Another Bible Commentary: 2 Thessalonians

1:2 Again, grace and shalom are ours up front.

1:3 Again, “Believe” and “Love”.

1:4 See 1 Thessalonians 2:14.

1:5 Again, He is the Vine, and we are merely branches (John 15:5, Romans 14:4, Hebrews 13:20-21, Philippians 1:6, Philippians 2:13, Jude 24).

1:6-7 There is nothing bad from Him waiting for us. The “angels” here in some translations are “holy ones” like in Zechariah 14:5, a usual New Testament phrase for believers.

1:8 Pagans were those Paul said “do not know” the Lord, and Christ-denying Jews were those Paul said “do not obey” the Jesus that Paul pointed to on every page of the Scriptures.

1:9-10 “holy people…believed…includes you…you believed” Believers are fine.

1:11-12 The personal holiness that He produces in us by grace (John 15:5, Romans 14:4, Hebrews 13:20-21, Philippians 1:6, Philippians 2:13, Jude 24) is for the purpose of His glory. His grace involves Him treating us unbelievably favorably even though we don’t deserve it.

There’s nothing quite like the interpretation of end times prophecies to divide Christians. We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we know Who holds tomorrow. This seems to be as good a place as any to discuss the remaining prophecies in the New Testament. In the spirit of keeping us all happy under a big tent together, I’ll try to provide several perspectives. The most popular view of eschatology (things pertaining to the end of the world) is that most of the prophecies in the Bible, especially in Revelation, are about things that haven’t happened yet. This view is called futurism. The Internet, airwaves, and bookshelves are full of conjecture about (a seven year period of suffering called) the Tribulation, the Rapture (of believers before, during, or after the Tribulation depending on the author), the Antichrist (a hypothetical future world leader popularly titled thusly rather than the Bible’s “man of lawlessness” or the Beasts of Revelation), the Second Coming of Christ, and the Millennium in which we shall reign on this planet with Him before the true ending. Through an apparent ignorance of many historical events and an apparent lack of familiarity with the other parts of the Bible that are being referenced, profit-seeking authors freely interpret highly symbolic apocalyptic literature with the headlines of the day, speculate about dates, make predictions that fail to come true, and provide ammo to those who wish to discredit Christianity. It’s like they’re saying that the disciples asked Jesus specific questions about events they would have to deal with personally and that His response was instead only relevant for people over 1900 years later with TV shows, book deals, etc. There are plenty of believers that obsess over these ideas and focus exclusively on “the end times” that get distracted from fruitful work here and now, like kindness and evangelism. Take it easy; when I was less informed about the Bible I was sure it was all going to happen in the fall of 1998; I’m not trying to present myself as better than those who experienced the Millerite Disappointment of 1844, for example.

Here are some futurist interpretations that are worth pondering:

A pre-Tribulation Rapture would be like Enoch being taken in Genesis 5:24.

Christians are spared the world’s test (Revelation 3:10).

There is no wrath for believers (Romans 5:9).

We are rescued (Daniel 12:1).

We are delivered from wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10).

The wrath is not on us (John 3:36).

God didn’t tell Noah to learn to swim.

God spared Lot’s family.

He who spared the woman caught in adultery will not wage war upon His Bride.

Then again, the coming of Christ is presented as an obvious event in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, so any scenario in which He shows up secretly to take people in a manner that could be mistaken for a UFO abduction seems unlikely. God kept the Hebrews safe during the plagues of Egypt, and there is material in Revelation to suggest that we’d be kept safe in the eye of the storm here during the weirdness. The safety from a Christian perspective is that you cannot properly kill a Christian because God can give back what is taken and more; the ride may still be bumpy.

Regarding a Rapture scenario (using Scripture in the way the futurists do),

We meet Him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

We get glorified (1 Corinthians 15:51-54, 1 Thessalonians 4:17).

There are no prior signs (Matthew 24:36, Matthew 24:42, Matthew 25:13).

It can happen anytime (Revelation 3:3).

It only affects believers (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

It’s joyful for us (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

Others start to believe when we leave, accounting for “Tribulation saints”.

Then again, what if He shows up, we meet Him in the air, and we all just head straight to Earth to establish our reign immediately?

Regarding the “Second Coming” or Return of Christ to rule Earth,

We arrive with Him (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

We’re already glorified (Revelation 19:14).

There are many signs (Matthew 24:28-29).

He comes to Earth, not just the air (Revelation 11:15, Revelation 21:3).

It’s after the Tribulation (2 Thessalonians 2:8, Revelation 19:11-21).

All humanity is affected (Mark 13:26).

It is mournful for unbelievers (Matthew 24:30).

Why would I let the fact that the Olivet Discourse seems to be about the events of 70 AD completely invalidate any of that? I haven’t seen the damned rise from the dead to eternal shame yet (Daniel 12:2), so I admit some things haven’t happened yet.

An alternative to futurism is partial preterism, which says that many of the prophecies in the Bible already came true in ways that were relevant to the audience that had received them. That’s not shocking, since God is trustworthy. Rather than making Daniel, Revelation, etc., irrelevant to a modern audience, this interpretation wows humanity with hundreds of fulfilled prophecies. No other religion offers this amount of verifiably correct predictions. As you recall, I presented most of the Old Testament prophecies as pertaining to events that happened back then, and I presented Jesus’ Olivet Discourse as a prediction of the events of 70 AD. Opponents of this position attack a straw man version that almost no one believes called full preterism in which there are no prophecies left to fulfill. As this takes a lot of mental gymnastics to explain away things like the dead in Christ rising from the dead with new incorruptible bodies, that’s not what I’m saying. Partial preterism says that some things have already happened and some things are still coming. As for what to put in each bucket, whether we’re consistent with how we interpret the symbolism across various prophetic texts, and how well we explain events in/prior to the first century AD in light of the Bible are all always valid questions. I know the people with the fancy wall charts are probably all up in arms. Let me reiterate the principle of multiple fulfillment: just because the sign child in Isaiah meant something for Isaiah’s first hearers did not prevent those verses being reused in the Gospels about the birth of Jesus. The Bible has a timeless quality, and just because something happened before does not mean that something else might still happen (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Also, let it be noted that both preterist and futurist explanations are credited to the influence of Jesuits and that there is a “historicist” position that maps everything out to the entire history of Christianity. I don’t think anyone who has read this far about how all Christians are priests (1 Peter 2:9), how there is only one Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), and how our forgiveness is once-for-all (Hebrews 10:14) will think I’m advocating for the Bishop of Rome to have influence beyond his station, but I won’t call him the Antichrist because a) there are plural lower-case antichrists (Christ-deniers per 1 John 2:22), b) someone setting themselves up in God’s Temple (which was flattened and is now the Church, which will be yet-to-be-raptured in that scenario) and claiming to be God would be properly called the “man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4) – I think that it’s a stretch to ride past generals-turned-emperors who reportedly had sex with prostitutes in the literal Temple in the Holy of Holies on a Torah scroll and then demanded worship at swordpoint in order to accuse a preacher instead.

Back to 2 Thessalonians:

2:1-2 Daniel 12:1-2 predicted persecution at the end. To use modern jargon, Paul’s readers suspected that they had missed the Rapture or something and that the Tribulation had come for them.

2:3-4 The “man of lawlessness” (or Antichrist as presented in popular end times literature) sounds like another Isaiah 14:13-14, Ezekiel 28:1-10, Daniel 11:21-35, Daniel 11:36-45, Daniel 7:25, Daniel 8:23-25, etc. Remember how Jesus referenced the Old Testament prophecies about the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC in His Olivet Discourse (in the 30s AD) to talk about the same outcome in 70 AD. The word for apostasy that Rapture fans translate as “departure of the church” (or the 1 Timothy 4:1 falling away from sound doctrine, depending on the interpretation) is basically “rebellion” in the literature of the period; Josephus used this word to characterize the Jewish rebellion against Rome of 66 AD. Titus (the Roman general who fought the Jews in that rebellion and later became emperor, not the bishop) did the verse 4 stuff. Titus entering the Holy of Holies (blasphemy similar to the partying in Daniel 5) was meant to prove that God wasn’t on the Judeans’ side to get them to stand down. Destroying the Temple so that the Law of Moses could not be fully followed anymore made him the same sort of “man of lawlessness” as Antiochus IV “Epiphanes” had been called in non-canonical books from the same period (also, remember our discussion of constructions like “son of destruction” from John 17:12). Jesus was seen as a new David, so Titus being a new Antiochus IV is plausible (and so is your pastor’s favorite future candidate for the role), especially given the redundant predictions of the Antiochus IV-like figure in Daniel. Any divinity claim figuratively sets a person up in God’s place whether the Jewish Temple happens to be standing when you read this or not. True “lawlessness” or not being subject to even God’s authority amounts to self-deification. Believers are not under the Law of Moses (Romans 10:4) thanks to Jesus, and He rules. See Romans 8:2 for the Law of the Spirit and freedom that we’re under.

No one knows the day or hour of Christ’s return. It can’t be unpredictable if the weird stuff known to be in Revelation is happening, suggesting separate “comings”. The Day of the LORD is whenever He visits to judge or to save. There are partial and full preterists who note that “coming” could be like in Isaiah 19:1-2 (and Malachi 3:2 can sound fairly ominous) and say He came in judgment (as He has throughout history) and ended that age by destroying the Temple in 70 AD, ushering in a new epoch. Since Jesus had already made the sacrificial system obsolete, there are some who note that Jesus “came” on the clouds of Heaven to His enthronement (Daniel 7:13-14) with the end of the Old Covenant age after the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, and after all that the Temple was just a building that got destroyed later. Jesus and the new life available through Him is what matters, and our mission (living quiet lives of faith, gratitude, supporting evangelism and meeting urgent needs, etc., while bearing the fruit of the Spirit) while we wait for all this to make perfect sense after the end of time does not change no matter what interpretation you like. Paul is clear that our bodily resurrection will occur at Christ’s return, so don’t spiritualize away the ending.

Dispensationalists posit a Tribulation beginning with a seven year treaty (Daniel 9:27) and a man of lawlessness restrained until we leave Earth (2 Thessalonians 2:7), making the Restrainer the Holy Spirit by their reckoning. See Revelation 11:3 and Revelation 12:6; the three-and-a-half years (half of seven) of Elijah’s drought as a punishment for Baal worship keeps coming up. Believers made it through those days, so you’ve got this, unless you’re not even here for it.

2:6-7 Simple plot armor or God’s will suffices in futurist/preterist/etc. scenarios as the restrainer. The NIV’s “taken out of the way” is in Greek more like “gone from their midst”. The Holy Spirit within believers leaving this world at the Rapture is a futurist take on this; using Christians’ disappearance to claim magical powers/divinity would be logical (verse 9). See 1 John 4:3 for the secret of lawlessness or the antichrist spirit.

2:8 See Isaiah 11:4.

2:9 See 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 note.

2:10-12 As in Romans 1, they reject Him first and are given over to hardened hearts.

2:13-14 Have I mentioned lately that faith is what is needed for salvation and sanctification?

2:15 The Bible, the words of the biblical apostles read from a page or heard by someone reading aloud (which was the most common way of studying Scripture then, as literacy was rarer), is in focus. While this verse does also affirm the validity of the oral teachings of the biblical apostles, the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth (John 16:13), and we have the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17) which can get us “thoroughly equipped”. I hereby call shenanigans on alleged Church oral traditions/doctrines (like little-by-little/progressive sanctification, for example) that are plainly unbiblical (1 Corinthians 6:11, Hebrews 10:10,14) and the many things that were thought up decades and centuries after the death of Paul and called tradition (Colossians 2:8).

2:16-17 Notice that Paul addresses this prayer to Jesus and to the Father. Some people insist on only praying to the Father in the name of the Son through the Holy Spirit, but all Persons in the Trinity are God and are appropriate prayer recipients.

3:2 Notice that the difference between someone who is wicked and evil and someone who is not wicked and evil amounts to faith in Jesus Christ.

3:3 Amen.

3:4 “things we command” These are the things Paul commanded in 1 Thessalonians like avoiding being bums and adulterers.

3:5 The Hebrew notion of the heart includes the mind, so Paul saying this was like saying, “May God keep reminding you how much He loves you and what a great job Jesus, Who lives and reigns forever, did saving you.”

3:6-9 “idle and disruptive” like the apocalyptic bums from 1 Thessalonians and the false teachers of 2 Thessalonians 2:2.

3:10-12 Charity is for those incapable of helping themselves like the widows and orphans in the economic conditions of the days in which Paul wrote this, not for the irresponsible.

3:13 “what is good” In this context, it’s earning a living.

3:14-15 You can completely shun someone and not be at odds with God about it.

3:16 Amen.

3:18 Amen.

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