Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Strong Delusion
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Exodus 4:21
II Thessalonians 2:9-12 describes people who perish because they do not love the truth. God responds by sending strong delusion—sending more of what they already treasured!—for the purpose of condemnation. Some may consider God to be mean-spirited in doing this, but the people choose this blindness. God essentially gives them more of their hearts' desire. This pattern also gives us a glimpse into what God did with the Pharaoh of the Exodus, a challenging account because of its implications for humanity's free-moral agency. On one hand, Pharaoh hardened his heart (Exodus 7:13-14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34-35), but on the other, God hardened the man's heart (Exodus 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27). In fact, God promised to harden Pharaoh's heart before he hardened his own (Exodus 4:21; 7:3). Hardening the heart is a type of spiritual blindness. This divine act may also seem unfair because it appears as if God took away Pharaoh's free-moral agency, so he had no choice but to follow the path to destruction. In this nation, we cherish our freedom to choose so intensely that the thought that God denied Pharaoh a choice makes some quite uneasy. However, Pharaoh did have the opportunity to choose. The story does not begin with God hardening his heart; it begins much earlier, when he chose to continue the oppression and affliction of Abraham's descendants, begun by his predecessor. He made that choice, free and clear—God did not intrude on his decision at all. He had multiple decades to decide how to treat the Israelites, and he freely chose to afflict them. However, Pharaoh did not get to choose the consequences. He failed to consider the desolation his choice would bring on his family and nation. God had promised to curse those who cursed Abraham, and his descendants are included (see Genesis 12:3; 15:13-14). When Pharaoh chose to continue to afflict Israel, God cursed him with a form of “madness and blindness and confusion of heart” (Deuteronomy 28:28-29)—with a heart that would continue to make bad choices, ending in his destruction. His desire to dominate and control God's people became a snare that he chose and which he could not later escape. Pharaoh's example teaches the gravity of choices, even ones that do not seem significant at the time. Not only is God justified in striking dead any sinner at any time, so He is also on record as promising and carrying out the curses of madness, blindness, and confusion of heart for any sin. When we are tempted to sin, we must must consider this very real consequence. Everybody starts with a measure of truth, even if it is “only” the truth that a Creator God exists. In the book of Amos, God holds even the Gentile nations accountable for things they do. He does not judge them on details found in Leviticus but on acts that anyone should recognize as wickedness. As Romans 1:18-28 shows, God's wrath unfurls when people reject the truth. That choice is a form of self-blinding, to which God, according to His judgment and purpose, may give them over or perhaps make worse by sending strong delusion or causing a famine of hearing (Amos 8:11).
David C. Grabbe
Spiritual Blindness (Part Three): Choosing a Curse
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Amos 8:11-14
The New Testament contains echoes of the curse found in Amos 8—a famine, not of the word, but of hearing it. Romans 1:18-32 tells of unrighteous men who suppress the truth. Because they are not thankful for what the creation reveals of the Creator, their foolish hearts become darkened. They lose what light, what truth, they have. God's response to this is similar to His response to Israel. He does not contend with them or force His truth on them. Instead, Paul writes, God gave them up to uncleanness (Romans 1:24). He gave them up to vile passions (Romans 1:26). He gave them over to a debased mind (Romans 1:28). It is as if God gives them exactly what they seek, and they do not realize that it is a curse. A second example of this principle appears in II Thessalonians 2:9-12, where Paul warns of a future Man of Sin who deceives the spiritually weak: The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Those who perish do so because they do not receive—in the sense of "welcome"—the love of the truth. Because they do not, God will send them strong delusion, so that they will believe the lie and be condemned. In reality, God is just giving them what they desire anyway. They prefer carnal delusion to spiritual reality, so God obliges them. The unrighteous in Romans 1 desire a worldview without a Creator so they can be sexually liberated. God gives them over to it and lets them reap the awful consequences. The Israelites in the time of Amos did not value God's truth, so He removed it, letting them experience how miserably they fare without it. If they were anything like modern Israelites, they thought of themselves as enlightened and progressive even as their blindness became more complete.
David C. Grabbe
A Subtle Yet Devastating Curse
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2 Thessalonians 2:9-12
Every day, information about politics, economics, social issues, psychology, religion, conspiracy theories, foreign affairs, entertainment, and education inundates us. How much of it is actually true? How much do we truly need to pay attention to? The man of sin opposes Christ. He will even claim to be God, and Satan will enable him to work miracles. Just before Christ's return, he will lead evil's greatest challenge ever against all that is good. The focus of the attack will be the destruction of truth. Only those who "receive the love of the truth" will be spared. If one does not have it, he will be deceived, believe the lie, and be condemned. In this context, the lie is probably that this man is God or His main representative on earth, and that they should worship the beast and receive his mark at his word (Revelation 13:11-18). Before the man of sin appears, Satan must lay some groundwork to prepare for his acceptance. What better way than to throw the world into quarreling and divisive and wearying confusion? People then yearn for some strong and seemingly wise hands to set things straight, so the nations can "catch their breath" and have a span of peaceful calm. In its wake, confusion creates directionless people, with little desire to change the status quo, whose minds are turned in upon themselves in an attempt to keep what they have. Right now, humanity is being bombarded by religious disinformation ranging from bizarre, do-gooding New Age cults to the militant homosexual, lesbian and feminist attacks aimed at changing old-line Protestant and Catholic groups. Mainly within Protestant circles, the New World Order and other conspiracy theories abound, sometimes tenuously mixed with true prophecies of the Bible. Everywhere there are cries for tolerance of beliefs of every stripe, and in some sectors, there are attempts to merge all religions into one. Within God's church, we have seen many doctrinal changes alter one large group to the point that it is barely recognizable except by name. Other, smaller groups are badgered by peripheral issues like the calendar, sacred names, and conspiracy theories. We are witnessing people subtly persuaded into excessive concern for themselves. This distracts them from the focus God clearly states in Jesus' end-time message: Get ready for the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Every message to every church group in Revelation 2 and 3 concludes with "To him who overcomes." Christ's intent is clear. Our judgment is based upon growth in overcoming flaws involving character defects, evil self-centered attitudes, and relationship problems with fellow man.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Flood Is Upon Us!
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2 Thessalonians 2:11
God is permitting a sifting to take place. Paul uses the word "delusion" here, indicating a "wandering out of the way." Does that not happen to people who are confused and have lost direction and motivation? They wander. They drift. They get tossed about in the winds and currents. But the love of the truth will keep a person clear-minded, focused on the right areas of life, and motivated to overcome. And this will lead God to save them.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Flood Is Upon Us!
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2 Thessalonians 2:11
This verse states that God "shall send them strong delusion," but this is not the end of the story. God is the ultimate source of this "strong delusion," but God rarely does anything to people that they themselves do not have some part in. In the case of this delusion surrounding the man of sin, the people who "believe the lie" will be predisposed to do so because they do not have "the love of the truth" (verse 10). The "strong delusion" works because the people have set themselves up to fall for it! Notice also that in verses 9-10, Satan and the "lawless one" also have a part in these deceptions and "lying wonders," so God alone does not cause the delusion. It is a combination of God's will, Satan's and the man of sin's agency, and human, predisposed hostility to God and the truth (Romans 8:7), which can be summarized as "self-delusion." Our part—whether or not we are hostile toward God and His truth—is the only thing we have any control over. If we are trying to overcome our human predisposition against God and actively cultivating a love of the truth, then our chances of avoiding this deception increase dramatically.
Staff
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2 Thessalonians 2:11-12
From God's perspective, these people had the truth presented to them, and they did not love it. It does not mean that they did not agree with it, but that they did not love it. When Paul says that God sends a delusion, he means that God quits trying to save them and gives them over to their own desires (see Romans 1:24-26). They placed their delight—their desires—in unrighteousness. We can see that, in this kind of situation, a Christian cannot afford to be neutral. Is that not what the Laodiceans are shown as being—fence sitting neutrals, lukewarm, neither all the way in the world nor all the way in the church? We will either love the truth of God or not. We are either going to give ourselves over to it or not, even though we may agree with it. Thus, Paul is saying, "Don't be neutral! Love the truth!"
John W. Ritenbaugh
A Place of Safety? (Part 4)
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