In this study it is our goal to determine the person or nature of the “Man of Sin”, where he comes from, and how it is that he sits in the temple of God.

“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition.”

In our previous study on the ANTICHRIST the “Man of sin” (“The Antichrist Reveled”) as mentioned in 2 Thess 2:3, we asserted that the mysterious power there foretold is none other than the Papacy, springing up and holding sway in the Christian Church (the professing church), alleging that this was the view strongly held by the Reformers, and by the best expositors from their time onward.

However there are those who are strongly wedded to another view—viz., that the words here refer to a future infidel, Antichrist, an actual individual or person, sitting in the actual rebuilt temple at Jerusalem.

“The Greek for “the temple of God” in 2 Thessalonians never, in a single instance elsewhere, means the literal Temple, but is always applied to the Church of God, which temple believers are. We use precisely these words, and are most glad to be called upon to substantiate them.

Let us say at the outset, that in interpreting difficult passages of Scripture, we know of no sure method of finding their meaning except to give attention to the exact words and phrases employed, and then to collate these with the same expressions in other parts of Scripture; and so, by “comparing spiritual things with spiritual,” to find out the teaching of God.

Those who hold loose views of inspiration, say that the thought is the main thing; and that this phrase is equivalent to that phrase, provided it contains the same general idea. We do not submit to this line of reasoning. We believe that the Bible is written “not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches;” and that the Spirit is infinitely accurate in the use of language. Holding this in view, the interpreter can move forward with confidence; to him the words of Holy Scripture are “nails fastened by the master of assemblies,” and he can hang his expositions upon them without fear of their giving away.

Now, in seeking to determine the character and seat of this mysterious “man of sin” predicted in Thessalonians, we use just this method, comparing the words here employed to describe him with the same words used in other parts of Scripture. (“For precept must be upon precept, line upon line, here a little, and there a little” Isa 28:10), and we have the uttermost confidence that this will give us the true solution of the secret.

“He, as God, sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” The Greek phrase here employed for “temple of God,” is (“ton naon tou Theou”) now, from Matthew to Revelation this expression occurs only seven times. The following are all seven instances:

1. “This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.” (Matt 26:61)

2. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you.” (1 Cor 3:16)

3. “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” (1 Cor 3:17)

4. “For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” (1 Cor 3:17)

5. “And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?” (2 Cor 6:16)

6. “For ye are the temple of God, the living one.” (2 Cor 2:6)

7. “So that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (2 Thess 2:4)

Of the first six of these passages, not one of them refers to the actual Jewish Temple, and, therefore, we believe that the seventh cannot.

Of the first six of these passages, not one of them refers to the actual Jewish Temple, and, therefore, we believe that the seventh cannot.

Our critics might quote the first, and indeed, as so referring; but remembering that this was the language which Christ’s enemies imputed to him, we have only to turn to his own words as recorded in (John 2:19), to find the real meaning of what he uttered. It is there said, “But this he spoke of the temple of his body.”

Thus we see that Christ’s meaning corresponds exactly with that of Paul in his letter to the individually and corporately, as “the habitation of God through the Spirit,” or, in other words, the Church of God, including the Head and the members, as indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

This is the primary and literal usage of the phrase, thus far employed in the New Testament.

Now let us reason here,

Are we to believe that in this particular instance the Holy Spirit would use the expression “the temple of God,” with a totally different meaning from that which it bears in every other instance in the Gospels and Epistles?

Is it credible that Paul in this place signifies the actual or literal Jewish temple, when in every other use his language clearly meant the body of the believer, or the Church of Christ?

And this inquiry is especially pertinent when we remember that Paul, in the same Epistle to the Corinthians, wherein he five times calls the Church, individually and collectively, “the temple of God,” has one clear reference to the Jewish Temple (1 Cor 9:13), but in alluding to it employs a totally different term, simply “to heiron”, the word constantly used by Christ and his disciples of the Temple in Jerusalem.

If, now, we turn to the Revelation, we find this term three times employed: “Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God,” (Rev 3:12); “And the temple of God was opened in heaven,” (Rev 11:19). By general consent, these texts refer to the Church glorified, or the heavenly Jerusalem, and there need be no controversy about them.

The other passage is the (Rev 11:1), “Rise, measure the temple of God,” etc. This, our critics consider, plainly points to the literal Temple at Jerusalem. We hold that the “naos tou Theou” is here to be taken SYMBOLICALLY, and that so taken the words “can only bear one meaning, viz., the Church of the elect servants of God.” With this agree the most eminent expositors of the Apocalypse, ancient and modern, from Mede to Elliot.

These citations exhaust the list of texts in which this inspired phrase occurs. Admit, if need be, that the last one is doubtful, and can, therefore, throw no certain light upon the significance of the others; then, excepting this as uncertain, the case would stand thus:

First, that in applying the phrase “naos tou Theou” (the Temple of God) in 2 Thessalonians to the Jewish Temple, we give a name to that Temple which, in every other determinable instance in the New Testament, belongs to the Church of Christ the true Temple of God, individual or corporate, on earth or in heaven; and, secondly in so applying language we give a name to the Temple at Jerusalem which the inspired writers of the New Testament, while making scores of allusions to that Temple, never in a single instance, apply to it.

Undoubtedly the Jerusalem Temple was and is called “the temple of God,” in popular phraseology; but we must interpret by the Spirit’s language, not by the peoples language. And so interpreting, we contend that to apply this inspired phrase as our critics do to the LITERAL Hebrew Temple, is an instance of exegetical violence exactly like that of which they complain in those who take the Greek word for “leaven” uniformly meaning corruption in the New Testament, and make it signify, as used in the parable of Matt 12:33, the gospel in its diffusion through society.

Thus we have measured “the temple” exegetically, as it stands before us in this Epistle to the Thessalonians, and it will be seen that we have NOT measured it “according to the measure of a man;” that is we have not brought the passage to the test of current phraseology, but have tried it by the rule and the plummet of the Spirit’s own words– words which are employed, we believe, with more than human accuracy.

In our next post we will take a look at the origin of the “Man of Sin”.