NOTES for Th2 2:13-3:5

What is the connection between prayer and witness? The first thing that comes to mind is this: without prayer, without constant communion with God, no witness is possible. There can only be dry theology, theoretical reasoning about God, about Christ, about the Kingdom. One cannot say that such reasoning will necessarily be mistaken; it may be formally not only correct, but even flawless, and yet it will not become witness. And when the matter concerns church life, prayer for those who are witnessing at a given moment is something entirely natural and self-evident.

But this is only one side of the matter. The other is connected with the fact that one can truly witness to the Kingdom only from within the Kingdom itself. Until the witness begins to live by its life, all his witness will still be more a witness to someone else's experience than to his own.

But the Church is precisely nothing other than the Kingdom entering our world. The chief and, in essence, only task of the Church is witness to the Kingdom, and the chief way of such witness is the manifestation of the Kingdom in our transforming but not yet transformed world, the manifestation of its breath, its love, its power. And every witness of each member of the Church becomes, in essence, part of this whole-Church witness. In this case, of course, the matter is not formal belonging to one or another church structure and not formal sanctions. The matter is precisely what the apostle writes about in his letter: the unity of the Kingdom, which manifests itself in the single spiritual space of the Church, which, of course, almost never coincides with the social space of church structures. And since the spiritual space of the Church is one, distances cease to have decisive significance for the Church's spiritual life: the prayer of one church community can become spiritual support for another community whose members, because of circumstances, have to witness especially much.

It is precisely here, as is evident, that the spiritual specificity of the Church appears as, in the words of the same Paul, the "body of Christ": whatever size she may reach, her essential, spiritual unity does not disappear, making possible the flow of spiritual energy from one part of her to another. This process itself becomes a living witness to the reality of the Kingdom, for by the laws of the untransformed world such a thing is impossible. But what is impossible in "this world" becomes possible in the Kingdom.

It is not hard to guess that the most tragic page of human history was the fall. And not only because of the consequences that affected not only man, but the whole world, but first of all because of the power the devil received over the human heart. In fact, if this power had not existed, the mentioned consequences would not have existed either, and if a person were able to free his heart completely from the power of the dark forces, everything else would perhaps not be easy, but it would be correctable.

Yet the trouble is precisely that the devil holds a person not by the body and not by the soul, but by the heart, by that spiritual core of the human person without which there is no person at all as the image and likeness of God. The spirit of darkness could not tear the heart out of a person completely, but he managed to hinder and poison that breath of life which God breathed into man at creation. And now, in order to keep man from destruction and the world from complete annihilation, God has to make special efforts so that everyone who would like to change at least something in his spiritual situation may be given such an opportunity.

Of course, God is stronger than the devil, for God is the creator of the world, and the devil is only a creature that rebelled against its Creator. But God needs free persons, not slaves whom He could easily obtain by taking them by force from the devil. If the fall had been exclusively an act of violence, there would be no such problem. But the whole horror of the situation is that it was the consequence of a voluntary choice. And now only the same voluntary choice in the opposite direction gives God the possibility to intervene. Until a person himself understands that he can no longer and does not want to live in diabolical captivity, God will not intervene. He will support every step a person takes toward Him, but He will not force such steps.

And in our days, in the age of the approaching Kingdom, a new dimension has been added to the old confrontation. None of us, before complete transformation, is capable of being completely freed from the power of sin. And the devil has his own hooks in each of us, about which we may or may not know, but with which for a time we can do nothing. And it becomes the special task of God and Jesus to keep the devil from knocking us off the path of the Kingdom. After all, at the beginning of this path we will inevitably have to share in the life of the Kingdom while remaining sinners, and the devil would have every opportunity to close the Kingdom to us forever by inflating our sinfulness to proportions incompatible with the Kingdom. Only God's direct intervention prevents such a development. For God wants to save us. As we are.

From the theme of the end of time, Paul turns to the theme of election (13-14). At first glance it may appear that one has nothing to do with the other. Yet on closer examination it becomes clear that this is not so. Speaking of "election for salvation," the apostle undoubtedly follows the view of the Messiah and the people of God commonly accepted in his day in rabbinic circles, a view that held that both the Messiah and the people were conceived by God even before the creation of the world. Of course, in this case the point is not the fate of specific people, which God by no means predetermines, leaving human beings freedom of choice, but only the very fact of the existence of the people of God, destined to appear in the world and play their role in God's design. Paul transfers this idea to the Church, in which he sees the new people of God. Turning to Christ and being joined to the Kingdom, the one who is joined becomes part of the people of God, conceived before the creation of the world, and a participant in the plan that has existed from eternity. But the coming of the Kingdom of God is also part of this plan, whose realization entered a new, decisive stage with the Savior's coming into the world.

The spread of the "word," that is, of witness, is nothing other than the entrance of the Kingdom into the world, because it is through witness that those seeking new life are joined to it. It is no accident that the apostle speaks of the importance of the word being spread and "glorified," and also of the need to be delivered from those who preach the Kingdom insincerely (1-2). In mentioning "glorification," Paul undoubtedly has in mind the presence of God revealed to Moses during the Sinai theophany (Exod 3:1-6) and accompanying the people throughout their history, which later came to be called "the glory of God" or "the glory of Yahweh" (in the Synodal translation, "the glory of the Lord").

Being joined to the Kingdom naturally also implied abiding in the presence of God, that sanctification of the faithful and, through them, of the whole world which previously, before Christ's coming into the world, was possible only in part, but has now become possible in all its fullness. This is God's plan, in which everyone joined to the life of the Kingdom becomes a participant. It is not surprising that the history of the Kingdom and its becoming in our world, transformed but not yet transformed to the end, the spiritual path of each faithful person, and the design of God that determines both, are united into one whole. The Kingdom does not belong to God alone. He shares it with everyone who, in turn, is ready to share his life with Him.

The apostle Paul calls his spiritual children to faithfulness. To "stand" means not to "sit" and not to "lie down," that is, not to be relaxed, not to flee from that spiritual battle which Christian life in this world proves to be.

Of course, this is not easy, but there is something that can strengthen us in such "standing." Paul calls this spiritual weapon "tradition," that is, what has been handed on to us by someone who received it from the Source of spiritual strength, from Christ Himself. We, in turn, having received this weapon through instruction, can become able to pass it on further to other people who need strengthening.

Let us note that Paul speaks of two ways of instruction: through the spoken word and through the written word. By this he indicates that important for us are both Revelation fixed in written form, Holy Scripture, and the experience accumulated by the Church in interpreting Scripture and preaching the Word of God, Holy Tradition. Taken together, they become the spiritual weapon that strengthens us in "standing."

Let us note this detail for ourselves: "taken"! A weapon is useless if it has not been taken; therefore in the apostle Paul's call to faithfulness there are these words: "hold to the traditions."