C. Conclusion (2:13-17)
C. CONCLUSION (2:13-17)
It is common to view the items that follow Paul’s response in verses 3-12 as something of an “interlude” before he takes up the (final) issue regarding the disruptive-idle.897 But what should keep one from doing so is the clearly resumptive nature of verse 15, which serves as an inclusio with verse 2 above and thus holds the entire passage together. In light of that reality, this material can be better understood as Paul’s bringing the preceding argument to its proper conclusion. Thus the present section has three discernible parts — a thanksgiving (vv. 13-14), a concluding word (v. 15), and a concluding prayer (vv. 16-17) — each of which is demonstrably related to the preceding argument; and as we will note, each has its own role to play as part of the conclusion.
The thanksgiving itself stands in bold relief to the “litany of the lost” that has just preceded it, and therefore should not be separated from it as something new. It seems intended to reassure the Thessalonian believers, in light of the immediately preceding recital of judgment on their enemies, that they themselves are destined to share in Christ’s own glory. The concluding word that follows (v. 15) is then a final admonition for them to stand firm by holding fast to the “traditions” they have been taught, and which now have been reiterated for them. By picking up the language of verse 2, Paul’s present admonition thus also serves as an inclusio: at the end bringing the argument back to its beginning. Finally, in light of the false reports, the prayer (vv. 16-17) is aimed at encouraging their “hearts” and strengthening them to continue to serve the Lord in “word and deed”; at the same time it anticipates the final matter to be taken up in the letter.
1. Thanksgiving (2:13-14)
13 But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because God chose you as firstfruitsa to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 He898 called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.a Some manuscripts because from the beginning God chose you899
As noted, many scholars have found it easy to separate this prayer from its context,900 and thus to see it as imitating the second “prayer report” in 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13. But it is quite unlikely that the letter’s first recipients could possibly have understood it that way. In a document composed in uncials (“capital letters”) and without breaks between either words or sentences — not to mention lacking paragraphs — the Thessalonians would have seen it for what it was almost certainly intended to be: a thanksgiving to God for them, standing in stark contrast to the immediately preceding gruesome litany of judgment and condemnation on those who are persecuting them.
The contrasts are several, and would have been immediate for them. Besides the more general one between the destinies of believers and of those deceived by the enemy, there is the obvious, explicit contrast between those who “have not believed the truth” (v. 12) and the Thessalonians themselves who are saved in part “through belief in the truth” (v. 13); indeed, the former have “believed the lie” (v. 11). The very uniqueness of this phrasing regarding salvation calls the later readers’ attention to the contrast. Similarly, Paul contrasts the two destinies: the former “will be condemned” (v. 12), while believers have been chosen by God to “be saved” (v. 13). Finally, the two destinies stand in stark contrast in verse 14, where the Thessalonian believers are destined to “share in the glory of our Lord,” vis-à-vis their opponents who are destined to “be condemned” and thus “to perish.”
13 The opening words of this thanksgiving call to mind the prayer in 1:3. Paul continues to have a sense of divine compulsion to thank God for these believers. The singular difference between the way this prayer begins and the former one is found in the vocative, “brothers and sisters,” to which Paul has here added, “loved by the Lord.” In many ways this is a most remarkable — and thoroughly Pauline — addition, thoroughly Pauline because of the actual language used. In the opening thanksgiving of the first letter (1:4; q.v.), he echoed language from Deuteronomy 7:7-8 regarding Israel’s constitution as Yahweh’s people (“loved by God / chosen”). Here the same reality is expressed in terms of “loved by the Lord,”901 which is the precise language of the Septuagint found in the blessing of Benjamin in Deuteronomy 33:12. This can hardly have been accidental, since we know from other places in Paul’s letters that he himself was a Benjaminite (Rom 11:1; Phil 3:5), something concerning which he takes a measure of pride. What he has done, therefore, whether they would have caught it or not, is to bestow on these “beloved” friends his own ancestral blessing: they “are loved by the Lord.”902
One should perhaps note in passing that Paul makes rather consistent distinctions between God’s love and that of Christ. God’s love is the divine predicate on which Christ’s love found expression in history through his sacrificial death on their/our behalf, a love that is actualized for the believer through “the sanctifying work of the Spirit.” Thus the fact that believers are “loved by God” serves as the basis for everything. But one should also note that, in what appears to be a very unselfconscious way, Paul joins in one sentence the divine activities of God (the Father), Christ (the Son), and the Spirit on behalf of his beloved Thessalonians.
The result of Paul’s putting his thanksgiving in this way turns out to be the first of nearly forty proto-Trinitarian903 soteriological moments in Paul’s letters,904 which ordinarily elsewhere have the following “grammar” of salvation (see, e.g., Rom 5:1-8):
Salvation is predicated on the love of God; it is effected by Christ through his death and resurrection; and made effective through the work of the Holy Spirit.
But here it takes the unusual form of:
The Thessalonians have been chosen and called by God as firstfruits for salvation;evidenced by the fact that they are loved by the Lord; and are thus saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit.
What is striking here is not what is said about God, since throughout the Pauline corpus both “election” and “calling” are regularly attributed to God the Father. What is striking, rather, is that language usually reserved for God the Father is here freely attributed to “the Lord,”905 and that language usually attributed to Christ is the special province of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, in the other five instances where Paul speaks of Christ’s love (Gal 2:20; 2 Cor 5:14; Rom 8:35; Eph 3:19; 5:2), it is regularly tied explicitly to the love expressed in his redemptive death906 (e.g., Gal 2:20, “the Son of God, . . . who loved me and gave himself for me”).
More commonly Paul speaks of the love of God, which serves for him as the subject of salvation. In fact, two (Greek) sentences later (2:16) this is precisely what is said: “God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope” (cf. 1 Thess 1:4). And even though the phrase “loved by the Lord” is probably in this case an allusion to Christ’s saving work on the cross,907 rather than the subject of their salvation as when it is said of the Father, it is nonetheless remarkable that this particular attribution takes place in one of Paul’s triadic ways of speaking about salvation. It has been suggested with considerable insight908 that the reason for the shift of language in this case is for it to stand in deliberate contrast to what the same Lord Jesus will do to those whom he “will . . . destroy by the splendor of his coming” (v. 8).909 Thus in its second appearance in the corpus, God’s love for his elect people is expressed in terms of their being loved by Christ the Lord, an attribute that in Paul’s thinking is thus equally shared by Father and Son — by presupposition and without argumentation.910
It is of considerable interest that Paul has here chosen to refer to his Thessalonian friends as “firstfruits.” To be sure, there are many who prefer the (surely secondary) reading, “from the beginning”; but there is every good reason to reject that reading as either a deliberate or accidental interchange of a concluding sigma (Σ) for a nu (N). Although the textual evidence seems to be decidedly against “from the beginning,”911 those who still favor it do so because of Paul’s strong emphasis in this passage on God’s prior activity (where he is contrasting the Thessalonians’ “salvation” — and thus their security — with the “judgment” of the deceived in vv. 10-12). Thus he would be assuring them that God’s choice of them is “from the beginning [of time, can be the only possible intent, if original].” Great confidence can indeed be gained from such theological reassurance.
Nonetheless, the textual arguments seem rather fully on the side of “firstfruits,” which is likewise intended to be an encouraging word, but in a slightly different way. Since Paul does not qualify “firstfruits” in any way,912 he almost certainly intended these believers to see themselves as God’s “firstfruits” in Thessalonica. Thus the imagery would function in two directions. First, it is intended to encourage them right in the midst of those who are responsible for their present grief, who are described in our verses 10-12 as to their wickedness and eventual ruin. In the Thessalonian believers God has chosen a people for his own name — his firstfruits, as it were, of the great eschatological harvest that is assumed in verse 14, a theme which recurs throughout this letter. Second, and at the same time, it would therefore also function to encourage them that God has chosen still others from among their Thessalonian compatriots, who also shall escape the deception and resultant judgment and be “sanctified by the Spirit, as they believe the truth.” If the believing community is relatively small and currently heavily persecuted, they need to hear from the divine perspective — that is, from the perspective of “God’s having chosen them for salvation” — that there are still more, even from among their own townspeople, who will join them “for obtaining the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The goal of God’s election is “salvation,”913 language which can be — and for some has been — troubling for those who have been raised on Galatians and Romans as the only proper way to read and understand Paul. In this second occurrence of the word “salvation” in the Pauline corpus,914 however, Paul is not thinking in terms of “how” the salvation effected by Christ is made effective for the believer (“by faith”), as in Galatians and Romans. Rather, his concern here is with the twofold means whereby a person becomes one of God’s own people — and in this case especially in contrast to those who are not (in vv. 9-12). Thus having already described them as “loved by the Lord (Jesus),” and now portraying their salvation altogether as a matter effected by God (the Father), he goes on to describe its becoming effective in their lives; and, as usual in Paul, he places the divine means (the Spirit) before the human (believing the truth).915
Furthermore, in this instance Paul is not thinking about how each or any of them has/have been “saved.” That is to put the emphasis on the individual in ways that would not concern Paul at this point; rather, he is here thinking of them corporately, as is evidenced by his word order. These believers are thus set out in contrast to the unbelieving ungodly described in verses 9-12. The latter were described as being beguiled by “the ways wickedness deceives those who are perishing”; and they are perishing because “they refuse to love the truth.” The end result is that “they believe the lie” and “delight in wickedness.” The Thessalonian believers, on the other hand, have been “chosen for salvation” that God has effected by the twofold means of “the sanctifying work of the Spirit and [their own] belief in the truth” (or, perhaps better, “putting their trust in the truth”).
Thus Paul’s word order in this case is both explicable and significant. Their becoming believers is first of all the result of God’s “sanctifying work” (vis-à-vis “wickedness”) effected by the Spirit (vis-à-vis “Satan”); their role has been to “believe the truth” (vis-à-vis “the lie” and “delighting in wickedness”). Thus this unique moment is neither “un-Pauline,” as many assert, nor unlike the Paul of Romans and Galatians, as others seem to be anxious about. This is simply typical Paul, whose way of speaking about the saving work of Christ is regularly in response to the current situation into which he is writing. The point is that Paul is not here trying to make a theological statement at all, but to remind the Thessalonians of their own experience of “salvation,” part of which was that they believed the truth of the gospel when they heard it; and in that regard they stand in bold contrast to those who have not believed the truth and are thus destined to perish.
14 Having presented the Thessalonians’ unbelieving opponents as destined “to perish” and the believers themselves as chosen by God “to be saved,” Paul concludes his now long sentence by reminding them of both the means and final destiny of their calling. The clause begins with a neuter relative pronoun,916 as Paul’s way of embracing the entire preceding clause as its antecedent rather than any one part of it. Thus the same God who “chose them for salvation” effected the realization of that choosing “through our gospel.”
But the striking moment in this prayer comes at the end, where Paul speaks of the final destiny of the believer in terms of “obtaining the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is true that on two other occasions Paul speaks of Christ in terms of “glory,”918 but when this word is used as the eschatological goal of Christian redemption, it ordinarily refers to “the glory of God the Father,” as in 1 Thessalonians 2:12 (“. . . God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory”; cf. Phil 1:11; 2:11).
This common Old Testament word gives expression to the sheer majesty of the eternal God, unshared by any other, and to the wonder evoked by that majesty. It is Yahweh’s “glory” that Moses desired to see (Exod 33:18), and which then filled the tabernacle (40:35) and the temple (1 Kings 8:11). Indeed, Yahweh expressly says that he will not share his glory with another (Isa 42:8: 48:11, referring in this case to other “gods”). But precisely because the divine Son already shares that glory, Paul can easily speak in such terms. In this instance, to be sure, the phrase most likely has to do with Christ’s own present exaltation to glory, following his humiliation in death, an exaltation in which the Thessalonians will have a share. But even so, this attribution to Christ of language usually reserved for God is a remarkable way of speaking of the final goal of the Thessalonians’ redemption.
2. Concluding Exhortation (2:15)
15 So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings917 we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.
This concluding word is what makes clear that the preceding thanksgiving belongs to the argument of verses 1-12 and is not to be separated from it, as is done so often in the literature,919 not to mention the translations. What makes this clear is Paul’s deliberate pickup here of the language of verse 2, thus indicating that it serves with that sentence as an inclusio for the whole argument.920
15 With a second use in these letters of a strong “therefore,”921 which the TNIV translators have properly captured as “so then,” and a repeated vocative,922 Paul proceeds to offer a concluding exhortation as to what the Thessalonians are to do in light of the preceding explanation regarding the day of the Lord. They are to do two things: “stand firm and hold fast the traditions.”
The first imperative, “stand firm,” is in direct response to the concern expressed in verse 2, that they not be “easily unsettled or alarmed” by teaching that is contrary to that of which Paul has just reminded them. Indeed, the whole of Paul’s response, plus the concern expressed in verse 2 and repeated here by way of imperative, indicates that they were in fact on the verge of being “shaken.” The second imperative indicates the means by which they are to stand firm: by holding fast to the “traditions,”923 that is, to the teaching that has already been “handed down” to them by Paul himself. The use of the word “traditions” here, which has a long history in the Judaism in which Paul was raised, is his way of indicating that his teaching at the same time belongs to the much larger community of faith, of which they themselves have now become a part. Thus, by turning aside from his prior teaching, the Thessalonians have also turned aside from the common teaching of the early believers. But his concern at this point is with his teaching, which they are now disregarding.
That Paul intends the “traditions” in this case to refer to his own teaching is made certain by his twofold reference to its source: “whether by word of mouth,” thus referring to his own teaching when he was among them, “or by letter,” now referring to our 1 Thessalonians.924 What should be most noticeable in this “inclusio” is the absence of the word “Spirit” from verse 2. As was suggested above, the most likely reason for this “omission” is that Paul suspects some sort of prophetic utterance in their midst to be the primary cause of their embracing the false teaching that “the day of the Lord has already come.” Thus Paul’s way of dealing with the source of the teaching is positive, as over against reminding them of his own clear instruction in the former letter (1 Thess 5:19-22). There they were urged to “test them all”; here he once again offers them the basis for such “testing,” since, if a misguided prophecy is indeed the issue, they have not adhered to his former instruction.
3. Prayer (2:16-17)
16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.
Not one to leave his friends with an imperative of the kind offered in verse 15 as his final word on this matter, Paul turns immediately to offer prayer on their behalf, a prayer that is full of striking moments regarding Pauline theology, and especially his Christology. The basic concerns of the prayer seem to be two. On the one hand, he looks to the past by elaborating on Christ and the Father in terms of the Father’s love for them by giving them “eternal encouragement and good hope.” On the other hand, the prayer itself is for their present encouragement and strengthening, the former (“encouragement”) in light of their present circumstances, the latter (“strengthening”) with their continued Christian lifestyle in view. Thus the brief glance at the past functions as the basis for Paul’s confidence in prayer regarding their present and future.
16-17 Before looking at the details as such, one needs to note contextually, first, that this prayer brings to a conclusion all of 2:1-17 — Paul’s concern for the grossly mistaken eschatology that someone among them has put forward, which is profoundly unsettling an already unsettled community. At the same time, second, it concludes verses 13-15, where Paul exhorts the Thessalonian believers to stay with what they have already been taught (v. 15), after setting them (vv. 13-14) in stark contrast to those who believe the lie and will be condemned with the man of lawlessness (vv. 10- 12). Thus it appears to have the double function of reminding them of the past realities that have brought them to life and of urging them by God’s help (Father and Son) to persist in “doing” righteousness (“every good deed and word”).
Perhaps the easiest way into an analysis of the prayer itself is to note its striking similarities to, and equally striking differences from, the prayer in 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13. And here in particular, and in a truly profound way, Paul’s very high Christology is especially noticeable, not as something (ever) argued for, but as something simply assumed to be the common stock of early Christian belief. The best way to see this is by displaying both prayers together (mention of Christ is in bold; mention of God is underlined; the “translations” are my own):925
And may our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal encouragement and good hope in grace, encourag e your hearts and strengthen [you] in every good deed and word.May God, even our Father, and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you; and you may the Lord cause to increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as also ours for you, so as to strengthen your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.
We note first the similarities, since looking at them together will settle some of the grammatical questions that have been raised in the present instance. (1) Both prayers are directed toward God the Father and the Lord Jesus together. (2) In both cases Paul, grammatically, has a compound subject (“God” and “Lord”) with a singular verb. While some have argued that one should not make too much theologically of this phenomenon,926 what must be noted here is that the same thing occurs in both cases, even though the subjects are in reverse order in the present instance.927 (3) In the Greek text both prayers begin with the intensive “himself,” which in each case must be grammatically understood to go with the first subject,928 although, given the singular verb, it may very well be thought of as a collective singular.929 (4) In both cases the elaboration is directed toward the second addressee of the prayer (but grammatical subject of the sentence): “the Lord” in 1 Thessalonians, “God the Father” in the present prayer. This phenomenon in turn seems to stand in some tension with the previous one. That is, the “himself ” would seem to put the emphasis on the first member, yet the elaboration focuses only on the second. (5) Both prayers share as a basic concern that the Thessalonians will be “strengthened,” a verb that occurs four times in these letters and only two times elsewhere in the Pauline corpus (Rom 1:11; 16:25).930
The singular significant difference, of course, is that the two grammatical subjects are reversed in the present passage, so that if there were no elaboration at all, the emphasis might seem to lie with the first member, especially since in both cases this member is accompanied by the intensive pronoun “himself” (“may our God and Father himself and the Lord Jesus Christ” / “may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father”). And so it does in a way. Indeed, had we only one of these prayers, one could argue931 by extrapolation that the emphasis in prayer for Paul is on the first one being addressed. But having both prayers, with their reversal of order and with the continuation of prayer addressed only to the second member, would seem to prevent that.
Indeed, here we are confronted with a prayer that is quite different from the former one. As noted, it still has the plural subject with singular verbs, but the “himself” now goes with the Lord Jesus Christ. The mention of God the Father is then elaborated as the one who “in grace has loved us and has given us eternal comfort and good hope.” But then the two verbs that make up the actual prayer are (grammatically) assumed to be the joint action of the Lord Jesus and God the Father. The result, whether intended or not, is that the first verb, “encourage” (parakaleō), picks up the second phrase about God that has just preceded (“eternal encouragement [paraklēsis]”), while the second verb “strengthen” (stērixai) was used of Christ in 1 Thessalonians 3:12 and will be picked up again in verse 3:3 that follows as affirmation about what Christ will do for them.
At issue for Paul, then, is the need for them to be “encouraged” and “strengthened,” and even though that is the primary reason for the letter itself, Paul is also fully aware that this alone will not do it for them. Thus he prays for them at the end that, with the preceding explanations and argument in hand, they will indeed be encouraged so as not to be “shaken” by the false teaching circulating among them (perhaps [probably?] through a misguided Spirit utterance). In praying for God and Christ to “encourage your hearts,” Paul is concerned that both divine persons will bolster them in this time of crisis, and especially for what lies ahead of them; in further praying for God and Christ to “strengthen you in every good deed and word,”932 Paul is bringing them back to everyday life. At the same time he is now almost certainly also pointing toward 3:6-15. Thus the prayer functions both as a form of encouragement under present duress and as (a subtle form of) exhortation regarding their perseverance under that duress.
We should also note at the end that the concept of “good deeds,” expressed here as a noun in the combination “every good deed,” is a very Pauline way of speaking, language he will pick up again in 2 Corinthians 9:8, “that you may abound in every good deed.” The problem in English is with the noun “work/deed,” which for some understandable historic reasons has fallen on bad days in certain sectors of Protestantism. But all one need do to get at Paul’s intent is to change the phrase into its verbal equivalent, “that you may abound in doing what is good,” since this is the aim of Paul’s expression. Turning this phrase into “good deeds” becomes problematic not because it is incorrect, but because the English locution often carries baggage that is foreign to Paul’s own concerns. His passion is for Christ’s people to do what is good for others; thus here he prays that Christ and the Father will “strengthen the hearts” of God’s people, so that they will abound in “doing the good” for one and all.
There is much to learn from these concluding materials that is applicable to anyone who has responsibility for ministry in the church. Perhaps the most noticeable thing about the section is the order itself, where thanksgiving flows directly out of the concluding sentence of the preceding discussion, in direct contrast to the behavior of those who are perishing. But the fact remains that the conclusion to the argument (v. 15) follows the thanksgiving (vv. 13-14), which in turn is followed by prayer (vv. 16-17). The most striking thing about both the thanksgiving and the prayer is how fitting they are in terms of the preceding explanation about the day of the Lord. As always in Paul, the emphasis in the thanksgiving is on God’s activity toward them as expressed in their being loved by Christ and sanctified by the Spirit. At the end of the day, there-fore, when the apostle as teacher has done all he can by way of reassuring argumentation, he clearly recognizes that all is in vain without the enabling work of God — Father, Son, and Spirit — on their behalf.
At the same time, one can scarcely miss that the prayer responds directly to the thanksgiving. That is, what Paul thanks God for regarding his friends he is equally ready to remind them he prays for on their behalf. The order is both striking and realistic. While the preceding explanations are intended both to restore order and quell what could lead to error, Paul also recognizes that none of this will happen without divine aid. Hence Paul does not say, as we are often wont to do, “I’ll pray for you”; rather, he lets them know the content of both his thanksgiving and his prayer on their behalf. The later church has much to learn here.