Verse 7
The "mystery" (truth previously not revealed but now made known) Paul referred to here is the revelation of a future climax of lawlessness that would follow the removal of the restrainer. This lawless movement was already underway in Paul’s day, but God was holding it back until His appointed time. Then He will remove the restraining influence. This removal is probably a reference to the Rapture when God’s restraint of evil through His people will end as He removes them from the earth. [Note: See Theodore H. Epp, "The Restrainer Removed," Good News Broadcaster, March 1975, pp. 20-22.] God will remove the Holy Spirit from the earth in the sense that God will remove those whom He indwells and He with them. He will not entirely abandon the earth, of course, since God is omnipresent.
Gundry believed the restrainer is the Holy Spirit but that it is His ministry of restraining lawlessness apart from the influence of Christians that is in view here. [Note: Gundry, pp. 125-28.] His conclusion grows out of belief that the Holy Spirit will permanently indwell all believers since Pentecost. Yet compare 1 Corinthians 12:13 where Paul said the baptizing ministry of the Holy Spirit places believers into the "one body" of Christ. The body of Christ is a term that always describes the church that began on the day of Pentecost and goes to heaven at the Rapture. For the Christian, Spirit indwelling takes place at the same time as Spirit baptism, namely, the time of regeneration. Since people whom God will justify during the Tribulation will not experience baptism into the body of Christ, it is unwarranted to assume that the Spirit will also permanently indwell them. The "body of Christ" will be in heaven rather than on earth then.
"Since the removal of the Restrainer takes place before the manifestation of the lawless one, this identification implies a pretribulational rapture." [Note: Hiebert, p. 313.]
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