2 Thessalonians 2:3

New Testament

1 Now regarding the arrival of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to be with him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to be easily shaken from your composure or disturbed by any kind of spirit or message or letter allegedly from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not arrive until the rebellion comes and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. 4 He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, and as a result he takes his seat in God’s temple, displaying himself as God. 5 Surely you recall that I used to tell you these things while I was still with you. 6 And so you know what holds him back, so that he will be revealed in his own time. 7 For the hidden power of lawlessness is already at work. However, the one who holds him back will do so until he is taken out of the way, 8 and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will destroy by the breath of his mouth and wipe out by the manifestation of his arrival.

Ascension of Isaiah 4:2

Pseudepigrapha

1 And now Hezekiah and Josab my son, these are the days of the completion of the world. 2 After it is consummated, Beliar the great ruler, the king of this world, will descend, who hath ruled it since it came into being; yea, he will descent from his firmament in the likeness of a man, a lawless king, the slayer of his mother: who himself (even) this king. 3 Will persecute the plant which the Twelve Apostles of the Beloved have planted. Of the Twelve one will be delivered into his hands. 4 This ruler in the form of that king will come and there will come and there will come with him all the powers of this world, and they will hearken unto him in all that he desires. 5 And at his word the sun will rise at night and he will make the moon to appear at the sixth hour. 6 And all that he hath desired he will do in the world: he will do and speak like the Beloved and he will say: "I am God and before me there has been none." 7 And all the people in the world will believe in him. 8. And they will sacrifice to him and they will serve him saying: "This is God and beside him there is no other."

 Notes and References

"... John foresees the end-product of the beast’s regime to be a social and economic boycott of all who refuse to worship him, cutting them off from access to the necessities of life. But, as in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, the man of lawlessness is destroyed by the Advent of Christ, so in Revelation 19:20 the beast and the false prophet are consigned to perdition by the victorious Word of God at his appearing ... The Ascension of Isaiah, an early Christian document, incorporates a Testament of Hezekiah, in which the ultimate Antichrist appears as an incarnation of Beliar (the Greek spelling of Belial, as in 2 Corinthians 6:15), the spirit of evil in the world. This expected incarnation of Beliar, moreover, is identified with the returning Nero, described by King Hezekiah as “a lawless king, the slayer of his mother” - a reference to Nero’s widely suspected responsibility for the killing of the younger Agrippina ..."

Bruce, F. F. Word Biblical Commentary: 1 and 2 Thessalonians (pp. 322-323) Word Books, 1982

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