What is the significance of First and Second Thessalonians being earlier letters but final in content?
Though written earlier, First and Second Thessalonians are final in content because they advance believers to the ultimate hope: being caught up to meet the Lord and ever being with Him. They move beyond the prison epistles to glory, with Second Thessalonians showing the wicked one revealed after the church’s departure.
Les explains that these earlier letters are really final in their content. They can follow the format of doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, and they go to an even higher plane than the prison epistles. First Thessalonians chapter 4 says we shall be caught up to meet Him in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Second Thessalonians chapter 2 says that after the departure of the church, then shall that wicked one be revealed. Those two letters take us up to the fruition of everything, when we will finally be in glory with our Crucified, Resurrected, and Ascended Lord.