Is Trump Paul’s “Man Above the Law”?

IMAGINE we’ve been assigned the job of solving a mystery:

Who was the apostle Paul talking about when he predicted a “revolution,” starring the “Man Above the Law,” also known as the “Son of Destruction” (2 Thessalonians 2:3, Casual English Bible^®).

Here are some of Paul’s clues in 2 Thessalonians 2:

• “This guy is so into himself that he thinks he’s more important than any god.”
• “He’s opposed to all religions that don’t worship him.”
• “This Man Above the Law will come to do the devil’s business, working for Satan.”
• “He’ll use every trick he can to deceive people.”

Jesus: “believers will hate each other”

Let’s say Paul was working within the scenario Jesus described earlier, in Matthew 24:

• “A lot of fake prophets will mislead a lot of people. The world is going to get more sinful. Because of it, people are going to find it harder to love each other.”
• “People…will hate you because you embrace my name. During these hard times, many believers will bail on the faith. Believers will not only leave, they’ll betray one another and they’ll even grow to hate one another.”

Did it ever occur to anyone that when Jesus talked about people hating Christians he might have been thinking about Christians deceived by the Man Above the Law—Christians who embraced lies and enabled liars who are misleading the people?

This might explain what we’re seeing today, with the animosity between Christians of various political stripes.

But it doesn’t.

I could go on and create a “narrative” (euphemism for “lie”) about a conspiracy revealed in the Bible. Then I could pretty easily project that onto a leader I wanted to criticize. And there certainly is one leader with a sidekick who deserves criticism and a cowboy boot in the getalong. But I don’t write fiction.

Descriptions by Paul and Jesus weren’t likely pointing to our day.

We don’t know who Paul’s Man Above the Law was. There were plenty of them in Roman times. In fact, the setting for Jesus’s warnings seems to refer to the Jewish revolt against the Roman occupation in the AD 60s. Bad result: Rome crushed the revolt and leveled Jerusalem in AD 70.

As for today’s Man Above the Law

Still, if we read Paul’s description of the Man Above the Law and our minds go quickly to some leader we support and brag about, we might consider turning off the TV and skipping the podcasts by pretend experts. Instead, we could do a little thinking for ourselves. Research, too.

God put a brain in our head. He didn’t do that just to keep our ears from whistling Dixie.

The Man Above the Law was a bad guy looking out for no one but himself. We should keep that in mind because Paul said our job is bigger than that:

“It’s okay to take good care of yourself. But take care of others too.” Philippians 2:4

Clearly, Mr. T. isn't Paul's Man Above the Law. But as an unsentenced convicted criminal and an unrepentant sex offender serving as president, it seems he's our Man Above the Law.