Why did God allow heinous acts of lawlessness to happen?
The Apostle Paul spoke of the lawlessness this represented as the “Mystery of Iniquity”
In 2 Thessalonians 2:7.
“For the mystery of iniquity is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.”
The so-called “Mystery of Iniquity” is the underlying force of lawlessness and rebellion against God that is already at work in the world, and it is closely linked to the “spirit of the antichrist” because this spirit embodies and promotes that same lawlessness, ultimately culminating in the full revelation of the Antichrist at the beginning of the 7-year Tribulation as described in scripture.
Allowing this lawlessness is part of God plan to ultimately defeat Satan. We are told this lawlessness will only get worse over time and Jesus likened it to a woman having birth pangs. The frequency and severity over time only gets more and more intense until she delivers one with an evil spirit that Satan gives his power to. Scripture calls this man anti-Christ. He will do miraculous wonders and the entire world will be deceived into worshipping him. Satan, the Anti-Christ along with the False Prophet will form an unholy trinity that will deceive the whole world leading up to Armageddon and the second coming of Jesus Christ.
This iniquity is a mystery to us because we know it did not come from God and was already in the world when God created Adam and Eve. We are told in Scripture of one of God’s created beings, an guardian angel named Lucifer who held the high position of the “Cherub that covers the throne of God”. He became full of pride due to his great beauty and the abundance of his trade willed himself to be like God and wanted to sit on his own throne in the Third Heaven and to be worshipped as god. He sinned and became Satan and he took one third of the angels with him when he was thrown out of the Third Heaven.
Thus began a spiritual war between God’s forces and those of Satan with mankind in the middle of it. Satan works to thwart God’s plans for each one of us and it started in the Garden of Eden on that fateful day when Satan, through the serpent, spoke to Eve.
In Ephesians 6:12, Paul states, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
The struggle against this iniquity is not merely a physical conflict with those who are influenced by Satan but a spiritual one as well. It involves unseen forces and powers at work behind the scenes, opposing God’s righteousness and seeking to deceive humanity into turning against God.
Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents was orchestrated by Satan and carried out as an act of this iniquity, but his plan to rid the world of the Messiah was thwarted when God intervened to protect His Son to that He could fulfill His greater purpose of securing our salvation.
In the book of Revelation we see this event of Herod seeking to destroy Jesus described as spiritual warfare against mankind. In these verses, the woman with garland of 12 stars about her head symbolizes Israel. The woman’s Child is the seed promised to Abraham that was to bless the entire world. Satan, symbolized by the dragon who rules over the world powers influenced his followers at this time (The Roman kingdom’s servants King Herod and Israel’s religious authorities) to devour (kill) the Child (Jesus) as soon as He was born.
This failed because God intervened to stop them but Satan continued to work to undermine His ministry and influenced Israel’s leaders to seek to kill Him and eventually succeeded in influencing Judas to betray him and then having Jesus crucified but He was caught up to God (after He was resurrected).
Revelation 12:1-5
1 Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.
2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.
4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.
5 She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.
Even though God saved His Son from Satan’s initial plan to destroy Him, Jesus suffered greatly while in the flesh by those who Satan influences. The religious leaders saw Jesus as a threat to their positions as rulers over the people. They made themselves rich and in pride sought control and honor from the people and not God. As a pretense, they made all kinds of rules to negate the intent of God’s ordinances for how they and the people should live before Him. They abused the intent of the sabbath, the caring for their old parents and many like things. Instead of seeing the law as God’s principles to fulfill His ultimate law of love, law-keeping became an end in itself. The religious leaders added their own burdensome ordinances that even they themselves couldn’t keep.
Jesus revealed a simple set of commandments: to love God with all our hearts, minds and souls and secondly, to love our neighbors as ourselves.
This approach put the law back into the hearts of the people and as a result, bypassed the burdensome rules the religious leaders browbeat the people with and they hated him for it. They were blinded by murderous hate and because of it, could not believe that He was the Messiah even after Jesus performed miracles of healing and raising of the dead.
Jesus suffered for many reasons. He was thought to have been born in Nazareth and it was considered an insignificant backwater town and was looked down upon by many religious leaders at the time. According to Scripture they said, no prophets had ever come out of this town. Jesus was sorrowful for the plight of the poor being misused, ignored and taken advantage of.
Isaiah 53:3-4
And yet, Jesus is described as the Lamb of God without spot or blemish because He was sinless. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and thus did not have the fallen nature the rest of us have. He literally knew no sin!
Just before Jesus was arrested, He prayed to His Father that if it were possible, to remove the cup of suffering He was being asked to drink from. He prayed this three times in great tears to His father, being fearful of death.
God the Father could have relieved His son from the suffering He was about to endure but there was a much greater purpose in suffering for both for His Son and for us.
And, Satan thought that by killing Jesus, he would thwart God’s plans but in reality, he played right into God’s hands because God intended for His Son to suffer and die for our sins in order to redeem us. Paul tells us about the prince of this world’s biggest mistake in his letter to the Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 2:8. Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
It is written that Jesus’ obedience to His Father’s will to accept the suffering He was about to experience was done to bring His earthly Son to perfection. The Apostle Paul explains this in his Epistle to the Hebrews.
Hebrews 5:7-9
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;
Perhaps God, knowing all things that are to happen, has a plan for each one of us that allows us to suffer for His name in the short term while leading us to a greater purpose in which He blesses us with perfection if we remain faithful.
Our Lord knows that our willingness to suffer for Him reveals our steadfast love for him. The Apostle Paul also reminds us that we are to give God glory in our suffering:
Romans 5:3-5
“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
If we suffer for Jesus’ sake, we know that God loves us and is teaching us perseverance and is perfecting our character and strengthening our hope in Him. The cross and the resurrection demonstrate God’s triumph over sin and death which Satan had the power over. It assures us that iniquity’s defeat is certain in the end. This knowledge instills hope, confidence, and perseverance, knowing that God’s plan of redemption will ultimately prevail.
We need not rail and lament over the evil and lawlessness in the world as if it’s something we can stop from happening. God already told us it will only get worse and worse and that He will prevail and eventually Satan and his followers will be defeated.
We are told to love our enemies who hate God and show kindness to them even as we suffer at their hands. This is the perfection we should be aiming for, the same one Jesus demonstrated for us on the cross. It’s something we need to pray about too because it’s against all our natural tendencies.