Mystery of Lawlessness

The “mystery of God” is opposed by the “mystery of lawlessness” [2 Thes. 2:7], that is, the “mystery” of iniquity or sin, for “sin is lawlessness” [1 John 3:4].  Christ is the “mystery of God”, and the Church is the mystical body of Christ, of which Christ is the head.

It is the Father's plan that Christ and the Church fulfill the Father's purpose for the world; however, it is also His plan that the “mystery of lawlessness” be the antagonist in this great drama of fulfillment.

The two “mysteries” will grow to maturity in the world, and this most surely means that the Church's members, great or small, respectively more or less, will have to endure a “tortuous struggle,” as did Saint Paul, who also stated,

“I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in the flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.”  [Col. 1:24]

In view of mankind's general lawlessness following the event of the 200 Million Horsemen, and in view of the Church's prime directive, namely, to go and...

“... make all the nations disciples, baptizing them unto the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” [Mt. 26:19],

the angel's message, “the mystery of [the] God will be fulfilled,” necessarily imports two things:

(1)   The climactic struggle between the two “mysteries” is imminent.

(2)   That struggle will result in the realization of Christ's and his Church's prime directive.

Thus,

“From one new moon to another, from one Sabbath to another, all mankind shall come to worship before me, says the Lord.”  [Is. 66:23]

Not to woe did the angel swear, but to peace.  Nonetheless, the price of victory will not come cheap.  It never does.  A realistic look reveals who has been, is, and will be the cause of those horrors to come with such magnitude as human imagination cannot totally grasp: the world's every person fundamentally lawless, but also the Church's every member tepid and timid.  The tribulations of Christ's mystical body are among “the things that must come” [Apocalypse 1:1].  They must, on account of God's highest concession to man: freedom.