2 Thessalonians 2:7

For the mystery of iniquity doth already work Better, of lawlessness (R. V.) same word as that we adopted from the marginal Revised reading of 2 Thessalonians 2:3; comp. "the lawless one," 2 Thessalonians 2:8.

"Doth work," i.e. is operative, or in operation. See note on "working," 2 Thessalonians 2:9.

Lawlessness has indeed been "at work" ever since man fell from God by sin. But this "mysteryof lawlessness" is surely some embodiment of the universal principle of sin which it has assumed in times recent to St Paul ("doth alreadywork"), and which contained, in his belief, the germ and potency of the supreme revelation of evil reserved for the eve of Christ's advent.

A mysteryis not some secret knowledge or practice reserved to a select few, like the Mysteries of Greek Paganism; it is, in St Paul's dialect, the counterpart of revelation, and the word here takes up again the "revealed" of 2 Thessalonians 2:6: "until he be revealed, I say; for the mystery(the thing to be revealed) doth already work." It denotes something by its nature above man's knowledge, which can only be understood when and so far as God reveals it Comp. note on "revelation," ch. 2 Thessalonians 1:7; also the various "mysteries" of Colossians 2:2-3; Ephesians 3:4-6; Romans 11:25, &c. So monstrous and enormous are the possibilities of sin in humanity, that with all we know of its present and past effects, the character of the Man of Lawlessness must remain beyond comprehension, till he be "revealed in his season."

only he who now lettethwill let, untill he be taken out of the way Again, as in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, there is a hiatus in the Greek, due perhaps to the excitement raised by the apparition of this awful personality in the writer's mind. The R. V. completes the sense more simply and naturally: only there is one that restraineth now, or, there is at present the Restrainer. "Let" has this sense in the Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, as often in old writers: "We are sore let and hindered in running the race set before us."

On "the Restrainer" see note, 2 Thessalonians 2:6. It passes from neuter to masculine; while the thing restrainedmakes an opposite transition, and appears predominantly in a personal form (comp. 2 Thessalonians 2:3 with 7, and again with 2 Thessalonians 2:8). For the Apostle contemplates the power of Lawlessness in its ultimate manifestation, as embodied in some one human antagonist of Christ; whereas the restraint that delays his appearance is thought of rather as a general influence, or principle, which at the same time has its personal representatives. We prefer, therefore, to render St Paul's phrase he that restraineth rather than one that restraineth; for it signifies not an individual, but a class.

Where then are we to look, amongst the influences prevalent in the Apostle's time and known to his Thessalonian readers, for the check and bridle of Lawlessness? Where but tolaw itself(Staat und GesetzDorner)? The fabric of civil law and the authority of the magistrate formed a bulwark and break water against the excesses both of autocratic tyranny and of popular violence. For this power St Paul had a profound respect (see Romans 13:1-7). He was himself a citizen of Rome, and had reason to value the protection of her laws. (See Acts 16:35-39; Acts 22:23-29; Acts 25:10-12.) About this very time he found in the upright Proconsul, Gallio (brother of Seneca, the tutor and ill-fated "restrainer" of Nero), a shield from the lawlessness of the Jewish mob at Corinth; the Thessalonian "politarchs" at least tried to do him justice (Acts 17:5-9). We must distinguish between the laws of the Roman State and the personal power of the Emperor, whose despotism habitually trampled on the laws and yet was checked by them. Within a year of the writing of this letter Nero assumed the purple, who pushed the principle of lawless autocracy, the idolatry of a wicked human will, to lengths unimagined before. In Nero's reign it seemed as though St Paul's vision of the Man of Lawlessness were already realised. This monster of depravity, "the lion" of 2 Timothy 4:17, stood for the portrait of "the wild beast" of St John's Apocalypse, which carries forward Paul's image of the Lawless One, as the latter takes up Daniel's conception of the godless king, impersonated In Antiochus Epiphanes. The absolutism of the bad Cæsars found, after all, its limit in the strong framework of civil legalism and the sense of public justice, native to the Latin race. Nero fell, and did not drag down Rome with him, nor bring about the final ruin. Wiser rulers and better times remained for the Empire. In the crisis of the 8th Century, "the laws of Rome saved Christianity from Saracen domination more than the armies … The torrent of Mohammedan invasion was arrested" for 700 years. "As long as Roman law was cultivated in the Empire, and administered under proper control, the invaders of the Byzantine territory were everywhere unsuccessful" (Finlay, Hist. of Byzantine Empire, pp. 27, 28). Nor did Roman Law fall with the Empire itself, any more than it rose from it. It has been in spirit, and to a large extent in substance, the parent of the legal systems of Christendom. Meanwhile Cœarismsurvives, a legacy from Rome and a word of evil omen, the title and model of illegal sovereignty.

The lawlessness of the world holds this "mystery" of St Paul In solution, ready to precipitate itself. It betrays itself in many partial and transitional manifestations, until "in its season" it shall crystallize into its complete expression. Let reverence for law disappear in public life, along with religious faith, and there is nothing to prevent a new Cæsar becoming master and god of the civilized world, armed with infinitely greater power.