Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Thessalonians 2:8

"And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nought by the manifestation of his coming;" — 2 Thessalonians 2:8 (ASV)

And then —Then, at last, when the Obstructor is gone, two things will happen: (1) the Lawless One will be revealed, and (2) then the Lord will come and destroy him. The purpose with which Paul began this chapter was to show the relative timing of our Lord’s Advent; but he is now so engrossed in describing the events that must precede it, that when he mentions the Advent again, he does so in a parenthetical relative clause.

That Wicked —Or, the Lawless One. The English version has again obscured the passage by not using the same word as in 2 Thessalonians 2:7. The general tendency toward “lawlessness” or “rebellion” will be brought to a head in the person of “the Lawless One” or “the Rebel,” just as the “obstruction” is personified in “the Obstructor.” The unveiling of the “secret of lawlessness” will be accomplished by the manifesto of the Rebel-in-chief.

Of course, this Rebel is the same person as the Man of Sin. The change of title is due to the specification of his sin by the word “lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians 2:7. The specification of the time is the only new information; therefore, all the emphasis of the sentence rests on “And then.”

The Lord —The best manuscripts add the name Jesus, which serves more clearly to contrast Him with His rival. The word “whom” might be more emphatically paraphrased as “and him.”

With the spirit of his mouth —Paul is quoting roughly from Isaiah 11:4 (Psalms 18:15; Wisdom 11:20: “might have fallen down with one blast, ... scattered abroad through the breath of Thy power”). Therefore, we are to understand this to mean the perfect ease with which Christ will destroy the Antichrist. Even when the phrase refers to speech (as it may here), the absence of effort is the point to be noted (for example, Psalms 33:6).

With the brightness of his coming —Or rather, with the appearing of His presence. Here again, the mere fact of the true Christ revealing Himself will reduce the false Christ to nothing (which is the meaning of the Greek word for “destroy”). When they stand face to face, there will no longer be any possibility of delusion.