CLAIM: The Second Coming will be preceded by a falling away from the faith and the rise of the “man of sin, the son of perdition” who is the Antichrist. A falling away of Christians in the future will be so widespread, that it is one of Paul’s primary signs of the nearness Jesus’ Second Coming.
Not Necessarily.
Paul seems to be building here on the same prophecies of Matthew 24 and elsewhere, that there will be the destruction of Jerusalem in fulfillment of all that was written, which will be followed some undisclosed time later by the Second coming (see the article on Eutheos and the other Matthew 24 discussions here and here). Since the word “Immediately”, as shown in the other articles, demonstrates that there is an implied gap, and that gap is an unknown duration since the hour is unknown, Paul first described the second coming in the prior chapter, and says that that, the Second Coming, cannot happen until the rebellion and the falling away.
This rebellion and falling away is considered to be the same rebellion and falling away of the many Jews in Jerusalem, or something similar. Since Paul does not give specific context to these verses, anything beyond what is written is merely interpretive, and not binding on our understanding. Since 2 Thessalonians 2:4 describes an Abomination type event, we understand it to be part of the 70AD events. Hence, the Man of Lawlessness (discussed here as well) is understood most likely to be the Levite Simon, the leader of the rebellion of the Jews during the siege of the city, who killed the high priest of the day, which was restraining their rebellion.
Many would like to connect this Man of Lawlessness to a future antichrist, but a further study of that reveals that, while there have and will be many antichrists, there is little textual support for a future super leader, as many have made him out to be. There will of course be horribly wicked men to come, just as Hitler and Stalin were, but, textually, there is no support for it (see here fore more study).
- JER 4
- EZE 19