The question is, for what cause does God send them a strong delusion? The answer is found immediately before verse 11: “Because they received not the love of the truth.” The phrase “they received not the love of the truth” first and foremost means that the love of the truth is a gift of God. God loves the truth. In love for his people, God gives that love of the truth to them. The gift of the love of the truth comes from God’s election of them. The apostle says later in 2 Thessalonians 2 that God has from the beginning chosen his people to salvation. That salvation is “through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” Salvation is through faith alone. That faith is described as the sanctification of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit unites his people with Christ and separates them from the world. Belonging to that sanctification of the Spirit is their love of the truth. That truth is Christ in his person and works. The Spirit causes his people to love Christ in his person and works. His people are not saved by their love of the truth. They are saved by faith. That faith is their union with Christ. The fruit of that union is that they love the truth as the truth is in Christ Jesus. And what is that love of the truth? It is an embrace of the truth as precious and dear to them. It is a communion of fellowship with that truth. It is a deep care and concern for the truth as truth.
But the others receive not the love of the truth. God does not give it to them. And so they do not care whether their doctrine is true or not. They have no care for the truth. That is why when they forsake the truth doctrinally, they also lose all ethics in their lives. They do not care for the truth doctrinally, and they do not care for the truth in their lives either. They will engage in the most underhanded and wicked schemes in their war against the truth.
The reason that they received not the love of the truth is God’s reprobation of them. As the reception of the love of the truth comes from God’s election, God’s not giving to them the love of the truth proceeds from his eternal determination that they be damned.
And for this reason God sends to them a strong delusion. He is the sovereign one not only over the love of the truth but also over belief of a lie. The words “strong delusion” are a translation of the original Greek that means an effectually working power of deceit. Deceit is working, and it works effectually to take men under its power. Behind that effectually working power of deceit stands the sovereign God, carrying out his purpose of reprobation.
By the effectually working power of deceit, men, women, and children believe a lie. Their belief of the lie is that they put their trust and confidence in that lie. They rest in it, and it is their strong tower to which they retreat. Their confidence is in that lie, and they return to it time and again to comfort themselves. And what is that lie? That lie is that man is God and that God is not God. That lie is that Jesus is not the way, the truth, and the life, but man is the way, the truth, and the life. That lie will take concrete form in the man of sin, the son of perdition, whom the whole world will worship, but whom Christ will destroy with the brightness of his coming and with the sword that proceeds from his mouth.
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