2 Thessalonians: Christ versus the Deceiver

Peter Barnes: 2 Thessalonians 2:6-12

(15 April 2018)

SERMON NOTES: CHRIST VERSUS THE DECEIVER (2 Thessalonians 2:6-12)

– the apostasy must come first, then the man of sin would be revealed in the temple, which is surely the Church – 2:3-4.

1. The man of sin will be restrained for a time.

– 2:6-7. The mystery of lawlessness was already at work in the first century – 1 John 2:18. What is this restrainer? Augustine: ‘I frankly confess that the meaning of this completely escapes me’!
(a) Jeffrey Weima says it is Michael, the angel of Daniel 10-12
(b) The premillennial dispensationalists say it is the Holy Spirit.
(c) Richard Phillips follows Calvin, and says that it is the preaching of the gospel, and fits it in with Rev.20:1-3.
(d) Both Tertullian and John Chrysostom from the early Church said that it was the Roman Empire.

– the papacy emerged as the Roman Empire collapsed. The Roman Emperor called himself the pontifex maximus until the Christian emperors discarded it, only for the popes to adopt it. Thomas Hobbes called the papacy ‘the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof’.
2. The man of sin will be accompanied by deceiving signs and wonders.

– 2:9-10. That surely is a religious figure. When the focus moves off the gospel, it will latch onto something else. In 1507 Pope Julius II sanctioned the cult of the holy house at Loreto in Italy, declaring that angels had transported Christ’s home from Nazareth!
3. God’s sovereign judgment.

– 2:8, 11-12. Christ will be victorious at His coming again, which ushers in the Last Judgment.

– God’s sovereignty – 2:11; like 1 Kings 22:19-23. God is not the author of evil but uses evil to punish evil men.