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The Man of Sin: II Thessalonians 2: 3-4 Revised
Posted : 30 Dec, 2010 02:43 PM
II Thessalonians 2: 3-4 Revised
II Thessalonians 2: 3 says "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;"
Paul does not tell us who the man of sin is. But the man of sin is said to be revealed when or after the falling away begins. The falling away is the falling of Christians from the truth of the gospel of Christ. The truth is in part replaced by man-made doctrines, so that the gospel is leavened.
Christ says in John 17: 12 that "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. " The son of perdition here is
Judas Iscariot. Perdition is Strong's number 684, "ruin or loss, physical, spiritual or eternal, damnable, destruction, die, perdition, perish, pernicious ways, waste." Revelation 17: 8, 11 say "The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is...And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition."
Judas was a servant of Satan, but he was of the twelve disciples of Christ. The beast in Revelation 17: 8 is also a Servant of Satan and will go into perdition, or eternal ruin. The beast in Revelation 17: 7 carries the woman of Revelation 17: 1-7 called the great (censored), and mystery, Babylon the great, mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, who represents false religion, or man's religion.
The followers of dispensationalism will say that Paul in II Thessalonians 2: 3 refers to the man of sin as one man. Therefore, to them, the man of sin must be the dispensationalist one man Anti-Christ, who is to be a political figure of importance during the tribulation. But Paul goes on in II Thessalonians 2: 4 to say of this man of sin that he "... opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." Paul says in I Corinthians 3: 16-17 that "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
Paul uses two Greek words for temple. In I Corinthians 9: 13. he says "Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the alter are partakers with the alter?" Here temple is from the Greek word hieron, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance number 2411, which is said to mean " a sacred place, i.e., the entire precents, whereas 3485 denotes the central sanctuuary itself." But in I Corinthians 3: 16-17
he uses a different Greek word for temple, which is Strong's number 3485, naos, "to dwell, a fane, shrine, temple."
Again in I Corinthians 6: 19 when he says "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own" the Greek word for temple is naos. In Ephesians 2: 19-21 he says "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:" Again, Paul uses naos, not hieron.
In John 2: 19 when Christ says "Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," temple is from naos.
Paul consistently uses naos, not hieron, when he is saying that Christians are now the temple of God. He uses a different Greek word for temple rather than the word usually employed for the physical building in Jerusalem, the hieron, or entire temple.
God began Israel in the physical. Entry was first by genetics, by the actual physical seed of Abraham, the temple was a physical building, and circumcision was done to the flesh or men. But after the Cross and the Day of Pentecost, Israel in the physical was done away with. Hebrews 10: 1-10 says " For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."
"He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second." The first is the Old Covenant where the physical
was important, and the second is the New Covenant, which is spiritual. "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" Galatians 3: 29 Those in Christ, not matter what their race, are the spiritual seed of Abraham, which would mean they are Israel reborn in Christ. And Paul says "Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." Galatians 4: 24-26 Jerusalem which is above, is free, and is the mother of us all, Paul writes to this congregation made up entirely or almost all of Gentiles. Jerusalem which is above and is free is the mother of "us all," including Paul and all Gentiles in Christ. We could say that Jerusalem which is above and is free of bondage to the Old Covenant is Israel reborn in the Spirit.
So in II Thessalonians 2: 3-4 if the man of sin is to sit in the physical temple as though he were God and exalting himself above all, this is not the temple of God, because the temple of God has become his people, those born again of the Spirit in Jesus Christ. The dispensationalists have tried in part to return to physical Israel, the Israel of the flesh, in claiming that a physical building is again the temple of God. Some followers of dispensationalism might try to say that the Jews believe their re-built temple in Jerusalem is the temple of God. But again, if the Jews think their new temple as a physical building involved in a re-institutiuon of animal sacrifices is God's temple, this has no spiritual meaning to Christians, except that it is blasphemy of the finished work of Christ.
Since the statement that the man of sin sits in the temple of God, as though he were God, or has replaced God, has to be interpreted to be those of the Body of Christ whom he inhabits, the man of sin cannot be the one single dispensationalist Anti-Christ who defiles the re-built temple in Jerusalem. II Thessalonians 2: 3-4 could be interpreted to say that this man of sin is on one level a collective of many false prophets of the end time Church, who are of the spirit of Anti-Christ and as such take over the minds of hearts of Church Christians. In metaphoric language these false prophets take over what would be the temple of God. Since the Dragon has inspired these many false prophets, it could also be said that on another level Satan has entered into the hearts and minds of the leavened Church.
It is interesting that Revelation 17: 8, 11 mentions a three step sequence the beast goes through. The beast was, and is not and yet shall come up out of the bottomless pit. He or it was and is not, and is of the seven. In Genesis 2 God finished his work of creation and rested on the Seventh Day. He sanctified the Seventh Day. Man was created on the sixth day. Remember that in Revelation 13: 18 the number of the Second Beast of Revelation 13 is 666, or the number six repeated three times. It s the number of man. Before the Cross the main kingdoms of the ancient world were the Egyptian and Assyrian kingdoms, and we add the four kingdoms of Daniel 2 - the Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman empires - and we get six kingdoms of man's rule.
Christ began the kingdom of God during the Roman Empire, so that the kingdom of God on earth is the seventh kingdom. Number Seven is the rule of God. But we don't want to get so far into Biblical numerology as to go where Harold Camping of Family Radio went with his Old Testament time lines and numerology he used to claim to predict the end of the world in 1994.
This three step sequence, or six, seven and eight sequence, can be applied to the beasts of Revelation 13. I am not saying that the
text says either beast once existed as the rule of man, then entered into the kingdom of God, but went on into the eighth phase which goes back to man's religion and man's rule. while mixing in part of the rule of God. But we can use the principle stated in Revelation 17: 8, 11 to look at the beasts in this way.
Following the Cross there were six main kingdoms which in some way mixed the kingdom of God with the kingdom and rule of man.
The Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Empire were both Catholic kingdoms which mixed in a little of Christianity with man's rule. and then came some kingdoms which were at least in part Protestant nations - England, Russia, or the Soviet Empire, Nazi Germany and then the United States.
But it is the Second Beast of Revelation 13 that I want to deal with here. The Second Beast is said in Revelation 13: 11 to look like a lamb, but he speaks like a dragon. He or it is deceptive. This beast has been called the False Prophet. I know that Revelation 19: 20 says the False Prophet is said to be thrown into the lake of fire. Yet the Second Beast is still a collective, a group of those who believe they are God's people. It is those who stay in false doctrines. They that remain in a mix of man's religion with the Gospel of Christ are deceived and led by False Prophets, who can be called The False Prophet, But those who remain in man's religion also try to keep others in the same false doctrines.
The Second Beast of Revelation 13, who is dealt with from verses 11 to 18, appears as he is number eight or the six, seven eight cycle. We can say it is implied that this beast came out of a Christianity that once was in number seven, in God's rest.
In Revelation 13: 12 the Second Beast causes people, or Christians, to worship the First Beast, described in verses 1 to 10, whose deadly wound was healed. This indicates that the First Beast is some kind of a composite, because verses 1-2 describe the four beasts of Daniel 7, which are the British Empire, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and the United States as the diverse dreadful fourth beast. The nation whose deadly would was healed and who the Second Beast causes people to worship sounds like the nation of Israel, the Little Horn of Daniel 7: 8 and 8: 9.
This all is quite different from the end time scenario of Separation Theology, or Scofieldism, which cannot see the nation of Israel as any kind of beast, even if we admit that America is the fourth beast of Daniel 7: 7. The beast whose deadly wound was healed in 1948 uses the Fourth beast of Daniel 7: 8 to increase its power as the Little Horn.
Some who want an end time single person Anti-Christ will say that Paul's man of sin in II Thessalonians 2; 3 is the one man Anti-Christ. But the gist of what John tells us about the Anti-Christ in I John 2: 18-19 and I John 4: 2-3 is that there is not one single Anti-Christ to appear during the dispensationalist seven year tribulation, but that the spirit of Anti-Christ manifests as many Anti-Christs and we can believe that these Anti-Christs will become more threatening in the tribulation. There will be a tribulation but I am not at all sure it will last seven years.
Since Paul associated the revealing of the man of sin with the falling away in II Thessalonians 2: 3 it is more likely that the man of sin is the Second Beast of Revelation 13: 1-18,. To cause the falling away of Christians
from the truth of Christ's gospel into false doctrines is the .mission of the Second Beast of revelation 13. And that falling away has been going on since the late 19th century.
My King James Version Reference Bible lists I Timothy 4: 1, Daniel 7: 25 and Revelation 13: 5 for II Thessalonians 2: 3. I Timothy 4: 1 is the most relevant of these three, which says ". Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;"
The man of sin is not a one man Anti-Christ, but the context fits the Second Beast of Revelation 13: 11-18, the False Prophet, which again, is not one man, though the False Prophet can include the office of False Prophet (John Hagee at present?). The Second Beast is the Church in apostasy, or in the falling away from the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. "Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son (II John 1: 9)."
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