Firmly Standing in His Promises

<)) Listen to the sermon here and here.

[2 Thessalonians 2:1-17] … “But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 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.

                     Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

Firmly Standing (and Walking) in His Promises

I.

Different and contradictory teachings coming from those who seem to be leaders in the faith, and the existence of various factions and denominations among God’s people, is nothing new.

In the days of Christ’s earthly ministry, among God’s people of Judah and Israel, there were several such groups. The biggest group with the most influence on the common people was the Pharisees.

The Pharisees counted all the books of what we call the Old Testament to be inspired Scripture. They believed in miracles, spirits, an afterlife, and the resurrection of the body. They were strict observers and teachers of the Law of Moses, and of their traditions which were extra man-made rules meant to buffer and protect what the Law commanded.

The Pharisees believed that strict observance of their tradition was needed for Israel to once again live under God’s favor in their own land like in the glory days of King David. Their man-made traditions took a place equal to, and really superseding, God’s Word.   

There were other, smaller but more extreme and stricter groups as well, such as the Essenes, the Qumran community, and the Zealots. There were also much looser living Jews, the Hellenists, who adopted much of Greek culture, custom, and language, starting from the days of Alexander the Great’s conquest of Israel.

And there was the crowd of religious elites – the powerful religious leaders who ruled the Temple and who rubbed shoulders with the Roman civil rulers. The Sadducees. The Sadducees accepted only the first five books of the Bible. They did not believe in spirits and angels, and they did not believe in the resurrection of the body.

Yet they were religious leaders in their day. There name, “Sadducees”, may have come from the Hebrew word “Righteous”, yet they, like the Pharisees, were instrumental in rejecting the Lord of Righteousness.

There were many groups speaking in God’s name. Yet they either detracted from God’s Word by not accepting it all, or they added to God’s Word by adding their man-made tradition as authoritative and necessary.

And most of their followers, and certainly most of their teachers who taught in God’s name, when they finally met God face-to-face, when they met Jesus, crucified Him. They rejected the very God they claimed to be serving.

II.

We encounter the Sadducees in this morning’s Gospel, Luke 20:27-40. Based on their human reason, they find the resurrection of the body to be impossible. Simply put, they argue, if a woman had multiple husbands in this lifetime, whose wife would she be in the resurrection?

In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear Jesus respond, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” [Matthew 22:29]. And in both Matthew and Luke, Jesus says that in the resurrection you neither marry nor are given in marriage. You now live forever and are no longer having children.

Your love doesn’t go away. You love each other more because sin is gone. But the marriage in heaven that we all have, in the resurrection, is the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom – the risen Christ and His risen Bride, the Church. You are finally fully united there with Christ.

And Jesus points these Sadducees back to the Scriptures, back to the words God spoke to Moses from the burning bush in today’s Old Testament reading, Exodus 3:1-15, when God calls Himself “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” — “Now He is not God of the dead, but of the living,” Jesus says, “for all live to him.” [Luke 20:38]

There were many groups and teachers, not outside God’s people (outwardly speaking) but among God’s people, teaching many false things. And the situation did not get better in the New Testament times of the Church.

In today’s Epistle reading [2 Thessalonians 2:1-17] we now are after the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord, after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, in the time of the Church. And in the church in Thessalonica, there are teachers teaching falsely about… the resurrection of the body.

They were, in some way – maybe they were spiritualizing the resurrection in some way, making it not really about the body; I don’t think we know for sure – but there were teachers in their church in some way claiming that the resurrection was something that had already happened. Therefore, the resurrection of the body was not the hope they looked forward to. The people were being stripped of that true and comforting belief.

In Thessalonica, the resurrection of the body was being called into doubt. In Galatia and elsewhere, salvation by God’s grace through faith alone in Christ without your works was being called into doubt. In other places, the incarnation of Jesus – that the Son of God truly became flesh-and-blood man – was being called into doubt.

In every place, it seemed, teachers in the church, claiming to speak in the name of Christianity, in the name of Christ – some further off track than others – were calling into doubt, and teaching contrary to, the core beliefs of who Jesus is, what He expects of us, and, most importantly, what He has done for us for our salvation. Including, the resurrection of the body. His and ours.

III.

Their life in the Church in those days was a lot like ours in our day. There were a lot of preachers on the radio, sometimes saying good things, and other times saying things that didn’t sound quite right. There were lots of denominations and friends going to other churches. Much was the same, but the differences really mattered.

Whether or not Jesus was raised from the dead mattered. Whether or not your body would be raised mattered. And whether or not you are saved completely by the work of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection – completely by His atoning, sin-forgiving sacrifice – and not by your work or contribution, that mattered.

These differences mattered, and the differences today matter. We are dealing with the most important topics in the world: Our relationship with God and our eternal life.

So what’s going? In Christ’s day, in the days of the Apostles and the early church, and in our day, what’s going on? What’s going on is what Scripture said would go on and will go on until the last day, the return of Christ. The exact thing mentioned in today’s Epistle.

All of this mentioned is what today’s Epistle lesson refers to as, “the son of destruction”, the “man of lawlessness” – which elsewhere in Scripture is called the “antichrist”, the “spirit of antichrist”, “many antichrists” which “have come into the world” [1 John 2:18; 4:3; 2 John 1:7]; the “beast” of Revelation [Rev. 13:4-5,11] —  

— the one who “takes his seat in the temple of God”, which means “in the Church”, this “building of living stones” [1 Peter 2:5] – every man and spirit and way-of-thinking which seeks to usurp Christ’s place as Truth and Head, thereby, “proclaiming himself (or itself) to be God.” [2 Thessalonians 2:3-4]

The early Christians believed that this “man of lawlessness”, this antichrist figure, would be a successor to the Roman emperors. In the Middle Ages, some Franciscan monks – and a little later, the Protestant and Lutheran Reformers – began to believe this figure might be the pope, who is put at the head and proclaims His own teachings as laws. 

Today we might also recognize “antichrist” and “lawlessness” in church leaders, pastors, and Bible scholars who deny miracles, deny the virgin birth, deny the resurrection, and deny basic truths of who we are as God’s creation —  

— denying the real existence of male and female, denying the one-flesh unity of husband and wife – calling good bad and bad good – leaving hurting people confused about who and what they are – leaving kids in instability – and leaving their hearers in their sins by failing to call it sin and therefore failing to offer Christ’s forgiveness and true healing.

The marks of “antichrist” and “son of destruction” activity are that it’s in, or at the head of, the church; gives a counterfeit replacement for parts of the truth of God’s Word; and seeks to replace, in part or in full, Christ’s role as our only Savior, Shepherd, Teacher, Priest, and King. It’s the devil’s age-old desire to replace God with himself.

The Apostle Calls this “the mystery of lawlessness” which was “already at work” in his day, but which is also being “restrained” and will, without a doubt, be defeated by the visible return of Christ, by “the breath of His mouth” and “by the appearance of His coming.” [2 Thessalonians 2:5-8]

IV.

Sometimes, outright falsehood is easiest to detect and reject. But mild confusion, that’s harder to sort out. And being surrounded by too much of it and make us feel like we are on shaky ground, shifting sand. What do we do?

Remain grounded in those things which are of first importance: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” [1 Corinthians 15:3-4]

Be grounded in the Holy Scriptures: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand” [John 10:27-28]. Sheep who are hearing their Shepherd’s voice, God’s Word, Scripture, will not get lost and perish. His Word will have the victory in you.

Let the foundation, walls, and roof of your life be salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone – by Christ’s work alone – without your works or merit. He will bring you to the day of the resurrection of the body because He really has forgiven your sins.

Antichrist won’t win. Christ wins. Falsehood won’t win. Confusion will not win. Christ and His truth have won for you. He knows how to uphold His truth. His truth will win in you, even if sometimes you suffer confusion. His truth wins.

And, no matter what the Sadducees of His day or ours say, the resurrection of the body is true. Christ is risen! And you will rise! No longer sick. No longer a sinner. Perfect in His glory. No more falsehood. Only His truth will remain in that day. You stand firm and walk with Him because you know His victory and your future. Amen.