_THE RESTRAINT AND ITS REMOVAL._
"And now ye know that which restraineth to the end that he may be
revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth
already work: only _there is_ one that restraineth now, until he
be taken out of the way. 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; _even he_,
whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and
signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness for
them that are perishing; because they received not the love of the
truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sendeth them
a working of error, that they should believe a lie: that they all
might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in
unrighteousness."--2 THESS. ii. 6-12 (R.V.).
Christ cannot come, the Apostle has told us, until the falling away
has first come, and the man of sin been revealed. In the verses before
us, we are told that the man of sin himself cannot come, in the full
sense of the word, he cannot be revealed in his true character of the
counter-Christ, till a restraining force, known to the Thessalonians,
but only obscurely alluded to by the Apostle, is taken out of the way.
The Last Advent is thus at two removes from the present. First, there
must be the removal of the power which holds the man of sin in check;
then the culmination of evil in that great adversary of God; and not
till then the return of the Lord in glory as Saviour and Judge.
We might think that this put the Advent to such a distance as
practically to disconnect it from the present, and make it a matter of
little interest to the Christian. But, as we have seen already, what
is significant in this whole passage is the spiritual law which
governs the future of the world, the law that good and evil must ripen
together, and in conflict with each other; and it is involved in that
law that the final state of the world, which brings on the Advent, is
latent, in all its principles and spiritual features, in the present.
That day is indissolubly connected with this. The life that we now
live has all the importance, and ought to have all the intensity,
which comes from its bearing the future in its bosom. Through the eyes
of this New Testament prophet we can see the end from the beginning;
and the day on which we happen to read his words is as critical, in
its own nature, as the great day of the Lord.
The end, the Apostle tells us, is at some distance, but it is
preparing. "The mystery of lawlessness doth already work." The forces
which are hostile to God, and which are to break out in the great
apostasy, and the insane presumption of the man of sin, are even now
in operation, but secretly. They are not visible to the careless, or
to the infatuated, or to the spiritually blind; but the Apostle can
discern them. Taught by the Spirit to read the signs of the times, he
sees in the world around him symptoms of forces, secret, unorganised,
to some extent inscrutable, yet unmistakable in their character. They
are the beginnings of the apostasy, the first workings, fettered as
yet and baffled, of the power which is to set itself in the place of
God. He sees also, and has already told the Thessalonians, of another
power of an opposite character. "Ye know," he says, "that which
restraineth ... only _there is_ one that restraineth now, until he be
taken out of the way." This restraining power is spoken of both in the
neuter and the masculine, both as a principle or institution, and as a
person; and there is no reason to doubt that those fathers of the
Church are right who identified it with the Empire of Rome and its
sovereign head. The apostasy was to take place among the Jews; and the
Apostle saw that Rome and its Emperor were the grand restraint upon
the violence of that stubborn race. The Jews had been his worst
enemies, ever since he had embraced the cause of the Nazarene Messiah
Jesus; and all that time the Romans had been his best friends. If
injustice had been done him in their name, as at Philippi, atonement
had been made; and, on the whole, he had owed to them his protection
against Jewish persecution. He felt sure that his own experience was
typical; the final development of hatred to God and all that was on
God's side could not but be restrained so long as the power of Rome
stood firm. That power was a sufficient check upon anarchic violence.
While it held its ground, the powers of evil could not organise
themselves and work openly; they constituted a mystery of iniquity,
working, as it were, underground. But when this great restraint was
removed, all that had been labouring so long in secret would come
suddenly to view, in its full dimensions; the lawless one would stand
revealed.
But, it may be asked, could Paul imagine that the Roman power, as
represented by the Emperor, was likely to be removed within any
measurable time? Was it not the very type and symbol of all that was
stable and perpetual in man's life? In one way, it was; and as at
least a temporary check on the final eruption of wickedness, it is
here recognised to have a degree of stability; but it was certainly
not eternal. Paul may have seen plainly enough in such careers as
those of Caligula and Claudius the impending collapse of the Julian
dynasty; and the very obscurity and reserve with which he expresses
himself amount to a distinct proof that he has something in his mind
which it was not safe to describe more plainly. Dr. Farrar has pointed
to the remarkable correspondence between this passage, interpreted of
the Roman Empire, and a paragraph in Josephus, in which that historian
explains the visions of Daniel to his pagan readers. Josephus shows
that the image with the head of gold, the breast and arms of silver,
the belly and thighs of brass, and the ankles and feet of iron,
represents a succession of four empires. He names the Babylonian as
the first, and indicates plainly that the Medo-Persian and the Greek
are the second and third; but when he comes to the fourth, which is
destroyed by the stone cut out without hands, he does not venture, as
all his countrymen did, to identify it with the Roman. That would have
been disloyal in a courtier, and dangerous as well; so he remarks,
when he comes to the point, that he thinks it proper to say nothing
about the stone and the kingdom it destroys, his duty as a historian
being to record what is past and gone, and not what is yet to come. In
a precisely similar way does St. Paul here hint at an event which it
would have been perilous to name. But what he means is: When the Roman
power has been removed, the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord
will come to destroy him.
What was said of the man of sin in the last lecture has again its
application here. The Roman Empire did _not_ fall within any such
period as Paul anticipated; nor, when it did, was there any such
crisis as he describes. The man of sin was not revealed, and the Lord
did not come. But these are the human elements in the prophecy; and
its interest and meaning for us lie in the description which an
inspired writer gives of the final forms of wickedness, and their
connection with principles which were at work around him, and are at
work among us. He does not, indeed, come to these at once. He passes
over them, and anticipates the final victory, when the Lord shall
destroy the man of sin with the breath of His mouth, and bring him to
nought by the appearance of His coming; he would not have Christian
men face the terrible picture of the last workings of evil until they
have braced and comforted their hearts with the prospect of a crowning
victory. There _is_ a great battle to be fought; there _are_ great
perils to be encountered; there is a prospect with something in it
appalling to the bravest heart; but there is light beyond. It needs
but the breath of the Lord Jesus; it needs but the first ray of His
glorious appearing to brighten the sky, and all the power of evil is
at an end. Only after he has fixed the mind on this does St. Paul
describe the supreme efforts of the enemy.
His coming, he says--and he uses the word applied to Christ's advent,
as though to teach us that the event in question is as significant for
evil as the other for good--his coming is according to the working of
Satan. When Christ was in the world, His presence with men was
according to the working of God; the works that the Father gave Him to
do, the same He did, and nothing else. His life was the life of God
entering into our ordinary human life, and drawing into its own mighty
and eternal current all who gave themselves up to Him. It was the
supreme form of goodness, absolutely tender and faithful; using all
the power of the Highest in pure unselfishness and truth. When sin
has reached its height, we shall see a character in whom all this is
reversed. Its presence with men will be according to the working of
Satan; not an ineffective thing, but very potent; carrying in its
train vast effects and consequences; so vast and so influential, in
spite of its utter badness, that it is no exaggeration to describe its
coming (παρουσία), its "appearing" (ἐπιφάνεια), and its "revelation"
(ἀποκάλυπσις), by the very same words which are applied to Christ
Himself. If there is one word which can characterise this whole
phenomenon, both in its principle and in its consummation, it is
falsehood. The devil is a liar from the beginning, and the father of
lies; and where things go on according to the working of Satan, there
is sure to be a vast development of falsehood and delusion. This is a
prospect which very few fear. Most of us are confident enough of the
soundness of our minds, of the solidity of our principles, of the
justice of our consciences. It is very difficult for us to understand
that we can be mistaken, quite as confident about falsehood as about
truth, unsuspecting victims of pure delusion. We can see that some men
are in this wretched plight, but that very fact seems to give us
immunity. Yet the falsehoods of the last days, St. Paul tells us, will
be marvellously imposing and successful. Men will be dazzled by them,
and unable to resist. Satan will support his representative by power
and signs and wonders of every description, agreeing in nothing but in
the characteristic quality of falsehood. They will be lying miracles.
Yet those who are of the truth will not be left without a safeguard
against them, a safeguard found in this, that the manifold deceit of
every kind which the devil and his agents employ, is deceit of
unrighteousness. It furthers unrighteousness; it has evil as its end.
By this it is betrayed to the good; its moral quality enables them to
penetrate the lie, and to make their escape from it. However plausible
it may seem on other grounds, its true character comes out under the
touchstone of conscience, and it stands finally condemned.
This is a point for consideration in our own time. There is a great
deal of falsehood in circulation--partly superstitious, partly
quasi-scientific--which is not judged with the decision and severity
that would be becoming in wise and good men. Some of it is more or
less latent, working as a mystery of iniquity; influencing men's souls
and consciences rather than their thoughts; disinclining them to
prayer, suggesting difficulties about believing in God, giving the
material nature the primacy over the spiritual, ignoring immortality
and the judgment to come. The man knows very little, who does not know
that there is a plausible case to be stated for atheism, for
materialism, for fatalism, for the rejection of all belief in the
life beyond the grave, and its connection with our present life; but
however powerful and plausible the argument may be, he has been very
careless of his spiritual nature, who does not see that it is a deceit
of unrighteousness. I do not say that only a bad man could accept it;
but certainly all that is bad in any man, and nothing that is good,
will incline him to accept it. Everything in our nature that is
unspiritual, slothful, earthly, at variance with God; everything that
wishes to be let alone, to forget what is high, to make the actual and
not the ideal its portion; everything that recalls responsibilities of
which such a system would discharge us for ever, is on the side of its
doctrines. But is not that itself a conclusive argument against the
system? Are not all these most suspicious allies? Are they not, beyond
dispute, our very worst enemies? and can it be possible that a way of
thinking is true, which gives them undisputed authority over us? Do
not believe it. Do not let any plausibility of argument impose upon
you; but when the moral issue of a theory is plainly immoral, when by
its working it is betrayed to be the leaven of the Sadducees, reject
it as a diabolical deceit. Trust your conscience, that is, your whole
nature, with its instinct for what is good, rather than any dialectic;
it contains far more of what you are; and it is the whole man, and not
the most unstable and self-confident of his faculties, that must
judge. If there is nothing against a spiritual truth but the
difficulty of conceiving how it can be, do not let that mental
incapacity weigh against the evidence of its fruits.
The Apostle points to this line of thought, and to this safeguard of
the good, when he says that those who come under the power of this
vast working of falsehood are those who are perishing, because they
received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. But for
this clause we might have said, Why expose men, defenceless, to such a
terrific trial as is here depicted? Why expect weak, bewildered,
unstable creatures to keep their feet, when falsehood comes in like a
flood? But such queries would show that we mistook the facts. None are
carried away by the prevailing falsehood but those who received not
the love of the truth that they might be saved. It is a question, we
see, not of the intelligence simply, but of the whole man. He does not
say, They received not the truth; that might have been due to some
cause over which they had no control. They might never have had so
much as a good look at the truth; they might have got an incurable
twist in their education, a flaw in their minds like a flaw in a
mirror, that prevented them from ever seeing what the truth was like.
These would be cases to stand apart. But he says, "They received not
the love of the truth." That truth which is presented for our
acceptance in the gospel is not merely a thing to scrutinise, to
weigh, to judge by the rules of the bench or the jury box: it is a
truth which appeals to the heart; from cultured and uncultured, from
the clear-headed and the puzzle-headed; from the philosopher and the
message boy, it demands the answer of love. It is this which is the
true test of character--the answer which is given, not by the brain,
disciplined or undisciplined, but by the whole man, to the revelation
of the truth in Jesus Christ. Intelligence, by itself, may be a very
little matter; all that some men have is but a tool in the hands of
their passions; but the love of the truth, or its opposite, shows
truly what we are. Those who love it are safe. They cannot love
falsehood at the same time; all the lies of the devil and his agents
are powerless to do them any harm. Satan, we see here, has no
advantage over us that we do not first give him. The absence of
_liking_ for the truth, want of sympathy with Christ, a disposition to
find less exacting ways than His, a _resolution_ to find them or to
_make_ them, ending in a positive antipathy to Christ and to all the
truth which He teaches and embodies,--these give the enemy his
opportunity and his advantage over us. Put it to yourself in this
light if you wish to discern your true attitude to the gospel. You
may have difficulties and perplexities about it on one side or
another; it runs out into mystery on every hand; but these will not
expose you to the danger of being deceived, as long as you receive the
love of it in your heart. It _is_ a thing to command love; the truth
as truth is in Jesus. All that is good in us is enlisted in its
favour; not to love it is to be a bad man. A recent Unitarian lecturer
has said that to love Jesus is not a religious duty; but that is
certainly not a New Testament doctrine. It is not only a religious
duty, but the sum of all such duties; to do it, or not to do it, is
the decisive test of character, and the arbiter of fate. Does not He
Himself say--He who is the Truth--"He that loveth father or mother
more than Me is not worthy of Me"? Does not His Apostle say, "If any
man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema?" Depend upon
it, love to Him is all our goodness, and all our defence against the
powers of evil. To grow cold and indifferent is to give the enemy of
our souls an opening against us.
The last two verses in this passage are very striking. We have seen
already two agents in the destruction of men's souls. They perish by
their own agency, in that they do not welcome and love the truth; and
they perish by the malevolence of the devil, who avails himself of
this dislike to the truth to befool them by falsehood, and lead them
ever further and further astray. But here we have a third agent, most
surprising of all, God Himself. "For this cause God sendeth them a
working of error, that they should believe a lie: that they all might
be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in
unrighteousness." Is God, then, the author of falsehood? Do the
delusions that possess the minds of men, and lead them to eternal
ruin, owe their strength to Him? Can He intend anybody to believe a
lie, and especially a lie with such terrific consequences as are
here in view? The opening words--"for this cause"--supply the answer
to these questions. For this cause, _i.e._, because they have not
loved the truth, but in their liking for evil have turned their backs
upon it, for this cause God's judgment comes upon them, binding them
to their guilt. Nothing is more certain, however we may choose to
express it, than the word of the wise man: "His own iniquities shall
take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his
sin." He chooses his own way, and he gets his fill of it. He loves the
deceit of unrighteousness, the falsehood which delivers him from God
and from His law; and by God's righteous judgment, acting through the
constitution of our nature, he comes continually more and more under
its power. He believes the lie, just as a good man believes the truth;
he becomes every day more hopelessly beclouded in error; and the end
is that he is judged. The judgment is based, not on his intellectual,
but on his _moral_ state. It is true he has been deluded, but his
delusion is due to this, that he had pleasure in unrighteousness. It
was this evil in him which gave weight to the sophistries of Satan.
Again and again in Scripture this is represented as the punishment of
the wicked, that God gives them their own way, and infatuates them in
it. The error works with ever greater power in their souls, till they
cannot imagine that it is an error; none can deliver himself, or say,
Is there not a lie in my right hand? "My people would not hearken to
My voice, and Israel would none of Me. So I gave them up unto their
own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels." "When they
knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; ...
wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness." "They changed the truth of
God into a lie; ... for this cause God gave them up unto vile
affections." "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge....
God gave them over to a reprobate mind." "They received not the love
of the truth: and for this cause God sendeth unto them a working of
error." Sin bears its punishment in itself; when it has had its
perfect work, we see that it has been executing a judgment of God more
awful than anything we could conceive. If you would have Him on your
side, your ally and not your adversary, receive the love of the truth.
This is the final lesson of the passage. We do not know all the forces
that are at work in the world in the interest of error; but we know
there are many. We know that the mystery of iniquity is already in
operation. We know that falsehood, in this spiritual sense, has much
in man which is its natural ally; and that we need to be steadily on
our guard against the wiles of the devil. We know that passion is
sophistical, and reason often weak, and that we see our true selves in
the action of heart and conscience. Be faithful, therefore, to God at
the core of your nature. Love the truth that you may be saved. This
alone is salvation. This alone is a safeguard against all the
delusions of Satan; it was one who knew God, who lived in God, who did
always the works of God, who loved God as the only begotten Son the
Father, who could say, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath
nothing in Me."