2 Thessalonians 2.7: "For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way." It is the church who must be taken out of the way before the Antichrist can rise up.
Just because the Holy Spirit’s restraint no longer prevents the rise of the Anti-Christ, that doesn’t mean the Christians have been taken out. It COULD mean that, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that.
It means that the restraining power of the Holy Spirit no longer restrains.
2 Th 2:7 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. (NKJV)
Well that is one interpretation. Since the church in the Bible is refered to as “she” as in the Bride of Christ..there may be room for discussion as to the “he” in 2 Thessalonians. It might be the church in dwelt by the Holy Spirit...the real “he” in this case. It might be the Holy Spirit who steps aside but not necessarily abandoning the world at large by taking away the church with him immediately(or abandoning Christians). “He” might be an angelic entity such as an ark angel keeping the whole Beast system squashed until such time as God indicates other wise.
I certainly don’t deny a Rapture, the Bible says one is coming. Revelation speaks however of the Beast and his”system” being allowed to “wear down the saints. Some argue that this means “end times” post rapture saints who will have to endure persecutions, and the mass delusion effects that the whole world is under without benefit of any Holy Spirit protection because they didn’t go with the “first wave”...so they are stuck trying to sweat it out by saving themselves by works as they are all by their lonesome. Or... the whole body of believers has to at least endure persecutions thru at least part of the Beast’s reign...or they have to endure “to the end” as one verse puts it!
Jesus first came to Earth in a way that the religious experts weren’t expecting despite obvious prophecies indicating how and when he should appear. Only an old prophetess and another old servant of god recognized who Jesus really was even as a baby, and what his mission on Earth was to be. Jesus has his own read on scripture. Maybe there will be a pre-trib rapture...but expect the unexpected. Scripture will unfold as it says it will but it may not unfold how we’ve all interpreted it as unfolding!
Time is an element in some of those scriptures predicted to unfold. Elements of the Beast system may be in operation decades before God allows it to reach it’s evil nadir. Infra structures, means of control, armies....even peoples demonically purposed toward the evil goals of Israel’s destruction need time to make their ill fated preparations.
There is an assumption that the Holy Spirit in dwelt church keeps the Antichrist system at bay. With such a powerful influence on Satan and the Beast, even lesser devils and just the evil doings that common men do should also have been kept at bay.
Yet evils have continued in our fallen world....the tares still contend with the good wheat and have been allowed to do so until the end of the age occurs. I think the suppression of the Beast may be a specific singular function of “he that restrains” that is separate from Holy Spirit’s empowerment of the church to reach the lost for Christ. This restrainer must have been active even
before the temporal existence of the church(though its eternal influence stretches across all time backward and forward) for if it had not, Satan would have set up his antichrist already and little Israel would have been strangled before it was created, and the world of men already destroyed by fire.
So this restrainer, even from the flood onward must have already been in operation against Satan and his “son of Perdition”! There was no world wide church of Holy Spirit filled saints in Noah’s time...so something has been holding antichrist in check from even before the church age!