Some have identified this character with the Pope in his official character but this can hardly be the case inasmuch as the Pope has never exalted himself above God, etc., (2 Thessalonians 2:4), and has not been worshipped by the world (Revelation 13:8). One of the marks of the beast is that all shall worship him but the elect; but surely every non-Papist is not a true believer. Whether a given Pope may yet appear as the man of sin is another matter, but it is quite certain that one has not yet been “revealed” as such. This individual will--

    (1) be a “man,”

    (2) be qualified for his work by the energy of Satan--

    (3) be revealed by tribulation which shall sift and purify the elect, at the same time inviting to himself all the ungodly.

    III. Then will come the end (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10). (Capel Molyneux, M. A.)

    The falling away

    is either that of which he had spoken to them while he was yet with them, or that, which in his own mind was inseparable from the coming of Christ which was to follow. Of what nature was this falling away? What vision of apostasy rose before him as he wrote this? Was it within or without? permanent or passing? persecution of the heathen, or the disorganization of the body of Christ itself? Was it the transition of the Church from its first love to a more secular and earthly state, or the letting loose of a spiritual world of evil, such as the apostle describes in Ephesians 6:12? So ideal a picture cannot properly be limited to any person or institution. That it is an inward, not an outward evil, that is depicted, is implied in the very name apostasy. It is not the evil of the heathen world, sunk in grossness and unconsciousness, but evil rebelling against good, conflicting with good in the spiritual world itself. And the conflict is of the same nature, though in a wider sphere, as the strife of good and evil in the heart of the individual. It is that same strife, not as represented in Romans 7:1-25, but at a later stage when evil is fast becoming good, and the remembrance of the past itself is carrying men away from the truth. (Prof. Jowett.)

    An evil and presumptuous one

    The apostle speaks in the eighth verse of the revelation of “that wicked,” intimating the discovery, which should be made of his wickedness in order to his ruin: here he speaks of his rise, which should be occasioned by the general apostasy; and to intimate that all sorts of false doctrines and corruptions should centre in him.

    I. The names of this person.

    1. He is called “that man of sin,” to denote his egregious wickedness; not only is he addicted to and practises wickedness himself, but he also promotes, countenances, and commands sin and wickedness in others.

    2. And he is “the son of perdition,” because he himself is devoted to certain destruction, and is the instrument of destroying many others both in soul and body.

    II. The presumption of this person.

    1. His towering ambition. He “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.” Thus he has not only opposed God’s authority, and that of the civil magistrates, who are called “gods,” but exalted himself above God and earthly governors, in demanding greater regard to his commands than to the commands of God or the magistrate.

    2. His dreadful usurpation. “He as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God!” As God was in the temple of old, and worshipped there, and is in and with His Church now, so Antichrist is the usurper of God’s authority in the Christian Church, and the claimer of Divine honours, for, among the moat blasphemous titles, this one has been given to him, “Another God on earth!” (T. Scott, M. A.)

    Apostasy and Antichrist

    I. The general apostasy which must precede Christ’s coming.

    1. Apostasy is any defection from that lord to whom we owe fealty. In religious matters it is defection from our right and proper Lord. The devil was an apostate (Jude 1:6; John 8:44); our first parents (Romans 5:19); their posterity (Zephaniah 1:6; Isaiah 59:13).

    2. The apostasy of the text was not civil, the falling away of many kingdoms from the Roman empire; but of the visible Church from its Lord. This is proved--

    (1) From the fact that the Thessalonians did not intermingle with State affairs.

    (2) From the use of the word in Christian doctrine (Luke 13:13).

    (3) Because it was expressly foretold (1 Timothy 4:1).

    (4) Because those who are most concerned to maintain the notion of civil apostasy are most notorious in this defection.

    3. The proper Lord of the Christian Church is Christ (Romans 14:9; Ephesians 5:23).

    4. Apostasy from Christ is determined by two things.

    (1) By undermining His authority. This is done when others usurp His place without His leave, e.g., superinduce a universal head of the Church which Christ never appointed.

    (2) By corrupting and destroying the interests of His kingdom, which is the case wherever there is a degeneration from the purity and simplicity of the gospel (2 Corinthians 11:3), such as when the faith of the gospel is turned into dead opinions and curious questions; and its worship corrupted into giving Divine honour to saints and angels and turned into a theatrical pomp of empty ceremonies; and its discipline transformed into temporal domination and carried on by sides and interests.

    5. This apostasy is notable and discernible, not of a few or many in divers Churches. There have always been backsliders (1 John 2:18-19; 1 John 4:3; 1 John 4:5); but the great apostasy is in some visible Church where these corruptions are generally received and defended. Who then are they--

    (1) Who usurp Christ’s authority by setting up a universal head over all Christians?

    (2) Who revive the worship of a middle sort of powers between God and man (1 Timothy 4:1; Colossians 2:18), and invent so many lies to defend it, when Christians should keep themselves from idols (1 John 5:21), not contented with the only Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5; 1 Corinthians 8:5)?

    (3) Who plead for indulgences and the supererogatory satisfaction of saints as profitable for the remission of sins?

    (4) Who keep believers from reading the Scriptures when expressly enjoined to do so (John 5:39; Psalms 1:2)?

    (5) Who deny one part of the Lord’s Supper notwithstanding His institution to the contrary (1 Corinthians 11:25-26)?

    II. The revelation of Antichrist as--

    1. “The man of sin.”

    (1) The Jews gave this name to Antiochus (1Ma 2:48; 1Ma 2:62), and it is given to Antichrist because he is a man given up to sin eminently, and giveth excitements to sin. Now how much open sin is allowed in the Papacy their own stories tell Histories witness that the most abominable men have occupied the Papal chair; and no man can sin at so cheap a rate when, by dividing sins into mortal and venial, and these expiated by penance, faculties, licences, dispensations, indulgences until sin is distinguished out of conscience.

    (2) Because he is called “the man of sin” it does not follow that he is an individual. One is often put for a society and succession of men as kings (Daniel 7:8; Isaiah 10:5; Isaiah 14:9); so the “man of God” is put for all faithful ministers (2 Timothy 3:17); “high priest” (Hebrews 9:25); “the king” (1 Peter 2:17). So one person represents that succession of men that head the revolt against Christ.

    2. “The son of perdition.” Wherein he is likened to Judas (John 17:12). The term may be explained passively as one condemned to everlasting destruction (2 Samuel 12:5; Ephesians 2:3), or actively as bringing destruction on himself and others (Rev 9:11, cf. Hebrews 5:9). Note the parallel.

    (1) Judas was not a stranger, but a pretended friend and apostle (Acts 1:17). Turks and infidels are enemies to Christ, but Antichrist seeks to undermine Him under a pretence of friendship. There is no mystery in open enmity (verse 7).

    (2) He sold Christ for a small matter; Antichrist makes a market of religion.

    (3) Judas betrayed Christ with a kiss, and where is there apparently such friends of Christ as at Rome? They are ready to worship the Cross, and yet they are its enemies, because they mind earthly things.

    (4) Judas was a guide to those who came to take Christ, and the main work of Antichrist is to be a ringleader in persecuting for religion.

    (5) Judas was covetous, and England to its bitter cost knows the exactions of the Papacy. (T. Manton, D. D.)

    The development of Antichrist

    I. It begins in a falling away--

    1. From the power and practice of godliness, though the profession be not changed.

    (1) Because this disposes to the entertainment of error. When a people that are carried with great zeal for a while, lose their affections to good, and return to a worldly life, then the bias of their hearts easily prevails against the light of their understandings. And so unsanctified men may the sooner be drawn to apostasy; they never felt the quickening virtue of faith, and were never wrought by it to the true love of God or an holy life.

    (2) Because if a lively Christianity had been kept up, Antichrist had never risen, and it is the way to keep him out still (Matthew 13:1-58). A sleepy religion and corruption of manners made way for corruption of doctrine, worship, and order (Song of Solomon 5:2).

    (3) Because there is such a compliance between the nature of Antichristianism and the temper of a carnal heart; for superstition and profaneness grow both upon the same root. To prevent this falling away from a lively godliness observe two things--

    (a) Coldness in duties, when the will and affections grow more remiss, and the worship of God, which keepeth up the remembrance of Him, is either omitted or performed in a careless and stupid manner (Jeremiah 2:32; Job 27:10; Isaiah 43:22). When you seldom think or speak of God and do not keep up a delightful communion with Him, there is a falling away.

    (b) Boldness in sinning. When men lose their tenderness and strictness, and the awe of God is lessened in their hearts, and they do not only sin freely in thought, but in act, have not that hatred of sin and watch fulness they had formerly, but more abandon themselves to a carnal life, they are falling off from God apace (2 Peter 2:20).

    Consider the cause of it--

    (a) Want of faith in God (Hebrews 3:12).

    (b) Want of love to God (Revelation 2:4-5).

    (c) Want of a due sense of the world to come (Hebrews 10:39).

    (d) Love of the present world (2 Timothy 4:10; 1 Timothy 6:10; 2 Timothy 3:4).

    2. From a true religion to a false, which may be done two ways.

    (1) Out of weakness of mind as those do who were never well grounded in the truth (Ephesians 4:14; 2 Peter 3:16). Therefore we need to be established; but the forsaking of a truth we were bred in usually comes from some falseness of heart. Some errors are so contrary to the new nature, that they discern them by the unction (1 John 2:20).

    (2) Out of vile affection, when they forsake the truth for the advantages of a fleshly, worldly life, some places to be gotten by it, etc., and as the whore of Babylon hath a golden cup, riches, and preferments, wherewith it inviteth its proselytes. Now these are worse than the former, for they sell the birthright (Hebrews 12:16). O Christians! take heed to yourselves. Apostasy brought Antichrist into the Church. Let it not bring him back again into the land, or into your hearts.

    II. The next step is the man of sin. As the first apostasy of Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, so this great apostasy brought in a deluge of sin into the Church, and defiled the holy society which Christ had gathered out of the world. Idolatry is often called adultery or fornication; spiritual uncleanness disposeth to bodily, and bodily to spiritual. Usually a corrupt state of religion and corrupt manners go together; otherwise the dance and the fiddle would not suit. The world cannot lie quiet in a course of sin, if there be not some libertine, atheistical doctrine, and carnal worship to countenance it (Revelation 11:10).

    III. The man of sin is also the son of perdition.

    1. Actively. False religions strangely efferate the mind (Jude 1:11; Hosea 5:2). Men think no cruelty nor dishonesty unlawful which serveth to promote the interests of their sect, and lose all charity to those that are not of their way.

    2. Passively, shall be destroyed. Sometimes grievous judgments come in this world for the corruptions of religion; but in the world to come, dreadful is the end of apostates (2 Peter 2:20-21). (T. Manton, D. D.)

    The man of sin

    Mark--

    I. That moral evil on earth is represented in human nature. Sin is connected with man in contradistinction to--

    1. Abstract systems.

    2. Super-earthly sinners.

    II. That it is often found usurping the perogatives of God, such as--

    1. Proprietorship in human life.

    2. The taking away of human life.

    3. Dominion over conscience.

    4. The absolving from sin.

    5. Infallibility of character.

    III. That it is subject to restraint in this world, arising from--

    1. Civil law.

    2. Social intelligence.

    3. The monition of conscience.

    4. Physical inability.

    IV. That it is associated, with the mysterious (verse 7). Evil is mysterious on account of--

    1. The darkness that enfolds its introduction.

    2. The mask under which it works.

    3. Its wonderful results.

    V. That it is satanic in its operations (verse 9). These operations are--

    1. Sensuous.

    2. Marvellous.

    3. Deceptive.

    4. Unrighteous.

    5. Destructive.

    VI. that it is destined to be destroyed by the agency or christ.

    1. By His Word.

    2. By His manifestation. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

    Judas a type of the Papacy

    The term “son of perdition” occurs but once elsewhere, and that on our Lord’s lips in reference to Judas. The parallel between His character and conduct and the Papacy--not any individual Pope, but the whole system--is most close. We conceive the Papacy to be here intended, because the features of type and prophecy here delineated fit no other subject.

    I. Judas and the bishops of Rome alike were ministers--official men in the Church. The antiquity of the Church of Rome, and the dignity, authority, and vast influence of its bishops is undisputed.

    II. Both betrayed the trust reposed in them. How fearfully Judas did this we all know; and has not the Papacy? The trust committed to it was the “mystery of godliness,” the maintenance of the gospel in its purity and simplicity, the care of Christ’s flock, example not lordship. How was this trust fulfilled by successive bishops of Rome? They gradually began to seek for ascendancy, to accommodate the Scriptures to their own purpose, to vitiate the purity and simplicity of the gospel by tradition, ecclesiastical decisions, fables, and legends as of Divine authority, to set themselves more aloft, and to set the Saviour aside, usurping His preeminence by assuming the title of His vicars, as though He were not with His Church always.

    III. Both betrayed him into the hands of his enemies to death. Judas literally, the Papacy in the persons of His persecuted representatives. Judas betrayed Christ into the hands of the civil power, and has not the wretched policy of Rome ever been to screen its own cowardice and heartlessness behind the pretended power of civil authority, to whom her victims after sham trials have been handed over for death?

    IV. Both betrayed the Lord with a kiss. The Papacy makes a vain pretence of showing special homage to Christ. Witness its caricature of Christ’s example when the Pope washes the feet of a few selected beggars, and the spurious honour given to Christ’s dignity by the mediatorship of Mary and the Saints.

    V. Both betrayed the Lord for money. The covetousness of Judas gives point to the apostolic injunction to ministers not to be lovers of filthy lucre; but history is witness that the Papacy from the first has been given to filthy lucre. The requirements and ordinances which Rome has substituted for the ordinances of the gospel have been so many channels for wealth to flow into her treasury. Almost as soon as the Papacy rose on the ruins of the Pagan Empire she imposed the impious tax known as Peter’s pence. But this is not all. Merchandize is made of Christ. Rome professes that her priests, in the mass, transubstantiate the wafer into Christ, and the mass is offered for the sins of men, for money; so that the priests must be paid as Judas for offering up the Lord Incarnate. And then she sells indulgences, deliverances from penance, prayers, etc., making salvation a matter of money.

    VI. Both betray Christ at the instigation of Satan. We could not account for the structure of the Papacy except on this hypothesis.

    1. If you trace back the policy of Satan to the beginning you find it to be threefold.

    (1) It was to blot out the idea of God. Hence we find no idolatry on the part of the ungodly before the flood.

    (2) Failing, then, to set aside religion altogether he corrupted it. No sooner was there knowledge of the true God than he introduced gods many; side by side with prophets, miracles, the Word of God, he set up soothsayers, magic, lying oracles and legends.

    (3) When Christianity was set up, and his pagan throne in Rome overthrown, he set up his Papal throne, and repeopled the deserted pantheon with idols for Christians to worship. So exactly has this come to pass that there is scarcely a pagan ceremony that has not its shadow in Popery, and its mission abroad is to paganize Christianity rather than to Christianize paganism.

    2. Note the satanic characteristics of the Papacy.

    (1) There is no doubt that Satan has much to do with the lying wonders of heathenism, and the strange appearances of power with which Rome caricatures the miracles of Christ. Did not the Pope know that the winking picture which he sent crowns to adorn, and which he endorsed as a miracle, was a most barefaced imposture?

    (2) Satan fell by pride, and we need scarcely to be reminded of the awful arrogance of the Papacy. Look at the servile homage the Pope receives when men kiss his feet; and when on the day of his installation he is borne on the shoulders of bishops, and thrice adored; and when on the pontifical throne he is placed on the high altar where the Divine wafer rests, thus “sitting in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God and is worshipped.”

    VII. Both fulfil Scripture and accomplish what God in His determinate counsel and foreknowledge declared should be done. How these and other instances in which the wrath of man praises God is a mystery; but the existence of such a system of despotism, delusion, superstition, and cruelty, would be an intolerable burden on any ether hypothesis. But when we see it all foretold in revelation, and that it shall at last serve to magnify Christ, and tend to the glorification of His Church, we bow submissive and tarry the Lord’s time. VIII. Both are branded “the son of perdition,” because of their fearful doom (verse 8). (Canon Stowell.)

  • 2 Thessalonians 2:4 open_in_new

    Who opposeth and exalteth Himself above all that is called God?

    Antichrist

    I. As opposite to Christ. Christ is the true Head and Lord of the Church (Acts 10:36). That which is most remarkable in Christ, and should be in all His followers, is humility (Matthew 20:28); 2 Corinthians 8:9). This is the grace recommended to His disciples (Matthew 11:29); not especially to His ministers (Matthew 20:25-26; Luke 22:26). Dominion is allowed in the civil state, for there it is necessary; but preeminence is the bane of the Church (1 John 9). The apostles everywhere disclaim lordship (2 Corinthians 1:24; 1Pe 5:31); and if they would not assume lordship, who may? Now in the Pope pride is conspicuous. See his progress: from the chief presbyter, a bishop over many presbyters in the same city; then a metropolitan over many bishops in one province; then a patriarch over many provinces; then universal bishop; then the only shepherd and bishop, and others but his substitutes. But yet exalting himself farther, he challengeth all power in heaven and earth. And the like is practised by his followers. From private priests they grow up into some prelature, as archdeacons, deans; then a bishopric; then a better and richer; then archbishops, cardinals; then pope.

    II. The instances of his pride.

    1. His exalting himself above all human powers.

    (1) “That which is called God,” i.e., magistrates, etc. (Psalms 77:1; Psalms 77:6; cf. John 10:34-35). God hath clothed such with His honour, so far as He has put His name upon them, as being His vice-gerents. Even this Antichrist exalts himself.

    (2) “Or is worshipped.” The Greek is whatever is held in the highest degree of reverence, whatever is august or illustrious, as the Emperors of Rome were called Sebastoi (Acts 25:21). Antichrist exalts himself not only over magistrates but kings and emperors; no less than twenty have been trampled upon by the Pope.

    2. His usurpation of Divine honours.

    (1) The usurpation itself, “He sitteth as God,” etc. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). The temple of God is the Church (2 Corinthians 6:16). But is the Church of Rome the Church of Christ? It was before it was perverted and retains some relic of a Church, mangled as it is. In this temple of God the Pope sits, it is his sedes, cathedral, seat, whereas other princes are said to reign. And, again, he sits as God incarnate, for Christ is the true Lord of the Church; his name is not Antitheos, but Antichristos; not one who invades the properties of the Supreme, but those of the Mediator--

    (a) By usurping the titles of Christ, as Husband of the Church; Head of the Church; Chief Pastor (Peter 5:4); pontifex maximus, greatest High Priest (Hebrews 3:1; Hebrews 4:14); so His vicar-general upon earth, whereas the ancient Church gave this to the Holy Ghost.

    (b) By usurping the thing implied in the titles--authority over the Church, which is due alone to God incarnate. Supreme authority may be considered as to, First, the claim and right pretended. By virtue of his office in the temple of God he claims the same power as Christ has, which is fourfold.

    (i.) An unlimited power over things in heaven and earth. This was given to Christ (Matthew 28:18), and the Pope as his vicar challenges it; but to set up himself as a vice-god without warrant is rebellion against Christ.

    (ii.) Universal headship and supremacy over all the Churches of Christ. This is Christ’s right, and whoever challenges it sits as God in His temple. To exercise this power is impossible, and to claim it is sacrilegious, for none is fit for it but such as is God as well as man.

    (iii.) Absolute authority so as to be above control. Such a sovereignty belongs to none but God (Job 9:12), yet the Pope is said to be above all law.

    (iv.) Infallibility and freedom from error, which is the sole property of God; what blasphemy to attribute it to man! Second, as to the exercise, there are two acts of supreme authority: Legislation, which is the peculiar and incommunicable property of Christ (Isaiah 33:22; James 4:12), they, therefore, who make laws to bind the conscience invade Christ’s sovereignty. Judgment. The Pope exercises an authority no less than Divine when he absolves man from his duty to God, or the penalty which sin has made due, which he does by dispensation and by indulgence. Bellarmine says that Christ has given Peter and his successors a power to make sin to be no sin, and that “if the Pope should err in forbidding virtues and commanding vices, the Church were bound to believe vices to be good and virtues evil.” And as to indulgences, to pardon sin before it is committed is to give licence to sin.

    (2) The degree of this usurpation, “showing himself that he is God”: that is meant not of what he professes in word, but what he doth in deed. He shows himself that he is God.

    (a) By accepting Antichrist’s disciples, who call him our Lord God the Pope, and who say that he has the same tribunal with Christ, that from him no appeals are to be made even to God, that his words ex cathedra are equal to Scripture, and much more. Now to accept these flatteries is to show himself that he is God.

    (b) By weilding Divine prerogatives, arrogating the right to be lord of conscience, to determine what is to be believed, and pardoning sins.

    III. Uses:

    1. To give a clear discovery where to find Antichrist: every tittle of this is fulfilled in the bishop of Rome.

    2. To show us how things should be carried in the true and reformed Christianity.

    (1) With such meekness that our religion may be known to be that of the Crucified. Pride and ambition have been the cause of all the disorders of the Church.

    (2) With obedience to magistrates, which is the opposite of Antichristianity (Romans 13:1; 1 Peter 2:18; 2 Peter 2:10).

    (3) What a wickedness it is to usurp Divine honours (Acts 3:12). (T. Manton, D. D.)

  • 2 Thessalonians 2:6,7 open_in_new

    And now ye know what withholdeth

    The restraining power and its withdrawal

    I. What is this restraining power?

    1. The explanation, now so difficult, was no difficulty to the Thessalonians. They knew what it was; and the Church of the first three centuries said without hesitation that it was the Roman Empire.

    2. History has taught us the literal incorrectness of this, for the Roman Empire has passed away, and it is to play with language to regard it as living on in the German or Austrian Empires. This fact modified the interpretation of the later fathers, who regarded it as the restraining discipline of Divine order; and Christian thinkers are now coming to regard it as the regulated social order, that spirit of obedience to law which is the direct antagonist to the spirit of lawlessness which was embodied in ancient Rome; but this spirit is sustained by the working of the Spirit of God.

    3. As a matter of fact the spirit of religion has been in all ages the restraining influence. Man is naturally attracted to lawlessness. Within Christian nations there have been the elements of destruction, but they have been held in check in three ways.

    (1) Christianity has created and sustained a public opinion which has supported law and is antagonistic to lawlessness.

    (2) It has called the conscience in to the support of constituted order because it has taught men that that order has supernatural sanction.

    (3) It has created and administered a healthy discipline and taught men that obedience to the law of righteousness is the true regulation of life. For fifteen hundred years politicians have been ready to recognize this restraining influence.

    4. By God’s will there are two great coordinate authorities, the civil and the ecclesiastical; He would have these work in their own sphere, the Church not invading the province of the State, and vice versa. And the Church has thus gone on in union with the State exercising its restraints.

    II. What is meant by this power being taken out of the way? I believe it to be that crisis in our race which in the Apocalypse is called the Fall of Babylon--the collapse of the ecclesiastical influence in politics.

    1. Babylon is represented as a harlot, a term distinctly applied in the Old Testament, not to heathenism, but to a faithless Church. And so in the New Testament it is only the professed Church that can fall into that depth of iniquity.

    2. Turn to Revelation 17:1-18 and Babylon is riding, controlling, guiding a scarlet-coloured beast. Afterwards there is the bitterest antagonism, and the beast and ten kings rise up against the apostate Babylon and treat her shamefully.

    3. Now go back to mediaeval Europe, and the one arresting political feature is the Church. The Pope is virtually king of kings and lord of lords. In those days priests were judges, ecclesiastics, politicians, and the mystic woman is seen riding on the beast--the Church at least lending her authority to the maintenance of civil order. But her position was full of danger. It was the Master’s temptation to world empire over again. Christendom failed where the Master won, and sought to realize a true conception by false means. She lost her spirituality and fell under the power of a mere secular ecclesiastieism. Contrast the Church of the Middle Ages with that of the first.

    4. You cannot be surprised at people identifying Babylon with the Papacy, for the description of the apostle almost necessarily leads us to think of Rome. The spirit that rules the Roman see is of the earth earthy. Its policy is ruled not so much by principle as by the intricacies of human politics, and it is ever swayed by the three sad spirits that are predicted of mystic Babylon--ambition, covetousness, and luxury. The ideal of Ultramontanism, that the Church on earth is a perfect entity is true, but its sin is that it is the material realization of a conception that is emphatically spiritual.

    5. What is the effect? This, that as the claims of the ecclesiastical spirit have become more and more intense, the nations of the world have revolted against the power with which for centuries they have been in closest alliance, Is not this the case in France, Germany, Belgium, and even Spain? Where can we find a country whose Church gives obedience to the Papacy that is not in conflict with the Papacy?

    6. But this is not only with the Churches that own obedience to Rome. What about the great Eastern churches who have delivered up so much of their power to the Czar? What about our own? Is truth never compromised for expediency? Nay, the spirit of corruption has permeated Christendom, and our position is one of humiliation before God. And now mark the movements that are going on. Society and civilization for fifteen hundred years have had a Christian basis, but both are being constructed on a secular basis (See Lecky’s chapter on “the Advance of Secularizing Polities”).

    Conclusion: What then is our position?

    1. We must recognize the withdrawal of this restraining influence of civilization, and in it a warning of the approaching Advent. Christ may see fit to delay--but “Be ye ready.”

    2. We should do all that in us lies to perpetuate the ministry and the restraining power that we may lengthen the days of opportunity for the race. (Canon Body.)

    Restraints removed

    Since a body falls to the ground in consequence of the earth’s attraction on each of its molecules, it follows that, everything else being the same, all bodies, great and small, light and heavy, ought to fall with equal rapidity, and a lump of sand without cohesion should, during its fall, retain its original form as perfectly as if it were compact stone. The fact that a stone falls more rapidly than a feather is due solely to the unequal resistances opposed by the air to the descent of these bodies. The resistance opposed by the air to falling bodies is especially remarkable in the case of falling liquids. The Staubbach in Switzerland is a good illustration. An immense mass of water is seen falling over a high precipice, but before reaching the bottom it is shattered by the air into the finest mist. In a vacuum, however, liquids fall, like solids, without separation of their molecules. The resistance opposed by the customs and ethics of society is the reason why many men are deterred in a rapid fall into ruin. Take away all the resistance which etiquette, conventional morality, philanthropy and religion, offer to the downfall of men, and, like things in a vacuum, how sadly fast the descent would become. Many men in respectable elevation owe their adventitious position to the happy accident of strong resistance offered to their fall by the circumstances and influences surrounding. (Prof. Ganot.)

  • 2 Thessalonians 2:7 open_in_new

    For the mystery of iniquity doth already work

    Lawlessness and the lawless one

    St.

    Paul has been telling the Thessalonians that there is much to be done in the world before things will be ripe for the Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the caution needed by the Church in those times; for, in the light of a new revelation--one of the foundation truths of which was the Second Advent of the Redeemer to judge both the dead and the living, and with the charge ever ringing in their ears to watch and pray, lest, coming suddenly, He should find them sleeping, it was natural that they should ask themselves, “Why should we take the trouble of living with any interest or earnestness the old life of time, when, at any moment, all may be interrupted and scattered to the winds by the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, to close, on the instant, the things that are seen and temporal, and to introduce, amid all kinds of fearful surprises, new heavens and a new earth?” Our danger is from quite a different quarter. Our difficulty lies not in not making enough of the life of time, but in preventing it from filling the whole field of our vision. On this very account there is something doubly striking in the scene here presented--of a Church restless and feverish in anticipation of the Advent. It shows us how far we have fallen from original Christianity if we are suffering in ourselves, under the influences of the infidel talk of the day, any doubt of the fact itself as we rehearse it day by day--“From thence He shall come again to judge the quick and the dead.”

    I. Lawlessness will precede it. On this subject St. Paul leaves no room for doubt. He speaks of a certain particular growth and spirit of evil which must have full scope and play before the Advent. Nor does he leave us in any uncertainty as to the direction in which we must look for the rise of that state of things which will bring down upon itself God’s latest, surest, and direst judgment. He selects for it a particular name, not one of the common names for sin in the Scripture, but a name which he only uses twice or thrice in all his writings, and which has always a very definite and precise meaning. Our English version renders this word in one verse as “iniquity,” and in the next verse “the wicked one;” but in the original the word is substantially the same in both verses--in the one “the mystery of lawlessness doth already work;” and, in the other, “then shall the lawless one be revealed.” St. Paul’s statement is that already, when he was writing this letter eighteen hundred years ago, there was at work in the world, if not in some degree even in the Church, a spirit of lawlessness, which was, however, kept in check by some definite impediment, which he had evidently explained by word of mouth to the privileged Thessalonians. He, perhaps, does not refer to the strength of civil and national government, as it was then exhibited in the great Roman Empire, as exercising a salutary, though rough, control over the tendencies of fallen nature toward insubordination and anarchy; but, he distinctly says, there will come a time when the controlling power will be weakened or withdrawn, and then lawlessness will come to the surface and front of the world; and will set up its own law, which shallcorn, is not more determined and invariable than is the dread convulsion that entombs its thousands; and it was through the exercise of unyielding law that that strife was wrought which has made the structure of our earth what we find it. This decided every event and ordered all the disorder of those ages of seeming unrule. And shall we not take the comfort the spiritual reading of this truth can give? For it is not only in the world of matter such a record of strife and confusion is written. In the brief history of our race there is the same tale in human characters. What is the meaning of such scenes as the French Revolution, for example? Are they the rough sport of unruled passion? Is there nothing determining their methods or moulding their results? What if that struggle and ruin, decay and destruction were the working and manifestation of a Divine health and order, casting away that which it could not assimilate and arrange? the removing of those things which could be shaken that those things which could not be shaken might remain? And these words, which speak of a “King” of the Ages, tell us why. They point to its source--to One who makes and administers that law, who is in and yet above it. But the faith of a Divine rule of each separate age is not enough. The heart of man craves something more than even such a confidence. There is inwrought into our very being a longing for Unity; and the words we are now considering justify this instinct, and pledge its fulfilment. For we are assured that, if He is “King of the Ages” in any adequate sense, they are bound together by the strong band of His will, which gives to them its own oneness and intimacy. They are no longer isolated units, but parts of a whole; and it is as a whole and not simply as units they are subjected. As the successive points of a circle stand in harmonious relation, not only to their common centre, hut through this to each other; so the ages, which make one mighty cycle, having but one Lord and one law, stand related amongst themselves with an inner harmony as deep and true as their hearts. And not only so. There is more than this close relation and perfect agreement between the ages. If this were all it would leave unfulfilled another instinctive craving of the heart--that of Progress and Consummation. But these words which speak of the “King of the Ages” tell us there is one supreme will and word which they obey--one harmonious thought, which being the King’s thought, must be a growing and deepening one. There is but little appearance of all this at times. Judging only of the part we see--that displayed on the earth and amidst ourselves--is not the show of things rather that of age at war with age? A backward movement, in which much that has been hardly won through centuries is easily lost in a moment? But it is only as the flow of the tide rolling inland, which surely advances, though seeming to recede; receding but to rally its forces and sweep onward to larger conquests. One perfect plan is being achieved, in many times and many ways indeed; yet in all, and through all, God is ever fulfilling Himself. Let us not, then, be troubled as though the issue is or could be uncertain, or the plan be marred. Trust--not only for the ages gone and the ages to come; but what is harder, for the age that now is. The “King of the Ages” is Himself invisible; He is not, therefore, less King. Nor is His kingdom less real because its presence is silent and unsuspected. For there are latent glories in this rule of the “King of the Ages”; a glorious mystery which was hidden from the ages and generations until the “fulness of the time,” when the “Word became flesh and tabernacled amongst men,” whose humanity He thus united with Deity, that He might reconcile man, and in man, all creation unto God. (A. A. Dauncey.)

    King immortal

    Queen Elizabeth was once seized with a violent illness, accompanied with high fever. The Privy Council was hastily summoned from London, and in the ante-chamber of the room where she was believed to be dying, they sat with blank faces, discussing who was to be her successor. In the morning the worst symptoms abated, and in a few days she was convalescent. Our Monarch can have no successor. He is “alive for evermore,” and of His kingdom there can be no end. (H. O. Mackey.)