A little while ago, I produced a verse by verse series in Philippians. I really enjoyed that exercise and have been wondering if I should take on another book. Well it turns out that 1 Thessalonians is the victim of my machinations, and hopefully, the thoughts produced by this fantastic book will edify and encourage the reader.

As with Philippians I am going to limit each post to one verse, and hopefully produce a short, succinct read for my friends who follow.

1 Thessalonians 1:10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

This letter from Paul made the chapter breakout relatively easy for that priest or scribe back in the 13th century that determined the chapters in the Word, For this book, each chapter break ends with a reference to the coming of Christ.

Our first chapter closes with the Thessalonians waiting for the Son of God to come from heaven. Paul can not resist the opportunity to speak of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and that one of the ministries of Jesus is the deliverance from wrath that was to come.

Jesus is the Great deliverer and it matter’s not the specifics of the trial the believer is in, for the Lord is able to deliver those not deserving His care – which is all of us!

So as we spend a few minutes considering the wrath to come for these believers, let us not get too distracted from our own coming wrath. He is a delivering Savior, yet for those Thessalonians, as well as for us, wrath was coming.

Now how to understand that is the question in my mind. Is the wrath to come, for both them and us, the terrors of eternal damnation? Is that how the Thessalonians would have understood this?

Maybe, for Paul speaks of eternal destruction in his next letter to this church.

2 Thessalonians 1:7-9

and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Let us leave a discussion on these verses in 2 Thessalonians for another day, and allow for our current understanding to stand. Paul may be speaking of eternal damnation in the fires of hell for ever and ever.

Jesus can deliver us from this destiny, and has delivered believers by His blood, by His death and by His suffering. He is the Great Deliverer.

But let us also consider that the “wrath to come” may present itself in a more immediate context for these Thessalonians.

Let’s remember – Paul found these saints in a synagogue. They were not heathen Canadians who were Biblically illiterate (as I was at my conversion!) Consider that for the Jewish faithful that followed after Paul, the background these believers had was of Moses, Isaiah and Jeremiah, steeped in the Old Testament imagery of the prophets.

Granted, to understand the wrath to come is more complicated than I first considered.

Sometimes it looks like it was in the future for those who first heard the declaration. Consider Jeremiah’s audience. He directed his pronouncement of God’s wrath on the very people of His nation, for they were about to experience the armies of Babylon coming into their nation, their city and their Temple, completely decimating the people of God.

Jeremiah 7:16, 17, 20

As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.
Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.”

In hind sight, it is obvious that Jeremiah was speaking of Babylon invading Israel, but he described as the wrath of God on His people.

Jesus used the same phrase when He spoke to the Pharisees and Sadducees in the gospels. Might He have been referring to the Romans coming to the nation of Israel, as the Babylonians had previously. After all, it was less than a generation later that these men who heard Jesus may have witnessed the very wrath coming on them in the form of the Roman legions!

Matthew 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Luke 3:7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Yet I spoke earlier of the wrath as being somewhat complicated, at least for an ol’ fool like me. What do you do when Jesus speaks the following?

John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Every person on earth has the wrath of God remaining on him or her, until they believe in Jesus and follow! How might the Thessalonians have understood this wrath? An experience of warring nations on a people, causing death, destruction, famine and desolation? Might they consider it as modern believers may understand it, as a pit of fire, with demons and darkness, suffering excruciating pain for ever and ever?

All of this is debatable, but for me, it is weariness and worry, a seemingly endless debate that in the end does not motivate the believer effectively to the glory of God. Debates and discussions on the eternal state have their place, but not to the exclusion on the most important matter!

It is Jesus who delivers us. He is the Deliverer. He delivers from death, from destruction, from the grave and from our own foolishness.

For this ol’ fool, I am thankful that whatever the wrath might be that is coming, that had come, that is on us, or that may touch us, it is Jesus who is faithful to His own nature, to being a Delivering God, to being a Saving Messiah.

May His Name be praised and lifted up.

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