Apparently, not long after Paul sent his first letter to the church in Thessalonica, some teachers showed up teaching people that Jesus had already come back, and as you could imagine, it caused a lot of problems.  First and foremost, the information was false.  It was the epitome of fake news!  However, if you were fooled into believing Jesus had actually come back and had gathered His church together without including you; adding to that, if you were being persecuted for believing in Jesus and now felt He had come back and left you in that situation, then you would be highly confused, upset, and very likely on the verge of abandoning your faith in Christ altogether!   Therefore, Paul writes this second letter to the Church in Thessalonica to make sure they aren’t fooled into believing the dangerous and absurd lie that Christ had already returned.

As we discussed last week, the Second Coming of Christ will be an OBVIOUS and undeniable event that the entire world will witness.  Everything in the world will change when He returns, especially all who are in Christ!  As Paul stated in his first letter to the church in Thessalonica,

16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

 In this second letter, he again emphasizes the obvious and undeniable nature of Christ’s return.  Last week we read,

1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. … 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2, 7-8)

When Christ comes back, He’s going to gather all His people together, instantly.  Nobody in Christ is going to be left out! Second, the very instant Jesus comes back, lawlessness and the Lawless One will be killed.  Therefore, given none of these obvious and undeniable events have occurred, you can be certain Jesus hasn’t come back yet and that you haven’t been left out of anything!  If you are in Christ, there is no justification for any FOMO as it relates to His return!

So that’s good news, but it was also laced with some hard and disturbing news!  In speaking of the obvious and undeniable events that are to come, Paul reinforced the fact that before Jesus comes back, things are going to get obviously and undeniably harder for the church; much, much harder in fact! Paul wrote,

3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)

Now, I would imagine that for the believers in Thessalonica, the news that a ton of people are going to abandon faith in Christ (the rebellion) and then things are going to get way worse everywhere probably didn’t sound nearly as shocking and horrifying as it does to the modern Western believer.  Let me explain it this way.

Imagine if you play collegiate level football for a university that competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).  The ACC is one of the hardest-hitting, nationally competitive football conferences in the country.  If you play in the ACC, every week, you’re going to compete against some of the most talented, athletic, grown men in the entire nation!   However, if you found out your university had switched to the Southeastern Conference, you would know winning games was going to get noticeably more difficult, because even though it would still be the same game you’ve always played, you would now be playing it against teams with a much higher percentage of future NFL players on their roster!   Nonetheless, at the end of the day, it would still be the same violent game you’ve always played.  Going to the SEC would be a noticeably more difficult challenge for sure, but a challenge in the realm of what you already know, a full-contact, violent sport played by big, fast, highly athletic, agile, powerful grown men.

HOWEVER,  on the other hand, if you play on a club league flag football team and the president of your university showed up at your practice one day and told you and your team that you would now be playing real football on a varsity level in a Division 1 College Athletic Conference, well, I would imagine it wouldn’t matter if it were the SEC, BIG Ten, ACC or Conference USA you were headed to, everybody on that team with 2 cents worth of brains would be horrified! You aren’t going to be pulling Velcro-attached flags off of belts anymore, but you are now going to be in a full-contact sport with some of the biggest, fastest, most elite athletic grown men in the entire world!

My point is that for the church in Thessalonica, hearing that persecution and hardships were going to get worse was not good news, but it wasn’t a different kind of news.  The likely envisioned life just being a whole lot harder.  However, for us western Christians, a world that gladly serves a man who claims to be God; a man who will stand against everything God is for; a ruler who unleashes lawlessness at a level the world has never seen or experienced while persecuting Christians who refuse to stop sharing the Gospel as they love God and others, is unimaginably horrifying!  Nothing about our lives will be the same.  All the ease and freedom we experience will be gone, and many will wonder why.  Why is God letting His Church go through such horror?

Furthermore, the mass acceptability of Christianity that we enjoy will be over!  “The rebellion” will officially end the acceptability of Christianity in Western culture.  The mass majority of people who claim to be Christians will abandon that profession and end up worshiping the Antichrist!  Now, that isn’t just horrifying to Western Christians who have the ease of being accepted in society, but even to believers in Thessalonica who will wonder if their faith will hold up under such great persecution.

The fact of the matter is that The Great Tribulation is going to be so bad that not only will western Christians find themselves wondering why God is allowing it to happen, but even those who live in situations like the church in Thessalonica; believers in places like North Korea, Iran, Somalia, Darfur, and Afghanistan that already suffer massive persecution and hardship for loving and following Jesus, will wonder why in the world God is doing this.  Every Christian will wonder why God is letting Satan run wild through the Lawless One and the lawlessness he emboldens people to live in.  Many will turn away thinking the God of the Bible isn’t real, but the Lawless One is.

Therefore, in bringing up the horrible tribulation to come, the tribulation that will be so severe that it becomes an obvious and undeniable sign of the soon return of Christ, Paul also gives us some insight into its purpose; that is, Paul lets us see into the “why” God is including this in his plan for the redemption and glorification of His church.  Specifically,

In 2 Thessalonians 2:9-15, we find two purposes of lawlessness and the Lawless One before the Second Coming of Christ.

 The first purpose that Paul reveals to us about lawlessness and the Lawless One is that

God will use lawlessness and the Lawless One to condemn sinners as sinners.

9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2:9-12)

Let’s dissect this some so we can better understand what Paul wrote.

9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satanwith all power and false signs and wonders,

Verse 9 tells us how the world will willingly end up believing the Lawless One to be God (verse 4).Satan will empower him with the ability to do miraculous things that the world will believe can only be done by God, but these “signs and wonders” will be false in that the Lawless One is in no way God.  Thus, the signs and wonders will give a false testimony—"false signs and wonders”.

However, before we move past this verse, I need to explain something I should have explained last week.Notice the word is not “law-BREAKER” but “law-LESS”, that is, one without law!   What’s the difference?

Well, Biblically, the Law of God is ultimately that HE is the Law!He is the rule, the commandment, and the standard for the entire universe!  He is the “who” we are held accountable to!  He is in every way God, which means He is in charge and He is to be fully submitted to and obeyed.  (Deuteronomy 6:5, Romans 12:1)

However, as a follower of Christ who has surrendered his life to Jesus, I still disobey God.But, I do so, not as one who rejects God as God, rather, as one who has repented from rejecting God and is now striving to live his life in obedience to the one I know is God, the one I want to obey as God, but that I  as a weak and flawed human all too often still fail to do so!  As Paul wrote,

22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (Romans 7:22-23)

However, to live lawlessly is not to fail at doing things that you know you are supposed to do, or doing things you know you are not supposed to do, but rather to fundamentally refuse to live in submission to God at the core.A lawless person might actually agree to follow some of the rules God has given us for living, but not as one who is postured before God as their God, but rather as one who believes in doing whatever it is they do because they believe it’s good for them to do it.  The fact that it's something God has commanded us to do or not do is either coincidental or possibly driven by some sort of self-perceived benefit to them, because they have no intention of bowing before God as the KING and GOD that He is! Therefore, no matter what a person does or doesn’t do, to refuse to live in submission to God as God is, of itself, lawless living.  Jesus tried to get a large gathering of religiously oriented people to understand this very thing when he told them,

21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22  On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' 23  And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' (Matthew 7:21-23)

 Jesus said there will be people who live in total disobedience to God, that is, refusing to submit to God as God (lawlessness), but are still able to do all kinds of miraculous things that they may even proclaim they are doing in God’s name.However, whether they are the kind of things The Father does in the world through His prophets or even through His only begotten Son, Jesus, doesn’t matter.  If a person is doing these things while refusing to live in submission to God as God, then they are doing so as a LAWLESS PERSON!  This takes us back to what Paul just wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:9.  The supreme example of this will be The Anti-Christ, the Lawless One, who will do things that make people believe He is God when indeed everything about this Lawless One comes from one who refuses to in any way live in submission to God!  He will be THE Lawless One who will inspire the world to live that way with more confidence than ever before!

Paul then explains God’s purpose in all this in verses 10 through 12.

10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. (2:10)

So those who refused to repent and believe in Jesus, who rejected the “truth” that would save them by giving them every reason in the world to repent and surrender their lives in glad submission to God, no matter how religious they were, will be deceived into believing the Lawless One is God and ironically live in submission to him instead!

To emphasize the downward cycle of a life lived in rejection of God, Paul says, when the Lawless One arrives on the scene, all those who have played religious games but never having surrendered their life to God will be judged by God to fully buy into the belief that the Lawless One is God.Paul says,

11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2:11-12)

As climactic as the judgement of God through the Lawless One (The Anti-Christ) will be, it won’t be something God hasn’t already shown the world He will do. Hendriksen and Kistemaker wrote,

“When Pharaoh hardens his heart (Ex. 7:14; 8:15, 32; 9:7), God hardens Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 9:12). When the king of Israel hates God’s true prophets, then the Lord permits him to be deceived by placing a lying spirit in the mouth of other prophets (2 Chron. 18:22). When men practice impurity, God gives them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity (Rom. 1:24, 26). And when they stubbornly refuse to acknowledge God, he finally gives them up to a base mind and to unclean behavior (Rom. 1:28).”¹Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of I-II Thessalonians (Vol. 3, pp. 184–186). Baker Book House.

In the end, the first wave of God’s judgment on the world that rejects the Gospel, that is, refuses to repent and surrender their lives to God based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, will be that God causes them to believe everything the Antichrist, the Lawless One, says! They refused to repent and surrender themselves to God even after God clearly demonstrated His love for them by sending His only Son to die on a cross to pay the penalty of their sin.  They refused to repent and surrender to God despite the fact that Jesus rose from the grave and ascended into Heaven, demonstrating He is indeed the eternal Son of God and thus worthy of our praise, honor, and trust!  Therefore, as judgment for this refusal to surrender to Him, God sends them down the path of their own choosing, right into the hands of the one empowered by Satan to claim himself as God!  If you will not surrender to God as God, then you will live your life surrendered to the one who wants to be but isn’t, ironically, just as you did with yourself!

Ian Marshall put it this way: “The sad fate of the lost is thus ultimately their own responsibility.”² Marshall, I. H. (1994). 2 Thessalonians. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 1289). Inter-Varsity Press.

So, lawlessness and the Lawless One will prove sinners to be sinners!However, the lawlessness and the Lawless One will have a totally different effect on believers, which takes us to the second purpose.

The second purpose that Paul reveals to us about lawlessness and the Lawless One is that

God will use lawlessness and the Lawless One to glorify saints as saints. 

13 But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. 14 To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

There is some rich stuff in that passage, so let’s take a few minutes to look at some of it!

“13 But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, …”

Verse 13 begins with the word “But,” meaning what Paul and his team are about to write is in total contrast with what they just wrote.Paul just said God was going to use lawlessness and the Lawless One to condemn sinners as sinners, “BUT,” in contrast, Paul and his team thank God that things are going to turn out very differently for the believers in Thessalonica as well as everyone else who truly repents and believes in Jesus because God truly loves them!

Unlike those who reject God as God and thus live in lawlessness, some of which do so while professing to be Christians who do things that appear to be about God and even empowered by God; unlike those people, Paul and his team praise the Lord that the people in the church of Thessalonica are not religious sinners putting on a false show but are indeed true believers; people who have truly surrendered their lives to God and are loved by God rather than condemned by God!

But how can Paul be so confident that things are going to be so different for those who genuinely believe in Jesus?How can Paul say these people have God’s love and favor on them rather than God’s condemnation?  How can Paul say that these people in Thessalonica are loved by God so much that there is no way they are going to end up living in submission to the Lawless One?  Well, that’s where the richness of this passage really starts to come out!

“… because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and beliefin the truth.

Now, as soon as I read that, some of you started getting yourself all upset!I want to remind you that I didn’t read my words to you, I read God’s Word to you, and God’s Word just told us that the reason Paul and his team can so confidently thank God for the ones in Thessalonica, that is, to be so confident that the believers in the church in Thessalonica are indeed true believers in Jesus who have postured themselves to live in submission to God is because they saw with their own eyes that God chose these people for salvation.  They were the first fruits of the preaching of the Gospel in Thessalonica, and despite being persecuted for it, they had not abandoned their faith in Christ!  But in emphasizing that they were chosen to be the first fruits of the preaching of the Gospel in Thessalonica, we need to be careful not to overlook the fact that the direct context of the verse is that God CHOSE them!

Unlike the self-proclaimed Christians who will join with the rest of the world to follow the Lawless One, they were no longer sinners trying to prove themselves through religious practice, but were altogether different because God chose them to be different!They were not lawless people acting like Christians, but they were clearly the product of God’s life and work in Christ (the first fruits)!

Also, notice the two actions Paul gave us in how God made them the first fruits of the preaching of the Gospel in Thessalonica, because it’s the way we all end up fruits of God and His Work.We are saved by God “through” two very specific actions:

Sanctification – It means to be set apart. In this case, it is specifically referring to the act of the Holy Spirit bringing our dead souls that are incapable of living in submission to God back to life so that we can!  It is referring to the action of the Holy Spirit who filled us, and in so doing set us apart from this world and to God as those who have GOD (The Holy Spirit) in them!  Those who were once separated from God now have God in them, abiding in them and giving them the opportunity to abide in Him!  This leads to the other action.

Belief - We repent from being lawless (refusing to surrender our lives to God) and instead believe the TRUTH that Jesus is God, died on the cross to pay the penalty of our sin, rose from the grave as the one who conquered death for all who are in Him, ascended into Heaven and is coming back one day for His church!

Calvin made a critical comment about the “and” that links the sanctification of the Holy Spirit and our belief in the truth as the process by which God enacted His will to save us. He writes,

“We would be immersed in a deep labyrinth if we tried to plummet the profound secret counsels of God; so Paul leads us away from any such investigation. We should rest satisfied with the faith of the Gospel and in the grace of the Spirit through which we have been brought to life. In this way the horrible wickedness of those who make God’s election a basis for every kind of iniquity will be refuted. Paul links our calling with faith and regeneration in such a way that he does not allow us to view it on any other basis.” ^{3Calvin, J. (1999). 1, 2 Thessalonians (pp. 96–99). Crossway Books.}

Adding to that thought, R.J. Utley wrote, “Doctrines come in relation to other truths, not as single, unrelated truths. …We must not remove the tension caused by dialectical (paradoxical) pairs. The theological concept of “covenant” unites the sovereignty of God (who always takes the initiative and sets the agenda) with a mandatory initial and continuing repentant, faith response from man. Be careful of proof-texting one side of the paradox and depreciating the other!”⁴Utley, R. J. (1997). Paul’s First Letters: Galatians and I & II Thessalonians: Vol. Volume 11 (pp. 136–137). Bible Lessons International.

So, back to the point!The purpose of Paul telling the believers in Thessalonica that God chose them was not to give them a sense of entitlement or that they are somehow better than anybody else, but rather to give them a confident sense of security!  The coming of lawlessness and the Lawless One will prove sinners to be condemned by God, but it will also prove saints to be saints!  Paul says we praise God that we know you won’t be one of those who turn to the Lawless one because, “God chose you as the first fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.”

So to the one who says how do I know if I’m chosen by God or not, Calvin adds this to his notes on what 2 Thessalonians 2:13 teaches us, “To know we are called by God, there is no need to find out what God decreed before the creation of the world, for we find in ourselves all the evidence we need, if he has sanctified us by his Spirit and enlightened us in the faith of his Gospel.^{”5Calvin, J. (1999). 1, 2 Thessalonians (pp. 96–99). Crossway Books.}

The accuracy of Calvin’s conclusion is highlighted in what Paul wrote next.

14 To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God uses the Gospel of Jesus Christ to turn our hearts to Him and call us to Himself!It’s why Paul later wrote this to the church in Rome,

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16-17)

But notice the PURPOSE; that is the “so that” in verse 14.God chose us to be saved so THAT we may obtain the GLORY OF CHRIST!

 14 To this he called you throughour gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God didn’t save us to lose us!He didn’t sanctify us by His Spirit, so we would end up bowing down before the lawless one!  He didn’t open our eyes to the Gospel, that is the Good News that He sent His eternal Son to suffer the eternal consequence of our sin so that we could end up still separated from God under His wrath, but rather to eternally be in HIS GLORY!

 To obtain “the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” is to have the favor of being a child of God, something we are incapable of achieving the right to be, but because of Jesus, we are!We are sons and daughters of God, whom He will proudly display with Him in front of the entire universe when Christ returns!

Therefore, because lawlessness and the Lawless One are meant to prove the saints as saints, Paul says,

 15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold tothe traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

 Paul is saying, because you have been chosen by God and set apart by the Holy Spirit to be a child of God and share in the Glory of Christ, you have every reason in the world to refuse to let go of what we taught you while we were with you and what we have written to you since!Don’t give any mental or emotional consideration to anything that points away from what we taught you concerning the Second Coming of Christ or anything else that we gave you!

However, it’s imperative to know that Paul is referring to the GOSPEL that he had directly received from Jesus when he was on his way to Damascus to persecute people for believing what he now handed down to others!This Gospel he gave them is the Gospel that He received from Jesus, was confirmed by the other apostles of Christ, and was prophesied of in the Old Testament.

Later, Paul wrote a letter to the believers in Corinth and reminded them that what he gave them was what he himself had received as a tradition for them to hand down, but it wasn’t a set of instructions on what they were supposed to do in a worship service, or at different times of the year for festivals, or anything else of the sort, but the Truth we are to cling to and stand firm in no matter what!Paul wrote,

1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Corinthians 15:1-8)

That is what we cling to!That is what we must never even consider changing, no matter who threatens us for believing it or sharing it, and no matter if something comes along that looks shinier and more attractive.   Do NOT be moved from the Gospel that came to Paul and the Apostles from the Old Testament writers, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, for it is that Gospel alone that leads us to God and the promised relationship we get to have with Him through Christ!

Now, what Paul is NOT saying is to cling to the traditions that humans invent and pass down through the church.This is not a verse for Baptists to defend not changing things in their church, nor for Catholics to suggest the traditions they developed centuries after the Apostles authored the New Testament are somehow equal in authority or accuracy.  If anything, it’s a complete rebuke of such an idea!

Interestingly, after the death of Paul and the other Apostles, a group of Jewish believers known as the Judaizers would send out a document called the Didache.It ironically popularized new traditions and beliefs that made the church more Jewish, the very thing Paul and the other Apostles had adamantly resisted and even rebuked in almost every letter contained in the New Testament!  I’m not going to comment on these in my sermon, but it’s remarkable how some of the doctrines, traditions, and themes established by the Didache, that were in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Apostles and the practices of the early church, can still be seen in so many churches today, most prominently in how people see things like Communion/The Lord’s Supper.   The following comments are from various respected Biblical scholars on how this verse should and shouldn’t be used:

“Roman Catholics use this verse as a biblical proof-text for Scripture and tradition being equal in authority. However, in this context it refers to Apostolic truth either spoken or written (cf. 3:6).”⁶Utley, R. J. (1997). Paul’s First Letters: Galatians and I & II Thessalonians: Vol. Volume 11 (pp. 137–138). Bible Lessons International.

“On the basis of their Christian standing Paul encourages the readers to stand firm in their faith—not only in face of persecution (1 Thes. 3:8) but also in face of false teaching. They must hold fast to what they have been taught by Paul, both during his visit to Thessalonica and in his letters. Here Paul is probably drawing a contrast between the correct interpretation of his teaching and the false inferences which had been drawn from it (2:2). What Paul taught was literally ‘traditions’ (rsv), a word which brings out the fact that Paul’s teaching was based on what he himself had been taught, the common faith of the early Christians ( 1 Cor. 15:3).”⁷Marshall, I. H. (1994). 2 Thessalonians. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 1289). Inter-Varsity Press.

“For Paul Christian teaching is tradition (1 C. 11:2; 2 Th. 2:15; 3:6; cf. 1 C. 11:23; 15:1–11), and he demands that the churches should keep to it, since salvation depends on it (1 C. 15:2). He sees no antithesis between pneumatic piety and the high estimation of tradition. The essential point for Paul is that it has been handed down (1 C. 15:3), and that it derives from the Lord (11:23). A tradition initiated by himself or others is without validity (Col. 2:8). It is no contradiction that Jesus repudiates tradition and Paul champions it. Paul’s tradition agrees with Jesus’ rejection, since they are both opposed to human tradition. Paul’s use of παράδοσις and παραδοῦναι rests on the Jewish usage, and agrees with that of the Mysteries to the extent that this agrees with Jewish usage. On the other hand, Paul does not recognise the sacraments as objects of παραδοῦναι and παράδοσις.”⁸Büchsel, F. (1964–). δίδωμι, δῶρον, δωρέομαι, δώρημα, δωρεά, δωρεάν, ἀπο-, ἀνταποδίδωμι, ἀνταπόδοσις, ἀνταπόδομα, παραδίδωμι, παράδοσις. In G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley, & G. Friedrich (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (electronic ed., Vol. 2, pp. 172–173). Eerdmans.

“The context, however, as I have said, requires that it be taken here to apply to all of the teaching in which they had been instructed. The matter under discussion was of supreme importance, so their faith would stay secure in the middle of a dreadful battle in the church. Roman Catholic leaders are foolish to deduce from this that their traditions should be observed. They reason like this: “If it was right for Paul to command traditions to be followed, it is also right for other teachers to do the same. If it was a good and holy thing to observe the former, the latter should be observed as well.” Even if you say this refers to the external government of the church, I believe these teachings or traditions were not thought up by Paul but came from God himself. For Paul declares elsewhere that it was never his intention to capture anyone’s conscience, as neither he nor any other apostle was allowed to do this. “I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:35). Roman Catholic leaders act in an even more high-handed way when they attempt to pass on their traditions as if they were Paul’s traditions. We can say good-bye to these trifles when we understand Paul correctly. We can understand, to a certain extent, from this letter what traditions Paul did recommend, for he says, whether by word of mouth or by letter. What do these letters contain except pure doctrine that overturns the very foundation of the whole of the Papacy and every invention that differs from the simple Gospel?”⁹Calvin, J. (1999). 1, 2 Thessalonians (pp. 96–99). Crossway Books.

“In view of all that has been said (note “so then”), particularly with respect to dangers from the side of Satan and with respect to the blessed prospect of those who adhere to the faith, the Thessalonians are now urged to lay aside their doubts and fears and to stand firm (Rom. 14:4; 1 Cor. 16:13; Phil. 1:27; 4:1) and cling—that is, to remain standing firm and to keep on clinging (note present imperatives which here as often are undoubtedly continuative)—to the traditions, that is, to the authoritative teachings that have been handed down (1 Cor. 11:2; Gal. 1:14; Col. 2:8; and see on 3:6), whether orally, that is, by word of mouth while Paul, Silas, and Timothy were working among them and afterward while Timothy visited them, or by letter (I Thessalonians, but note “by us,” hence, not by any letter purporting to come from Paul; see on verse 2 above).”¹⁰Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of I-II Thessalonians (Vol. 3, pp. 187–188). Baker Book House.

The point, however, that we need to take away from all of this is that at the end of the day, the persecution and hardships the church is going through right now are going to get worse, but the outcome will always be the same.Whether it’s the Lawless One or just the annoying guy at work who wants to keep mocking you for following Jesus, lawlessness and the Lawless One expose sinners as sinners and saints as saints!  As my favorite professor, Dr. Paul Fink, always said, “The same sun that hardens clay softens butter.”

 Challenge

What does the presence of lawlessness expose about you?  What is the trajectory of your heart—lawlessness leading to more lawlessness or repentance leading to more repentance; sin to more sin or faith to more faith?

When you are surrounded by lawlessness, does your life shine as a light pointing to Christ or blend in with the darkness?

Does the presence of lawlessness contrast with your heart or match it?

When you are surrounded by lawlessness, does it stir your heart to rescue people from it or indulge in it?

Discussion Guide 

Review from last week - 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)

What might life look like during the days of the Lawless One?

In 2 Thessalonians 2:9-15, we see two of the purposes of lawlessness and the Lawless One being unleashed before the Second Coming of Christ:

God will use lawlessness and the Lawless One to condemn sinners as sinners.

-What are some tactics Satan (through the Lawless One) will use to deceive humanity?

-How will this time appear to some “professing Christians”?

-What are some separating differences, in these verses, between ‘the true Christians’ and ‘professing Christians’?

-What is the one key to not being deceived?

God will use lawlessness and the Lawless One to glorify saints as saints.

-According to verse 13, How can Paul say that these people in Thessalonica are loved by God so much that there is no way they are going to end up living in submission to the Lawless One?

-Discuss the two parts of sanctification (immediate and ongoing)

-How do we apply the Gospel in the 2 differing parts of Sanctification?  (cross reference Romans 1:16-17)

-What are the ‘traditions’ Paul speaks of?

 Challenge

What does the presence of lawlessness expose about you?  What is the trajectory of your heart—lawlessness leading to more lawlessness or repentance leading to more repentance; sin to more sin or faith to more faith?  (John 3:19-21)