WE have seen that the only right attitude for the Christian at all times is that of waiting and watching for Christ. It is a mistake to suppose that the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians was written to correct the thought that the Lord might at any moment return to take His own away from earth to heaven. No, the error that needed correction was quite different from this.
False teachers had come in amongst the young converts of Thessalonica; they troubled them by their teachings, and upset their minds with reference to what in the simplicity of their faith they had at first believed.
Heretics are never over-scrupulous as to the methods they employ to spread their evil doctrines, and here we find they left no stone unturned to gain the ear of these young converts, and to weaken their confidence in the apostle’s instructions. They claimed spiritual revelation for their assertion that the Day of the Lord was actually present; and had not the apostle himself enjoined upon thein not to quench the Spirit? (1 Thess. 5:1919Quench not the Spirit. (1 Thessalonians 5:19)). We can readily understand how an argument of this nature must have appealed to the saints of that day, before the completion of the Word of God. Now, as we know, the whole of the truth has been revealed. We need the Spirit for the reception and right understanding of what has already been revealed, but no fresh or fuller light will be given than what has already been bestowed in the Scriptures. Therefore any pretended new light must be submitted to the test of Scripture, a duty that becomes increasingly imperative in view of the fact that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:1313But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:13)).
Furthermore, it was no use for these deceivers to claim for their own “word” the authority of the Word of God. When the apostle had spoken to the Thessalonians he had not spoken his own words merely but “the word of God,” which had effectually wrought in them that had believed. That word had come to them “in power and in the Holy Ghost,” they had received it too “with joy of the Holy Ghost,” and had through it received assurance of salvation and peace in view of the coming day of wrath. Was all this to be given up? What had the word of these deceivers given them in its stead? Nothing but trouble and confusion. This is ever the difference between true and false teaching. The truth of God brings peace and joy and true liberty of soul; heresy brings strife and trouble and every evil work.
But these deceivers went further with their evil deception, and produced a false letter — a letter that they pretended had come from Paul himself. How earnestly the apostle beseeches them not to be shaken in their minds by all these things, recalling their hearts to the comforting hope already unfolded in the First Epistle, “We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him,” &c.
So far from rebuking them for their daily expectation of the return of their Lord, he beeches them on the ground of this very hope not to be troubled. It was impossible that the Day of the Lord should be actually present as these deceivers asserted, for the gathering tether of the saints to meet the Lord in the air had not yet taken place.
Furthermore, before the Day of the Lord should come, two solemn things must take place — the falling-away or apostasy must come and the antichrist must be revealed (vs. 3). These things must happen, not before the gathering together of the saints to meet the Lord in the air, but before the Day of the Lord should come.
There is nothing to hinder the Lord from coming at any moment to take His saints away, but this hope when held in the soul in power exercises such a sanctifying effect that the enemy of Christ’s glory would ever hinder the saints from embracing it with simple faith. The fixing of dates, quite apart from the lack of intelligence displayed by an attempt at any such thing, puts off to a future day what should be the daily and hourly expectation — “Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour” (Matt. 25:1313Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. (Matthew 25:13)). “Let no man deceive you by any means.”
A. H. H.