"The Man of Sin" in Preterist Perspective

"Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God."
- II Thessalonians 2:1-4

Let me say up front that this is a difficult passage to interpret. I immediately grant that sincere brethren will disagree with the interpretation that I will give it here. And I am OK with that. I merely present some thoughts as possible, in the hope that it will provoke thought, not conflict.

The passage above is popular among dispensationalists, who equate "the man of lawlessness" (or "man of sin," KJV) with the so-called anti-Christ. I think that equation is unjustified, even apart from my denial of a personal anti-Christ. They do so simply on the presuppositions of their hermeneutic, not because of solid exegesis.

Let's go point by point. "The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." This is not the second coming. Rather, it is the next historical element in the salvation of God's people, His coming in judgment against their enemies, the apostate Jews, by means of the Romans and the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, and the sacrificial system in 70AD. "Our being gathered to Him," not in any supposed "Rapture," but in death or at His Second Advent. Paul is addressing an error here, in which some people were claiming that the resurrection and return of Jesus had already occurred, and the people to whom Paul wrote were left behind (pun intended). In other words, they had their own version of the full-preterist heresy, and Paul felt compelled to refute it. "For that will not come," Paul assures them (and us), "unless the rebellion comes first." What rebellion? While this is often explained as a general apostasy among professing Christians, there is no biblical support for such a thing. Can Jesus fail to keep His people (see Jude 1:24-25)? Rather, this is a rebellion, an apostasy, of the general population of Jews, which began with their rejection and murder of Jesus, and continued in their persecution, and even murder, of the Christians among them. God would judge them for that apostasy, removing their legal protections in the Empire, and bringing down the wrath of Rome upon their heads.

Therefore, it was Judaism that would be removed, allowing the revelation of the man of lawlessness. Under Roman law, the Jews had had certain legal privileges, privileges that extended to Christians, as long as they were considered a sect within Judaism. However, with the reversal of those privileges, the Christians no longer had that protective covering, and were thus exposed to the persecuting power of the Roman emperors, who were, successively, the Man of Lawlessness.