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In this message we will continue to consider our experience and enjoyment of Christ in His coming as the hope of the church.
The coming of Christ is the cause of the complete sanctification in our spirit, soul, and body. First Thessalonians 5:23 says, “The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Man is of three parts: spirit, soul, and body. The spirit as our inmost part is the inner organ, possessing God-consciousness, that we may contact God (John 4:24; Rom. 1:9). The soul is our self (cf. Matt. 16:26; Luke 9:25), a medium between our spirit and our body, possessing self-consciousness, that we may have our personality. The body as our external part is the outer organ, possessing world-consciousness, that we may contact the material world. The body contains the soul, and the soul is the vessel that contains the spirit. In the spirit, God as the Spirit dwells; in the soul, our self dwells; and in the body, the physical senses dwell. God sanctifies us, first, by taking possession of our spirit through regeneration (John 3:5-6); second, by spreading Himself as the life-giving Spirit from our spirit into our soul to saturate and transform our soul (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18); and last, by enlivening our mortal body through our soul (Rom. 8:11, 13) and transfiguring our body by His life power (Phil. 3:21).
God not only has made us holy in position by the redeeming blood of Christ to separate us unto Himself in His judicial redemption; He also is sanctifying us in disposition by His own holy nature to saturate us with Himself in His organic salvation (Heb. 13:12; 10:29; Rom. 6:19, 22; Eph. 5:26). God’s dispositional sanctification of our spirit, soul, and body is to “sonize” us divinely, making us sons of God that we may become the same as God is in His life and in His nature but not in His Godhead so that we can be God’s expression (1:4-5; Heb. 2:10-11). By sanctifying us, God transforms us in the essence of our spirit, soul, and body, making us wholly like Him in nature.
God not only sanctifies us wholly but also preserves our spirit, soul, and body complete. Wholly is quantitative; complete is qualitative. Quantitatively, God sanctifies us wholly; qualitatively, God preserves us complete, that is, He keeps our spirit, soul, and body perfect. The word wholly means “entirely, thoroughly, to the consummation.” God sanctifies us wholly so that no part of our being — our spirit, soul, or body — will be left common or profane.
Through the fall our body was ruined, our soul was contaminated, and our spirit was deadened. In God’s full salvation our entire being is saved and made complete and perfect. God is preserving our spirit from any deadening element (9:14), our soul from remaining natural and old (Matt. 16:24-26), and our body from the ruin of sin (1 Thes. 4:4; Rom. 6:6). God’s preservation and His thorough sanctification sustain us to live a holy life unto maturity that we may meet the Lord in His parousia, His coming.
Although God preserves us, we need to take the responsibility, the initiative, to cooperate with His operation, to be preserved by keeping our spirit, soul, and body in the saturating of the Holy Spirit (1 Thes. 5:12-24). In the second part of verse 23 Paul says, “May your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame.” In the first part of the verse concerning God’s sanctifying us, it is God who takes the initiative. But in the second part of the verse concerning our spirit, soul, and body being preserved, we are the ones who should take the initiative. The command be preserved may be regarded as an active-passive verb. This means that we take the initiative to be preserved, although God is the One who preserves our spirit, soul, and body. Therefore, we should pray, “Lord, I long to have my spirit, soul, and body preserved. However, I cannot do this work. I take the initiative, Lord, to ask You to do this.”
In verse 23 Paul refers to “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here Paul indicates that in order to be ready, prepared, and qualified for the coming back of the Lord Jesus, we must be sanctified wholly and preserved complete and without blame in our spirit, soul, and body.
In order to cooperate with God to preserve our spirit in sanctification, we must keep our spirit in a living condition by exercising our spirit. In order to preserve our spirit, we must keep our spirit living by exercising it to have fellowship with God. If we fail to exercise our spirit in this way, we will leave it in a deadened situation. To preserve our spirit is first of all to exercise our spirit, to keep it living and to pull it out of death. To rejoice, pray, and give thanks are to exercise our spirit (vv. 16-18). Moreover, we need to cooperate with the sanctifying God to be separated from a spirit-deadening situation (Num. 6:6-8; 2 Cor. 5:4). We must worship God, serve God, and fellowship with God in and with our spirit. Whatever we are, whatever we have, and whatever we do toward God must be in our spirit (John 4:24; Rom. 1:9; Phil. 2:1). In order to preserve our spirit, we should keep it from all defilement and contamination (2 Cor. 7:1) and exercise ourselves to have a conscience without offense toward God and men (Acts 24:16; Rom. 9:1 cf. 8:16).
In order to cooperate with God to preserve our soul in sanctification, we must take care of the three parts of our soul — our mind, emotion, and will. In order for our soul to be sanctified, our mind must be renewed to be the mind of Christ (12:2), our emotion must be touched and saturated with the love of Christ (Eph. 3:17, 19), our will must be subdued by and infused with the resurrected Christ (Phil. 2:13 cf. S. S. 4:4a; 7:4a), and we must love the Lord with our whole being (Mark 12:30).
Furthermore, we need to make a thorough confession to the Lord. We should stay with the Lord for a period of time, asking Him to bring us fully into the light. In the shining of His light which exposes us, we should confess our defects, failures, defeats, mistakes, wrongdoings, and sins (1 John 1:5-9). We need to confess everything that is sinful in our thoughts and in our way of thinking. We need to confess the germs of rebellion in our will. We need to confess that we express our joy and sorrow in a natural and even fleshy way and that we often hate what we should love and love what we should hate.
In order to cooperate with God to preserve our body in sanctification, we must present our body to Him so that we may live a holy life for the church life, practicing the Body life in order to carry out God’s perfect will (Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Thes. 4:4; 5:18). In order to have our body preserved, we should no longer live by our old man (Rom. 6:6). If we do not live by our old man, our body will be a slave to righteousness instead of a slave to sin (vv. 13, 19). Positively, we preserve our body by presenting it to God a living sacrifice (12:1). Then our body will even become a member of Christ (1 Cor. 6:15) so that we may live Christ, express Christ, and magnify Christ (Phil. 1:20). Furthermore, our body will be the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit for God’s dwelling (1 Cor. 6:19). God dwells in our body to move and to express Himself, to glorify Himself. In this way our spirit, soul, and body will be preserved in the Triune God. This is a holy life, and this is to be saved in the sanctification of the Spirit.
Christ in His coming is the incentive of our suffering for Him. In 2 Thessalonians 1:7 Paul says, “To you who are being afflicted, rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power, in flaming fire.” The Greek word translated “rest” also means “relief, ease, repose, liberty.” In this age the believers suffer persecutions and troubles for the Lord. At the Lord’s coming back they will be relieved of their sufferings and enter into the Lord’s rest and enjoy its liberty.
In verse 7 Paul speaks of the revelation of the Lord Jesus. Although the Lord is here today, He is veiled; His coming back will be the time of His unveiling. The universe is immeasurably vast in its dimensions, yet with the Lord there is no such thing as distance. He is everywhere. One day, at His coming, He will be unveiled, and everyone will see Him. At the unveiling of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power, we will rest. The time has not yet come for us to rest. Our rest will be at the Lord’s coming, at His unveiling.
In verse 10 Paul speaks of Christ coming to be glorified in His saints: “When He comes to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at in all those who have believed (because our testimony to you was believed) in that day.” The Lord is the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8); He was glorified in His resurrection and ascension (John 17:1; Luke 24:26; Heb. 2:9). Now He is in us as the hope of glory (Col. 1:27) to bring us into glory (Heb. 2:10). At His coming back, on the one hand, He will come from the heavens with glory (Rev. 10:1; Matt. 25:31), and on the other hand, He will be glorified in His saints; that is, His glory will be manifested from within His members, causing their body of humiliation to be transfigured into His glory, conforming it to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21). Thus, the unbelievers will marvel at Him, admire Him, and wonder at Him in us, His believers.
We are awaiting the day of His coming, His parousia, which is His personal presence. This day will come only after the apostasy (2 Thes. 2:3a) and the revelation of the man of lawlessness and sin — Antichrist (vv. 3b-4, 8-10) — who will be manifested during the last seven years of this age (Dan. 9:27; Matt. 24:21 cf. v. 15).
In 2 Thessalonians 2:1, Paul says, “Now we ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him.” In this verse two matters are covered: the Lord’s parousia (presence) and our gathering together (rapture) to Him. The Lord’s parousia will begin with the rapture of the overcomers to the throne of God in heaven (Rev. 12:5-6); at the end of the great tribulation, which will occur in the last three and a half years of this age, the second half of the last week in Daniel 9:27 (Matt. 24:21; Rev. 11:2), His parousia will come to the air (10:1) and last for a time; and it will end with its manifestation, the manifestation of His coming (2 Thes. 2:8; Matt. 24:30). During the time in which the Lord’s parousia remains in the air, the majority of the believers will be raptured to meet the Lord there (1 Thes. 4:17).
Second Thessalonians 2:2 says, “That you be not quickly shaken in mind nor alarmed, neither by a spirit nor by word nor by a letter as if by us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.” According to the context, the expression the day of the Lord in this verse refers to the day of the Lord’s parousia (coming), in which the rapture of the majority of the believers will occur.
In verse 3 Paul says, “Let no one deceive you in any way, because it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition.” The Greek word translated “deceive” may also be rendered “beguile,” which means “not only making a false impression but actually leading astray” (Vincent).
In verse 3 the pronoun it refers to the day of the Lord’s coming. This day will not come unless the apostasy comes first. This apostasy will be a falling away from the straight way of God’s economy as revealed in the Scriptures. There is a strong prophecy in the Bible that before the Lord’s coming back, there will be a great apostasy among His people, a falling away from the path of God’s economy. Even today there is a tendency among some Christians to leave the straight way of the New Testament.
Verse 3 also indicates that the day of the Lord will not come before the man of lawlessness is revealed. This man of lawlessness is Antichrist, as prophesied in Daniel 7:20-21, 24-26; 8:9-12, 23-25; 9:27; 11:36-37; Revelation 13:1-8, 12-18; and 19:19-20. He will be the man of lawlessness, casting down the truth to the ground, changing laws, destroying and corrupting many to an extraordinary degree, blaspheming God, and deceiving men. Hence, the Lord will utterly destroy him, and he will become the son of perdition.
Second Thessalonians 2:3 indicates strongly that the Lord’s coming back will not precede the tribulation. Before the Lord’s coming there will first be the apostasy and also the revealing of the man of lawlessness. This means that prior to the Lord’s coming, one matter — the apostasy — and one person — Antichrist — must appear first.
Paul told the Thessalonians that since the apostasy and the revealing of the man of lawlessness must come before the day of the Lord’s coming, they should not be shaken by anything or anyone that would claim that the day of the Lord has already come. The apostasy must take place, and Antichrist must be revealed. Antichrist will be fully revealed during the great tribulation.
In verse 4 Paul gives a further description of Antichrist: “who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or an object of worship, so that he sits in the temple of God, setting himself forth, saying that he is God.” This fulfills the prophecy concerning Antichrist in Daniel 11:36-37; it will take place in the midst of the last week, as prophesied in Daniel 9:27.
The temple of God mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 is “the holy place” in Matthew 24:15. Second Thessalonians 2:4 indicates that the temple of God will be rebuilt before the Lord comes back. The temple was destroyed more than nineteen centuries ago, but this verse says that Antichrist will seat himself in the temple of God. Therefore, the temple must be rebuilt. The nation of Israel has been formed again, and the city of Jerusalem has been returned to Israel. However, the temple has not yet been rebuilt. Some Jews are deeply stirred concerning the rebuilding of the temple. One day this temple will be rebuilt, and, according to the prophecy of Daniel, Antichrist will seat himself in it.
In verse 6 Paul goes on to say, “Now you know that which restrains, so that he might be revealed in his own time.” This verse indicates that some power hinders the revelation of the man of lawlessness, Antichrist.
In verse 7 Paul continues, “It is the mystery of lawlessness that is now operating, but only until the one now restraining goes out of the way.” The lawlessness that will characterize Antichrist is already operating in this age mysteriously. It is the mystery of lawlessness working today among the nations and in human society. Even now there is a tendency for lawlessness to be prevailing. Antichrist will be the totality of lawlessness.
According to God’s sovereignty, there is one who restrains now until he goes out of the way. This probably means that the restraining factor will eventually be taken out of the way. Although the mystery of lawlessness is already operating, this lawlessness is at the present time restrained, restricted. But one day this restrainer will be taken away. We need to realize from the prophecy of the Bible that one day the restraining factor will be removed, and then Antichrist will be unrestricted.
Verse 8 says, “Then the lawless one will be revealed (whom the Lord Jesus will slay by the breath of His mouth and bring to nothing by the manifestation of His coming).” This will be fulfilled in Revelation 19:19-20. This verse indicates that the Lord’s coming (parousia) is hidden before it is manifested openly. This indicates also that the Lord’s coming involves a period of time. It will remain in secret, and then it will be manifested to the public.
Speaking of Antichrist in verse 9, Paul says, “The coming of whom is according to Satan’s operation in all power and signs and wonders of a lie.” This verse reveals that the coming of Antichrist is according to the operation of Satan. The reason Antichrist will be so lawless is that he will be under Satan’s operation. Due to the motivation of Satan, he will become extremely powerful. The operation of Satan is with power and signs and wonders of a lie. The entire operation of Satan to deceive people (v. 10) is in its totality a lie, just as he is a liar and the father of liars (John 8:44).
In summary, Paul speaks of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him. Paul also tells the believers not to be quickly shaken in mind nor alarmed, neither by a spirit, by word, or by letter as if by the apostles that the day of the Lord is present. He also charges them not to allow anyone to deceive them. Then Paul goes on to say that the day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness, Antichrist, is revealed in his own time. At present, although the mystery of lawlessness is already working, there is a restraining factor, but one day this factor will be removed. Then the lawless one will be revealed. However, the Lord Jesus will slay him by the breath of His mouth and bring him to nothing by the manifestation of His coming. The coming of the lawless one will be according to the operation of Satan, in all power, signs, and wonders of a lie and in all deceit of unrighteousness among those who are perishing, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. Because of this, God will send them an operation of error that they might believe the lie. After the apostasy and the revealing of the man of lawlessness, there will be the appearing of the Lord’s parousia. The revelation of Antichrist will be completed during the last seven years of this age. This revelation of Antichrist must be first, and then there will be the appearing of the Lord’s parousia.
