This is what Paul stated.
II Thessalonians 2:3 "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come , except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;"
Just because you and others want to believe "falling away" means departing from this earth doesn't make it so. The 646 Greek word apostasia- means defection from truth, falling away, forsake. If you want to add departing to that, it would still mean departing from the truth.
Paul later teaches about not receiving the love of this very truth.
II Thessalonians 2:10 "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth,"
II Thessalonians 2:11 "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie;
II Thessalonians 2:12 "That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
There's a fake christ that eventually will be on the horizon. He comes before Christ. If you don't want to accept the truth of that you are in danger of "falling away" to the fake one. The warnings Christ and Paul are very serious. "Falling away" means defection from the truth. These are Christian people because they obviously once had the truth but will fall away from that. Unsaved people having nothing to fall away from.
This has nothing to do with the holy spirt. The holy spirit will always be here until Christ returns. Some will even be delivered up as Christ taught and it will be the Holy Spirit that speaks through them.
The only thing stopping Satan is the battle at the appointed time with Michael and his angels.
Paul teaches us that we have to have the full armour on to battle Satan and to be able to stand in that evil "day" He does not teach us that we will be flying away. Quite the opposite and this goes hand in hand with Christ's teaching that those that endure to the end, the same shall be saved.
This is what Paul stated. No, you wrote what the KJV translated.
This is much closer:
II Thessalonians 2:3 "Let no man deceive you by any means: for ... except there come a apostasia first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;"
I think we can agree on everything but the Greek word, apostasia. That is where our disagreement comes.
Here is how several of the first translations into English put it:
1534 Tyndale N.T.
Let no ma deceave you by eny meanes for the lorde commeth not excepte ther come a departynge fyrst and that that synfnll man be opened ye sonne of perdicion
1535 Coverdale Bible
Let no man disceaue you by eny meanes. For the LORDE commeth not, excepte the departynge come first, and that Man of Synne be opened, even the sonne of perdicion.
1539 Cranmer Great Bible
Let no man deceaue you by any meanes, for the Lorde shall not come excepte there come a departinge fyrst, & that that synfull man be opened, the sonne of perdicion.
1549 Matthew's Bible
Let no man deceyue you by any meanes, for the Lord commeth not, except there come a departyng first, and that, that sinful man be opened, the sonne of perdicyon
1565 Beza Bible
Let no man deceiue you by any meanes: for [that day shall not come,] except there come a departing first, and that man of sinne be disclosed, [euen] the son of perdition.
1575 Geneva Bible
Let no man deceiue you by any meanes for that day shal not come, except there come a departing first, and that man of sinne be disclosed, euen the sonne of perdition.
The 646 Greek word apostasia- means defection from truth Sorry, but you only THINK this is truth; it is not. There is nothing in the Greek word to give any hint as to what is being departed from what? All we can know is that there is a departing.
Apostasia is a compound word: Apo and Stasia
The question is, what do each of these Greek words mean in English?
Here is what STrong's says about "apo:
"of separation
...oflocal separation,
....after verbs of motion from a place i.e. of departing, of fleeing,...
of separation of a part from the whole
...where of a whole some part is taken
of any kind of separation of one thing from another by which the union or fellowship of the two is destroyed
of a state of separation, that is of distance
...physical, of distance of place
At the rapture, will some part of the entire population be taken? You know the answer is YES.
Will those taken be separated by DISTANCE? Again the answer is YES.
The other part of the compound word 'stasia" is where we get "stationary" or "not moving" from.
Putting these two words together then can certainly mean a part of a whole group suddenly moved from where they were to a new location, and it happen so fast, the rest of the whole group seems stationary - not moving.
However, to get the whole picture, we must consider the entire passage, and not just pull a word or a verse out of its context.
First, Paul's THEME: the coming and gathering. Therefore, somewhere in this passage we must find the gathering.
In vese 6 Paul said, "and now you know what is restraining....
So the correct theory must cause people to KNOW who or what the restrainer is.
Question: in your theory, DO YOU KNOW who is the restrainer? Or do you just guess?
In verses 6-8 Paul makes it very sure that the man of sin is being restrained, under restraint - some power is holding him back and preventing him from being revealed before the right time. ONLY GOD knows the right time, so right off we might suspect it is GOD who is restraining.
Next, Paul teaches us that at the right time, the power restraining or holding back the man of sin will be "taken out of the way." That means, the restraining power is no longer present on earth to restrain, so the man of sin will soon after be revealed as the man of sin.
Any other theory will be pulling words or verses out of their context.
Now I await your answer as to is the man of sin revealed in 3b.
