The following is my reply in a short online discussion regarding the end times with a Dispensational Premillennial brother of mine:
2 Thess. 2:7 (ESV) For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.
My Dispensational friend: "The best literal interpretation of this [2 Thess. 2:7] seems to be that the 'He' is the Spirit and His removal would require all believers to be removed."
My reply: The “he” of 2 Thess. 2:7 is actually neuter in the Greek text (τὸ κατέχον, to katechon) and not masculine. This neuter term is consistent with the wording of 2:6: “And you know what is restraining him now…” (ESV, emphasis added). If Paul was, in fact, speaking of the Holy Spirit, there were two occasions in a short span of text where he could easily have made his referent very clear, but he did not. In light of Paul’s intentionally vague language and specific terminology, I find it far from a settled conclusion that τὸ κατέχον here refers to the Holy Spirit.
Further, even if Paul is referring to the Holy Spirit (and I admit that to be a possible interpretation), I find no warrant here that this specific restraining ministry of the Holy Spirit is in any way connected with the presence or absence of believers in the world. Biblically speaking, the removal of the Holy Spirit’s restraining ministry does not require a rapture of believers out of the world.
Regarding a pretribulational rapture, I would urge you to consider the following verses from the same chapter that is under consideration in our discussion:
“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him [i.e., the rapture]…that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed…so that he takes his seat in the temple of God” (2 Thess. 2:1, 3-4, emphasis added).
These verses appear to clearly teach that the day of the rapture “will not come” until after the Antichrist is revealed. In Dispensational Premillennialism, it is commonly held that the Antichrist is revealed at the midpoint of the tribulation:
“He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing [of the temple] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him” (Dan. 9:27, NIV, emphasis added).
If the Antichrist is revealed at the midpoint of the tribulation period, and the rapture does not occur until some time after this, how is it possible, then, to hold to a pretribulational rapture?
Further, there is nothing in this passage (or any other NT passage) that would indicate two second comings of Christ, separated by a period of seven years. To the contrary, the rapture event and the second coming are intertwined in 2 Thess. 2. Paul is teaching that when “the day of the Lord” comes (2:2), Christ will both “gather” His elect (2:1) and “kill [the Antichrist] with the breath of his mouth and bring [him] to nothing by the appearance of his coming” (2:8).
Although I am neither a Dispensationalist nor premillennial in my beliefs, I always appreciate discussion of the Word!
Much love in Christ our Lord,
John
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