2 Thessalonians 1:8

The thanksgiving follows straight on from the greeting of 2 Thessalonians 1:1–2, and it comes from Paul together with Silvanus and Timotheus. Paul says “We are bound to thank God”, and the verb is opheílō, to owe. Thanks for this church is a debt he owes to God. He adds “as it is meet”, where the word is áxios, worthy or fitting. Thanksgiving is the fitting answer to what God has done among them, because their growth is God’s work. Paul writes in the same spirit to the Philippians, thanking God at every remembrance of them (Philippians 1:3–5) and trusting that the God who began a good work in them will carry it on (Philippians 1:6).

He gives two reasons. The first is that their faith “groweth exceedingly”. The Greek is one compound verb, hyperauxánō, built from a word meaning “over” or “above” and the ordinary verb for growing. Their trust in God is flourishing beyond what anyone would expect of a church in trouble. Faith in Scripture is a living thing that deepens with time, and Paul elsewhere calls believers to “grow up into him in all things” (Ephesians 4:15).

The second reason is that “the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth”. Charity here is agápē, the New Testament’s word for a love that chooses the good of another, and Paul is speaking of the practical, self-giving love these believers showed one another. The verb pleonázō means to increase and overflow. Paul includes every member in it: “every one of you all”. He had prayed the same thing for another church, that their love would “abound yet more and more” (Philippians 1:9).

Faith and love belong together throughout Paul’s letters. He speaks of “faith which worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6), names faith, hope and charity as the things that abide (1 Corinthians 13:13), and gives love a whole chapter in 1 Corinthians 13. This love comes from God himself, for “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Christ showed it supremely in laying down his life (John 15:13), and he commanded his disciples to love one another as he had loved them, saying that all men would know them by it (John 13:34–35). The faith that is growing in Thessalonica is faith in him, and a church growing in faith and love is being conformed to the image of God’s Son (Romans 8:29).

The church in Thessalonica was young. Paul founded it on his second missionary journey, and trouble came at once. Jealous opponents among the Jews stirred up a mob against Paul and the new believers, and he had to leave the city early (Acts 17:1–9). The believers had received the word “in much affliction” (1 Thessalonians 1:6), and Paul’s first letter says they suffered at the hands of their own countrymen (1 Thessalonians 2:14–16). Turning from idols to Christ in a pagan city cost them socially and materially, and it could bring violence. This second letter was probably written from Corinth soon after the first, around AD 51–52. It also corrects a misunderstanding about the Lord’s return, which some thought had already taken place.

Against that background Paul says, “we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God”. The verb kaucháomai means to boast, and it can be used in a good or a bad sense. Here it is glad and public praise of what God has done in them. Paul tells other congregations about Thessalonica, as he said in his first letter that they had become examples to all who believe in Macedonia and Achaia (1 Thessalonians 1:7–8). One church’s steadfastness strengthens the others.

What he praises is their “patience and faith”. Patience is hypomonḗ, a hopeful, constant endurance that stays firm under a heavy load. They show it “in all your persecutions and tribulations”. Persecutions, diōgmós, are the hostility and ill-treatment that come to believers because of their faith. Tribulations, thlîpsis, is a word meaning pressure, and in the New Testament it means affliction and distress. “That ye endure” is anéchomai, to hold oneself up against something and bear it. The tense is present, and these troubles were still going on as Paul wrote.

Scripture teaches that such testing proves and refines faith. Tribulation works patience (Romans 5:3–4), the trying of faith works patience (James 1:2–4), and faith tested by fire is found to praise and honour at the appearing of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6–7). The pattern and the power for endurance are in Christ, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). Believers share in his sufferings (Philippians 3:10), and they hold his promise: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Verse 5 begins “Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God”. The word éndeigma means an indication, a concrete proof. The Thessalonians’ steadfast faith under persecution is visible evidence that God is at work and that his judgment is right. Their trials have a place in his purpose, and he sees both the faithfulness of his people and the deeds of those who persecute them. The word for righteous, díkaios, means just and equitable in character and act. It returns in the next verse, and the whole passage rests on it.

The purpose is “that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer”. Their suffering is for the sake of that kingdom, because the world that opposes God’s reign opposes its citizens. So what could look like God’s absence is a mark that they belong to him. Paul says elsewhere that we are heirs with Christ “if so be that we suffer with him” (Romans 8:17), that the adversaries’ opposition is a token of salvation for believers, to whom it is given to suffer for Christ’s sake (Philippians 1:28–29), and Peter tells suffering believers that the Spirit of glory and of God rests on them (1 Peter 4:12–14).

“Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you”. Paul rests everything on who God is. Justice is part of God’s own character, so his judgments are always fair. The same righteousness that Paul says is revealed in the gospel (Romans 3:21–26) is the ground of this promise.

To recompense, antapodídōmi, is to give back or repay, whether good or evil. In the Greek the repayment matches the offence. “Tribulation” is thlîpsis and “them that trouble you” uses the related verb thlíbō, to press or afflict. Those who afflict will receive affliction, from God’s hand. The fuller description comes in verses 8 and 9.

This is a great comfort to a persecuted church. God sees what is done to his people, and every wrong will be answered. In Revelation the souls of the martyrs cry out, asking how long until the Lord judges and avenges their blood, and they are told to rest a little while (Revelation 6:9–11). The verse is also a sober warning to anyone who harms God’s people.

The other side of God’s justice is for his people: “And to you who are troubled rest with us”. “Troubled” is again thlíbō, the pressed and afflicted. “Rest” is ánesis, relaxation or relief, the easing of that pressure. It is the final relief of being with the Lord, where “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying” (Revelation 21:4).

“With us” (hēmōn) joins Paul, Silvanus and Timotheus to their readers. The apostles were afflicted too, and they look for the same relief on the same day.

The rest comes “when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven”. The word is apokálypsis, an unveiling or disclosure, and it gives English the word “apocalypse”. Christ is now hidden from sight, and on that day he will be seen. At his first coming he was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). At his second he will be unveiled as King and Judge, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13). Paul had already written to this church that “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout” and that his people will be with him for ever (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).

He comes “with his mighty angels”. The word behind “mighty” is dýnamis, power, and ángelos means a messenger. The angels attend him as agents of his power, and their presence shows the majesty and authority of his coming. Jesus said the same: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory” (Matthew 25:31). He also said that all the tribes of the earth will see him coming in the clouds with power and great glory, and that he will send his angels to gather his elect (Matthew 24:30–31).

Christ is revealed “in flaming fire”. Fire (pŷr) and flame (phlóx) mark the presence of God throughout the Old Testament. He appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the bush (Exodus 3:2) and came down on Sinai in fire (Exodus 19:18). Fire also marks his judgment. Isaiah says “the LORD will come with fire” to plead with all flesh (Isaiah 66:15–16), Daniel saw a fiery stream come out from before the Ancient of days as the judgment was set (Daniel 7:9–10), and Malachi speaks of a day that burns like an oven (Malachi 4:1). The fire speaks of God’s holiness and of a judgment that is thorough and cannot be escaped. Paul gives that Old Testament picture to the Lord Jesus.

Paul names two things about those who face it. They “know not God”. The verb eídō properly means to see, and it is used for knowing. Paul explains in Romans what kind of ignorance this is. God has shown himself in the things he has made, so that people are without excuse, and they hold the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18–20). This is a refusal to acknowledge and honour the Creator.

They also “obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ”. To obey, hypakoúō, is literally to hear under, to listen and then do what is said. The gospel is good news that calls for an answer of faith and submission, and Paul grieves elsewhere that “they have not all obeyed the gospel” (Romans 10:16). To refuse it is to refuse the only way of salvation. Jesus said that God sent his Son to save the world (John 3:17), and that the one who does not believe “is condemned already” (John 3:18). He himself spoke of “everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). The judgment is carried out by the very one who offered himself as the way of escape.

“Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction”. The “who” are the people of verse 8. Everlasting, aiṓnios, means eternal, lasting without limit of time. Destruction, ólethros, means ruin, the undoing and loss of all well-being. Together they describe a ruin that is permanent and cannot be reversed.

Paul says what the ruin is: “from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power”. Presence is prósōpon, the face or countenance. To be shut away from the face of the Lord is to be cut off from the source of all life, light and goodness, and from the majesty and power by which he blesses. This separation is the heart of what Scripture means by hell. It is the opposite of the rest of verse 7 and the glory of verse 10.

The punishment is just. Paul writes of “the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:5–8). Those who did not want God are given over (Romans 1:28), and Revelation speaks of the lake of fire as the second death (Revelation 20:14–15).

The same coming has another purpose: “When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe”. Glorified is endoxázō, to have one’s glory shown and honoured. Admired is thaumázō, to wonder or marvel. The small word “in” (en) matters in both phrases. His people are the place where his glory is displayed. What Christ has made of them will be seen, and he will be marvelled at because of it.

Scripture tells us what will be seen. “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). He “shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body” (Philippians 3:20–21), and “when he shall appear, we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). Those he justified he also glorified (Romans 8:30), having conformed them to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29) and made them partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). All of it is his doing. The Word was made flesh (John 1:14), made peace through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:19–20), and was raised and exalted to God’s right hand (Acts 2:32–33). His coming completes that work, when the marriage of the Lamb is come and his wife has made herself ready (Revelation 19:7), and he who sits on the throne says, “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

His coming will be open and seen by all, “as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west” (Matthew 24:27).

This passage shows us a God who sees. He saw a small congregation in a hostile city, and he had Paul write to tell them that their faith was growing, that their love was known, and that their endurance was evidence of his own just dealing. Faith that keeps trusting under pressure is his work in us, and it is worth thanking him for wherever we find it, in ourselves or in others.

It also shows us a God who is just. Every wrong done to his people will be answered by him, and that is why we can leave it with him. If you have been wronged for Christ’s sake, the repayment is his to make, and the rest he promises is certain because it is tied to the return of his Son.

The passage holds two endings side by side, and it lets neither one go. Outside Christ there is ruin away from the face of the Lord. In Christ there is rest, and a day when his glory will be seen in ordinary believers who took the apostles at their word. The Lord who will judge is the same Lord who came first to save, and his gospel is still being preached.