2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of [a]Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of [b]sin is revealed, the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits [c]as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. 7 For the [d]mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only [e]He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Leave your Bibles open.
Remember how we are outlining this book; Three debilitating conditions in the Church. We looked at discouragement that was plaguing the church in Thessalonica last time and now we are going to look at a condition that is even more destructive in its sucking a church’s power; deception.
Satan attacks with discouragement, but an even more effective attack is with deception.
The Church has gone through years of brutal persecution and actually grew. But when the Church has chosen to embrace a lie, it has led them almost to the brink of extinction.
This chapter begins and ends with warnings about deception.
Here, in the church in Thessalonica, there was a deception inside.
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of [a]Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means;
And he warns them about deception from outside.
9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
They are both warnings about the extreme danger of entertaining and believing lies. Lies have done more to destroy the church than any government, or God-hating persecutor.
In the earliest history of the church, the church was almost destroyed with the lie that Gentiles had to become Jews, and practice the Mosaic law in order to be saved.
And it’s not just a lie about Judaism. It is a lie about how a person is saved. It is the lie that says that in order to be saved, you need faith plus; plus Judaism, plus baptism, plus confession, plus taking the Lord’s table, plus, plus, plus. The Church has been fighting this deception, the deception of works salvation from the start of the church. And it continues today. Roman Catholicism
The Church later dealt with Gnosticism which taught, among other things, that Christ was not a human being. They spiritualized His life, and made salvation a quest for awakening the “light within.”
Some scholars think that it was early Gnosticism that the apostle John was confronting when he wrote that Jesus was the Word, the Word was God, and the Word came in the flesh.
And 1st John 4
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess [a]that Jesus [b]Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.
And that Gnostic deception exists of teaching about “the light within” still exists in the Church today. Instead of teaching that we are sinful people who are saved by the shed blood of Christ, they teach that we are saved by tapping into the goodness within us. Christ is not so much a Savior so much as He is an example for us to follow. Many modern churches have been destroyed by this lie.
Another lie that began back in the 1st century was libertinism. “I can live however I want because Christ’s death covered my sin.”
Jude addressed this lie in his letter.
4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord [b]God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
So to, we have churches today that accept and even embrace flagrant sin among their members, because they have embraced the lie that “Christianity is all about love, not judging.”
Again I say, deception in the Church has done far more damage than discouragement. So, how does Paul deal with the problem of deception? When he addressed their discouragement, he did so with encouragement. Now he deals with deception; with clarification and instruction.
We will just look at clarification today. Clarification means; to make something clear. He doesn’t avoid the issue because it’s divisive. He doesn’t him haw around the issue. He doesn’t say, well let’s just agree to disagree. He teaches the truth to the Thessalonian believers clearly and concisely.
I. Deception (2:1–12) He offers clarification.
Now, in order for us to proceed with this passage about deception, we need to know what the deception was that was being propagated in the church in Thessalonica. So, we’ll answer that question first. Then we will use that circumstance in their church as an illustration of dealing with deception in the our church, or any church.
A. What was the deception in the church at Thessalonica?
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of [a]Christ had come.
There was a lie circulating in the church in Thessalonica. How do we know?
Verse 2. not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us,
There’s been a letter passed around in your church, “as if from us.” We want you to know, we didn’t send that letter, it’s not from us.
Some are saying that a word or spirit came from us, telling you that the “Day of Christ” has come. We never said any such thing. Don’t believe it.
So, there was a lie going around. What was the lie?
There are two clues here that tell us what the lie was.
Look again at verse 1.
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him,
Look at verse 2.
2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of [a]Christ had come.
1. The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him.
Now, we are not going to get into the meat of the doctrine here right now. We will return to it. Right now, we are talking about lies coming into the church.
2. The Day of the Lord/Christ had come.
These two tell us that the lie had to do with end times events. And specifically, someone was saying that the Day of the Lord/Christ was come, at hand, present. In short, in generic terms, someone was saying ”The end is here.” Have any of you heard that statement lately?
It was at hand. This verb is in the present active indicative tense. That means that someone is saying that “we’re in the end,” or they may even be saying that “Jesus has already come and gathered believers.”
You say, hold on, which were they saying? That the end is here, or that Jesus has already come. Well, to be truthful, it’s a little unclear. And what makes it more unclear is whether we are talking about the Day of the Lord having come, or the Day of Christ having come.
Why are we debating about “Day of the Lord,” or “Day of Christ?”
How many of you have a translation that says “Day of the Lord?” “Day of Christ?” How many have a translation with a note that tells you that there is an alternative translation?
So, this is what the King James Version says,
Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
This is what the Holman Christian Standard says; (By the way, the Holman Christian Standard translation is published by Lifeway, the literature publishing arm of the Southern Baptist denomination.)
2 not to be easily upset in mind or troubled, either by a spirit or by a message or by a letter as if from us, alleging that the Day of the Lord[a] has come.
The HCSB has a note by “Day of the Lord” that says that “other manuscripts say Day of Christ.”
Hold it, the King James said, “Day of Christ,” and the Holman Christian Standard said “Day of the Lord.” So, which is it?
So, right now, I am going to do something I have never done from this pulpit. This used to be preacher suicide. I’m going to address the whole “King James” version issue, and why the King James is different, in this verse, than most other English translations, including the Holman Christian Standard. How many of you know that the King James Version is very different than most other English translations? We’re going to talk about this despite the fact that it has been a touchy subject, for some, in the past.
Now, for some of you who are younger, you may not know what the “King James” issue is. Well, it comes down to this. There are those, used to be more of them, who believed that the King James Version of the Scripture was the only legitimate English translation of Scripture.
So, believe it or not, if you asked those people why 2 Thessalonians 2:2 says “Day of Christ” and most other translations say “Day of the Lord” they will tell you it’s because all these other translations are changing God’s Word.
To some of them, all other English translations have corrupted the Word of God. Now, you may think I’m exaggerating. But I’ve seen websites whose entire purpose is to prove that other English translations are evil. And they do this by listing verse after verse, where another translation “changed” the Word of God, and they mean, the King James Version.
Just 6 months ago a woman walked into our church at the time that worship was about to start. She came right up to me in the hallway, asked if I was the pastor, then asked what version of the Bible I use. I told her that most of the time I use the New King James version, and I was about to explain my choice, when she threw up her hands in front of her and said, “No, no, no.” and walked out the door.
I’m sure, as far as she was concerned, if I was preaching out of any Bible but the King James, I was preaching from the devil’s Bible.
So, I think it is important that we address this issue. We are talking about teaching the truth, not deception in our church. It is important that we understand why the King James says, “Day of Christ” and the other English versions say “Day of the Lord.”
Why did the King James say, “Day of Christ” not “Day of the Lord?”
The New King James Version has a note next to the word “Christ.” If you look at the note on the page with the letter “a” next to it, you’ll read this; NU the Lord. What does that mean?
NU-Text
These
variations from the traditional text generally represent the Alexandrian or
Egyptian type of text [the oldest, but sometimes questioned text]. They are
found in the Critical Text published in the Twenty-sixth edition of the
Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament (N) and in the United Bible Society's third
edition (U), hence the acronym "NU-text."
The New King James Version is telling you that though they used the word “Christ,” (Christou), like the King James Version, other Greek texts use the word for “the Lord.” (Kurion)
Preacher, what do you mean “other Greek texts.” Well, let’s talk about the New Testament we’re studying. We don’t have the original Greek manuscript of the New Testament. What do I mean by the “original?” Well, for example, we know that Paul wrote this letter to the church in Thessalonica on a piece of papyrus, paper made from a plant, or on an animal skin. We know that churches that received those letters often copied them, and sent the copies to other churches for their edification. And as pastors and church members desired to have their own copies, more copies, of the copies were made.
I got these numbers from the “Bible Archealogy Report.”
https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/02/15/the-earliest-new-testament-manuscripts/
There are over 5800 copies of the New Testament. 2.6 million pages of biblical text. The average size of a New Testament manuscript is 450 pages. While some of these manuscripts are small and fragmentary, 2 Add to this the ancient manuscripts in Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, etc. which number in the tens of thousands,3 and you realize that there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to New Testament manuscripts. No other ancient text can compare with the New Testament when it comes to the sheer volume of manuscripts.
But the original letters and gospels have long since (2000 years) crumbled, disintegrated, and disappeared because of use. So, when any translator today wants to make a new English translation of the Bible, they go back to the copies of the original. How old are the copies? There are fragments and parts of manuscripts that date back to 100 to 150 years from Christ. That means we have copies that are 1923 years old. Others are younger, 1723 years old. But they are copies. They are not the originals.
So, how do we know that these copies match the originals? There is a great deal of study that goes into this, but let me tell you one major way that we can tell if the copies match the original; if they match each other. If I gave each of you the same page out of the Bible to copy, and I told you, first, that this is God’s Word, so we shouldn’t alter it, and second, that the copies we make today would be all that survives of this text, that we were going to lose the original. I suspect that we would come up with copies that very closely matched the original text I gave out.
Now, what if one person made a mistake? They skipped a line or a word, or a comma. How could we tell. Because the remaining 40 copies did not skip that line, word, or comma. And that, in a simplistic illustration, is what we have with Bible manuscripts today. We have very reliable copies. Are there differences in the copies? Yes. There are 5800 hand-written copies. So the job of the translator is to look at those copies, and sometimes make difficult decisions about which word was the original. But let me tell you this before we look at this “Day of the Lord” “Day of Christ” translation. One of my seminary teachers said this; “There are no major teachings of our faith that rely on a questionable text of Scripture.” This is what he was saying. Most of the differences in the manuscripts are minor. A missing punctuation mark or letter, a missing line. They are mostly clerical, copying errors. And even if we can’t decide which manuscript is closest to the original, the differences in them wouldn’t change the content of what we believe.
So now, let’s look at this manuscript difference between “Day of the Lord” and “Day of Christ.”
So, let’s make this simple. Part of those copies of 2 Thessalonians use the Greek words for, “Day of Christ,” part of them use the Greek words for “Day of the Lord.” The scholars who translated the King James Version in 1611 looked at all the available manuscripts of the time and made a decision that “Day of Christ” was closest to the original. The other, later translations, like the Holman Christian Standard looked at all the manuscripts available to them, and decided that “Day of the Lord” was most likely closest to the original.
And then some translations wanted to make sure that they were totally up front with the reader, and put notes in their Bibles, letting the reader know that there is manuscript evidence for a different word.
Why do I tell you all this? To let you know that there was no evil plan to destroy God’s Word by those who translated after the King James. Translators had to make educated decisions based on thousands of manuscripts.
So, our question for today is, is it “Day of the Lord” or “Day of Christ?” And “what difference does it make?” It does make a little difference. Again, there’s nothing here that will rock your faith. So let’s look at what “the Day of Christ” is, and what the “Day of the Lord” is.
The “Day of Christ” is a phrase used, the phrase is only used in the New Testament, specifically in the KJV four times. And five more times the author says “that day” or “day of the Lord Jesus” where we can surmise that he is talking about “the day of Christ.” So, nine times it is used. And we can gather from the context that the day of Christ is the time of Jesus second coming when He resurrects the bodies of the dead saints, and raptures the living saints to meet Him in the air.
So, if the original letter from Paul said that someone was lying to the Thessalonian believers saying that the “Day of Christ” had come, generically we would understand that to mean that someone was saying that Jesus had come back, and the Thessalonian Christians had missed it.
So, what if the phrase should be “Day of the Lord?”
The phrase “Day of the Lord” is used in both the Old and New Testament. It occurs 31 times in the King James Version. Sometimes the phrase was used to describe some judgment that happened in the past. But it is a general term for a coming future time of judgment for the unrighteous and reward for the righteous. We would call it “the end times,” “the apocalypse,” “the Tribulation,” “the Great Tribulation.” But it includes all of the end time events including the last 7 years of judgment, the return of Christ, the resurrection of the just, the rapture, the Battle of Armageddon, and even the Millennium and final Great White Throne judgment.
In short, the Day of the Lord is when God steps into history with judgment and final reward.
So, if “Day of the Lord” was the original text, it would mean that someone was telling the Thessalonian believers that all of the end times events had begun. That they were in it. So, they were about to start experiencing the world under God’s judgment for 7 years.
The difference comes down to what the Thessalonians were getting upset about. Somebody was either telling them that Jesus return was at hand, or had already occurred, and they missed it, or they were saying that the apocalypse has started. And it was upsetting the people of the church.
Now, either message would be upsetting, if they believed it. So, you say, “preacher, which one is more likely the original?” I don’t know, and I’m not going to pretend to be more knowledgeable than the translators of the King James Version who said that it should be “Day of Christ,” or the other English translations that say, “Day of the Lord.” I take the third option, which is to teach you both, and then get you to the main point.
The main point of the passage is that someone was teaching a lie in that church, and it was causing upheaval, worry, and turmoil.
And Paul says,
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled,…. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means;
Our church, the Church, has been shaken countless times though the years by lies. And specifically it has been shaken many times by lies about the end times. So we need to resolved to search out the truth, and keep our faith in God and His Word.
Well, we’re going to look further into this passage. But I wanted to tie up the loose ends on the whole King James Version only issue.
Let me say this; I love the King James Version. I grew up with it. It is familiar to me, and so it often speaks to me in a way that other translations do not. It sounds more like the Word of God to me than other translations. But I can’t judge the KJV based on my emotional response to it, or other translations.
So, if I am being honest, I have to ask myself, “Why do I believe that the King James is the only inspired English translation?”
Well, it was the first English translation! No, it wasn’t. Tyndale translated the Bible into English between 1526 to 1535. In addition, there were other English translations, "The Great Bible" (1539) the Geneva Bible (1560) and The Bishop’s Bible (1568). And when the King James translation in 1611 was built from some of these previous translations.
Well, it was the best English translation! Well, you can get a lot of argument on that. Listen, I’m not here to undermine your faith in the KJV. But it was translated in 1611. And several thousand texts have been discovered since the KJV was translated. There are some issues with the KJV, but none of them resonate much with me except one. I have been teaching the youth here at this church for 19 years, and I can tell you that they do not understand some of the archaic language in the KJV. Some of them struggle to even read it. So, if I used it in their classes, I would spend a great deal of time translating the English of the King James to modern English, instead of applying the Word.
Well, the last question I ask myself when considering if the KJV is the only inspired English translation is,
“Which English translation of the Bible do the people of Burma use?” They don’t use the English translation, they use the Bible translated into the Kachin language in 1927.
“Which English translation of the Bible do the people of Zambia in Africa use?” They don’t use the English translation, they use the Bible translated into the Bemba, completed in 1956.
“Which English translation of the Bible do the people of the Algonquin native American people use?” They don’t use the English translation, they use the Bible translated into the Algonquin language in 1998.
“Which English translation of the Bible do the Australian Kriol tribes ?” They don’t use the English translation, they use the Bible translated into the Kriol in 2007.
All of these translations of Scripture happened long after the King James, when thousands of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts had been discovered.
So, here’s the question. If there were a Christian people today, translating the Scripture for a tribe of people who don’t have the Bible in their own language, should they use all the original language manuscripts available today to translate? Or should they go pick up a copy of the King James version, and translate from the English?
If a King James only person told me they should use all the available manuscripts, then why do they have a problem with translating the Bible out of 1611 English into modern English?
If they say that the translators should use the King James to make a new translation into a tribal language, then what they have done is elevate the 1611 King James to the same level as Greek and Hebrew texts written within 100 to 200 years away from Christ.