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made by the Lord.” 92
Power to perform miraculous deeds
While there are obvious distinctions between Christ and the Antichrist,
there are certain parallels. Both have power. Christ has power as true God from all eternity.
The Antichrist’s power comes from Satan. Although he is not omnipotent, Satan does have
supernatural power. By providing the Antichrist with power he misleads people into thinking
that the Antichrist is a servant of God.
The words that Paul uses to describe the lawless one are δυνάμει καὶ σημείοις καὶ τέρασιν
(“deed of power and signs and miracles”). These are all terms used in the gospels in reference
the miracles of Jesus. In his address to the crowd at Pentecost, Peter uses the three terms to
describe Jesus: “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to
you by miracles, wonders and signs [δυνάμεσι καὶ τέρασι καὶ σημείοις], which God did among
you through him, as you yourselves know” (Ac 2:22). The phraseology here in 2 Thessalonians,
however, is slightly different. Lenski calls to attention the singular use of δυνάμει and notes that
only the plural form δυνάμεις is designated as works of divine omnipotence. “Such works are
beyond Satan and the Antichrist who follows Satan’s norm. Satan has power, and his power
works with this greatest tool of his, but his power is not omnipresence, nor can it perform
δυνάμεις, genuine ‘power works,’ genuine miracles.” 93
Yet here the wonders of the man of
lawlessness are powered by the devil. More parallelism is found in John’s Revelation describing
the second beast, the beast from the earth:
He [the beast coming out of the earth] exercised all the authority of the first beast on his
behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound
had been healed. And he performed great and miraculous signs,…because of the signs he
was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth
(Rev 13:12,13a,14a).
91 “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the
man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction”; “And now you know what is holding him back, so
that he may be revealed at the proper time”; “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will
overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.”
92 R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to
Timothy, to Titus and to Philemon (Minneapolis, MN: The Wartburg Press, 1946), 425.
93 Ibid., 426.
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