The Greek word apostasia in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 means “departure, falling away, defection, revolt.” This end times’ apostasy is the mass “falling away” of people from God as the world prepares to receive the lawless one who claims to be God (verse 4). It is an unprecedented, worldwide revolt against all things godly, and even many who claim to be Christians will be caught up in it. Another possibility, espoused by a small minority of scholars, is that the “apostasy” is the “departure” of the church from the world, that is, the rapture that Paul alludes to in verse 1 and which he had previously discussed in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18. It is important to note that a pre-trib interpretation does not require equating apostasia with the rapture.

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