“For the mystery of lawlessness already works” (2 Thessalonians 2:7).`
The mystery of lawlessness is the spirit of anti-Christ who is restrained by Christ Jesus until the prophetic era arrives for his manifestation as “the man of lawlessness” – i.e. the false Christ, the anti-Christ or, literally, the “instead of” Christ. The mystery about this is that
- he has authority (Luke 22:53; Acts 26:18; and Colossians 1:13) to work in and amongst those chosen to be God’s possession, whom he covets;
- his work is going on unobserved and unrecognised;
- the deceived believe that the one in their midst is the true Christ.
In the short term, his work is to rob every believer of his salvation. He does this by deceiving Christians by;
- Perverting the purity of the word of God;
- Distorting its interpretation so that they do not hear the voice of the one who is, nor hear the rhema proceeding from the mouth of God by which we are meant to live;
- Replacing the Holy Spirit in the gatherings of God’s people.
The ultimate objective of the mystery of lawlessness is to prepare God’s people to receive, and accept as God, a man who is described in scripture as the Man of Lawlessness (2 Thessalonians 2:3). This is the False Christ of the end-times drama.
This is a reflection of the work of the mystery of lawlessness amongst God’s people of the Old Covenant, in which the Jews were deceived into rejecting Christ as their Messiah. So under the Old, God’s people refused to accept their Messiah; under the New, God’s people will receive one as Messiah who is not.
When this occurs, it will fulfill Jesus’ prophecy;
“I come in My Father’s name and you do not receive Me; when another comes in his own name, him you will receive” (John 5:43).
But if this is the work of the mystery of lawlessness, how does he carry out his work? The answer to that is that he works by replacing Christ in the hearts and minds of believers and in their gatherings; that is what the term “anti-Christ” means; “instead of Christ”. As the great nineteenth century theologian B.F. Westcott put it, “the anti-Christ is one who, assuming the guise of Christ, opposes Christ”.
We turn to the Old Testament scriptures for an example of how this mystery of lawlessness works to deceive God’s people. The deception wrought on Israel by the mystery of lawlessness was to make them believe that the coming Messiah was to be the Son of David, who was to restore the kingdom and drive out the detested Romans. This was the seed of error that the mystery of lawlessness planted into the theology of Israel; this became the “doctrines of men” that led God’s chosen people into apostasy and idolatry and, finally led them to reject their Messiah.
In a reflection of Israel’s apostasy, the mystery of lawlessness has planted a seed of error into God’s people under the New Covenant which, too, has become part of the “doctrines of men” of the Church. That error is the mistranslation of 2 Thessalonians 2:7 so that there is now an expectation in Christianity that Christ is coming to take them out of the world before the anti-Christ appears. This is not what the Word plainly teaches and the deception will lead Christians to believe the False Christ to be the returning Christ Jesus.
As to the technique used by the mystery of lawlessness in his work, the names of “the ruler of this world” give a clue. Remember that the name “Satan” is a Hebrew word meaning “adversary” while the Greek word for “devil” is diabolos, which means “cutting across”; and what he cuts across is the Word of truth. As well as being “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31), scripture describes him as “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4), the “prince of the power of the air” and “the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). He is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). But the most significant indicator of the way in which the mystery of lawlessness works amongst God’s people is in the name “anti-Christ”, which means “instead of Christ”, as well as “opposing Christ”. This spirit of anti-Christ, who, in effect, is the son of Satan, undertakes his work by replacing Christ and counterfeiting Him amongst the people of God.
He Replaces the Authority of Christ with the Authority of Satan
We must remember that Satan has authority to deceive. Jesus referred to this authority when the priests and the elders came to arrest Him in the Garden, saying; “This is your hour and the authority of darkness” (Luke 22:52). The Greek word exousia, which means “authority”, is most often translated here as “power”; however dunamis is “power” and exousia is authority. It is only translated as “power” because of the failure of the translators to accept and understand the unpalatable fact that Satan indeed has authority. Paul, too, wrote to the Colossian Church that Jesus had delivered us from “the authority of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13). Again, exousia here is most often translated as “power” or “dominion” but this, once again, is a denial of what the scripture teaches, that Satan has authority – authority to deceive and tempt. In exercising these functions, he is doing God’s work of sorting out the goats from the sheep (Matthew 25:32), the tares from the wheat (Matthew 13:30) and the wicked from the just (Matthew 13:49). Clearly, the kingdom of darkness could not function unless it had authority to do so, and all authority comes from God. These deliberate mistranslations are, themselves, examples of the mystery of lawlessness at work.
The mystery of lawlessness counterfeits everything that God says, does and provides; this is why Jesus said; “if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:23); what Jesus is saying is that darkness is false or counterfeit light; it is not like the difference between white and black; rather it is like the difference between white and imitation or counterfeit white.
To deceive God’s people, Satan uses the same book that God uses to guide them into all truth; but whereas God’s Word is meant to bring life, Satan perverts its use so that it brings death. The only way the Word of God can be the living truth is if it is illuminated by the Spirit of God; life is only found in Christ (John 1:4). The mystery of lawlessness works by using the Word of God lawlessly and unrighteously, that is, without the anointing of the Holy Spirit; this is darkness appearing as light.
He Replaces the Truth with the Lie – The mystery of lawlessness is “full of all guile and fraud”, as Paul said; and he works by deception, that is, by replacing the truth with the lie. The lie that is used still comes from the word of God, as it did when Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness; he used the word of God; that is what happens in deception; that is what the lie is; the word of God without the Spirit of God. The lie is trumpeted abroad in the Church today; the word without the Spirit.
The truth is more than just the Word; the word needs the Spirit to be the truth. The whole counsel of God’s word is the truth and when it is acted upon and anointed by the Holy Spirit it becomes a rhema, a word “proceeding from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4) or, to put it another way, a stream of consciousness coming from the throne of God.
Satan replaces this word of truth with a lie and this is most commonly seen in the Church today when all the promises of God are taken to be unconditional. For example, Hebrews 5:9 tells us; “And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him”.
The condition for gaining eternal salvation is obeying Him, but the mystery of lawlessness has so worked over the centuries that today, the Church offers an unconditional salvation.
Also we read in John 14:23 “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him”. If God is to come and make His home in me there is a condition – loving God – and evidence required – keeping His word. The emphasis that God puts on keeping His word is missing in modern theology.
Similarly, the famous verse John 3:16 says; “For God so loved the world that He gave the only Son so that anyone believing in Him might not perish, but have eternal life”. The mystery of lawlessness has so abused the Word of God that this is commonly taken to mean that if you believe in Christ, you will be saved. This is plainly nonsense; even Satan himself believes in Jesus; indeed he knows Him well and fears Him. The verb “to perish” here is in the subjunctive mood, which expresses a condition, so that while anyone believing in Him might not perish, the fact is they might. There are conditions attaching.
Paul wrote to the Roman Church stressing the requirement of a similar moral response; “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). There is a condition attaching if we are to receive eternal life; putting down the flesh. Once again, this type of emphasis is missing today and this is the work of the mystery of lawlessness; he doesn’t have to deny these words that are in the scriptures; he just works to deceive believers into either not seeing them, or misinterpreting them. In that work he is assisted by an army of professional ministers, ecclesiastically appointed, rather than spiritually anointed.
The mystery of lawlessness works to pervert the grace of Christ into the doctrines and traditions of men so that instead of the Word of God bringing life, it brings death; the spiritual word of truth becomes carnalized; instead of becoming new creations of God “in righteousness and holiness of the truth” we recreate Him in our image; instead of serving Him, we make Him our servant to meet our every need. Instead of true liberty in Christ, the mystery of lawlessness works to bring us into religious bondage. So instead of having the true light, men have a false light; instead of life they have death; instead of truth they have the lie; instead of His peace they have the peace of this world.
In summary, the mystery of lawlessness works so that darkness is perceived as light and the lie is perceived as the truth; the outcome is to be that the anti-Christ is to take the place of Christ, thus fulfilling his name “anti Christ” – “instead of” or “in place of” and “opposing” Christ.
He Replaces the Fear of God With Familiarity– The mystery of lawlessness works so as to replace a righteous fear of God with a coarse familiarity on the part of believers. Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, the Majesty on High, is viewed with sloppy sentimentalism today by His people. This is most evident in modern Church music, which is a reflection of a worldliness, carnality and familiarity that has no place in a righteous relationship to God. Preaching today is silent on the importance of a proper fear of God; yet scripture shows it to be absolutely fundamental to those who truly belong to Him. Fearing the Lord is “healing to the body” (Proverbs 3:8); “the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7); “the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9::10); “a fountain of life”(Proverbs 14:27). For those who fear God there is “compassion” (Psalm 103:13); “lovingkindness” (Psalm 103:11); “riches, honour and life” (Proverbs 22:4); “Salvation is near to those who fear Him” (Psalm 85:9) and “it will be well with those who fear God” (Ecclesiastes 8:12). The early Church was built up “going on in the fear of the Lord” (Acts 9:31); we are told “to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 7:1) and to “bring about our salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). “The fear of the Lord is His treasure” (Isaiah 33:6) and this treasure is that which is “hidden in the field” (Matthew 13:44),
The latter day carnal familiarity with Christ is the root of the present condition of the Church as set out in Proverbs; “Then they will call upon Me and I will not answer; they will seek Me diligently but shall not find Me; because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord: (Proverbs 1:28-29).
Fear of the Lord did not exist before sin; Adam and Eve lived in the Garden and communed with God. After they were deceived by Satan and disobeyed God, they hid themselves from God in fear, lest their sinfulness was confronted by God’s holiness. That is what fear of the Lord is, the result of seeing God as He is and seeing ourselves as we truly are. This is what the mystery of lawlessness has robbed the Church of in these days of “virtual” Christianity.
He Replaces the Holy Spirit With a Different Spirit – The mystery of lawlessness works by replacing the Holy Spirit with the spirit of anti-Christ and the spirit of the world. In these days, Church services have become increasingly worldly and Christianity has embraced a worldly approach to organisation, fundraising and recruitment. Paul warns of this spirit of the world in writing to the Corinthian Church;
“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:12-14).
The mystery of lawlessness entered into the Church in the earliest days. For example, Paul warns both the Corinthians and Galatians about receiving a “different gospel”, which he describes as “another” Jesus preached under a “different” spirit (Galatians 1:6 and 2 Corinthians 11:3-4). He warns them that Satan is able to transform himself into an “angel of light” and his servants into “ministers of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11: 14-15). All these are manifestations of the mystery of lawlessness usurping the place of the Holy Spirit in the assembly of God’s people.
We see the way this works in the Old Testament, when the prophet Micaiah brought the word of God to the kings, Ahab and Jehoshaphat, as they were planning to invade Ramoth-gilead; “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And the LORD said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’ (1 Kings 18:19-22).
That is an example of the way that the mystery of lawlessness replaces the Holy Spirit to mislead and deceive. Most importantly, it should be seen that he receives authority to do this from God. “Go out and do so” said God. This should be seen as part of the testing that each believer must undergo; in itself it is part of the process of sanctification, in which God is allowing temptations, persecutions and tribulations to stress us, so that our spiritual condition, and the strength of our faith, will be revealed in the choices we make.
He Replaces Biblical Faith with Religious Faith
Religious Christianity clings to warm and fuzzy verses such as; “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Romans 10:9-10); and “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16) etc. But this is to seek comfort in the Word rather than to seek truth in the Word; after all, even Satan believes in Christ.
In clinging to such scriptures and refusing to go any further into the prophetic word, Christians are willfully ignoring Paul’s warning to the Thessalonian Church that the mystery of lawlessness was coming “….. in all deception of unrighteousness in those being lost because they did not take hold of the love of the truth so as to be saved” Paul goes on to warn that; “and for this reason God sends them a supernatural working of deceit in order for them to have faith in the lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11).
Once again, it must be stressed that the lawless one has authority from God to do his work amongst God’s people, if, and as, he is able. We have seen in the scripture above concerning the enticement of Ahab to go to war (1 Kings 18:19-22) that evil spirits are limited by God as to what they may do and how far they may go. But they do their work under Divine authority and, in a sense, they are servants of God in their evil work, for this is one way in which the sheep are separated from the goats and the wheat separated from the tares.
The truth, upon which we depend, consists of the whole counsel of God’s word, not select verses that comfort the religious soul of man. Sadly though, as in the days of Jeremiah, so it is today; “The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it so!” (Jeremiah 5:31). The rhetorical question immediately posed by Jeremiah though, points to the futility and fatal outcome for God’s people in following a path of their own choosing; “But what will you do at the end of it?”. Indeed!
The mystery of lawlessness works to convert God’s gift of faith in Christ into “Christianity”; to turn the gospel of Christ into a “different” gospel (2 Corinthians 11:4 & Galatians 1:6); to make what is truly spiritual into something cultural, worldly and carnal; to deceive God’s people into thinking that what was begun in the Spirit can be perfected in the flesh; and to persuade them that they can understand in their carnal nature that which can only truly be understood spiritually (1 Corinthians 2:11-12).
The subtlety of the mystery of lawlessness means that his work is unobserved; the same Jesus is preached under a “different spirit” (2 Corinthians 11:4) and the gospel becomes a “different gospel” (Galatians 1:6)). The outcome is that Satan is transformed into an “angel of light” and his demonic servants transform themselves into “ministers of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).
The mystery of lawlessness works so that if a man comes to Christ, he is immediately drawn into the Church. Having a fragile seed of truth in him, given by the Holy Spirit, he will be confronted with the dilemma that what he sees in the Church does not resonate with what he finds in the scriptures. He will resolve this dilemma in one of three ways; most commonly, he will accept that the Church must be right and follow the doctrines of men and the traditions of the elders; frequently, he will find such conflict between what he has received from God and what he sees amongst the people of God that he will reject his whole experience as false and abandon the seed of faith; most rarely, if he has integrity, he will turn away from religious idolatry and seek to be taught of the Holy Spirit Himself. That is the path of struggle and suffering.
To deceive God’s people and lead them into lies, the mystery of lawlessness uses the same book that God uses to guide them into all truth; but whereas God’s Word is meant to bring life, Satan perverts its use so that it brings death. The only way that the Word of God can be the living truth is if it is illuminated and anointed by the Spirit of God; life can only be found in Christ (See John 1:4). But the mystery of lawlessness, in order to deceive God’s people, uses the Word of God lawlessly and unrighteously, that is, without the anointing of the Holy Spirit; this is darkness appearing as light.
In the New Covenant, one of the key errors that the mystery of lawlessness has worked into the church is the notion that there is nothing that Christians need to do; that Christ has done everything that is necessary for believers to be saved. This is a subtle deception, because, in one sense, it is absolutely true that Christ has done everything; man can do nothing towards redeeming himself from darkness. But it is a deception to think that there is still nothing for the believer to do.
Jesus has done the work on the outside – justification, redemption, reconciliation, propitiation – all these are judicial events that deal with God’s righteous judgement on sin; they are directed towards God. These are the things that had to be done before a just God could allow reconciliation with a repentant sinner; and they are all things that a believer could not and cannot do for himself. But of themselves, all these things do is open the gate; we have to enter in ourselves. On their own, what Christ has done cannot lead to salvation; there is still a path for each of us to find and follow in faithfulness; the path of sanctification that leads to salvation. Jesus opened the gate, but we have to enter in and walk the path.
Scripturally, you cannot separate sanctification from salvation anymore than you can separate Christ from the Spirit; they are indivisible, and sanctification and salvation are inseparable parts of the same transaction. Our sanctification is the wish of God (1 Thessalonians 4:3) and the only way that Christ is able to call us “brethren“, is as we are made holy, or sanctified; in that state we are of one kind with Him (Hebrews 2:11).
So the work that remains for each believer to do is to allow the Holy Spirit to make us holy; He cannot and will not sanctify the unwilling; He will give, but it is we who must take hold. It is up to us to throw up our arms in absolute, unconditional, surrender to the Lord of Glory and allow His Holy Spirit to do the work that only He can do, “Being confident of this very thing, that the One beginning a good work in you will complete it to the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). If we will allow Him!
We have referred to the scripture where the word of truth is described metaphorically as a two-edged sword, one edge being a right understanding and the other a right application; together, they amount to Biblical righteousness. Through the scriptures we can also see the mechanics of how the mystery of lawlessness works; we can observe that the Word of truth is opposed by the spirit of the lie, and that holiness is opposed by spirits that lust against holiness and lead the believer into unrighteousness, worldliness and carnality. Jesus referred to this.
“Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and coming, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it proceeds and takes along with it seven different spirits more wicked than itself, and they enter in and live in that place; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45).
The original unclean spirit is that familiar, or familial, spirit with which each person is born; this spirit opposes the word of truth; its work is to deny that God is. This is the sin that the Holy Spirit, when He comes, convicts us of (John 16:8) and when that happens and we repent, have faith in God and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit and the familial, lying spirit departs. Light has been shed upon darkness; the word of truth expels the lie.
But then, as we see from the words of Jesus, the familial spirit goes off and brings seven “different spirits”; they are different because they do not do the work of opposing the word of truth; that spirit has already been dislodged by the Holy Spirit. What these seven different spirits do is oppose the work of holiness that the Holy Spirit embarks upon. Jesus referred to them in the parable of the sower; confusion snatches away the word when it is sown (Matthew 13:19); tribulation and persecution cause stumbling (Matthew 13:21); the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches (Matthew 13:22), the pleasures of this life (Luke 8:14) and the desire for remaining things (Mark 4:19) choke the word and prevent it bearing the intended fruit of holiness.
These seven spirits that lust after worldliness and carnality will eventually turn a believer into an unbeliever; one who still believes the gospel but whose life does not contain “the holiness without which no-one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). A believer who rejects the necessity of holiness or who clings to or refuses to give up the self life is, Biblically speaking, an unbeliever. This condition comes about by deception, where the Word of God is deconstructed to mean what it does not truly mean and to allow believers to continue in a lifestyle that is inconsistent with the need for holiness.
So the lustful spirits open the door for the deceiving spirit to return and take back his place; the believer goes on believing that he has eternal life and also that he can hang onto his life in this world. But let Jesus have the last word;
“For whoever should wish to save his life will lose it; but whoever should lose his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).
Leave a Reply