Who is the restrainer?

I realize than many of you may not even know what that question is about. Those of you who are familiar with eschatology, the study of the end times, do know. The restrainer is mentioned on 2nd Thessalonians, chapter 2.

2 Thess 2:1-12
2:1 Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. 5 Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?

6 And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he may be revealed.

7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. 8 And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; 9 that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, 10 and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

Hopefully, that passage is somewhat familiar to you, but let's note some key things from it:

V1.  Regards the coming of Jesus, and our gathering to Him (the so called rapture, I assume)

V2,V3 Warning not to be mislead or deceived about it.

V3 That day will not come (What day? I am assuming the "that day" refers to the Day of the Lord, but Paul seems to be focusing more on the coming of the Lord to gather us to him, it matters little, for our purposes here) before the apostasy comes, and the man of lawlessness is revealed.

V4 This man will set himself up in God's temple, exhalting himself over all that is worshipped and claims to be God.

To summarize the above in one sentence, Jesus will not return (for whichever purpose is pictured) here until the man of lawlessness is revealed.

V6 You know what restrains him now so that in his time he may be revealed.

Now, who is going to be revealed in verse 6? Who was Paul just talking about? The man of lawlessness, who will be revealed, in his time. Something though, is holding this man back, something is restraining this from happening. This is what I want to look at. Those who are familiar with the debates over the timing or sequence of our Lord's return, are familiar with the restrainer. It is often said, the the restrainer is the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit must be removed from the earth, before this man of lawlessness can be revealed. It is suggested, that when the church is gathered to Jesus in the rapture, that the Holy Spirit will then be absent, in as much as He inhabits each believer. Therefore, it is said, the rapture takes place first, then the man of lawlessness can appear. In as much as Paul does not say the the restrainer is the Holy Spirit, those who assume this to be the case, are just making a guess, and as near as I can determine, the guess is baseless, although it may be correct..

Now, to be fair, Paul is talking about the day of the Lord immediately before talking about the revelation of the man of lawlessness. Yet Paul refers to the gathering to Jesus and the Day of the Lord, in one breath, no implication that there is a separation of significant time between those events. In fact, borrowing a snippet from The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, we read the following:

DAY OF THE LORD
For on that day Christ will raise the dead, especially His own dead, the bodies of those that believed in Him - "that of all that which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day" (John 6:39). In that day He comes to His own (Matt 16:27), and therefore it is called "the day of our Lord Jesus" (2 Cor 1:14),"the day of Jesus Christ" or "of Christ" (Phil 1:6,10), the day when there "shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven" (Matt 24:30).
(from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia)  

As you can see, the Day of the Lord is recognized as being directly associated with Christ's return, the resurrection of believers, which, according to Paul, happens before the so called rapture.

(1 Thess 4:16-17
the dead in Christ shall rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.)

Going  forward then, we can see that this man of lawlessness is revealed before the rapture takes place. However, this study is not about the timing of the rapture, or the sequence of related events, but only an examination of the identity of the "restrainer", so let's continue.

As we have noted, many believe that the restrainer is the Holy Spirit. Others have suggested that the restrainer is the Roman state, the emperor of Rome, Paul’s missionary work, the Jewish state, the influence of the church,or the principle of law and government embodied in the state have all been advanced as the identity of the restrainer of lawlessness.

I want to do something a little different. Let's, just for fun, see if the Bible itself might give us a clue as to who or what the restrainer is. What if it is not the Holy Spirit? What can we know just with a little thinking on it? The language of the verse, relates that this lawless one's appearance, is being restrained. Clearly, this is a Spiritual battle of some sort. We are not talking about someone on earth, holding back another on earth, as this event is in the future (the revelation of the lawless one) yet the restraint is in the present as of when Paul penned those words, and apparently continues to this day. So, I think we have to assume, the we are talking of preventing this event from transpiring, through some event(s) in the spiritual realm. The Holy Spirit certainly qualifies in this respect, but is He the only possible candidate? Are there other spiritual beings who can engage in battle or conflict, behind the scenes in the spiritual realm?

Rev 12:1-6
12:1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; 2 and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. 3 And another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. 4 And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven, and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. 5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. 6 And the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she might be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

Now, I am not an expert on the book of Revelation, to be honest, I am intimidated by it! However, aside from it's obviously prophetic and symbolic content, there are things that seem pretty clear. So, on this passage, I will go out on a limb and say that it seems pretty apparent, what this verse is talking about, following, are my guesses.

I am thinking, that the woman with the the 12 stars, is symbolic of Israel, the twelve stars being the 12 tribes. She is with child, and brings forth a son who is to rule all the nations. The son, it seems to me, is our Lord and savior, Jesus the Christ, Y'shua ha messiach. The dragon is identified as Satan, and Satan is obviously an enemy of Jesus, and to Israel. This dragon, Satan, sweeps away one third of the stars (angels) of heaven, and throws them to earth. Mentioned also, is Israel fleeing to hide in the wilderness for 1260 days. This 1260, is the second half, of Daniel's seventieth week. People refer to the 7 year tribulation, but if you pay attention, the tribulation is only 3 1/2 years, it is the second half of Daniel's 70th week, the first half, is a time of peace and safety, as the anti-christ is deceiving the world. I am going through these events in rapid order, assuming that most here, are already familiar with these things. If you are not, I apologize, but a detailed analysis of the end times is not my goal here, exploring the identity of the restrainer is, so this is just background information here.

Rev 12:7-10
7 And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. And the dragon and his angels waged war, 8 and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Now, in the above passage, we indeed see a spiritual battle, between spiritual beings, in this case, Michael and the angels who were with him, were battling Satan and his angels. Satan and his gang, were not able to defeat Michael and his army.

Rev 12:13-14
13 And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. 14 And the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, in order that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.

So, to summarize what we have so far in these passages in Revelation, there will come a time, when Michael, being at war in heaven, with Satan, casts Satan down to the earth. Satan, persecutes Israel, for 3 1/2 years, during the tribulation time. Now, I have already mentioned Daniel's 70th week, Jesus in fact, told the disciples to understand what was spoken by Daniel, concerning these times, so let's see what Daniel had to say that relates to what we have been talking about. I suggest that you read and attempt to understand Daniel, chapters 10 through 12, many things will fall into place for you, especially when you realize or recognize, that prophecy has multiple fulfillments. Often, there is a prophecy, which has a historical fulfillment, followed later by another fulfillment, of greater significance. It is almost like a preview. I believe this happens in these chapters. I cannot get into that now, I need to move along, but check out those chapters later at your leisure.

Dan 12:1-2
12:1 "Now at that time Michael , the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. 2 "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.

Now, clearly, this is looking forward to the Great Tribulation, spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24, in that passage, Jesus mentioned the events in the book of Daniel. In a moment, we will look at Matt 24 to see the connection. For now,  observe how Jesus begins His discourse:

³ As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately and said, “Tell us, when will this happen, and what sign will there be of your coming, and of the end of the age." ⁴ Jesus said to them in reply, “See that no one deceives you."

He began with a warning about deception. Deception will be the an earmark of the last times. In the passage we looked at first, Paul said:

"Let no one in any way deceive you".

He also told Timothy that the last days would be terrible and dangerous, and that a time would come when people would not endure sound teaching, but but would instead, seek out teachers to tell them, what they want to hear, turning from the truth to myths. Since deception is to be expected, we need to be diligent, to compare teachings of men with the Word of God. So, I suggest to you, that you be suspicious of any teaching, including my own. This teaching on the restrainer, is a result of my own suspicions, since I have run across no teaching in early church history, which equates the retrainer to the Holy Spirit, so my goal here is to see if the Bible might offer more likely alternatives. Sorry for the diversion, on to the comparison of Matt 24 and Daniel.

Now, we just saw that there is this period of time coming, which Jesus said would be one of great tribulation, and that He pointed us to the book of Daniel, which also mentions this peoriod of trouble such as the world has never seen. The similarity of the language here, is unmistakeable, and indeed, in as much as Jesus said to look to Daniel, we must be talking of the same period.

Now, in the Matt 24 passage, Jesus is answering a question about His return, and the end of the age. He makes clear, that that will not happen, before the abomination of desoloation takes place. Looking to Daniel as Jesus instructed, we see this same time frame, and we see the mention of Michael, just as we did before when we looked at Revelation 12.

Although it is not clearly the case here, Daniel seems to have the rapture occuring after this period of great tribulation. What Daniel lacks in clarity, is resolved in the New Testament. Compare the following:

Now, this is going a bit off track, studies in eschatology have always been hard for me to keep focused, but note the common agreement here. Daniel notes that there will be those who are resurrected, and implies that it is after the tribulation. He separates them into two groups, those who are resurrected to life, and those who are resurrected to everlasting contempt.

Paul mentions the resurection also, in Pauls version, it is clear that it is the dead in Christ who are raised before the living Christians are raptured.

John brings it all together in the book of Revelation, and informs us, that those who are the dead in Christ who are later resurrected, are resurrected after the great tribulation.

We have had to go through these varied passages  because as we have noted, it is widely believed that the restrainer is the Holy Spirit.  It is said, that the restrainer will be gone during the great tribulation, because the church has left in the rapture. Now, we have seen rapture is after the tribulation, there is no necessity to assume that the restrainer is the Holy Spirit, in as much as the church is still here during the tribulation. The restrainer passage, does not require that the restrainer, who ever he is, be absent, only that he no longer restrains the antichrist.

So, these passages and the others indicate that the sequence is that things will be normal for a long time, but certain signs mentioned by Jesus in Matt 24 will come to pass, and then the restraint will be removed, the great tribulation follows and after that the first ressurection of the dead in Christ, then the rapture of believers, followed by the millenium.

So, back to our original question, who is the restrainer?

Let's review:

2 Thess 2

antichrist sits in the temple, showing himself to be God, after he is no longer restrained

Rev 12

Michael wages war with Satan, and casts him to the earth. Satan then persecutes Israel.

Daniel 12

Michael is identified as the guardian of Israel

Since Micheal is the guardian of Israel, and in as much as he casts Satan to earth and then the tribulation begins, is it a stretch to think than maybe, Michael, by waging war with Satan, is the one restraining Satan until the proper time, when Satan is cast to the earth and begins the persecution?

Rev 13

1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. 2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. 3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? 5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

In Rev 13, we see Satan (the dragon) giving power to his antichrist, and this power lasts 42 months, (3 1/2) years, same length as the tribulation, not much doubt about who the players are, and what the time frame is.

This examination is only educated speculation, but in my opinion, the evidence is far better for the restrainer being Micheal, than it is for any other individual we might consider. I hope you found this interesting. Thanks for attending.