2 Thessalonians 2.16c-The Grace of God is the Means by which the Child of God is Blessed by the Father and the Son
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Sunday October 17, 2021
Second Thessalonians: 2 Thessalonians 2:16c-The Grace of God is the Means by which the Child of God is Blessed by the Father and the Son
Lesson # 47
2 Thessalonians 2:16 Now, may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself as well as God, who is our Father, who divinely loved each and every one of us, namely by means of grace having given to each one of us as a gift an encouragement, which is eternal resulting in a confident expectation of blessing, which is divine-good, 17 encourage and exhort your hearts. Specifically, by strengthening each and every one of you with respect to every kind of action and oral communication, which are divine-good in quality and character. (Lecturer’s translation)
In 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, Paul communicates to the Thessalonian Christian community an intercessory prayer that he, Silvanus and Timothy regularly offered up to the Father on behalf of each and every one of them.
They communicate this prayer to the Thessalonians to encourage them and to express their love and concern for them.
In this prayer, both the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father are described as having loved them.
By divinely-loving them, Paul means that by means of grace the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father gave to each of them an encouragement, which is eternal in nature which resulted in a confident expectation of blessing, which is divine-good in quality and character.
Paul, Silvanus and Timothy requested that both the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father encourage and exhort the hearts of the Thessalonians by strengthening them with respect to every kind of action and word, which is divine-good in quality and character.
The apostle Paul asserts that it was “by means of grace” that he, Silvanus and Timothy as well as each member of the Thessalonian Christian community were given as a gift by the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father an encouragement, which is eternal in nature resulting in a confident expectation of blessing, which is divine-good in quality and character.
The noun charis (χάρις), “grace” refers to the grace policy of the Trinity in relation to sinners.
Grace is all that God is free to do in imparting unmerited blessings to those who trust in Jesus Christ as Savior based upon the merits of Christ and His death on the Cross.
It is God treating the sinner in a manner that they don’t deserve and excludes any human works in order to acquire eternal salvation or blessing from God.
Grace means that God saved us and blessed us despite ourselves and not according to anything that we do but rather saved us and blessed us because of the merits of Christ and His work on the Cross.
It excludes any human merit in salvation and blessing (Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5) and gives the Creator all the credit and the creature none.
By means of faith, we accept the grace of God, which is a non-meritorious system of perception, which is in total accord with the grace of God.
Grace and faith are totally compatible with each other and inseparable (1 Tim. 1:14) and complement one another (Rom. 4:16; Eph. 2:8).
Grace, faith, and salvation are all the gift of God and totally exclude all human works and ability (Eph. 2:8-9).
Titus 3:5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds, which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit. (NASB95)
The unique Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the Cross-is the source of grace (2 Cor. 8:9) and He is a gift from the Father (2 Cor. 9:15).
2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich. (NASB95)
2 Corinthians 9:15 Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! (NASB95)
Jesus Christ was full of “grace and truth” (John 1:17) and the believer receives the grace of God through Him (John 1:16).
John 1:16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. (NASB95)
It is by the grace of God that Jesus Christ died a substitutionary spiritual death for all mankind (Heb. 2:9).
Therefore, the throne in which Christ sits is a “throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16).
Hebrews 2:10 But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. (NASB95)
The grace of God has been extended to every member of the human race because of the act of love and justice on the Cross.
At the cross, the Father imputed the sins of every person in history-past, present and future to the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union on the Cross and judged Him as a substitute for the entire human race (Titus 2:11).
Titus 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. (NASB95)
The message of God’s saving act in Christ is described as the “gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24), and the “word of His grace” (Acts 20:32; cf. 14:3).
By His grace, God justifies the undeserving and unworthy through faith in His Son Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:24).
Grace is an absolute and is no longer grace if we are saved on the basis of human works (Rom. 11:6).
A Christian is someone who is a “partaker” of the grace of God (Phil. 1:7) and he is to live by the same principle of grace after salvation (Col. 2:6; Rom. 6:4).
Grace is the Christian’s sphere of existence (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; Col. 1:2).
The believer who rejects this principle is said to have “fallen from grace,” (Gal. 5:1-5).
God in His grace and love disciplines the believer in order to get the believer back in fellowship with Himself (Heb. 12:5-12).
He also trains the believer through undeserved suffering in order to achieve spiritual growth (2 Cor. 12:7-11).
The believer is commanded to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18).
The believer experiences the grace of God while in fellowship with God, which is accomplished by obedience to the Word of God.
God in His grace has given the believer the ability to learn and apply bible doctrine through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in order to achieve spiritual maturity (Jn. 16:13-15; 1 Cor. 2:9-16).
God in His grace has provided the church with the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher to communicate the mystery doctrine for the church age, which produces spiritual growth (Eph. 3:1-5; 4:8-12, 16).
The Christian life from beginning to end is built upon God's policy of grace (2 Cor. 6:1-9; Rom. 5:2; John 1:16).
The grace of God has been manifested and revealed to the entire human race in time through the following: (1) Unique Theanthropic Person of Jesus Christ (2) Salvation work of Christ on the Cross (3) Word of God (4) Holy Spirit’s various salvation and post-conversion ministries.
God the Father according to His grace policy has provided the unbeliever the spiritual gift of evangelism and the royal ambassadorship of believers as the vehicles that God the Holy Spirit employs to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ for their salvation (Jn. 16:7-11; Eph. 4:11; 2 Cor. 5:17-21).
God the Father according to His grace policy has provided the believer with the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher as the vehicle, which the Holy Spirit employs to communicate the Word of God, which produces spiritual growth (Eph. 3:1-5; 4:8-12, 16).
God the Father according to His grace policy has provided the human race the Word of God and the Spirit of God, which reveal His plan from eternity past (Word: 2 Pet. 1:20-21; 2 Tim. 3:15-16; Spirit: Jn. 16:13-15; 1 Cor. 2:9-16).
In relation to the unbeliever, God the Father’s gracious provision of salvation based upon faith in the merits of the Person and Work of Christ on the Cross-is revealed by the Holy Spirit through the communication of the Gospel.
In relation to the believer, the Holy Spirit through the communication of the Word of God reveals all the benefits of God the Father’s gracious provision for their salvation.
The Spirit of God through the communication of the Word of God reveals all that the Father has graciously done and provided for the believer to do His will.
Therefore, we learn about the grace of God by listening to the Spirit’s voice, which is heard through the communication of the Word of God (Colossians 1:3-6).
The believer receives the grace of God by obeying the voice of the Spirit who speaks to the believer regarding the will of the Father through the communication of the Word of God by the believer’s divinely ordained pastor-teacher, or fellow-believer.
Grace is God giving of Himself (His holiness) in order to benefit all mankind.
Grace is the sum total of unmerited benefits, both temporal and spiritual, imparted to the sinner through the harmonious function of the sum total of divine attributes of each member of the Trinity as a result of the sinner making the non-meritorious decision to trust in the Person and Work of Christ on the Cross.
This is why John writes the following: John 1:16, For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. (NASB95)