Resurrection in 2 Thessalonians
(avg. read time: 3–6 mins.)
Rather than a post about the things people usually talk about with 2 Thessalonians, namely its authorship and the eschatology vis-à-vis the man of lawlessness in ch. 2, I thought I ought to be more consistent with my typical focus on Paul’s letters this year. That decision presents a challenge, though. If you go through the NT in canonical order, 2 Thessalonians is the first book you encounter that lacks any of the key resurrection terminology. I do not simply mean that the terms are present, but they do not have their specific resurrection senses. The terms are lacking altogether. As such, my approach in beginning with the explicit references and working outward from there must be modified. I will be looking for implicit references. For help in identifying those, I will appeal to Paul’s other letters, especially 1 Thessalonians, as this is a previous letter written to this specific audience. In such a case, it makes sense for him to rely on background knowledge he can safely assume many/most of them have and be able to use more implicit/coded references when appropriate.
In the previous letter, Paul had referenced how God raised Jesus out of the dead (1:10). He also said that Jesus’s death and resurrection is the basis for believing that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus (4:14). If there was any potential confusion for what he meant by that, he says in 4:16 that the dead in Christ will rise first, using the same verb for resurrection as he had in 4:14. Likewise, in a summary point in 5:10 he says that whether we are awake or asleep we will live together with him. As such, anytime he refers to the future action of Jesus, that declaration rests on the assumption of his resurrection after his death, as well as his ascension into heaven (note that these events are not the same and the latter, whether of his ascension or exaltation, is never signified with the vocabulary of resurrection).
This applies in the reference to both Jesus’s future action and our future action in 2 Thess 1:7 and 10. Jesus’s revelation from heaven along with his mighty angels (cf. Matt 13:41; 16:27; 24:31; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26) will happen because the Jesus who died is the Jesus who arose from the dead (as in 1 Thess 4:14). And when Paul says that we will glorify the Lord Jesus, he does not imagine that this will happen in any other way than in bodily form, which will involve the resurrection of the dead. It is as embodied people that we will be with the Lord forever because we will be conformed to his resurrection life.
That leads to another implied aspect of resurrection belief. As I highlighted in my last post on 1 Thessalonians, the narrative pattern of the gospel and our incorporation into it are crucial for Paul’s message to the Thessalonians. We see that implicitly here as well in the gospel pattern as displayed in 1:4–8. As Jesus himself suffered even unto death in faithful obedience to God’s will, so too is Paul’s audience facing affliction from their enemies for the sake of the kingdom they proclaim. But as they suffer for their faithfulness now, the judgment of God will vindicate them, and they can be assured of this because God has already vindicated through resurrection the Lord Jesus with whom they are in union. And according to what Paul has already taught them, their vindication, too, will happen by resurrection.
The setting of this vindication is final judgment. As I have noted in writing on Paul’s theology of resurrection elsewhere, resurrection is linked with final judgment. It is with Paul as it is elsewhere in the NT, the precedents in the OT, and even many Second Temple texts (where it is the most prominent theme associated with resurrection). And as we have noted in texts from Matthew and John, among others, response to the gospel has a clear place in the final judgment, both positively (for those who declare their allegiance to the one declared in the gospel and embody its story) and negatively (for those who disregard its summons). Verse 9 in particular is one of the most succinct descriptions of the negative outcome of judgment. While in the background provided by 1 Thessalonians Paul has declared the promise of everlasting and embodied life for the faithful, and for those who are condemned in judgment the sentence is everlasting destruction. Everlasting life is not the inalienable possession of humans, for only God is immortal (cf. 1 Tim 6:16) and has life in himself by which he gives life to others. Those who insist on rebellion against God will eventually find themselves cut off from the source of what life they had, and thus their end will be destruction, the second death. By contrast, the faithful share in the resurrection life of Christ, the everlasting quality of which comes from communion with God in Christ and by the Holy Spirit.
At the opening of ch. 2, Paul refers to “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him” (2:1). This is a direct reference to what Paul has already talked about with the Thessalonians in the previous letter. Even the same noun for Jesus’s coming is used (παρουσία), despite the previous chapter referring to it as his revelation (1:7). Paul had already said in the previous letter that this event will involve the resurrection of the dead prior to our being “caught up” to meet the Lord. Thus, this text also implicitly refers to the eschatological resurrection, specifically of the faithful dead.
Finally, we have a text in 2:13–14 that implicitly links Trinitarian theology with resurrection. Paul says he and his fellows give thanks to God (the Father) always because of “you all,” the brothers and sisters who are constituted as a family by the Father and who are beloved by the Lord, because God chose “you all” as first fruits of salvation by the sanctification of the Spirit. Because God is Trinity, salvation involves all three enacting the singular divine will. It was for such a salvific purpose that he called the Christians and his means of summons was the gospel story. The goal of this call is the obtaining of “the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2:14). This is an implicit reference to sharing in his resurrection, as well as his exaltation. We have seen this at multiple points through the promise of “glory” in reference to resurrection in Rom 8:21; 1 Cor 15:43; and Phil 3:20–21. It is also indicated more broadly elsewhere, in that our “glory” is attached to the capacity for humans to bear the image and likeness of God in representing him, particularly by virtue of our union with Christ (Rom 3:23; 6:4; 8:17–30; 9:4, 23; 1 Cor 2:7; 11:7; 2 Cor 3:7–11, 18; 4:17; Eph 3:16; Col 3:4). As in the aforementioned texts, this resurrection and exaltation purpose reveals God’s triune work. The Father chooses for the purpose of his salvific will. His will is enacted in the gospel story by the Lord Jesus, who by his salvific action constitutes us as the community of the chosen because we are in him. The salvation is applied and effectuated at the individual level by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, and his sanctifying work is described in terms of conforming us to the image and likeness of Christ Jesus, which has its goal in our being conformed to his resurrection and exaltation.