First Thessalonians 5:23-28 Conclusion

First Thessalonians chapter five, the last 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. Six verses, huh, today? The conclusion to the epistle is what we're studying. Here's the text, starting in verse 23 of chapter 5. 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 will also bring it to pass. Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And that's, he's finished his first epistle to Thessalonians there. Okay, this first verse is a doozy, and I got stuck on this verse 23 the whole entire time. Does that ever happen? You just can't, whoa. And it's a very well-known verse, but it's right at the end, but we'll tackle it today.

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. We'll look at that first phrase, may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely. You see the word may there, that tips us off that it's a prayer that Paul is praying. It's a prayerful hope. that the Thessalonians be sanctified completely. And we'll look at that word complete and the word entirely, because those are really neat words. Paul's desire, F. W. Grant says, is nothing less than the complete sanctification because of the Holy Spirit. He indwells each believer and He expects no less, the Holy Spirit, and it implies no less than that complete sanctification.

Yeah. So, Andrew, Neh is not in the inner layer of Greek. Did you look at that at all? It says, and the very God of peace sanctify you. Yeah. Oh, do I have the interlinear? Yeah. It's right there. There it is. And the very God of peace, here's the interlinear, sanctify you wholly, and I pray your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless. And yeah, May isn't in there, correct? And the very God of Peace.

Yeah, and I think what it is, and we'll get, I'll deal with that in a sec, because, yeah, there's a little, there's a little, there's a little nugget, golden nugget? No, there's a little Easter egg in this, in this verse, I'll show you. Yeah. Sanctify. First of all, sanctify is in the aorist sense, right? And that makes sense. It's a point, certain fact that the sanctification be done. And this is what makes this verse so rich and complex is we have not been totally sanctified yet, right? But And our final sanctification is our new body without the sin nature, when we're with the Lord. It's God's will that it be done.

So that's yet future, but it can be an heiress, and heiress is always, it's a past point fact, basically, right? So even if it's future, which is kind of, It's kind of crazy, but it's just true. It will be done so God can refer to it in the past tense as an heiress. Let me see my next point.

But the fact is, in the New American Standard, there's this may sanctify. And you see there's a may, May your soul and spirit and body be preserved complete. The word sanctify has this mood, which is the optative mood, O-P-T-A-T-I-V-E, optative mood, which is a conditional mood. So I think the translators see this optative, this mood, which, so they inserted may, because they know it's a prayer, so it's a conditional clause, you know, maybe God will, maybe God won't.

It's a fourth class conditional clause. So it's in there, and I think that's what they're seeing, and maybe the interlinearly just took that out. I had the amplified. The amplified doesn't have may, but it has the fact that he's praying. So yeah, it's kind of a, that's the little trick in this verse.

So the word holy, holy sanctify you, or entirely, I think that King James has holy, but this is entirely, the Greek word is halateles, halateles, down there at point E. And it's perfect and complete in all respects is what that halateles means. Macaulay says it's a compound word. If you take the word whole and end, so it's wholly, whole end, you know, the complete thing. He says it's completely reaching the goal of sanctification. Grant says it's all maturely, which I kind of like too.

Or it could be perfectly. That's the word halateles. Now this phrase, we'll move on to this next phrase, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete. Body and soul and spirit is pneumo-psyche and soma, the Greek words, and they're distinct elements, right? They're different things which make up all of mankind.

T. Austin Sparks is his name. He says, he calls these organs. He says there's a, your body is an organ, your spirit is an organ, and your soul is like an organ. And they all work together to make up the whole man, the whole of man. So this verse is saying, may the whole of your man be sanctified. Keithley's commentary, you know how Keithley's long.

He goes into this verbose, so he goes into a page or so of all these theologians who teach or say that The fact that there's pneuma, psyche, and soma in this verse isn't really a big deal. They don't think that maybe man is in three parts. Maybe he's just soul and body, and they use different terms to describe that. So they say Paul is just being rhetorical. Macaulay calls it the tripartite of man. And here's my commentary. My commentary will be available in the back for $14.95. Mark down to $9.95 with a special code. Okay. My commentary says, I like the designation of triunity of man. It parallels God's nature, doesn't it?

He's triune, a trinity. And F.W. Graham, I found out, uses this word too, and it's a cool word. And I think this, you can take this as doctrine, this verse, and teach that man is body, soul, spirit as doctrine, even though this is the only place where all three appear. in scripture. But Paul talks about the body, Paul talks about the spirit in other places, or the soul, or maybe the soul and spirit. That doesn't mean that it's not, he's not a triune person. And you could also say that maybe man is a trinity, isn't he?

Like God is. But without being three persons, he's just these three organs, pneuma, psyche, and soma. And they're indivisible. They exist in the substance that you can't, God can. God can cut them out and divide them, but man can't. And that substance, that would be the word hupostasis, right, from Hebrews 11.

No, Hebrews 1.3, hoopastasis, God's nature, God's hoopastasis, He's all one, so our body, soul, and spirit are all one.

They all go to heaven when we're raptured. Question? Yeah. Isn't there a command to love God with all you breathe? Yeah, no, there's one, if you look at that, I think it's heart, mind, and body, I think. So it uses the word heart. You could argue that, though, that's parallel, depending on, I think it has the word heart in it, and so that's why it's not the, and who knows, the heart could be, the heart could be the, if you looked at the Greek, the psyche, but that's, I think, in the Old Testament, so it might have a, yeah, that they all three, it's kind of weird, because I always thought it's all over the place, yeah.

Look at the verb tense of how this is occurring preserved. Preserved, yeah, I think I'll. It's passive. Passive, right. So you're gonna get into that a little bit. They're heiress passive. Yeah, I think so. On the next slide, let me check if I did. I hope I did. That's so neat, I think. Yeah, right. Oh, so if you wanna read a very good short book on this mind, body, spirit, it's T. Austin Sparks, What is Man? And I have the website there at the end. Preserved, okay, yes, I did. Boy, I was doing my homework, I guess.

It's terreo, it's an aorist passive, so it's done to us, we're acted upon. But also in this, when you look at the parsing of it, it has an optative too in there. They say aorist verb, aorist passive, optative. that mood because it's a prayer, so may you be preserved. So it's to be kept from injury or loss, like keeping your eye upon something. Like a newborn infant is preserved because you're always watching this newborn to keep them from loss or injury.

I guess that's a 24-7 job, isn't it? Yeah, I've got a grandnephew who's, that's being done to him. He was born on Wednesday or something. So he's in that stage being preserved. And then when they're teenagers, they, what do they do? They, they go out and they cause trouble, but that's a different story. Uh, so Tara, Oh, Oh, look at this. Look how it's used in John 17. I'm no longer in the world, yet they themselves are in the world.

I come to you. Holy Father, tereo them, keep them in your name. While I was with them, I was keeping tereo them in your name, which you had given me. And I guarded them, and not one of them perished, of the apostles and the disciples, except the son of perdition, so that the scripture would be fulfilled. I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them, tereo, from the evil one.

So that's the word preserve. So Jesus is asking for us to be preserved in this world. And that's where I spent a lot of my time with the sanctification thing I was going through. John 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and what you find in that it's a long goodbye from Jesus Christ.

He's leaving the world. He's peeling back from the world. He's saying, you won't see me again. But he's sanctifying himself from the world because the world reject him. He's done with it. The father's done with it. There's nothing here in the world for the both of them. So he's splitting the scene.

But he's saying he's got to keep us down here. But we're kept. We're preserved. And that's what John 16 is about. I'm going away. Not John 16, John 15. I'm going away, but I'm sending a comforter. So it's better that I go. You'll have this comforter. And it's a passage of sanctification. And how are we sanctified? That's John 16. Abide in me. Sanctification is simply hanging out with Him right where He is. up there all moment by moment.

So in a sense, this being preserved in the passive tense then relates to what He's promised us, right? How much do we enter into that in our day-to-day lives? Yeah. Oh, well, yeah, because it's infinite and it's... I mean, He's, you know, anted up to preserve us in this world system in which we live. But yet, when our faith falls short, I mean, maybe I'm speaking for myself, but it falls short at times, and we don't really apply that by faith. Yeah, no, and it's a conditional thing on our part.

But it happens when you spend time in the Word, and the Word sanctifies you. Even in that John 13 through 17, he washes the disciples' feet, and he's cleansing them from just the day-to-day sin grime, and that re-sanctifies you. It's just a little temporary, now you're re-sanctified, now you can come back into fellowship. I caught that too this week. He wasn't washing the disciples' feet to say, to teach them how to serve people. He was doing this to demonstrate how he sanctifies by confession of sin. It's really just, but if I had two Sundays, we could go into all that. Are the Romulans?

Somebody, JMC is muting himself. Okay. Complete. Preserve complete. Let's look at this word. That's Holocleros. Very similar to the other word, holoclor, gee, now I can't say it. Holoclores. Very similar. It's not lacking or unsound in anything. It's entire, it's whole, and without blemish. So you know this word, holocloros, has without blemish in it. Yet, in the very next phrase, he says, without blame. So, he says, without blame, without blame. It's two words meaning the same thing.

This word halakleros, complete, expresses quantity. Whereas, ah, there it is, holoteles expresses, that's the word in the first part of the verse, holoteles expresses quality. So you got quality and quantity. So you could say that now the God of peace sanctify you qualitatively and quantitatively. You could say that, that's kind of the force of the verse. So it's entire, it's really, It's a big verse. And without blame, it's not holoteles or halakleras, it's ememtas. It's a completely different word, but it means the same thing. So he's, you can see these two words together conveying the same meaning, complete and blameless.

Now, we're preserved complete and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we all know that that's our theme for First Thessalonians. We could even take this as a review, right, today, so our theme. And that's parousia, the personal bodily arrival of Jesus to receive the dead in Christ, which he explains, and take up the living into the air at the rapture. But it's also the abiding presence of when he comes back, the second coming, and he remains here to set up his earthly kingdom. It's all wrapped up into that. Yeah, here I have it.

By way of review, the parousia, or coming of Christ, occurs in 1 Thessalonians 2.19, 1 Thessalonians 3.13, then again in 1 Thessalonians 4.15, and we've covered this before.

And then it's implied in 1 Thessalonians 1.10 that the Thessalonians wait for a son from heaven. And that's got a parousia in there. and then he was gonna deliver them from the wrath to come. Okay, on to the next verse. See how that verse was big, so we had to get through it.

But faithful is he who calls you and he will bring it to pass, is verse 24. Faithful is pistos, pistos, adjective. It's the adjective form of the noun pistis. And it means he is absolutely and categorically trustworthy. Christ must discharge his official duties. And that means that we can't even have an inkling or a shade of distrust in his faithfulness, right? He has to bring everything to fruition that he sets his mind to his will, his desire. When he has that in his mind to do something, he is faithful to do it. Then there's a verse that says exactly that, where is that? Oh, confession of sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

First John 1.9. So we can have no less than absolutely reliance on his person and character in regard to faithfulness.

And I ask the question, and I think in my commentary again, since I would have this. What's the current price? 6.95 maybe. No one's buying it. So if the essence of God, we've all known this, is holy, righteous, infinite, sovereign, he's immutable, he's love, he's spirit.

But I think you can add faithful to that, too. That adverb is an adverb or an adjective. I think it's an adverb. Adjective. Okay. You could add that to this list. And I might have gotten the adjective adverb part wrong in my presentation. I'm not sure. But I think, what do you think? You think you could add that to that list of essence verbs? Yeah. So we are upon the shoulders of the good shepherd. And if there were final failure, it would be his strength that failed. That would be impossible for him. As for us, without him, success would be impossible. That's F.W. Grant.

You know, Mike says that all the time. What does he say? If I don't get saved, or if I don't get to heaven, it's Christ's fault, not mine. Because yeah, He is faithful. He's the one doing all that. So if you fail to get there, if I fail to get believing in Him, it'd be His fault. Sounds kind of, what's the word? sacrilegious, doesn't say that. But actually, it's a beautiful thing that all the reliance is upon him and not on us. If you have any of yourself in there, that means that you can fail. I can slip up, I can mess up, I can do the wrong thing. When it's all on him, then you can relax. Right. Well, it takes you to get this.

Philippians 1.6, right? He who began good work and continued to perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Oh, and I forgot to mention this, but sanctification. He is sanctified. That's who he is. He is our sanctified. There's nothing to do. What's left for us to do? Believe. Believe. Trust him. We've come to that. We've come to that. OK, brethren, now we're in the ending easy parts here. Brethren, pray for us. He uses this term 16 times in this epistle. So this is the sixth. No, 18 times. Sorry, 18 times. This is the 16th time he's done this. So he's really familiar with these believers. He really loves them as family.

And I looked at Romans, I just did a quick word count of Romans. I think it's accurate. But in 16 chapters, brethren is in there 13 times. So 1 Thessalonians being five chapters. verses 16, it's one-third of the size, you know, it's whoa. So he really likes this word to ingratiate himself with these new converts that he knows and loves now. So pray for us. Paul in chapters 2 and 3 recounts in detail how they came to the gospel. Remember that, this by way of review. All these dramas and he was beaten and he was run out of town, setbacks.

So now, the Thessalonians are identified in Paul's ministry, personally identified in his ministry, seeped in there. You know that word identification, like people were identified into into John's ministry, right? John the Baptist, they would consider themselves identified in there. Well, I think, in a way, the Thessalonians now are identified in Paul's ministry.

So he can ask for this, pray for me, and it makes sense. One comment, and I forgot where I saw this, but one of those guys, and you'll spend much more on his commentary than mine, so. He says it's a tremendous privilege. Think about that tremendous privilege and responsibility that these new believers in Thessalonica have now. They get to pray for the great Paul, Paul the great, the great apostle, the great missionary. And he's asking for their prayers. This commentator was like, boy, if Paul asks you to pray, that's a big deal. to pray for Paul.

Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss in verse 26. And then I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren. Holy kiss is a brotherly kiss or a sisterly kiss and it was common in that day. Extended brother to brother and sister to sister. And they also said it was common in the Jewish synagogue. That's how the Jews would greet each other. And it's just a handshake. It would be like a handshake today. But we can't shake hands now, can we? We have the fist bump, I guess. A holy fist bump.

And the word whole anyone want to venture a guess why the word holy is in the holy kiss Yeah, well the sinless nature of the relationship we have with our brothers and sisters Ironside gave this little commentary if Wayne and I are in here alone and we're kind of gossiping about Roger's shirt. And just saying, what do you think that shirt? Did I get involved in this, too? Yeah, yeah, right.

So we're commissary, and we're sort of snickering about it. And then Roger walks in. And we're like, hi, Roger. Good to see you, Roger. It's a great Sunday morning to you. That handshake is an unholy handshake, isn't it? We had just been sinning, right, by gossiping about Roger's shirt. And I don't mean to pick on Roger's shirt. You're going to see more of it later on.

So I thought that was interesting. That was his commentary. Take that for what it's worth. Oh, I adjure you to have this letter read, this word adjure is harkizo. And it's a really strong word. It's to force to take an oath or to solemnly swear to someone.

It's only used here in the epistles, it's only used in all the epistles in this verse. This is the only place it occurs. And I looked at where it occurs otherwise, and it's a strange little word. It's in Matthew, it's in one of the Gospels, and Acts.

And it's always used in reference to demons, This one demon saying to Jesus, I implore you by God not to torment me. That word implore is hortizo. Please solemnly swear to me, take an oath that you won't send me to torment Jesus. And then another time, this is in an axe where these Jewish exorcists were sort of coattailing on Paul and Peter and things. the apostles and trying to cast out demons, they would say, I adjure you by Jesus, the one whom Paul preaches, you know, to come out of him. So, I adjure you, demon, to come out of this person. And then the, it's funny, it's one of the funny things that occurs is that the demon says, Wait a minute, I know Paul, and I know Jesus. but who are you? So the demon isn't going to be cast out just by any yokel. But that's the word, a juror, which is really neat.

So I think you could say it's, swear to me by the Lord. And you're not supposed to swear by the, right? Isn't there a verse saying that? But this is sort of saying just that, swear to me by, it's very important that everyone gets this letter read to them. Andrew, didn't they also say that to Christ, I adjure you by the living God before His crucifixion?

Yeah. I thought that word was you. Maybe, I didn't see that. Anyway, I might be wrong. They say, tell us who you are, and he may remain silent. Oh yeah, right, right. Yeah. I could have missed that one. Yeah. I remember seeing that one. Yeah. And then verse 28, right, we've seen that in several of his epistles. That's the way he ends most of his, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And that closes out the the letter. Yeah, well, isn't that the demon speaking now? Yeah, it is. Yeah. But that's what the mark, that's the only other word. Oh, in the mark, yeah, right. Yeah, or maybe it's a word, but I know what you're saying. Yeah. Okay, here's, I'll do a brief review of what we've learned. Or I'll make you take out number two pencils and prepare for the final exam.

So the theme of this First Thessalonians is the pending coming of Christ, right? And how it should affect believers' lives. I like this, Ironside has this outline. And his outline is all the Lord's coming. The Lord's coming is the saving truth. The Lord's coming is a stimulating truth. And the Lord's coming is a stabilizing truth. And the Lord's coming is a strengthening truth, there in chapter four. And finally, the Lord's coming, and I wrote coning, I don't know why, is a sanctifying truth. That's exactly what we covered today. The Lord's coming is a sanctifying truth.

So Paul held the Thessalonians in tender regard, as you can remember back, because they received him so joyously after he'd been run out of Philippi. That's kind of where we started this book. They had enthusiastically, if you remember, turned to God from their former idols to serve a living and true God. And as Paul told them to wait for his son from heaven in chapter 1, verses 9 and 10.

Chapters two and three, then he gives a lengthy, and we spent a lot of time on that, because it is lengthy, detailed defense of how he came to the Thessalonians and how, contrary to the rumors that the Judaizers were spreading, he lived in an exemplary way. And he worked for himself, he didn't take money from them. He didn't seek his own interests. Then he expresses joy at how they received the gospel at face value and how they became imitators of Paul, not only Paul, but Timothy and Silas, and they became imitators of the Lord himself, Paul says, and finally, they became imitators of the persecuted churches in Judea, we learned.

Emphasizing his affection for the Thessalonians, he tells them once more, more than once, that he tried to get back to see them, if you remember that. I tried to get back, but I was hindered, and Satan hindered me to get back to you. And he's, because he had to go down to Berea, and then he made his way to Athens. So he sent Timothy back to check on them.

When Timothy came back and reported that, hey, yeah, they're still in the Word, and they're still doing well. They're knowing and growing. This letter, Thessalonians first letter, is an expression of joy and I think perhaps amazement that after this year or so, year and a half, this going concern of the Thessalonian church was still going as a local body and they were preserving. So he was excited, so he wrote this letter.

In chapter four, he comforts them by explaining that their loved ones who had passed away within the last year and a half, there's no room for sorrow because at the Lord's coming, they would be resurrected. they would precede them in resurrection, and then the Thessalonians who were living would be caught up together with those loved ones to meet the Lord in the air. He ends the epistle by fixing their hope upon this fact of the resurrection and the rapture, and then he tells them that the wrath of God is coming, but you won't be here, but for the meantime, remain sober, be of the day, not of the night, encourage one another, live in peace with one another, and help each other, is how he's ending the epistle. Then he closes in a prayer of sanctification, we looked at today, that they may be entirely in mind, body, and spirit, set apart and separated, completely blameless when Christ appears in the air. So the verse we looked at today, it's a prayer of practical and conditional sanctification, but then it also has this element of being positional too, their positional fact of sanctification. because Jesus Christ is the one who called them to it, and he has done it, right?

He's faithful, and it's in the aorist tense, and it's done, even though it's yet future. And that's consistent with his own nature. He wants them to be sanctified as he's sanctified. He can do no less. So that's the... There's where we'll end it. Okay, any last thoughts? Well, I'll pray here. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this study in Thessalonians. Thank you that we are being sanctified, we will be sanctified, and it's because of who and what you are, and we just pray that this will keep on our minds this week and forevermore until we see you again, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.