The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.
Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.
My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.
Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur (as specified below).
2 Thessalonians 1:5-10
The Judgement at Christ’s Coming
5 This is evidence of the righteous judgement of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— 6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from[a] the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.
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Last week’s post concluded my study of 1 Thessalonians; in Chapter 5, Paul gave closing guidelines on behaviour towards other Christians.
Today’s post begins a study of 2 Thessalonians, which Paul wrote a few months after his first letter.
Matthew Henry’s introduction, finished posthumously in this instance by Daniel Mayo, who also completed the commentary on 1 Thessalonians, states (emphases mine):
This Second Epistle was written soon after the former, and seems to have been designed to prevent a mistake, which might arise from some passages in the former epistle, concerning the second coming of Christ, as if it were near at hand. The apostle in this epistle is careful to prevent any wrong use which some among them might make of those expressions of his that were agreeable to the dialect of the prophets of the Old Testament, and informs them that there were many intermediate counsels yet to be fulfilled before that day of the Lord should come, though, because it is sure, he had spoken of it as near. There are other things that he writes about for their consolation under sufferings, and exhortation and direction in duty.
From 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5, Paul took exception to those in the congregation who did not work. He did not specify why, but it is possible that those who were idle were waiting for the Second Coming and thought it was imminent, therefore, there was no need for them to work. Therefore, he needed to write to the congregation to get them out of the mindset that the Second Coming was imminent, just that it will definitely happen one day and, for that, they must prepare their hearts and minds in order to avoid judgement.
Even with people like that, the Thessalonians were known throughout the churches in Macedonia as being loving, faithful Christians who set the best example for converts. This held true even as they were persecuted for their faith.
These are the first four verses in 2 Thessalonians 1:
Greeting
1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving
3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers,[a]as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.
John MacArthur points out a few things with regard to those verses:
… suffice it to say for this moment that Paul is the author and he has two fellow missionaries along with him, Silas, or Silvanus — Silas being his Jewish name, Silvanus his Roman name — and Timothy. They are with Paul and so he includes them in the opening greeting though Paul himself is alone the author. They are in the city of Corinth. They have been there for some time now. In fact, they were together when he wrote 1 Thessalonians some months before the writing of the second letter. They were together also for the founding of the church in Thessalonica. If you go back to Acts 16 and 17 you will see that Paul, Silas, and Timothy were there when the church began. They were there later on when the first letter was written and they were together again in Corinth for the writing of the second letter.
You will also notice that uncommonly Paul adds nothing to his name. He doesn’t say, “Paul, an apostle; Paul, called of God; Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” All of those familiar things by which he designates himself are omitted here. It’s almost as if he is intending to say that my apostleship and my call and my role and my title and my leadership and my office are not in question among you, so I need make no reference to it. And he doesn’t. Although in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 he does defend himself against what would be attacks from the outside of the church against his integrity. There apparently were no questions inside the church so he makes no reference to his apostleship.
Furthermore there is a loving, intimate kind of tone in this letter and it is a letter written on that level so its purpose is not apostolic authority, but loving intimacy and encouragement. And therefore the absence of title makes it a more endearing introduction.
He includes Silvanus, or Silas, who was a faithful partner of Paul. He was senior in years to Timothy, probably closer to the age of Paul. In Acts 15:22 he is called “a chief among the brethren, a leader.” He is called in Acts 15:32, “a prophet.” It is noted in Acts 16 that he was a Jew and like Paul, also a Roman citizen. He is a familiar friend of Paul, was with him in some very dire circumstances, including being jailed with him in the city of Philippi.
Then you will note Timothy, the young man Paul had met in Acts 16, moving along with him, Paul’s companion, Paul’s son in the faith whom he was training to take the mantle when he passed on.
So here the three were together. As I said, they were together when the church was founded. They were together when the first letter was written. And they’re together again this time. And probably this is the last time the three of them were together in the life of Paul …
You’ll also remember that that is the same thing identically to what he said in chapter 1 of the first letter. Only one word differs. Notice in verse 1 the word “our God,” “our Father.” That is the only word that differs from the opening of the first letter. The first letter says, “God, the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” And here in the intimacy of this letter he chooses to use that personal possessive pronoun “our” to emphasize that God is the Father of believers. May I add that is an unusual emphasis? Usually in the epistles of Paul God is seen as the Father generally, or God is seen as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Rarely is He seen as the Father of believers. That is true but that is not the main feature or emphasis of his fatherhood in the epistles or for that matter in the gospels.
But here is an appropriate emphasis for a little church being approached intimately in a time of severe persecution. They are the subject and the object of a loving Father’s tender care. And he notes, of course, the key word there, the word “in.” We are in God our Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ. And here he’s simply reiterating their vital union with God and with Christ.
MacArthur gives us more on the timing of this second letter, which Henry’s commentary says was written in AD 52:
Sometime around the spring he wrote that first letter that we have studied called 1 Thessalonians. He then stayed in Corinth where he wrote that letter for about eighteen to twenty-two months, so he had a long visit there. But after having written that first letter early in his stay at Corinth, he writes the second letter. And it’s only months later. In other words, maybe some time from November through February is when he wrote this second letter. This means a few months have passed and he’s gotten another report. We don’t know where the report came from. We don’t know the source and we don’t know the specifics of it. But obviously he has heard further word and the further word about the Thessalonian church prompts him to write a second rich and wonderful letter to them.
The first thing you note if you read 2 Thessalonians is that he talks about persecution and endurance. So we can assume the persecution had continued. The persecution maybe escalated. The heat perhaps had been turned up.
The second thing you’ll note as you read this letter is that there still remained confusion over the Second Coming of Christ. ... And there may have been a false letter, that is a letter said to be from Paul that was not from Paul that had been given to the church at Thessalonica with some error in it. They, thinking it came from Paul, bought into it and it created some of the confusion. So there is the possibility that they had a false Pauline letter that had created some of their problems.
Furthermore there were other false teachers who said that suffering means the end is present with you. You’re living in the end. And so that confusion continued about the Second Coming and that is apparent in the second letter.
The third thing that must have come to him in the report was that some of the people were believing that Jesus was coming in any split second. And as a result of that, because they were already living in the end, and Jesus would be there in any moment, they were not working. They had ceased to work and were becoming leeches on the Christian community and so the issue of indolence and laziness and a failure to work becomes a very important part of this letter.
Paul says that ‘this’ — the Thessalonians’ steadfastness in the face of persecution and affliction — is evidence of the righteous judgement of God, for which they are also suffering (verse 5).
I am not sure that 21st century audiences would appreciate the import of that or find it of much comfort, so here is Henry’s explanation, which, although he does not use the word, says that suffering for the Christian faith is a form of sanctification:
Their faith being thus tried, and patience exercised, they were improved by their sufferings, insomuch that they were counted worthy of the kingdom of God. Their sufferings were a manifest token of this, that they were worthy or meet to be accounted Christians indeed, seeing they could suffer for Christianity. And the truth is, Religion, if it is worth any thing, is worth every thing; and those either have no religion at all, or none that is worth having, or know not how to value it, that cannot find in their hearts to suffer for it. Besides, from their patient suffering, it appeared that, according to the righteous judgment of God, they should be counted worthy of the heavenly glory: not by worthiness of condignity, but of congruity only; not that they could merit heaven, but they were made meet for heaven. We cannot by all our sufferings, any more than by our services, merit heaven as a debt; but by our patience under our sufferings we are qualified for the joy that is promised to patient sufferers in the cause of God.
MacArthur points out that persecution will never destroy true faith — but it will destroy false faith:
Let me give you a principle. Persecution destroys false faith. Persecution destroys false faith. Persecution never destroys true faith. Persecution destroys false faith. You remember Matthew 13 verses 20 and 21? Jesus talked about seed that fell into the ground, the ground was rocky, the plant came up for a little while. As soon as persecution came, it died. Persecution destroys false faith. It never destroys true faith. And somebody says why? And the answer is, because true faith is indestructible, true faith is indestructible. Luke 22:32, Peter looked at Jesus in the moment of his failure, Jesus looked back at Peter and said, “I have prayed for you that your faith fail not.” Why is it indestructible? Because Jesus Christ will never let it be destroyed. It is indestructible. No matter how stressing, no matter how hard, no matter how troubled the times and events, no matter how deep, deep the pain, no matter how severe the persecution, the only thing that gets destroyed by persecution is false faith. That’s why we always say that persecution produces a pure church.
So, what happened to the Thessalonians? They were real. They were in God and in Christ, the genuine recipients of grace and peace. And therefore when the persecution came and the heat was turned up, all it did was increase their trust. Why? Because persecution drives the true believer to whom? To God. Remember 2 Corinthians 12 Paul says, “I had this thorn in the flesh.” Where did he go? “Three times I went to the Lord.” Trouble, persecution, distress, affliction, pain drives the true believer to the Lord and when you’re driven to the Lord you learn to know Him more deeply and the more you know Him the more you trust Him and that’s how trust grows. I would go so far as to say it is hard for faith to grow without difficulty, without persecution or affliction or trouble or trials or stress because God has no opportunity to draw you to Himself and display His love and mercy and power. So, the true believer accepts all of this and finds his trust in God is growing.
The Apostle says that God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict the Thessalonians (verse 6), and indeed, any other believer, then and now, to the end of time.
Henry says:
A punishment inflicted on persecutors: God will recompense tribulation to those that trouble you, v. 6. And there is nothing that more infallibly marks a man for eternal ruin than a spirit of persecution, and enmity to the name and people of God: as the faith, patience, and constancy of the saints are to them an earnest of everlasting rest and joy, so the pride, malice, and wickedness of their persecutors are to them an earnest of everlasting misery; for every man carries about with him, and carries out of the world with him, either his heaven or his hell. God will render a recompence, and will trouble those that trouble his people. This he has done sometimes in this world, witness the dreadful end of many persecutors; but especially this he will do in the other world, where the portion of the wicked must be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
MacArthur looks at the word ‘just’ in that verse:
Verse 6: “It is only just.” It is only just to give relief to those who are afflicted and to the other believers. It is only just.
Think about that. That is a startling statement. It is only just to repay, antapodidōmi – very, very strong word. It is only just. It is essential to God’s nature as holy, to God’s nature as righteous, to God’s nature as just. It is essential that He give relief, it is right to do that. This is an amazing thing to think about. We can understand that it is right, that it is just, and therefore it is necessary for God to punish and repay with vengeance those who rejected Him. We can understand that kind of divine justice.
MacArthur also explains ‘affliction’ used in verse 6:
How is that vengeance, that retribution and that punishment to be meted out? First of all, in verse 6 it says, “God will repay with affliction.” That means with pain. It will be a painful execution of judgment, of justice. Furthermore in verse 9, this penalty to be paid will be eternal. It will be an eternal pain, eternal destruction, he calls it. The word means ruination. In other words, man as to any value or any purpose or any worthiness will be ruined. It will be the ruination of that individual, eternally ruined and eternally to bear pain. Further, that is defined as being away from the presence of the Lord and away from the glory of His power. No evidence of the presence of God. He will not be there. No manifestation of the glory of His power. To be in that place called hell prepared for the devil and his angels is to be utterly apart from any representation of God or any display of His power whatsoever, left only to the underworld of fallen angels in their unmitigated, wickedness and punishment and unrelieved and eternal pain. That’s retribution. That’s what happens when Jesus comes.
Yet, while God will justly punish persecutors and others among the wicked, the persecuted and His other faithful servants will find relief when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels (verse 7).
The world has not seen Jesus Christ in His full glory and power having been at the right hand of the Father since the Ascension, but at the Second Coming — at some point in future — those alive at the time will experience it. It will be a longed-for relief for those who belong to Him and a terrifying reality to those who are not His. Those who have already died will experience their final judgement. Those whose souls have been at rest with Him will receive their glorified bodies and join Him forever in heaven. Those who have been in hell will receive their final condemnation, sometimes referred to as the second death. All decisions will be final. There will be no second chances.
MacArthur discusses ‘revealed’:
The key statement in this text is in verse 7, “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed.” The Lord Jesus shall be revealed. Verse 10 says it in a briefer way, “When He comes.” The Second Coming of Jesus Christ is then the theme here. Ever and always the Christian reads the Scripture and it points to the climax of history being the return of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus, as He is called there in verse 7, is now at the right hand of God. He has been exalted as the sovereign Lord of the church, as the faithful High Priest unto God for His people. But the day is coming when He shall be revealed.
Currently He is hidden. He is so much hidden now that the majority of the world probably believes that He is not even alive. But He shall be revealed. Presently we love Him though we have not seen Him. Some day we will see Him and love Him fully.
Also:
The word “revealed” means disclosed, unveiled, it is the apokalupsis, the apocalypse, the unveiling, the revealing. As we have been noting in our study of the book of Revelation, Jesus came the first time veiled, He came the first time hidden in human flesh so that His full glory was not seen. The second time He is unveiled, He is revealed, and He comes in full glory.
Continuing that thought, Paul says that Jesus will reveal Himself in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey His Gospel (verse 8).
MacArthur reminds us of His own words in Matthew’s Gospel:
Paul is not inventing this, nor is it the first time that the Scriptures have talked about this two-fold coming. Jesus Himself made it abundantly clear that the nature of His coming would be two-fold. In Matthew chapter 13 Jesus says in verse 40, “Therefore just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness and will cast them into the furnace of fire, and in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” That’s the retribution. When He comes the angels will collect the ungodly and cast them into hell.
Later on in Matthew chapter 24 He says, verse 30, “The Son of Man comes, He comes on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory and He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.”
In Matthew 13 the angels gather the ungodly for burning. In Matthew 24 the angels gather the elect, the godly, to take them into the kingdom and then they will shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, as it said also in Matthew chapter 13.
MacArthur says:
So, Jesus promised this, not only in the passages that I read, but in numerous other passages that at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ there would be a two-fold work. And all humanity falls into one of those two categories. The whole world will experience the return of Christ. Every eye will see Him. Every human being alive or dead who has ever lived or is living at the time will experience the effect of the Second Coming either for relief or for retribution. All of destiny ultimately falls into those two categories.
Paul here, as I noted, is echoing what Jesus promised, that he would come and that there would be a gathering together of the ungodly and that they would be cast into hell, which is vengeance, wrath and punishment. Jesus promised that was the purpose of His coming and Paul reiterates that at this particular point in this text. Actually there isn’t any text that I know of — and I have scoured them all obviously in the New Testament — there isn’t any text in the New Testament outside the book of Revelation that is as poignant and potent in portraying the fierceness of the Lord Jesus as the executioner of the ungodly as this one. It is a very strong statement that the Spirit of God makes through the pen of Paul.
Also:
The Lord appears in the Old Testament with His angels. Christ appears in His second coming with the same angels because they are the same angels. There were only the angels that were created at the same time, they don’t reproduce. The same angels that surrounded God in the Old Testament will surround Christ in His return, which is to say that Jesus is God or He carries the same angels with Him as the ministers of His authority.
And then … What do we mean, “He comes in flaming fire”? This is not the kind of fire that you get from lighting something with a match or a torch. This is not a wood fire. This is not a gasoline fire, this is not any kind of temporal, earthly, physical fire. It is the fire of His glory. And you see it all the way back in the third chapter of Exodus where Moses comes to the burning bush, “And the angel of the Lord appears to him in the blazing fire from the midst of the bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.” What kind of fire is that that is burning but doesn’t consume anything? It’s the glory fire of the presence of the Lord. Moses on Sinai referred to it.
But let’s look at chapter 19 of Exodus. “It came about on the third day when it was morning. There were thunder and lightening flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain” – Mount Sinai – “a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.
“Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai. And when the Lord came down there was an earthquake and there was thunder and there was fire.” Again, this is not physical fire, this is the fire of God’s glory, the blazing shekinah glory of God manifest. It is a fire, however, that consumes sinners in the spiritual sense.
Continuing from verse 8, Paul says that those who do not know God and those who have not obeyed the Gospel of our Lord Jesus will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and away from the glory of His might (verse 9).
We must remember how much God hates sin. In fact, He required blood sacrifices as expiation for sin, culminating with Christ’s one perfect oblation on the Cross. However, those who do not know about that or have rejected it will not receive its benefits.
MacArthur explains:
Sin deserves death and sin deserves hell and sin deserves judgment and sin brings vengeance. Man is not helpless. Man is not some kind of careless victim. He chooses his sin. He chooses rebellion. He chooses unbelief. And the threat of God’s vengeance and Christ’s judgment is God’s way of making the path of the transgressor hard. It’s a deterrent; it’s a roadblock on the way to hell. When people fail to heed God’s call and continue in their sin, God is just in meting out a right punishment. That’s why Romans 1:18 says that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men because God is just. All sin must be punished. It is just, verse 6, for God to repay. It is just. This is the reason why. It’s an old principle. It’s not a new one. God has always operated on this principle …
First of all, the retribution will be dealt to those who do not know God, who do not know God. That means to say they have no personal relationship with God. They may imagine that they know Him, they may know about Him, but they do not in the truest and purest sense know God. And therein lies the problem. Jesus said in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” Knowing God is the key. But people who do not know God are going to feel the retribution.
You say, “Well now wait a minute. How is it that they are responsible for knowing God? How can everyone be responsible?” Back to Romans 1 again. “The wrath of God is revealed” verse 18 “from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
What do you mean they suppress it? That which is known about God is evident within them for God made it evident to them. God has planted the knowledge of Himself within every person.
I think that’s what John had in mind when he said, “Christ is the light that lights every man that comes into the world.” There is the knowledge of God that is there. And then not only is it on the inside but on the outside. Creation makes His invisible attributes visible.
So they do know God on some level, “But because they do not honor Him as God or give thanks, but became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened, professing to be wise they became fools. They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and crawling things. Therefore God gave them over.”
When man had the knowledge that could lead him to the true knowing, he rejected it. And so we can say that hell is for people who don’t know God …
There’s a second definition of these people who will feel the retribution. Not only are they the ones who persecute Christians but they belong to a larger group of people who do not know God. And then he adds, “Those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”
Here are some whose guilt is even intensified. It is one thing to have the knowledge of God innately, to have the knowledge of God from creation on the outside and be responsible for that and turn from that basic knowledge, that perceivable intellectual knowledge and to turn away from God. It is something else then to reject the gospel of our Lord Jesus. That even brings a greater guilt. The hottest hell, the severest punishment is reserved for those who rejected the gospel. All those people who perished in Old Testament times, all those people who refused the knowledge of God which was available to them, who refused to know God truly will suffer forever in hell. But their punishment will not exceed the punishment of those who trampled the gospel. Since Jesus came and died and rose again, there is a greater responsibility, and for rejection of the gospel, there is intensified guilt.
Some people don’t know God because they reject that basic knowledge that God has given them and they never have any more knowledge. And so their rejection is at that level. Some people reject God even though they have heard more about Him, they’ve read about Him, they’re exposed to Christianity, they still reject God. There are all kinds of levels of information in which people can still not know God. But the pinnacle is when you have heard the gospel and you have listened to the story of the cross and the resurrection and reject that, that is the most intense guilt that brings about the severest punishment, the hottest hell, the greatest vengeance.
In Hebrews 10 that is clearly stated. “If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” If you reject the truth in Christ, that sacrifice, “There’s nothing else for you but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment.” All you’ve got to look forward to is a terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries, hell. If you reject Christ, all you can expect is judgment and hell. And then in verse 28 he says, “Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.” If you reject the Old Testament, if you reject the Law of Moses, you’re going to suffer. “But how much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the Spirit of grace?”
If you reject the gospel, a severer punishment comes. And then verse 30, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” and then verse 31, “It’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” You see, when you don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, you bring upon yourself the severest retribution, the severest vengeance.
Acts chapter 17 and verse 30 and 31 reiterate this. It says in verse 31…30, there was a time when God overlooked things “but now declares all men everywhere to repent because…” actually “He now commands all men everywhere to repent because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed, the man whom He raised from the dead, even Christ.” There was a time when God was more tolerant but now He commands everyone to repent because He sees the judgment coming at the return of Christ …
This gospel is a command. It is not a suggestion, it is a command. That is why God will come in vengeance because you who disobey the command have flaunted yourself against His authority. It’s a command to be obeyed. That’s why Paul talks about the obedience of faith in the book of Romans. So when the gospel is preached, it is a command. When is the last time you said to somebody, “I command you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God commands you”? John the Baptist didn’t come along or Jesus and say, “It would certainly be wonderful if you would repent,” he said, “Repent, or else.”
On that fateful day, Paul says, Jesus will be glorified in His saints and will be marvelled at among all who have believed, because they believed in Paul’s testimony (verse 10).
Henry says:
And then the apostle’s testimony concerning this day will be confirmed and believed (v. 10); in that bright and blessed day, 1. Christ Jesus will be glorified and admired by his saints. They will behold his glory, and admire it with pleasure; they will glorify his grace, and admire the wonders of his power and goodness towards them, and sing hallelujahs to him in that day of his triumph, for their complete victory and happiness. 2. Christ will be glorified and admired in them. His grace and power will then be manifested and magnified, when it shall appear what he has purchased for, and wrought in, and bestowed upon, all those who believe in him. As his wrath and power will be made known in and by the destruction of his enemies, so his grace and power will be magnified in the salvation of his saints. Note, Christ’s dealings with those who believe will be what the world one day shall wonder at. Now, they are a wonder to many; but how will they be wondered at in this great and glorious day; or, rather, how will Christ, whose name is Wonderful, be admired, when the mystery of God shall be finished! Christ will not be so much admired in the glorious esteem of angels that he will bring from heaven with him as in the many saints, the many sons, that he will bring to glory.
These are Paul’s closing verses in 2 Thessalonians 1:
11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfil every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
MacArthur gives us something to consider when comparing Christianity with other world religions:
We are in God our Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ ... No religion of the world talks like this. It is not said that you are in Confucius, or you are in Buddha. That is not the way the world speaks religiously. No one in the Muslim religion is in Mohammed, or in Allah. Such terminology is unique to Christianity because we know that the Bible teaches that when one puts faith in Christ there is then an intimate union of life, shared life in which we are indivisibly united with the living God and the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a common life. This is the mystery that Paul unfolds in Ephesians 3:9 and Colossians 3 where he talks about the union that we have. This is what he had in mind in Galatians 2:20, that mystical life union that we have with Jesus Christ. And so that marks our identity as a truly genuine believer. We are in God, in Christ, sharing a common union of life with them both.
It is also essential to note and certainly Paul had it in mind, verse 1, he combines God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; verse 2, God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And by putting those two together on an equal footing — the Son is placed alongside the Father — you can see the emphasis on the deity of Jesus Christ. It is always interesting to me that this is done without any comment, without any need to sort of explain this. If indeed Jesus were not God, if He were not equal to God, then there would need to be some explanation here for putting God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ together as the ones in whom the believer is deeply united in eternal, spiritual life. And furthermore in verse 2, there would need to be some explanation as to how God and the Lord Jesus Christ both can be the source of grace and the source of peace if Christ is not in fact God.
But the New Testament makes no effort to try to explain such equality because such equality is in fact the obvious truth of the New Testament. So he is saying, you are not only gathered into a place called Thessalonica, but you are enfolded into God and you are enfolded into Jesus Christ. And as such, you are the recipients of ongoing grace and the recipients of ongoing peace — grace simply being God’s favor to the sinner; peace being the result of that favor. And you have it not once in the past, but ever and always in the present.
That sums up the benefits of Christianity perfectly. Who could ask for more? It is so sad that so many settle for less.
Paul has more on the Second Coming.
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