2-thessalonians 2:15

Epistle - A Hebrew measurement.

Fast - Abstaining from food.

Therefore, brethren, stand fast - Their obtaining eternal glory depended on their faithfulness to the grace of God; for this calling did not necessarily and irresistibly lead to faith; nor their faith to the sanctification of the spirit; nor their sanctification of the spirit to the glory of our Lord Jesus. Had they not attended to the calling, they could not have believed; had they not believed, they could not have been sanctified; had they not been sanctified they could not have been glorified. All these things depended on each other; they were stages of the great journey; and at any of these stages they might have halted, and never finished their Christian race.

Hold the traditions which ye have been taught - The word παραδοσις, which we render tradition, signifies any thing delivered in the way of teaching; and here most obviously means the doctrines delivered by the apostle to the Thessalonians; whether in his preaching, private conversation, or by these epistles; and particularly the first epistle, as the apostle here states. Whatever these traditions were, as to their matter, they were a revelation from God; for they came by men who spake and acted under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; and on this ground the passage here can never with any propriety be brought to support the unapostolical and anti-apostolical traditions of the Romish Church; those being matters which are, confessedly, not taken from either Testament, nor were spoken either by a prophet or an apostle.

Therefore - In view of the fact that you are thus chosen from eternity, and that you are to be raised up to such honor and glory.

Stand fast - Amidst all the temptations which surround you; compare the notes on Ephesians 6:10-14. And hold the traditions which ye have been taught On the word "traditions," see the notes on Matthew 15:2. It means properly things delivered over from one to another; then anything orally delivered - any precept, doctrine, or law. It is frequently employed to denote that which is not written, as contradistinguished from that which is written (compare Matthew 15:2), but not necessarily or always; for here the apostle speaks of the "traditions which they had been taught by his epistle;" compare the notes, 1 Corinthians 11:2. Here it means the doctrines or precepts which they had received from the apostle, whether when he was with them, or after he left them; whether communicated by preaching or by letter. This passage can furnish no authority for holding the "traditions" which have come down from ancient times, and which profess to have been derived from the apostles; because:

(1) there is no evidence that any of those traditions were given by the apostles;

(2) many of them are manifestly so trifling, false, and contrary to the writings of the apostles, that they could not have been delivered by them;

(3) if any of them are genuine, it is impossible to separate them from those which are false;

(4) we have all that is necessary for salvation in the written word; and,

(5) there is not the least evidence that the apostle here meant to refer to any such thing.

He speaks only of what had been delivered to them by himself, whether orally or by letter; not of what was delivered from one to another as from him. There is no intimation here that they were to hold anything as from him which they had not received directly from him, either by his own instructions personally or by letter. With what propriety, then, can this passage be adduced to prove that we are to hold the traditions which professedly come to us through a great number of intermediate persons? Where is the evidence here that the church was to hold those unwritten traditions, and transmit them to future times?

Whether by word - By preaching, when we were with you. It does not mean that he had sent any oral message to them by a third person.

Or our epistle - The former letter which he had written to them.

2:15 Hold - Without adding to, or diminishing from, the traditions which ye have been taught - The truths which I have delivered to you. Whether by word or by our epistle - He preached before he wrote. And he had written concerning this in his former epistle.