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42. Is the day of the Lord at hand? 1 Thes 4:15-17, 5:23 vs 2 Thes 2:2-3
Isolating scriptures without consideration to the greater context, is staring at three puzzle pieces out of a box of 5000, and deducing that they couldn’t possibly go together.
1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.1 Thessalonians 5:23
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.2 Thessalonians 2:2-3
not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of of perdition,
In 1 Thessalonians 5, “spirit, soul and body” is a phrase that just indicates the whole self. Paul is not suggesting that his readers will all be alive at the coming of the Lord. He did not stop at “preserved,” but said, “preserved blameless.” Paul is appealing for believers’ sanctification and holiness.
Bear in mind that he’s writing to the Thessalonian Church.
His letter opened with phrases such as, “And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction,” and, “For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen …” Believers in Thessolanica were heavily persecuted, and Paul knew it.
In fact, the topic came up in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians because he was writing comfort to them concerning their loved ones who had died (1 Thes 4:13). It would be ridiculous to assume that Paul would write comforting words regarding deceased believers, and on the same page suggest that all of the believers in Thessalonica would be kept alive until the coming of the Lord.
That said,
there is debate about whether or not Paul thought that the Lord would come back while he was alive.
Some say there’s no way, based on the whole of his writing, that he could have believed that. They will tell you that the “we” here – as in a few other places – references the body of Christ as a whole, and does not necessarily include himself.
Others read it at face value and find that too difficult.
Personally, I’m in the first camp. Read in the context of the conversation, I think Paul used the term “we” to refer to believers who were alive because he was alive when he said it. He wasn’t in the thick of a second-coming-sermon, he was comforting friends who had lost loved ones … probably to religious violence.
He knew by revelation that when Jesus does come back, dead believers would rise first, and then those who were still alive would follow. He was sharing this information to comfort his friends. His choice of “we” was casual, and may have even caused some confusion among the Thessalonians too.
That’s why 2 Thessalonians is complimentary, not contradictory.
He writes again and clarifies, in 2 Thessalonians 2, that he was not saying Jesus would return while he and his immediate audience were alive because, remember, all these things have to happen first … It’s not a contradiction, it’s clarification. It’s a clarification we still need today, evidently.
If the later is true, if Paul did mistakenly suspect that Jesus would come back during his lifetime, does scripture contradict?
No.
Scripture faithfully and consistently describes the season of Jesus’ return, and faithfully and consistently teaches that we won’t know the exact time. If some of the apostles seemed to have a mistaken understanding of that time frame, the Holy Spirit, who really authored the scriptures, faithfully and consistently prevented them from writing it down.
The question we should be asking is, are we prepared for that day when it comes? If you remove everything Paul penned from scripture, the fact remains that Jesus is coming back someday to pass a final judgment, and we’re all guilty. What will your defense be?
There’s only one right answer.