The New Testament · The Letters of St. Paul · Book 60 of 73
Prophecy in 2 Thessalonians
Someone had told the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord had already come, and they were shaken. Paul calms them: certain things must happen first, the apostasy and the revealing of the lawless one, and the Lord Jesus will overcome him with a breath. The letter is the Church's charter against both panic and date-setting.
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The book at a glance
The letter comes in the name of Paul, Silvanus and Timothy (1:1) to the same church as 1 Thessalonians, still under persecution. Many scholars hold that Paul wrote it soon after the first letter; others think a disciple wrote it later in his name. The Church receives it as inspired Scripture either way, and its teaching on the last things is part of her faith (CCC 673, 675).
Its center is chapter 2. Against a rumor that “the day of the Lord is at hand,” Paul gives a short apocalypse: the apostasy, the lawless one who exalts himself in the temple of God, a power that now restrains him, and his end at the Lord's coming. Paul had taught them more in person (2:5), so some of his words remain a mystery to later readers, as St. Augustine freely admitted.
Key to the labels
How a passage stands
Fulfilled Accomplished in history, above all in Christ.
Unfolding Being worked out now in the life of the Church.
Future Clearly still to come at Christ's return.
Mystery Its meaning or moment is not yet settled.
What kind of passage it is
Prophecy God's word through a prophet, or Christ, about what will come.
Promise A pledge God makes, kept over generations.
Type A person or event that foreshadows Christ or the Church.
Image A picture Scripture returns to and completes at the end.
Apocalypse A vision unveiling history from heaven's side, in symbols.
More on the labels
| Passage | Subject | Standing |
|---|
| 1:6–10 | The Lord Jesus revealed from heaven | Future |
| 2:1–2 | Do not be alarmed: the day is not at hand | Future |
| 2:3–5 | The apostasy and the lawless one | Future Unfolding |
| 2:6–7 | What restrains, and the one who restrains | Mystery |
| 2:8 | Killed with the breath of his mouth | Future |
| 2:9–12 | Signs and wonders that lie | Future Unfolding |
| 2:13–15 | Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions | Unfolding |
The passages
“…at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his mighty angels, in blazing fire…”
- Reading
- To a persecuted church Paul promises justice: rest for the afflicted and judgment on those who refuse God and the Gospel. The Lord comes “to be glorified among his holy ones and to be marveled at on that day among all who have believed” (1:10). His coming is a revelation, an unveiling of the one who already reigns. The Church professes it in the Creed: he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead (CCC 678–679).
- For now
- The promise is given to sufferers as comfort, not to anyone as a threat to wield. Judgment belongs to Christ alone.
“…not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly, or to be alarmed either by a ‘spirit,’ or by an oral statement, or by a letter allegedly from us to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand.”
- Reading
- The first lesson of the chapter is calm. Claimed revelations, rumors and even forged letters announced that the day had come. Paul's answer is that it had not, and that no one should be shaken by such claims. The Catechism cites the verses that follow (2:3–12) when it teaches that Christ's return could come at any moment, even though both it and the final trial that precedes it are “delayed,” and that its time belongs to the Father (CCC 673).
- Note
- This is the no-date-setting text of the letters. Every prediction since, however confident, has fallen under this verse. A “spirit” announcing the date is the very thing Paul warns against.
“Let no one deceive you in any way. For unless the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one doomed to perdition…”
- Reading
- Two things come before the day: the apostasy, a great falling away from faith, and the revealing of the lawless one, “who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god and object of worship, so as to seat himself in the temple of God, claiming that he is a god” (2:4). The NABRE notes the background in Daniel 11:36–37. The Catechism teaches that before Christ's return the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers, and that “the supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist,” a false messianism in which man glorifies himself in place of God (CCC 675). Following the Fathers, St. John Henry Newman taught that the lawless one comes through an apostasy that prepares his way (Newman on the Antichrist).
- Why two labels
- The final apostasy and the lawless one himself are still to come. Yet falling away has marked every age, and the deception “already begins to take shape in the world” whenever the claim is made to realize within history the hope that can only be realized beyond history, through God's final judgment (CCC 676).
- Note
- The Church names no one as the lawless one, and neither does this site. Christians have often pinned the title on rulers and rivals of their own day; every such identification has failed and done harm. Paul's concern is fidelity, not candidates.
- See also
- 1 John 2:18, 22; Matthew 24:10–12; the beast of Revelation 13 at The Lamb's Victory.
“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. But the one who restrains is to do so only for the present, until he is removed from the scene.”
- Reading
- Paul speaks first of “what is restraining” (2:6) and then of “the one who restrains” (2:7): a force and a person, as the NABRE note observes. The Thessalonians knew what he meant, because he had told them (2:5). Later readers did not, and the Fathers offered several views:
- The Roman order. Tertullian took the hindrance to be the Roman state, whose fall would open the way for the Antichrist (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 24). St. John Chrysostom reports this view and favors it (Homilies on 2 Thessalonians, 4). Behind it lies the idea of lawful order holding chaos back.
- The Holy Spirit. Chrysostom also reports that some understood the restrainer as the grace of the Spirit, though he himself did not accept it (Homilies on 2 Thessalonians, 4).
- Others. St. Augustine records the Roman view and another: that the “mystery of lawlessness” is hidden wickedness among false members of the Church, until it goes out from her. He then admits, “I frankly confess I do not know what he means” (City of God 20.19). The NABRE note adds other proposals: cosmic or angelic powers binding Satan, Michael the archangel, or, in a more recent view, the preaching of the Gospel, which must reach all nations before the end (Mark 13:10).
- Why mystery
- The Church has not defined who or what the restrainer is. These are views, held by saints and scholars, and none is Church teaching. What is certain is the shape of the passage: evil is already at work, it is held back, and God sets its limit.
“And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord [Jesus] will kill with the breath of his mouth and render powerless by the manifestation of his coming…”
- Reading
- The lawless one's whole career fits into a clause. Paul gives no battle, only a breath. The image comes from Isaiah 11:4, where the shoot of Jesse slays the wicked “with the breath of his lips.” St. Augustine applies this verse to Christ's slaying of the Antichrist (City of God 20.12). The kingdom is fulfilled not by a historic triumph of the Church but by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil (CCC 677).
- For now
- The end of the story is fixed. Whatever the lawless one is, he is already defeated.
- See also
- Revelation 19:11–21.
“…the one whose coming springs from the power of Satan in every mighty deed and in signs and wonders that lie…”
- Reading
- The lawless one has a false parousia of his own, with counterfeit wonders. Those deceived are those who “have not accepted the love of truth so that they may be saved” (2:10). The defense is not cleverness but love of the truth. Jesus gave the same warning about false messiahs and signs (Matthew 24:24).
- Why two labels
- The full deception belongs to the final trial (CCC 675). The choice it tests, between love of the truth and what pleases, is made in every age.
- Note
- This is one reason the Church judges claimed wonders and private revelations with care (CCC 67). See Apparitions.
“Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.”
- Reading
- After the apocalypse comes the instruction. Against deception Paul does not give a chart of the future; he gives thanksgiving that “God chose you as the firstfruits for salvation” (2:13) and the charge to hold to what the apostles handed on, spoken and written. The Church teaches that the apostolic preaching is handed on both in Scripture and in living Tradition, which come from one divine source (CCC 76, 80–83).
- Why unfolding
- Holding fast is the Church's work from the apostles until the Lord comes. It is how the faithful will stand in the final trial.
Still to come on this pageFurther passages to add: God's just judgment and being made worthy of the kingdom (1:5), the prayer that the name of the Lord Jesus be glorified in you (1:11–12), and the Lord's faithfulness to guard you from the evil one (3:3).
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