B. Thanksgiving, Including The First Issue (1:3-10)

B. THANKSGIVING, INCLUDING THE FIRST ISSUE (1:3-10)

In this remarkable thanksgiving — a single sentence embracing all of verses 3-10 — Paul does two things. In the first part (vv. 3-4), and very typically, he thanks God for the perseverance of the Thessalonians in the midst of their present trials. But in the second part (vv. 6-9) he launches into a considerable pronouncement of coming judgment on those responsible for their suffering, while concluding (v. 10) with a word of eschatological hope for those who believe. The clauses that constitute our verse 5 serve a transitional role between these two distinguishable elements.

Thus, in a manner somewhat similar to that in 1 Thessalonians, but unlike that of his later letters, Paul uses the actual thanksgiving report (vv. 3- 4) to address his first major concern as well — the Thessalonian believers’ ongoing persecution and suffering at the hands of their fellow Gentiles (vv. 6-9). The result is the most exceptional of the Pauline thanksgivings, in that, beginning with verse 6, he focuses less on the Thessalonians themselves and more on God’s final judgment of their enemies.⁷³⁶ This initial thanksgiving⁷³⁷ thus evolves into the first of the three major concerns in the letter, namely to encourage the Thessalonian believers in the face of increased “persecutions and trials” (v. 4). The major part of it (vv. 6-10) is intended to demonstrate God’s justice⁷³⁸ in light of this present, apparently increased, persecution, concluding with the assurance of their own eschatological future. The result is a truly remarkable “thanksgiving,” since ultimately it focuses not on the believers themselves but on God’s final judgment of their enemies; and it is this future certainty that is apparently intended to encourage the Thessalonians and thus to cause them to take hope in the midst of present trials.

Although the whole of this very long sentence⁷³⁹ has its enigmatic moments, one can at least track how it apparently evolved. Verse 3 offers the basic thanksgiving regarding their “faith” and “love,” about which the apostolic band has boasted to others (v. 4). This is straightforward, standard stuff. Verse 5, by way of the puzzling apposition endeigma (“evidence” or “plain indication”), moves on⁷⁴⁰ to remind them of God’s coming righteous judgment on all of God’s enemies (vv. 6-9). The sentence then concludes (v. 10) with the assurance that the believers themselves will be counted worthy of the coming kingdom.

1. Thanksgiving for Perseverance in Suffering (1:3-4)

3 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. 4 Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.

This first part of the thanksgiving contains what one comes to expect of Paul at this point. He begins with gratitude to God for the Thessalonians themselves in light of what he has learned from Timothy regarding their standing firm in the present trying situation (v. 3). Indeed, by way of encouragement he informs them further that the apostles have boasted to others about their perseverance (v. 4), the end result of which, he goes on, is their own certain eschatological future (v. 5). All of this is fairly standard stuff; the surprise comes in his long elaboration of verse 5 in the rest of the sentence (vv. 6-10). Thus the thanksgiving proper (vv. 3-4) is typical of those that will appear in subsequent letters; at the same time, however, it has its share of unique features — a phenomenon that is also in keeping with all subsequent thanksgivings. These will be noted in the discussion that follows.

3 Paul begins his thanksgiving in this instance with two unique features: an emphasis on its obligatory nature and the inclusion of the vocative “brothers and sisters.” The emphasis on its obligatory nature⁷⁴¹ can be taken in either of two ways: as emphasis on its divine necessity, or on the Thessalonians themselves — that thinking about them makes thanksgiving for them something of a compulsion. Most likely it is the latter.⁷⁴² In receiving news back from Timothy, Paul has a strong sense of divine obligation to thank God for them, both for their own growth in faith and love and especially for their perseverance in the midst of increased persecution.⁷⁴³ At the same time the nature of this thanksgiving offers the basic model which will be reflected in all of Paul’s subsequent thanksgivings — genuine thanksgiving, but for the very things that also need strengthening, and sometimes correction.⁷⁴⁴

Such giving of thanks “always for you, brothers and sisters,”⁷⁴⁵ is fitting⁷⁴⁶ because⁷⁴⁷ of what Paul has learned about their staying true to the gospel in terms of both their faithfulness to Christ and their love for one another.⁷⁴⁸ Indeed, they are more than simply staying true; in each case they are showing signs of “increase.”⁷⁴⁹ At the same time, it should be pointed out, these are also the two Christian virtues that need further attention in this community. In fact, the main parts of this letter address some deficiencies in these two aspects of Christian life for which they are also being praised. Thus both the content and the unusually long nature of the present “thanksgiving” seem aimed directly at their “faith” — as a means of bolstering it by reassuring them of God’s sure eschatological justice, despite present circumstances. Bolstering this faith seems also the ultimate concern of the eschatological reminders in 2:1-12. The matter of “love” for everyone is then addressed in 3:6-16.

Thus Paul’s first point of thanksgiving has to do with their “faith,” which continues to carry its primary sense from 1 Thessalonians of “faithful trust” in God. After all, the issue for Paul in these letters is not simply with their “having faith” (= putting their trust in Christ), but with their ongoing steadfastness in that trust.⁷⁵⁰ And since Paul had earlier alluded to some possible “deficiencies” in their “faith” (1 Thess 3:10), he now gives thanks to God⁷⁵¹ that their “faith[fulness]” is showing signs of abundant increase, perhaps especially because this is something for which he prayed in 1 Thessalonians 3:12. Even so, this is the concern that will be picked up immediately — both in the rest of the thanksgiving itself and especially in the matter about “the day of the Lord” in 2:1-12.

His second point of thanksgiving is also a matter that carries over from the first letter, that “the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.” This bit of redundancy is especially Pauline. The point is easy to discern: that their love for one another within the believing community continues to be evident, indeed increasingly so.⁷⁵² One would like to think, therefore, that the admonition of 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 has thus taken root among most of them. But the present formulation is also a bit awkward. Paul is especially concerned to point out that everyone in the community is involved in this mutual love, thus (literally) “the love of each one of all of you for one another is growing.” In Paul’s understanding of Christian life, nothing could be more important than this. And even though it is easy for us at our distance to turn this into a Christian platitude, in fact here is a place where Paul has not only understood Christ himself, but has also kept this primary virtue at the forefront in writing to his churches. Even so, this is the issue that will be picked up — less explicitly, to be sure — at the end of the letter, because it is in the matter of love that the unruly-idle are especially falling short.

4 The net result of their increasing faith and abounding love is that Paul and his companions (lit. “we ourselves”⁷⁵³) gladly boast about them in all of God’s churches. However, with the content of that boast he also begins to move toward the first issue to be taken up in the letter — their suffering because of relentless persecution from unbelieving fellow townspeople. Thus the first matter to be picked up from the preceding clause is their “faith.”⁷⁵⁴ What the Thessalonian believers now need to hear is the content of his “boast” about them in the other churches. In so doing Paul uses the key words “patience” and “faith[fulness],” again reflecting the language and concerns of the first letter.

But in reminding them that he knows well the context of their faithfulness, Paul now shifts the thanksgiving altogether toward that context. He and his companions thus presently boast of the Thessalonian believers’ “perseverance and faith[fulness]” in the context of “all the persecutions⁷⁵⁵ and afflictions ⁷⁵⁶” which they are currently enduring.⁷⁵⁷ On the surface of things this would not seem to be a very comforting word. But Paul has regularly instructed his churches that persecution would be the expected lot of those who willingly follow a Messiah who had been crucified by the Romans as a state criminal. And such persecutions will regularly be accompanied by “afflictions” or “hardships” of all kinds. So Paul informs these beleaguered believers by way of thanksgiving that he regularly “boasts” about them in the other churches because of their endurance and continuing faithfulness in the midst of such persecution.

As he has done in 1 Thessalonians — and will do in almost all of his letters — Paul gives thanks for what God is already doing among these believers regarding matters that also need further attention. There is much to learn from this habit of Paul’s. First of all, Paul recognizes more clearly than many who give leadership to the church that these are God’s people, after all, and Paul is only the Lord’s servant on their behalf. Second, he once more expresses gratitude for what God is already doing, thus putting the emphasis where it belongs, rather than focussing immediately on areas that need correction or improvement. May his tribe increase!

2. Judgment of the Persecutors and Salvation for God’s People (1:5-10)

5 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire⁷⁵⁸ with the angels of his power. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 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.

As noted, Paul’s first thanksgiving in this letter evolves into the first of the three major concerns of the letter⁷⁵⁹ — to encourage the Thessalonian believers in the face of increased “persecutions and trials” (1:4). Thus the rest — indeed, the major part — of this long and convoluted “thanksgiving” is intended to demonstrate the justice of God in the face of the Thessalonians’ present persecution. Our verse 5 serves as a transition between the two parts. Beginning at verse 6, where he (apparently) picks up the thrice-repeated verb pay back from the Septuagint of Isaiah 66:4-6,⁷⁶⁰ Paul spells out the just judgment of God that the Thessalonians’ present enemies will experience at the final revelation of Christ (vv. 6-7a). Significantly, it is Christ himself who will carry out the judgment at his coming (vv. 7b-10); equally significant, much of the passage is couched in language from several Old Testament judgment texts, where the Septuagint has Kyrios (“Lord,” as the substitute term for Yahweh⁷⁶¹) as the administrator of judgment.⁷⁶² Thus one of the striking features of this very long sentence is that Christ is now the Kyrios (“Lord”) to whom Paul refers in these intertextual echoes. Thus, as already noted on 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13, by the time these letters were written⁷⁶³ the early Christian communities, here represented by Paul, were already attributing to their risen Lord, Jesus, the Kyrios = Yahweh texts of the Old Testament. ⁷⁶⁴ In so doing, they were at once asserting Christ’s own deity, while carefully not confusing him with the Father.

5 The next word in Paul’s sentence, the noun “evidence,”⁷⁶⁵ is not only puzzling but also sits awkwardly in terms of grammar; therefore, most English translations have done as the TNIV — supply a pronoun of some kind to aid the transition. Most likely Paul’s noun endeigma is an accusative, which he intended to stand in apposition to “your endurance and faithfulness” in the midst of persecution, since that seems to be the only thing in the preceding sentence that makes sense of what follows.⁷⁶⁶ Thus what Paul probably intended is that “your faithful endurance in the midst of your present hardships” functions as a “sign” or “evidence”⁷⁶⁷ — for the believers themselves. That much would have been easy enough had the word “evidence” not been followed immediately by the genitive, “of God’s righteous judgment.” But as the rest of the “thanksgiving” plays out, it seems clear that this phrase is purposefully anticipatory.⁷⁶⁸ That is, Paul is concerned with two matters at once: that the Thessalonians’ understand (a) the nature and purpose of their suffering, and (b) the role their suffering plays in anticipating God’s righteous judgments on their enemies. The rest of the present clause spells out the first matter; the rest of the sentence itself (vv. 6-10) spells out the second.

Thus before going on to delineate God’s righteous judgment on those responsible for their present “persecutions and trials,” Paul reminds these believers of what will be the end result of their own present endurance. God’s righteous judgment on their behalf will be that “you will be counted worthy⁷⁶⁹ of the kingdom of God,” since this is the ultimate goal “for which you are in fact⁷⁷⁰ suffering.” In this second occurrence of “kingdom of God” language in these letters (cf. 1 Thess 2:12), one cannot be sure whether it is intended as a future or present referent. Most likely it primarily refers to the presentness of God’s rule⁷⁷¹ — they are currently suffering for the kingdom that transcends the kingdoms of this world. But at the same time it points to their future, so that present suffering has a role to play with regard to their presence in the final kingdom. Thus suffering is the lot of those who would be disciples of a suffering servant Messiah. Indeed, Christian suffering is always to be understood in this way.

Although there is a theological sense in which no one should consider themselves “worthy of the kingdom,” Paul is not here thinking in later theological terms. The Thessalonian believers are currently suffering “for the sake of the kingdom,” and God is the one who accounts them worthy of citizenship in that kingdom, both now and in the future. Thus Paul’s final clause functions simultaneously both to affirm that their suffering is part of the larger package, as it were, and to assure them that the goal of all this is the ultimate one — being present in the final, eschatological kingdom, where God’s gracious rule is absolute.⁷⁷²

6-7a In Paul’s Greek sentence this clause begins with a conjunction that ordinarily would have the sense “if indeed,” but in this context it carries little of its conditional sense and more of what actually is so, thus “since indeed.” ⁷⁷³ One should further note that since Paul’s sentence at this point begins to get unmanageably long, the T/NIV translators have chosen to let the context carry the day; hence the striking affirmation stands by itself: “God is just” in fact. The rest of the clause (through v. 7a) spells out the nature of God’s justice.

In effect Paul simply appeals to God’s justice found in the Old Testament in the lex talionis, the law of just retribution.⁷⁷⁴ Thus God’s “just” dealings in this case are expressed in terms of what the Thessalonian believers have been experiencing — thlipsis (“affliction”),⁷⁷⁵ which is what God will eventually mete out on their persecutors. In effect, therefore, this clause serves as the thesis sentence for all that follows. For the Thessalonian believers who are being persecuted by their fellow townspeople, God’s justice will take a twofold form: “affliction” for those who are “afflicting” you, and “rest” for you who are being “afflicted.” In God’s time, Paul adds at the end, when you do experience rest, it will be “along with us,” meaning Paul, Silas, and Timothy. Thus Paul reassures them of their mutual, certain eschatological future. But what is promised here is not temporal judgment — judgment on their enemies within their near future — but eschatological judgment. Everything in these two letters indicates that Paul and the Thessalonians lived fully in the tension of the “already/not yet” of God’s rule. Life for them in the present is altogether predicated on Christ’s resurrection, which has thus also guaranteed their own certain future.

The rest of this sentence will spell out in some detail these two elements of God’s justice. In verses 7b-9, picking up language from several prophetic texts, Paul will delineate God’s just judgment on their persecutors, while in verse 10 he concludes by noting that the same “revelation” of the Lord Jesus that means judgment on their persecutors will mean “glorification” for God’s people.

7b-8 With this clause Paul presents the primary feature of God’s eschatological denouement, and thus the key moment in his sentence — the return of Christ himself (= “the Parousia/ Coming”), which Paul now describes as “the revelation of the Lord Jesus.”⁷⁷⁶ It is when this “revelation” ⁷⁷⁷ occurs that divine justice will be served. So to heighten the effect of this moment for his beleaguered friends, Paul describes the “revelation” with three prepositional phrases, in this order: “from heaven, with the angels of his power, in blazing fire.”⁷⁷⁸ The first and third of these (first and second in the TNIV) echo what he had earlier affirmed in his first letter. First, Paul begins with the Lord’s present location; he will be revealed “from heaven” (1 Thess 4:16; cf. 1:10) — biblical language for God’s “dwelling place.” At his ascension the risen Christ was “taken up into heaven,” from whence, Paul had assured them in his first letter, “he will descend” accompanied by various phenomena that are appropriate for “waking the dead” who will be raised at his coming. This spatial element of the coming is thus the first thing mentioned here as well.

Second (in Paul’s Greek sentence), at his coming the Lord, Jesus, will be accompanied by “the angels of his power.”⁷⁷⁹ This latter phrase thus interprets Zechariah’s “all his holy ones” (see 1 Thess 3:13) with concepts from Jewish apocalyptic. Most likely the phrase here means, “the angels who are the ministers of his power.”⁷⁸⁰

Third,⁷⁸¹ the Lord’s coming will also be accompanied with “blazing fire.”⁷⁸² With this phrase Paul moves altogether into the sphere of Jewish apocalyptic. The phrase itself is an echo of Isaiah 66:15, while the end of the clause includes language from Isaiah 66:4. The significance of this intertextual echoing of Isaiah is best seen by a display of the three texts (where common language is underlined):

Paul: of the Lord Jesus . . . in flaming fire, giving punishment to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ

Isa 66:15 The Lord as fire will come, and as a storm his chariots, to recompense with wrath, punishment and repudiation in flaming fire

Isa 66:4 Says the Lord [v. 2], . . . I will repay them because I called them and they did not obey me

Paul’s concern, of course, is to reassure the beleaguered Thessalonian believers that Christ at his coming will mete out God’s just punishment on their persecutors. In doing so, Paul has thus turned to well-known passages from the Old Testament, about which three matters are significant. First, the Lord in both Isaiah passages is Yahweh, while the Lord in Paul’s use of this language is specified as “the Lord, Jesus.” This means, second, that “the Lord” who will come “in blazing fire” to mete out this judgment is now “the Lord, Jesus Christ,” who will thus assume Yahweh’s role in the prophetic text. Third, the reason for judgment in Isaiah is that “they do not obey me,” where Isaiah’s “me = Yahweh”; this is now expressed in terms of “the gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ.” What has happened here, therefore, is that Paul has not only identified the Lord Jesus with the “Lord = Yahweh” of Isaiah’s oracle, but the gospel of the Lord Jesus is also what the wicked have not obeyed, and they will therefore be judged by him. One can hardly escape the christological implications of such an intertextual interchange.

The nature of the judgment is expressed with a word that has to do with “punishment,” and often with the stronger sense of “vengeance.”⁷⁸³ Unfortunately the latter word in English carries such totally negative connotations that one is loathe to use it with reference to God. But if one thinks of the word in relationship with its cognate “to avenge oneself,” then some of the sting is removed. In any case, there are two sides to the final divine “punishment.” On the one hand, divine justice is being served; on the other hand, and from the human perspective, the greater “punishment” is to be “shut out” from the presence of the Lord, language that reflects the original punishment of the human race in Eden. This indeed is “full retribution” for human arrogance against God.

Given this clear echoing of Old Testament apocalyptic language, one therefore cannot be sure how literally some of it is to be taken, especially so in light of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, where the emphasis is altogether on the effect of the Coming on believers. Here the emphasis is on the effect of that coming on unbelievers, whose twofold description is that (a) they do not know God and therefore (b) do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Although some have suggested, primarily on grammatical grounds, that Paul has two different groups in view,⁷⁸⁴ that is probably to make fine distinctions which Paul did not intend. In his view rather, as a believer in Christ, these are now corresponding realities.⁷⁸⁵ The only genuine “knowing” of God that is available to anyone is that which comes by way of the gospel, which has the person and work of Christ as its essential feature. Thus those who do not “know God” in this way, as obedience to “the gospel of our Lord Jesus,” are thus destined for the “punishment” that the Lord himself will mete out.

9 Still continuing his long sentence, Paul now goes on to describe the judgment of the persecutors. They “will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” The T/NIV’s “will be punished” puts into an English passive what Paul’s Greek expresses with an active verb and an object, (lit.) “[they] will pay the penalty.” Thus the translators have turned Paul’s striking metaphor into something a bit more manageable in English, but at the same time have lost the force of the metaphor itself. It is true, of course, that “being punished” is a form of “paying the penalty,” but the change of grammatical subject (from “the persecutors’ paying the penalty” to “their being punished [by God]”) seems to put the emphasis at the wrong place. Granted that this latter description fits well the expected reality; nonetheless, Paul’s emphasis is on their own just deserts, not on God’s punishing activity. Thus Paul starts this clause with the assertion that “they will pay the penalty” for their failure to acknowledge God and to obey the gospel of his Son.

Although there are some inherent difficulties in understanding precisely what Paul meant by “eternal destruction from the face of the Lord,” most likely it reflects a Hebraism in which the nature of the judgment itself (“destruction”) is collapsed into its ultimate result (being cut off “from the face of the Lord”). Moreover, part of our difficulty stems from Paul’s once again deliberate use of Old Testament language, in this case of Isaiah 2:10 (LXX).⁷⁸⁶

Paul — who . . . from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

Isaiah — Hide from the face of the fear of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

Here Paul has not only brought language straight across from the Septuagint but has also kept the sense of Isaiah’s text, which appears in a “day of the Lord” oracle of judgment against Judah. In Isaiah that judgment has to do with Israel’s being cut off from the divine Presence; in Paul’s use of this language “the Lord” is now assumed to be Christ himself. As such this is a certain instance, therefore, where a unique, unshared prerogative of Yahweh has now been appropriated to refer to Christ.⁷⁸⁷

In picking up the language of Isaiah in this way Paul considers the nature of the judgment to be twofold. First, it affirms the ultimate in terms of eternal loss — to be cut off forever from the divine presence, which in this case is to be found in Christ. Thus for Paul the ultimate judgment on those “who do not know God” because they have not “obeyed the gospel of our Lord Jesus” is not in this case some expression of “hell,” but is to be forever incapable of knowing God’s presence as it has been revealed in Christ. For beings created in the divine image this is the ultimate desolation.⁷⁸⁸ Second, it means to miss out on “the glory of his might,” both now and forever. This latter phrase is probably a Hebraism that means something like “the splendor of his glory as the Mighty One.” If so, Paul is once more asserting a very high Christology, in which Christ again assumes the role of the Almighty.

It should be noted further that Paul has little or no interest in “hell” as such. For him eternal glory has to do with being in the presence of the Father and the risen Lord. The eternal judgment of the wicked is the absolute loss of such glory. It is probably an indictment against the later church that it has so often fixated on the gruesome nature of the “everlasting destruction,” whereas Paul’s emphasis is on their being shut out from God’s presence — the ultimate loss. Thus, one is not surprised when, in a later letter, Paul thinks of the believers’ eternal destiny in such terms only — “to depart and be with Christ” (Phil 1:23).

To be cut off from this possibility is what Paul sees as “everlasting destruction.” Very likely it is the loss of this very highly personal dimension of heaven — and its loss as “eternal destruction” — that has resulted in the later church’s frequent fixation on “heaven” or “hell” as a place to which people go. For Paul “heaven” has to do with the reality of “the coming of Christ” and the experience of “his mighty glory,” as one dwells eternally in that glory.

10 At the conclusion of his now long sentence, Paul continues what he has said about Christ in verse 9, but expresses the positive dimension of Christ’s “coming.” Paul’s own sentence actually concludes with the phrase “on that day,” which from our perspective sits awkwardly at the very end the sentence. The “day,” of course, is Old Testament language for the eschatological event that means eternal salvation for God’s people and punishment for his foes. For our present purposes, two matters are noteworthy. First, the very awkwardness of the phrase calls the reader’s attention to it.⁷⁸⁹ Very likely, therefore, it serves with its companion “at the revelation of the Lord Jesus” in verse 7b as a deliberate framing device, thus making the whole of 7b-10 a kind of “day of the Lord” oracle in its own right. At the same time, second, its emphatic position at the end is almost certainly a deliberate response to the issue to be raised next (2:1-12), where someone (apparently in Paul’s name) has declared among them that “the day of the Lord has already come.”⁷⁹⁰

The heart of this final clause in the sentence spells out the twofold effect of Christ’s coming on believers, both parts of which, when translated woodenly, have the capacity of sounding strange to modern ears. But as with much that has preceded, the key to this apparent strangeness lies with the fact that Paul is continuing deliberately to use language from Old Testament eschatological texts.

“When[ever]⁷⁹¹ he comes,” Paul begins, Christ himself “will be glorified in his holy people” (lit. “his holy ones,” thus traditionally “his saints”). As in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, this could be a reference either to “God’s holy people” or to “angels”; but in this case it is almost certainly the former. The reason one can be relatively certain here lies with the preposition “in,” which would seem to be a most unusual way of referring to angels. Furthermore, that would be completely out of keeping with Paul’s ordinary usage, and especially with his further appropriation here of language from the Septuagint — in this instance from Psalm 89:7 (LXX 88:8):

Paul — when he comes to be glorified in [among] his holy ones

Psalm 89 — God being glorified in the council of the holy ones

The only real issue in this case is whether Paul, in using this biblical language, was intending the preposition “in” to be a true locative, so that Christ, as the TNIV has it, will be glorified in his people, or whether Paul intended the more distributive locative, “among” his people.⁷⁹² It seems altogether possible that Paul’s “in” in this case is a deliberate “in your face” word against the Thessalonians’ persecutors. Thus at the same eschatological event in which the latter will be “punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord [Jesus],” the people of God in Thessalonica will be among those who will bring eternal glory to Christ by being present among the redeemed. Thus Christ the Lord is “glorified in them” on that day.

Next, and now using language from Psalm 68:35 (LXX 67:36),⁷⁹³ Paul affirms that Christ at his coming will be “marveled at among all those who believe.”

Paul — and to be marveled at among all who believe

Psalm 67 — Marvelous is God among his holy ones

Although the amount of such language is not as great as before, nonetheless the intertextual appropriation of the language of the Psalter seems certain, and this in a passage where Yahweh is referred to as Elohim (“God”) rather than by his Name, which came to be rendered as “Lord.”

What is striking in this passage is Paul’s deliberate use of this language from two places in the Psalter where the psalmists are extolling the unparalleled grandeur and greatness of Yahweh. For Paul that language perfectly fits the eschatological coming of Christ. Thus, with this series of echoes of “judgment” texts from the Old Testament, where Yahweh will “come” and mete out judgment, Paul, by way of the Septuagint’s use of Kyrios, now places Christ in God’s role as judge.

But with this apparently deliberate appropriation of texts from the Psalter Paul’s sentence has gotten away from him a bit; so to make sure that the Thessalonians do not miss the fact that all of this still has them in view, he adds, “This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.” That is, Paul wants the Thessalonian believers to recognize that they themselves will be among God’s “holy people,” who will “marvel at” the coming of Christ. This is therefore not a sort of “throwaway” clause, added at the end for their sakes; rather, it is quite the point toward which this entire recital has been heading right along. Whatever the nature of their present circumstances, with all the difficulties and suffering, Paul reassures them that they themselves will be among those who witness God’s judgment on their enemies when Christ comes “to give relief to you who are troubled” (v. 7).

Finally, in typical fashion Paul brings the Thessalonian believers and Paul and his companions together with the clause, “because you have believed our testimony,” not “gospel” in this case. At issue is not the proclamation of the gospel as such, but the relational factor. The Thessalonians became believers, destined for eternal glory, because “you believed our testimony to you.” At issue with this kind of language is not the “proclamation” itself, but the “witness” that Paul and his companions bore with regard to Jesus — as crucified, raised, and exalted. It was through their “believing” this “testimony” that they have been “included” in those who will themselves be “glorified” at Christ’s coming.

We should thus note at the end that Paul has not “lost his way,” as it were. Although it is true that from a later perspective the “thanksgiving” seems to take several twists and turns, in fact all of it has the Thessalonians and their present circumstances in view. Granted that they are experiencing considerable hardship, and granted that this is the direct result of their following Christ, what they need constantly to keep before them is the reality that the Crucified One, in and for whose name they are suffering, is also the Coming One. And at his coming, not only will they experience eternal glory, but their persecutors will experience the divine wrath.

Passages like this one have experienced a “mixed” review in the later church. For too many years they served to fuel the fires of eschatological expectations that had special interest in the fate of the wicked, whereas Paul in this passage is altogether concerned with comforting the suffering by reminding them of the just fate of their persecutors. Thus people who are especially keen on eschatological matters tend to use this passage primarily to work out the details of their own eschatological perspectives. But all of this kind of “application” tends to miss Paul’s own concerns by several leagues. He was speaking to a persecuted minority, to encourage them that in God’s own time there will be a great reversal of “fortunes.” And this word continues to function in precisely the same way for those millions of believers in our day who are in situations where following Christ means to be exposed to persecution, and often to danger as well.

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