2 Thessalonians 2

12. Christ may be glorified.** To keep ourselves clear from the world, never to break the sweet charities that bind together the circles of our homes, to walk within our houses with perfect hearts, to be honest over the peace as well as over the pounds, never to permit the little risings of momentary anger that seem but a trifle because they pass away so quickly, to do the small duties that recur with every beat of the pendulum, and that must be done by present force and by instantly falling back upon the loftiest principle, or they can not be done at all—these are as noble ways of glorifying Christ and being glorified in him as any to which we can ever attain. A. M.

If the idea of eternity is expressed at all in the Scriptures, it is by the Hebrew word olam and the Greek words aion and aionios. But, if these words, which in the Hebrew and Greek are equivalent, do not carry with them the idea of duration, then there is no certainty in any conclusion as to the meaning of language. That they are used with reference to different measures of duration is evident, and results from the fundamental idea in these terms. Olam and aion each signify world, period, age, dispensation. The fundamental idea, out of which the terms have grown, is that of a succession of worlds or world-periods, the eternity before and after the world being broken up into great periods, in each of which there is a fixed development from a definite beginning to a definite end. So in this world-period in which we live there are lesser periods, ages, or dispensations, and to these the same terms are applied. But, as one age is called olam or aion, so is a succession of ages or one world-period; and, as one world-period is described by the same terms, so is the whole succession of world-periods, and eternity itself is the great olam or aion. The extent of duration, therefore, is to be inferred from the nature of that to which the terms are applied. Now, when these terms, carrying with them the idea of duration, are applied to the life, which is the gift of God through Jesus Christ, is there any reason for limiting their significance? The eternal life of the Scriptures shall never end. Is not the loss of that life, to which the same term is applied, and in the same connection, unending also? Even if it were possible, therefore, to fix upon the term “everlasting” a limited signification as applied to future punishment, still the loss of eternal life must be an eternal loss. J. C. S.

Finally, if any man, after a careful perusal of what has been or may be offered on both sides of this important question, shall be in doubt on which side the truth lies, it would certainly be most prudent and safe for him to act as he would if he fully believed endless punishment; it will be most prudent and safe for him to yield a cordial compliance with the gospel in repentance, faith, and obedience. Then he will be safe on either supposition. But, if he trust to the flattering doctrine that all are finally to be saved, and in this presumption shall neglect the gospel, its invitations and requirements, and it shall finally prove that that doctrine is a mere imagination of men, alas! he is lost, irrecoverably lost; while those who receive the gospel with the “obedience of faith” shall, through the blood of atonement, “have right to the tree of life, and shall enter in through the gates into the city.” Edwards.

1. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our 2 gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither 3 by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling 4 away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and ex- alteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth 5 in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I 6 was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he 7 might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he 8 who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy 9 with the brightness of his coming: even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan 10 with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be 11 saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe 12 a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in un- righteousness. 13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the 14 Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of 15 the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions 16 which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.

“God hath called you.” The word “calling,” applied to a human life in the Christian sense and by a Christian authority like Paul, is a condensed confession of faith. It means the great primary truth of religion, viz., that our erring life is governed by a will above it, and is capable of receiving influences of attraction from the Spirit of God. Take up that single truth, trace it out to its legitimate results, admit all its practical obligations, let in upon your own mind both the solemn sense of duty and the clear illumination for sorrow that it brings with it, accept its necessary incidents of penitence, renewal, redemption, and you find that, including its connections and consequences, it is a majestic compendium of religious doctrine. Life, without this sense of a Hand guiding it, a Spirit moving it, a God in Christ calling to it, is really far more perplexing and unaccountable than with that key to its changes. For then, severed from a Father, it is not only a mystery, but a contradiction; not only a riddle to the reason, but, sooner or later, with all its failures and miseries, a painful puzzle to the heart, or even an agonizing mockery to our sense of right—an enigma that neither genius, nor stoicism, nor sensuality, nor suicide can solve. F. D. II.

2. The Thessalonians are cautioned not to be “shaken in mind nor troubled, neither by spirit (spiritual gift of prophecy), nor by word, nor by letter as by us.” This would look as if some Epistle had been circulated among them purporting to come, but not really coming, from their father in the faith. And so Chrysostom takes the passage to mean: “He seems to me here to hint that some were going about with a forged Epistle pretending to be from Paul, and that showing this they affirmed the day of the Lord to be already come, that they might deceive many. And this supposition also derives confirmation from the care taken in chapter 3: 17 to add to this Epistle, itself written by an amanuensis, an autograph salutation, and to specify such autograph salutation to be the token of genuineness which the apostle intended ever after to employ.” A.

3-12. It could not be the day of the Lord, for certain events must precede the advent, which had not yet come to pass. There must first be “the apostasy”; and out of the apostasy would issue an opponent of God and of Christ, who must reveal his proud and lawless nature, and then be destroyed “by the epiphany of the Lord’s coming.” The passage in which this is set forth is perhaps more difficult of interpretation than any other in the apostolic letters, epitomizing, as it does, in a few sentences, the working of evil in the Church through many centuries till the advent of Christ. D. F.—It is pointed out as the apostasy, because it will be the greatest of all apostasies; that one to which all others will converge, and in which they will be absorbed. Such an apostasy, in its full development, the world has not yet seen. There have been many “fallings away” since the Lord was received into heaven. There were the partial revivals of paganism under Julian and others; there was the great Mohammedan imposture, drawing after it the greater portion of the East. Churches have left their faith and been extinguished; heresies have sprung up and run their course. In the Eastern and Western churches, corruption of doctrine and practice has set in. In the latter, especially, a monstrous caricature of Christianity has put itself in the place of the faith once delivered to the Church; a local bishop has set himself over churches and kingdoms; has invented new doctrines, or borrowed the cast-off abominations of paganism. A more subtle method of undermining the gospel of Christ has never been devised; but still the Papacy is not “the apostasy,” any more than any one of the others mentioned. The Papacy does not, which the apostasy must do, abjure and cast off Christ. A.

Out of the apostasy is to be produced and unveiled at a time undetermined the man of sin, the son of perdition, the lawless one, or quintessence of the whole mystery of lawlessness. This is not to be explained of the false Christs—those pseudo-Messiahs of the early ages, who led away none but Jews after them. Nor is it to be referred to the many Antichrists spoken of by John—teachers of error regarding the person of the Lord, asserting that Christ had not come in the flesh. To the Oriental Church, Mohammed, when he arose, seemed to be this man of sin. From the eleventh century, as the Papacy reached its grand climacteric, some surmised that this was no other than the pope; and the Protestant Churches at the Reformation generally accepted this view. Certain features of the man of sin are undoubtedly exhibited in the Roman Papacy—especially the overweening pretension and arrogance. But in other points the correspondence is not at all so obvious. We read of “the coming” of the man of sin—an expression which can scarcely be applied to the rise of the Papacy. Then the description is of one who is audacious in impiety, exalting himself above every one called God, or that is an object of worship, and exhibiting himself “that he is God.” This does not suggest to our minds a high priest of superstition, such as the Pope of Rome. And we can scarcely say that the man of sin, as God sitting in the temple of God, means the pope seated on high at a great festival in Peter’s, unless we are prepared to admit that the Basilica of the Vatican is the temple of God. In fact, nothing has occurred in the history of Christianity adequate to the fulfillment of this oracle; and therefore we fear that a terrible impersonation of arrogant impiety is yet to be revealed. D. F.—It is clear that no person, system, or event, has yet filled out the measure of this prophetic outline. Each age has its apostasy, its Antichrist, and each in turn is overwhelmed by some new manifestation of the power of God in his providence or his glory in his Church; so will it be until the final battle of Gog and Magog shall usher in the day of judgment. Prophesy is self-repeating; and thus the Church is kept always in a state of prayerful expectation. But, whatever foes may arise, whatever conflicts come, they who stand fast in the word of Christ shall have everlasting consolation at the coming of the Lord. J. P. T.

7. “Leteth” should be read “hindereth”; one of the many instances in which actual usage has reversed the meaning of old English words. B.

9. Antichrist had a time to come into the world, and so must he have a time to go out again. For, although he saith that he is a god, yet he must be subject to the will of God, and must go as well as come according to that will. The Lord is still going on to make that conquest over him that is determined, in the way that is determined. Bun.—We of Christ’s Church believe that the present course of things is the conflict, on the broad stage of the world, between our Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the great foe of God and man—the conflict which in person he waged and won when he trod the earth, but which remains to be fought out by them whose souls he has redeemed, and to whom he gives the power of his finished victory for aid. They in their own persons, his Church in her collective capacity, must follow out that victory which he has won; and then, when it is about to be finally and gloriously consummated, will the power of evil culminate and do its worst. Then shall the foe himself try by his agents all his arts, and illude the world with signs and wonders, wrought by permitted power. A.

10-12. The great end of all the works of Jehovah is the manifestation of his true character to created intelligences, as the source of everlasting love, and confidence, and joy, and praise. The system of manifestation is the plan of redemption disclosed in the Bible, and carried into effect by the Spirit of God, in giving efficacy to revealed truth in the sanctification and salvation of man. Without just conceptions, then, of revealed truth, the true character of God is not manifested, and can not, of course, become an object of affection or source of joy. Erroneous conceptions of revealed truth eclipse the glory of God in its progress to enlighten and enrapture the universe. They propagate falsehood concerning God through all parts of his dominions where they prevail, undermine confidence, annihilate affection, and extinguish joy. They arrest the work of redemption; for moral influence is the influence by which God redeems from sin, and revealed truth embodies that influence. When that light has been wantonly extinguished, God will not hold those guiltless who have perpetrated the deed. He has exhibited his true character, and commanded us to love him; and, if we pervert his character, and worship other gods, he will punish the idolatry.

L. Beecher.—Thus is God’s mysterious judgment to be justified when he shall arraign the guilt of that unbelief which at first appears so utterly removed from the sphere of voluntary and willful sin; thus is He to stand approved of men and angels when he shall unravel all the tangled mesh of our excuses, and flash upon us the tremendous conviction that we are lost only because we would be lost; pursuing the trembling conscience into its loneliest retreats, crushing all its unhappy devices of self-deception, and forcing it (last, worst form of judgment,) to set its own seal upon its own condemnation. W. A. B.

13. The blessed Quickener and Sanctifier at one instant breathes into the soul two influences, one respecting truth and the other respecting holiness; one is faith, the other is obedience. “Both worketh that one and the self-same Spirit.” The hand which touches Christ as a Saviour or Priest does homage to him as a King. The instrument employed by the sovereign Spirit in all the acts, believings, feelings, and volitions of the soul, is truth. The renewed mind beholds divine objects in a new and indescribable manner, in their self-evidencing brightness, in their beauty, loveliness, and glory, so as to appreciate, taste, and relish them, and in a certain as yet imperfect degree discern them as they are. J. W. A.

15. Stand fast. The world, never resting, never sleeping, never wanting in definite promises, presses hard. Old habits and passions reassert their insinuating or imperious demands. The Hill Difficulty looks rather steep: is the end worth the troublesome toil after all? But, meantime, the everlasting verities have not changed their places or lost their light. Your Father is waiting for you; Jesus Christ is the same; the Holy Spirit still strives; the deep wants of your soul are not quenched; the Covenant is not dissolved; the House stands with the door open and the table spread, and all the gracious nurture of the Home is prepared; provisions are made there, not for a fickle sentiment, but for an immortal progress. F. D. H.

Traditions. The earliest writing of Paul was not written till more than half of his apostolic career was past. Previous to this, the gospel was in the Church as a tradition—or as a deposit in the hands of the apostles; or, so far as revealed, as so much common public thought. It was taught by word of mouth—it was received as reported and explained by those who preached it; its facts, doctrines, beliefs—its ideas of the divine, the spiritual, the future—all existed in the mind of the Christian community without their being formally set forth in any systematic, apostolic writing.

16. If there be a revelation in the world, it is contained in the Bible. If the Bible means what it

eays, that revelation culminates in the discovery of a redemption and a Redeemer—a personal Christ, who comes not merely to teach, but to accomplish—to do something; to do that, in fact, by which salvation shall be secured to the guilty, and holiness restored to the fallen. Then, again, if words have any significance, this is effectuated by his death and resurrection—facts which enfold within them those central and mighty doctrinal truths which lie at

the basis of that knowledge of God whence comes “everlasting consolation and good hope through grace.” T. B.—There is but one resource for any man—to grasp in faith the cross of Him who shall come on the throne. That cross disarms all the lightnings of his hand, for it finds an answer in his heart. To know it, live by it, serve under it, is true life now, and to look for its sign in the sky is the good hope, through grace, of life eternal. Ker.