Footprints #107

Through His own experience, Jesus understands the cost of suffering. He can be trusted to exercise divine justice, but without overkill. Divine justice will result in suffering, but not one iota more than necessary. If we can trust God in anything, we can trust that His justice will reveal a wisdom and fairness that we cannot currently comprehend.

2Thess.1:3-10 provides a number of important details about the second coming of Jesus. When Jesus returns, He will afflict the afflicters and provide rest for the afflicted. He will come down from heaven in the company of powerful angels. He will come with flaming fire and execute justice on those who have rejected God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. The wicked are destroyed, while the righteous bring glory to Christ.

Paul here sets the stage for chapter two, in which he argues that the day of the Lord has not yet come. If it had, there would be flaming fire, destruction of the wicked, and the full glorification of Jesus in the eyes of all.

Notice Paul shifts easily from God to Jesus, using the two terms interchangeably. According to inspiration, Jesus is God. This teaching is very important to us. The greater Jesus is, the more powerful His salvation and the clearer a picture of God we receive as we contemplate His life, death, resurrection, and return. If Jesus is truly God, then the Father is just like Him.

In the midst of all these words of encouragement as well as exhortation, Paul wrote about end-time events, including the greatest end-time event of all, the second coming of Jesus. He had obviously preached on this while he was there.

His goal in 2Thessalonians is pastoral, to calm them and persuade them to be more patient regarding end-time events and to warn them about the false teachings being circulated on that topic. 2Thess.2:1-2 contains several Greek words that point back to 1Thess4:13-5:11, such as the coming of our Lord (1Thess.4:15), the gathering (1Thess.4:17), and the day of the Lord (1Thess.5:2). This passage is a clarification of what Paul said earlier. In it he reveals truths that we ourselves need to understand today.