Who is this lawless person? (4)

Anytime a document from antiquity is read by someone in the modern world, certain oddities stand out. It is true with any ancient document. Peculiarities about Beowulf stand out from the Old English language; strangeness is noticed in Ulysses in Latin; some unique features surface in the Greek of the Odyssey. The further back one goes in time, usually the stranger certain features appear to the modern eye. So, when features of a passage from 2nd Thessalonians 2 suddenly appear to have some odd features to the modern reader, then understanding the historical, literary, and linguistic context goes a long way in clearing up the oddity. In particular, a term appears that seems to carry a little more weight than other words in the passage–the lawless man.

The connotation of the word "law" was well understood by every Jew. The word used for lawlessness could have the connotation of whatever is exactly opposite from what every Jew understood because the word is the letter "a" in front of the word law. English follows the old Greek pattern for this in words like moral and amoral, typical and atypical. Very literally then, the phrase is not man of lawlessness, but man of no law or man without law. The word "man" should also be pretty clear to every Jew. Isaiah 53.3 refers to "man of sorrows." I Timothy 6.11 refers to "man of God." People usually know to substitute "person" for "man." So, when "man of no law" shows up in the text, people don't have any qualms against translating it "a person without law." Even if the more general law of nature is meant (Romans 1) rather than the Mosaic law that every Jew would understand, the meaning is still "a person above the law" or a person who doesn't abide by laws."

If this meaning were to be plugged into verses 3-11, the meaning would be as follows. Paul told the Thessalonians that he had told them ahead of time about people out to destroy themselves (sons of perdition). They are people who act as if there is no law. They put themselves in God's place, that is, they are self-sufficient and demand the respect for this self-sufficiency from others. "Something" (a mystery) has hindered this group of people from seeing themselves as headed for destruction, but Jesus has appeared and his teaching indicts their behavior. That is apparent to both those who come to follow Jesus and those who, after being exposed to Jesus' teaching, reject it for themselves. Jesus will destroy this group at his coming because they were enabled by and deluded by Satan's illusions of "signs and wonders."

All of this seems to have been motivated by the writer's frustration with why it had been so hard to get people to accept the fabulous story of Jesus for what it was worth. That's why chapter3, verse 1&2 begin with a request. "In your conversations with God, ask for the message of the Lord to spread and for people to honestly weigh its worth as you have done. And ask for us to be rescued from most people's moral morass and base living because so many people do not have faith."