| E-MAIL SERVICE | Sign me up to receive the daily Word of Righteousness free via my E-mail address! ( ONLY AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH ) | |
| ARCHIVES | I want to check out the daily Words of Righteousness for any of the last fourteen days or from previous weeks. ( ENGLISH ONLY ) | |
| FEEDBACK | I have a question or comment about today's Word of Righteousness. ( ENGLISH AND SPANISH ONLY ) | |
| BOOK LIST | I would like to see the complete book list of the Words of Righteousness author Robert B. Thompson. (SOME SPANISH TITLES AVAILABLE ) |
The Daily Word of Righteousness
An Examination of Current Teaching, #47
Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. (II Thessalonians 2:3)
The "rebellion" of II Thessalonians 2:3 means we will fall away from the earth in order to escape the Antichrist and the Great Tribulation.
The Greek term translated "rebellion" is aspostasia, from which we derive the word "apostasy." I have never seen a translation of the Scriptures that translates the term other than a rebellion against authority, a falling away from the laws of God.
Some 'rapturist" scholars, in their attempt to prove a pre-tribulation rapture, are translating apostasia as "falling away from the earth." This reveals the strength of the rapture error.
The Greek term we translate as "rapture" means catching up. It is not a falling away from the earth or from anywhere else. It is a catching up, with the implication that power is exerted in order to remove the subject from that which would hold him down.
Looking at the passage in question:
Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying the day of the Lord has already come. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. (II Thessalonians 2:1-3)
The Day of the Lord will not come until the rebellion occurs and Antichrist is revealed.
Vine's An Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words declares that the falling away of II Thessalonians 2:3 "signifies apostasy from the faith." In other Greek sources it was used "politically of rebels."
It has been said also that apostasia was used at one time to signify a mutiny.
Notice above: "the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed." "Rebellion" and the man of "lawlessness" are related in meaning. The idea is that rebellion against authority will increase in the earth until it is personified in Antichrist that arch rebel against God.
The original meaning of the term, plus the way it is used in context, supports the universal translation of apostasia as "rebellion against authority." To depart from sound interpretation by using it to mean a "falling away from the earth," when in fact the elect do not fall away but are caught up, is certainly not defensible scholarship. But it reveals the power of this deception.
I think it is time for serious Bible students to take another look at the unscriptural "pre-tribulation rapture" tradition, for it keeps many Christians at ease when they should be preparing themselves for the age of moral horrors that is on the horizon.
To be continued.