The Eschatologies of 1–2 Thessalonians with Dr. Sydney Tooth (Podcast)

November 27, 2024 Posted by John Anthony Dunne Biblical Studies 1 Comment

In this episode we’re joined by Dr. Sydney Tooth, who is Director of Postgraduate Studies & Lecturer in New Testament and Greek at Oak Hill College in the UK, a beloved co-host of this here Two Cities podcast, and the author of the book that we’re excited to discuss in this episode, Suddenness and Signs: The Eschatologies of 1 and 2 Thessalonians (published by Mohr Siebeck). Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Tooth talks with us about whether or not the eschatologies of 1–2 Thessalonians are incompatible with each other, as has often been argued, and how a close reading of both texts supports Pauline authorship for 2 Thessalonians. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Dr. Madison Pierce, and Dr. Sydney Tooth.

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About John Anthony Dunne

John holds a PhD from the University of St Andrews, where he studied under Professor N. T. Wright. He currently serves as Associate Professor of New Testament and the Director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN).

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Tom Peters
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November 27, 2024 at 12:34 PM

Congratulations to Dr. Tooth on her forthcoming book, which she discusses in today’s podcast. I look forward to reading it since it is obvious that she has spent much time in considering the various eschatological issues relating to first and second Thessalonians. I would just like to raise a couple points.

Around the 24th minute of the podcast, Dr. Tooth observes that it is clear in second Thessalonians that judgment and salvation happen together, at the same time, upon Jesus’s return. It seems to me that Paul is speaking here only of judgment for non-believers. Believers, on the other hand, will experience not salvation along with bodily resurrection at his return, but rather “relief,” that is, ἄνεσιν, that those who have persecuted them are finally receiving their comeuppance, 2 Thess. 1:7. The full verse reads in Greek: καὶ ὑμῖν τοῖς θλιβομένοις ἄνεσιν μεθ’ ἡμῶν ἐν τῇ ἀποκαλύψει τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ μετ’ ἀγγέλων δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ. Verses 8 and 9 go on to illustrate the nature of this judgment (NIV): “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

In verse 10 Paul references the “saints” who will appear with him on that day (NIV): “on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.” The Greek text reads: ὅταν ἔλθῃ ἐνδοξασθῆναι ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις αὐτοῦ καὶ θαυμασθῆναι ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς πιστεύσασιν, ὅτι ἐπιστεύθη τὸ μαρτύριον ἡμῶν ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς, ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ. This reference to the “saints” is similar to what we read in Matt. 24:31 (NIV) in Christ’s description of the Second Coming: “And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” The Greek text reads: καὶ ἀποστελεῖ τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ μετὰ σάλπιγγος μεγάλης, καὶ ἐπισυνάξουσιν τοὺς ἐκλεκτοὺς αὐτοῦ ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων ἀνέμων ἀπ’ ἄκρων οὐρανῶν ἕως [τῶν] ἄκρων αὐτῶν.

This verse suggests the notion of many active, resurrected bodies exploring the heavens, not mere disembodied spirits residing for a time in some intermediate state. This is also what Paul is referring to in 1 Thess. 4:16 in his description of Christ’s coming when he notes that “the dead in Christ will rise first,” (NIV). The “dead in Christ” are those who have physically died in their earthly bodies but who now occupy “God’s space” in heaven. As Professor Tom Wright explains on page 135 of his book, Surprised by Hope: “Of course, when he ‘appears’ he will be ‘present.’ But the point of stressing ‘appearing’ here is that, though in one sense it will seem to us that he is ‘coming,’ he will in fact be ‘appearing’ right where he presently is, not a long way away with our own space-time world but in his own world, God’s world, the world we call heaven.” As Christ thus “appears,” so also will “his elect” gathered “from one end of the heavens to the other.”

This all hinges on the notion that Christ-followers have already undergone their final judgment in this life, not the next. See a correct translation of 2 Cor. 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive in our bodies what is due us for what we have done, whether good or bad.” This is similar to the rendering of this passage in the Aramaic Bible in Plain English, which puts this idea of judgment in the earthly body quite plainly: “that each man will be paid in his body anything that was done by him;” and the Coverdale Bible of 1535: “every one may receive in his body, according to what he hath done.”

I would encourage you, as you noted toward the end of the podcast, to explore the relationship between the “day of the Lord” and the παρουσίᾳ. My suggestion here would be to examine a “coming” that is often ignored in the western church and only revered in the eastern church as a kind of contemplative event rather than one that has clear doctrinal significance, that is, the transfiguration, Matthew 16:28-17:13. The passage starts with this stunning prediction by Jesus (NIV): “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” The Greek word here for “coming” is the participle of the word meaning “to come” or ἐρχόμενον. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Metzger, Bruce M., United Bible Societies (Corrected Edition, 1975) p. 54, describes its use here as one of “concomitant circumstances (sociative ἐν)” with the following prepositional phrase, in other words the coming of Jesus “in his Kingdom,” ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ. Interestingly, ἐρχόμενον is the same Greek word that Jesus uses to describe his “coming,” in this case his second coming, in Matthew 24:30.

Immediately after Jesus alerts his disciples that they will soon see his “coming” (ἐρχόμενον) in his Kingdom, Matthew records Jesus’s transfiguration. Matthew 17:1-13. The transfiguration of Jesus is not his second coming, of course, but is it enough to trigger the precondition to the quickening (“all will be made alive;” in the Greek, ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ πάντες ζῳοποιηθήσονται) of believers set forth later by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:23, that is, “at his coming,” or at his παρουσίᾳ? Professor Wright on page 135 of his book Surprised by Hope, notes: “One day the two worlds [human and divine] will be integrated completely and be fully visible to one another, producing the transformation of which both Paul and John speak.”
On the mountain when Jesus was transfigured for this snippet of time, our time, the two worlds were completely integrated. The three disciples, all mortal inhabitants of this broken world, witnessed the event. Jesus, transfigured, carried on a conversation with Moses and Elijah, long dead but now very much alive and apparently quite well informed about the goings on in their former homeland. God, the Father, was present in “the cloud.” The disciples heard the divine voice coming from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

The precondition of which Professor Wright and many others speak has thus already occurred in part, that is, the integration of the two worlds, human and divine, though it will only fully occur in all its glory when Christ comes again. It seems to me enough, however, to trigger the bodily resurrection of believers under Paul’s test set out in 1 Cor. 15:23, that is, “at his coming.” Jesus was effectively setting the stage for his disciples and other believers to rapidly follow him into “God’s space” as resurrected beings, rather than waiting around in the some “blissful paradise” as disembodied spirits for the “end of the age.” The fact that this did not conform to the ancient Jewish belief in the general resurrection of all on the last day (see here in John 11:24 what Martha said to Jesus regarding her brother Lazarus (NIV), “‘Yes,’ Martha said, ‘he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day'”) should not trouble us. It is an example of what the translators of the King James version of 2 Cor. 11:3 correctly described as “the simplicity that is in Christ,” which in Greek reads τῆς ἁπλότητος τῆς εἰς τὸν Χριστόν. Much to Martha’s delight and surprise, Jesus went ahead and raised up Lazarus with dispatch. In other words, Jesus’s response to Martha’s disbelief was uncomplicated, direct, and immediate, just as it is and will be with his followers upon their physical death.

Here is what Professor Wright has to say about the miracle of transfiguration (page 234), this time from Mark’s account, Mark 9:1-13: “The resurrection completes the inauguration of God’s kingdom. In Mark’s perspective, it is at least part of what Jesus meant when he said that some standing with him would not taste death before they saw the kingdom of God come with power.” The other part of what Jesus meant is that the resurrection of his followers need not wait until the completion of the age when a reordered and renewed heaven and earth are reunited, but can proceed according to the pattern which Jesus himself established—resurrection occurring upon one’s physical death. Jesus is the “first fruit” of a bodily resurrection, and the rest of us follow him ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ, 1 Cor. 15:23, which for this purpose has already taken place in the transfiguration.

Thanks again for all your work on this. If you have some questions about my translation of 2 Cor. 5:10 noted above, John Dunne, I am sure, can tell you all about it.

The Eschatologies of 1–2 Thessalonians with Dr. Sydney Tooth (Podcast)

About John Anthony Dunne

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