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2Th_2:9-10. The apostle has in 2Th_2:8 not only said when Antichrist will appear, but he has also immediately added what fate awaits him. He now goes backward in point of time, whilst in addition he describes the character of the working which Antichrist will develope before his destruction, brought about by the appearance of Christ.
οὗ ] sc. τοῦ ἀνόμου . Parallel with ὅν , 2Th_2:8.
ἐστίν ] the present describes the certainty of the coming in the future. See Winer, p. 237 [E. T. 331]. Incorrectly Koppe, it imports: “jam agit et mox apertius majoreque cum vi aget.”
κατʼ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ σατανᾶ ] does not belong as an independent statement to ἐστίν (so Hofmann, as before him already Georgii, in Zeller’s theol. Jahrb. 1845, Part 1, p. 8, who gives the meaning that the act of the appearing of the ἄνομος will itself be a work of Satan), but is a subsidiary statement to the principal clause ἐστὶν ἐν κ . τ . λ ., assigning the reason of it. It does not import “after the example of the working of the devil” (similiter ac si satanas ageret, Michaelis), but in conformity with it, that an ἐνέργεια τοῦ σατανᾶ is its characteristic, that is, that the devil works in and through him.
εἶναι ἔν τινι ] to consist in something, to prove or make itself known in something. Against Hofmann, who arbitrarily denies this use of the phrase, comp. Winer, p. 345 [E. T. 482].
δυνάμει καὶ σημείοις καὶ τέρασιν ] a rhetorical enumeration, as in Act_2:2, for the exhaustion of the idea. But as πάσῃ (see Winer, p. 466 [E. T. 660]), so also ψεύδους belongs to all three substantives. The genitive may import: in every kind of power, and in all signs and wonders whose nature is falsehood, or which proceed from falsehood, or which lead to falsehood, whose aim is falsehood. The last meaning is, with Aretius, de Wette, and others, to be preferred, as Antichrist is indeed the first to bring evil to its climax.
ψεῦδος ] falsehood, belongs to the essential nature of the devil (comp. Joh_8:44). It represents evil as the counterpart of divine truth (the ἀλήθεια ).