Week 48 2 Thessalonians 2
Paul says up-front what chapter 2 is about: the coming of our Lord.
He names two specific things that have to happen before the Lord comes back to earth: that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
So first there has to be a rebellion.
Then secondly a person called the man-of-lawlessness has to appear. Paul describes him:
• he will oppose & exalt himself over everything that is called God
• he will oppose & exalt himself over everything that is worshiped
• he will set himself up in God’s temple
• he will proclaim himself to be God.
(This sounds like a pretty sobering development and I feel relieved when Paul says that in spite of all his self-aggrandizing power-grabbing the man-of-lawlessness is doomed to destruction.)
If I drew a line graph representing the trend of the man-of-lawlessness’ life it would zoom right to the very top of the graph. But then moving left-to-right across the graph the line would drop-like-a-stone and not stop until it hit the bottom.
Notes: quotes from 2 Thessalonians 2:1 3-4 (NIV). Like some other forecasts in the bible I wish this one was a bit more definitive. One takeaway: the man-of-lawlessness is a pathologically arrogant and dangerously malign character.