Hope and a Healthy Eschatology | W. Robert Godfrey

Father, how thankful we are to know that you rule over all things, that you see all things, that you know all things, and that you will, in your good time, come to judge the living and the dead. And we do not tremble before that judgment because we have a sure refuge and stronghold in our Lord Jesus Christ, who remarkably has promised that he will return in glory to be glorified in us.

And so we pray, O Lord, that we might be a people worthy of such language, that we might be a people of faith and of love and of hope. So bless us in this time together, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.

2 Thessalonians 1 and the Hope of Christ’s Return

Please be seated and turn with me to Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians. Usually when we think of eschatology and 2 Thessalonians, we are inclined to rush to the second chapter. That's where all the good stuff is about the man of sin, the restrainer, and we have lots of questions, and we are greatly helped in looking at that chapter by Gerhardus Vos, who had a very careful, detailed study of 2 Thessalonians 2.

And at the conclusion of it, he said, what we really need to remember is that the only certain exegesis of 2 Thessalonians 2 will be in its fulfillment. Where Christ returns in glory. So we have to be content with certain questions we can't always answer.

But that chapter is preceded, this is the kind of thing you pay tuition for in seminary. This second chapter is preceded by the first chapter, and it is a very crucial setting of our minds on what Paul is principally concerned about in 2 Thessalonians.

So I want to read 2 Thessalonians 1 beginning at verse 3 and reading through verse 10. Paul writes to these dearly loved Thessalonian Christians, We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.

Therefore, we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering, since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us.

When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God, on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. This is really a remarkable passage of Scripture, and it made me think of a statement I heard from a secular psychiatrist a couple of years ago who once stated, there are stories that save us and stories that trap us.

And, she was talking about her own discipline and how labels can be misused, but I thought, what a wonderful way that Christians should think about the world in which we live. There are stories that save us, the stories of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there are stories that trap us if we believe the stories of the world and the way the world interprets experience and life and truth.

And as I was thinking about that, I thought, in a sense, there are two great Christian stories that particularly save us, that particularly encourage us, that particularly help us. The first is, of course, the story of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus and the gospel, the good news that we have in him, that he did for us what we could never do for ourselves, that he took our place on the cross to bear our sins, and that he was raised gloriously from the dead to reign and to hear our prayers.

And I was struck in this passage that in just a few verses, Jesus is five or six times called Lord Jesus. That's what Paul wants suffering Christians in Thessalonica to remember. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord.

He's Savior. He is the sympathetic servant of God. But when we're suffering, we need to remember above all that he's Lord, that our suffering is not outside his Lordship. And Paul wants to develop that theme of Lordship in relation to what I think we can call the second story.

If the first story of Jesus is the story of his life, death, and resurrection, then the second story is the story of his coming again in glory. That's the story that also saves us in the midst of trouble, in the midst of impatience, in the midst perhaps of doubt.

The wicked say, God doesn't see. But that's a temptation that can come to the righteous. God doesn't see. Where is God? Where is God when I need him? And Paul is reflecting on that second story to help and to encourage the Thessalonicans in their suffering, in their difficulty.

And in their struggles, Paul directs them to this second story, to the future, to the promise with which Christians live. A saving promise that Jesus will return in glory. Chris was talking about how good he thought the title of this lecture was.

What he didn't bother to mention was he came up with the title. So it's not so surprising that he thought it was a splendid title. It's a very good title. And what I particularly liked about it was this notion of healthy eschatology.

And I'm sure what was on Chris's mind was that the Latin word for healthy is sanus, a sane eschatology. Regretfully, in the history of the church, there have been any number of insane eschatologies that have not been healthy.

And we don't want to spend too much time talking about that, but it's important that we know that truth is always healthy. And so we need a true eschatology. We need a true understanding of the promise that is given us about the return of our Lord.

And it's a theme that comes up again and again and again in the New Testament, isn't it? It's a very important theme. Jesus is coming again. And he's coming again, according to the New Testament, to do two great things.

And I think at different times, we focus on one or the other of the great things that Jesus is doing. And I think at different points of experience in our lives, one or the other is more comforting, more helpful, more sane, more healthy for us.

But we need both these things. And the one I think we often turn to is what we find towards the end of the book of the Revelation, where we're told He's coming again to make all things new, to make all things beautiful, to make all things alive, to make all things renewed, to make all things recreated.

And the pictures we have of the heavenly Jerusalem at the book of the Revelation are encouraged to help us see the abundance of life that is going to be ours in the new heaven and in the new earth. I came that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly, the Lord said.

And so that promise of life, that promise of newness of life is one of the great parts of the New Testament teaching about the second coming of Jesus. But there's a second part, and that's what Paul emphasizes here in chapter 1 of 2 Thessalonians.

What's what I want to focus on a little more today, and it's the promise that when Christ comes again, there will be a righteous judgment. There will be a righteous judgment. Because part of the character of God, the essential character of God is that He does what's right.

He does what's just. He is righteous in Himself. And as we live in a world that is not only made ugly by sin, it's a world also that has been made ugly by injustice. And we have this sense, don't we, that somebody is going to be called to account for this, that life in a fundamental way will be wrong if there's never justice, if there's never what the British used to wonderfully say, if there's never a great assize at the end of history, a great day of reckoning at the end of history.

When all those who've mocked God are going to have to stand in judgment for their words. I don't know if Chris will like me telling this story, but I'm old, I don't care. But we had a funeral in this church not so very long ago, and Chris was preaching on the resurrection, and there were grandchildren present who sat in the pew right over here and laughed as he talked about the resurrection.

And Chris stopped and pointed at them and said, you remember this day when you heard the truth about Jesus Christ and the resurrection to come, do you remember that? It's true, isn't it? Those who mock Christ, who came and gave His all for sinners, if they do not repent, will one day have to answer for their refusing to believe.

It's interesting how Paul develops this. He commends the Thessalonians, doesn't he, for their faith, for their love, and for their.

Hope.

That triad, see Paul is a preacher, he had three points. And that triad occurs to Paul over and over again. It's most famous in 1 Corinthians, isn't it? But here in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, he returns to that triad to commend the Thessalonians.

They have faith, they had it from the beginning, the faith is growing, their commitment to the truth of Christ is a message that's spreading everywhere, and Paul is so thrilled by that. And then he commends them for their love, their love for one another, which is growing, and is also a testimony to the world around them.

And then he commends them for steadfastness and hope as they suffer. They are still hopeful in their suffering. And in a sense, I think he very clearly contrasts that with the wicked. The wicked have no faith.

They've heard the gospel perhaps, but have rejected it. The wicked have no love. They hate Christians and are persecuting them. And the wicked have no hope because whereas Christians suffer now and will be glorified later, the wicked seem triumphant now but will suffer later.

That's what Paul is saying. And he wants to encourage us. He wants to encourage us that no matter how great the struggle now, God doesn't forget His people, God doesn't forsake His people, and God will come to judge the living and the dead at the last day and make things right.

And so this is a very powerful statement on Paul's part to encourage Christians. And maybe it makes us just a little uncomfortable today to talk about judgment. We have been overwhelmed in the church with nice.

Now it's not absolutely necessary to be un-nice to be Reformed, but it is necessary that we not let sentimentality control our theology. Paul says Jesus will come in judgment, and when He comes, every eye will see Him.

Nobody's going to miss it. Nobody's going to miss it because He's going to come with the mighty angels in flaming fire, glorious, and He comes in judgment, and He comes with a penalty that will be paid for those who don't have a stronghold or a refuge in Jesus.

And look how powerfully Paul puts that, they will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of God. Does it make you sort of shudder, the horror of it? Now, I know we've heard during this day that we as Christians do not need to and indeed should not shudder at that because the judgment is not a threat to us, but a fulfillment for.

Us.

It is what we long for. We don't need to pray, come later, Lord Jesus, because when He comes right now, we're safe in Him. We're loved in Him. We're vindicated in Him. We receive relief in Him. That's why Christians through the centuries have prayed, come quickly, Lord Jesus, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

And so there's this wonderful promise that we have here that Christ will return not only to make things, all things new, but also to render justice in this world that is known so little justice. We saw in Psalm 94 that talks about how the wicked will be judged for the way they treated the widow and the orphan and the stranger.

That same theme is taken up, isn't it, in Psalm 82 where God summons the rulers of the nations of the world and He says, are you protecting the weak or are you just promoting injustice to make yourselves stronger and richer?

That's the great question to every government. Are they just in their governing? We're about to enter a political season, aren't we? Do you want me to tell you who to vote for? My fear is that neither side has read Psalm 82 with enough care and enough reflection.

I was just quoting Alan Simpson, the retired senator from Wyoming, who said, we have two political parties in the United States, the Democrats that are the evil party and the Republicans that are the stupid party.

One could perhaps switch that at will. I'm not taking sides. I'm just saying how few government leaders through history have asked, what would the Lord have of me? What does justice really look like? What does self-denying justice look like?

What does caring for those who can't care for themselves look like? And we should, as Christians, bear testimony to these things that everyone will have to give account and those to whom more responsibility have been given will be called to even closer account for what the Lord has entrusted them with.

And Paul is reminding us as Christians that God does not forget us, and God will glorify His Son in us and glorify us in the Son. That's the promise here. It's so, so really wonderful. And really, through the history of the church, almost all real Christians, all Bible-believing Christians have agreed about this.

This isn't the controversial stuff. When we think about eschatology, we often think about controversy. We often think about disagreements. And there are a lot of disagreements, but we should bear in mind that we all confess that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead, and that He'll establish a kingdom that has no end, that they will be glorious.

These things we're assured of. And our disagreements have really been about what happens before the end. The end we agree about, all things new, judgment rendered. But what's going to happen before the end?

And it's a kind of form of Calvinist comfort to say, we've always been fighting about these things through the whole history of the church. Cheer up, you know, things are worse. But that's really true, isn't it?

Through the whole history of the church, there have been somewhat different notions of what's going to happen before the end. Jesus prepared us for that. He said near the end of His life, there will be those coming saying, I'm the Christ, I'm a prophet, follow me.

And Jesus said, don't listen to them. There are going to be false teachers about the end and about my appearing. In 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Paul returns to various worries Christians have had about the end.

What about the dead who die before He returns? Will those Christians lose out on life eternal? And Paul assures them that no, that Christ will bring those who died in Him with Him. And I think this is a little more under the surface, but I think Paul in the 1 and 2 Thessalonians tells the Christians to work.

Why does he have to tell Christians to work? Well, I think there are a certain number of Christians maybe in Thessalonica who said, well, if Jesus is coming soon, I don't need to work. I'll just sit around and wait.

The church can support me. And Paul said, he who will not work shall not eat. Get to work. You know, Luther supposedly said, apparently he didn't really say it. You know, historians ruin all the best stories.

Luther supposedly said, if you knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow, you ought to plant an apple tree today. It may not be that Luther actually said that, but the sentiment is correct. The sentiment is Luther's.

We need to be a working people right till the end, and Paul emphasizes that. Paul talks about those who are worried about missing the second coming. And that's why he talks in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 about the mighty angels appearing, about Jesus being revealed, about the flaming tongues of fire, because he says, you're not going to miss it.

It's going to be so clear. No one will miss the second coming. But what it points to, you see, is that even in the apostolic days, Christians were troubled with questions in their own minds about what was going to happen before Christ returned.

In glory.

What should they look forward to? What should they anticipate? What is likely to be the case? And through the whole history of the church then, there have been these various questions, various attitudes, various concerns, and it's interesting to see that at various points in the history of the church, people have thought very differently about eschatology.

Some have been absolutely obsessed with eschatology. Some of you may know my own personal history. When I was in high school, I was taught in Young People's Society by Harold Camping, who later became obsessed with issues related to the second coming in a very sad way.

Other Christians are entirely indifferent, it seems, to the second coming. They don't think about it. They don't reflect on it. They hardly give it a thought. They're like the sleeping virgins who aren't worried about it.

Shouldn't be worried, but should be thoughtful. Keep coming back to Luther tonight. One of my favorite quotes from Luther is, he said to his wife who was worrying about.

His health.

It's the kind of thing wives do for husbands. And he finally said to his wife, Katie, pray and let God worry. Great advice. Hard to take. Hard advice to take, but wonderful advice. Pray and let God worry.

So some are obsessed with the second coming. Some are indifferent to the second coming. Some are driven by cultural characteristics. We've heard a little bit about that during the day. When Christians, particularly Protestant Christians, particularly English-speaking Protestant Christians, thought that the church was growing and prospering and things were heading in a good direction in the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries, there was a great deal of optimism.

And it led many of those people to become post-millennial in their theology. Christ will glorify His church on earth before He returns. The Dutch Reformed were a little less inclined to buy that. Maybe living in Europe was harder than living in America.

The great theologian Vitsios did seem to embrace that, but most Dutch Reformed theologians, one could say, were less optimistic, more realistic. Not necessarily pessimistic, but not so sure that they could look forward to a coming age of glory.

But particularly American Presbyterians were entirely taken up with that idea, and American Congregationalists as well, that Christ would glorify His church on earth before He returned. And the result of that was it made them, I think, too confident, especially in the 19th century.

I read certain American Presbyterians, very orthodox, very learned people, but they see theological errors spreading in the Protestant churches, and their reaction is, you know, God will make that right when He glorifies the church more.

We don't have to be so concerned about it. We don't have to attack these errors perhaps the way we should attack them. So being too optimistic can lead to a kind of overconfidence of what God is doing in history, and maybe make us not quite as militant as we ought to be, militant, not obnoxious.

We're not called to be obnoxious, but we are called to be strong and steadfast in the Lord. And then when things began to go bad, we become more pessimistic, and our eschatology shifts. You can see that in late 19th century, early 20th century America.

The predominant postmillennialism amongst American evangelicals shifts to a dominant premillennialism because things don't seem to be going so well. All sorts of bad philosophies are coming from Germany, by and large.

And there's World War I, and there's problems growing in Western civilization, and so people become more pessimistic in their eschatology. And it points out the great necessity of having a healthy eschatology, a balanced eschatology, a biblical eschatology.

Now all the groups, whether postmillennial, premillennial, or amillennial, are defended by people who are trying to be biblical. We have to remember that. They all have their verses. They all have their approaches to understanding the Bible.

And so we want to be cautious and loving as we approach these differences. But I think taken as a whole from the Scripture, it's really rather clear that the amillennials.

Are right.

And I say that, of course, as an amillennial. So, you can disagree with me, you'll be wrong, but amillennialism at its best wants to work hard for the Lord in the time that we have to make Christ known, to call people to faith and repentance, and heeds the call of Christ that we are to be a faithful people.

I've recently been teaching on Mark's gospel in Sunday school, and Mark 13, when Jesus talks about the future, he talks almost entirely about being faithful in the future. Doesn't matter so much what happens in the future, what matters is that you're faithful in the future, faithful to Him, devoted to Him in the future.

And that great stress on faithfulness through the history of the church certainly implies that we're probably going to have trouble in the future. And one of the great statements that I've read about an amillennial point of view was made by the great Genevan theologian Francis Turretin.

Some of you will know Francis Turretin in the middle of the 17th century of Italian.

Descent.

The family name originally was Turretini, so if you're Italian, you should be encouraged by great Italian theologians. You know, the only way to keep Dutch people humble is to remind them that the only really famous theologian that ever came out of the Netherlands was Arminius.

But Turretin was arguably the greatest theologian that the Reformed certainly would be on a short list of the greatest theologians the Reformed world has ever produced. And born in Geneva to a refugee family.

His grandfather was a refugee from Italy. His father had been a minister. And when he evaluated in his great theological work post-millennialism and the idea that the church would be glorified on earth in the future, he said this, but if there should be a time of a thousand years in which the whole church and not merely a certain part of it would enjoy peace and felicity, how could the cross be called her characteristic?

Or how could she be a church conformed to Christ, her head, who was sanctified by afflictions? And that is, you know, it's always hard to hear a statement, not have it in front of you, but that's a really profound statement.

He's saying there are times when parts of the church may well enjoy peace and felicity. That's in the Lord's providential hand. But if the whole church were glorified, how could she be characterized as the church of the cross?

How could she be identified with the Christ of the cross? How could she experience what Christ had always said, that we are sanctified by suffering? And I think if you want one sentence to make all thoughtful people a millennial, that might do it.

It's a very powerful observation. And it's important that we not expect to be glorified easily in this world. It's bad for the temperament. What's hard, and what Paul in the New Testament calls us to so repeatedly, what's hard is not to expect glory.

What's hard is to embrace suffering now. That's what's hard. And the wonderful statement we find in Acts 5 .41, where the apostles had been preaching Jesus in Jerusalem, and they were arrested, and they testified to Jesus, and they were released from their arrest.

And we read that they went rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer, to suffer dishonor for the name. Now, is that not the world-turned-topsy-turvy? Is that not the values of the world set on its head?

That joy should come from suffering, because the suffering are those who are counted worthy by God for that privilege to honor the name. That's not easy. That's not easy. But it's what the Scripture calls us to.

It's what we're called to here in 2 Thessalonians 1. The reason that Paul so powerfully sets before the Thessalonians the promise of His coming to make all things right is that they're suffering. And it's not hard to read between the lines that there were at least some who wondered, why are we suffering?

If Christ has completed the work of suffering to redeem His own, why do we have to go on suffering? Why shouldn't there be glory now? If we're the beloved of God, why isn't He taking better care of us?

That's why I think the Psalms are so powerful for us, because they give voice. They give voice to that questioning that can arise in the heart of the most pious. Why are we suffering? How long must we suffer?

What is happening? Has God forgotten? Has God forsaken? And Paul wants to help these Thessalonians to have that same attitude that was demonstrated in the Christians in Acts 5, that they could rejoice in suffering because it was a sign that they were counted worthy.

Now, it's very important to see the order of things here. You don't suffer to become worthy. You are worthy in order to suffer. And what does it mean to be worthy? Well, Paul really lays it out in 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians.

The first thing it means is, you were chosen by God. Paul says that very explicitly. You were chosen by God. Paul was a Calvinist. All right, all right. Calvin was a Paulinist. Being counted worthy by God begins with God choosing you to be His own, and then God gifting you with His blessings.

Paul celebrates the faith, hope, and love of the Thessalonians, but he doesn't celebrate it as their meritorious accomplishment. He celebrates it as the gift that God has given them. God gave them faith.

God gave them love. God gives them hope and sustains that hope. And when God sees the people He has made, He says, you're worthy of My kingdom, not because of what you've made of yourselves, but because of what I've made of you.

And that's what's so beautifully expressed here by Paul. Therefore, we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.

This is evidence. Now, in my Bible, there's a big separation of verse 4 and 5, and there's a heading in italics that the editors have helpfully inserted because you're too dumb to see what the section is going to be about.

But for you who have studied your Greek, you know that in fact in Greek there is no period after enduring, and the words, this is at the beginning of verse 5 are not there in the Greek. In the afflictions that you are enduring, evidence of the righteous judgment of God.

And the wonderful thing about that is that the righteous judgment of God comes not just at the end of history when Christ returns in glory, but the righteous judgment of God is manifested right now in the lives of God's people.

Our suffering for Christ is not God's failure to make a righteous judgment, but our suffering for Christ is part of the righteous judgment that we're worthy to live for Him. We're worthy to be counted for Him.

Our lives are worthy to be a testimony to Him. Our lives are worthy of being evidence that He's at work in the world. Righteous judgment takes place now as well as then, and Paul intends that to be a great comfort to us, a great assurance to us, an encouragement that we should be patient.

Why do we have to be patient? Well, because God has a plan that He's working out. Now, it's just us folks here tonight, so we can admit, can't we, to one another, that from time to time we think we can improve on God's plan, improve on His timing, improve on the instruments He uses, improve on His strategies.

Now, we're too pious to admit that most of the time, but it's really kind of true. Why did God do that? I'd have done that differently. I would have, and made a mess of things. But it's a kind of profound patience we have to learn to say, I have to be patient to let God do things His way.

Think if the Thessalonians had gotten their wish, and that their suffering had been ended, that Christ had returned in glory in the first century, what would have become of you? More importantly, what would have become of me?

Just seeing if you're still awake, just seeing. Why is God waiting? Well, He's waiting to gather all of the elect. He's waiting to gather all of the elect so that not one will be lost. One of the greatest promises of the New Testament, not one will be lost.

He's waiting, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, He's waiting for the wicked to fill up their cup. That's a theme that runs through the Bible. God is giving the wicked time to repent. At the last day, the wicked will never have the right to say, I didn't have enough time.

God's plan gives them time. And God's plan gives us time to be sanctified. Paul in 1 Thessalonians particular calls the Thessalonians to be a holy people. Paul occasionally, not very often, but occasionally uses language that we find troubling.

My nine-year-old grandson asked his six-year-old brother, what is sin? And the six-year-old brother said, sin is disobedience to God's law. Sin is doing things wrong. And then the six-year-old thought a minute and said, what are the good things we do?

And the nine-year-old being properly catechized said, we don't do any good things. Now, that's true up to a point. It's true before God's holy and perfect law. But Paul says to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, you know how I was blameless and righteous before you, and I want you, he says later in the letter, I want you to be blameless and holy before the Lord.

Now, if you're a Calvinist like me and inclined to say, oh, that can't be right. Maybe Paul could be blameless, although even then we're a little suspicious. What is Paul saying there? He's not saying that he has achieved moral perfection or that he expects us to achieve moral perfection, but he's saying he has been entirely set aside to the service of Christ.

And in that service, he's been faithful. And he's saying to the Thessalonians, he's saying to us, Christ wants us to be faithful, not to earn His favor, but to be servants who shine in this dark world.

That's why it's important that the Thessalonians work and not be lazy. It was why he called the Thessalonians to be sexually pure and not impure and defiled. It's why he called them to be faithful in their callings, because all of that is a way of testifying to Christ and to His saving grace in the world.

And so, Paul is saying, while you wait, you have to be faithful, living for Christ and letting your light shine. And I think, as we live in a world that is more and more antagonistic towards Christianity, more and more, it'll be our lives that people look at first and maybe hear our words more slowly.

There's been an ad on television about a new book written by a minister in San Diego County called, the book is called The Great Disappearance. It's a revival of rapture theology from premillennialism.

And I watch it and I think, isn't there a great danger that this is just going to hold Christianity up to ridicule before the world? Our great hope is not that we'll disappear one day. Our great hope is that Christ will appear one day.

And our hope is that before He appears, our changed lives, lives of faith, love, and hope will shine in this world and draw people to Christ. As I was looking at these two letters in particular, one of the things that struck me was how simple the Christian life is.

But that's not to be confused with the idea that the Christian life is easy. It is not easy, but it is simple.

Be faithful.

Live a life of faith and love and hope. And if you're counted worthy to suffer, rejoice. You've been counted worthy. And when Christ returns, He will be glorified in you, and you will be glorified in Him.

What an amazing thing. What an amazing privilege.