2 Thessalonians 2:14

The verses just before this passage are among the most sobering Paul wrote. He describes the falling away, the man of lawlessness with his lying wonders, and the strong delusion that comes on those who refused to love and believe the truth, so that they believe the lie (2 Thessalonians 2:3–12). Verse 13 opens with “But”, the Greek dé, a connective that can mark addition, sequence or contrast, and here it marks contrast. The subject moves from those who perish to those whom God has saved, and from judgment to God’s choice and call. Paul wants the Thessalonians to read his warning knowing which side of that contrast they stand on.

They needed that comfort. The church was young, founded when Paul preached in Thessalonica on his second missionary journey (Acts 17:1–9). It suffered persecution from Jews and Gentiles alike (1 Thessalonians 2:14, 2 Thessalonians 1:4–5). Its members had been anxious about the Lord’s return and about believers who had died (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18), and now some had been shaken by the claim that the day of the Lord had already come (2 Thessalonians 2:1–2), whether from false teachers or from a misreading of Paul’s first letter. That confusion may lie behind the idleness Paul corrects later in the letter (2 Thessalonians 3:6–12). Into this unsettled church Paul speaks of God’s eternal purpose, and it gives them stability and hope.

The word “because”, hóti, gives the reason for Paul’s thanks, and the reason is something God did. God, theós, is the subject of the sentence and the one who chooses. The verb hairéomai means to take for oneself, to prefer, and here it is God’s own act of selection. The salvation of the Thessalonians began with God’s will and purpose.

He chose them “from the beginning”, apó archḗ. The word archḗ means beginning, and the phrase points to a choice God made before time began, his plan for their salvation settled long before they heard of it. Paul says the same of all believers when he writes that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3–7), and Peter calls believers elect according to the foreknowledge of God (1 Peter 1:2). Since God’s choice is made in Christ, those he chose are chosen to be united with him, to share in his righteousness and to be made like him.

He chose them “to salvation”, eis sōtēría. Here eis marks purpose: salvation is what God chose them for. That salvation takes in deliverance from sin and from judgment, and eternal life in Christ. It stands opposite the end of those in the verses before, who perish because they refused the love of the truth.

God’s choice reaches a person “through” two things, and the word for “through” is en. The first is “sanctification of the Spirit”, hagiasmós pneûma. The noun hagiasmós comes from hagiázō, to make holy, and means purification, the state of being pure. The word pneûma means breath or wind and is also the word for spirit, and here it is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s sanctifying work has two sides. When a person comes to faith, the Spirit sets him apart as holy to God. From then on the Spirit goes on purifying and changing him, convicting him of sin, giving him strength to do right and growing him toward maturity and likeness to Christ, and this work lasts a lifetime. Christ himself sent the Spirit to his people to do this work (John 16:7–15).

The second is “belief of the truth”, where “and” is kaí, “belief” is pístis, faith or trust, and “truth” is alḗtheia. The truth here is the gospel, what God has made known of himself and of his way of salvation in Christ, and of the life he calls us to live. Paul has just spoken of people who believe “the lie”, and the Thessalonians believed the truth. Belief is a personal, trusting embrace of that message, and Jesus is the truth it rests on: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

The two belong together. The Spirit’s work enables belief, and belief answers the truth the Spirit makes known. Holiness is part of the salvation God chose these believers for, so a life being made holy is the fruit of his choice.

Verse 14 tells how God’s eternal choice reached Thessalonica in time. “Whereunto” looks back to the salvation of verse 13, with its sanctification and belief, and says that God called them to it. The verb kaléō means to call, summon or invite, and here God himself does the calling. Paul sets calling in a chain that runs from God’s purpose to glory: “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Romans 8:30).

God called them “by our gospel”. Euangélion means good news, glad tidings, and its content is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul calls it “our gospel” because it is the message he and his companions faithfully preached in Thessalonica, and it is God’s own message to the world. God’s call came through human preaching, and that is why the preaching of the gospel matters so much, for the gospel is God’s power to save (Romans 1:16).

These verses hold both together: God chose and called the Thessalonians, and the salvation he chose them for came through their belief of the truth. God’s choice comes first and is the source, and faith is the means by which his choice is worked out in a person’s life. The Bible keeps both in view. Jesus says that only those the Father draws can come to him (John 6:44), and he also says that whoever believes in the Son has everlasting life (John 3:16). Paul says that we are saved by grace through faith, as God’s gift (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Believers differ on how these fit at their root. Some hold that God chose by his own will alone, apart from anything he foresaw in us, and that his call through the gospel always brings those he chose to faith, so that faith is the evidence and the means of election and never its cause. Others hold that God’s choice rests on his foreknowledge of those who would believe when the gospel called them, and that his call is a sincere invitation that people may refuse. On either reading, the salvation in these verses is God’s from start to finish, it comes through the Spirit and through faith in the truth, and Paul gives thanks to God for it.

The call has a goal: “to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ”. “Obtaining” is peripoíēsis, acquiring or gaining possession of something. “Glory” is dóxa, splendour, majesty and honour, and for Christ it is his own divine radiance and worth. He had this glory with the Father before the world was (John 17:5), it was displayed when he rose and God highly exalted him (Philippians 2:9–11), and it will be shown in full when he returns (Titus 2:13).

Believers are called to share it: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). John says that when he appears we shall be like him (1 John 3:2), and Paul calls believers joint-heirs with Christ, to be glorified together with him (Romans 8:17). This is where God’s saving work ends: believers made like Christ, living in his presence, free from sin, suffering and death. It is a change in us as well as a gift to us.

For a suffering church this hope meant a great deal. Paul had already promised them rest when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven (2 Thessalonians 1:7–10), and Peter writes in the same spirit: “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you” (1 Peter 5:10). Verses 13 and 14 together run from before time to the glory still to come: chosen from the beginning, made holy by the Spirit, believing the truth, called by the gospel, and bound for the glory of Christ.

“Therefore”, ára oûn, draws the conclusion from all of this. Because God has chosen and called them and is making them holy, the Thessalonians have firm ground, and Paul tells them to stand on it. He calls them “brethren” again, adelphós, a family word that gives the command warmth.

“Stand fast” is stḗkete, from stḗkō, a verb built on hístēmi, to stand. It means to be stationary and, used figuratively as here, to persevere. They are to stay where they are in faith and conduct, whatever deception or persecution comes. Paul gives a like call to stand when he tells believers to take up the whole armour of God (Ephesians 6:13).

“Hold” is krateíte, from kratéō, which comes from krátos, strength. It means to take hold of or to keep, and here it means to keep hold of the teaching they have, so the second command names what they stand in. “Which ye have been taught”, edidáchthēte, points to teaching they already had. Against the strong delusion Paul has described, the church’s safeguard is the truth it has already received, the same truth they believed in verse 13.

Jesus is named only in verse 14, yet everything in the passage turns on him. The salvation God chose us for is found in Christ, the truth we believe is the truth he is, the gospel that calls us proclaims him, and the glory we are called to is his. The traditions Paul handed down are, at their heart, the message about Christ, the Word made flesh (John 1:1–14), in whom God has spoken his final word (Hebrews 1:1–3). So standing fast in the traditions is standing fast in Christ, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith (Colossians 2:6–7).

These verses give us thanksgiving before they give us a command. Paul looks at a small, persecuted, unsettled church and sees people the Lord loves, whom God chose from the beginning, whom the Spirit is making holy, and who are on their way to the glory of Christ. Their standing rests on God’s love, his choice and his call, which stay the same when circumstances shift. The command to stand fast rests on that ground, and the truth they are to hold is the truth God has already given them. The gospel by which God called the Thessalonians is still the way he calls people, so wherever it is preached his eternal purpose is at work. And the end of it all is the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he shares with those he has called.