Transcript
Today we are beginning the next section in II Thessalonians chapter 2. Today our focus is on verses 13 through 15, specifically verse 13 for today. The Plan of God. This is the plan of God for every believer, II Thessalonians 2:13 through 15. In this section we are going to study the consecration of the believer. Consecration means to set apart, it is another word for sanctify.
II Thessalonians chapter 2. Remember this letter was written in response to the fact that (according to verse 2 of this chapter) there were some who had come and had reported that a letter had been written by Paul and that he had said they were in the Day of the Lord. Day of the Lord is a Biblical title for the judgment day, a seven-year period of time when God brings judgment on the earth. After the church, the body of Christ, has been removed, judgment comes. It is a seven-year period. It is also known theologically as the tribulation period. Though he has said that the day of the Lord, or the tribulation period was here. That the hardships of their sufferings were an end result of the fact that they are under the judgment of God and in the tribulation. So he comforted them in the first chapter by saying that they were not in the tribulation period. That the trials are a necessity for believers in order for their growth, in order for the Lord to display who He is and that the grace of God is sufficient.
In the first letter, I Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 9 Paul says, God has not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. So the wrath of God and the judgement of God will come upon those who do not believe. The judgment of God is not for believers. So he comforted them in chapter 1 by telling them that God’s grace was sufficient for them and that they were only going through trials which are necessary and normal for a believer.
But secondly in chapter 2, the correction concerning the tribulation. He said two things must happen, he says in verse 3, before the day of the Lord should come. There must be a falling away from the faith, first of all. And secondly, and the man of sin or lawlessness must be revealed first before the Day of the Lord comes. But he also said in I Thessalonians chapter 4 that before the Day of the Lord comes the church, the body of Christ, must be removed before that day comes. So we are going to be removed and there will be an apostasy, a falling away from the faith, and then the man of sin will be revealed. And as he said earlier in this chapter, we already see it beginning. It is already in operation. It is already working, moving towards that end.
He went on to explain in verses 9 and 10 of this chapter the culmination of what happens when the man of sin, or the antichrist, sets his image in the holy of holies and presents himself as being God. He will perform signs, and wonders, and deceitful works of righteousness, and he deceives those who are in the process of being destroyed. And it is interesting, according to verse 11, God appoints people who have rejected Him to believe the lie. That is what we studied last week. The judgment of God upon the person is that He gives them over to the lie. Because according to verse 10 they have chosen not to receive the love of the truth. So those two things from last week are very important. God brings judgment when people, it is not rejecting the truth, but people reject the love of the truth in verse 10. And when they reject the love of the truth whatever it is they want to believe, God gives them over to it, over to the lie. That is the judgment.
Verses 13, 14 and 15 reveal the plan of God for His people. Those are the three verses we are in here and we will probably have only time for verse 13 today. He starts out in verse 13 by saying, But we ourselves, that is the little translation. The word bound or ought as it is in some English texts is the word indebted. That is the same word used to describe when you go down and use your credit card and get into debt. We are indebted to God.
The debt to God is not performance, it is not human effort. According to the text, we are indebted to Him to give Him thanks. That is all that we can do. He has done everything else for us. Paul says, We ourselves are indebted to give thanks to God always concerning you, and here is why, brother’s beloved (that is, literally) having been loved by the Lord. These are brothers who have been beloved by the Lord. Notice the literal translation of having been loved. It is in the perfect tense in the Greek text, therefore that is why we have translated it literally, which means God’s love has been revealed to us at the cross and has continued up to this time.
The word beloved means the object of God’s love. So, you are beloved brothers. Again, you are the object of God’s love; you have been since the cross of Christ up until this very moment. It has been continual. The literal translation is brothers, but it literally means to come out of the same womb. In its Greek social usage it means brother, somebody who has come out of the same womb. Metaphorically using it for Christians, especially in Paul’s writings, spiritually applied we are family members because we come from the same Spirit. So we are brothers or brethren. So we are called brothers but we are not talking about just to the men, it is talking about the family of the Lord. The family of the Lord is the object of His love. They are beloved, they have been beloved by the Lord since the beginning.
Here is why we are bound to give thanks to Him, here is the reason for the plan of God. Notice in verse 13, Because God from the beginning chose you for salvation. Well, that is a heavy statement. Again, Because God from the beginning (that is, from creation) chose you for salvation. That is enough to thank the Lord. That is then literally translated: in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. The plan of God, notice in the middle of the verse, Because God from the beginning chose you for salvation. Now the text does not say He has chosen people to be saved. There is a difference. There is a difference here. You have to notice the wording in the grammar and the language, which is exact as far as its meaning and definition.
If you have your Bibles, please turn with me back to Ephesians chapter 1. We will shed some light on this. Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3 through 14 parallels II Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 13. Ephesians chapter 1 beginning at verse 3 and reading through verse 14. As we have pointed out to you when we went through Ephesians, verses 3 through 14 is all one sentence in the Greek text. That is important. It is important because the subject is in verses 13 and 14. So when we are dealing with the pronouns in verses 3 through 12, the words us and we and you, he is talking about people who are described in verses 13 and 14 as being saved; not as nonbelievers, but as believers these blessings and the inheritance is for you.
First of all verse 12, That we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. (verse 13) In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: and also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, (verse 14) who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. So we have to understand from verses 3 through 14 when he mentions us and we and you he is talking about people who have heard the gospel. And when they heard, they trusted in the gospel, and they believed in Jesus Christ. At that point they were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the guarantee, that is, the Holy Spirit is the guarantee that they belong to Jesus Christ.
If you go back to verse 3, because verses 3 through 12 tells us about the inheritance to these people. Now remember, it is not the people themselves, it is the inheritance for saved people that he is talking about. It says in verse 3, Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (that is literally the spirit realm) in Christ. He goes on to say, (verse 4) Just as He chose us – we know who us is: the ones who have heard, who have believed, and who have been sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Now, that is just what he said in II Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 13. From the beginning, that is, from the foundation of the world He chose us. But you cannot stop there though. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world for us to be holy and without blemish before Him in love. Now it does not say He chose us, you cannot stop there, the text says He chose us in Him to be something. It is what He has chosen us to be. So to the people who heard and trusted the gospel, and believed in Jesus Christ, and were sealed by the Holy Spirit, to those people God has chosen and predestined one day to stand before Him holy and without blemish. Everybody that believes in Jesus Christ and receives Christ, the promise of God to them is that He has chosen them to be something. The inheritance for them is that they will stand before Him holy and without blemish. So that is what He has chosen for us. Not based on our merit, not based on our goodness, not even based on how sinful we are. But He has chosen that the ones who respond to the gospel and receive Christ and are sealed by the Holy Spirit, those people will stand before Him holy and without blemish one day. No argument. It is what God has chosen.
Verse 5 of Ephesians chapter 1, Having predestined us, you cannot stop there. Having predestined us to adoption. That is, We have been predestined to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, (verse 6) to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved One. (verse 7) In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace: (verse 8) which He made to abound towards us in all wisdom and prudence; (verse 9) having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself: (verse 10) that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ. So there will come a time in history when He is going to head up all things. He is going to bring all people to Himself who are in Christ. He is going to gather them together in one all things in Christ. Verse 10, Both which are in heaven and which are on earth; everything in Him. (verse 11) In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, (verse 12) that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
So He has chosen for us, it says in this text, He has chosen for us that when we stand before him we are going to be holy and without blemish. That is a choice of His counsel. He has predestinated us to adoption, that is the adoption process through Jesus Christ. Interesting, He predestined a process for us to pass through in order for us to become a child of God. It is His adoption process. So that when a person receives Christ, responds to the gospel, is filled with the Holy Spirit and sealed by the Spirit of God – which we will get into more next week – when a person experiences that salvation it is called the adoption, you become a child of God. When you are born of His Spirit, you become in the family of God. And God has chosen that adoption process for us, for us who believe.
Now you see the text is not talking about choosing and predestinating people to be saved. The Bible says that those who believe in Jesus Christ and receive Christ, to those people there is an inheritance waiting for them.
I always like to use the example that if you were going to go down for a job interview, there was a position open and you asked the people who were giving you the interview, you asked them, “What are the benefits? If I get hired on to this position, and you choose me and place me into this position, what inheritance is there for me? What benefit? What medical? What dental?” In the secular world that is what we want to know, how much we are going to be paid. What are the benefits?
And so what God is saying here is, for those who have received Jesus Christ there are benefits. There is an inheritance there. One day you are going to stand before God holy and without blemish, no matter what sins you have committed because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. He died for us. He made the sacrifice for us. And so the adoption process was all designed by God according to the counsel of His will, so that we might pass through the adoption process of receiving His Spirit and being sealed by His Holy Spirit.
And so if we understand that this is a collective group of people – the us and the we and the you, not individuals but a group represented by these terms in the text. And we are pointing out it is not individuals that He is choosing to be saved and choosing to be lost. There are those today who hold to the doctrine that God chooses and predestines people, individuals, to be saved and He also chooses those people to be lost. That you have no choice and that is the choosing and predestination that God does. But that is not what the text says. The text says that the choosing of the people come when they hear the gospel and receive Christ and are born of the Spirit of God. Then for those people God chooses an inheritance. He predestines the means through which we are saved in Christ.
It is not the Greek word for individuals these words us and we and you. (hekastos) is the word for each individual person. God does not choose individual people to be saved but He chooses salvation for believers, so that there would be a process for them to go through to experience the salvation. The text says, But we who have believed God has chosen us to stand before Him holy and without blame. We who have believed in Jesus Christ He has predestined for us to pass through the adoption process through Jesus Christ to become a child of God. And so we have to understand it is what God has chosen us to be and chosen us to have. But first you have to understand who us is. It is the believers. He is not choosing nonbelievers to be saved. He is choosing salvation for believers. That is the choosing. That is the predestination.
Back to II Thessalonians reading again verse 13, But we ourselves are indebted to give thanks to God always concerning you, brothers, having been beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning (that would be at creation, just like Ephesians told us) chose you for salvation. We know who you is, it is the believers. He has chosen you who believe a salvation process, a salvation experience, to go through to be saved. Again the word you is the collective whole. Not you individually, it is you who have believed. These people he wrote to, to them in the first letter and said that they heard the word, and they believed the gospel. They responded to the calling and voice of the Lord. Therefore for them He has chosen them for salvation.
Now to understand this phrase for salvation, you understand that He is ministering to them because they had been told they are under the judgment of God, that they are in the tribulation period. But he was saying that is not true. God had chosen them for salvation, not for judgment. God has chosen the unbeliever for judgment. They, the believers were chosen for salvation. Everybody who believes, God says, “I chose you for salvation. I did not choose you for judgment.” That is God’s plan. He has all these plans for the person who responds to the gospel and receives Christ and surrenders their life to Him. That is God’s plan for you, those of you who have believed, those of you who have responded to the gospel. That is God’s plan.
We will pick up next week to realize how this salvation process is worked out In sanctification of the Spirit. Notice Spirit is capitalized, in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. That is the salvation plan of God for everybody who responds to the Gospel message.
Let’s close with prayer.
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