Dear Steve,
I hope you find the following excerpt helpful.
A Friend
-------------THE PROMISE OF THE RAPTUREBernard E. Northrup Th.D.
2. During hee apostosia, actually time of our departure (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3)
One of the most painful pieces of Bible translation that the one who is interested in eschatology can find is the way that practically all translators have treated 2 Thessalonians 2:3. It is in their translating hee apostosia as "a [religious] falling away." In the first place the Greek definite article, hee, , "the" has been ignored or mistranslated by the indefinite article "a" in English by most translators. That would seem to be an insignificant change at first. However, the definite article repeatedly is used as an article of previous reference. That is, it tells us that the noun that follows the article refers to a previous mention of the same subject. In other words, the reader is told by the definite article to look for the same subject earlier discussed by hee apostosia in the immediately preceding context. The significance of the mistake of ignoring the definite article will become obvious in the following discussion.
The second problem in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 is the fact that the translators have assumed that the noun apostosia is being used in an extended meaning, and not in its basic meaning, "departure." It has been translated "a falling away" in the King James Bible. The New American Standard Bible transliterates the noun into English letters, "apostasy," thus suggesting that the word refers the departure of a believer from the truth. This improves the reading only in that the definite article is acknowledged and is correctly translated by the English article, "the." But to what previous reference to "the departure from the truth" is there in the previous context of this book? There is none. And that raises serious question concerning the accuracy of the translation of the noun and article, hee apostosia by "the apostasy." The New International Version provides a translation that has somewhat better possibility of being accurate. It renders the noun "the rebellion." I say that it has somewhat better possibility since there are obvious signs of rebellion in chapter one. However the question must be asked, "Is "the rebellion" really a valid translation of hee apostosia ? Is this a word that properly is applied to the rebellion of the unsaved against the Lord Jesus Christ? Would it not be more appropriately used of the departure of those involved in the faith from their Biblical foundations? But is that the meaning?
Now there are several verses in the New Testament that clearly do announce that in the latter days there will be much religious apostasy. Indeed, that is precisely the case in the much of the Church today. But, by assuming that the Greek noun was referring to religious apostasy, the going away from the faith, the translators have ignored the possibility that the noun is being used in its basic meaning instead of its extended meaning. The noun actually is used in its basic meaning in four other passages in the New Testament. It is amazing to see modern day translators misunderstanding the meaning of the noun when both Tyndale and Cloverdale long ago properly translated the phrase simply as "the departure." And here is the basic and common meaning of the noun in Greek useage.
Is there a departure mentioned in the preceding context to which the article of previous reference could be pointing? Indeed, there is, and it is only two verses before. For this reason I reject the translation of hee apostosia in ways that imply that the noun as used here refers to religious apostasy. After all, the antecedent "going away" or "departure" in 2 Thessalonians 2:1 specifically refers to the going away of the Church in "the up-gathering-together" of the saints of the Church. For this reason I insist that 2 Thessalonians 2:3 must be referring to the rapture and that the verse should be translated in this way. "Let no man deceive you by any means [including the mistranslating of he apostosia], for that day will not come [i.e., the day of the Lord] except the previously mentioned going away comes first and the man of lawlessness comes to be revealed, the son of perdition." Properly understood the verse perfectly harmonizes with Paul's comforting assurance in the first verse of the chapter that the believers at Thessalonica were not already in the day of the Lord. Indeed, verse three gives the basis for that assurance. Paul clearly is saying that the day of the Lord and the manifestation of the man of sin in the day of the Lord cannot possibly arrive before the going away of the Church in the "up gathering together," the rapture of the Church. What a pity that this great truth has been lost for so many in the Church as a result of the amillennial translators who refused the accurate work of Tyndale and Cloverdale because they did not even believe in the rapture, with the result that they rendered he apostosia as "a falling away."
REMEMBER WHEN I TAUGHT YOU THESE THINGS? (2 Thessalonians 2:5)
No sooner has Paul re-taught these things to the Thessalonian church than he reminds them that they had heard these truths before from his own lips.
"Don't you remember that even while I still was with you, I used to tell you these things?" (2 Thessalonians 2:5).
The impact of Paul's rebuke stings even more when one realizes that he carefully had taught these things again to that church in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5. How sad it is that the Church today, often like the church at Thessalonica, needs to be reminded and rebuked for their careless treatment of this great eschatological truth. It clearly promises the departure and deliverance of the Church of Jesus Christ from the terrors of the seven years and from all of the tribulation which faces the world, tribulation which will be climaxed by the glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ with all of His saints to earth.
CONCLUSION
One of the great tragedies of Bible translation is the mistake made by the English Catholic translators when they translated hee apostosia by "apostasy." That error has been followed by scores of other translators in the centuries that have followed. That has resulted in the obscuring of Paul's very precise explanation of the time when the rapture would take place has resulted in tragic confusion among those who, contrary to Paul's explicit statement, want to expect the rapture at mid-tribulation or at the end of the tribulation. Of course that in turn has resulted in a continually growing host of confused believers who no longer live their lives in the constant expectation of Christ's return in the air at any moment for the Church. Indeed, the translation of hee apostosia in such a way that it refers only to rising religious apostasy has left multitudes of believers open to that confusion which denies the pre-tribulation rapture of the Church. While several texts of Scripture do teach that the Church will degenerate in its faith and practice in the latter days, Second Thessalonians 2:3 is in a context which has nothing to do with religious apostasy. The article that accompanies apostosia in that text, ignored in many translations, is the key. This article of previous reference directly links "the departure" in that verse with the previous mention of the departure of the Church in "our up-gathering-together." It leaves no doubt whatsoever that the departure of the Church must precede the events which start the Day of the Lord, an extended period which will begin with the tribulation, the time of Jacob's troubles.