2 Thessalonians 2:5-6
What is written? (ESV)
Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.
What does it say?
Have you forgotten what I [Paul] told you when I was with you? You already know what’s holding him [man of lawlessness] back until the proper time.
What is its immediate context?
Paul’s second letter to the church at Thessalonica sometime before for the First Jewish-Roman War when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed. He is assuring them that “the day of the Lord” has not come yet (vs 2), and won’t before two things happen: “the rebellion” and the revealing of the “man of lawlessness” (vs 3). More broadly, the Thessalonians in particular were being told by false teachers that Jesus had already returned and were afraid that they had somehow missed it and that those Christians they knew that had died would not be raised anew (1 Th 4:13ff).
