Transcript

ANNOUNCER: 2 Thessalonians 1:8 talks about those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel. Are these the same people? Is knowing God equivalent in meaning to obeying the gospel? 

Friend, thank you for being here to enjoy this episode of Grace and Focus. Grace in Focus is the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. And our website is faithalone.org. We’d love you to know about our seminary, it’s a free online seminary, and you can study with us, and if you want, you can stay with us and earn an MDiv degree. It’s free as long as you keep a 3.0 or higher grade average, we think you’ll enjoy it, and prepare yourself to handle God’s word accurately. Find out all about it at our website, faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right Bob, we have a question, this one’s from my dad, he sent me a text on Sunday. His questions on 2 Thessalonians 1:8. It says, “In flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And then verse 9 says, “These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. So my dad’s question is, there’s potentially two groups listed here, those who do not know God, and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so his question is, are those two different groups, or are they the same group? 

BOB: Okay, that’s a good, a really good question. And I pointed out to you, most people don’t ask the question your dad’s asking. So he’s asking a good one. And I said, I bet I didn’t discuss it in our Grace New Testament commentary. So I pulled it off the shelf and guess what? I did. So here’s what I wrote. And I think I still agree with myself. 

I said, “Many take the phrase, those who do not know God to be equivalent to those who do not obey the gospel. However, it seems likely that the first phrase, “those who do not know God”, refers to unbelievers who have never heard the good news, while the latter group, those who do not obey the gospel, refers to those who have heard, but have rejected it.” And I went on to say, “All believers in one sense have come to know God compare to Galatians 4:9. And since God commands people to believe in His Son, for example, John 5:19-24, John 5:37-38, Acts 16:31, to reject Christ is failure to obey the gospel.” And I put, “Compare 1 Peter 2:7-8.” Do you have the 1 Peter 2 passage there? 

SAM: Uh, starting verse seven, “Therefore to you who believe He is precious, but to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone and a stumbling block and a rock of offense. They stumble being disobedient to the word to which they were appointed.” 

BOB: So notice the first part of verse seven, how does it go? t

SAM: To you who believe. 

BOB: Okay, so there’s the one and now it’s contrasted with—

SAM: Those who are disobedient. 

BOB: Right. So the disobedient are the unbelievers. They’re not obedient to God’s command to believe in His Son. And believe what His Son said regarding everlasting life. Remember in John 5:24, Jesus said, “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me, has everlasting life shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” Believing in the Father who sent Him means the message Jesus gave wasn’t just His independent message, but it was the message the Father gave Him to give or sent Him to give. 

So as a result, John 3:16, when we believe that, we’re believing in Jesus, but we’re also believing in the One who sent Jesus, because He sent Jesus to give that message.

SAM: We’re doing the will of God by believing His Son. 

BOB: We’re doing the will of God or the will of the Father by believing in His Son. And I think that by the way is what goes on in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.” A lot of people think, well, that means you’ve got to live a really good life and you’ve got to persevere to the end and all that. No, that’s works salvation. And Jesus said salvation is the gift of God. John chapter 4 and verse 10, there are no works we can do. He said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent”, John 6:28-29. 

SAM: And I think that needs to be addressed in 2 Thessalonians as well. Because the question here is obviously, what does it mean to know God? 

BOB: All right, that’s a good question. Let’s just look at that parallel. Look at Galatians 4:9. 

SAM: 4:9 says, “But now after you have known God or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements to which you desire again to be in bondage?” 

BOB: Yeah, see, they were thinking of being influenced by the Judaizers who were commanding them to be circumcised and to keep the law of Moses. And he’s saying, look, if you think your justification hinges on the works of the law, then you’ve become estranged from Christ and you’ve fallen from the experience of grace. Of course, they’re still born again. But what he says there is, they’ve come to know God or rather they’ve come to be known by God. Because in a sense, when we come to faith, it’s because God took the initiative. 

Remember Romans 3:10-11 where it says, “No one seeks God, no, not one”? How can that be since we know that, for example, Cornelius in Acts 10 was seeking God? And Jesus in Matthew 7:7-11 said ask, seek and knock. And Jesus said to the people of Jerusalem, “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you were not willing.” 

So it seems to me that this idea of knowing God begins with God doing the drawing and then the humans have to have the willingness to believe. And if they don’t believe, it is an act of rebellion or it’s an act of disobedience. It’s a disobedience to one command to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. 

ANNOUNCER: You’re invited to subscribe to the Grace Evangelical Society’s YouTube channel. You will find our Monday, Wednesday and Friday videos there enlightening and encouraging, and even probably humorous at times if you like Bob Wilkin’s humor. Indeed you will get Biblical truth about Free Grace themes like faith alone for eternal salvation and why  the Grace Evangelical Society is zero point Calvinistic. We come your way three times a week at the Grace Evangelical YouTube channel. Check it out and tell a friend about the Grace Evangelical Society.

SAM: So then for 2 Thessalonians 1:8, you would say that both groups, if we’re saying it’s two different groups in verse 8, those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of Christ, even though there’s a distinction between them, the result is the same, they’re both unbelieving people and verse 9 applies to both of those groups.

BOB: Right. And I should mention that 1 and 2 Thessalonians are all about the coming Tribulation period and believers being saved from it. So when you see salvation in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, it’s talking about the Rapture and being saved from the Tribulation which is to come. That God has not appointed us to wrath, the wrath there refers to the Tribulation. And when he’s talking here about this fiery judgment that’s going to come upon their adversaries, what it’s saying is God is going to vindicate the righteous by judging the wicked. And during the Tribulation, the wicked will be judged. 

Now I realize the people who persecuted Thessalonians have long since died. And they’re not going to be in the Tribulation. But in a sense, when God brings retribution or judgment upon the unbelieving world in the Tribulation, in a sense, he’s judging all of the unbelieving world. And of course, ultimately at the Great White Throne Judgment, the Lord Jesus Christ will hold them all accountable, including the people who are persecuting the Thessalonians. 

Let me say one more thing, Sam, about knowing God since your dad’s question brings it up and you mentioned it specifically. And that is in John chapter 17. Well, let me start in verse 1. “Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven and said”, and this is His high priestly prayer. “Father, the hour has come.” He’s now talking about the cross. He’s been pointing to this His whole life. My hour has not yet come. My hour has not yet come. Starting with the beginning at the wedding of Canaan, His hour hadn’t come. But now, “My hour has come. Glorify Your Son.” He’s talking about the cross—”that Your Son may also glorify You. As You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.” 

And by the way, the ones the Father gives the Son are all who believe in Him. This isn’t some statement of Calvinist election. And then He says, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You sent.” Now, the normal way this is interpreted is this is eternal life that you know God so that every person who has eternal life knows God. And there is a sense in the Galatians passage we were looking at that believers do know God. But I don’t think that’s the context here. Here he says, “That they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You sent.” 

I think here it’s saying once you have eternal life, you now have the opportunity to know God the Father and God the Son in your experience. And we know that from, for example, 1 John, that it’s possible to be a believer and yet to not know God in your experience. To know God in my experience means I’m in fellowship with Him, I’m walking in the light. I’m confessing my sins. That sort of thing. And I saw what I think’s going on in John 17:3. 

So that there’s two types of knowledge of God, a positional knowledge of God. I’m one of his children. I know Him. But then there’s an experiential knowledge of God. For example, in John 14, Jesus said to Philip, “Philip, have I been with you so long and yet you don’t know Me?” Because he said, just show us the Father. That’s enough for us. He’s like, I have shown you the Father. If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father. Don’t you know who I am? 

So this term knowing is a very flexible term in Hebrew and in Greek and in English. When it comes to knowing God, it could refer to our position as believers, or it could refer to our experience as believers who know Him in our day-to-day experience. 

Notice in 17:3, He says that they may know You. If I remember correctly, that’s a subjunctive and the subjunctive often conveys something which is possible, but not certain. And so I think He likely would have used an indicative if He wanted to say this is eternal life that they know you. 

SAM: I think that’s some good news. 

BOB: Yeah, great question. I love it. It was difficult question. It’s possible these two are the same thing. That the first part, those who do not know God, even those who do not obey the gospel. That’s a possible interpretation. But I think it more likely because he could have avoided saying both parts and just said those who don’t know God or he could have said those who don’t believe or he could have said those who don’t obey the gospel. The fact that he gave two inclines me to believe they’re two separate groups.

But the key thing for all of us to take away is when you’re studying the Bible, ask this type of question. Pray about it, meditate it on, think about it. 

And if you want, send in the question to us and we’ll be happy to answer it. And in the meantime, keep grace in focus. 

ANNOUNCER: Be sure to check out our daily blogs at faithalone.org. They are short and full of great teaching, just like what you’ve heard today. Find them at faithalone.org/resources/blog. We would love to hear from you. Maybe you’ve got a question, comment, or some feedback. If you do, please don’t hesitate to send us a message. Here’s our email address. It’s radio@faithalone.org. That’s radio@faithalone.org. And when you do, very important. Please let us know your radio station call letters and the city of your location.

On our next episode: the prodigal son’s father said that his son had been dead but is now alive again. What did he mean by that? We will discuss it next time. Come back and join us. Until then, let’s keep grace in focus.