Introduction
This series of editorials treats the subject of eschatology, which is the study of the end of all things. That end is the goal that God appointed in his eternal counsel for the revelation of his glory in the salvation of the elect church in the eternal kingdom of Christ and in eternal judgment upon the reprobate and ungodly world. For the sake of this end, all things were created. And to this end all things were appointed to serve in God’s wisdom for its coming and final consummation.
That the elect of God might direct their faith to that end, there are signs of Christ’s coming. These signs are events in the realms of society, nature, and the church that indicate that the coming of Christ approaches quickly. The signs are not for the world. Upon the world, as in the days of Noah, the end comes as a thief in the night. So the apostle says in 1 Thessalonians 5:1–4:
1. Of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
2. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
3. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
The world of ungodly men and the false church comfort themselves with the hope of peace and safety, but sudden destruction will come upon them. They carry on unto the end, eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage, and the Lord will descend on them like an eagle swoops upon its unsuspecting prey. Being devoid of the Spirit, they are ignorant of the signs of Christ’s coming; and in the face of them, they draw the conclusion that their kingdoms and their houses shall abide.
The signs are for the benefit of the church. So Christ says in Luke 21:25–28:
25. There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
26. Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
27. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
28. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
Under the type of the destruction of Jerusalem, Christ speaks in these verses of the ultimate end of all things. He instructs the church that when she begins to see these things come to pass, then to look up and lift up her head because her redemption draws nigh. The picture is that of the church on the earth, enduring many troubles and afflictions, on account of which her head begins to sag in sorrow. Then she witnesses some event sent by the Lord, and her hope and expectation of the coming Christ are renewed. Such is the salutary effect of the signs upon the church.
I have begun an examination of these signs and briefly explained the chief and controlling sign of the worldwide preaching of the gospel. To the gathering of the elect, all things are subservient. I explained also what Christ calls the beginning of sorrows in the upheavals and commotions among and within the nations, as well as the calamities caused in the nations by natural disasters. When Christ speaks of sorrows, then he refers to the labor pains of a woman about to deliver a child. The commotions, wars, rumors of wars, and calamities among the nations are the beginning of the labor pains of history as it will culminate in the personal and visible coming of Jesus Christ on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. These signs indicate that the end comes, but they also tell the church that the end is not yet.
Now I take up the closely-related subjects of the mystery of iniquity, apostasy, and the man of sin. This editorial deals with the working of the mystery of iniquity and follows closely the apostle’s teaching on these subjects in 2 Thessalonians 2:5–8.
5. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
6. And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
7. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
8. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
The world approves of the marriages of homosexuals and lesbians. The world numbs itself and, in many cases, kills itself with opioids and other drugs. There is an incredible violence in society. In the church world there is an unbelievable apostasy and a panting after unification of the denominations. Paganism and superstition are on the rise. The world progressively becomes one and cries out with increasing ardor for world peace. And yet for all these developments and the revelation of all this wickedness, the world marches on.
How long will the Lord put up with this wickedness?
Will the world end at any time or even very shortly?
It was these kinds of considerations and this sort of reflection on the world and the course of the world that troubled the Thessalonian congregation at the time of the apostle Paul. He had preached to the Thessalonians of the end of the world. They had misunderstood the apostle’s preaching to mean that the end of the world could come at any moment and that without warning the Lord would descend from heaven and make all things new. As a result of that erroneous thinking, many Thessalonians quit their jobs and made themselves ready for the coming of the Lord. So the apostle Paul had to write to them again to set them straight about the coming of the end and the revelation of Jesus Christ from heaven.
The end of the world cannot come at any moment. The end of the world is preceded by three great events. Those events are closely related to one another.
There is, first, the coming of a great apostasy into the world. This is what the apostle means when he says that there must come first a falling away:
3. 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;
4. 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, shewing himself that he is God. (2 Thess. 2:3–4)
Second, this same chapter mentions that on the wings of that apostasy comes “the man of sin, the son of perdition…whose coming is after the working of Satan” (vv. 3, 9). The man of sin feeds on apostasy like a great wildfire feeds on the wood of the forest, and he sweeps down upon the world like that great fire.
These two signs are dependent upon the third great event, the working of the mystery of iniquity that is now already in the world. We see that the world has not ended yet with the end of the year 2025 and the turning of the calendar to a new year. In light of this passage, we may say that the world will not end today, that the world will continue to exist yet another day, and that it looks as though the world will go on for some time yet. However, there is a force or a power that is already at work in the world—the mystery of iniquity.
Its Identity
When the Bible mentions a mystery, then that word usually refers to God’s wonderful and gracious plan of salvation in Jesus Christ. The apostle writes about this mystery in 1 Timothy 3:16: “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” This is the mystery of the wisdom of God that he hid from the ages, which none of the wise men of this world knew; if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. It is the mystery that God ordained from before the foundation of the world and that can be known to men only by the revelation of God through his Spirit.
When the Bible speaks of a mystery, then, the first and most important reality about that mystery is that it was ordained by God. God in eternity ordained all things for the revelation of his glory in the revelation of Jesus Christ, and God ordained all those things for our salvation. Thus mystery in scripture has to do with the eternal counsel of God—that is, every detail of that mystery was ordained by God before the world began, and the unfolding and revelation of that mystery are the unfolding and revelation of the eternal thoughts and plans of the living God.
The second truth about a mystery is that it is mysterious. It is mysterious because that mystery involves the eternal counsel, the eternal thoughts, and the eternal plan of God, and that is wonderful and far above the thoughts of man. The mystery of God stupefies man, is far beyond man’s thoughts, and is a work that man cannot figure out or fully comprehend. So it is with God’s mystery in Jesus Christ. That God would become man, so that in Jesus Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; that God would work salvation himself in and through the man Jesus Christ; that God would take the sins of his people on himself; that God would pay God what God was owed so that salvation might be a free gift; and that God would work all this through the way of sin and grace, death and redemption, the cross and the resurrection is that wisdom of God that man cannot comprehend. That is not the wisdom of this world or of the princes of this world, but it is the hidden and mysterious working of the wisdom of God in a mystery:
6. We speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
7. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
8. Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Cor. 2:6–9)
In 2 Thessalonians 2:7 the apostle takes the term “mystery” and applies it to “iniquity”: “The mystery of iniquity doth already work.”
The first thing we must understand about the mystery of iniquity is that it is the revelation and unfolding of the eternal counsel of God. Whatever the mystery of iniquity is, it cannot be understood apart from the counsel and sovereign will and working of the triune God. The mystery of iniquity as a force at work in the world cannot be conceived of apart from the sovereignty of God and especially that sovereignty of God as it decrees and controls the occurrence of evil in the world.
This is one of the most powerful proofs in sacred scripture concerning God’s sovereignty over evil. God strictly controls evil in the world—evil in the world in its original coming into the world through the working of Satan; evil as it exists in the world; evil as it comes into the life of a man, woman, or child; and evil as it is in the church and in society. God both decreed the occurrences of evil and so controls the unfolding of that evil in the world that evil is in God’s hand. When the apostle speaks of “the mystery of iniquity,” he means that God is sovereign over this powerful force that is at work in the world.
And that is necessary to say for the comfort of the church because the mystery that is at work in the world is a mystery of iniquity. The mystery has to do with the revelation of the sinfulness of sin.
Specifically, the mystery of iniquity has to do with the revelation of the lawlessness of man as man rebelled against God in the garden of Eden. The word “iniquity” in the text is literally the word lawlessness. Lawlessness is the bristling, rebellious, and deliberate destruction of the law of God as the guide of man’s life. Man in the garden of Eden was hemmed in as the servant of God by the law of God given to Adam in the garden. That law of God was expressed in the words that God gave to Adam in the command of life: “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat” (Gen. 2:17). That was the expression of the command to man that his happiness and blessedness consisted in cleaving to the Lord his God, so that he was to love what God loved, and he was to hate what God hated. He was to cleave to the word of God as the way of life for him as God’s friend and servant in the garden of Eden. When man disobeyed God, man sought to become his own master and to make his own law of happiness, and he became lawless.
We must not limit that law of God to the ten commandments. There were many laws that God placed upon man as his creature. The most basic law of God is “love me with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength.” That law governs all men, so that as the fish is happy in the water and the bird is happy in the air, man can be happy only as he cleaves to the Lord his God and loves him with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength. Upon man was placed also all the laws that we call creation ordinances—such as the law of the family, the law of the employee-
employer relationship, the law of marriage, and the law of government.
The mystery of iniquity, then, is a shocking and stupefying development of sin, such that man seeks to obliterate the law of God as that law of God circumscribes man and his life. Man becomes more and more lawless in his life in the world, and the manifestation of the lawlessness of sin becomes increasingly glaring and vile in its expression.
Since the fall, man by nature always has been a hater of God and of his neighbor and as totally depraved in his nature as he is today. But like a dead body begins to rot, stink, and decay, so dead man in the course of the history of the world becomes increasingly vile and loathsome in the expression of his depravity.
Its Working
The apostle says that the mystery of iniquity is working now. When he says that the mystery of iniquity is working now, he describes it as a great force, or a power, in the world that works irresistibly to affect the development of sin. The mystery has worked and is still working now.
The apostle wrote this only a couple of decades after the ascension of Jesus Christ, so already at that time in the history of the new dispensation, the mystery of iniquity was in the world and at work in the world. How must this not be true especially now today some two thousand years after the apostle wrote to the Thessalonians? If the mystery of iniquity was at work in the apostle’s age, then the mystery of iniquity is surely at work in this age.
The working of the mystery of iniquity is responsible for the history-long rise of false doctrine in the church, so that already from the time of the apostles and in history ever since, the church has been overrun with false teachers. In churches there is the leaving of the first love because the love of many for the truth grows cold because iniquity abounds. The church throws off the yoke of Jesus Christ in doctrine and life and takes up with the world. She refuses to be governed by the word of God as the only rule of her faith and life, and she is governed instead by man’s wisdom, man’s expedients, and man’s doctrines and commandments. Rather than the pure doctrine of the gospel, which brings offense and persecution, she adopts the thinking of the world around her, and this thoroughly leavens her life and preaching, and she casts out those who rebuke her for her covetousness and other errors. Evil not only appears in the church but also is defended as the good, so that those who engage in evil are approved of and defended. Furthermore, belonging to the mysteriousness of the working of the mystery of iniquity is the development of false doctrine by extreme subtlety, so that if it were possible the very elect would be deceived.
This same mystery of iniquity is at work in society around the church, so that society develops in sin. Society with a kind of collective will sets about systematically to demolish the very ordinances and laws that God built into the creation and to change times and laws in the realms of education, medicine, law, government, labor, and the family. Man changes these things after the dark imaginations of his sinful heart. There is the systematic attack on the home in the assault on the proper roles of men and women in marriage and the shocking assault on the family in divorce and remarriage. There is man’s dark assault on marriage in the so-called open marriage, in which men and women marry but allow themselves many sexual partners in the marriage. There is the rise of pornography and the approval of every sort of sexual deviancy that follows from it. There is the shocking increase of violence, so that violence becomes commonplace. There are also spectacular advances in science by men, so that with their science men begin to do wonderful things and become exceedingly haughty as they try to legislate, research, investigate, or philosophize themselves into a utopia here on earth.
And the same mystery of iniquity is at work in the hearts of men, so that men desire and approve of all this wickedness and accept it and promote it as good, normal, and healthy.
The operation of this power is indeed a mystery in this sense too that man cannot know its power and that it cannot be exposed except God reveals it to a man. Either a man understands the operation of this mysterious power in the world through the revelation of God to him in the gospel, or a man stands in the power of and under the influence of that mystery of iniquity.
But you would ask me, why is this development of sin any different than the vile sins of Sodom and Gomorrah or the vile sins of the Babylonians, the Greeks, or the Romans? What distinguishes this working of the mystery of iniquity from every other previous working for the development of sin? The working of the mystery of iniquity now will culminate in a great apostasy and the coming of the man of sin.
No matter how vile the world became in her sin in the old dispensation, that sin could not and did not produce the man of sin. Indeed, it did produce the precursors of the man of sin, who were types of that man of sin. So it produced Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome. But the mystery of iniquity that now works in the world will produce the man of sin.
That is the whole point of the apostle in bringing up the mystery of iniquity. The mystery of iniquity is like the stream on which the man of sin comes into the flow of history.
Then I must say, too, that this mystery of iniquity is something new in the new dispensation. In a sense sin has always developed ever since the garden of Eden. In those developments of sin, there were also shocking expressions of man’s depravity, so that ancient man was as inventive in his sin as modern man is. But this entrance of the mystery of iniquity into history is a new power—a power that comes with the express purpose of bringing to pass the coming of the man of sin. That coming is intimately connected with the epiphany of the man of sin.
The spiritual power behind the working of this mystery of iniquity is none other than Satan, who goads the world on in the development of sin and sees to it that sin becomes exceedingly sinful in his effort to bring the man of sin. And that man of sin will be the embodiment of the lawlessness that characterizes the working of the mystery of iniquity.
The man of sin will be man as man comes into the world totally cut free from the law of God and any inhibition or social constraint. The man of sin will be such a shocking revelation of God-hatred and man-hatred, such a shocking appearance and embodiment of sin, that his way must be prepared. Let us say that if he would appear today, so terrible and revolting would be his sinfulness that he would shock and revolt even the world, so that the world must be prepared for him, and his way must be paved by the working of the mystery of iniquity.
The man of sin is the lawless one, who is full of bristling hatred against God. The man of sin is the personal antichrist, who will head the one-world government of antichrist. He will bring the kingdom of man in the world to its highest state of development, and sin in that kingdom will come to its rawest and most vile expression as the man of sin will sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God, opposing all that is called God or that is worshiped. Every idol that man ever has fashioned must give way to the worship of this man of sin; every religion that man has fashioned must give way to the worship of this man. Especially will he make the church of God and the confession of the true God and his word the objects of his hatred and persecution. So, unlike any other development of sin in the past, this development of sin will bring the end of the world.
That is what must live in the hearts and minds of the children of God when they observe the working of this mystery of iniquity in the world. When we observe this working of the mystery of iniquity in the world, we must know that it has but one goal, namely, that the man of sin comes.
There will be no destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, or Rome and then another world power rising to take its place. This working of the mystery of iniquity brings the final rise and revelation of the man of sin, the coming of the antichristian world power, the final persecution of the church, and finally the coming of Jesus Christ, who will destroy that man of sin with the Spirit of his mouth and the brightness of his coming.
Its Withholder
Ruling over this mystery of iniquity stands Christ. According to 2 Thessalonians 2:7, over all the working of the mystery of iniquity is something that lets and someone who lets. There is a what that “withholdeth,” or a power that “withholdeth,” and there is a who that “letteth,” or a person who “letteth.” When we see the mystery of iniquity, we must understand that controlling it are a power and a person.
This language has befuddled commentators. The language is mysterious.
But if we think about the mystery of iniquity from the proper starting point of God’s sovereignty, then the language becomes very clear and enlightening about the working of the mystery of iniquity.
First, we must understand that the words “withholdeth” in verse 6 and “letteth” in verse 7 are translations of the same Greek word. The Greek word translated as “withholdeth” and “letteth” more pointedly means to hold fast.
The word speaks first of the one who is in control of or has the power over the mystery of iniquity and all its working and development. The word also speaks of the nature of his control over the mystery of iniquity, namely, that he holds it so that it is completely in his control, and therefore he directs it according to his will. Think of a great torrent of water that is released, and there is one who directs that torrent of water wherever he wills—first to this channel and then to that channel, but always so that the huge torrent of water goes where the one in control intends.
Second, as we seek to come to an understanding of who lets and what lets, we can eliminate other interpretations as totally impossible. So for instance, the interpretation that the power is demonic and the one who exercises that power is a demon, even Satan, is impossible because as Christ said, the kingdom of Satan is not divided against itself. The whole mystery of iniquity is the result of the working of Satan himself and is part of the coming of his whole damnable kingdom, and he is not then standing in the way of it. He is working in the development of the mystery of iniquity, and he personally is responsible for the revelation of the man of sin after the one who lets is taken out of the way.
Furthermore, since the mystery of iniquity sweeps everyone and everything in the world before it and is a power against which there is no resistance in the world, there is no worldly or human power that is responsible for withholding or letting the mystery of iniquity. Rather, all ungodly men are in the power of the mystery of iniquity, and it prepares them for the coming of the antichrist.
This leaves but one option, and that is Christ and his government of the world. Christ is the one who lets the mystery of iniquity, and the power of Christ is what withholds the power of the mystery of iniquity. Christ went into heaven and received all power in heaven and on earth. One aspect of that power is his absolute control over the mysterious force of wickedness that is bringing the antichrist.
Christ bound Satan with an iron chain, so that Satan cannot deceive the nations and bring the man of sin until his God-ordained time. But that binding does not prohibit Satan from working in the world to thoroughly prepare the world for the coming of that wicked one. Christ’s perfect sovereignty over the mystery of iniquity directs it to the end that the man of sin will be revealed in his time. Christ’s sovereignty over the development of sin is such that he is controlling it so that the man of sin will be revealed in his proper time. The man of sin has a time. That time is strictly set by the counsel of God. The man of sin must come at that time and no sooner.
And so Christ withholds with his almighty power, so that the mystery of iniquity cannot prematurely bring the antichrist before God’s time. Christ forces the mystery of iniquity into this channel and into that channel, to develop first in this area and then in that area, to progress in this part of the world and then in that part of the world, and to work in this church and that church, until the whole world is prepared for the coming of the antichrist, until the wickedness and darkness in man’s heart are thoroughly revealed, and until all the world is crying for the coming of the man of sin, who will perfect the kingdom of man on the earth.
But all is strictly under Christ’s control.
“Until he be taken out of the way.” The King James Version’s translation of this clause in 2 Thessalonians 2:7 is not good and serves to obscure the meaning of the passage. A literal and rather stilted rendering better serves the purpose of the text, and that is “until he become out of the midst.”
First, this translation serves to teach that Christ is personally involved in all the mysterious working, controlling, and directing of the mystery of iniquity according to the sovereign counsel of God. Christ is literally in the midst of this mysterious working with his power and personal government, so that all things happen in the development of sin according to his own perfect execution of the will and decree of God.
Second, “until he become out of the midst” teaches that the final stage of the development of the mystery of iniquity that leads to the revelation of the man of sin, the son of perdition, is not the result of Satan and his man of sin overcoming Christ or stepping outside the bounds of his power but is a matter of the execution of God’s decree. There is a becoming, or an unfolding, of God’s decree, such that God willed the revelation of the man of sin, and that day must come and will come shortly.
Indeed, Christ is working for the coming of that day in which all the malice, hatred, rebellion, wickedness, impiety, and lawlessness of man must be revealed in the man of sin. Christ is turning the pages of the book of God’s decree, executing God’s will in a most perfect and awesome manner, such that he will come to the day that the book communicates to Christ that he must carry out the decree that allows the man of sin to come. At that time, and only at that time, will Christ let the man of sin come. Christ does not step entirely out of the way or give up his government of the world, but Christ steps out of the way as far as the coming of the man of sin is concerned, so that at last the man of sin will appear on the scene of world history to make war on the church.
And in this there is comfort for the church and individual believer. First, the comfort is that the mystery of iniquity, which we see working so powerfully in the world so that the kingdom of Satan advances everywhere in the world, is not a runaway power but is carefully circumscribed by the power and personal government of Jesus Christ.
Whenever we see shocking developments in sin—man plays God in the wombs of women and with the children of men; man approves of the most shocking sins; and all the rest of the wickedness that belongs to the working of the mystery of iniquity—then we must see Christ in control. All of this happens according to his sovereign government and for his sovereign purpose of the revelation of the man of sin.
Second, Christ’s control of the man of sin speaks to us, too, that as the power and kingdom of Satan are in the ascendance, the coming of Christ Jesus draws that much closer. As the days grow darker, we must realize that Christ is that much nearer to us, and his Holy Spirit preserves with infallible precision each and every one of God’s elect. If Jesus Christ is in complete control of the mystery of iniquity that sweeps onto the world like a flood, then he is also in complete control of how far the mystery of iniquity succeeds; and it cannot succeed among God’s people, for they are safe with Christ, and no man is able to pluck them out of his hand.
Third, Christ’s control speaks of the ultimate destruction of the antichrist and of all the iniquity that he represents and that will culminate in him. The Lord, who is sovereign over the coming of the antichrist, will also consume him with the Spirit of his mouth and destroy him with the brightness of his coming. The Lord will consume utterly all the workers of iniquity, and they shall not succeed. And so we may not fear what the future brings because we know that it is in the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ and comes according to the sovereign working of our eternal Father. We are called to stand always in the midst of this increasingly wicked world as God’s friends and servants in antithetical separation from the wicked world and apostate church.
We are called, then, also to watch and guard against the deceitfulness of sin, to watch and guard against the coming of iniquity, and to pray, pray with fervency and devotion, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!”
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