2 Thessalonians 2:8

And then shallthat Wicked be revealed Then, "in his own season" (2 Thessalonians 2:6), in contrast with the nowof the last clause, the time of his restraint: then shall be revealed the lawless one (R. V.).

It is essential that we keep in mind the identity of the figure depicted from 2 Thessalonians 2:3 onwards. The variety, of synonyms employed by the A.V. is distracting. This "revealing of the Lawless One" is the unveiling of "the mystery of lawlessness already at work;" he is no other than "the man of lawlessness, the son of perdition" announced in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Three times, with persistent emphasis, the word revealedis repeated (2 Thessalonians 2:3; 2 Thessalonians 2:6; 2 Thessalonians 2:8), as of some unearthly and portentous object, that holds the gazer spell-bound. Comp. note on "mystery," 2 Thessalonians 2:7.

"The lawless" (anomos) is a term frequently occurring in the LXX, both in the singular and plural; it denotes the typical "sinner," or "wicked person" of the O.T.

whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth According to the true reading, and better rendering, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth (R. V.).

On the title "Lord Jesus" and its relation to the Second Advent, see note to 1 Thessalonians 2:19. Jesus, the human Name, could not be wanting here, where the overthrow of "the manof lawlessness" is in question.

The words that follow come from the prophecy of the judgement of the Rod of Jesse, Isaiah 11:4: "He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked." Such predictions had not been accomplished in the humble, suffering Messiah, or but in foretaste, by the denunciations of Jesus (Matthew 23. &c.); they remain to be verified in His triumph. The Lawless One, being the ultimate embodiment of the world's wickedness and defiance of God, must suffer the conclusive fulfilment of the prophet's words.

Just as the sightof the Lord Jesus will suffice to bring ruin on cruel persecutors (ch. 2 Thessalonians 1:9), so it will need but the breath of His mouthto lay low the haughty and Titanic Antichrist: "A word shall quickly slay him!"

and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming More exactly, and shall bring to nought with the manifestation of his coming (or presence: Greek parousia; see note on this word, 1 Thessalonians 2:19).

The Greek verb signifies to make inoperative, destroy in effect; it is a favourite word with St Paul: comp. 2 Timothy 1:10, "having abolisheddeath;" and Galatians 3:17, "to makethe promise of none effect." The elect of the manifestation of the Lord Jesus will be to paralyse the Lawless One and strip him of his power. See note on ch. 2 Thessalonians 1:9, "destruction (coming) from the presence of the Lord."

The word rendered "manifestation" (epiphaneia, our Epiphany) is not found in St Paul again till we come to his latest Epistles, where it is applied to the Second, and once to the First Coming: 1Ti 6:14; 2 Timothy 1:10; Titus 2:13. It signifies by usage an extraordinary, commonly a superhuman, divine apperance. Similarly the corresponding adjective, rendered "notable" in Acts 2:20 (from Joel 2:31: Hebrew, "terrible"). Prima ipsius adventus emicatio(Bengel).

In 2 Thessalonians 2:9 we are told (1) of the agencywhich brings about the coming of the Man of Lawlessness and the meansemployed for the purpose, (2) of the victimsof his ascendancy (2 Thessalonians 2:10), and (3) of the issuefor which in the sovereignty of Divine judgement his power is overruled (2 Thessalonians 2:11).