2 Thessalonians Chapter 2

A word of Warning, continued

VERSE 9 continued, “Whose presence [shall be] according to an in working of Satan, with all manner of mighty work and signs and wonders of falsehood.” (Rotherham’s Version)

Comment: Gal 1:8 warns of a possible deception: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”

The hypothesis is that the Adversary will materialize, that he will visibly manifest himself. Since most of nominal Christendom is expecting Jesus to return visually, Satan’s literally appearing as an angel of light would be a strong deception.

Reply: Yes, the Evangelical Protestant view is that a visual manifestation of Christ will be seen in the heavens. Most people today are cultured by television to think that the spirit world is friendly and that such manifestations are for beneficial purposes. People reason, “Since an angel is supernatural and his wisdom is beyond our comprehension, he must be more intelligent than we are.” But there are evil supernatural beings as well as good ones.

We must distinguish between that which is right and that which is harmful. If an angel comes from heaven, as Gal 1:8 warns, the Lord’s people are not to be deceived. That is a very valuable Scripture, but materializing as an angel of light is only one arrow out of Satan’s quiver or arsenal. Notice that the signs and lying wonders are plural.

Comment: The distinction is that a “sign” is visual and a “lying wonder” is both audible and visual.

Reply: An example of a lying wonder would be an angel.

Comment: At the end of the Kingdom, when there is a full measure of light and understanding, Satan will be loosed for the Little Season. If the number who follow him at that time—after receiving full light and being in perfect condition—can be described as the “sand of the sea” (Rev. 20:8), how many more will succumb at this end of the age before even that light has been given?

Reply: Yes, in spite of the education or enlightenment that is now available to the common man, that type of information will not be a safeguard against the deceptions the Adversary will use. He has already cultured much of Christendom to be expecting as bona fide the very things he plans to use as deceptions. (We will elaborate on this as we proceed). Unfortunately the minority who point out these deceptions are even now and will be in the near future severely tried.

Comment: If Satan will use “ALL power and signs and lying wonders” in the near future, then in no way is he being bound or has his power been curtailed.

Reply: That is true. If Satan is being bound by light, then so are all of the other fallen angels. If light binds Satan, the chief of the fallen angels, it certainly binds his cohorts as well. Therefore, that type of reasoning falls flat. At the end of the Kingdom, when mankind is fully instructed in righteousness and there is no need for one to say to his neighbor, “Know the LORD,” for all shall know Him from the least unto the greatest, Satan will be loosed to test mankind one last time (Jer. 31:34).

Comment: Another line of reasoning is in connection with the binding of the fallen angels in chains of darkness. Jude 6 tells us, “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto (or until) the judgment of the great day.”

The implication is that the fallen angels will be loosed during the “judgment of the great day,” which is our day and the near future. In terms of deceptions, it would not be unreasonable to expect the fallen angels to impersonate the dead and/or some of the living consecrated and to do all sorts of spectacular things to mislead the world, such as getting them to think the resurrection has taken place.

Reply: The deceptions will be very great, for Satan will use ALL POWER. However, while Satan may visibly appear as an angel of light, for example, the great inundation of fallen angels will occur still later during Armageddon the final phase of the great time of trouble, and at the time of Jacob’s Trouble.

VERSE 10 “And with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (NKJV)

VERSE 10 “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (AV)

Although the NKJV is our preferred translation as it has to a limited degree corrected many of the errors found in the AV, we will nevertheless be using the Authorize Version in this instance due to the fact that the author’s original study was based upon this translation.

“The words “in them that perish” are troublesome because we want to know the degree of the perishing and of the being “damned” (Verse 12). Furthermore, there is the sobering statement “they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”

The word “damned” is usually thought of from the standpoint of judgment. Concordances list three related Greek words that pertain to judgment: krima, krisis, and krino. Without quoting from concordances, we will use a simple rather than a scholarly approach. It is interesting that in our vocabulary the word krima is “crime” and krisis is “crisis.” (For krino we do not have a comparable English translation.)

A person who has purportedly done something wrong is guaranteed the right to a trial, and so the defendant has to be exposed to a process of judgment either to find him guilty or to exonerate him from the charges. The crime (krima), the act, is set forth. During the crisis (krisis) period of trial, the jury listens to all of the lines of evidence. The climax occurs when a decision, a verdict, is reached by the jury, but it is the judge who pronounces the sentence.

In R4583, previously quoted from, the Pastor said that the verdict to be rendered will be proportionate to the knowledge and the responsibility of the individual. The degree to which one has been either faithful or unfaithful affects the verdict. For instance, Acts 24:15 speaks of the “resurrection of the dead, both of the just and [the] unjust.” And the Apostle John, in referring to the general resurrection, said that the hour is coming when all “shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:28, 29), but the “resurrection of damnation” is actually a resurrection of judgment or resurrection of trial (krisis): a testing period.

Education will be necessary, and stripes will be meted out for willful disobedience, but the “resurrection of damnation” does not necessarily mean Second Death. Of the different groups, the most responsible individuals are those who have fully consecrated themselves to the Lord (This is something the vast majority of professed believers have never done and as such they are not susceptible to Second Death at this time). As part of that group (who have consecrated), we must be alert, for the Lord has furnished information to both safeguard us from the dangers and alert us to them (such as Gal 1:8 and Matt 24:24). Truth is a shield to protect the Christian.

In considering Verse 10, we ask, “How can unrighteousness deceive?”

An illustration is the extreme doctrine of Universal Salvation or Reconciliation, which teaches that all will eventually be saved, including even Satan.

Comment: Another example of how unrighteousness can deceive is false love along moral lines. We should love the things God loves and hate the things God hates.

Reply: We must not be more magnanimous than God or Jesus in our judgment of wrongdoing. One of the problems in the brotherhood today is the failure to distinguish the difference between sins committed before consecration and sins committed after consecration. God casts behind His back sins that occurred before consecration, and we should not pry into other people’s backgrounds for nosy information. God forgets and so should we. But grievous sins committed after consecration should be dealt with for the safety of the brotherhood and their reputation in representing Christ before the world. Such sins become more serious to various degrees depending on what the aberration is.

Consider the practices of the nominal Church. Some denominations or portions of denominations approve of homosexuality and lesbianism in the Church. There is even pressure to sanction marriage between two men or two women, that is, to have it enacted by law. (The original article from which this study is based was written before the first law providing for same sex marriage was first enacted in the Netherlands in April of 2001).

What good is all the enlightenment that has come through education? Satan is turning upside down the fundamentals of Christian life and doctrine and subverting almost every area. The people think they are more enlightened, but they are deceived in unrighteousness. Under today’s conditions the Scriptural norm becomes relatively meaningless, for people’s own imaginations take priority. Practices commonly seen today would have seemed impossible 40 or 50 years ago. Therefore, the term “deceivableness of unrighteousness” means that the unrighteous think they are right.”

We will continue with our study of Verse 10 in our next post.