JViaflstAthoini OF THEHOLY SPIRIT
by Dr. Lehman Strauss
I t is well to remember that not all unbelievers will suffer the same de gree of punishment in hell. Contrari wise, not all Christians will receive the same degrees of reward in heav en. The principle is given in Gala tians 6:7. II Thessalonians 1 :7 shows that when our Lord returns to earth, He will bring with Him the judg ment due those who have been against the work of Christ. Punishment is going to be meted out, according to verse 8, on them that “know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is all one group. The statement about “them that know not God” doesn’t have reference to those who have never heard but rather those who have purposely tried to remain, as Peter puts it, willfully ignorant (II Pet. 3:5). They are the ones who do not want “to retain God in their knowledge” (Rom. 1:28). When one hears the Gospel and then spurns it, he must suffer the conse quences. Verse 9 in II Thessalonians Chap ter 1 states that the unsaved “shall be punished with everlasting destruc tion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.” This does not mean annihilation. It is not total extinction. The awful truth is eternal separation from the presence of God. Their loss is irre trievable. The very thought of a man’s being beyond the reach of the Lord should cause each of us to tremble (Matt. 25:30). The final doom will come when Christ comes to be glori fied in His saints (II Thess. 1:10). Believers will then share the glory, while sinners suffer the gloom. Christ will assume authority over the uni verse. That actual date has not been
revealed. The certainty of it is as sured. In verses 1-7 of chapter 2, we come to the second major emphasis of the prophetic portion of the epis tle. In I and II Thessalonians there are no less than 20 references to the second coming of Christ. While there is only the one advent, there are two distinct phases of it, namely, Christ’s return in the air for His saints, de lineated in the first epistle (I Thess. 4:13-18), and His return to the earth with His saints. The latter is the emphasis of the second epistle. There was confusion in the minds of the Thessalonians in relation to the com ing of the Lord to gather His own to Himself. The word for “coming” here means “presence.” It is used in the first epistle in 2:19 and 4:15, referring to that time when Christ will appear in the air before the tribulation to take His Church from the earth. This gathering of the saints to Christ assured the believers of deliverance from the wrath to come (I Thess. 1:10; 5:9). This is the Great Tribulation which the earth will experience. It is not God’s final wrath which will be manifested in the everlasting judgment of sin ners (John 3:36). These people be lieved th a t the persecutions and tribulations through which they were passing were actually a part of the tribulation, or “the day of the Lord.” In 2:2, the American Standard Ver sion (Revised) uses “the day of the Lord” instead of the “the day of Christ” which is a good correction. The people were being shaken in mind, like a ship tossed from its moorings by the troubled sea. Three things could have brought about his undesirable state of affairs. 5
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