By Marv Rosenthal
A Disturbing Report
In 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2, the Apostle Paul will deal with the Day of the Lord. The reason for this is that a problem has arisen since he last saw the Thessalonians a few months earlier. Paul writes:
Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, regarding the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him (v. 1).
Our “gathering together to him” is a reference to the Rapture, when Jesus will take to Himself all of history’s believers. This verse recalls 1 Thessalonians 4:17:
Then we who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
This phrase “caught up” – which can be translated “snatch up” – is the same event as “our gathering together to him” in this verse.
Paul continues:
… that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit, or a message, or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come (v. 2).
The Thessalonians were being “shook up” over something they had heard had disturbed them. Apparently, Paul’s enemies had written a letter, or several letters, in his name (“as if from us”) to the Thessalonians with some startling news.
What news? This news: “… the day of the Lord has come.” Forgers – perhaps false teachers who had gained entry into the church in Thessalonica – had written to the Thessalonians telling them the Day of the Lord either already come, or was now upon them. That would certainly disturb the believers.
After all, Paul had already told them they would be raptured just before the Day of the Lord began, and now reports were circulating that the Day of the Lord had arrived and the Thessalonians had not been raptured. This was a justifiable cause for alarm.
It would be grossly unfair to call the Thessalonians gullible. There was a reason they could buy into false reports the Day of the Lord had arrived, and that reason was the severe persecution they were undergoing.
They knew difficult times were associated with the Day of the Lord, and they were experiencing difficult times. They were suffering for their faith and had no reason to believe this was not the suffering associated with the Day of the Lord. Don’t forget, at this point, the Book of Matthew had not yet been written.
This is important because in Matthew Chapters 24 and 25 Jesus gives us the Olivet Discourse. In it, He speaks of the trials and tribulations associated with the Day of the Lord:
For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will again (24:21).
Jesus was describing a kind of tribulation that would be unique to the Day of the Lord. The Thessalonians, however, had no way of knowing this. Therefore, the forged letter supposedly from Paul that the Day of the Lord had already begun combined with the severe persecution they were undergoing led the Thessalonians to trust the false reports.
The Day of the Lord is a frequent and much written-about subject in both the Old and New Testaments. It will be a time of darkness and wrath the world has never experienced. It is going to be the most devastating period of all human history.
God is going to begin to purge the world by fire. The trumpets (of Revelation) are going to be blown and the bowls (of Revelation) are going to be poured out on a world that has rejected God’s grace, refused His mercy, and spurned His love.
The Falling Away
The believers at Thessalonica were told they had entered that period of time even though Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5 made it clear that believers will be exempted from God’s Day of the Lord wrath. However, there would be more warning signs for the Thessalonians – and all believers – signaling that the Lord’s coming in wrath was near. Paul writes:
No one is to deceive you in any way! For it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction (2 Thessalonians 2:3).
Paul makes clear that the Day of the Lord will not occur before the “falling away.” That phrase “falling away” is the word “apostasy,” which in the Greek is apostasia. The apostasia is an abandonment, a defection. In this case, it will be a massive defection, or revolt.
One way the Thessalonians could be sure they were not living in the Day of the Lord is that this “falling away” has not yet occurred.
But what is this “falling away” – this apostasia? The word apostasia only occurs one other time in the Bible, in Acts 21. When Paul was in Jerusalem, he was falsely accused of undermining the Jews who were worshiping there. He is told:
And they have been told about you, that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to abandon Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs (v. 21).
That word translated “abandon” is the Greek apostasia. Paul was being accused of telling the Jews to defect from – or to abandon – the Law of Moses.
It is important to note the context of this word apostasia. Paul was being accused of telling Jews who had accepted Christ – but continued to practice Judaism – to abandon the practices of Moses.
These practices included circumcising male children on the eighth day following their birth, obeying certain holidays, and keeping to the separation of “clean” (kosher) and “unclean” (non-kosher) foods.
Even though it was a false accusation, it was nonetheless referred to as apostasy. Note how this application of the word apostasia is not used of the Church or of Christians, but of the Jewish people in relation to the Law of Moses. The apostasy Paul is referring to will not come from the Church, but will be carried out by the Jews.
When Paul refers to the apostasia in 2 Thessalonians 2, he is looking into the future to a time when the Antichrist will be on the scene. This is who he speaks of when he writes:
No one is to deceive you in any way! For it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction (v. 3).
This abandonment will occur in the middle of the 70th Week of Daniel – the final 7-years of this era of human history. At that time, there will be war in Heaven, and Satan will be cast out of Heaven by the archangel Michael. Satan will then come to Earth to make war.
When he does, he will make war with the “woman” of Revelation Chapter 12 who gave birth to the “Male Child.” The woman is Israel; the Male Child is Jesus, the Messiah. Satan has very little time remaining and is very angry.
In chapter 13, we will see the instrument through which Satan will wage his battle: the Antichrist. We are told that the Antichrist will be directly energized by Satan. He will have power for 42 months, or 3½ years.
The Antichrist, who will be a false prophet among other things, will be very powerful and possess the ability to do apparent miracles. He will be a prime deceiver as he seduces the world into worshiping him and Satan.
The Antichrist – who 42 months previous made a covenant with Israel – now breaks the covenant by putting an image of himself into the 70th Week temple in Jerusalem. He will ask the Jewish people to bow down to him.
A portion won’t, but a great number will. That will be the great apostasia spoken of by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 – the time when many Jews will bow down to the Antichrist!
Marv Rosenthal, founder and President of Zion’s Hope, was an acclaimed international Bible teacher for almost 6 decades.
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