What Does 2 Thessalonians 2:10 Mean?

(10) **And with all deceivableness.**—“Deceivableness” does not mean “readiness to *be deceived,” *but, according to old English usage, has an active meaning; the words include and expand the list just given “in all sham power and signs and wonders, and, in fact, in every iniquitous fraud.” **In them that perish.**—Rather, *for them.* These are not the persons who exercise the fraud, but the objects of it. The word depends not only on “deceivableness,” but on the whole sentence:” his coming (for them) is,” *&c.* St. Paul adds the words as a consolation to “them that are saved”: it will not be possible to seduce the elect (Mark 13:22). “They that perish” (1Corinthians 1:18; 2Corinthians 2:15; 2Corinthians 4:3; comp. also Acts 2:47) is a phrase which contains no reference whatever to the doctrine of predestination, but merely describes the class; the men who let themselves be thus duped are, as a plain matter of fact, in course of perishing. **Because.**—Here does come in the question of God’s decree. The phrase rendered “because” means “in requital of the fact that,” which at once implies that their being duped by Antichrist’s coming is a judicial visitation. (See next verse.) “They did not receive,” *i.e.*, it was offered them, and they refused it; not, as Calvinism would teach, because it was not given them. The grace of *love* of the truth is offered us along with every new presentment of truth; if we are too indolent to examine whether it be truth, we are rejecting the *love* of the truth. This is a worse thing than not accepting the truth itself: if they had only aspired to know what *was* the truth they would have been saved, even if, in fact, they had been in error.