Second Thessalonians was written to address three specific problems which had arisen in this church. Each of them is related to the doctrine of the second coming of Christ. In Chapter 1, Paul addresses the continuing persecution of the church and how this relates to God’s overall purpose in history. In Chapter 2 he refutes false teachings about the return of Christ, while in Chapter 3 he issues a stern warning against those within the church who have used the teaching of Christ’s coming again as an excuse for laziness.
Why were the Christians in Thessalonica persecuted so severely? Acts 17:7 tells us they were charged with “defying Caesar’s decrees, saying there is another king, one called Jesus.” The word for king is basileus, which also means “emperor.” The Christians were not violent revolutionaries. They paid their taxes and prayed for civil authorities. But they would not worship Caesar and thus were seen as disloyal. When the Christians confessed “Jesus is Lord” at their baptism, they were literally putting their lives on the line.
Beset by such “persecutions and trials” (1:4), some of the Thessalonian Christians may have wondered why God had not intervened. How can God be silent in the face of evil? The prophet Habakkuk asked the question which has echoed down the centuries: “How long, O Lord? Why do you tolerate wrong?” Paul answers by saying simply that “God is just” (1:6). In the course of human history it often seems that Satan has the upper hand, that evil triumphs over good. But God will certainly triumph in the end, and there will be a certain “payday someday.”
Paul here describes God’s judgment against sin in some of the most vivid language of the New Testament. The Jesus who refused to call legions of angels from heaven to deliver Him from the cross will one day descend “in blazing fire with His powerful angels” (1:7). The wrath of God will be displayed, and those who have rejected Christ will be punished “with everlasting destruction,” exiled from the presence of the Lord for all eternity.
Let us not minimize the reality of hell. We do not know the temperature of the inferno, and we should not speculate about such matters. But nothing could be worse than to be banished forever from the presence of the heavenly Father.
Paul’s main concern is to encourage the Thessalonians to persevere through all their trials knowing that God’s justice will triumph. In the meantime, Paul is constantly praying for them so that, even in suffering, “every good purpose” God has for them may be fulfilled.
While the flames of persecution burned around them, many within the church had become “unsettled” and “alarmed” by the false teaching that the second coming of Christ had already taken place.
To refute this error, Paul describes a sequence of prophetic events which must still come to pass before God draws the final curtain on the human drama.
First he says, there will be a final rebellion (Greek, apostasia), a great revolt against God. This will usher in the Antichrist, “the man of sin,” who will set himself up against the divine order of things to a degree hitherto unknown in history. The Antichrist will be a humanoid Satan deceiving many by his counterfeit miracles and sinister pretensions. But his reign of terror is temporary, for he will be destroyed by Christ at His coming.
In recent decades there have been many candidates for the Antichrist from Hitler to Saddam Hussein. Many have also speculated as to the timing of these events. But it is wise to remember that Paul tells us what, not when.
The purpose of this Pauline prophecy is twofold: To remind the Thessalonians to watch and pray because the final end has not yet come, and to assure them that, however evil the days may be, Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. At the end of the day, Satan and all his pomp will have to cry “uncle” before the glory of sovereign God.
The closing chapter of this letter is concerned with how Christians should live in light of the second coming.
Some in this church had become “idlers,” and Paul admonishes them to be responsible: “If a man refuses to work, he shall not eat” (3:10). Some of these idlers had become busybodies and gossips, sowing dissension within the church. Paul commands them to “settle down” (3:12). Still others were disrespectful of Paul’s own apostolic authority, and he instructs the church to discipline such dissidents in the spirit of love (3:14-15).
The burden of Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians can be summarized in this expression: Let God be God!
In the midst of persecution, be faithful and keep looking up. Though Satan is still at work in the world, his days are numbered.
Let us avoid curiosity and speculation when it comes to the second coming believing, as the Baptist Faith and Message puts it, that “God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end.”
In the meantime, God has called us to work and witness, to serve and to love in the name of Jesus. Until He says, “Come up hither,” we must obey His imperative command to “Go ye therefore.”
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