The term “Son of Perdition” occurs three times in the Bible and is a name given to Judas Iscariot in Matt. 23:15 and John 17:12 and given to an end time figure some associate with 1 John’s “antichrist” in 2 Thess. 2:3.
The noun ‘perdition’ (Greek ἀπώλεια apṓleia) simply means destruction or utter loss. It is a common Greek term and occurs 19 times in the Greek New Testament and 72 times in the Greek Old Testament, in many contexts but all with the same basic meaning.
The term “man of sin” however is only used once:
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, the son of perdition; (2 Thessalonians 2:3 KJV)
This has an application first and foremost to the “falling away” that Paul expects to happen in the church after his death. This falling away, (Greek ἀποστασία apostasia) was ironically what Paul himself had been accused of in Acts 21:21 where the Jewish elders of the Jerusalem church were concerned of hearing accusations Paul of teaching the Jews living outside Judea to forsake the Law of Moses – which in fact, when all is said and done, in effect he did.
It seems most consistent with the rest of New Testament teaching to see this “man of sin” as a personification of corruption in the church rather than an actual single individual. And there is certainly no connection to any fallen angel or literal devil made by Paul in 2 Thessalonians. Nor does the Bible teach these things.
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