The Restrainer
The Antichrist is revealed upon the earth when an entity moves out of the way to allow it to occur. The Apostle Paul speaks about this in 2 Thessalonians.
- Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. 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. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:1–11)
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There are several theories regarding “He who now restrains”. One is that it is Michael the Archangel because he is said to stand watch over Israel (Daniel 12:1) and is seen as casting Satan from heaven in Revelation 12. Satan’s fall here tracks with the rise of the final beast kingdom, which is later identified as the Antichrist himself (Revelation 13:5-8). Thus, it is reasoned that Michael is the “He” who is restraining the Antichrist. The biggest problem with this idea is that Michael does not possess any innate authority within himself to do anything! He serves at the Lord’s pleasure. He’s an angel. The book of Jude hints at this when, in a confrontation with the devil, Michael does not presume any authority of his own when challenging him, but instead appeals to the Lord God to rebuke him (Jude 1:9). Another problem is that Satan is cast down by Michael, but that has nothing to do with what is going on in 2 Thessalonians. It says the “He” is restraining the Antichrist from being revealed. The action is against a certain human, the man of lawlessness, not an angelic being. Michael, nor any other angel, does this sort of thing.
It is God alone who controls times and seasons and raises up kings and removes the same (Daniel 2:21). It is also God alone who rules in the kingdoms of men, not angels (Daniel 4:25). 2 Thessalonians is about the Antichrist, not Satan. Whoever is restraining has authority to restrain humans! In other words, they rule in the affairs of man. Only God fits that bill. There have been some other laughable theories I’ve heard that suggest the “He” is the Church! It’s so preposterous that I will simply leave it at this: if you can find any place in Scripture where the church is called a “He”, or where the Church is said to be restraining evil of any kind, then I’ll give it another look.
From what we know about Scripture, the “He” that Paul is referring to must be God. Pinning this down more specifically is not possible from the text alone. A biblically literate opinion can arrive at only a few options, once it is accepted that the “He” must be God. The dominant one, and that most often espoused by pre-trib Rapture teachers is that the Holy Spirit is the He “taken out of the way”. It is said this happens when the church is raptured!
Theologically, this is problematic because it means that all those who will be saved during the tribulation will be saved apart from the work of the Holy Spirit! Some try to get around this by arguing from the dispensational point of view that those who are saved will be saved like believers in the Old Testament but will no longer have the “indwelling” of the Holy Spirit, which came at Pentecost. This flies in the face of what Prophet Joel clearly teaches about the end-times outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
So, who is the restrainer? I think the answer is obvious. It is God, and more specifically, it is Jesus. Remember, when Apostle Paul wrote his letters the book of Revelation had NOT been written. In the chapter, Paul is speaking about the lawlessness in the world and clearly intimates that the Antichrist will be the personification of rebellion against the laws of God. However, he is being restrained from manifesting by a person. There is only one person that controls times and seasons and raises up kings: God. Revelation 5 reveals that it is the Lamb who is given authority to declare when appointed times of the end will begin; it is He who breaks the seals. Jesus, and Jesus alone, has all authority in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth (Matthew 28:18).
It is in the breaking of the seals the Restrainer steps aside! The Antichrist is revealed with the breaking of that fourth seal. This is when Jesus is prophetically “taken out of the way.” The word taken in this phrase is the translation of the Greek word ginomai (ge’-no-mi). Ginomai means “to be or become.” In context of the verse, this word is followed by the Greek word ek, which means “out of” and implies both time and place; and mesos (me’-sos), which means “middle or midst.” Hence, the literal phrase would read: For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only He who now restrains will do so until He is out of the middle of.
That reads slightly differently now, does it not? Christ is blocking the revelation of the Antichrist until the appointed time, and then He will step aside and allow him to be revealed. No one is “taken” anywhere. This is NOT a reference to the Rapture. The grammar does not support that notion at all. The immediate context of 2 Thessalonians is that this man of lawlessness, this false Christ, will help facilitate the coming Great Apostasy. This fits perfectly with the timeline of events unfolded elsewhere in Scripture. The apostasy, the cleansing of the Church, and a massive revival are all happening simultaneously before the Day of the Lord comes.