Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 2 Thessalonians 2:1

"Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him;" — 2 Thessalonians 2:1 (ASV)

The hortatory words “we ask you, brothers” (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:12) provides a transition from what Paul has been saying about the day of the Lord to an acute problem related to it. This problem has to do with the eschatological events he has just described in ch. 1. In the interest of truth about this vital hope, Paul must set down accurately certain features of “the day of the Lord” as a corrective to what some were falsely claiming.

He must explain what he means by “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him” or else the solution to the problem cannot be grasped. “Being gathered” (GK 2191) defines which part of the “coming” (parousia; GK 4242) Paul has in mind.

This is the great event he described more fully in 1 Thessalonians 4:14–17—i.e., the gathering of those in Christ to meet him in the air en route to the Father in heaven. This begins the day of the Lord. The relationship that this happening bears to the tribulation phase of the day of the Lord so frequently mentioned in these letters is important. Some limit the parousia to a single event and insist that it comes after the tribulation. It is hardly possible, though, to explain the variety of relationships belonging to the parousia in these letters if it is understood only as a single event. Even the meaning of the word suggests a longer duration.

Another problem is encountered if the parousia that initiates the day of the Lord is considered as the single event of Christ’s return to earth following the tribulation. If Paul had given oral or written instruction to this effect, the false claim that the day of the Lord was already present could hardly have alarmed these Christians. According to this scheme, the day of the Lord could not begin without Christ’s personal reappearance. His continued absence was obvious to all.

Yet the claim was made and accepted to the extent that the church was troubled. This implies Paul had not taught that a one-phase parousia after the period of wrath would begin the day of the Lord. He had told them that the coming of the Lord to gather his saints into heaven would initiate both the tribulation and the day of the Lord. They were promised immediate “rest” (1:7) and glorification with Christ (1:10), not increased persecution.

The false instruction had, however, denied them an imminent “rest.” They would first have to undergo the severe persecution of the tribulation and possibly even suffer martyrdom before Christ’s coming, according to these misrepresentations. They were even told that their current suffering indicated the arrival of the expected tribulation. Paul speaks in 2:3–4, 8–12 of this future period in terms quite similar to those of Rev 13 and 17. The man of lawlessness has a number of affinities with the beasts of Revelation, enough to show that the two books describe the same period.

Though 2 Thessalonians does not specifically mention the beast’s war with the saints and their martyrdom, Revelation 13:7, 10 declares it explicitly. If this is a possibility for the church, why did Paul at no point teach this kind of anticipation? The answer must lie in the removal of Christians (including the Thessalonian believers) from earth before this persecution. It is another group of God’s people, following the church’s translation, who must face the terror of this archenemy.

Despite their “persecutions and trials” (1:4) these Thessalonian Christians were not living in the day of the Lord, as they had been erroneously told. A right understanding of “being gathered to him” reveals that they could not be so enmeshed, because for them Christ’s parousia will antedate the awful period to come. In fact, their “being gathered to him” would be the event that signals the day’s beginning.

As their friend and brother, Paul respectfully requests (“we ask,” v.1; cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:1) them not to become “unsettled or alarmed” (v.2). This might easily happen if they were led to believe that somehow the glorious coming had passed them by. “Unsettled” (GK 4888) means “to be shaken from your sensibleness [lit., mind].” Distorted teaching had “alarmed” (GK 2583) them. Paul cautioned them against hastily adopting something other than the instruction he had previously given them (cf. v.15).

False teaching that purported to have come from Paul had reached them through three possible avenues. (1) One was the spiritual gift of “prophecy” (lit., “spirit,” v.2; GK 4460) or something like it (see also 1 Thessalonians 5:19–20). Whatever the specific medium, the teaching was represented as having Paul’s authority. (2) A second avenue was the spoken word (“report”; GK 3364). Though this did not claim the direct inspiration of prophecy, it too was based on an allegedly Pauline foundation. (3) The same basis was claimed for a third medium of communication—“letter.” Someone had misrepresented Paul’s views in a letter bearing his name, a mistake he will rectify in any future correspondence (cf. 3:17–18). It is not clear whether the readers had been misguided through one or all three channels, but in any case Paul denounces them all.

The false teaching consisted in the claim that “the day of the Lord has already come” (lit., “is present”; GK 1931). This word denotes actual presence. These readers who knew about the day (1 Thessalonians 5:2) knew that its earlier phase would be a time of heightened persecution for the saints. Their suffering had already been so severe that someone tried to convince them that the period was already in progress, even though the Lord had not yet come to gather them to heaven. They knew of the time of trouble and the Lord’s return to culminate it (1:7–9). They had been led to believe, however, that his coming for them would spare them the anguish of that hour (1 Thessalonians 5:9). But here were people telling them, with Paul’s apparent backing, that such a deliverance was not to be.

Therefore they were in great need of an authentic word from Paul assuring them that they had understood him correctly in his first letter. They needed to know that the parousia of Christ for his church would mark the beginning of the future day of trouble and consequently that the day had not yet arrived. To accomplish this, Paul proceeded to describe features, obviously not yet present, that would characterize the day’s early stages.