Page 45 - Watchman- What of the Night

masculine, HO KATECHON, (nominative singular of the present participle active)

and subject of the verb genetai―become, come into being. The same word for the
―withholder‖ or ―restrainer‖ is used in neuter and masculine genders respectively, as
occult or emerging into visibility. Such are the fine distinctions of the Greek language,
impossible in English.

―In fullness of time God sent forth His Son.‖ God who had existed in mysterious
transcendency, revealed Himself in manifest apparency when His appointed time
arrived. ―The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.‖ The divine order is first

mystery, then manifestation. First the lamb in mystery and then the lamb in
manifestation (John 1:29). First the kingdom in mystery and then the kingdom in
manifestation.
Satan as usual is an imitator. The ―mystery of iniquity‖ did already work in Paul‘s

time.
John tells us that in the first century many antichrists had already gone out. But as
in the case of the Son of God, the Son of Perdition will one day be manifest. But
Satan obscured the whole thing by causing the translators of II Thess. 2:7 to use the

expression ―until he be taken out of the way‖ which is the exact opposite of the true
meaning. The word here translated ―taken‖ is the Greek ginomai meaning ―to become,
i.e., to come into existence, begin to be, receive being‖, Thayer‘s first definitions),
otherwise ―to be appointed, constituted, established.‖ There is no suggestion of a

removal, but a coming into being. It is the same word used in connection with the
incarnation of Christ, ―The Word BECAME flesh, etc.‖ (John1:14). Beloved saints of
God, it is not the Holy Spirit in the church being removed from the earth, it is the
coming into being from the midst of the earth, of the Antichrist, the alter ego of Satan,

who has been withholding himself until lawlessness, man-glorification and
wickedness are so rife and rampant that they will ―wonderafter‖ and worship‖ the
Beast, whom he brings up from the abyss in the midst of the earth (Rev. 17:8). Verse
seven can be correctly translated: ―For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work,

only until presently the withholding one be come into being from the midst (of the
earth), (vs.8) and then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus will
consume with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy by the epiphany of His
parousia.‖

With this understanding the passage flows as smoothly as a river and everything fits
the context. Satan and Antichrist are the subjects of the passage and the Holy Spirit
only appears as the ―Spirit of His mouth,‖ to accomplish the destruction of the lawless
one.

Thus the Golden Text of the pre-tribulation rapturist is seen to mean something

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