WWUTT 543 Chosen From the Beginning?

The Trinitarian Work of Salvation in 2 Thessalonians 2:13

The salvation that you have received was authored by the Father, it was accomplished by the Son, and it is applied by the Holy Spirit. And this was all decided from before the foundation of the world, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word, that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will. For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We have finished up our section on the man of lawlessness, I think, but still more to go in Chapter 2 of our study of 2 Thessalonians. I'm going to read in verses 13 through 17. Paul says, 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. This is hugely Trinitarian in this address that Paul is making to the Thessalonians, contrasting them with those who will be destroyed in their unrighteousness because they believed in the lie of the lawless one, the lies of the Antichrist, which was that section previous.

So then, those who are faithful to the promises of God, Paul says, We ought always to give thanks to God for you. There's God, the address of the Godhead, or the reference to the Godhead, and then saying, Brothers beloved by the Lord, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved.

That's a reference to the Father, God the Father chose you as the firstfruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God and belief in the truth. So what you have here is that the Father elects, the Son loves and the Holy Spirit sanctifies or makes holy.

So there is the Trinitarian work of salvation in the hearts of believers. That's awesome. Mark that one in your Bible, because when it comes to explaining to somebody about a Trinitarian work of salvation, that's going to be one of those verses that is most helpful.

The Great Commission and Jesus' Authority

Jesus said in the Great Commission, Matthew 28, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. By the way, that's the passage that I go to most often when it comes to talking about Trinity with somebody who either doesn't understand the Trinity or is anti-Trinitarian.

I will quote to them that verse, those two verses where Jesus says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Now, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

So when I talk to somebody who doesn't quite grasp the Trinity, I will say to them, who gave Jesus his authority? And I've yet to have somebody be able, let me put it this way. I have yet to have someone who is anti-Trinitarian give an answer to that question or even try to answer that question.

I recently had somebody from a church in town that's anti-Trinitarian. They came into our church during the week. This church is common for doing this. They're spies. They come into the church. They want to see what it is that we're doing.

That's exactly the reason why they're there. And they won't tell you where they're from until I kind of get it out. What church did you say you're from? Oh, I'm from such and such a church up the road.

And I'm like, right. So it's just the thing they do. They like to spy on all the churches. They want to know what their competition is. And that is their motivation. So once he finally admitted to me what church it was that he was from, I said to him, why do you even bother walking in here?

Because you actually think we're heretics. We're a Trinitarian church, so you think that we're heretics. And I can't remember what his answer was after that. But I gave him that passage in Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20.

And I asked him, where did Jesus get his authority from? All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Who gave it to him? And the man said, well, you know, I'm a math teacher. So when it comes to explaining this passage to my students at the church, I like to do it in sort of a math problem.

And I'm thinking to myself, right, not with the Bible, but with math, you know, I didn't say that. But anyway, so he said, when you look at the passage, name is singular, baptized in the name, one name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

So it's one person who can be described as Father and Son and Holy Spirit. I'm actually used to that answer. I'm used to them responding that way whenever I bring this up. And I interrupted him and I said to him, no, you misunderstand the question.

I'm not asking you to explain Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I'm asking you to tell me, where did Jesus get his authority from? All authority has been given to me by whom? And he danced around that. He went to other passages of scripture.

He never could give me an answer to that question. And I'm used to some of the gotcha answers that these guys will use. They have not yet developed an answer to that particular question. If they're going to thematically come up with one, they haven't done it yet.

And then what ends up happening after that, at that point in our conversation, another guy comes in who he came to the church with. This is the same routine they go through every single time. Another guy comes in and he goes, hey, man, we're late for our next appointment, so we got to go.

This is the way they do things. They send one person in, and when it looks like he's in trouble trying to talk to that pastor, they'll send another guy in to rescue him out so they don't get caught up in conversations that last 30 to 60 minutes or something like that.

They do this every time. The Mormon church in town actually follows the same strategy. Seriously, I will get some of those Mormon elders that will come in the church attempting to hand me a book of Mormon.

I can always say, I've actually already got a copy, which I've used for my research. It has the heresy stamp in it. Heretical garbage for research purposes only. That's right there on the cover. So no other Mormon is going to read it, but it's mine anyway.

So they'll follow that same strategy. One guy will come in and he'll try to talk to me or hand me a book of Mormon or hand me some Mormon literature, and then it's not even three or four minutes. The other guy comes walking in and goes, hey, man, we got to get moving.

We got to go on to the next place. That's the strategy they operate by so that their meetings are real brief. They're quick. They're not getting caught up in some sort of a theological discussion that they really know they cannot win.

They know that their argument is not convincing. Furthermore, they don't actually know the scriptures well enough to be able to back up their own theological points. Somebody else has told them what it is to believe, but they can't actually defend their own beliefs.

And so this is evangelism here in Junction City. This town is hugely Trinity denying. I mean, the Mormons deny Trinity. So do the Jehovah's Witnesses. There's a pretty prevalent Jehovah's Witness presence here in our own community.

Also the big Pentecostal church here in town and several of the Pentecostal churches in town all deny the Trinity. One of the reasons why we left the ministerial association in our community is because they were accepting Trinity denying churches.

And even with this young man that came into our church, I tried to communicate to him, you believe in a different God. If you deny the triune God, you do not believe in the God of the Bible. This is an essential doctrine of the Christian faith.

And when it comes to helping someone understand the triune nature of God, this is one of those passages that may help you in leading somebody else in that understanding. We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits.

God the Father chose, he elected, the Son loved, the Spirit sanctifies. And so that's what you have here in this one verse, 2 Thessalonians 2 .13, again, mark that in your Bible. Now, where Paul says, God chose you as the first fruits to be saved.

Well, what does that mean? Because surely they weren't the first fruits. Maybe the apostles were the first fruits, or maybe those who were saved at Pentecost in Jerusalem. And this is several years after that.

So how does Paul describe the Thessalonians as the first fruits? Well, you could explain this in the sense that they are among the earliest Christians to be saved. They're in that first generation of the church, that first 40 years between Jesus ascension into heaven and the giving of the Holy Spirit, which happened approximately 30 AD, to the destruction of the temple, which was in 70 AD.

That's the first generation of the church. That's 40 years, span of 40 years. So maybe you could consider the church in Thessalonica that Paul is writing to here as part of that first generation. So therefore, they're considered to be first fruits.

But some Bibles actually translate that particular passage as from the beginning. So it would be brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved. So more than likely, what the correct interpretation of this passage would be is that God elected you for salvation before the foundation of the world.

And that would be totally in keeping with other passages that we have, like in Ephesians chapter one, Paul says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.

He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. So there you have a very similar statement to the Ephesians, Paul making there in Ephesians one versus three through six is what I read.

And and so we have that statement kind of summarized in one verse in second Thessalonians to 13. God chose you as the first fruits to be saved. God chose you from the beginning for salvation. Those who are to be saved have been chosen from before the foundation of the world.

Election, Double Predestination, and the Glory of God

Now, we talked about this a little bit earlier in the week when we were in the previous section about the lawless one, about the work of the Antichrist, the contrast between them and the believers here in this particular section.

Those who have been destined for destruction were also decided upon before the foundation of the world. Those who reject the doctrine of election, one of the gotcha arguments that they like to try to use is if God elected, if he predestined who was going to be saved from before time began, therefore God also elected or chose who was going to be destroyed.

And he made that decision before time began. And they make that argument as though they're trying to catch us in something like, well, if you're going to decide that that God picked the saved at the beginning, well, then he also picked those who were going to be destroyed.

And for those of us who understand that doctrine of election, we're basically standing here going, right, that's would be that would be exactly how that works. The name for this doctrine is double predestination.

So God is not only predestined for salvation, those he would save, but he also predestined for destruction, those whom he would destroy. And he made this decision to display the fullness of his glory, that he is glorious in the in the righteous wrath that he pours out on those who are unrighteous.

And he shows his glory through mercy and love in grace in those that he means to save for himself. We have done nothing to merit this salvation. None of us have done anything to earn this. It is by the gracious gift of God.

And so praise God. I recently saw a quote from Charles Spurgeon. He said, while others are congratulating themselves, I have to sit humbly at the foot of the cross and marvel that I'm saved at all. Why is it that God chose you to be saved if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you have turned from your sin and he has not saved somebody whom you might even be related to?

And you're looking at that person going, why are they not a Christian? And I am. And we both have the same upbringing. We we both went through the same things. We both heard the same teaching. I turn from sin and believe.

But that person did not. And and don't count them out. Might just take them longer than it takes you. The Holy Spirit is still doing a work on them and they still may come to salvation. We do not know the end from the beginning.

God does. We don't know that. So we must still humbly and patiently and lovingly hold out the gospel of Jesus Christ so that someone would turn from their sin and be saved. But but when you're looking at yourself and your salvation, you're looking at somebody else who doesn't have salvation.

There is there's nothing about you that you can boast in, that you can say that you did something to earn that it is by the gracious gift of God. Why did he choose to save you? To the praise of his glorious grace, as we just read in Ephesians chapter one.

So praise God for that. Now, with all those who are anti predestination or anti election and they they try to to lambast this theology in some way, the the thing that we need to remember is that we do not know who is saved.

We do not know whom God has elected for salvation and whom he has prepared for destruction. We don't know that. We won't know that until we get to the end and we see the whole picture clearly. We do not have the whole picture clearly now.

We will see that whole picture clearly when we get to the other side. This was like the conversation that God had with Moses through the burning bush in Exodus chapters three and four. God said to Moses before sending him back to Egypt, you will know that I was with you because you will come back here and you will worship me on this mountain.

His his sign to Moses was not through the miraculous signs that they were going to do in Egypt or the great plagues that they were going to rain upon this pagan nation. It was the fact that when all was said and done, Moses was going to lead the Israelites out.

They were going to they were going to come back to that very place and worship God on that mountain. Then they would know that God was with them that entire time, not through the signs and the wonders, but because of the deliverance that God had promised.

Once they were delivered, they would see how God was with them through that entire process, what it was he was doing, that he had already decided the end from the beginning and they would worship and glorify God because of it.

And that is us. We are marching to Zion, as Isaac Watts put it in that great hymn, one of my all time favorite hymns, by the way. We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God.

We are looking forward to that kingdom in which we will be with our Lord forever. And then when we arrive, we will see what God was doing, what he had planned from the start of time and how he was working all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

We will understand that once we get to the glorious kingdom and and all things are perfect, including the finished work of God, the whole plan, everything is done. It is perfect. And we will see that there was no other path in life that could have been chosen.

No other way that this existence could have been fashioned except the way that God did it. And we will see that all those things were perfectly orchestrated to his praise and glory. In the meantime, we live in the narrative in which we exist.

There that we can't step outside the bounds of it. You cannot predict the future. There's only a few things about the past that you can know. Everything that is written down for us in the Bible is truth.

And so that we can rely upon and that we place our faith in. Jesus said passage that I brought up already to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them, discipling them to obey all that Christ has commanded.

And so that's what we must do. This is part of the work that God has predetermined from before time began. You cannot make excuses like, well, if God's already decided it, then there's nothing for me to do.

No, you need to praise God that he is including you in this plan, because as Paul said to Timothy, the church is the instrument that God has chosen to be the pillar and buttress of the truth, to hold up the truth and defend it from those who try to malign it.

You are part of that work. Praise God for that. And now you must work. There is no reason for you not to work. It is because you know that God is sovereign, that you can work with confidence, knowing that he is going to accomplish the work that he has set out to accomplish.

As it says in Isaiah 55, my word will not return to me void without accomplishing the work that I set it forth to do. And so we speak the word of God. We lead others to Christ. This is the work that he has chosen for us.

And so let us be zealous in doing that very work. And once again, we have a comfort in this passage. We've only been in one verse today. Really? Second Thessalonians chapter two, verse 13, we ought always to give thanks to God for you.

So just as you need to thank God for your salvation, Paul was thanking God for the salvation of the Thessalonians. Praise God for the salvation of anybody, your salvation, those who are saved. The praise belongs to the Lord, those who have been beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved.

He chose you from the beginning to be saved through sanctification by the spirit and belief in the truth. If he chose you for salvation, he also chose you to walk in holiness. That's the other part of that passage in Romans 8, 28 and 29.

We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of the son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

So it was even in God's predestined plan that you would be sanctified, that you would grow in holiness in the spirit and belief in the truth of his word. We're going to pick up there next week on Monday.

I've got something else related to this passage that I want to talk about. And so we'll come back to this verse when we resume our study of 2 Thessalonians 2 next week. Let's pray. Our Lord God, we thank you for the salvation that we have been given in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And this is by no work of ours, nothing that we have done, not by our filthy hands, but by your holiness and your blessed work through your son, Jesus Christ. It is in this that we have salvation. And so we ought always to give thanks to you for the salvation that we have, giving thanks to God for the salvation of the members of our church that we labor with and grow in holiness with.

Let us be thankful for them, our brothers and sisters in Christ who have been beloved by the Lord, because God chose us from before time began to be saved and to be sanctified by the spirit and grow in your truth.

And so I pray that as we consider the things that we have been taught today from the word of God, it would fill up our mind and our hearts that we would continue to go rejoicing in God for our salvation, but also asking that we would continue to be sanctified even as we go in this world.

Let us hold fast to the gospel and give us opportunities to share it with others so they may turn from sin and be saved. And we pray this in Jesus name.

Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.