There are things in Daniel, when he speaks of the abomination of desolation, that obviously apply to Antiochus Epiphanes and that show him as that first historical fulfilment. But then there are things that Daniel speaks of that don't apply to Antiochus, and that show that there is an ultimate fulfilment of this at the end in the Antichrist. There are things in Matthew 24:1–51 that refer to Titus, the Roman Emperor, and the Roman Empire’s overthrow of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. But then again, there are many things in Matthew 24:1–51 that don't apply to what Titus did in 70 A.D., but point farther ahead to the reality. There is another fulfilment of Daniel's abomination of desolation that is going to happen at the end of the world – a greater, fuller, complete abomination of desolation which is, Jesus says in Matthew 24:3, a sign of His own coming and of the end of the age.
That full, complete reality of the abomination of desolation is what the apostle Paul is referring to here in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, where at the end, in the coming of the Antichrist, the man of sin, there will not merely be an idol set up in the physical temple of Jerusalem. There will not merely be the physical temple of Jerusalem destroyed and the Roman standard worship on that spot. But there will be a man who will proclaim himself God in the temple of God’s whole world – the world in which God is to be worshipped – and where all men from every nation, tribe and tongue, apart from God’s own in that world, will bow to that man. He will be the abomination that makes desolate the worship of God. That is why the apostle Paul describes the Antichrist the way that he does here:
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. 2 Thessalonians 2:4, KJV.
He will be the ultimate abomination. Depraved, sinful man setting himself up as the God of heaven and earth. This ultimate abomination will make desolate the worship of Jehovah. He outlaws the worship of Jehovah in all the earth. There is no greater abomination that makes desolate the worship of God than this. This is ultimately what Daniel was referring to. This is ultimately what the Lord Jesus Christ was referring to. And the apostle Paul knew it. Man will set up man as the ultimate idol, and he will replace the worship of God with the worship of man in all the earth.1
Cory Griess
4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.