THE BOOK OF 2
THESSALONIANS
Stand firm in light of our
destiny
2 Thessalonians 2:13-17 SCC 8/10/14
1. The consequence of unbeliever’s unwillingness to receive the
truth is God giving them the falsehood they want to believe 11
Satan’s power, signs, wonders, and evil deception will
impress all people living on the earth during the Tribulation. Paul could say
that those people do not receive “the love of the truth so as to be saved and
they “did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness” as a result. By
‘the lie’ or ‘a deluding influence’ [“what is false”]’ is apparently meant the
denial of the fundamental truth that God is God. It is the rejection of his
self-revelation as Creator and Savior, righteous and merciful Judge of all,
which leads to the worship due to him alone being offered to another, such as
the ‘man of lawlessness.’
2. The purpose of God giving them the falsehood they wish to
believe is to expose their purposeful unbelief justifying their judgment 12
All the ungodly, all those who take pleasure in
wickedness, all those who do not love the truth of the gospel so as to be saved,
are going to feel the judgment of God. And
part of that judgment is the inability to understand the truth and being turned
over by God to believe a lie. Because of willful unbelief and refusal to
love and obey the truth, there will come judicial
unbelief and an inability to obey and believe the truth. God rejects the human who refuses Christ. This is the consequence
of active unbelief.
3. Believers who are loved by the Lord can be thankful for one
another’s salvation that delivers them from God’s ferocious judgment 13
This verse marks a change in emphasis from the unbelievers and
their judgment to believers and their deliverance. In contrast to the lawless unbelievers just referred to Paul
was grateful that he could always give thanks for his readers. He even did so
specifically in 1:3. He says we should always give thanks to God for you. In
other words, we're thankful to God for your salvation. We're thankful to God
that He saved you. The ground for his joy was God’s choice of them for
salvation before He created the world ‘from the beginning’. He takes the components of that salvation
work and he articulates its expansiveness.
First,
the Lord loves you. Your salvation began when God
decided in eternity past to set His love on you. Though God loves all people He
does not choose all for salvation. Paul consistently taught what the rest of
Scripture reveals, namely, that the initiative in salvation comes from God, not
man.
Second,
the Lord chose you. Flowing out of that
predetermination to love was a choice. If God has chosen you and God has
already made that choice and justified you, who is
going to be able to go into heaven and bring an accusation against you that's
going to force God to take your salvation away? No one can do that. God made
the choice and the choice is fixed forever.
Thirdly,
the Lord transforms you. Here is both the divine side and
the human side of salvation and it’s outcome for us as
believers.
(1)
The divine side of salvation is called ‘sanctification by the Spirit’.
God accomplishes salvation through the sanctifying work of
the Holy Spirit. That simply means that the Holy Spirit sovereignly, miraculously and divinely detaches you from
sin. A new inner man is created, separated from sin, and detached from it. It
is the life of God within you; it is the divine nature that becomes yours. You
are regenerated and you're born again. The old dies and a new is born. And so
that's the work of the Holy Spirit by which He separates you from sin and
creates in you a holy nature. That's His work. Salvation is a divine miracle.
(2)
The human side of salvation is ‘faith in the truth’.
If
you want salvation you must believe. You must believe in your
heart that God raised Him from the dead and confess with your mouth Jesus as
Lord. That’s the human response. The divine transformation worked by the Spirit
requires faith in the truth.
Therefore you have to hear the truth. This transformation is a legal one that
places you into an entirely brand new realm. This transformation is from
darkness into eternal light. Unbelievers refuse to believe in this truth.
4. That calling to salvation came by means of believing the
gospel, which gains you Christ’s glory, something unbelievers have rejected 14
(1) God’s purpose in choosing the Thessalonians was that
they might one day share the splendor and honor that their Lord does and will
enjoy, beginning at the Rapture. Ultimate glorification is in view.
(2) So you are in the process of moving from salvation
to glory because that's the plan. So you don't have to fear that you are going
to get lost somewhere. From the very
beginning when God chose you, He chose you to be glorified. You were
elected to gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. You were elected to be as
perfect as Christ is, as holy as Christ is, to stand in His presence undefiled
like Him. You were not just chosen simply to be saved from God’s judgment. You
were chosen to be glorified. Salvation in time was simply an element in
bringing that choice to its fruition in heaven.
5. This salvation calling obligates believers to continue pursuing
the apostles teaching as truth 15
(1) In view of their calling, Paul urged his readers not
to abandon what he and his associates had taught them in person and by letter.
He wanted them to hold firmly to the inspired instructions that he handed on to
them (i.e., “the traditions”).
(2) Stand firm holding on to the things handed down
(traditions) through teaching by word and letter from us. That's divine revelation. In the Pauline letters and the revelation
God gave him, which he preached to them both orally and written down. The oral things that God inspired have been
recorded for us in the gospels and in the book of Acts. The written revelation
is in all the epistles. Christ has given both through the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit.
NB: In
a comments section of an article online, a contributor wrote this criticism of
another’s comments he disliked Spoken
like a believer in Paul but not like a follower of Jesus. The implication is that Jesus
teaching (and this critics interpretation of it)
trumps Paul’s teaching in the epistles believing the gospels are our authority
but not the epistles. In other words Paul cannot be trusted to tell us the
truth. His teaching is somehow culturally conditioned and meant to be
extrapolated upon in successive generations. But note two things: First, Jesus promised that the HS would
be sent in Jesus name and teach the disciples all
things bringing to remembrance all Jesus said to them (Jn
14:25-26). Jesus also stated that the HS would guide them into all the truth
and disclose to them what is to come; disclose what is Christ’s to them; and
disclose what is His and the Fathers to them (Jn
16:13-16). Second, Jesus himself
commissioned the apostle Paul in Acts 9 thus identifying with Paul’s mission and message just as he had
identified with John the Baptists mission
and message when he chose to be baptized by him. John the Baptist
represents the last of the OT prophets and Paul the last of the NT apostles. So
what Paul taught Jesus commissioned. Jesus and Paul are not in conflict. Third, progressive revelation is a
basic component of scripture. The gospels end the OT and the epistles are for
this age. To be a believer in Paul is to be a follower of Jesus. You cannot
have Jesus without Paul.
6. Believers should desire the gracious favor of God upon one
another’s lives which is from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God the Father
16-17
(1) Note there's a pronoun "Himself" that is
in the emphatic position. The mention of the Son the Lord Jesus Christ before
the Father also emphasizes their equality. This equates God and Christ; again
the major message of Christianity is that God is revealed in Jesus Christ. That
is what the spirit of Antichrist always attacks.
(2) He's talking about salvation there. He loved us and
He granted to us eternal encouragement and a good hope and He did it all by grace. God’s grace is the basis for
eternal encouragement in the face of temporary distress. Our hope is beneficial
because it motivates us to live in the light of our victorious Savior’s return.
He says "comfort," that means encouraged. And I want
Him to strengthen your heart, that's the inner man, your mind, what moves you,
what makes you think and act and react in every good work and word. Both in
what you do, your deed, and in what you say, your speech. In other words, may
your salvation consume your life—the way you live it—the way you conduct it—the
way you display it.
So What?
1. Hell is not an arbitrary reality. It is the place where
unbelievers will experience the outcome of their willful unbelief and rebellion
against God their creator.
2. Heaven, eternal life, and deliverance from
condemnation is based in belief in the truth of the
gospel and believers ought to be thankful for anyone who believes it since it
is the only hope that exists.
3. In the meantime, revel in your salvation, understand
it, get to know it, study what scripture says about it and rejoice that you are
delivered from the terror and torment of eternal damnation.