As further evidence of the immense importance of rightly seizing the Christian hope, not only for the soul's fellowship with the Lord but for the due intelligence of prophecy, I present to the reader two letters I had from the late Mr. E. B. Elliott in 1851. From them it is plain enough how very defective were his views, not merely in detail but fundamentally; yet was he the acknowledged leader of the Protestant school in our day.
LETTER I.
Sept. 1, 1851.
DEAR MR. KELLY,
I have read your paper on 2 Thess. 2 I cannot but think that it would be advisable to express your views more simply and plainly for uninitiated readers like myself. If I rightly understand you, the sum and substance of your view and argument is to the effect following:—
The Thessalonian Christians could not be distressed or affrighted at the thought of their Lord's coming being at hand. It was the chief object of their hope. Nor does the passage in question imply anything of the kind. First, “the day of the Lord,” spoken of in it as ἐνεστως, is not identical in sense with the παρουσία, or coming of the Lord, spoken of in the verse preceding, being only that part of the era of His coming which is devoted to judgment; a previous epoch and act of it being that of His gathering of His saints to Himself. Secondly, ἐνεστηκεν does not mean, and may not be explained in the sense of being near, or at hand, but only in the sense it bears elsewhere, of being actually present. Hence, and from these two premises, it is to be inferred that the trouble of the Thessalonian Christians arose out of the idea of the latter part of the era of His coming, that of judgment, having come, and consequently of their having not had part in the previous gathering of His saints to Him.
Supposing this to be your meaning, it of course follows that they thought Paul, as well as themselves, to have been similarly overlooked by Christ, and left to the trials of the judgment-day. Is this credible? Is it not enough of itself to set aside the interpretation?
But what, then, of the ἐνεστηκεν? Is not its proper meaning, “is present?” No doubt, just as παρεστι, and such similar words, mean “is present.” But they are words which, in every language that I am acquainted with, are susceptible, if the context requires it, of the meaning, close at hand. I have little doubt that my friend, Mr. Kelly, when looking out from some height in Guernsey [where we both of us were at the time of the correspondence] for the steamer, in which he was expecting a friend, has sometimes, when he saw her steering into port, made use of the common exclamation, “Here she is!” And what would he have thought, had a friend who heard him looked carefully at every part of the ground within twenty yards of the speaker, and said, “She is not here?” “The Master is here” (παρεστιν), said Martha to Mary, in John 11:2828And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. (John 11:28); and yet, adds verse 30, “Now Jesus had not yet come into the village,” that is, the village where Martha spoke to Mary.
Thus our translators seem to me to have been perfectly right in translating the word ἐνεστηκεν as they have in 2 Thess. 2:22That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. (2 Thessalonians 2:2), the day of the Lord there spoken of being clearly that epoch of time which would be marked by two grand events—one of mercy, one of judgment, the gathering of saints to Himself, and the destruction of the man of sin—as may undoubtingly be inferred from comparison of verses 8 and I.
As to the words, σαλευθηναι ἀπο του νοος and θποεισθαι, they are surely most naturally to be explained, not as meaning “frightened,” but of that agitation of mind and feeling which would indispose them to the calm and proper discharge of the common duties of life. Compare, in Matt. 24:66And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. (Matthew 24:6), the μη θροεισθε. I see nothing whatsoever in this inconsistent with the looking unto the coming of the Son of God. And I am sure I should feel somewhat of its indisposing effect to the common routine of daily duty, had I the fixed persuasion that the Lord had appointed to take me to Himself on the morrow of the present day, whether by the stroke of death, or by His own personal advent.
Yours very faithfully,
E. B. ELLIOTT.
Is it not singular that a paper which many comparatively unlettered Christians have found clear and helpful, should have been unintelligible to, and misunderstood by, a man of Mr. E.'s caliber and attainments? Why was this? In my opinion his own erroneous system of thought, along with the lack of the habit of expecting in the word of God perfect accuracy and nice shades of difference, apparently made not the style only but the subject and the evidence difficult to his mind. It is well to note this, the blinding effect of error, even on a saint, as I do not doubt my friend was. How many suffer thus, as little as he suspecting the true cause!
If the words of the apostle in the text most under examination are to be accepted simply and fully, it is certain that the source of agitation and trouble for the Thessalonian brethren, alleged by the Holy Spirit, was the statement, imputed to the apostle himself, not that the Lord's coming was at hand, but that His day was actually there. This is as unequivocally the sense of the apostle's very precise language, as it is the certain truth of God. He is not conjuring them by that concerning which he was about to teach them, but, on the contrary, he entreats them, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him (which he presents, not as two distinct objects, but as a united idea before the mind by the one article, τής), that they should not be soon shaken in mind (“from their mind” may be literal, but is not idiomatic English), nor yet troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as by us [that is, as if it were by us], as [or to the effect] that the day of the Lord is present. That is, he entreats them, by or for the sake of our blessed hope in Christ, who will gather us to Himself on high, that they should not be soon disturbed, or thrown off their balance, nor yet alarmed by the report, falsely attributed to him and a higher than him, that the day of the Lord, the day of judgment for man and the earth, was actually come.
This I believe to be the only possible sense of the verses, which also maintains the force of each clause and word as precisely as it exhibits a wise and worthy aim in the sentence as a whole. Mr. Elliott's view confounds that hope by which Paul is beseeching the brethren with the dread scene of judgment, which had been misrepresented and misunderstood as already arrived. The true view sustains the Authorized Version of ὐπέρ, “by,” which is not only grammatically tenable but exegetically demanded here, if not elsewhere, in the New Testament. It was not the παρουσία but the ἡμέρα τοῦ κυρίου, which had been misused; and the comfort of the Lord's coming is employed as a motive and means for counteracting the uneasiness created by the false representation that the day was there.
No doubt the preposition may, and does often, mean “in regard to,” or “on behalf of,” a little stronger than περί. But the question is the meaning of ὑπέρ, neither in itself, nor in other constructions, but with such words of entreaty as ἐρωτάω, as distinguished from ἐρωτάω; where the sense of “in the place of,” or “instead of,” is excluded, as here. To me it appears that the precise meaning of ἐρ. ὑπέρ, in such a ease as the present, can only be “by reason of,” or briefly “by,” and, if motive be made more prominent, “for the sake of,” or briefly “for."
Now the apostle had been setting out in 2 Thess. 1 that retributive hour of God's righteous judgment, when He will render tribulation to those that trouble the saints, and to the troubled saints repose at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His powers in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those that know not God, and on those that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus. It is His coming, not to receive the saints, and present them to the Father in His house above, but to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all them that believed in that day. It is, beyond question, that day of everlasting destruction from the Lord's presence and the glory of His might, the day of the Lord, which was said (on the. Spirit's warrant, and not a revelation only but a pretended Pauline epistle) to have even then set in, so that the saints in Thessalonica were shaken in mind (which is the true English idiom, as ἀπὸ τοῦ νοος is the Greek), and troubled. Clearly therefore the contradistinction comes out more and more plainly. It was not the excitement of a premature hope, but the agitation and fear produced by the rumor, and on quasi-apostolic authority too, that that terrible day had really begun. The apostle beseeches them, by the comfortable hope of the one, not to be soon shaken and troubled by the false cry that the other, the day of judgment on the quick, was come.
Mr. E. reasons against his supposed necessary but inadmissible consequence, that the Thessalonians must in such a case have thought that they, and Paul too, had been left behind by Christ at the first act of His coming, and exposed to the horrors of the second. But it is entirely a mistake, and his own solely. The Thessalonians had no adequate light up to this second epistle on the relative order of these events. From 1 Thessalonians they knew of Christ's coming (chap. 4.), and of the day (chap. 5); but they may, till they got the second epistle, have thought, as so many Christians do even in our day, and did in all ages, that the tribulation of the last times precedes the translation of the saints, and that His day therefore accompanies, if it too does not precede, His coming. Even Bengel affirms the whimsical idea, refuted by this very chapter, that the appearing of our Lord's coming may happen before His coming itself. Now the nature of the thing, as well as its accompaniments, bear a testimony exactly opposed. For the Lord might come without appearing to every eye, but He could not appear without coming. Just so we read in the first verse of this chapter that He will come and gather unto Himself the saints; whereas it is not His coming, but the revelation or appearing of His coming, which is to destroy the lawless one or man of sin. Such is the true moral order, and proved by other scriptures also, as Rev. 17:14; 19:1414These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. (Revelation 17:14)
14And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. (Revelation 19:14). He first receives His own, His friends, to Himself by His coming or παρομσία; He afterward executes judgment on His enemies by the appearance of His coming, τῇ ἑπιφανείᾳ πῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ. The glorified saints are with Him when He brings in the day, following Him out of heaven as His hosts or armies (Rev. 19:1414And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. (Revelation 19:14)), before the judgment of the beast and the false prophet, instead of being caught up coincidently with it or after it. pence, when Christ our life is manifested, it is written that then shall we also be manifested with Him in glory (not translated to heaven then or subsequently).
Plainly then the Thessalonians had not the least suspicion that. Christ had come and taken up the apostle or any one else, nor is this at all the delusion which the apostle is refuting, but what was not at all unnatural for any like them ignorant of the mutual relation of His coming and His day. They feared that that day of darkness and clouds had dawned; and the agitating influence of this the false teachers sought to bring on their souls, availing themselves of a pretended communication of the apostle. We can readily understand that the Christians then were troubled by a panic which has often repeated itself since, even to our own day. One sees in the Old Testament the judgment of a city or land (as in Isa. 13 or xix.) called the day of the Lord on Babylon or Egypt. So might these unscrupulous teachers seek to use the afflictions of the Thessalonians, which even in his former epistle the apostle feared might furnish an occasion to the tempter. And this apparently they did. See (they might have said) what troubles overwhelm us! It is the day of the Lord already begun. The apostle corrects this—first, by the motive of our hope, the Lord's coming to gather us unto Himself; and, secondly, by elaborate proof, not that His “coming” may not be at any time, but that “the day or appearance of His coming cannot be till the apostasy (for it is much more than “a falling away") and the man of sin be revealed, which that day is to judge. It was now for the first time to be inferred that the coming precedes the appearance of His coming, as it was afterward still more manifestly shown in Rev. 4 compared with chapters 19., 20.
And this is corroborated by every word in detail, as well as by the general issue. See the violent but ineffectual effort to get rid of the force of ἐνέστηκεν, the word so unfaithfully rendered “is at hand” by our translators, and even so inconsistently with their own rendering of it in every other occurrence of the same form. Indeed Mr. E. is obliged to own its proper meaning to be “is present.” But, argues he, so it is with πάρεστιν, and such similar words. “They are words which in every language that I am acquainted with are susceptible if the context requires it, of the meaning, close at hand.” And then he illustrates the case, with his usual ingenuity, from the language of common life, which he endeavors to confirm by John 11:28-3028And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. 29As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him. 30Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. (John 11:28‑30).
But it is not true that the meaning of “presence” is interchangeable with mere “nearness” in any language; they are different ideas, and are expressed by distinct words. We have seen that the New Testament occurrences of the word ἐνέστηκεν do not sustain this notion; nor do any in the LXX, any more than the instances in Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, as the Dean of Rochester has allowed to me. It is wrong therefore to give pending, save in the sense of present, begun, if “pending” will bear it. It is time present, not instant. And so of all exact versions now, German or of English, as of Meyer, Dean Alford, Bishop Ellicott, &c.
But what strikes one as peculiar is, that Mr. E.'s illustration and use of John 11 proves nothing, save against his argument. For, according to his own showing, the person or thing had actually removed from the place where either had been, had traversed the space that separated, and had arrived at the place where the person was whom it was proposed to reach, though not to the precise spot on which he stood. To take the case used, my friend would have really steamed from England (or France, as it might be), crossed the sea, and entered Guernsey roads, when one might exclaim of the packet, Here she is! So in the scripture cited: our blessed Lord had left where He staid two days after receiving the message, had traversed the way which constituted the distance thence to Bethany, and had reached the locality or district, though not yet in the village.
Now it was precisely the error of those who were then misleading the Thessalonians to say that the day of the Lord had thus come, ἐνέστηκεν. Mr. E. wishes to show that they taught it would soon be coming, or was impending, a sense in which neither παρεστιν nor ἐνέστηκεν is ever used in any correct writing, sacred or profane. A vast change is supposed to have taken place in both eases, which it is his thought and aim to deny. There is therefore not the least ground for his reasoning in the text or the illustration. They destroy his own argument, and leave our translators wholly unjustified in rendering ἐνέστηκεν, “is at hand.” Even if the laxity of common life allowed of our saying, Here he is when he had not begun to move from a distant land (which is the true way of stating the question, not when he had come to the immediate neighborhood though not the exact spot), how strange that such looseness of language should be transferred to an apostle's inspired repudiation of an error!
Nor is there, so far as I am acquainted with the subject, the smallest ground from scripture to affirm that the day of the Lord includes the gathering of the saints to Christ, though Mr. E. ventured to say that clearly it is thus marked. Not so; the day of the Lord brings judgment on man's evil on earth, and is never said to gather saints to Christ in heaven; and the comparison of verses 1 and 8 proves the difference of “the coming” from “the manifestation of the coming” or day of the Lord. Where are the scriptures which connect the gathering of the saints to Christ with the day of the Lord! I know of none. It is assumption and error.
Again, it is unfounded that σαλευθῆναι ἀπὸ τοῦ νοός and θροεῖσθαι have the most distant reference to the excitement of hope, as the ordinary misinterpretation implies; they mean just such disturbance of mind as in Matt. 24:66And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. (Matthew 24:6); Mark 13:77And when ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. (Mark 13:7). Mr. E. says “not as meaning frightened;” but far better scholars than he say the express contrary. “The verb θροέω, derived from ΘΡΕΟΜΑΙ, and connected with τρέω; compare Donalds. [Cratyl. sec. 272] properly implies clamorem tumultuantem edere (Schott), and thence by a natural transition that terrified state (ταραχίζεσθαι Zonara), which is associated with, and gives rise to, such kind of outward manifestations.” (Bp. Ellicott's Comm. in loc.) To suppose the Christian's joy in the anticipation of meeting the Son of God, the Bridegroom of the bride, to be expressible by the same terms as those of perturbation or alarm which might be produced by hearing of wars and rumors of wars, affliction, tribulation, &c., is not to me the evidence of a sound judgment in divine things, but of the reverse. And I trust the Lord was better to my late friend ere he was called away them to leave him under that lack of peace and happy expectation and rest in His love, which his last sentence discloses. Indeed it is the conviction that this confusion of the day with the coming of the Lord is as destructive to the soul's enjoyment of the Lord, as it is to real intelligence in scripture and notably in the prophetic word, which makes one feel the importance of showing how it wrought even in so pious a soul as the late Mr. E. B. Elliott. Need there be any delicacy now in using his words for the profit of the living?
LETTER II.
Sept. 5.
DEAR FRIEND,
Thus I see nothing in your remarks to alter my opinion as to the παρουσία of Christ, the day of Christ or day of the Lord being used with reference to the same era in 2 Thessalonians.
Nor, again, do I see reason from your remarks to doubt of the parallelism of the παρεστι and the ενεστηκεν, or of the θροεισθε in Matt. 24 with the same word in 2 Thess. 2:22That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. (2 Thessalonians 2:2). And the argument you urge, from the fact of unstable men having been drawn by heretical teachers into heresy, to the fact of faithful believing men, like the Thessalonian Christians, being seduced into grievous heresy, seems to me unmaintainable.
But, dear friend, I like to dwell on the points in which we agree rather than on those on which we differ. I trust I may be found united with you in “the day of Christ.” And in that hope I beg you to believe me
Yours very sincerely,
E. B. ELLIOTT..
We leave to-morrow morning. I write this, as I may not find you at home when I call to take leave. I return the books you were so kind as to lend me, with my thanks, retaining what I think you kindly allowed me to retain.
My remarks on the second letter need not be long. Not a single word in a single text referred to by Mr. E. connects the gathering of the saints to Christ with the day of the Lord. We have in 1 and 2 Cor. 1 their manifestation as unimpeachable in that day, and the apostle's joy in them then, whatever the exercises and need of patient grace now. Still less does Phil. 1:6, 106Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: (Philippians 1:6)
10That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; (Philippians 1:10) touch the question, which is rather Paul's confidence in God's completing in them the good work begun unto (or, as we say, for, and even against) that day; but not a hint of “gathering” them to Christ then. Again, Phil. 2:1616Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. (Philippians 2:16) is the earnest desire of the devoted servant of Christ that the saints at Philippi should be a boast for him in Christ's day that he had not run nor labored in vain. In short, the manifestation of our responsible walk and services, and hence the joy and reward of faithfulness will be in that day; but of our gathering to Christ in these texts (no doubt the most apt Mr. E. could find) not a whisper. To my mind the serious thing is the insensibility of such a man to their force. For the same confusion which made him imagine that these texts connect the gathering of the saints to Christ with the day of the Lord prevented him from even comprehending, the bearing of 2 Thess. 2:11Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, (2 Thessalonians 2:1), as distinguished from verses 2 and 8.
The argument I urged on Mr. E. from 2 Tim. 2 must have been somewhat to this effect. It is evident that later on Hymenaeus and Philetus, and the like, had, as to the truth, so far missed the mark as to say that the resurrection had taken place already. They probably resolved it into resurrection with Christ (or possibly “higher life") as a present state, denying the true and blessed hope, and so had settled down into a life of ease, a millennium now, instead of awaiting Christ from and for heaven in suffering and testimony meanwhile. Thus was the faith of some overthrown. And so, in all likelihood, it may have been in Thessalonica. The misleaders were really bolder there, since they alleged the Spirit, nay, a word, and even apostolic letter, for the alarming impression that the day of the Lord had arrived. But it is as easy to conceive a quasi-spiritual or figurative force given to that day as to the resurrection, and real believers being upset by either. I can only suppose that Mr. E. did not, take in the idea; else he must surely have admitted that the analogy is plain, and not maintainable only but rather irresistible, unless I greatly deceive myself.
One thing is certain, that, even among real scholars, not to speak of enlightened Christians, “the usual view” of the last clause of 2 Thess. 2:22That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. (2 Thessalonians 2:2) is now abandoned generally as incorrect and untenable in every point of view, Mr. E. being one of its latest defenders among men of any weight. The “usual view” had so filled my friend's mind, that he never could get a clear apprehension of the overwhelming weight of proof against it. Another “usual view,” endorsed even by Hammond, Bishop Newton, Paley, and others, that the clause before the last means that the Thessalonians were misled through a misconstruction of the first epistle of the apostle, is of less consequence but equally mistaken. It was a supposititious epistle, forged to convey the error that the day of the Lord was present. Such is the only meaning fairly deducible from the words, ἐπιστολῆς ώς δἰ ἡμῶν: and so even Chrysostom, πεπλασμένην [not πρώτην] ἐπιστολὴν ἐπιδείκνυον ώς ἀπὸ τοῦ (Comment. in Epp. Pauli, Hom. iii., v. 485, ed. Field.) As to this point the late Mr. G. S. Faber is quite right, I see, in his “Sacred Calendar,” iii. 486, 487.
Our proper hope is the Lord's coming to receive us to Himself, and to be with Him in the Father's house. We shall also appear with Him in glory, and reign with Him over the earth. But, in order to appear with Him when He appears in glory, scripture shows that we shall be caught up to join Him above. Then that a very grave work in judgment, but not without mercy, for Jews and Gentiles, proceeds on earth, while we are with Him there, is taught in Rev. 4-19, before He appears, and we with Him, in glory and to judgment.