The apostle began his second letter to the Thessalonians by expressing thanks for their “steadfastness and faith…in the afflictions that [they were] enduring” (2 Thess. 1:4). Paul asserted that God would “repay with affliction those who afflict you” (v. 6), punishing them with “eternal destruction” (v. 9). Christ’s return would also bring eternal glory to His faithful servants who suffered in His name during this life. Paul concluded with words teaching that Christ “comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed” (v. 10). By knowing this great deliverance, still future to the beleaguered church of Christ, believers are emboldened to live with a heavenly purpose while still on earth.

Paul’s teaching on the return of Christ in 2 Thessalonians 1 culminates in the glorification of Christ by the people whom He has come to save. It is difficult for believers now to imagine how greatly we will praise our mighty Savior on the day of His coming. We can best anticipate this rejoicing by looking to descriptions in the Bible. For instance, Isaiah chapter 11 tells of the Lord’s coming, using language that the New Testament applies to the return of Christ (Isa. 11:4; 12:6). How greatly Christ will be glorified in the hearts of His adoring people on the day of His unveiling before all!

Paul adds that Christ will “be marveled at among all who have believed” (2 Thess. 1:10). We may consider this in several ways. First, we will marvel to see true manhood glorified. We will likewise behold the glory of Christ in His return and marvel that the Lord is our brother and fellow man. We will marvel at the perfection of Jesus’ manhood; it will be the glory of His deity that shine upon us. A vision of Christ’s divine glory was granted to His disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. We will give the same honor when Jesus returns to reveal His divine glory to our eyes. Our worship of Jesus in the radiance of His unveiled glory will provide the ultimate satisfaction for our souls, of which our present worship on earth is the closest foretaste.

Moreover, on the day of Christ’s coming, His people will marvel at His mediatorial glory in His office as Redeemer and head over the church. The exalted Jesus revealed Himself in this way to the apostle John in the book of Revelation, dressed in the garb of the heavenly high priest: “clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest” (Rev. 1:13). This is why the scenes of worship in the book of Revelation show that it is the Lamb upon the throne who is worshiped with great awe and joy.

While the Bible’s teaching on the return of Christ points to the future, its purpose is found in the present, to inspire and inform practical Christian living. Paul reasons that if we are sure of Christ’s coming, then instead of fretting over our present troubles, we will employ ourselves in preparing for the glory that will be revealed. Paul made clear the relevance of the present work of the church by noting in 2 Thessalonians 1:10 that Christ will be glorified in His saints “because our testimony to you was believed.” The connection between faith and witness shows that emphasizing the sovereign glory of Christ in salvation does not minimize the significance of gospel preaching and evangelism today. Christ will be glorified among the Thessalonians because Paul preached the gospel to them and because by God’s power they had believed.

When we think of Paul’s ministry, we think of both his preaching of the gospel and his fervent prayers for the believers. “To this end we always pray for you,” the apostle adds in 2 Thessalonians 1:11, pointing out that he asks God to protect and nurture their faith. This combination of witness and prayer makes effective evangelists. Paul tells us not only that he prayed, but also what he prayed for. If most of us were praying for other Christians who were suffering intense persecution for their faith, some of them to the point of death, we would likely spend almost all our time asking God to remove the outward afflictions. Paul indicates a different approach, however, by praying for their spiritual maturity and growth in faith: “that our God may make you worthy of his calling” (v. 11.).

In verse 12, Paul states that his goal is that “the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you.” The “name” of the Lord is not only who He is but also what He has promised to do. Christ has put His name on us, and by His Spirit, through the ministry of the Word and prayer, He desires us to be sanctified so that His reputation will be exalted through our lives. Christ is “glorified in his saints,” that is, His “holy ones.” Therefore, if we want our lives to glorify His name, we will pursue holiness in this present life, knowing with joy that when Christ returns, our holiness will be perfected through our resurrection into glory.

Paul adds a fourth way in which we prepare for the glory that is coming, saying that God will “fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power” (v. 11). Remember that the apostle was writing to persecuted Christians, yet he directed them to the work that God had given them and that God would empower them to do. This work undoubtedly involved duties in the home and in the church, as well as in the world. The Thessalonians were using their time well, even while they placed their hope in the coming of Christ (see 2 Cor. 8:1-5).

In his final statement of chapter 1, in which Paul has sought to encourage the steadfast faith of the persecuted believers, he adds not only that Christ’s name will “be glorified in you,” and also “you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 12). Having shared in the suffering of Christ in this life, believers share in His glory for all the unending ages to come after He returns. In Romans 8:17, Paul reasoned that if we are “children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” It is not that Christ gains His great inheritance and each believer gets his or her own little inheritance in glory, but rather that together with Christ, as His coheirs, we inherit the whole of the glory of God. Then Paul adds: “provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17).

Paul’s statement that Christ is glorified in you “and you in him” echoes the request that Jesus made in His great High Priestly Prayer on the night of His arrest: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). Jesus did not say merely that he wills for His people to enter into heaven, but that they may be “with me.” He longs for fellowship with His people and for us to enter into the glory that reflects His own love relationship with the Father. It is for this that He is returning to take us to Himself and into His glory.

Jesus will return to be glorified in us, and we in Him, and this is only by “the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 12). While no sinner can ever earn the glory of Christ, God has ordained it for all who believe the gospel to which Paul gave testimony and that the Bible declares today. Everyone who wishes to be saved must therefore receive the gospel, trusting the death and resurrection of Jesus to deliver us from our sins. If we refuse to believe, rebelling against the gospel that God has revealed concerning His Son, we must “suffer the punishment of eternal destruction” (v. 9) on that day when Christ returns. If we believe, surrendering our lives now in preparation for the glory to be revealed, we can know through faith that the grace of God has ordained that we be glorified together with Christ, His Son. On “that day,” the day of Christ’s coming and of judgment for the world, believers will marvel at the glory of Christ in order for that glory to enter into us.

The next chapter (2 Thessalonians 2) will provide further details about the second coming of Christ, dealing with the problem of a false report stating that Christ had already returned. As we conclude chapter 1’s teaching on Christ’s appearing, we should remember the Thessalonians’ context of a suffering and persecuted church. Jesus taught that “because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you…If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15:19-20). In light of this fact, our concern should not be how to avoid persecution and affliction, but how to respond to it. Paul’s teaching in this chapter yields surprising but vitally important answers, which we may sum up in three brief practical applications.

First, Paul reasons that Christians should not lament but rather rejoice in persecution for Jesus’ sake. This is not to say that we enjoy trouble and suffering – we do not – but rather that we know the joyful truth of what suffering for Christ brings. Enduring under persecution both proves and improves our faith (1 Pet. 1:6-7), yielding a crop of godly character (see rom. 5:3-5). Second, whatever our circumstances are in this life, our great concern must be to promote the glory of Christ’s name, not only by our conduct now but also on that day when He comes “to be glorified in his saints” (2 Thess. 1:10). Finally, remembering Paul’s statement that Christ would be glorified in His saints “because our testimony to you was believed” (2 Thess. 1:10). We must all put a premium on our calling to spread the gospel to others. Christians do not conquer by avoiding troubles or by rising high in the structures of worldly power. They conquer in affliction by the blood of Jesus, which offers forgiveness to every sinner who believes, and redemption from sin in the power of God. They conquer “by the word of their testimony,” even at the cost of their lives.

2 Thessalonians 1:10-12 Study Questions:

What is the substance of Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians in verses 11-12, knowing that they are facing persecution and suffering?

What does it mean for God to “complete every plan he has to do you good, and every work of faith in power” (v. 11)?

Which part of this passage strikes you powerfully right now and why?

There is a very real phenomenon in churches today: the disappearance of hell. In the older days, preachers such as Jonathan Edwards spoke often of hell. A preacher who spoke of hell today would be considered unbalanced by many of his hearers, even in supposedly Bible-believing churches. It is no longer open deniers of the Bible who reject the doctrine of hell, but supposedly evangelical scholars as well. Some onlookers undoubtedly consider this development a sign of maturity on the part of professing believers.

The problem with such a revision of the doctrine of hell is the standing testimony of the Holy Scriptures. In Matthew 10:28 for example, the text in which Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” In keeping with the words of Jesus, the apostle Paul also taught about hell in his second letter to the Thessalonians. The context of his remarks was the suffering of the believers under persecution from the world. They were to be comforted by knowing that God would exact vengeance on their oppressors” “God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you,” Paul said, by “inflicting vengeance” through “the punishment of eternal destruction” (vv. 6-9). Out of this pastoral concern for the perseverance of believers under persecution, the apostle provides some of the most potent teaching about hell that is found in all of Scripture.

The first thing for us to know about hell, Paul explains, is that it is God’s just punishment on His enemies. Earlier, the apostle mentioned God’s vengeance on “those who afflict you” (v. 6), speaking of his readers’ persecutors. Now he broadens the scope, with God inflicting “vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (v. 8). Here, Paul is setting forth the two sides of damning unbelief: rejecting the knowledge of God and refusing the gospel message of salvation.

We know from Romans chapter 1 that there is no one who truly does not know God. “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived,” Paul explains, “ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). It is the designed purpose of nature to bear testimony to God, so that, “what can be known about God is plain to them” (Rom 1:19). How then, can people “not know God?” The answer is that unbelievers will fully reject the knowledge of God that they have. “By their unrighteousness,” Paul declares, they “suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18). Moreover, “although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him,” but instead “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images” (Rom. 1:22-23). For this grave sin of idolatry God will punish those who have lived as practical atheists, whatever actual creed they might have professed.

Matters become worse when the unbeliever hears but rejects the gospel. God sent His own Son to bring salvation to rebel humanity. Those who despise the death of Jesus for sins, refusing to repent and believe, have grievously offended God and merited His just condemnation. Paul’s description of unbelief as “not obey[ing] the gospel” reminds us that the message of Jesus is not merely a warmhearted invitation to sinners but also a sovereign summons to repent and believe.

The judgment of those who reject God and His gospel will involve God’s full and just punishment that these sins deserve. The Bible makes it clear that God’s judgment will condemn sinners not only for unbelief but also “according to what they had done” (Rev. 20:12). God will punish every last sin committed against His law. Still, Paul describes condemned sinners as “those who do not obey the gospel” (v. 8), since it was by refusing the gospel that they forfeited the only way of forgiveness for their sins. John 3:36 thus warns that “whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

In Paul’s teaching about God’s wrath in Romans 1, the apostle emphasized the way that sin is punished in this life, as God gives “them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Rom. 1:28; see also 1:24-26). Second Thessalonians differs by focusing on the judgment that God will inflict when Christ returns. Thus, 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 provides some of the Bible’s clearest teaching on the punishment of hell. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word sheol, translated in Greek by the word hades, describes the place of the dead generally, regardless of their status before God. In the New Testament, however, hades, translated in English as hell, is used exclusively of the place of final judgment for unforgiven sinners.

We may summarize the Bible’s teaching on the punishment of hell with three adjectives, the first of which is that it is an eternal punishment. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction.” The point is that sinners who rejected God and His gospel in this life will face in the afterlife an unending punishment for their transgressions. Not only does Paul teach that hell is eternal, but second, he describes it in terms of conscious punishment. When he says that the condemned are cast “away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (v. 9), this implies a conscious experience of alienation. And when he warns that they will “suffer punishment,” he uses an active verb (tino) that means that they will actively render payment for their sins.

Third, we may summarize the Bible’s teaching of hell by noting that in addition to eternal and conscious suffering, it involves the bodily punishment of those condemned by God. The Bible reveals that in the coming of Christ, all the dead – godly and ungodly – are resurrected so that souls are rejoined forever to their bodies to stand before the Lord (Rev. 20:12). Jesus will say to those who rejected God and despised His offer of mercy in the gospel: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). By speaking of the fires of hell, the Bible plainly indicates bodily punishment for the ungodly. In fact, the clearest testimony to bodily torment in hell comes from Jesus Himself who warned that in hell “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48).

There is no sin in admitting to difficulty in accepting the Bible’s teaching on hell. Surely, a fully biblical position on hell will impact our hearts as well as our minds. In believing the biblical doctrine of hell, we should experience the tears shed by Jeremiah when he preached judgment on Israel and the broken heart of Jesus as He called out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” and lamented the unbelief of the Jewish people (Matt. 23:37).

As we seek to apply the implications of the biblical doctrine of hell, first we must realize how vital it is that we teach this doctrine without compromise. We may imagine that we are improving or updating the Bible by smoothing over matters to which our generation objects. In reality, however, we are denigrating God’s Word and corrupting all the doctrines that are inseparably related. By softening the idea of hell’s sufferings, we minimize the sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the cross, where God’s Son voluntarily embraced the eternal experience of separation from the Father as He suffered for us in His Spirit.

Instead of toning down the Scriptures when it comes to difficult matters, we need to elevate the capacity of our faith to accept whatever God has revealed. Doing this will require us to bow before God and submit our minds to His Word. If we recoil against God’s eternal punishment of sin, then we must not have embraced the Bible’s emphasis on the heinous offense of sin and the infinite holiness of the God who responds with such terrible justice. Furthermore, we have surely failed to grasp that the supreme purpose of all things is to glorify the sublime perfection of all of God’s attributes, including both His glorious love in the gospel and His glorious wrath in the punishments of hell. It is instructive to us to read how heaven rejoices over the glory of God in the judgment of hell. Gazing out from heaven onto hell, the angels cry, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever” (Rev. 19:3).

Here on earth, however, where Jesus wept for sin, the truth about hell calls us to a passionate witness to the gospel of salvation from sin. How can we read of the terrors of hell, into which will go all “who do not know God” and “do not obey the gospel” (v. 8), and fail to do everything possible for them to know and believe the grace of God in Christ? How can we fail to pray for greater zeal in evangelism and for God’s power to open the unbelieving hearts to which we speak? If the Scriptures teach and the church confesses the reality of hell, then for God’s sake we must tell people. And in speaking about hell, we must never fail to declare the way of forgiveness at the cross of Christ, where God sent His own Son to pay with His blood the debt of sin, “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 Study Questions:

In Scripture, there are many moments of judgment, which are at the same time moments of deliverance for those who have clung to the God of justice and mercy, and have refused to be sucked into the prevailing culture of lies and wickedness. What are ways the culture today tells lies about what is evil?

How can we cling in strength and courage to the God of justice in face of this?

The fledgling Christians had believed the gospel and trusted in Jesus. As a result, they immediately faced such violent opposition that some had been killed. It was essential for these Christians, therefore, to stand firm in their faith, relying on God to save them. If the Thessalonians sought a worldly solution to their problem, and especially if they betrayed their faith in Christ, the result would be eternal disaster. In this situation, Paul reminds them that God’s righteous judgment would destroy their enemies in due time and that their faith would ultimately win salvation when Christ returns.

One of the thoughts that undermines the faith of suffering believers is the idea that God doesn’t care or is uninvolved in their trials. In Romans 8:32, Paul countered this harmful idea by pointing out that God has already acted decisively for us in sending His Son to die for our sins. Since the cross, God can never credibly be accused of remaining aloof from the trials of this world. In 2 Thessalonians 1:5, Paul advances another reason why they should never believe that God had abandoned them in their suffering. In verse 4, he had boasted about their “steadfastness and faith” in affliction. Now, he adds that this very faith is “evidence of the righteous judgment of God.”

The fact that the believers were continuing to trust the Lord while suffering was a sign that God was working in them and was on their side, thus anticipating the final judgment of His and their enemies. Suffering Christians sometimes ask, “Why isn’t God doing something?” The first answer is that God has already done what is most needful in sending His Son to die for our sins. A second answer is that God is upholding our faith under trials so that we will be saved in the end.

Reading Paul’s treatment of persecution introduces us to the Christian understanding of suffering and trials. The non-Christian regards suffering as an utter disaster to be avoided at nearly all costs. It is likely that some believers in Thessalonica were thinking this way. If God is sovereign, how could they be experiencing persecution? If God loves His children, how could He stand by while they suffer and even die?

The Bible teaches, first, that suffering is inevitable for the believer. The Christian is never promised a care-free life but is in fact promised trials and affliction. Earlier Paul had reminded the Thessalonians that “we are destined for this” kind of trouble (1 Thess. 3:3). Christians are destined for tribulation just as certainly as we are destined for glory, both of which result from our union with Christ. “If you were of the world,” Jesus taught, “this world would love you as its own; but because you are not of this world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you…If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:19-20). Every Christian is duly forewarned that trials are part and parcel of the Christian experience.

Given this understanding of afflictions and persecution, Paul writes to change his readers’ attitude. They should realize not only that their steadfast faith anticipates God’s judgment on their enemies, but also that they may be “considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering” (2 Thess. 1:5). The point is not that enduring under suffering makes us worthy of Christ’s kingdom, but rather that it reveals our membership in Christ, which is by God’s grace and through faith. According to the Bible, faithful suffering for the kingdom is in fact necessary to mark those who will inherit His glory by God’s grace.

As Paul sees it, the key to enduring persecution is to understand God’s righteous judgment. In verse 5, he wanted his readers to see their steadfast faith as both evidence of God’s faithfulness and proof of their right to enter Christ’s kingdom. Continuing in verse 6, Paul turns to the other side of the coin, displaying God’s avenging justice against the ungodly who persecute His church: “since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you.”

Here Paul states the biblical principle of divine retribution for sin. Believers in Jesus rely on God’s righteousness for our salvation: we know that God will keep His promises and that the payment that Jesus offered for our sins will be accepted. This same divine righteousness, however, ensures precise repayment for the sins of all those who do not receive Christ in faith. In particular, those who “afflict” God’s people will be repaid by God “with affliction” in return.

When Christians point out God’s righteous judgment of sinners, the question is sometimes raised as to how a loving God can treat people this way. The Bible’s answer is that God loved the world by sending His Son to die on the cross. Paul specifies that God will judge “those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (v. 8). This shows that unbelievers who refuse to accept Jesus in faith are judged precisely for spurning the love that God offered them. Having rejected the only way of forgiveness and reconciliation with God, persistent unbelievers have no other option than to be repaid “with affliction” (v. 6).

The inevitable question that suffering Christians will ask, especially under extreme duress, is when God will come to judge and repay their oppressors. Paul has reminded the suffering Thessalonians that God was already helping them by upholding their faith and that this help proved His final judgment of unbelief. But when will that final judgment actually take place? Paul’s answer is that it will happen at the second coming of Christ: “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels” (v. 7). This is the second time that Paul has emphasized the return of Christ to the Thessalonians. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, the apostle offered Christ’s return as our hope for believers who have died. Now he comes back to Christ’s return as the time when the ungodly are judged and the oppression of God’s people come to a final end.

Paul provides a stirring picture of Christ’s glorious return, saying that He will be revealed “with his mighty angels in flaming fire” (vv. 7-8). We are reminded of Jesus’ remark before His arrest, when His glory as the Christ was so completely veiled to human sight that men thought is right to put Him to death. When Peter sought to defend Jesus with a sword in the garden of Gethsemane, the Lord responded, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more that twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26:53). Jesus explained that the angels would be kept at bay in order for Him to offer His blood as the Lamb of God who died for our sins.

The angelic host that so marveled in the Bethlehem sky when Jesus was born of the virgin Mary must have strained at the leash when Jesus forbade them to vent their fury at those who would nail Him to the cross. But when His glory is unveiled in the second coming, that angel host will be set free to take “vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (v. 8). The book of Revelation shows that angels will bring final judgment to the earth in the fires of God’s wrath. John writes: “Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God’” (Rev. 16:1). The final bowl of wrath in Revelation is the very vengeance that Paul sees unleashed by angels when Jesus returns.

Whereas the appearing of Christ will spell doom for the unbelieving world in the righteous judgment of God, the same appearing will “grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us” (v. 7). Christ’s coming will remove all suffering and affliction from His people and usher them into a glorious communion that will last forever. Believers will be greatly relieved to be taken by Jesus to the place that He has been preparing, but even more, filled with joy that He takes us to Himself.

2 Thessalonians 1:5-8 Study Questions:

If being a Christian were made illegal by a hostile government, so that believers risked arrest by gathering for worship, how many of the people who fill evangelical Western churches today do you think would still do so?

What about you? Why do you come to church now? Would you identify yourself as a Christian if you could be persecuted for it?

How will God’s justice be worked out in the world as seen in verses 5-10?

How is justice different from vengeance? Think about your own life, your community or the world. How do you currently most desire to see God’s justice done?

In verses 5-10, Paul describes for the Thessalonians what future Justice and the coming of Jesus will look like. How would these words have deeply encouraged the young believers?