Posted on 05/23/2021 12:13:14 PM PDT by ducttape45
The Departure of 2 Thessalonians 2:3
I realize that one look at the title may cause you to hit the snooze button. Why examine the translation of one word? We do so because it has the potential to greatly strengthen our conviction that the church will miss all of the coming tribulation.
In recent years, the Greek Word apostasia in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 has received heightened attention. The traditional view is that it refers to a falling away from biblical faith as we see in all our modern English translations, but this has not always been the case.
The earliest English versions of the Bible translated the word apostasia as “departure” such as in a physical exit from a location.[i] The translators of the King James Bible, however, changed this; they viewed apostasia as a spiritual “falling away” and translators ever since have followed their lead.
However, do sound reasons exist to go against the prevailing thought on this matter? Can we justify translating the word as a physical departure such as would indicate the rapture as the sense of this verse?
Although always a strong advocate of a pretribulation rapture, in the past I have been quite reluctant to regard 2 Thessalonians 2:3 as referring to anything else but a latter day apostasy in the church. My recent study, however, has changed my mind on this matter.
In his book, The Falling Away, Dr. Andy Woods provides solid evidence for regarding the word apostasia in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 as a physical departure rather than a falling away from the faith. The Greek word “apostasia simply means to ‘to stand away from’ or ‘to depart.’ Only by examining how this word is used in its immediate context will determine what the departure is from, whether it be a spiritual or physical departure.”[ii]
In other words, the context must decide if apostasia refers to a departure from the faith or a departure from a physical location as the word can describe either of these scenarios by itself.
New Testament writers used the verb from of apostasia fifteen times. As Dr. Woods points out, “. . . only three times does it mean a spiritual departure. The remaining twelve times it clearly means a physical departure. For example, Luke 2:37 says, ‘and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four, she never left the temple.’”[iii]
The root verb form of a word provides much substantiation that apostasia can refer to a physical departure. The context thus tells us how to translate the word.
The overall context of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 indicates a physical departure as the sense of apostasia. The rapture is the main subject matter of both books that Paul wrote to the Thessalonians; the apostle refers to it in every chapter of 1 Thessalonians it was clearly on his mind as he wrote the second epistle to them.
Dr. Woods writes, “Since the ‘context is king’ in determining the meaning of the apostasia and the larger context of the Thessalonian letters pertain to the return of Christ, interpreters should be open to a physical departure understanding of the word. Thus, the larger context of these two books does not favor spiritual departure interpretation of the apostasia, but rather it favors the physical departure view.” [iv]
Strong evidence for a physical departure also comes from the immediate context. 2 Thessalonians 2 begins with these words, “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him . . .” (v. 1). Paul introduces the entire passage, verses 1-12, with a reference to the rapture. It certainly follows that he still has the Lord’s appearing to take us home on his mind two verses later.
The use of apostasia in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 as our physical departure via the rapture is wholly consistent with the immediate and overall context. The idea of a spiritual departure from the faith cannot be found anywhere in the context of the verse; Paul never refers to it in either 1 or 2 Thessalonians.
Paul’s use of the definite article in front of apostasia tells us he has a specific event in mind, either a particular instance of apostasy or a definite occasion such as the rapture.
If apostasia refers to a spiritual falling away from the faith, how do we distinguish it from many such times in the history of the church when it has abandoned biblical teachings? Much of the organized church today has departed far away from the beliefs handed down from the Lord through his apostles. Could the apostasy associated with the start of the day of the Lord be much worse than what we see in today’s church?
The definite article tells us the apostle has a definite event in mind, one that his readers would readily recognize. However, Paul never refers to spiritual apostasy in either of his epistles to the Thessalonians and offers no additional clarifying information. The only departure of which his readers would recognize is that of the rapture.
Notice what Paul says in verse 5 of this passage, “Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?” As we look at 1 and 2 Thessalonians, we see repeated references to the rapture, but Paul never mentions a falling away from the faith in the letters.
If Paul is referring specific latter day apostasy about which he had previously instructed his converts in Thessalonica, we would expect Paul to have mentioned it somewhere in these books along with his emphasis on the return of Jesus for His church, but he does not.
Why would Paul mention a specific spiritual departure from the faith as a key indicator of the day of the Lord with no other mention of it in either book he wrote? And if he had not yet mentioned it to them, we would expect some sort of explanation regarding it, but that is not what we see.
As Dr. Woods points out, Paul does not even refer to the spiritual apostasy of the church in the latter days until much later in his ministry, near its end.[v] And when he does, the apostle adds much supporting detail (1 Tim. 4:1-5; 2 Tim. 4:3-5).
In 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8 Paul writes, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.”
These verses tell us that the revealing of the antichrist cannot happen until the restrainer is taken out of the way. The evidence points to the Holy Spirit as the restrainer and thus to the rapture as the time His special restraining presence leaves the earth. Just as the Holy Spirit descended in a unique way on the day of Pentecost, so His restraining presence will leave with us when Jesus takes His church to His Father’s house in heaven (John 14:2-3).
Note the parallels with verse 3 if we assume apostasia refers to a physical departure.
1. In verse 3, Jesus removes His church via the rapture; in verses 7, the Lord takes away the restrainer that keeps the antichrist from making himself know to the world.
2. In both verse 3 and 7, the antichrist is revealed after the removal of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the church.
If apostasia refers to a physical departure in verse 3, we find an exact parallel in the context in verses 7-8, which provides us with more evidence favoring the rapture.
The young believers in Thessalonica expected the Lord to come for them before the start of the day of the Lord. Their response to an errant message telling them this time had already begun confirms this. They panicked when they heard the news.
In response to their frayed nerves at receiving this false communication, Paul told them “not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed” (2 Thess. 2:2). “The verb shaken denotes a rocking motion, a shaking up and down, like a building shaken by an earthquake . . .”[vi] To be “alarmed” signifies a feeling of “fright” with its usage here conveying a “state of alarm, of nervous excitement.”[vii]
The news that the day of the Lord had already begun visibly rattled the Thessalonians; Paul pictures them shaking like a building during an earthquake. Isn’t it amazing these young believers, already enduring intense persecution, became so shaken with this news? They regarded this time as much worse than their current dire circumstances.
Paul’s main purpose in 2 Thessalonians 2 was to assure the Thessalonian believers that the day of the Lord had not yet started. If we regard apostasia in verse 3 as a physical departure, does it not confirm this?
It also fits with the promise of 1 Thessalonians 5:9, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul had previously told the Thessalonians Jesus would come for them before the start of the wrath of the day of the Lord. It makes much more sense that Paul is reminding his readers of this promise rather than introducing the idea of a spiritual apostasy of which we find no mention in either book he wrote to them.
We have an example from history of a key church leader referring to the Rapture as a “departure.” Cyprian, a bishop in the city of Carthage during the third century AD, said this,
“We who see that terrible things have begun, and know that still more terrible things are imminent, may regard it as the greatest advantage to depart from it as quickly as possible. Do you not give God thanks, do you not congratulate yourself, that by an early departure you are taken away, and delivered from the shipwrecks and disasters that are imminent?”
Cyprian (AD 200-258) used the words “depart” and “early departure” to refer to the Lord’s appearing to take his church away before a time of “shipwrecks and disasters” on the earth. Is it not more than a little significant that we see the Rapture referred to as a “departure” before a time of turmoil on the earth at such an early date? I believe so.
Additionally, this provides considerable support to our interpretation of apostasia as a reference to the Rapture in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, our physical departure from the earth.
So what’s the big deal in regarding apostasia in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 as a physical departure rather than spiritual apostasy? It adds considerable support for belief in a pretribulation rapture, one that occurs before this period of God’s wrath upon the earth. It confirms that Jesus must come for His church before the world knows the identity of the antichrist, which we know occurs at the beginning of tribulation, if not before.
This substantiation of the pretribulation rapture does not come from wishful thinking, but it’s the result of a careful study of the context of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 that provides strong evidence for regarding apostasia as a physical departure and hence a reference to the rapture.
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[i] The Wycliffe Bible (1384), Tyndale Bible (1526), Coverdale Bible (1535), Cranmer Bible (1539), Breeches Bible (1576), Beza Bible (1583), and Geneva Bible (1608) all translated “apostasia” as a physical departure.
[ii] Andy Woods, The Falling Away – Spiritual Departure or Physical Rapture? (Taos, NM, Dispensational Publishing House, Inc., 2018), p. 19.
[iii] Ibid. p. 23
[iv] Ibid. p. 27
[v] Woods, p. 13
[vi] Hiebert, D Edmond, The Thessalonian Epistles (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), p. 301.
[vii] Ibid., p. 302
why is it that people that push the early rapture believe those of us that don’t believe that deny the rapture altogether? The Bible is very clear that there IS a rapture and it happens at Christ’s return.
the Rapture removal of The Body of Christ is an event happening in hyper-dimensional reality, not in this four variab;e spacetime. We are removed from this spacetime into hyperdimensional spacetime then snatched up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and return with Him to The Ftaher;s House.
The hyper-dimensional realm is real and has physical reality. It is referenced many time in the Old and New Testaments. [See Daniel 5, and the several encounters Prophet Elijah had with king Ahab, then reference the disappearance and reappearances of Jesus, the rapture movement of Philip, etc.]
I believe that the Church is not mentioned in Revelation after the discussion of the 7 churches in Asia Minor.
The removal of the Body of Christ Believers happens BEFORE the seven years of the Tribulation, time of Jacob’s Troubles. We are removed so that the Restrainer can stand out of the way of the antichrist arrival. The Tribulation starts with the opening of the seven sealed scroll and is witnessed IN HEAVEN by the reddemed ... that’s us Believers redeemed by His blood.
When the plain sense makes sense still no other sense.
Unless you need your ears tickled, I guess.
I prefer not to base doctrine on what the Bible doesn’t mention.
Also special pleading to insist the earliest believers embraced the doctrine of immanency in the modern understanding along with a a pretrib. rapture. Historical premillenialists yes but that is all that can be intellectually honestly concluded.
Impossible, but...
...since the appeal to context has been legitimately made, to context we shall go, and the context CLEARLY exhibits Paul, in vv.1 & 2 binding together "the coming" and "our being gathered" as events occurring on the day of the Lord.
THAT is where Paul himself makes an end of our suppositions.
SINCE Paul declares that "the coming" and "our being gathered" are BOTH part of "the day of the Lord," THERE IS ZERO POSSIBILITY that He has a physical departure in mind in v.3, as he hinges the coming of the day of the Lord on, first, apostasy, and, second, the revealing of the man of sin; the Antichrist.
Paul already said "our being gathered" is part of the day of the Lord, and the man of sin is revealed BEFORE that, so "our being gathered" CANNOT ALSO come before the man of sin is revealed; to say in the space of three verses that the same event occurs at two different times...? That would be nonsense.
CLEARLY the reading in v.3 CAN'T be sensibly interpreted as "physical departure"; it must be, as it historically has been, "rebellion," or "falling away [from the faith]." Thus we see that "strong evidence" AGAINST a physical departure "comes from the immediate context." Any nascent confidence in Mr. Brentner's exegetical prowess is not well-supported.
If I wrote a letter to you, would you not think it strange if almost every sentence concerned events that would take place sometime after AD 4021?
A very sound principle of exegesis states that, if your interpretation could not possibly have made sense to the people on the ground at the time the text was written, your interpretation is wrong.
It could be both.
It would not be unusual in the least for a passage in Scripture to have more than one application.
And as a “skeptic”, I ask/warn you to keep an open mind also. I do not deny the resurrection but throughout the last 2000 years, Christians have suffered the most terrible persecutions and terrifying deaths. Even now, the church in many parts of the world are undergoing horrifying tribulations. Be prepared, my friend, for terrible things to happen to us also, and to die for your faith, here, and soon! Put on the whole armor of God.
Revelation 4:1, "After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither
I think we all can see and understand that passage is alluding to.....
Paul wrote The Apostasia as very accurate not generalized meaning. Apostasia is a cpompound word formed fromt he grekk words ‘apos’and histemi’. Apos is a preposition meaning ‘away from’ and histemi is a verb meaning to stand. Taken together the meaning is ‘to stand away from. The departure is first to stand away from this three variables of space and one of time, to stand in a hyper-dimensional coordinate system with at least one more variable of space and or time. The snatching up into the clouds happens in a different coordinate system than you and I now sense. It is not an event in our current sensing. The return to set foot on Earth will be in our coordionate system since the whoel world will see it, not just those who have been changed to be like Him in His glorified state (see 1 John 3:2).
Are you a redeemed one, now, inthe present tense? Then you are shown to be in Heaven when the seven sealed scroll is opened, as a witness.
Oops, your circular Catholic Org reasoning is showing. You have tossed the doctrine of imminence away so the statuary of your false religion has room to glory. Try you flawed logic from a perspective of Paul, Jude, Peter, and James assumed imminency, which they displayed in their letters to believers.
BINGO!
Those passages refer to the Second Coming. The Rapture is un-Biblical. Acts 1:9-13 is the real deal.
The removal of the Body of Christ Believers happens BEFORE the seven years of the Tribulation, time of Jacob’s Troubles. We are removed so that the Restrainer can stand out of the way of the antichrist arrival. The Tribulation starts with the opening of the seven sealed scroll and is witnessed IN HEAVEN by the redeemed ... that’s us Believers redeemed by His blood.
Pure fables and none of it is true. It’s not supported by the bible in the least. The “rapture”, as you call it, refers to the second coming only. The reformers AND early church fathers ALL say you and Andy Woods/Ken Johnson (and everyone else who believes in the pre trib rapture or may have appeared on Prophecy Watchers to sell their books...LOL) are WRONG about who the RESTRAINER OF THE ANTICHRIST was. You are just pulling stuff out of thin air (DIFFERENT COORDINATE SYSTEM) and trying to make it fit your non biblical theory. The Jesuit Ribera and the Catholic church tried to convince the reformers that THEY (the Catholic church)were not the Antichrist power and that look, it all happens during the last 7 years before Christ returns to earth. Nope, the Antichrist power cannot be the Catholic church they said. That’s called futurism. Other Jesuits published books stating that the 1260 years of the Antichrist (little horn to Elsie) were not literal years. Everything was to deflect them as being the Antichrist power. The reformers were really dumping on the Catholic church (and the Catholics were killing them as fast as they could). The reformers said “NO SALE, and NO DICE”. Darby tweaked Futurism and you fell for it. It’s now called the pre trib rapture theory. Not one bit of it is true. The Antichrist power has been here for over 1500 years, filling her cup full of abominations. Many millions will be fooled into believing that the Antichrist won’t show up until they have been “taken” and by that time it will be too late. THEY WILL HAVE WILLINGLY RECEIVED THE MARK OF THE BEAST and there is no coming back from that. PTR believers don’t give a crap about the Antichrist or MOTB, because they say they won’t be here anyway. They just walk around saying “see you in the clouds bro/m’lady” People must be dumber than a box of rocks to not realize that Satan would come up with a trap like the PTR and fool people into a false sense of safety.
FUTURISM
Francisco Ribera (1537-1591) was a Jesuit doctor of theology, born in Spain, who began writing a lengthy commentary in 1585 on the book of Revelation (Apocalypse) titled In Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, & Evangelistiae Apocalypsin Commentarij, and published it about the year 1590. He died in 1591 at the age of fifty-four, so he was not able to expand on his work or write any other commentaries on Revelation. In order to remove the Catholic Church from consideration as the antichrist power, Ribera proposed that the first few chapters of the Apocalypse applied to ancient pagan Rome, and the rest he limited to a yet future period of 3 1/2 literal years, immediately prior to the second coming. During that time, the Roman Catholic Church would have fallen away from the pope into apostasy. Then, he proposed, the antichrist, a single individual, would:
Persecute and blaspheme the saints of God.
Rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.
Abolish the Christian religion.
Deny Jesus Christ.
Be received by the Jews.
Pretend to be God.
Kill the two witnesses of God.
Conquer the world.
Yep, this is basically your PTR theory. Darby just tweaked it a little. The reformers didn’t fall for it, BUT YOU DID.
The nail in the coffin of the PTR is the 2300 day/year prophecy, OF WHICH THE FIRST 490 YEARS ARE FROM THE 70 WEEKS OF DANIEL 9. There is no “GAP”. No chop. No magic transfer 2000+ years into the future for Daniel’s 70th week. It is a CONTINUOUS prophecy. There is no support for your theory ANYWHERE in the bible. It is Fantasy and you tell people it’s as true as the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Oh, and you REFUSE to acknowledge the identity of the Antichrist as CLEARLY stated by ALL Protestant reformers. Every single one of them identified the Antichrist power (Little Horn for Elsie) as the Papacy. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Luther did too.
http://www.redeemerfw.org/resources/reformers_antichrist.pdf
MHGinTN calling Philsworld a cultist and turd in a punchbowl BUT NEVER DISCUSSING THE ISSUES (or Luircin telling me to “Bugger off”) in 3, 2, 1....
The name Luircin makes me think of Lucifer for some reason. Just making an observation.
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