Bethel Christian Fellowship
Fair Lawn, NJ
Living In The End Times (4): The Message of 2 Thessalonians
The Simple Truth About The Second Coming
2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 (Part 1)
July 26, 2015
Many of us may not be familiar with the term “dispensationalism.” But if we have ever browsed through the prophecy section of a Christian bookstore, or listened to a TV evangelist or minister of a mega-church, or read the interpretative notes in a study Bible which bears the name of a prominent evangelical, then we are familiar with what dispensationalists teach. This is especially true when it comes to their teaching on the return of Christ.
According to the dispensational view of Biblical prophecy, which first emerged within the
Plymouth Brethren movement in England during the early nineteenth century, the second coming of Christ will take place in two stages. The first stage is the “secret rapture” of the church, when all living saints are suddenly and unexpectedly “caught up” to meet the Lord in the air. At this time they receive their glorified bodies and return to heaven with the Lord. Once the church is so removed from the earth, the Antichrist will arise and usher in the seven year period of great tribulation, which is believed to be the fulfillment of the seventieth and final week of Daniel’s prophecy (Dan. 9:24-27).
The rule of Antichrist will then be brought to an end by the second stage of Christ’s return – His
“public appearing” in all His glory. He then begins His one thousand year reign on earth (the millennium), which is predominantly a Jewish kingdom in which the earthly promises made to national Israel find their fulfillment. The final day of judgment, therefore, will not take place until one thousand years later.
It would be difficult to imagine any group of Christians who would have been more surprised by this teaching than the members of the church in Thessalonica. As we saw in our last two studies, the Thessalonians have already been taught that at the time when Jesus “is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels” (2 Thess. 1:7), He will inflict “vengeance on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:8). That’s when the final day of judgment takes place, not 1,000 years after He returns.
Now, in this second chapter, Paul presents the second coming of Christ and the rapture of the
Church as one and the same event, which he identifies as “the day of the Lord” (2:1-2). He also teaches that the day of the Lord will not arrive unless “the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed” (2:3). The simple truth about the second coming, therefore, is that the
Lord Jesus Christ returns once (not twice), and that His return will not be an “any moment” return (contrary to the popular notion of an “imminent” return).

The reason for Paul’s instruction is found in the opening two verses of our text; he has learned that these Thessalonian saints have been troubled by a false claim, namely, that the day of the
Lord has already arrived (2:1-2). He then proceeds to refute this claim, insisting that they can know why the day of the Lord has not come. That day – when Christ returns and the church is raptured – must be preceded by these two events, neither of which has yet been fulfilled (2:3-12).
This simple truth, however, has become so muddied in the waters of interpretive bias that we shall have to note carefully what Paul is saying – and not saying. Today’s study, therefore, will only focus on how Paul identifies this false claim concerning the day of the Lord (vv. 1-2); on the next Lord’s Day, we shall focus on how he refutes such a claim (vv. 3-12).
A. The False Claim about the Day of the Lord (1:1-2): “ Concerning the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ and our being gathered to Him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come
.” There are five observations to note about these two verses.
First
, the “coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” in verse one is the same coming of the Lord Jesus in verse 8, which takes place at the time when the man of lawlessness will be destroyed: “ . . .the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of His mouth and destroy by the splendor of His ‘ coming ’” (2:8). This description of the destruction of the socalled “Antichrist” by Christ Himself is an obvious reference to the coming of Christ that occurs after the tribulation (posttribulationalism).
Second
, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and “our being gathered to Him” are presented as one and the same event. When Christ returns (v. 1) and Antichrist is destroyed (v. 8), the saints will also be raptured. In his first epistle, Paul has already explained this additional aspect of the coming of the Lord: “
We tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the
Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, . . . and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall be with the Lord forever
” (1 Thess. 4:15-17). There is no biblical reason to believe that the
“coming” ( parousia ) of the Lord to rapture His church and resurrect His people (1 Thess. 4) is not the same “coming” ( parousia ) of the Lord that will bring judgment, vengeance and destruction on all those who have rejected and opposed Him (2 Thess. 1:7-10; 2:1-12).
Third , the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the rapture of the church is equated with “the day of the Lord.” In other words, the arrival of the day of the Lord and the second coming/rapture occur at the same time. This is significant to note because “The phrase ‘day of the Lord’ is common in the Old Testament prophets. It refers to the great and terrible day when Yahweh will intervene to punish the disobedient (e.g. Isa. 13:6-16; Joel 1:13-15; 2:1-11; Obadiah 15-20; Mal.
4:5) and the save the faithful (e.g. Isa. 27:2-13; Jer. 30:8-9; Joel 2:31-32; Obad. 21). In Paul’s letters it is equated with the second coming” (ESV Study Bible notes on 1 Thess. 5:2-3).
Fourth , the false claim that had circulated at Thessalonica, under the guise of coming from a prophetic utterance (“a spirit” or “spoken word”) or even from Paul himself (“a letter seeming to come from us”) was a gross distortion of what the Apostle had already taught them in

1 Thessalonians 4-5. These false teachers/prophets were claiming that the coming of Christ and the rapture of the church and the judgment of nonbelievers had already started, or had come and somehow passed them by. “No,” Paul will go on to say, “that day – ‘day of the Lord” – is yet future. Don’t you remember when I was with you that I explained that there are two events which must occur first?” (Cf. v. 5)
Fifth , and finally, in the absence of any New Testament evidence for a “pre-tribulational” rapture, in which the coming of Christ is divided into two phases, “the day of the Lord” must be viewed as a unitary event, which encompasses the rapture/resurrection of Christians and the resurrection/judgment of non-Christians (1 Thess. 4:13-18; 5:1-11; 2 Thess. 1:7-10; 2:1-2).
Everything, according to the Apostle Paul, takes place at the same time.
If so, then the challenge before us today should be obvious. For the last 100 years, the dispensational view of biblical prophecy has been the dominant view among conservative evangelicals (and Pentecostals) in this country. This teaching, which first emerged in early nineteenth century England among the Brethren, was popularized in 1909 with the publication of
The Schofield Reference Bible. With the aid of the famous “Schofield Notes,” it became difficult for many to distinguish between the inspired text of Scripture and the “uninspired” interpretative notes found at the bottom of the page (“My hope is built on nothing less, than
Schofield’s notes and Scripture Press.”)
Since that time, of course, other study Bibles have been published to reinforce the belief that this view of end time events is the standard, conservative, evangelical view. So have best selling books, like Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth (1970) and the even more popular Left Behind series, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (1995 –).
But let’s imagine, for just a moment, that we were part of this early church in Thessalonica. All we had before us were these letters of the Apostle Paul, written out of deep concern for our spiritual wellbeing. It would have been much easier for us to understand, and accept, this simple truth about the second coming of Christ than it is today. So our challenge is to “search the
Scriptures . . . to see if these things be true” (Acts 17:11), if, of course, we haven’t done so already.
Historically, that’s what a significant number of the early Brethren did when John Nelson Darby first began to teach that the second coming of Christ will take place in two stages (in the early
1830’s). Courageous men like B. W. Newton, George Müller, William Craik, Samuel Tregelles, and a host of others, searched the Scriptures and then rejected this new view as an innovation.
They upheld what they considered to be the simple truth of the “ancient faith,” and they did so at considerable cost. But in the words of George Müller’s biographer, “Their rejection of the new view did not however alter the fact that for them, as Müller put it, ‘the coming Christ, and not death, is the great hope of the church, and, if in a right state of heart , we (as the Thessalonian believers did) shall “serve the living and true God, and wait for His Son from Heaven’” (George
Müller, Delighted in God, by Roger Steer). May the same be true of us!