The Man of Lawlessness

(2Th 2:3, 4) Let no one seduce you in any manner, because it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness gets revealed, the son of destruction. He is set in opposition and lifts himself up over everyone who is called "god" or an object of reverence, so that he sits down in the temple of The God, publicly showing himself to be a god.

Where he sits

Paul does not place the man of lawlessness in the world. He places him in the temple of God, which in the Christian scriptures is the congregation. He rises from within, after an apostasy, and exercises authority over God's people as though speaking for God. Jesus foretold the same thing in the illustration of the wheat and the weeds, sown together in the same field, and Paul told the Ephesian elders that "from among you yourselves men will rise and speak twisted things" (Acts 20:30).

His signs

(2Th 2:9, 10) But the lawless one's presence is according to the operation of Satan with every powerful work and lying signs and portents and with every unrighteous deception for those who are perishing.

Lying signs are interpretations presented as proof. When historical events are forced into prophecy to produce dates, and the dates are then treated as evidence of divine appointment, that is a sign that lies. The studies on this site examine one such system in detail: a beast from the abyss that rises in 1918 and again in 1945, a seventh head wounded before it had formed, and an eighth king in power before the seventh. Interpretations that contradict each other cannot come from the spirit of truth.

His oldest claim

The first thing Paul warns against in the chapter is being told "that the day of Jehovah is here" (2 Thessalonians 2:2). A premature announcement of Christ's presence is the signature move. It sets people at ease about a day that has not arrived, and it places whoever made the announcement in the seat of authority. That is why this site treats 1914 as a false parousia and the appointment of a faithful and discreet slave on the strength of it as premature.

The division it produces

(1Co 11:19) For there must also be sects among you, that the persons approved may also become manifest among you.

The revealing of the man of lawlessness is not the end of God's people. It is how the approved ones become visible. Those who see the lies and hold to the text are being separated from those who defend the structure regardless, exactly as Paul said would happen.