2 Thessalonians 2:8

“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”

“And then”: When the Empire collapses, the apostasy which has been brewing will allow the papacy to fully emerge, and claim Christ's position in the Church. “The lawless one”: The papacy is not in subjection to God's law, in fact they claim that their communications are equal to Scripture, and they place themselves over the Bible, instead of being in subjection to it. The various traditions which they have "authorized" contradict God's law, and remember that the very position they have assumed also violates God's law (Ephesians 1:22). Many people wrongly assume that the expressions "man of sin", "lawless one", can only describe an atheistic or very immoral type of person, yet Jesus called very religious people "lawless" in Matthew 7:21.

“Whom the Lord Jesus shall slay”: Some writers just assume that the man of sin will gain power, and then almost immediately Jesus will come. This text does not say that. Nowhere in the text is any "time-element" given between the arrival of the man of sin and the second coming of Jesus. This man of sin could exist. day or. thousand years before Jesus comes. “With the breath of His mouth and bring to nought by the manifestation of His coming”: “The breath of God is. very forceful, volatile, energetic figure, Psalms 33:6” (Denton Lectureship p. 253). “The Lord will merely blow on him, so swift will be his destruction” (Hendriksen p. 183). The mere presence of Jesus will signal doom for all His adversaries. “The ease with which the Lord will destroy this terrible thing” (Morris p. 230). “There is no long battle, victory comes at once” (Stott p. 171). The expression “bring to nought” means, “abolished, utterly defeated, and put out of commission” (Hendriksen p. 183).

“His coming”: “All of this leads us to repeat once more that the Thessalonian epistles rule out the idea that Christ is coming one time to take His church out of the world, and then will come gain (a third time) with His church to punish sinners. There is only one parousia (coming) of the Lord, at the parousia the saints will be resurrected and caught up and the man of sin will be destroyed” (Fields p. 205).