The Man of Sin

Cutting the cords of context creates confusion!

The identity of the Man of Sin in Paul’s “great apostasy” passage (2 Thess 2:1–12) provides an example of this. Paul said, “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin (Gk. hamartia TR) is revealed, the son of perdition (Gk. apōleia)” (2 Thess 2:3).

Commentators use their prophetic models—not context—to identify this wicked person. Some amillennialists and postmillennialists say he is the Pope. Most premillennialists (historic and dispensational) reject this idea. They believe he is alive now or will live in our future.

These options do not arise out of Paul’s Thessalonian letters. He told them of realities in their generation: the Man of Sin was already sitting “in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” The mystery of lawlessness was already at work (2 Thess 2:4, 7). The identity of the Man of Sin (the Son of Perdition) must agree with these statements.

Here is an option that arises from the context: the terms “Man of Sin” and “Son of Perdition” refer to apostate Israel as a nation.¹

Nehemiah Nisbett has changed my thinking on this subject. In previous posts, I said the Man of Sin was the Roman Empire and its Emperor. Nisbett’s book, The Mysterious Language of St. Paul, in His Description of the Man of Sin, convinced me otherwise.

In this post, I will list facts that suggest this identity. 

Thessalonians and the Olivet Discourse

My previous posts (here and here) showed that Paul based his two letters to the Thessalonians on Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. The common elements in these three passages allow us to identify the Man of Sin.

The Parousia

All three passages pertain to Christ’s parousia:

Olivet Discourse: “For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming (Gk. parousia) of the Son of Man be” (Matt 24:27; also Matt 24:3, 37, 39).

1 Thessalonians: “This we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming (Gk. parousia) of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep” (1 Thess 4:15; also 1 Thess 2:19; 3:13; 5:23).

2 Thessalonians: “Now, brethren, concerning the coming (Gk. parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess 2:1; also 2 Thess 2:8).

Timeframe

All three passages assume the same time perspective.

Olivet Discourse: “Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place” (Matt 24:34).

1 Thessalonians: “We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord” (1 Thess 4:15). Jesus said the same thing: “Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Matt 16:28).

2 Thessalonians: “The son of the destruction, who is opposing and is raising himself up above all called God or worshipped, so that he in the sanctuary of God as God hath sat down, shewing himself off that he is God” (2 Thess 2:3–4 YLT). “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work” (2 Thess 2:7).

Prophetic Gathering

All three passages discuss the gathering long promised by the prophets.

Olivet Discourse: “He will send His angels … and they will gather together (Gk. episunagō) His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt 24:31).

1 Thessalonians: “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together” (1 Thess 4:17).

2 Thessalonians: “Our gathering together (Gk. episunagōgē) to Him” (2 Thess 2:1).

Warnings

All three passages contain warnings against deception.

Olivet Discourse: “Take heed that no one deceives you” (Mark 13:5).

1 Thessalonians: “But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief” (1 Thess 5:4).

2 Thessalonians: “Let no one deceive you by any means” (2 Thess 2:3).

Objects of Judgment

All three passages speak of the same objects of judgment.

Olivet Discourse: “These are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.… There will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people (i.e., the Jews)” (Luke 21:22–23).

1 Thessalonians: “The Jews … fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost” (1 Thess 2:14–16 KJV).

2 Thessalonians: “That Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition.… Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming (Gk. parousia)” (2 Thess 2:3, 8).

These three passages suggest the following identity: “this people” = “the Jews” = “the man of sin.” If Jesus was describing the judgment of apostate Israel, so was Paul. They were not defining a future (to us) Man of Sin or the judgment of the Roman Catholic Church. They were speaking about God’s soon-coming judgment of apostate Israel.

Paul’s Man of Sin was apostate Israel.

Israel as a “Man”

The name of the Jewish nation is, perhaps, unique in the history of mankind. It is the name of a man—Israel (Gen 32:28). It describes what God meant the nation to be: a “soldier of God.”²

But God had foretold “the latter days” of the nation (Deut 31:29). He had described “their latter end” (Deut 32:29). The “soldier of God” would become “a perverse generation, children in whom is no faith” (Deut 32:20). God would then “judge His people” and “avenge the blood of His servants” (Deut 32:36, 43).

Paul lived in Israel’s “last days” (Heb 1:2). God was about to judge the apostate “soldier.”

Apostate Israel as a Man

Paul sometimes addressed apostate Israel as a man. Here is one example at the start of his letter to the Romans:

Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.… And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? (Rom 2:1–3)

Albert Barnes explains Paul’s use of O man: “It is plain, from the connection, that he means especially the Jews.”³

In later chapters (Rom 9–11), the Apostle shows God had fulfilled his promises to Abraham even though the Jews had rejected Christ. Paul said God still had “a remnant according to the election of grace” in Israel (Rom 11:5). But God had hardened the rest (Rom 9:18).

Paul knew the reaction the Jews would have:

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” (Rom 9:19–20)

Paul used O man as a name for apostate Israel.

Apostate Israel as the Man of Sin

All men have sinned and stand condemned before God. However, the New Testament emphasizes the sin of apostate Israel in relation to God’s judgment. Jesus said to them, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do” (John 8:44). Later, Jesus said,

“For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.” (John 9:39–41)

On the same day he gave the Olivet Discourse, Jesus said to the Jews, 

You are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. (Matthew 23:31–36)

Paul told the Thessalonians that the Jews were fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy. They were “forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins; but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost” (1 Thess 2:16). He “represented them as a Man of Sin, as one whose whole composition was Sin, and nothing else.”⁴

Uniquely, God would judge this “man”—apostate Israel—for persecuting the prophets he had sent. 

Apostate Israel as the Son of Perdition

The title “Son of Perdition (Gk. apōleia)” (2 Thess 2:3) was appropriate for apostate Israel. Jesus used the parable of the landowner to describe that wicked nation (Matt 21:33–46). He asked the chief priests and elders about its meaning. They accurately described their future: 

They said to Him, “He will destroy (Gk. apollumi) those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.” (Matt 21:41)

God would take the kingdom from them; his judgment-stone would soon grind them to powder (Matt 21:43–44).

The Jews used the Greek verb apollumi to describe their judgment. Paul used the cognate noun (apōleia) in 2 Thessalonians.⁵

Paul also used this word in his letter to the Philippians. He said, be “not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition (Gk. apollumi), but to you of salvation, and that from God” (Phil 1:28). Who were these adversaries? Apostate, persecuting Israel (Phil 3:2–6). Paul said their “end is destruction (Gk. apōleia)” (Phil 3:19). 

Apostate Israel was Paul’s Son of Perdition.

Conclusion

The context of Paul’s “great apostasy” passage (2 Thess 2:1–12) does not suggest that the Man of Sin (Son of Perdition) was the Pope or some future (to us) person. Paul used this term for the apostate Israel of his day.

In future posts, I will explore the things Paul said about him. I will end by observing that this interpretation fits the inmillennial prophetic model well.⁶

 

1. N. Nisbett, The Mysterious Language of St. Paul, in His Description of the Man of Sin (Canterbury: Rouse, Kirkey, and Lawrence, 1808), 36.
2. Wilhelm Gesenius and Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2003), 370.
3. Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament: Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1975), 57.
4. Nisbett, The Mysterious Language of St. Paul, 40.
5. Gerhard Kittel, “εἰκών,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76), 1:394.
6. I documented this perspective in Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020). This book is available here in hardcopy and here as a PDF. A free summary PDF document of inmillennialism is here.