Chap. 3:17.  Yet the supposition of such a forged epistle is something so improbable that many are inclined to adopt the former supposition.

The question respecting “the man of sin” belongs to the commentator.  In a brief introduction like the present, we cannot enter upon it farther than to say that, though we are not warranted in affirming that it has its exhaustive fulfilment in the Papacy, yet its chief embodiment thus far has been in that corrupt and persecuting power whose character answers so remarkably to the apostle’s description.

34.  The epistles to the churches of Philippi and Thessalonica, both lying within the bounds of ancient Macedonia, have a remarkable agreement in their general tone and manner.  In both cases we have the same affectionate outpouring of the apostle’s heart towards the brethren to whom he writes, and the same abundant personal notices respecting himself and his ministry.  Yet they differ precisely as we might suppose they would in view of the fact that the two to the Thessalonians are the earliest of Paul’s writings, and are separated from that to the Philippians by an interval of ten eventful years.  In writing to the Thessalonians he gives peculiar prominence to the doctrine of our Lord’s second coming, perhaps because, in the persecutions which they were undergoing, they especially needed its strengthening and consolatory influence; perhaps also because in the continual maltreatment which he had encountered ever since he entered Macedonia—­at Philippi (Acts 16:19-40; 1 Thess. 2:2), at Thessalonica (Acts 17:5-10), at Berea (Acts 17:13, 14), at Corinth (Acts 18:6-17)—­he was staying his own soul on the same glorious hope.  On the contrary, we find in these earlier epistles no mention of Judaizing Christians, nor any contrast between the two opposite systems of justification by faith and by the works of the Mosaic law, such as appears in his later epistles, that to the Philippians included.  Phil. 3:4-9.  His opponents at Thessalonica are not Judaizing Christians, but unconverted Jews, whose malignant opposition he describes in strong terms. 1 Thess. 2:15, 16.  To the Thessalonians the apostle speaks of himself; but it is of his ministry, and the manner in which he has discharged its duties among them.  To the Philippians he also speaks of himself; but then it is from a prison, with a trial for life or death before him, and the retrospect of a long ministry behind him.  He unfolds, therefore, as is natural, his deep experiences as a Christian and an apostle of Christ.  See above, No. 29.  In this contrast between the earlier and the later epistles we have an evidence of their genuineness which is all the stronger because of its indirectness.  It is such a mark of truth as no falsifier has power to imitate.

VII.  THE PASTORAL EPISTLES.

35.  The attempt to find for the pastoral epistles a place in Paul’s ministry as far as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles is beset with difficulties which amount to impossibilities.