What 1 and 2 Thessalonians Teach (and Don’t Teach) about the End Times
Biblical Eschatology
What happens at Jesus’s return? The writers to the Thessalonians give only some of the puzzle pieces. Thessalonians does not present a complete picture. Neither do other parts of Scripture. What do these letters contribute to a fuller biblical eschatology?
An Unmissable Return
One of the theological shortcomings of popular dispensationalist eschatology is an extra coming of Jesus. His first advent at Christmas is followed by two second comings! Coming 2a is alleged to be a secret arrival to rapture believers, while 2b involves the more public parousia, the day of the Lord, final judgment, and so on.
Jesus’s return will not pass unnoticed. The first letter gives three descriptions of loud audio accompaniment: “a cry of command,” “the voice of an archangel,” and “the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thess. 4:16; cf. Matt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 15:52). And the second letter assures the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord won’t pass unawares (e.g., 2 Thess. 2:1–4). Gordon Fee notes how “ ‘the manifestation of his coming’ [in 2 Thess. 2:8] . . . is intended to emphasize not just the fact of his coming, but especially its unmistakable and evidential character. . . . Christ’s Parousia will be openly manifest to all.”1 Thessalonians says nothing of a secret second coming.
To Walk and to Please God
Andrew Malone
To Walk and to Please God explores 1 and 2 Thessalonians and expounds on its predominant themes to provide readers with a positive example of what Christians should believe and how they should behave.
A Rapture Unlikely
Despite its popularity in the last century, there is no evidence of a rapture either, certainly not in the sense of believers being whisked into heaven before a period of intense tribulation suffered by those left behind. This is significant because 1 Thessalonians 4:17 is the only verse in the New Testament to hint at the idea and because it’s the verse that dispensationalists identify as central to the doctrine. English Bibles talk here about being “caught up” (for which the old Latin translation used the verb rapio). The passage tells us nothing about which direction believers travel after meeting Jesus in the air—and that its sense more likely is that the august gathering returns to earth rather than to heaven.
The pastoral thrust of the passage is that believers who die before Jesus returns will not miss out. They will have a distinguished position in his vanguard. The apostles are equally clear that all believers will thus be with the Lord forever (1 Thess. 4:17; 5:10; 2 Thess. 2:1). These ideas are far more prominent—in 1 Thessalonians 4, in the two Thessalonian letters, and throughout the Bible—than any alleged exempting of living believers from universal difficulties.2
Judgment and the End of Evil
Rather than being exempted from tribulation, the Thessalonian letters remind believers that they do face difficulties—and regularly—especially for joining the Christian journey. Along with the church planters, the Thessalonians have been oppressed since their conversion (1 Thess. 1:6; 1 Thess. 2:2, 13–16). Indeed, they’ve been instructed that afflictions are inevitable (1 Thess. 3:3–4). And this will remain their experience until Jesus returns and brings evil to naught (2 Thess. 1:3–8).
These letters offer little detail about how the forces of evil are vanquished. The ease with which Jesus dismisses the man of lawlessness leads many to conclude that, as far as our authors want their readers to care, “there is no great final battle between human forces called Armageddon, only a final divine execution.”3 We note too that God the Father exacts justice alongside God the Son (e.g., 2 Thess. 1:5–8). They work together in final salvation as much as in initial salvation.
Some scholars see Thessalonians mapping the journey of unbelievers, a journey that culminates in condemnation (cf. Rom. 1:18–32; James 1:14–15).4 Unrepentant humans are judged alongside the forces of evil (2 Thess. 1:5–10; 2:9–12). Only the briefest glimpse of their fate is provided: “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thess 1:9). So, for example, we must look to other passages to consider what this suffering entails (e.g., Matt. 10:28; Luke 16:19–31) or to confirm that rebels’ eternal absence from the Lord’s presence is experienced consciously (e.g., Rev. 14:9–11).
God’s ongoing work of salvific transformation makes us increasingly suited for his presence.
Salvation Completed
The same balance holds true for those reaching the positive end of the journey of salvation. Thessalonians confirms that believers remain forever with the Lord. But the location and circumstances of that blessed condition are assumed rather than articulated.
Recalling the “tenses” of salvation, we see that salvation is completed only when God’s final favorable judgment is rendered. Douglas Moo’s summary of Pauline theology observes that “salvation covers the entirety of Christian experience.” He reminds us that salvation language is used of God’s past, present, and future work in our salvific journey, and he calculates that the Pauline writings most frequently address God’s rescue in the final steps of our course.5 Already this future focus of rescue from wrath is the climax of the opening Thessalonian chapter (1 Thess. 1:10), and it rounds out the extended specific instructions in that same letter (1 Thess. 5:9–10). Both letters’ regular eschatological emphases keep these final steps in view.
This remains a useful challenge for us. Many church traditions focus on the past tense of salvation: on God’s decision—and often on ours—made in our past that we follow Jesus. God’s ongoing work of salvific transformation makes us increasingly suited for his presence. And now Moo assures us that Paul’s own emphases are fixed primarily on the end of the journey. We misrepresent the Bible’s teaching if we focus on one tense to the exclusion of the others. We may well also dishearten those under way on the journey if we miscommunicate the various teachings that flag the start of the course, its end, and evidence of progress along the way.
Holding on to Hope
We conclude with a reminder that the Thessalonian letters emphasize eschatology not for intellectual gratification but for pastoral care. The Corinthian congregation especially lacked love, so we hear “love” foregrounded ahead of “faith” and “hope” (1 Cor. 13:13). The Thessalonian believers are generally loving well, so “hope” is given much of the spotlight as they await Jesus’s return.6
Thus, various mentions of judgment and the rebellion and the man of lawlessness are not meant merely to further the Thessalonians’ intellectual progress. Nor are they warnings addressed to those responding poorly to the gospel. They are not focused on a particular eschatological timeline or even, in this instance, foregrounding Jesus’s power. No, the summary details are to encourage the afflicted believers to persist in their journey, confident that their current troublesome circumstances are for a limited time only.7
The description just given is especially visible in 2 Thessalonians 1–2, but it can be applied to each of the eschatological encouragements spaced across both letters. Each discussion of God’s plans for the future is deployed to motivate the Thessalonians in their faithful persistence now, living and growing in holiness in preparation for eternity in the presence of the holy Trinity.
Notes:
- Gordon D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 292.
- Thus the careful subtitle and content of Michael L. Brown and Craig S. Keener, Not Afraid of the Antichrist: Why We Don’t Believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture (Bloomington, MN: Chosen, 2019). For an analysis of hermeneutical factors from a Thessalonian perspective, see Johnson, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 288–305.
- Witherington, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 222; cf. Gupta, 1–2 Thessalonians, 138; Ernest Best, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians BNTC (London: A&C Black, 1972), 304. The same sentiment is often touted for Rev. 19:11–21.
- I. Howard Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, NCB (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1983), 204; Witherington, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 224–25; both draw on J. B. Lightfoot.
- Douglas J. Moo, A Theology of Paul and His Letters: The Gift of the New Realm in Christ, BTNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2021), 468.
- Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians, SP 7 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 484–85.
- “Eschatology thus becomes a pastoral tool to encourage these beleaguered believers.” Nijay K. Gupta, “Thessalonians, Letters to the,” DPL2 1053.
This article is adapted from To Walk and to Please God: A Theology of 1 and 2 Thessalonians by Andrew Malone.
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