THE INQUIRER.

JUNE, 1840.

What saith the Scripture?-ROм. iv. 3.

THE MAN OF SIN.

THAT WICKED, WHOM THE LORD SHALL DESTROY WITH THE BRIGHTNESS OF HIS COMING.-2 Thess. ii.

§ 1. -THE COURSE OF THE WORLD DURING THIS DISPENSATION.

Ir we allow our minds to rest only upon what the Word of God reveals concerning blessing, whether past, present, or future, we recognise but a part of what is therein contained-we overlook that which may cause sadness to the heart, but which He has seen fit to reveal; and if we thus take a partial view of the revelation of God, we fail in estimating aright even that testimony concerning blessing, at which we desire to look. Now if we did not know the things which have happened ;- if we had not the fall set before us ;-if we did not know the consequences of sin,-we should neither know the grace nor yet the necessity of redemption; we should fail to learn aright the work of Christ did we not see why he came, and what the condition was of those for whose salvation his precious blood was shed: thus it is that the Holy Ghost instructs the children of God, shewing truth by contrast, so manifesting the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that it shall appear in all its fulness, as opposed to, and triumphing over Satan and all his devices.

Thus it is with regard to the present subject," the Man of Sin," respecting whom the Scripture states such awful things; in him will be the marvellous exhibition of the concentrated power of Satan, an exhibition with which it is necessary that our souls should be acquainted, if so be that we would have our thoughts rightly directed concerning the glory of the Lord Jesus which is to be revealed; if we would understand aright how "the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil:" just as the Lord has triumphed over Satan in his resurrection, so will he manifest his power in destroying the dominion of Satan, even though it may seem at the very time especially to be triumphing in opposition to God.

In reading such a portion of the word as the second chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, we may well ask, "When shall these things be ?"—" When will this fearful discovery of evil take place?" To such inquiries, this very passage affords a direct answer (verse 8), that it will be just before the coming of the Lord, seeing that it is with "the brightness of his coming" that this "Man of Sin" is to be destroyed. Now this point of time which is so distinctly marked, is not, I believe, a feature of small importance in the description; for thus we see brought together in most marked contrast "him whose coming is after the working of Satan," with the Lord Jesus, who shall come in his own glory and in his Father's, with the holy angels. Thus whatever we see that marks in this picture the dreadful power to be exerted by Satan over men, and the awful power that it will assume, it tells us also of the glory and power of the Lord Jesus: we have not to rest upon the testimony to grief and misery, the Spirit leads us directly onward to Him who is above it all, and whose coming will destroy him through whom it is carried on.

I believe that simply to take this passage as it stands in the word of God will shew very clearly that it is a person who is pointed out; one man through whom Satan will display his working. We read that "there [shall] come a falling away

[the apostasy] first, and that man of sin [shall be] revealed, the son of perdition; who 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. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked [one] be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie : that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Such is the description of the Man of Sin; such is his power; and such are they who share his destruction when the Lord cometh. We shall find many other passages both in the old Testament and in the new, which so speak of a person who is to arise, as to identify him with this description; whilst they at the same time supply many particulars in the detail of circumstances.

Now although many Christians may have passed over and slighted these warnings, and though many may still deem them to be of no practical importance, it is not for us to pass by that which God has thus revealed; we ought to consent to the wisdom of the Giver by receiving His gift. It is thus that I desire that we may look at the word of God in examining its testimony on this subject.

The coming of the Lord, as has been already said, distinctly marks the time of the manifestation of this "wicked one, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth;" and in this indication of time, there is an important link of connection with Isaiah xi.: a passage to which in these words the Spirit of God plainly refers. It is there written ::-"He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked" (verse 4). Here, as in Second Thessalonians, the word "wicked" is in the singular, not speaking of the wicked generally, but in marked terms pointing out an individual person. We learn from the apostle that which we do not from the prophet, who the person is that shall be so destroyed by the Lord, even him who shall have set himself as the direct adversary of God in that day. The connection with the New Testament suffices to shew that the events which are spoken of in Isaiah xi. concerning the Lord Jesus, are such as will find their fulfilment when he comes again, when he will exercise the power of judgment which has been committed to him, but which he did not use when he came in humiliation to suffer.

If these things will be thus when the Lord appears, if at that time Satan's power over the earth will have a concentrated energy, so that at the last God will judicially send to the rejecters of the truth" strong delusion that they should believe a lie"it must be evident that towards this point we are tending, and to this the world will attain, whatever be the fair appearances which now meet our eyes. The final state of the world when the Lord comes will be thus evil-it will have increased in wickedness, instead of being, as it is in the thought of many, daily improved, daily less contrary to God than it was when it crucified his Son. It is when the height of evil is attained that the Lord will come in destroying judgment. Thus it is especially important to mark well the testimony of the word concerning this consummation in judgment, in order that our hopes may be according to what God has revealed, and that they be not formed on any other ground.

It will thus be well to look at a few Scriptures which speak of this point, because it is essential that it should be clearly seen for us to apprehend aright the Scripture history of "the Man of Sin." The expectations of many Christians have been that righteousness will increase amongst men, so that "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." I am not for a moment raising a question as to whether this prophecy of the Scripture will be fulfilled; but this I do state most unequivocally, that there is no scriptural ground for supposing that this universality of blessing will be brought about by any gradual increase of godliness amongst men. The place in which we find this prophecy ought to intimate this; for in Isaiah xi. the judgment of the Lord on the wicked person (verse 4) is

introductory to the universal blessing (verse 9); so that until the one has taken place, the other cannot be looked for. If we really know that such a time will ever be, it must be from the testimony of the Scripture; and consequently, whatever intervening circumstances are told us, they must also be taken into our consideration. It is natural to our minds to take some bright object of hope which the Spirit of God sets before us, and to rejoice in the anticipation of the blessing to come; but we fail in using the hope aright if we take it as though our eyes were to be blind to all the sorrow and evil which is to intervene we may shrink back in thought from any dark interval, but the object of hope beyond is given us as that which should sustain and cheer us in looking onward: the brightness of the coming morning only shines the more in contrast to the preceding darkness.

In looking at the close of the things of earth in this dispensation, we ought to mark what are its distinctive features. If universality be not the character of this dispensation, what is? A passage in Matt. xxiv. tells us I believe very simply:"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come" (verse 14). The present is the time when the gospel of the grace of God is to be preached-that gospel, through which all who receive it are delivered from the power of darkness, and are translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son; but blessed as the message is, and blessed as are its results to all who believe, yet it is "for a witness" that it is to be preached "to all nations;" there is no intimation that all nations, or even any one nation as a whole, will be converted; but much to shew the contrary, while at the same time there is in Rev. vii. an intimation that in no nation shall the gospel fail of gathering fruit to God; for the innumerable multitude standing before the throne in blood-washed robes are "out of all nations and kindreds, and people, and tongues" (verse 9). This gives us the true scriptural expectation as to results from the preaching of the gospel: fruit is to be looked for, but not universality; and even though the gospel may prove a savour of death unto death unto many, this fruit will be gathered from amongst all nations.

Whilst thus the Lord gives us abundant encouragement in labouring for him in testimony, we have to bear in mind the intimations which He gives, that there can be no universality of blessing before the coming of the Lord, and his destroying the wicked one. The glory of the Lord Jesus, Son of Man and Son of God, is thus to be declared; all the praise is to be his; and until he personally takes the world under his own righteous rule, we have no ground in the word for any supposition of a spread of righteousness, or of the knowledge of God over the whole.

Widely different is the testimony of the Scripture from that opinion which many Christians have formed as to the prospects of the world. If we turn to 2 Tim. iii., we read thus :-"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." The hope of many is that, instead of these "perilous times," of the coming of which the Spirit of God thus forewarns us, the latter days of this dispensation will be marked with especial blessing and glory. The whole chapter runs on much in the same strain (just as we also find repeatedly in other portions of the New Testament) :-" All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (ver. 12, 13). Nothing can be more explicit than this testimony. How then, it may be asked, is it that Christians have so disregarded it? The reason, I assuredly believe is, that the saints have so rested upon detached portions of Old Testament prophecy as to form altogether wrong conclusions; and I cannot regard the manner in which the testimony to previous judgment has been and is overlooked (even when as in Isaiah xi. occurring in the same context) as being anything other than a device of Satan for taking the saints away from their true hopes, and from the thoughts which they ought to form concerning the world around.

If we were to look at the world as becoming constantly less under the power of Satan than it was, so as to expect that soon he would have no place in it, and the whole would be fit for the kingdom of Christ our Lord, then as saints desirous of

the glory of our Lord, we should be called on to use every effort to mend the system of things in the world, so that our energies might help on the expected day of blessing; but if, on the other hand, we learn from the word that we are daily drawing nearer to a more fearful display of the power of Satan than has ever been exhibited, and that the world (whatever appearances may say) is ripening for this; that whether there be more evil now than there was a few years ago, yet the evil of the last times will be unequalled-then shall we see that our energies have to be directed, not to the mending of things as they are here, but to the bringing of souls to God, through testimony to the blood of Jesus; taking them in fact out of this condemned world, instead of seeking to make them rest in it. It is with this that we have to do if we regard the testimony of our Lord and his apostles. We may seek to do good unto all men; but to bring souls to Christ, and to establish the children of God, will be our great work, knowing that no efforts of ours can be in any way conducive to bring about the universal blessing of the earth. The Lord may bless us in gathering some to him: he allows us to be his fellow-workers in this; but as to the bringing of the world into blessing, it is his own peculiar work: his destroying judgment must come first.

The Lord Jesus has given to the church very direct and simple teaching concerning that separateness from the world to which they are called:-"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John xvii.). Again, "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." Now there would not be a world for the saints to be in, and yet to be separate from, if all was going on to universal blessing and godliness. I need not refer to many portions of our Lord's instructions; John xiii.-xvi. are one continuous strain of teaching, the whole of which would be obsolete if that dream of universal blessing before the coming of Jesus Christ were to be realised.

The Lord, in the parable of the tares of the field (Matt. xiii.), intimates very distinctly the character of the present dispensation :-"Let them both grow together UNTIL the harvest" (ver. 30), is the judgment of the Lord concerning the tares and the wheat, instead of giving any countenance to that idea which is so prevalent in the minds of not a few Christians, that the wheat will gradually overspread the field, so that at length the tares will quite disappear. The Lord thus tells us that there will be no universality of blessing in the field (which is the world-ver. 38) before the harvest; but then we read-"The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and that do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (41, 42). Thus pointedly has the Lord told us in many portions what we have to expect, and how and when the prophecies of universally diffused blessing will be brought to pass. We learn much profitable truth from this parable. The church is to be manifested in glory in the kingdom of "their Father." No earthly hopes are given to them: their portion is to be as a "little flock," waiting for the kingdom. The world will still be the world in spite of Christianity being in it; and in one respect it is made worse, because false professors-the tares-have sprung up consequent upon the preaching of the gospel. The great truth that I wish to press is, that to the end of this dispensation evil and good are mixed together, and therefore expectations to the contrary are sure to be disappointed; for unless the narrow way were to become broad, so that many should find it, it would be impossible for the predicted glory to belong to this dispensation.

It may be well to refer to a few more passages which speak not merely of the continuance of evil, but which coincide in their testimony with 2 Tim. iii. in shewing its prevalence in the latter days. In 2 Peter iii. we have this direct and especial warning :-"There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?" Thus did the apostle see the last days marked not by an increase of righteousness, but by the coming of these "scoffers." Just so we read in Jude:-" Beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts" (ver. 17, 18). What does the apostle speak of as meeting the evil? It is in speaking of the abounding evil of the latter day that he refers to the prophecy of Enoch, so that he shews that nothing short of the judgment of the Lord will meet the evil.

But is not the preaching of the gospel to prevail in putting away these

men? Not at all. The passage shews plainly that it cannot; there was nothing which Jude saw, or which long before Enoch had seen, which could expel the prevalence of evil, short of the Lord himself coming and executing judgment.

Such likewise is the testimony of the apostle James. He speaks (chap. v.) of the rich men oppressing, and of slaughter, and of evil up to "the coming of the Lord;" not an intimation does he give of any triumph of righteousness before that. The apostle John likewise says (1 John ii. 18), "Little children, it is the last time and as ye have heard that [the] Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time." This testimony is peculiarly important. What was to the apostle the testimony that "the last time"-that time which continues still and will continue unto the coming of the Lord-had commenced ? Was it that good was increasing? Nay; but that many Antichrists had sprung up, the coming of whom led the apostle onward to the Antichrist, who shall be the great consummator of evil before the coming of the Lord.

These are not a few consenting testimonies; all agree in this solemnly important truth. Our Lord taught it; and the Spirit of God by Paul, Peter, Jude, James, and John, five of the holy apostles, has confirmed it-that the latter days will be days of evil, is thus a truth not learned merely from one testimony in one portion of the word (although this would be ample enough for a saint to rest upon), but upon the accordance of many witnesses; it is a testimony clearly stated, manifesting what the present darkness is, and giving us to see how vast must be the brightness of the glory of our blessed Lord, who by his coming will dispel the deep gloom of the present "night." Then, and not till then, will blessing be universal; so that "the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.'

Before passing onward to the direct testimony of the word to the Man of Sin, it will be well to refer to a passage which briefly states the principle which is shewn by the Scriptures already quoted :-"When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed for ever" (Psa. xcii. 7). This is a direct statement of those dealings of God which are revealed in the Scripture, but which are yet unfulfilled: evil has not yet risen to its height; the Man of Sin is not yet manifested in all the energy of Satan; but when the wicked shall thus flourish, it is that they may be destroyed for ever.

The following is a brief recapitulation of a few of the testimonies respecting the character of this dispensation:

I. Our Lord instructs us that the world will continue to be that in which the saints are, but of which they are not to be, up to the time when He cometh again. II. Our Lord tells us of tares and wheat until the harvest. He teaches us that the way to destruction is that which is found by the many, while but few go in the narrow way that leadeth unto life.

III. The apostle Paul, 2 Timothy iii., warns us of "perilous times" in the latter days.

IV. The apostle John speaks of "many Antichrists" being an indication of the "last time."

"unto the coming of

V. The apostle James calls on the brethren to be patient the Lord," in the midst of extortion, slaughter, and oppression. VI. The apostle Peter forewarns of "scoffers in the last days, who shall walk after their own lusts."

VII. Such likewise is the testimony of the apostle Jude, who also speaks expressly of the coming of the Lord, and nothing short of it putting an end to the overwhelming of evil.

Thus we have our Lord's instruction, both by parable and by direct teaching, together with the testimony of every one of his apostles who have given us any written instruction-all consenting in describing this dispensation to be one in which there is evil both in the course and in the consummation.

§ 2. THE PERSON AND ACTINGS OF THE MAN OF SIN.

Resting, then, upon the fact of the character of the present dispensation being thus shewn, I will pass on to the direct testimony of Scripture concerning that person who shall, in the consummation, be the head of evil in the world, in opposition to the Lord and his right.