Apostasy or Rapture in 2 Thessalonians?

Looking at the flow and structure of what is said here, it has always baffled me how anyone can argue for a pre-trib rapture from these verses. However, let us take each sentence and line and look at the timing of events of the end that Paul lays out here. Paul clearly begins this part of the letter by discussing two things: the coming of the Lord AND our gathering together with Him. Now, this passage has many interpretations given to it, but what is it actually saying? There can be no private interpretation. So, let us look at the context. For that, we refer back to chapter 1.

2 Thessalonians 1:3-10 – We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other, so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you also suffer; since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes [erchomai], IN THAT [ekeinos] DAY [hēmera], to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.

Without any argument, Paul discusses the coming of the Lord, and refers to “that day”. Obviously, it appears this must be the prophetic Day of the Lord. But that phrase isn’t used here, so let’s leave it that it’s merely “a day”, but a specific one because of the use of the pronoun [ekeinos]. However, this discussion about a particular day is the immediate context of the opening to chapter 2. It’s all one idea. These are not separate books. It’s a single letter, and the ideas flow on top of one another. This is beyond debate. Thus, when Paul references the coming of the Lord and the gathering together to Him, it is in the context of “that day”, referenced earlier in chapter 1.

For those who might contend with this, Paul goes on to say that there are those who are troubling the saints in Thessalonica by suggesting that “the day of the Lord” had already come! Thus, he proves that the day being referenced in chapter 1 is in fact the same as being referenced here. Why? Because he implies that the church of Thessalonica was waiting for the Day of the Lord! The thing that was shaking their faith was missing the day of Christ! Not something else.

There are those who contend that the Day of Christ is NOT the prophetic Day of the Lord. These same people will say that the Day being referenced in chapter one IS the Day of the Lord, though the phrase itself is not used. This is obviously twisting the passage. Paul is referencing the same day!! The day of Christ is “that Day”, and it is the day of the Lord because Christ IS the Lord. To say otherwise is to make absolute nonsense of what Paul is saying. The plain reading of the text has Paul discussing a specific day throughout, not multiple days.

Since Paul is clearly discussing a single, prophetic day, then it is also obvious that the gathering to Jesus and His coming happened on that day! Why must this be so? Because of the use of the conjunction “and” The conjunction connects the two things together. They are two events that occur on the same day, which is the main thing being discussed by the Apostle Paul throughout.

There is much disagreement with this, but further proof occurs when you keep reading. Verse three has a phrase that is interpolated for ease of reading but doesn’t actually appear in the Greek: “THAT DAY will not come”. The actual Greek leaves this phrase out entirely. This is important. Paul immediately moves into showcasing how we will know when “that day”, the day of Christ, is close upon us because he says don’t be deceived for…unless the Apostasy and the revelation of the man of lawlessness occurs, it won’t happen! That’s the point. There are signs as to when that day will arrive!!!

This absolutely destroys pre-trib doctrine. But it is what the text says. There are those who contend with this truth by suggesting that what Paul says in verses six and seven negates everything else. There he goes on to talk about the Restrainer, and that when He “is removed” then the lawless one is revealed. Without getting into that, it doesn’t make any sense contextually, because the entire Scripture passage is about the church thinking they MISSED THE DAY!!! It’s not about them thinking they missed the Rapture. No, it’s about them MISSING THE DAY.

Verse eight is the final proof of the contextual continuity as I have laid out because once again he says after the Restrainer is removed, the coming [parousia] will be when Jesus arrives. Yet, we already know that this coming occurs on the day in question, and our gathering together with Jesus takes place at the same time! This is what the passage clearly teaches. This is why the church of Thessalonica didn’t want to miss the day. Jesus will appear to deliver those who are being persecuted, and in turn, persecute the evil people. That’s what Chapter 1 was all about.

Any honest exegesis of this text CANNOT support a pre-trib rapture event. I am not trying to attack people who believe in that erroneous doctrine. I was once there! I was raised in it. I want to prepare all Christians, and especially those who believe in the pre-trib rapture, for the greatest persecution they will ever encounter prior to the Lord’s return. I am amazed at the mind-bending argumentation used to support this teaching that is so clearly rejected by what the Bible actually says. To that end, let us look further at what 2 Thessalonians 2 says, and see the arguments for the pre-trib position that are read into the text when the text clearly teaches the opposite.

One of the stronger arguments for the pre-trib position for this text uses the Greek of the verses themselves to supposedly establish that the pre-trib rapture is clearly taught, without resorting to other crazy suppositions from later ideas in the chapter.  Without getting into the weeds, I will summarize it thus: They argue that the Greek can be translated thus, for the first two verses – “Now brethren, we beseech you concerning [BECAUSE] of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him [the rapture], not to be soon shaken…as though the day of Christ had come [the Day of the Lord].”

The argument goes that Paul is saying don’t worry about whether you’re in the Day of the Lord, because that day cannot happen until the rapture has occurred! This is why they translate the Greek word (ὑπέρ), translated “concerning” here, and “by” in the KJV, as BECAUSE. The supposed thought that Paul is said to be conveying is that the Thessalonians aren’t in the Day of the Lord because they are here still! The rapture hasn’t happened. If this sounds confusing, that’s because it is. It makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER! Even if these people are not playing fast and loose with the Greek (arguable btw), it just doesn’t make any sense.

Why? It would mean that the “Day of Christ” is completely different from the “coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering to Him”. The Day of the Lord is the phrase most often used by Apostles Paul and Peter to describe the coming of Jesus (1 Thessalonians 5:2, 2 Peter 3:10). The pre-trib teachers who use this argument say that Paul is clearly separating the Day of the Lord, which is a time of judgment for the wicked, from what he said at the beginning regarding the coming of the Lord for the believers. Again, this would have Paul being purposefully obtuse. The coming at the beginning is the day of Christ! They are the same event.

To solve this obvious truth, various attempts at explaining the length of “the day of the Lord” have been proposed by other pre-trib teachers such that it usually extends seven years, with the rapture being the start (2 Thessalonians 2:1 being the beginning) and the day of Christ being the end (2 Thessalonians 2:2 being the end) when judgment is poured out. Again, this makes Paul say something that is massively confusing. It is simply not textually supported because he goes on in verse three to say that unless certain things happen (the falling away and the revelation of the Antichrist), that day will not come. But, if Christians are not here, because we are supposedly raptured before the Day of the Lord, it makes no sense to go on and explain to believers, who are not going to be here, the signs confirming that day’s arrival!

To make matters worse some pre-trib teachers argue that the Greek word (ἀποστασία), translated “falling away” here and “apostasy” in other translations, is in fact the rapture itself, because it can be translated as departure! However, this word NEVER means a physical departure in the Bible. It is always used for divorce or religious separation. And it requires action from the person, meaning one chooses to leave another, or abandon a particular mode of belief, whereas the rapture is Jesus acting upon His church for deliverance! We are not choosing to leave the earth in the Rapture, it is being done to us. This is why most pre-trib teachers reject this obvious untruth.

None of the pre-trib efforts to re-read this passage make any sense of what Paul is writing. If we assume that the coming of the Lord and our gathering together are all happening on the Day of the Lord, however, defined, it would have him writing to them about specifics of the Day of the Lord, only to then say all those signs come after we are out of here! Which once again has Paul being purposefully obtuse.

His entire paragraph starts off about the coming of the Day of the Lord, which they thought they missed. Yet, if the pre-trib reading of the passage is accepted, it has him spending most of the time not even discussing the subject at hand but talking about something that none of them are even going to be around for since they are supposedly going to be taken away with the restrainer!

The majority of pre-trib teachers avoid the issues of these earlier verses by skipping all the way to verses 5-7 and focusing on the removal of the Restrainer! In their theory of of this part of the text, the Restrainer, who is holding back the revelation of the Antichrist, is said to be the Holy Spirit in the church! When is the Restrainer removed? The Rapture! Thus, allowing the Antichrist to be revealed. This theory has its own problems, namely, that it places the Church into the text where it doesn’t even exist.

However, if you look at the Greek, you see it is entirely forced. From the text, the phrase, “What is restraining” is the Greek for restraining {κατέχω}. It is in its present active participle accusative singular neuter form here. Thus, verse six is telling us “something” is restraining. This something could be a person, or another, even an inanimate object. As with anything, context is the key, and we know that something is someone from verse seven, which follows.

There we have this written, “He who now restrains”. Once again, the same Greek word for restraining is used, {κατέχων}, only this time it is in the present active participle nominative singular masculine sense. This tells us a person is doing the restraining of the Lawless One. So, who is it? The pre-trib teachers maintain it’s the Church. How? It’s not an entity, it’s a person. Thus, they say it’s the Holy Spirit in the Church. By that logic though, if the Holy Spirit was removed, then He wouldn’t be in the earth any longer. How are people getting saved after that? Each layer of theological twisting adds further problems and is quite useless to the pre-trib argument because the Greeks simply don’t allow for their version of events to be read into the text.

When we read, “He is taken out of the way” the Greek word for taken out of here is {γένηται}. It just means “to be”. It is the second aorist middle deponent subjunctive 3rd person singular form of the verb here. The word for “the way” is {μέσος}. It simply means the middle of something. So, what the text is saying is that the Restrainer is in between something being unleashed – the Lawless One upon the earth. The form of the verb for taken is very important here. The vast majority of English translators see it and talk about it as though someone or something is acting upon the Restrainer to move them out of the way. For the pre-tribbers, this is God performing the action of the Rapture, with the Holy Spirit being the Restrainer, and His presence in the Church being removed from the earth, thus being the catalyst for the rise of Antichrist. Nothing in the text even remotely suggests this, but the idea comes from a misunderstanding of the use of deponent verb form for {γένηται}.

It is my belief that the Restrainer is Jesus, and He isn’t removed. The Greek literally states He moves out of the middle of! There is no taking away in, as the rapture. It is a statement that describes something blocking, like a cork in a bottle. Once it moves, the flow proceeds. The only reason people read the rapture into it is because of the false pre-trib teaching surrounding those verses. The imagery of this text perfectly aligns with that of the Lamb, Jesus, breaking the seals in Revelation. According to Greek scholars, not me, when a deponent form of a verb is found in a text, they look as if they are passive in nature, meaning something is acting upon it. However, they should be translated as active in form.

The Middle/Passive covers a wide spectrum of degrees of involvement of the subject in the action of the verb. An example in English would be – “The dog gets scratched.” This is passive voice, and it might be therefore assumed that someone else is doing the scratching, just as most translators assume someone else is doing the moving of the Restrainer. However, if you stop and think about it, the dog could just be scratching himself! Well, in Greek, when the deponent form is used, what is being said is that the subject, the HE who restrains, is moving Himself out of the way. He is not being moved. Thus, I believe it is Jesus stepping aside at the breaking of the seals. After all, He has all power and authority given to Him.

None of these pre-trib takes on 2 Thessalonians make any sense. But the plain sense makes total sense. And it says the church will be here for the revelation of the Antichrist and the great apostasy that will accompany his revelation. Those will be the signs that tell us we haven’t missed the day of the Lord, which will include Jesus’ coming, and our gathering to Him. This is the plain import of what is written, and basic exegetical practice should mandate an acceptance of it, yet pre-trib teachers continue to seek another sense from the text to support their erroneous teaching.

It is simply impossible to hold to a pre-trib understanding of this text without seriously torturing it, and ignoring what Paul is saying. People say what does it matter? Any subject of Scripture should be exposited properly. To willfully believe a lie is not ever a good thing, even if one can say it is not a salvific matter. It matters to our testimony to others. It matters if we should find ourselves alive for that time of testing on the earth. The truth MATTERS. 2 Thessalonians 2 teaches us that we will be here for the Antichrist, and we must endure and await our Lord’s appearing to defeat him and his minions and deliver us.