Unless it had been seriously urged upon us that the teaching of 1

Thessalonians deals with a secret phase of the Lord's Coming, while that of 2

Thessalonians refers to an aspect very different from the hope of the church,

we should not feel it necessary to draw attention to the obvious fact that

these two epistles were written to the same church upon the same theme, and

that there is not the slightest warrant for the strange teaching that they

have been used to support.

We have already seen in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 that the apostle remembered

the work of faith, labour of love, and patience of hope of this church.  In 2

Thessalonians 1:3,4 he takes up this same theme:

'We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet,

because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity (love) of

every one of you all toward each other aboundeth; so that we ourselves

glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all

your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure'.

This church had received the word in tribulation (1 Thess. 1:6), and in

every place their faith had gone forth.  In 2 Thessalonians this tribulation

had continued.  And the churches of God had heard of the Thessalonians'

attitude through the apostle's boasting concerning them.  In each of the four

qualities, faith, love, hope and patience, these saints had grown.  Yet we

are asked by some teachers to believe that a special secret rapture awaited 1

Thessalonians' believers, while the believers of the second epistle were to

pass through the tribulation of the day of the Lord and experience the

sufferings of the reign of the beast!

While it may be easy at this distance to settle the hopes of the early

saints, it would have proved more difficult to have persuaded the

Thessalonians themselves by such illogical deduction.  The process of

reasoning seems to be somewhat as follows: 1 Thessalonians 4 must be a secret

rapture, and so 1 Thessalonians 5 can have no connection with times and

seasons, or with the day of the Lord.  2 Thessalonians, however, speaks of

the coming of the Lord as not taking place until after the manifestation of

the man of sin, and of the coming of the Lord in flaming fire.  It is

therefore assumed that the coming of 1 Thessalonians 4 takes place before the

rise of the man of sin, and the coming of 2 Thessalonians after that

The recognition that the true 'secret rapture' belongs to the prison

ministry of the apostle (Col. 3:1 -4), sets us free from this vain attempt to

find the hope of the One Body in the earlier epistles.  The saints, sorrowing

for those who have fallen asleep, are comforted by the fact that they,

together with those who have fallen asleep, and at the same time, shall meet

the Lord in the air.  The same saints in their sorrow on account of their own

tribulation through which they are passing, are comforted by the fact that

'rest' shall be theirs:

'When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty

angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God' (2

Thess. 1:7,8).

It was of this same event that the apostle had written in 1

Thessalonians 3:13: