2Th 3:6; Are You a Ghost Or a Solid Person?

Tuesday October 17, 2023

It is easy to get confused about how the Bible says we are dead and resurrected and even in heaven when nothing of that sort seems to have happened to us. What does it mean to be resurrected with Christ and not having yet died first? And what does that have to do with work?

Theme: As an image, eternal life and heaven are solid; fallen life and sin are vapor. Our life will become more solid (more real) as we mature in Christ, and with it will come the works of heaven.

2Th 3:6

Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our 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.

2Th 3:10-11

For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. 11 For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.

The problem then in Thessalonica is a recurring one throughout church history, and in the affluent West, it is a big problem – apathy of believers.

But not realizing that they have been given work to do by God the Father, and that in doing that work they will find fulfillment in life, happinesses they could have never dreamed, and impact in the lives of others that they never thought of. They miss out on the life of the Christian life.

Some Christians, for many reasons to which are given many names, live a life that is more akin to vapor than it is to solid.

The word “unruly” means “disorder” or “out of order.”

Joh 17:4

"I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.”

Eternal life is solid.

Fallen life and its sin are vapor.

In life, because it comes from God, truth and thought take on a more solid nature, or a more empty or vaporous nature.

Notice how Paul alludes to this in Col 2:

Col 2:8-12

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

Think of being “now” raised from the dead (resurrected with Christ) as having taken on the substance or solid nature of life. The tradition of men, the elementary principles of the world are in contrast to Christ – “bodily form,” and us as those who are in Him, “complete,” “flesh cut off,” “buried in death,” “raised up to life.”

Col 2:16-17

Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day — 17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

The old nature is dead in a way that most people never come to understand. Sin and the elementary principles of the world are not of a real substance. They are ghosts and vapors.

The work that God has given us to do is the vital work of the living.

It is a manifestation of the solidness of heaven in the vapor of the world. Hence it is a great witness as well as an experience of heaven to the worker-servant of God.

The only living in this world are those who are in Christ. It has not yet appeared what they will be, but when He appears they will be like Him (1Jo 3:1-2).

1Jo 3:2

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

We must seek to do the new nature, and the new nature is a worker with boundless energy from the Spirit of God.

Would God give us His works to do and then not supply the energy to do them?

1Pe 4:11

whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

1Co 9:24, 27

Run in such a way that you may win. … I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

Reading through this paragraph it seems that laziness is a big issue in the Thessalonian church. But we are probably being too narrow to think that in the two Thessalonian letters, disorder (ataktos) refers to laziness only. Looking at the words use outside of the Bible, in the context of work it is used to describe someone who has an irresponsible attitude towards the work.

“unruly” – an irresponsible attitude towards the work God has given you.

Eph 2:10

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

We were not created by good works but for them. First, we had to be made solid and then we could work, and it is our purpose. Our creation is by love.

Eph 2:5

even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).

Eph 2:8-9

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Now, for the works that God has already prepared, which are wonderful and many, we must do them. But more than that. “Walk in them,” is the use of walk as Paul would always use it – life and lifestyle.

We’ll close with Paul’s admonition and example.

1Th 2:9-12

For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; 11 just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, 12 so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

2Th 3:7-9

For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, 8 nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you; 9 not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example.

In contrast to the believers who did nothing. Why did they not see that they were not saving time but losing it like a whisp of smoke?

If you hold on to self, you are not saving time for self but losing it.