| (Copyright 08-28-2024) by Charles Whitaker (Charlotte, North Carolina) |
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 In II Thessalonians 2, the apostle Paul mentions a force that works at least temporarily to restrain the coming of the man of sin, or, as some translations more correctly say, the lawless man.1 Many translations do a poor job on this passage, but I think J.B. Phillips’ The New Testament in Modern English has caught its essence.2 II Thessalonians 2:5-7: I expect you remember now how I talked about this when I was with you. You will probably also remember how I used to talk about a “restraining power” which would operate until the time should come for the emergence of this man [of sin]. Evil is already insidiously at work but its activities are restricted until what I have called the “restraining power” . . . is removed. When that happens the lawless man will be plainly seen— While the apostle affirms that lawlessness was at work in his day—and, of course, still is in ours—Paul never explicitly tells us what is restraining this lawless person from coming to full power.3 4 Some commentators argue that it is human government that restrains him. Still others contend that it is God Himself, others the Holy Spirit, and yet others the church. Ultimately, none of those answers makes much sense. Anything Goes! However, Paul’s use of the adjective “lawless” in this passage suggests what that force is. To see that, we must connect this passage with Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but happy is he who keeps the law.” Revelation—translated as “vision,” “prophecy,” or “guidance” in other versions—generally refers to communication, to information disclosed to another. God communicates to us through His Word, the Holy Scriptures. When feared and respected, God’s Word becomes a restraining force on unbridled carnality. However, when lacking respect for His Word, people “run wild,” as many translations render that term “cast off restraint.”5 Another translation, The Common English Bible, says the people refusing to be instructed by God’s Word “get out of control.” Another, The Contemporary English Version, says that “law and order disappear.” Yet another, the Catholic Jerusalem Bible, says that people, lacking respect for the Word of God, “get out of hand,” and The Pulpit Commentary renders it as people “become ungovernable.” All these terms well describe the condition of humanity today—especially in Israelite countries. Taking a cue from the Cole Porter song,6 we can term these nations “anything goes” societies. Anything goes! Slip Sliding Away In Proverbs 29:18, the second line notifies us that, conversely, those who are faithful to the law, that is, torah, the instruction of God in His Word, are blessed. As mentioned earlier, God’s Word is His revelation to us. It, and most notably the laws codified in it, works to restrain an individual and, collectively, a people from the excesses of rampant carnality. When respected and obeyed, God’s Word is a positive good in any culture. Some readers have likely seen transcripts of the laws of America’s original thirteen colonies or cities within them, especially those of the northern colonies, where the Puritans dominated the culture after they founded their colony at Plymouth Rock in 1607. These early laws read like the book of Deuteronomy. Linguistically, this similarity makes sense, as these laws were written in the 1600s, in some cases just a few decades after the publication of the Authorized or King James Version (published in 1611). The English language did not change much in that short time. More significantly, though, the substance of those laws largely mirrored the laws in God’s Word. Additionally, though to less of an extent, the same can be said of the American colonies of the south, like the one at Jamestown, founded in 1620.7 America’s European colonists, a few exceptions aside, of course, had respect for God’s Word, honoring it in many cases and contexts. While their doctrine was flawed, believing in the Trinity, an immortal soul, and so on, they were at least God-fearing and obeyed, as much as they understood, God’s revealed instructions. Such was the general tenor of America in the 1600s. But, by the time the 1700s rolled around, the tone had begun to change. A hundred years later, Europeans were doing everything they could to erode that honor and respect the American colonists held for God’s Word. Enlightenment thought, a mutation of earlier humanism, infected the thinking of the American elite, most notably in the case of Thomas Jefferson—though there were others. American universities became secular institutions quite early, imitating European ones. By the time of America’s Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers had become quite secularized compared to a century earlier. They created a secular state to govern the nation’s affairs, not a Christian one. Situations only got worse with the passage of time. Eventually, higher criticism, the German rationalist view that the Bible is just another human book, certainly not sacred, became the standard approach in many American seminaries. Humanists like Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and later Henry James became cultural heroes and remain literary and philosophical lights to the elite. It was only a matter of time before God’s law became disconnected from our jurisprudence—a change that manifested itself most obviously in banning displays of the Ten Commandments from our courthouses. The Bible became so unwelcome in our schools that the American people largely accepted its banning by atheist judges without a whimper. In the decades since then, churches have shrunk, and many sideline Christian thought as “far-right” or even “alt-right.” By their relative silence, Americans demonstrated—and continue to demonstrate—their waning respect for God’s Word. Untethered From Standards More broadly,8 physical Bibles are becoming harder to acquire around the world. For example, possessing Bibles is legal in China, with its billion or so people, and it is possible to buy them there—but certainly not easy. They cannot be purchased online in the so-called People’s Republic. Bibles are strictly taboo in North Korea. Acquiring them in most Muslim nations is difficult and impossible in others, such as Morocco or Libya. The nations outlawing the operations of the Gideons, a society that places Bibles in business waiting rooms and hotel rooms, are by far and away Muslim nations.9 Meanwhile, in Israelite nations, the assault on God’s Word continues unabated, usually in the name of the doctrines of “political correctness” or “inclusion.” For example, in Canada and Europe, it is against the law to preach certain Scriptures that offend sexual deviants. In such areas, policymakers consider God’s Word to be a form of hate speech. Laws or proposed laws that limit access to God’s Word or its preaching are today just waiting in the wings of statehouse after statehouse in this country, primarily in what are called “blue states.”10 God’s Word—when respected as such, of course—affords protection against lawlessness. People who respect God’s Word are tractable; that is, they are governable and resistant to falling for the popularist expediency of demagogues. They may not be theological scholars, but they have a sense of what is right, good, and profitable for themselves and society. As people lose sight of God’s Word as His revelation to them, they watch their nation becoming one less adherent to the rule of law. Instead, they find themselves ruled more by political opportunists in the name of expediency. In short, over time, they come to live in a nation whose laws and policies are relativistic rather than founded on immutable standards, the greatest of which are God’s laws.11 Such a people—untethered from absolute standards—will become easy prey for the flattering lies of the man of sin. Considering evident trends in the suppression of God’s Word and the preaching of the truth it espouses, it is clear that the time when “the lawless man will be plainly seen” is not far off. End Notes 1 General conflict and disorientation have been commonplace, as many believe “times are getting worse.” However, God does not act until a particular point, when the iniquity of a people is full (see Genesis 15:16). So, when we are wont to predict that the world will end tomorrow (“it just can’t get any worse”), we must make sure we understand that God is making the decisions. The Scriptures do not tell us exactly when the threshold of “full” iniquity is, but He always warns us through His prophets before He takes corrective action (Amos 3:7). Generational disorientation or displacement has been around at least as long as the Industrial Revolution. It is part and parcel with rapid change. Whether such displacement takes place between the first two World Wars or at the cusp between the Second and a Third, where we stand today, its result is the same. Any perverse situation, any upside-down state of affairs where the very meanings of words and the fundamentals of traditions fall, ends the same: in instability. With that volatility comes uncertainty, insecurity, confusion, clouded vision, the inability to predict, and, in extreme cases, paralysis. Instability and the ability to make reasonably credible predictions are inversely related: The more volatile a situation, the less accurate will be most predictions made in its context. The more the instability, the less reliable are predictions, both short-term and long. So, business predictions—or those of any type—are not reliable in times characterized by significant and fast-moving social change. Consider today, as we stand at the cusp of Jacob’s Trouble. Change comes at an ever-accelerating, breath-taking pace. Not long ago, the term “same-sex marriage” was not part of most Americans’ vocabulary. Just a few decades in the past, proposing that such “marital” arrangements would become normative would have been unthinkable, incredible. Yet, such arrangements are increasingly the norm, enshrined in law. This same sort of change has appeared on any number of social fronts, such as the area of transgenderism and euthanasia, and others, we can guarantee, are in the wings. What today appears a fringe notion tomorrow becomes normal—legally and socially acceptable. This appears to be the case no matter how far-fetched, how seemingly implausible, the proposed change may be. No matter how far it may be from the morals, mores, and manners of the rank-and-file American, the proposals of the fanatic fringe become the new normal. In this environment, the ability to reliably predict change flies out the window. It happens simply too fast and penetrates traditional norms too deeply. While meaningful historical precedents may exist, identifying them becomes a search for a needle in a haystack. 2 The English Standard Version [ESV] is typical in its mistranslation of this passage: Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. In verse 6, the restraining force is neuter in Greek: “what is restraining him,” not “who is restraining him.” It is not a person. Yet, in verse 7, the ESV translators and so many others abandon the neuter in favor of the masculine: “He who restrains it,” not “it which restraints it.” There is no grammatical reason for this change, as the pronoun “he” is neither explicitly nor implicitly stated in the Greek. The Greek of verse 7 is quite difficult, and may be a good example of Pauline circumlocution, as the diction is cryptic and the syntax is elliptical. Paul is clearly going out of his way to avoid saying something—for some reason, he does not want to reveal explicitly the nature of the restraining force. The Expanded Bible does a much better job: Don’t you remember that when I was with you I told you that all this would happen? And now [so] you know what is stopping that Man of Evil . . . so he will appear [be revealed] at the right [the proper; his own] time. The secret power [or mystery] of evil [lawlessness; wickedness] is already working in the world [or at work], but there is one who is stopping that power [restraining it]. And he [or it] will continue to stop [restrain] it until he [or it] is taken out of the way . . .. In this passage, Paul deals with the interplay between revelation and concealment, a prevalent and important dichotomy in the Scriptures. He speaks of the mystery of lawlessness, which is the concealment part. It was working in Paul’s days, as well as our own, but its agenda remains more or less secret, hidden in the teachings of secret societies and powerful cabals. Today, lawlessness acts sub rosa. Yet in the same breath, Paul speaks of a time when lawlessness will be revealed, becoming virtually incarnate in the man of sin. 3 Some commentators contend that the restraining force is God Himself. Honestly, this seems silly, for He cannot be taken out of the way. Men can only deny Him. He is not dead and never will be. God’s Spirit. Again, impossible, for its indwelling is an act of God, who will never leave nor forsake us. The true church. Even the gates of the grave will not prevail against the Body of Christ. Human governments. This idea does not satisfy either. Of course, man’s governments will fall, but it is Christ Himself who will conquer them at His return, long after the man of sin has come and gone. 4 The Greek word is anomia (Strong’s #458; literally “without law”). The King James Version translators render it as “iniquity” a dozen times, “transgression of the law” twice, and “unrighteousness” once. “Lawlessness” is also a viable translation. 5 Christian Standard Bible, GOD’s WORD Translation, Holman Christian Standard Bible, Names of God Bible, New Living Translation, The Voice. 6 Porter, in his 1934 song, “Anything Goes,” written for a Broadway play of the same name, reflects the cultural turbulence of his time. Here is a sampling of its lyrics: In olden days, a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking. But now, heaven knows, Anything goes. Good authors too who once knew better words Now only use four-letter words— Writing prose, Anything goes. The next stanza addresses the level of toleration people displayed in the 1930s. If driving fast cars you like, If low bars you like, If old hymns you like, If bare limbs you like, If Mae West you like, Or me undressed you like, Why, nobody will oppose . . .. Anything goes. The world has gone mad today And good’s bad today, And black’s white today, And day’s night today . . .. The lyrics are reminiscent of Isaiah 5:20, penned long before: Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! The concept underlying these lyrics is the removal of an invisible, undefined restraining force that works to maintain the status quo, keep things the way they were. As this force flags, new attitudes, unexpected behaviors, and unwelcome norms arise, as in the case of writers who begin using four-letter words rather than “better” words. Things eventually whirl out of control as a culture becomes virtually characterized as a montage of societally acceptable behaviors, some people preferring “old hymns,” others nudity. In such a potpourri of tastes and values, with little or nothing to restrain, excesses become the rule, extremes become normal. We lament, “Anything goes.” 7 The colonies in the north were originally the domain of the Puritans. In the south, the people were more “king’s men,” Anglicans. Though historians tend to downplay it, the original colonies contained a vast religious cleavage that organized itself around a north-south axis. This difference later translated into economic and social differences, leading much later to civil war. 8 For a brief historical review, see “Why Christians Were Denied Access to Their Bible for 1,000 Years.” 9 See “How Many Countries Worldwide Have a Ban on the Bible.” The Gideons International have a list of countries where they are not allowed to operate: Afghanistan, Algeria, China (People’s Republic), Comoros, Djibouti, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Yemen (at this writing). However, for some of these countries, other groups exist: There are United Bible Societies chapters for Algeria, Iraq, Morocco, and China, and some presence in Comoros, Djibouti, Mauritania and Somalia. The Catholic Bible Federation also operates in Iran. Not all of these efforts are entirely government approved. 10 See “How Long Before the Bible Is Banned in America?” 11 Briefly, such a nation is one where everyone does what is right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25). ———————————————————————————————————– See Charles Whitaker’s other articles at: Whitaker, Charles – Church of God, Bismarck (church-of-god-bismarck.org) Reprinted with permission from: Church of the Great God https://www.cgg.org/ ———————————————————————————————————– |
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