<p>2:6 <i>And now you know what is restraining him now, that he may be revealed in his own time</i>- This restraining influence was known by the Thessalonians; it lay within the range of their experience. That is significant in our attempt to interpret this difficult question as to who or what the restraining influence refers to.</p><p>&ldquo;Restraining&rdquo; is also translated as &ldquo;stand fast&rdquo; and also &ldquo;keep hold&rdquo;, often in the context of resisting Judaist infiltration by retaining true doctrine. This would imply that the spiritually strong within the ecclesias were withholding the revealing of the man of sin and the Lord&rsquo;s return (&ldquo;that he might be revealed in his time&rdquo; can neatly refer to either, cp. 1 Tim. 6:15). However, it was only a matter of time before the falling away was so widespread that they would be &ldquo;taken out of the way&rdquo;; &ldquo;for the mystery of iniquity (literally &lsquo;law&ndash;breaking&rsquo;, another pun on the Judaizers&rsquo; position) doth already work&rdquo; (v.7). This is the opposite to &ldquo;the mystery of Godliness&rdquo; (1 Tim. 3:16), and refers to the Judaizers claiming to be so spiritually deep that the Truth was a &ldquo;mystery&rdquo; known only to them (cp. Jude 19; Rev. 2:24). That which hindered the revealing or coming (cp. 1:7; a false second coming) of the man of sin would be taken out of the way. &ldquo;Out of the way&rdquo; here is normally translated &ldquo;from among them&rdquo; &ndash; the spiritually minded members of the ecclesia were to be taken away, so that God&rsquo;s punishments could come upon the rest of them. In the first century this was shown in the command for the faithful to flee the Jerusalem ecclesia (Lk. 21:21), to come out of Babylon (Rev. 18:4), which is a common symbol of Israel and apostate Jewry in the prophets. The word for &ldquo;mystery&rdquo; is also used in a negative sense in Rev. 17:5,7 concerning the woman of sin riding the beast &ndash; hinting at a specific individual who will be the figurehead of the beast?</p><p>I suggested on :3 that what is in view, initially, in the first century context, was a coalition between Jewish and Roman forces of evil, culminating in the enthronement of a Nero like figure in the Jerusalem temple, proclaimed as the only object of worship, and thus closing down all the various idol cults. This coalition of Jews and Gentiles against the church would be a repetition of what happened to bring about the Lord's death, and the church would therefore fellowship His sufferings in this way. But that was restrained by the strong paganism of the population. Perhaps it was this which was initially in view; as well as political opposition to such an extent of Caesar worship and deification within the Roman leadership. There was indeed a movement against this development. But this was to be taken out of the way. The restraining nature of Roman civil law as it was then practiced was well known to the Thessalonians, for it was this which had saved Paul from being lynched at Thessalonica (Acts 17:6,9).</p><p>We can only speculate what the restraining influence may be in the last days. It could simply be God's desire to delay the Lord's coming so that more may get a chance to repent. Even in the first century, there was this element of Divine delay (2 Pet. 3:9).</p>