Judgment · The son of perdition revealed
2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
Paul · ~51 AD · Status: Future · Confidence: 76%
“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;”
King James Version · the opening — all 2 verses are below
Paul's warning that the Day will not come until the apostasy and the revealing of the man of sin — the son of perdition who exalts himself in the temple as God.
Read the whole passage — all 2 verses (KJV)
2:3Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
2:4Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Fulfillment References
Daniel 7:25 Daniel 11:36 Revelation 13:5-8 Matthew 24:15
How Traditions Read This Prophecy
Apostolic (Oneness) PentecostalThe man of sin counterfeits deity — sitting 'as God' — but the one true God, Jesus, destroys him by the brightness of His coming (2 Thess. 2:8).
JewishThe self-exalting tyrant echoes Daniel's 'little horn' and the king who magnifies himself above every god (Dan. 11:36).
CatholicThe Antichrist, the man of sin, who will arise in a great apostasy before Christ's coming.
ProtestantThe man of sin / son of perdition — variously identified (a future personal Antichrist; historically, some Reformers applied it to the papal office) — who exalts himself as God.
OrthodoxThe lawless one who comes in the final apostasy, opposed and destroyed by Christ.
DispensationalA future personal Antichrist who, in the Tribulation, desecrates a rebuilt temple, claiming deity.
AcademicThe 'man of lawlessness' draws on Daniel 11:36 and the self-deifying-tyrant tradition; the 'restrainer' (2:6-7) is a famous interpretive crux.
Scholarship & Sources
The self-exalting figure draws on Daniel 11:36 (and 7:25); 'sitteth in the temple of God' is read literally (a future temple) or figuratively (the church). The identity of 'what withholdeth' / 'he who now letteth' — the restrainer (2:6-7) — is among the most debated cruxes in the New Testament.
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