06_06 Preconceptions Block Correct Interpretation

Preconceptions Block Correct Interpretation.
Introduction: Some of the dogma taught by many, many denominations is based on pure preconception! Learn its definition, and remember it well! You will find yourself applying it more often than you might think, once your eyes are opened.  Preconception is a major tool of deception!
Scripture Text: 2 Thessalonians 2:8, 9.
Title: Preconceptions Block Correct Interpretations.
Today we are going to look into why we have some portions of the Bible that are hard to understand, even now, when we know so very much of the Bible’s doctrines or teachings. Here is the problem that is the culprit in many of those texts. It can be defined with one single word. Preconception. This is another principle to cement into your memory (re-read above).
Dictionary definition? “An idea or opinion formed or conceived in advance of careful investigation.” Memorize it and watch for its occurrence!
Let’s look at two examples that illustrate my point, before we tackle our problem text, 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 8 and 9.
1st example. Why did the Advent Movement, headed by William Miller, incorrectly think that the cleansing of the Sanctuary (Daniel 8:14) was the cleansing of the world by fire at the Second Coming of Jesus? They all, including every Christian denomination, preconceived the idea that the world was the Sanctuary – a strange preconception indeed, yet so universally held that no one questioned it. Not even William Miller. He failed to apply to the word “Sanctuary,” this most important word to the unfolding of Daniel’s book, his famous Bible Study Method, “line upon line.” (Isaiah 28, verses 9 and 10 gives us this Holy Spirit prescription for correct Bible Study.) Only after the Great Disappointment, when Jesus didn’t come to earth on the day predicted by the prophecy, did God reveal to them their mistake, and the work of Jesus in the Sanctuary in heaven was unveiled.
Preconceptions cause us to fail to do good Bible Study!
Another example is a preconception forced onto a text. Revelation 1, verse 1. “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day.” What day is that? People, Satan is the author of many of our preconceptions. Through the Papacy, his falsehoods and outright lies are foisted on unsuspecting Christians as Bible truth. The Papacy, to uphold its attempt to change the Sabbath of the 4th Commandment to Sunday, has convinced millions of people that Sunday should be called “the Lord’s day” here in this text, and that it should be so honoured because Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week. Most people don’t even know that the keeping of Sabbath is a Commandment, not just an ordinance of the Jews.
So, by preconceiving that Sunday must, for the given reason, be the day of worship, almost all Christians have been deceived into sin – which the Bible defines as:
“transgression of the Law;” (breaking a Commandment of God!) 1 John 3: 4.
What is the “Lord’s day?” How do you find out? “Line upon line.” You compare Scripture with Scripture, using a Concordance. You look up “Lord’s day” under “day” – you won’t find it there – then under “Lord,” your key-words.
In the Concordance you will find the text “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2, verse 28. Don’t you think we had best believe in the Sabbath as the “Lord’s day,” if Jesus Himself says it is? Which day did He keep for worship??
That brings us to our text for today, Second Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, which we will attempt to make clear at last. There is something here in these verses that we should be looking for and expecting to happen. But we haven’t done our homework on this text, because of a preconception anciently foisted onto this text! The problems with this whole chapter are to do with a preconception which has caused interpretive decisions that fail to be true to the text! In every translation I looked at, the same thing is done.
The preconception is that the “man of sin,” (also referred to variously as “that  Wicked,” or, “the lawless one”) is yet to come; in the “coming” at the beginning of verse 9.
The main reason that the theory that there will soon be a seven-year Great Tribulation  has been embraced by Christianity, is that this pair of verses has been the cause of them believing that the “man of sin” is yet to come.
Adventists know that the “man of sin” is the Papacy. The bishop of Rome, way back in Constantine’s time (321 A.D.) was the first of the whole line of Roman Pontiffs, who were “…them that forsake the Holy Covenant,” Daniel 11:30. By 325 A.D. the bishop started worship of MARY, as an idol [image] as well as supporting the changing of the Sabbath Commandment, which is why the popes are styled “the man of sin.” To forsake the Holy Covenant is to forsake the Ten Commandment Law, which is in the ark of the Covenant.
That is still their great sin, and it has focused on the Fourth Commandment. (But keep in mind that they also removed [for their Catechism] the Second Commandment, to allow worship of their idol they made of MARY!).
Some time after 1798, Adventists realized that the 1260 day (year) prophecy against this power revealed the Papacy as not only the antichrist (1 John 2:22) but also “the man of sin,” (2 Thess. 2: 3, 4 and 8) and also the “little horn” of Daniel 7:25, and the “beast” of Revelation chapters 13 and 14!
There isn’t any “coming” of the “man of sin” in the future! Rather, It has been “revealed” (2 Thess. 2:8) that he was there all along, throughout the 1260 years, and even till now!
The Papacy has been revealed by the fact that his “deadly wound” was received in 1798, exactly 1260 years (42 months x 30 days-to-a-month = 1260 days) from when he was decreed “the corrector of heretics” by Roman Emperor Justinian, which became effective in 538 A.D. 1798, 1260 years later, was also when the “man of sin” was “taken out of the way!” – 2 Thess. 2, verse 7. It is thus he was “revealed!”
Since the “man of sin” already was in place since 538 A.D., well over 1000 years before the King James Version of the Bible was translated (1611) this chapter of the Bible was incorrectly translated, because of the preconception that the “man of sin” was yet to come.
Adventists need to correct this chapter’s wording and reveal it’s actual teaching. NOTE WELL – It has a warning for all upon whom the end time has come.
The theme of the whole chapter is outlined in verses 1 and 2. When will the Second Coming happen? Paul’s answer? “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…”
[Paul relates, continuing in v. 4, what must have been a vision he was given by God, that he had told them about, of the “man of sin.”]
To paraphrase v. 6, “Now you know what must happen first that will hold up the Second Coming of Jesus.” Then Paul uses a play on the word ‘revealed’ “…and now you know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.” Who will be revealed “in his time?” Jesus, or the “man of sin?” Jesus Himself told us that no one knows the day nor the hour of His Coming; so Paul expects us to come to the conclusion that he is referring to the “man of sin:” That’s why he uses the word ‘revealed’ again.
The “mystery of iniquity” is already at work in his time. (Why do wicked men put themselves “in the way” of Truth?)
Continuing to paraphrase the next part, “Only He [God] who now hinders the work of the ‘man of sin’ will continue to hinder that work, until the ‘man of sin’ will be taken out of the way” [in 1798, the 1260 day prophecy finally “revealed” him as the “man of sin” and  the “antichrist”]. “And then shall that Wicked be revealed – the “man of sin.” It is not Satan that he is referring to as “that Wicked.” Paul makes that clear when he says that this person will be destroyed with the brightness of the Second Coming of Jesus. (Satan will not be destroyed till the 3rd Coming of Jesus, at the end of the 1000 years).
At the end of verse 8, and the 4th word in verse 9, is the word “coming.” The word used in the Greek is “parousia” for both verses. This word is very often used as a technical term for Jesus’ Second Coming. There isn’t any “coming” (parousia) of the “man of sin” in the future. He was there all along! – throughout the 1260 years, and still today! So: verse 9 is still referring to Jesus, not to “that Wicked” (the “man of sin.”) The words “whose coming” (parousia) refers to the theme of the whole chapter
– When will the Second Coming happen?
The sense of verse 9, is entirely changed! It is not referring to the “man of sin,” in a future “coming.”
That is the preconception.
Now: let’s straighten it out. In the KJV, v. 7 is the key to correct translation of v. 9. The old English word “let” is not used in the way we do today, meaning “to allow or permit.” The Dictionary defines its use here under the sub-heading “archaic: To hinder; impede.” (see the NIV) With that correction, the verse tells us, “Only He [God] who now hinders the work of the ‘man of sin’ will continue to hinder that work, until the ‘man of sin’ will be taken out of the way. And then shall “…the man of sin be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.”
Next, in v. 9, “Even him” is added to the text – it is in italics. This is added in order to attach the erroneous preconception to this text. Strike those words out! They don’t belong there!
The three words – “whose coming is” are correct text. But the next word, “kata” in the Greek, which commonly means “according to,” thus KJV “after the working of,” here will have a different meaning, because of the context! In this usage, according to a Greek-English Lexicon, “after words and expressions that designate hostile speech” it means to be “against” someone! Because of the word “let” in v.7 – which means “to hinder” (hostile speech) – “against” is the correct word for this text!
The true meaning of the wording of verse 9 is that “the Second Coming of Jesus is against the working of Satan, whose working is with all power and signs and lying wonders.” Now we see a direct reference (that till now has been hidden behind a preconception) to Satan’s desperate final working with all of his power to deceive with signs and lying wonders! That is what will bring on the Second Coming of Jesus, to personally war against Satan. Satan’s wonders? See Rev. 13:13-15!
That is what we should be looking for and expecting to happen, that will bring on the Second Coming of Jesus! And how about this! I quote to you from the book Great Controversy, p. 624 “As the crowning act in the great drama of deception, Satan himself will personate Christ!” Read all about it in the book Great Controversy, p. 624! The TRUE prophet of the last days, says there, that Satan himself, in his assumed role as Jesus, causes all the world to institute a universal Sunday law. He declares “…that those who persist in keeping holy the seventh day are blaspheming his name by refusing to listen to his ‘angels’ sent to them with light and truth!”
This will be just before the close of probation. The universal Sunday law is not the opening event that causes the “Loud Cry” of the 3rd angel, but is the closing event, just before the close of probation! The opening event will be the enforced worship of the “image” of the beast – Revelation 13, verses 14 and 15 – Worship of this “image,” we will proclaim, is against the Second Commandment! This is an important part of our 3 Angel’s Message. Review the ‘type’ in Daniel chapter 3, of which this prediction is the anti-type! See also page 639 of the Vatican book, “The Keys of this Blood!”
Are you preparing for what is soon to come? Learn your Message!

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