This article is part 13 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12).

The orthodox party of Nicea prevailed for less than a decade. Challenges to the formula of Nicea soon began to multiply. For a brief period, Arianism was made the received doctrine of the empire.

Two other theological issues arose that called for closely reasoned biblical exposition. One concerned a construction of the human nature of Christ that compromised his full humanity by eliminating his human reason, human will, and thus, all true human initiative. This was propounded by Apollinarius. His zeal for the deity of Christ and the necessity of his sinlessness and incorruptibility led him to deny that Jesus had a human soul (thus no human reason, and will, and motivation).

Another issue concerned the person of the Holy Spirit. Was he a creature or was he, like the Son, of the same essence with the Father? Those who claimed the Spirit’s works were the works of a creature were known as “Fighters against the Spirit.”

The Emperor Theodosius I called a council in 381 at Constantinople in order to reaffirm the theology embraced at Nicea fifty-six years earlier and to give closure to the controversy over the Holy Spirit and the humanity of Christ. The creed of Nicea was reaffirmed with several phrases inserted to give clarity to the person and work of the Holy Spirit. We find, “by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.” Also, we find, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son]. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.” The phrase, “And the Son,” filioque in Latin, was added to the western version of this creed during the time of Charlemagne. It affirms the double procession of the Holy Spirit in eternity who is, even as love flows eternally and personally between Father and Son, “the perfect bond of unity” (Colossians 3:14).

Although the Constantinopolitan creed gave a measure of balance to affirmations concerning the persons of the Trinity and locked Arianism outside the pale of orthodoxy, it did not give a detailed synopsis of the relation of the uncreated (God) to the created (man) in the person of Christ. That the eternally generated Son of God had taken to himself real humanity was now beyond dispute. The manner of this assumption of the human nature, however, and the appropriate words to use in asserting this truth still seemed to elude a clear, biblically defensible, theologically sustained definition.

Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, in response to a Mary-cult developing in his diocese, found it absurd to use the word theotokos, God-bearer, for Mary. He preferred the term christotokos, Christ-bearer. While firmly sustaining both the human and the divine, conscientiously resisting the tendency to fuse, and lose, the human into the divine nature, Nestorius was perceived as erring on the other side. It seemed that he maintained such an individuality in the human nature that he treated the nature as a person. He viewed the union as one only of undivided moral purpose, or a divine indwelling of the man born of Mary. His was a kind of high adoptionist Christology.

Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, kept the pressure on Nestorius insisting that he anathematize the positions attributed to him. To mke his position clear, Nestorious should affirm, “If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore the holy Virgin is theotokos—for she bore in the flesh the Word of God become flesh—let him be anathema.”[1] Unable to consent to this anathema, Nestorius was exiled after the Council of Ephesus (431).

Cyril’s language, however, gave rise to a group known as Monophysite (one nature) and Monothelite (one will). They contended that Christ, because of infinite greatness of his deity, had only one nature. The humanity was like a drop of honey absorbed into the ocean. In this vein of thought, Eutychus declared, “I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union, but after the union I confess one nature.” This formula was resisted by Flavian, the bishop of Constantinople, and was condemned by a council in 448 that used the terminology of “two natures,” obviously protecting the full human nature, existing in the one Christ.

Eutyches, representing this as Nestorianism, with support from Theodosius II, called a synod in 449 composed of those that revered him and his theological instincts to approve his formula. Flavian’s attempt to attend this council and provide a reasoned objection resulted in his being grossly manhandled so that he died.  This synod soon was termed the Latrocinium, Robbers’ Synod, by those that opposed Eutyches.

During the time of this theological, and sometimes physical, punch and counter-punch, the bishop of Rome, Leo, appealed to by both parties in this dispute, gathered enough information about what was at stake to weigh in with unusual clarity and vigor. Before Flavian’s ultimate conflict, Leo wrote him concerning his view of the issue. This letter, so profoundly practical and biblical in its content, has gained a just commendation through the centuries. Known as Leo’s Tome, its argument virtually sealed the issue concerning the relationship of Jesus’ human nature and his divine nature in the single person.  When a new council was called in 451 at Chalcedon to revisit the Eutychian problem, Leo’s letter was read. Many of those in attendance greeted its reading with the words, “Peter has spoken.” This should not prejudice those who reject the papal primacy or the Petrine succession of Rome against the power of the reasoning and synthesis of biblical truths present in this document. Edward Hardy wrote, “It is a fine specimen of the straightforwardness and clarity of the Latin mind—as also of the Western approach to the mysteries of Christianity from the facts of faith rather than the speculations of philosophy.”[2]

Leo’s reasoning, in fact, from the commonly accepted confession of Christians and the biblical material concerning the incarnation of the Son of God is tightly constructed and profound.  The argument is Bible-centered and doctrinally coherent.

Leo said that if Eutyches “was not willing, for the sake of obtaining the light of intelligence, to make laborious search through the whole extent of the Holy Scriptures,” at least he should have learned from the common confession, particularly the implications of its words, “His only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary.” Failing that, he should submit to the implications of the gospel descriptions of the person and work of Christ which show that “in the entire and perfect nature of very Man was born very God, whole in what was his, whole in what was ours” except for the corruption of sin.

As for the formula set forth by Eutyches (“out of two natures into one”), Leo indicated the greatest disdain. “I am astonished,” he told Flavian, “that so absurd and perverse a profession as this of his was not rebuked by a censure on the part of any of his judges [in 448], and that an utterance extremely foolish and extremely blasphemous was passed over.” Leo noted that it was just as impious to say that the only-begotten Son of God “was of two natures before the incarnation as it is shocking to affirm that, since the Word became flesh, there has been in him one nature only.”[3] How could two natures exist in the Son of God prior to the incarnation? Also, how could one that was not fully man as a result of the incarnation ever reclaim for humanity the moral image of the divine and the warrant to eternal life?

A method of biblical citation emerges in Leo’s letter that helps the student of the Bible with an important principle of interpretation. His synthesis of texts employs a theological observation called the communicatio idiomatum—the fellowship of peculiar properties. This means that many texts in the Bible which would otherwise be confusing are perfectly clear when one sees the integrity of two natures in one person, Jesus Christ. Often Scripture asserts an action or attribute of one nature that, strictly speaking, holds true only for the other nature. Such is Paul’s statement in Acts 20:28, “to feed the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.” God does not have blood, but the person who purchased the church by his death, did have blood and also was God. The same inference we draw from the words of Jesus in John 3: 13: “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.” Jesus had never been in heaven as Son of man, but as Son of Man he is the same person that as Son of God had come down from heaven. Even at that moment, as he spoke, as Son of Man united in person with the eternally generated Son of God, he was in heaven. Though he stood before Nicodemus, isolated in time and space by his body and by every property of his humanity even as Nicodemus himself was, unlike Nicodemus, he also resided in heaven. As he spoke, his eternal generation from the Father, an eternal and immutable property of his personhood as Son of God, explained the meaning of “which is in heaven.” The communicatio idiomatum gives the key to a proper grasp of such a text.

Sometimes Scripture will indicate a condition of the whole person that is true only of one nature (“Before Abraham was, I am” John 8:58). These kinds of texts are the seed bed for the theology of two natures in one person, and, once established, the theology becomes a principle of interpretation for a large number of texts. For example, consider the following used by Leo himself in the famous “Tome” in which he argued and illustrated that in this single person “the lowliness of man and the loftiness of Godhead meet together.” Though it does not belong to the same nature, it is true of the same person, to say, “I and the Father are one” and to say, “The Father is greater than I.” We find clearly stated the same mysterious truth in Paul’s statement, “For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory?” When Jesus asked who he the Son of Man was, why does he commend the answer, ”Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God?”

Leo also kept pressing that the ontology of the person of Christ served the interests of the salvation of sinners, “because one of these truths, accepted without the other, would not profit unto salvation.” It would be equally wrong, as well as dangerous to the soul, to believe the Lord Jesus to be God only and not man, or man only and not God.

At the time of the Olivet discourse, Jesus made the puzzling affirmation, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). Jesus, speaking by the Spirit and in his humanity, had been isolated from that knowledge. He could state with perfect accuracy and verity that, in his perfect manhood, the Son did not know what the Father had decreed concerning the coming in glory of the triumphant, risen, ascended, redeeming Son of Man (37, 39, 44). In his humanity, Jesus increased in wisdom. His knowledge and his perfect ability to apply it continually increased throughout his life as the man who was being perfected, that is, brought by degrees to a full and immutable righteousness (Luke 2:52; Hebrews 5:8). This event was hidden even from him, in that peculiar capacity, at this time.

In his commentary on Matthew, John A Broadus observed: “If there was to be a real incarnation of the Eternal Word, then the body he took must be a real body, and the mind a real mind. How his divine nature could be omniscient, and his human mind limited in knowledge, both being united in one person, is part of the mystery of the Incarnation, which we need not expect to solve.”

If Christ in his perfection of moral rectitude and full commitment to all that the Father willed, had this event hidden from him at this time, and yet trusted fully even though he would go through the torturous propitiatory death, how willingly and joyfully should we submit to the mystery of our future with absolute trust in a faithful creator and Father.  In this way, we “Remember Jesus Christ” and emulate his submission to and trust in the Father’s wisdom and will.

[1] Hardy, Christology of the Later Fathers, 353

[2] Hardy, 359.

[3] Hardy, 359-370.

This article is part 13 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.

Join us at the 2024 National Founders Conference on January 18-20 as we consider what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ” under the teaching of Tom Ascol, Joel Beeke, Costi Hinn, Phil Johnson, Conrad Mbewe and Travis Allen.

31:2. At the last day, such of the saints as are found alive, shall not sleep, but be changed; and all the dead shall be raised up with the selfsame bodies, and none other; although with different qualities, which shall be united again to their souls forever.
(1 Corinthians 15:51, 52; 1 Thessalonians 4:17; Job 19:26, 27; 1 Corinthians 15:42, 43) 
31:3. The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, be raised to dishonour; the bodies of the just, by his Spirit, unto honour, and be made conformable to his own glorious body.
(Acts 24:15; John 5:28, 29; Philippians 3:21) 
Second London Confession, 31:2–3

It was a cold, gray February afternoon when we buried my grandfather. The ground was still muddy from the snow that had melted earlier in the week. Every tree was bare. The small crowd under the tent shivered against the cold as the national guard officers folded the American flag they would present to my grandmother. But into the sorrow, the gathering of family members and friends read the Apostle’s Creed from the tiny bulletins issued to them by the Methodist minister: “…I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, Amen.” I was struck by the power of that ancient Christian confession against that bleak backdrop. It was also struck by how few funerals I attend ever even mention the hope of bodily resurrection. 
In most funerals I attend, and in most popular discussions about death I observe, the focus of the Christian hope falls almost exclusively on what theologians call “the intermediate state:” the promise that upon death, the believer’s spirit leaves the body behind to dwell in the presence of Jesus in heaven. On the one hand, this emphasis is perfectly reasonable, since it is the immediate hope of all the saints who die before the Lord’s return. We are right to celebrate Jesus’ assurance that, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43) We rejoice that “the spirits of the righteous” are now “made perfect” in the heavenly assembly (Heb 12:23) . We find unspeakable comfort in the truth that to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord, that for the believers, to die is gain, and that it really is better by far to depart and to be with Christ (2 Cor 5:6; Phil 1:21, 23). 
But while our immortal spirit’s reception into heaven is the believer’s immediate hope, the Bible teaches that it is not our ultimate hope. As wonderful as the intermediate state will be, it is, well, intermediate. An even great future awaits the people of Jesus! A hope even richer, more thrilling, more satisfying. It takes the whole story of the Bible to understand this audacious Christian confession: I believe in the resurrection of the body.
“To the dust you shall return”
The Bible’s first two chapters map out God’s design for human life: embodied human beings made in his image, living forever in fellowship with him in a perfect, physical creation. This, God says, is “very good.” (Gen 1:31). But by Genesis 3, the rebellion of those image-bearers has destroyed God’s beautiful design. Sin’s consequences are not only spiritual and moral, but physical: the once-submissive creation now rebels against its former caretakers, and bodily life is now marked by pain, sickness, weariness, and, ultimately, death. The man formed from the dust, made to live forever in face-to-face fellowship with God, must now return to the dust (Gen 3:19). The relentless recitation of the deaths proceeding from Adam in Genesis 5 bears grim witness to the awful wages of sin, and to the unyielding truthfulness of God’s Word: “in the the day that you eat of it, you will surely die (Gen 2:17; Rom 6:23).”
These opening acts in the biblical drama remind us that there is nothing “natural” about death. Death instead is an “enemy” (1 Cor 15:26), a sinister intruder on God’s good design for human life. The Genesis patriarchs wept over the bodies of their dead loved ones for good reason (Gen 23:2), and so do we. All human beings—whether they affirm the Bible’s account of reality or not—instinctively know that death is not the way it was meant to be. I can see it in the “gone but not forgotten” memorial decals on the pickup trucks in my hometown. You can sense it in the feverish attempts to stave off the aging process in fitness centers and cosmetic products. I can hear it in the quavering voice of the old bluegrass singer Ralph Stanley, pleading: “O death, won’t you spare me over til another year, won’t you spare me over til another year…” 
The apostle Paul tells us that these are all so many manifestations of creation’s “groaning” under the unnatural curse of death; we long to be “set free from [our] bondage to corruption (Rom 8:21).” But will anyone hear these groans? Can anyone deliver us from death? 
“…those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake”
Yes! Standing in the ruins of Eden, God not only pronounces judgment, but promises salvation: “I will put enmity between you and the woman,” God tells the Serpent, “and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15). God did not disclose the details of his plan, but he made it clear that he would one day restore the beautiful kingdom our sin had destroyed, and deal with the awful curse of death itself. 
For the rest of the Old Testament, God’s people cling to the persistent, if shadowy, hope that Yahweh would overcome death for them. One catches the patriarchs’ hope beyond the grave in their insistence on securing burial plots in the land of promise (Heb 11:22). We hear it also in Job’s confession that, “after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another…” (Job 19:26–27) 
The prophet Isaiah foresaw a day when the Lord would spread a feast for his people on Mount Zion, and “will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken (Isa 25:6–8).” Near the end of the Old Testament, Daniel articulates God’s coming victory over death explicitly in terms of a bodily resurrection: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever (Dan 12:2–3).” By the time Jesus comforts Martha at the grave of Lazarus, it seems Daniel’s expectation has taken hold among God’s people: when Jesus tells Mary that “your brother will rise again,” Martha immediately responds “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (John 11:23–24) 
One thing this brief survey indicates is that, the saints of old longed for more than a strictly spiritual “life after death.” Rather, they looked forward to the complete undoing of death, in a glorious, bodily resurrection at the end of history. They did not know that before that could happen, Someone would first blaze a trail through death, right smack in the middle of history.
“In him was life”
From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus seems intent on nothing short of abolishing death (2 Tim 1:10). Beyond his seemingly endless reversals of leprosy and other terminal illnesses, Jesus repeatedly disrupts the funeral services of unsuspecting mourners. From the widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7:11–17), to Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:35–43), to his friend Lazarus (John 11:38–44)—Jesus with only a mere word reaches into the realm of death to retrieving its prey. There was precedent for miraculous healings, and even resurrections, in the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, but Jesus’ sheer audacity in the face of death is entirely new. He bullies death. He takes for himself the brazen title, “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25–26). He makes the staggering claim that one day “all who are in the tombs” will hear the sound of his voice and come out to give an account to him (John 5:28–29). Never had anyone spoken like this man! (John 7:46)
But all of this is made to seem like just a sad delusion when Jesus succumbs to the curse of death himself. After an agonizing and humiliating crucifixion on Good Friday, the one who called himself “the Life” (John 14:6) is rendered a “corpse (Mark 15:45).” The dead body of Jesus is wrapped in burial clothes, anointed with spices, bathed in tears, and sealed in a tomb—presumably to return to the dust like every son of Adam before him. Yet there were also hints that, even in his violent death, “the Life” was still lurking—from his strangely victorious cry before his final breath (John 19:30), to the rending of the Temple curtain, to—least explicable of all!—the opening of the tombs of the Jerusalem saints (Matt 27:52–53)! Improbable as it seems, could it be that Jesus’s own death was in fact his own master strategy to empty the graves of God’s people once and for all? 
Of course, this is precisely what his followers discovered to be true on Sunday morning. The tomb of Jesus had been vacated, his discarded grave clothes neatly folded and left behind (John 20:6–7). “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” the angels asked, “He is not here, he is risen, just as he said.” (Luke 24:5–6) Over the next forty days, the risen Jesus would himself appear to more than five hundred of his followers(1 Cor 15:6). As they heard his voice and touched his flesh, it was clear that this was the same Jesus they had known and loved before. “It is I myself,” Jesus assured them. (Luke 24:39) Yet Jesus was also unmistakably different. His resurrection wasn’t like that of Lazarus, or Jairus’s daughter, who returned from death the same, only to die again later. Jesus had passed into an entirely new state. His body, subject to ordinary limitations during his earthly ministry, now had amazing, supernatural properties: he appeared and vanished at will; he could pass through grave clothes, a sealed tomb, and locked doors. As Jesus would explain, he had not simply “survived” death; he had broken death (Rev 1:18). 
And he had done it for them.
“Swallowed up by Life”
The apostle Paul helps us connect Jesus’s resurrection to our own future hope. Now ascended to God’s right hand, the risen King Jesus will one day return to us; when he does, he will transform our bodies to be just like his on that first Easter morning. “But our citizenship is in heaven,” he reminds the Philippians, “and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.” (Phil 3:20–21) 
This transformation our bodies will undergo will be like that of a seed that has been buried in the ground. A seed goes into the soil as a bare kernel, but it bursts forth at harvest as a beautiful, golden shaft of wheat! It is the same seed you left covered in dirt, but its transformation leaves it almost unrecognizable! In the same way, these mortal bodies of ours will one day go into the ground, completely used up and expired. But on resurrection morning, Jesus will raise that same body in an entirely new condition: “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. What is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” (1 Cor 15:42–44)
What assurance this gives us as our fallen physical bodies ache and age, get sick and grow weak. Paul compared life in these bodies to living in a “tent”—fragile, uncomfortable, temporary living quarters. In these tents, we often “groan,” longing for better, stronger, more permanent bodies. But instead of giving our hearts to bitterness, self-pity, or despair, Christians look with confidence to the resurrection bodies Jesus has promised us: 
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. (2 Cor 5:1–5)
This new body is the destiny of every believer, even if we are still living at the Lord’s return. “We shall not all sleep,” Paul tells the Corinthians, “but we shall all be changed.” Jesus will outfit all of his people with a body like his, that can sustain the glory and joy of eternal life in a world made new. When the last trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ rise, those still alive will experience “the perishable putting on the imperishable,” and “the mortal putting on immortality.” It will be the work of a moment when Jesus appears—“in the twinkling of an eye”—but at the arrival of King Jesus, death will forever be swallowed up by life (1 Cor 15:50–55).  
With this “great change” accomplished, we will at last know that unbroken reunion between Christ and his people that our hearts ache for in this life. As we together rise to meet the Lord, we know that all the “former things” that parted us before have now “passed away.” All things have now been made new, and “we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thes 4:14–17; Rev 21:1–4)
The hope of bodily resurrection makes the “committal,” or graveside service of a believer into a sacred moment of worship and gospel proclamation. Here, we remind each other that Christians are right to grieve for their loved ones who have died in the Lord, as Tabitha’s friends did for her (Acts 9:39). But we do not grieve without hope, as the world does (1 Thes 4:13). Instead, our hearts brim with confident expectation at the graves of our brothers and sisters. We have not abandoned them to the ground; we have planted a seed that Jesus is coming to raise up new, beautiful, and permanent. Our relationships have not been permanently severed; their bodies have “fallen asleep in the Lord,” and on resurrection morning, Jesus is coming to wake them up. Through a Savior whose love is stronger than death (SOS 8:6), they will rise again, and so will we. And so we will always be with the Lord.
“Then comes the end”
The Bible’s grand story is not complete without the bodily resurrection of God’s people. It is blessedly true that the spirits of our loved believers who die before the return of Jesus will immediately be welcomed into his blessed presence upon death. But Jesus did not come merely to provide a detour around death for his people. He came to destroy death. To do this, Jesus invaded the tragic story of the first Adam as a “Second Adam,” a hero come to reclaim all that the first Adam lost of his Father’s “very good” world in the beginning. That mission remains unfinished so long as that sneering enemy, Death, claims the body of even one of his people. That is why the grand finale of Jesus’ victory will be the destruction of Death in the glorious, bodily resurrection of all who belong to him:  
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor 15:20–28)
The scene Paul describes is breathtaking. Before the world began, God’s Son had accepted a dangerous and costly assignment from his Father: to rescue sinners and reclaim his Father’s world, no matter the cost (John 17:1–5). On other side of that completed mission, the Lord Jesus now stands before his Father in the company of all his redeemed, resurrected people. Every promise has been kept. Every enemy has been vanquished. Not one sheep is missing. All things are now in subjection to him, the world’s rightful ruler. Then, shining like the sun, we will watch in awe as that faithful, noble Son presents it all as a gift of love to his Father. I don’t know exactly what it will feel like in that moment when “God is all in all.” But I think it may be something like what C. S. Lewis tried to capture at the conclusion of his Narnia stories: 
And as He spoke . . . the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. 

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Having established a church in Philippi (Acts 16) where there was no synagogue, Paul now, having suffered in Philippi at the hands of Romans (16:19-24), goes to Thessalonica and uses the synagogue on three Sabbath days to reason with the Jews and “devout” Greeks from the Scripture (Acts 17:1-4). We are told that his method consisted of “explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.’” Many of those who heard his biblical exposition believed his message. Some Jews were offended and jealous (Acts 17:5) of Paul’s ability in expository reasoning. They resisted strongly the idea that the Messiah had come and they were not privy to this most historically pivotal event. How is this “Jesus” qualified as Messiah and why are Gentiles received as his people? This Paul is an imposter speaking of behalf of another imposter and deserves to be driven from the city. They appealed to the city authorities under the hypocritical guise of loyalty to Caesar. The entire controversy centered on the validity of Paul’s understanding of the Scripture and whether he was qualified to discern that Jesus was the Christ. Paul’s correspondence with the church at Thessalonica, therefore, had much material about the word of God vis a vis the authority of the apostle.
His preached word he and they believed was the Word of God. When they heard Paul preach, they accepted it, not simply as a man’s interpretation of verses compared to events, but as the “word of God.” Paul affirmed their conviction as the truth (1 Th 2:13). “Our gospel,” Paul recalled, came in the power of the Holy Spirit and brought them to be among the believers of Macedonia (1 Th 1:4, 5). He reminded them that, though pummeled in Philippi because of his preaching, he did not change the message. His “exhortation does not come from error” and is neither impure nor deceitful, but arises from one who was “approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel” (2:2-4). He was an “apostle of Christ,” and consequently a man of authority but used this authority only to “impart to you … the gospel of God.” Paul never wavered, even in the face of hostility and persecution, from his claim before the world that he was appointed by the risen Christ as an apostle. He never amended any teaching given in the context of that calling as possibly misperceived or as a matter of speculation or only informed opinion. This is one of the stubborn facts that must be considered when we ask if we have a word of truth about God and eternity. Has God spoken? In conjunction with the Hebrew prophets, Paul gives an unequivocal “Yes.”
When he gave further instruction on individual doctrines he wrote with confidence of God’s revelation: “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep, etc” (1 Th. 4:15-18). An articulation of the relation of the living to the dead in the context of the return of Jesus who “died and rose again,” events surrounding his return, and the manner of his gathering his people to himself, and the certainty of living in his glorious presence for eternity—these things are not manufactured by imagination but are soberly reported as propositions of revelation.
Also, when he gave instruction concerning the moral implications of gospel truth, he assumed the position as a spokesman from God: “We request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that just as you received instruction, …for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus, … he who rejects this is not rejecting men but the God who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (4:1-8). These clear exhortations to sexual purity as one dominant aspect of sanctification went against the prevailing conduct of the culture and put the Pauline instruction at the level of divine mandate by revelation. Even so, when describing how they should work for self-sufficiency and peaceful relations Paul put his words in the sphere of absolute authority, “just as we commanded you” (4:11). In the second letter to these Christians, Paul reiterated this authority by expressing his confidence that they will “do what we command” (3:4). He follows that by introducing an element of church life that perhaps they had not practiced or seen clearly by saying, “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us” (3:6). Whereas the “tradition” of the elders, or the “tradition” of the Pharisees, or the “tradition” of men of empty philosophy (Colossians 2:8) was handed down from generations past, or “turned over” to contemporaries from historically-trusted sources, Paul’s instructions that he handed down, his traditions, that which he turned over to them were from God. This tradition was not handed down from hallowed halls of venerated historical sources but came from the mind and mouth of the eternal God. Again, when he learned that some were not working, he reminded them that he “used to give them this order,” and now again to these loafers he would “command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion” (3:12).
This conviction so ever-present in this correspondence is confirmed by pervasive New Testament testimony and conviction. In 1 Corinthians 2:10, Paul claimed that eternal things, things of divine grace, “God has revealed to us through the Spirit;” in 2 Corinthians 13:3, he zealously affirmed in a tense setting that “Christ is speaking in me.” In Galatians 1:12 as prelude to his extended argument for the exclusive claim to truthfulness of his gospel, he wrote, “I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” In Ephesians 3:4, 5, Paul laid claim to “insight into the mystery of Christ” from its having been “revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” The writer of Hebrews 2:3, 4 warned of dire consequences for rejecting the message presented by the Lord himself that was “attested to us by those who heard,” to whom God bore witness by “signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” In 1 John 4:6 the beloved disciple wrote that the “spirit of truth and the spirit of error” was to be defined in terms of hearing and obeying the message of the apostles: “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us” Peter claims that the word of the prophets receives its expected clarification through those who were eyewitness of the majesty of Christ and that their writings, like those of the prophets were the product of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:16-21). That is why he can say that his readers should “remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandments of the Lord and Savior through your apostles.” He then can go on to commend Paul, even in the most difficult of his writings, as a producer of Scripture as free from error (2 Peter 3:2, 15-18).
Paul claimed revelatory and authoritative status not only for what he preached in his apostolic mission, but for what he wrote to expand or re-emphasize his spoken word. He told the Thessalonians, “I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren” (1 Thessalonians 5:27). In his second epistle to this same church he wrote, “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person” (2 Thessalonians 3:14). He also made sure they knew that the letter was from him: “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter” (3:17). Every letter that he wrote was to be taken as his word of apostolic authority arising from the commission of Christ and the revelation received from the Holy Spirit. His writings reconfirm what he spoke as he indicates in 1 Thessalonians 4:6 and 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5: “just as we told you before; … Do you not remember that while I was with you I was telling you these things?” Also, his writings expand what he spoke in giving further detail: “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us” (2 Th 2:15). In 1 Thessalonians he wrote an expansion of his teaching to them on death, resurrection and the return of Christ (4:13-18).
He wrote in an authoritative apostolic manner to churches where he had never to that point preached. His most expansive exposition of the entire history of salvation was written to a church that he did not directly found and to which he had not been. He felt an apostolic obligation to instruct them and bear fruit among them (Romans 1:8-15). In this letter, both deeply personal and highly instructive doctrinally he gave coherent discussion on the relation between creation and the knowledge of God, the fall of Adam, the call of Abraham, giving of the law to Israel, the eternal issues of justice involved in the death and resurrection of Christ, divine sovereignty in the present based on eternal decrees within the mysterious communicative activities of the triune God, the relation between justification and personal pursuit of holiness, the church, the secular political authorities, his personal missionary ministry, and other related subjects. He expected them to receive this writing: “On some points I have written to you very boldly, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of the gospel of God …according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept hidden for long ages” that he had received “according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith” (Romans 15:15, 16; 16:25, 26).
Another issue concerning the word of revelation given to Paul as he wrote about it in these letters concerns the necessity of an effectual work of the Spirt to seal the truth in the hearts of hearers. The Spirit revealed these truths, he inspired the proper connections of words to the truth revealed, and he makes that revealed and inspired truth to be loved and trusted by the elect. Its subject matter should be, not only intriguing, but compelling in itself. The gospel that is revealed deals with sin, redemption, heaven and hell. Far outstripping the most coherent and carefully constructed systems of human philosophy, the gospel gives substantial knowledge of God. The person of Christ as communicated in this revelation is the most interesting, excellent, transcendently wise and compassionate, truthful, confident, clear-minded, exalted, humble, and determinatively purposeful person in all literature of all cultures of all ages. It is impossible within a neutral intellectual setting for the person of Christ and his striking and shocking work of redemption not to be the most fascinating subject and desired person of history. So compelling was Christ in every aspect of his person—God and man in one person—and work—completely innocent and positively righteous yet slain for sinners—that Paul can say with perfect rationality and with an approving conscience, “If anyone does not love the Lord he is to be accursed” (1 Corinthians 16:22).
But none who hear of him are in a neutral position.  Too much about God, righteousness, holiness, obedience, and judgment for enemies of truth to embrace him for who he claims to be. He is rejected when left to our natural enmity. Paul looks at this phenomenon in these letters to the Thessalonians. In 1 Th 2:14-16 he outlines Jewish opposition to the Gospel as well as that generated among the Gentiles in Thessalonica. In Thessalonica there was “much opposition” (1 Thessalonians 2:2) which Paul explained in 2 Thessalonians. 2:10 in terms of “the deception of wickedness for those who perish” creating an unwillingness to “receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.” Thus, we find that any willingness of spirit and mind to receive this message is an indication of effectuality under the Spirit’s power. Paul described this phenomenon early in the letters by observing that his preaching (1 Thessalonians 1:5) came “not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” In 1 Thessalonians 2:12, 13, he admonished them to “walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory,” for this word “performs its work in you who really believe.” In speaking of the love implied in and commanded in the gospel Paul wrote, (1 Thessalonians 4:9),  “Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.” By his own power, God himself will “establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints” (1 Thessalonians 3:13). This truth of divine determination and absolute effectuality Paul repeats when he writes, “Now may the God of peace, himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass” (1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24). This is consistent with the character of the new covenant as described in Jeremiah 31:33, 34, reiterated in John 6:45, and in 1 John 2:27 (“They will all be taught by God; … But as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.”). In 2 Thessalonians. 2:13, 14, Paul proposes the fitness of God’s prerogative in his pre-mundane love of some resulting in their election to salvation. Election to salvation consummates in each chosen one through the sanctifying influence of the Spirit embedding the natural the function of truth in their mind, heart, and will. This constitutes the call to salvation, as Paul stated it, “through our gospel.” Final salvation is summarized as “the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The way in which Paul interweaves the truthfulness and revelatory character of Scripture in the Thessalonians letters, should give every Christian an absolute confidence in the Bible. As an extension of that confidence, we should have an intensified focus, a magnifying glass that takes diffused light and pinpoints one white-hot truth to which everything pertains—a focus on the Gospel. All of it is designed to move toward the Messiah’s being God’s salvation, the glory of His people Israel, and a light of revelation to the Gentiles.
Do not seek to employ any other methods than the truth. The Spirit of truth blesses the truth, in particular as truth culminates in and points to the Lord Jesus. The Spirit’s eternal existence consists of his procession from the Father and the Son as fully embodying the love of the Father in the Son and perfect delight in the Son and the Son’s necessarily reciprocal relationship to the Father. As the Spirit eternally proceeds within this essence summarized in eternal love, his peculiar operation in this fallen world is to communicate the revelation of this eternal purpose that is seen most vividly and clearly in the truth of the gospel. Paul exhibited no doubt that this gospel, revealed by God in Christ and then in truthful propositions about Christ, was the gospel he preached.

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