This week's excerpt from 'The Gentile Jesus':

Chapter 26: THE GREAT HINDERER

What is it that withholdeth and who is the great letter (or hinderer) of 2 Thess. 2:6-7? Simple questions but disconcertingly among Bible students, scholars and commentators there are a myriad answers. However, if we look carefully at all scripture has to say on this subject, I believe the Holy Spirit points to a clear, if hitherto largely ignored, answer. First, however, let’s look at the whole passage concerning the Day of Christ and see why it cannot come until there is first a falling away and the man of sin, the son of perdition, be revealed. 2 Thess. 2: 3-11: “Let no man deceive you by any means for that day shall not come, except there come a falling way first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.Who 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. Remember ye not, that when I was with you, I told you these things. And now ye know what witholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he that letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power lies and lying wonders. And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not a love for the truth, that they might be saved.And for this cause shall God send them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” Bible believers take the word of God literally, unless told by scripture to do otherwise and please note there is no such instruction here. Secondly, they rightly divide the word, recognising that here Paul is warning Thessalonian Gentiles saved by grace in the dispensation of grace (Eph. 3:1-4) against being troubled by end time events they will not be here to see, seeing they will have already been raptured to be with the Lord (2 Thess. 1:8 and 1 Thess. 4:16-17). Already the apostle has been at pains in 1 Thess. 5:4 to teach these dear brethren that they will not be among those overtaken by destruction when the day of the Lord comes “as a thief in the night”. He cinches home his argument in verse 9, saying: “God hath not appointed us (that is, grace age saved believers) unto wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” The only reason then, for his reinforcing this teaching in 2 Thess. 2 is that the Thessalonians were troubled by those trying to persuade them to jump out of the security of being saved by grace in this, the dispensation of grace, into the danger of anticipating too soon the tribulation and the Day of Lord in ages to come. In short they were saying the Day of the Lord had already come, just as many today falsely maintain we are living in a time when prophecies in the
Book of Revelation are being fulfilled. On the other hand others in Paul’s time were asserting “the resurrection is already past, overthrowing the faith of some” (2 Tim. 2:18).

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Timing is everything in understanding the Bible. As New Zealanders say about rugby, it’s not just a matter of life and death; it’s more important than that. If you do not receive “a love of the truth”, and truth which has been rightly divided at that, then God will arrange for you to believe a lie (2 Thess. 2:11-12). You see, loving God’s truth for its own sake is an acid test of whether you are a believer bound for heaven, or just a fellow traveller in Christian circles for what you can get out of it. If the latter, then your heart will be set on social acceptance, position, money a career or some other earthly thing. Certainly your catch cry won’t be “nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness”. If we continue to rightly divide the word of truth we will see that the whole teaching of 2 Thess. 2:3-11 is to Gentiles, not Messianic Jews. Thus it is not about future temples yet to be erected in Jerusalem, nor about the Second Coming of the Lord to earth to judge the earth and save Israel. It’s focus is on the church which is His Body, we as members of it, and the fact that God has appointed something to withhold the man of sin from being revealed and someone to let (that is, hinder) the mystery of iniquity from working its full quota of evil until every last chosen member has been saved and secured in the Body of Christ, which is God’s temple and church today. In our present (not future, since we won’t be here) trouble let us take comfort from God’s sure promise in 2 Thess. 1:6-7 that God will recompense those that trouble us and that we shall be at rest with Paul when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven taking vengeance in flaming fire on them that obey not the gospel of Christ. Again, timing is the key, as it often is in understanding difficult scripture passages. So just what is the right order of events that closes the dispensation of grace and brings in tribulation and the Day of the Lord? I believe 2 Thess. 2:3 is often misunderstood. Many read into it something that isn’t there. Paul does not say that the falling away will be sudden, nor that that the man of sin will be revealed immediately after the falling away. Nor does he say the Day of the Lord will immediately follow these two events. Yet many set out a timetable of rapid, immediately successive occurrences for these events, ignoring the thrust of Paul’s message that the day of Christ is not at hand (i.e. about to come suddenly upon the Thessalonians).

APOSTASY THEN AND NOW

So if not sudden, then ongoing and perhaps intensifying events must be in view. Among them are the working of the mystery of iniquity and the hidden opposing work and self exaltation of the yet-to-be-fully-revealed man of sin, who, I believe, is very active behind the scenes today, just as he was in Paul’s time. Thankfully, there is also the ongoing, preventing, hindering work of that which withholdeth and he that letteth or hindereth (a meaning of let is to hinder; thus in tennis a ball that hits the net is “a let ball”). Both play a valuable role in preventing the working of the mystery of iniquity and of the man of sin reaching their climax in the full unveiling of the son of perdition.
I tend therefore to concur with the widely-held view that falling away means falling away from the faith. Actually, in the Greek of Paul’s time apostasia meant political rebellion. And in 1 Tim: 4:1-3 the Spirit of Christ “speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith”. Surely, that is being fulfilled in our day, particularly in the western world where they are departing from the faith by the million almost daily. And in 2 Tim. 3:13 Paul warns that this burgeoning apostasy would come, saying that among so-called “Christians”: “…evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
How very real that is becoming now. You only have to read the headlines to find child abuse, fornication and adultery rife in the “church”. And the same is true of spiritual adultery. Ministers refuse to “rightly divide the word of truth”. They adulterate the pure gospel of the grace of God with works-based gospel of the kingdom preached by the Lord to Israel and they confuse the suspended programme of prophecy with the mystery programme God is actually running with today. In doing so they become seduced and deceived themselves, then in turn preach their confusion to believers who should know be taught to know better but sadly aren’t.