Many Christians will apostatize when the “Lawless One,” the “Son of Destruction,” seats himself in the “sanctuary.”
Paul is responding to false reports that the
“day of the Lord had set in.” But that cannot be so since two key events
had not yet occurred - the revelation of the “man of lawlessness” and
the “apostasy.”
- (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4) - “That no one may deceive you in any respect. Because that day will not set in, except the apostasy come first, and there be revealed the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself on high against everyone called God or any object of worship, so that he, within the sanctuary of God, will take his seat, showing himself that he is God.”
SON OF DESTRUCTION
In Paul’s letters, the term “son of
destruction” occurs only here. “Destruction” translates the Greek
noun apôleia, meaning “destruction, ruin, loss” - (Strong’s
- #G684).
The exact same term was heard on the lips of
Jesus when he called Judas Iscariot the “son of destruction.”
Certainly, Judas was an excellent model for the ultimate apostate. But other
than his betrayal of Christ, nothing in Judas’ life parallels the predicted
activities of the “man of lawlessness” – (John 17:12).
Another possibility is that the “son of
destruction” refers to this malevolent figure’s final fate when he will be destroyed
at the “arrival” of Jesus. That possibility comports with Paul’s
description of his demise - “Whom the Lord will consume with the
spirit of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming.”
However, in verse 8, “destroy”
translates a different Greek word, katargeô, which more correctly
means “disable, disarm, bring to nothing.” And the natural sense of the
genitive construction of the clause “son of destruction” is that “destruction”
characterizes this figure - “destruction” defines what he is and
what he does.
IN DANIEL
Paul’s scriptural source for the term is the book
of Daniel, especially the passage from its eleventh chapter that describes
an evil ruler of Greek descent:
- “And the king shall do according to his will, and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods; and he shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished; for that which is determined shall be done” – (Daniel 11:36).
This ruler is featured in the visions of Daniel
in which he is called the “little horn,” the “king of fierce
countenance,” and the “contemptible person.” He originated from the
“fourth beast” and “waged war against the saints and prevailed over
them,” though only for the time allotted by the “Ancient of Days.”
This creature’s “war” included the
desecration of the “sanctuary,” the cessation of the daily burnt
offering, and the erection of the “abomination of desolation” in the “sanctuary” – (Daniel
7:21-25, 8:9-13, 8:23-26, 9:26-27, 11:30-36).
IN THE SANCTUARY
This background explains Paul’s warning that
this man will “take his seat in the sanctuary.” Did he mean the “son
of destruction” will enter a rebuilt physical temple in Jerusalem? It is
noteworthy that he uses the Greek term for the inner sanctum or naos,
the “holy of holies,” and not the word for the entire temple complex.
Nowhere else does Paul express any interest in the Jerusalem Temple or say anything about a future rebuilt temple. However, he does apply the same term, the “sanctuary of God,” metaphorically to the church.
And since the topic in the present passage revolves
around the “apostasy” of believers, the context makes it more likely
that Paul is referring to this figure’s appearance in the church - (1
Corinthians 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:16, Ephesians 2:21).
In
the eighth chapter of Daniel, the “little horn” is identified as the
“king” from one of the four Greek kingdoms that succeeded the empire of
Alexander the Great, the “goat with the prominent horn” that overthrew
the “kingdom of the Medes and Persians.” And the same “little horn”
waged war against the “saints” in the seventh chapter - (Daniel 7:21,
8:8-13, 8:21-25).
The
only historical figure that meets the descriptions in Daniel’s visions is Antiochus
IV, the ruler of the Seleucid kingdom that persecuted the Jewish people for
over three years (168 B.C. to 165 B.C.), the allotted “season, seasons, and
part of a season.”
This
king’s “war” included the corruption of Jewish leaders, the banning of
circumcision and other Jewish rites, the burning of the Jewish scriptures, the
cessation of the sacrificial rituals in the Temple, and the erection of an
altar to his god, Zeus Olympias, on the altar of burnt offerings in
Jerusalem, the so-called “abomination of desolation.”
According to Daniel, the “king of
fierce countenance… corrupted the holy people… and magnified
himself in his heart, and caused the destruction of many.” In
the Greek Septuagint version of the passage, the term rendered “destruction”
is the same one used by Paul for the “son of destruction,” that
is, apôleia. Most likely, considering the language and context of
the passage in Thessalonians, this is his source for the term “son of
destruction.”
Thus,
Paul employs Daniel’s “little horn” as the model for the final deceiver
who will deceive Christians with “all power and signs and lying wonders.”
Just as the “little horn” caused many in Israel to fall, so this
creature will cause the destruction of many men and women in the church before
his own demise at the “arrival” of Jesus. He is, therefore, the “son
of destruction.”
No comments:
Post a Comment