Charles Spurgeon Commentary 2 Thessalonians 2

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

Paul believed in the Second Coming of Christ, for he urges the brothers by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He felt the power of this great truth. He often exhorts us to be watchful, because of the uncertainty of the time of that coming as far as we are concerned. But there were some who arose in his day, as in ours, who professed that they knew a great deal about the Second Advent, when it was to happen, and so on, and they began to foretell and to prophesy beyond what was really revealed by God.

As a result, some persons were terrified, and others driven to a very foolish course of action. It would seem, from this Epistle, that some people abandoned their daily calling and, on pretense of the near return of Christ, tried to live on the alms of Christian people, instead of working themselves. Many, however, were shaken in mind; so Paul wrote to reassure and strengthen them: That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the Son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

It has been usually thought that this passage alludes to the great apostasy of the Church of Rome, and, certainly, if there were a hue and cry raised for the culprit here described, one might well arrest that apostasy upon suspicion. It may not, however, be the man of sin, or the Son of perdition; it may be that general spirit which springs up again and again, one of the many anti-Christs that were already in the world even in John's day.

There are many such spirits that are constantly rising up—not outside the Church (there, we could deal with them), but inside the Church—using the words of truth and the signs of truth to signify something far other than the truth of God. This is the great rock that threatens destruction.

Oh, that God's Church might always be kept from striking upon it! But there is this rock which would, if it were possible, wreck the very elect vessel of Christ itself.

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

In the Church of Christ, the teaching has always been that Christ is coming quickly, and that teaching must never be withdrawn, for he is coming quickly, as he said to John in the Revelation. At the same time, this teaching has given an opportunity to certain presumptuous people to prophesy that at such and such a time Christ will come. They know nothing about it, and their prophecies are not worth the breath they spend in uttering them, and we have today what the apostle wrote to the Thessalonians.

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

I believe that, to a large extent, this has already happened, and that the "man of sin" has been revealed. This "son of perdition" has had a long, dark, and terrible reign over myriads of men, and still he sits on the seven hills of Rome, and rules over multitudes of his fellow-sinners.

But Paul held that it was consistent to expect the Lord to come quickly, and yet to know that certain events must occur before he did come. That is just the condition, I think, to which a person's mind will come if he diligently and impartially reads the Scriptures, especially the prophetic parts of them. The Lord will come in such an hour as we think not, yet there are clear indications of certain things which are to happen before he does come.

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together to him, that you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

In his former Epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul had written as if he expected Christ to come immediately, and the people seem to have taken his words so literally as to have lived in expectation of Christ's advent, and perhaps to have exhibited some degree of fear concerning it. He now calms their minds by telling them that Christ would not come until certain events had happened. The history of the world was not complete, the harvest of the Church was not ripe; neither had the sin of man and especially the "man of sin" become fully developed.