Puzzlers from Thessalonians

I have found lots of interesting things as I have been reading through Thessalonians, but in 2 Thessalonians I've found some puzzling things. Odd that they occur in one passage:

¹ Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, ² that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. ³ Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, ⁴ who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. ⁵ Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? ⁶ And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. ⁸ Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; ⁹ that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, ¹⁰ and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. ¹¹ For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, ¹² in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness (2 Thess 2:1-12).

I'll cover the two things I see here over two posts, so be sure to come back tomorrow for some more puzzlement from Thessalonians.

The text is familiar to most pre-millenial pre-Trib Rapture folks. The topic is "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him". That part of eschatology (the study of end times) is popular to this group. So we (I will include myself because I was a member of that group for so long) busy ourselves going through passages like these explaining how they fit into this pre-Trib Rapture scheme. And what do we learn? Well, there is this person called "the man of lawlessness". Most of us know him as "the Antichrist" (even though the term "antichrist" is only listed in John's epistles). Of "him" John says, "Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come" (1 John 2:18). No, wait ... is that plural? How odd! So there are a plurality of "antichrists". Not what we usually think, but, okay. So here in Thessalonians we're talking about ... what ... the last one? And why do we assume that "the man of lawlessness" is "The Antichrist"? Move on, Stan.

What else do we know? We know that there will first be an apostasy before the man of lawlessness is revealed. We know that he will exalt himself above every other god. We know that he will sit in the temple of God. Practically verbatim, that. Of course, there is a problem that we all know: There is no current "temple of God". Thus, the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem is mandatory for the pre-Trib Rapture scheme. I mean, how can the Antichrist sit in the Temple of God if there is no Temple? I suppose, then, that we can all rest easy because as long as Israel hasn't taken back the Temple mount, Christ won't be returning. Wait ... isn't that problematic?

What else does Paul say? This one is well-known, even if it's not agreed upon. We all know that there is something or someone (it says "he") who "now restrains". Someone or something is keeping back the onset of the man of lawlessness. Once that someone or something is taken out of the way, this whole process can begin. There have been debates about that restraining influence. Some argue that it is, very clearly, the Church. Once the Church is gone (AKA "Rapture"), the Antichrist will be able to take power. Of course, that's problematic because "the Church" is defined as "the Body of Christ", and we all know that there will be those who come to Christ in the Tribulation, so "the Church" will still be there. "No, no," others assure us, "that refers to the Holy Spirit." It's the Holy Spirit who is restraining, and when He is taken out the Antichrist can start. Remembering that there will be some coming to Christ in the Tribulation, this view assumes that it is fully possible for people to come to Christ with no influence from the Holy Spirit (since He is apparently out). That doesn't make sense. But the problem here is that Paul says, "You know what restrains him now." Wait, Paul ... no we don't. We can't agree on this and most of the answers don't actually make sense when they're analyzed. We don't know. Problems.

All of this discussion about what will happen in our unknown future (but apparently after the Temple is rebuilt) misses one very important statement here. In verse 7, Paul writes "The mystery of lawlessness is already at work." It seems from this (and the rest of the passage) that Paul is not writing about someone in our unknown future, but about someone in his very near future. That's why the Thessalonians knew who was restraining him. That's why Paul was even telling them about something that would occur in the future. (Note that all of what he wrote here suggests "in your future", not "in some far distant future". In fact, why would Paul write this as if it's in their future if it wasn't in their future?)

To the common pre-Trib Rapture believer, this is all quite clear, straightforward, obvious. We've heard the explanations and in our eagerness we've swallowed them without critical questions. To me, the answers we've been given aren't quite so clear as we'd like to think. Was Paul talking about an event in the future that no one who was writing or reading it at the time would ever see? Why was he so cryptic about this restraining? If this event wasn't for 2000+ years, in what sense was the "mystery of lawlessness" already at work in Paul's day? I'm not offering answers here; just questions. It just doesn't seem to fit as nicely into the pre-Trib Rapture agenda as I've been told it does, and I'm curious.