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Transcriber's Note:

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the end of the text.

The start of each chapter extends over several pages in the original.
These have been simplified.

A ligature and two macrons have been rendered in ordinary font. Small
capitals have been rendered in ordinary capitals. Italics are
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The

Expositor's Bible

Edited by

W. Robertson Nicoll, D.D., LL.D.


THE EPISTLES

TO THE THESSALONIANS

 BY THE
 REV. JAMES DENNEY, B.D.

 HODDER & STOUGHTON
 NEW YORK
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY




CONTENTS.


_THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS._

                                                                  PAGE
 I.
 THE CHURCH OF THE THESSALONIANS                                     3

 II.
 THE THANKSGIVING                                                   21

 III.
 THE SIGNS OF ELECTION                                              37

 IV.
 CONVERSION                                                         53

 V.
 APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA                                              69

 VI.
 IMPEACHMENT OF THE JEWS                                            83

 VII.
 ABSENCE AND LONGING                                                99

 VIII.
 LOVE AND PRAYERS                                                  117

 IX.
 PERSONAL PURITY                                                   135

 X.
 CHARITY AND INDEPENDENCE                                          151

 XI.
 THE DEAD IN CHRIST                                                169

 XII.
 THE DAY OF THE LORD                                               185

 XIII.
 RULERS AND RULED                                                  201

 XIV.
 THE STANDING ORDERS OF THE GOSPEL                                 217

 XV.
 THE SPIRIT                                                        233

 XVI.
 CONCLUSION                                                        251


_THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS._

 I.
 SALUTATION AND THANKSGIVING                                       271

 II.
 SUFFERING AND GLORY                                               289

 III.
 THE MAN OF SIN                                                    305

 IV.
 THE RESTRAINT AND ITS REMOVAL                                     323

 V.
 THE THEOLOGY OF PAUL                                              341

 VI.
 MUTUAL INTERCESSION                                               359

 VII.
 THE CHRISTIAN WORTH OF LABOUR                                     375

 VIII.
 FAREWELL                                                          391




I.

THE CHURCH OF THE THESSALONIANS.


 "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came
 to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: and Paul, as his
 custom was, went in unto them, and for three sabbath days reasoned
 with them from the scriptures, opening and alleging, that it behoved
 the Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead; and that this
 Jesus, whom, _said he_, I proclaim unto you, is the Christ. And
 some of them were persuaded, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and
 of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a
 few. But the Jews, being moved with jealousy, took unto them certain
 vile fellows of the rabble, and gathering a crowd, set the city on an
 uproar; and assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them
 forth to the people. And when they found them not, they dragged Jason
 and certain brethren before the rulers of the city, crying, These
 that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; whom
 Jason hath received: and these all act contrary to the decrees of
 Caesar, saying that there is another king, _one_ Jesus. And they
 troubled the multitude and the rulers of the city, when they heard
 these things. And when they had taken security from Jason and the
 rest, they let them go."--ACTS xvii. 1-9 (R.V.).

 "Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy, unto the church of the
 Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to
 you and peace."--1 THESS. i. 1 (R.V.).

Thessalonica, now called Saloniki, was in the first century of our era
a large and flourishing city. It was situated at the north-eastern
corner of the Thermaic gulf, on the line of the great Egnatian road,
which formed the main connection by land between Italy and the East.
It was an important commercial centre, with a mixed population of
Greeks, Romans, and Jews. The Jews, who at the present day amount to
some twenty thousand, were numerous enough to have a synagogue of
their own; and we can infer from the Book of Acts (xvii. 4) that it
was frequented by many of the better spirits among the Gentiles also.
Unconsciously, and as the event too often proved, unwillingly, the
Dispersion was preparing the way of the Lord.

To this city the Apostle Paul came, attended by Silas and Timothy, in
the course of his second missionary journey. He had just left
Philippi, dearest to his heart of all his churches; for there, more
than anywhere else, the sufferings of Christ had abounded in him, and
his consolations also had been abundant in Christ. He came to
Thessalonica with the marks of the lictors' rods upon his body; but to
him they were the marks of Jesus; not warnings to change his path, but
tokens that the Lord was taking him into fellowship with Himself, and
binding him more strictly to His service. He came with the memory of
his converts' kindness warm upon his heart; conscious that, amid
whatever disappointments, a welcome awaited the gospel, which admitted
its messenger into the joy of his Lord. We need not wonder, then, that
the Apostle kept to his custom, and in spite of the malignity of the
Jews, made his way, when Sabbath came, to the synagogue of
Thessalonica.

His evangelistic ministry is very briefly described by St. Luke. For
three Sabbath days he addressed himself to his fellow-countrymen. He
took the Scriptures into his hand, that is, of course, the Old
Testament Scriptures,--and opening the mysterious casket, as the
picturesque words in Acts describe his method, he brought out and set
before his auditors, as its inmost and essential secret, the wonderful
idea that the Christ whom they all expected, the Messiah of God, must
die and rise again from the dead. That was not what ordinary Jewish
readers found in the law, the prophets, or the psalms; but, once
persuaded that this interpretation was true, it was not difficult to
believe that the Jesus whom Paul preached was the Christ for whom they
all hoped. Luke tells us that some were persuaded; but they cannot
have been many: his account agrees with the representation of the
Epistle (i. 9) that the church at Thessalonica was mainly Gentile. Of
the "chief women not a few," who were among the first converts, we
know nothing; the exhortations in both Epistles make it plain that
what Paul left at Thessalonica was what we should call a working-class
congregation. The jealousy of the Jews, who resorted to the device
which had already proved successful at Philippi, compelled Paul and
his friends to leave the city prematurely. The mission, indeed, had
probably lasted longer than most readers infer from Acts xvii. Paul
had had time to make his character and conduct impressive to the
church, and to deal with each one of them as a father with his own
children (ii. 11); he had wrought night and day with his own hands for
a livelihood (2 Thess. iii. 8); he had twice received help from the
Philippians (Phil. iv. 15, 16). But although this implies a stay of
some duration, much remained to be done; and the natural anxiety of
the Apostle, as he thought of his inexperienced disciples, was
intensified by the reflection that he had left them exposed to the
malignity of his and their enemies. What means that malignity
employed--what violence and what calumny--the Epistle itself enables
us to see; meantime, it is sufficient to say that the pressure of
these things upon the Apostle's spirit was the occasion of his writing
this letter. He had tried in vain to get back to Thessalonica; he had
condemned himself to solitude in a strange city that he might send
Timothy to them; he must hear whether they stand fast in their
Christian calling. On his return from this mission Timothy joined Paul
in Corinth with a report, cheering on the whole, yet not without its
graver side, concerning the Thessalonian believers; and the first
Epistle is the apostolic message in these circumstances. It is, in all
probability, the earliest of the New Testament writings; it is
certainly the earliest extant of Paul's: if we except the decree in
Acts xv., it is the earliest piece of Christian writing in
existence.[1]

The names mentioned in the address are all well known--Paul, Silvanus,
and Timothy. The three are united in the greeting, and are sometimes,
apparently, included in the "we" or "us" of the Epistle; but they are
not joint authors of it. It is the Epistle of Paul, who includes them
in the salutation out of courtesy, as in the First to the Corinthians
he includes Sosthenes, and in Galatians "all the brethren that are
with me"; a courtesy the more binding on this occasion that Silas and
Timothy had shared with him his missionary work in Thessalonica. In
First and Second Thessalonians only, of all his letters, the Apostle
adds nothing to his name to indicate the character in which he writes;
he neither calls himself an apostle, nor a servant of Jesus Christ.
The Thessalonians knew him simply for what he was; his apostolic
dignity was yet unassailed by false brethren; the simple name was
enough. Silas comes before Timothy as an older man, and a
fellow-labourer of longer standing. In the Book of Acts he is
described as a prophet, and as one of the chief men among the
brethren; he had been associated with Paul all through this journey;
and though we know very little of him, the fact that he was chosen one
of the bearers of the apostolic decree, and that he afterwards
attached himself to Paul, justifies the inference that he heartily
sympathised with the evangelising of the heathen. Timothy was
apparently one of Paul's own converts. Carefully instructed in
childhood by a pious mother and grandmother, he had been won to the
faith of Christ during the first tour of the Apostle in Asia Minor. He
was naturally timid, but kept the faith in spite of the persecutions
which then awaited it; and when Paul returned, he found that the
steadfastness and other graces of his spiritual son had won an
honourable name in the local churches. He determined to take him with
him, apparently in the character of an evangelist; but before he was
ordained by the presbyters, Paul circumcised him, remembering his
Jewish descent on the mother's side, and desirous of facilitating his
access to the synagogue, in which the work of gospel preaching usually
began. Of all the Apostle's assistants he was the most faithful and
affectionate. He had the true pastoral spirit, devoid of selfishness,
and caring naturally and unfeignedly for the souls of men (Phil. ii.
20 f.). Such were the three who sent their Christian greetings in this
Epistle.

The greetings are addressed "to the church of (the) Thessalonians in
God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." No such address had ever
been written or read before, for the community to which it was
directed was a new thing in the world. The word translated "church"
was certainly familiar enough to all who knew Greek: it was the name
given to the citizens of a Greek town assembled for public business;
it is the name given in the Greek Bible either to the children of
Israel as the congregation of Jehovah, or to any gathering of them for
a special purpose; but here it obtains a new significance. The church
of the Thessalonians is a church in God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is the common relation of its members to God the Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ which constitutes them a church in the sense
of the Apostle: in contradistinction from all other associations or
societies, they form a Christian community. The Jews who met from
Sabbath to Sabbath in the synagogue were a church; they were one in
the acknowledgment of the Living God, and in their observance of His
law; God, as revealed in the Old Testament and in the polity of
Israel, was the element or atmosphere of their spiritual life. The
citizens of Thessalonica, who met in the theatre to discuss their
political interests, were a "church"; they were one in recognising the
same constitution and the same ends of civic life; it was in that
constitution, in the pursuit of those ends, that they found the
atmosphere in which they lived. Paul in this Epistle greets a
community distinct from either of these. It is not civic, but
religious; though religious, it is neither pagan nor Jewish; it is an
original creation, new in its bond of union, in the law by which it
lives, in the objects at which it aims; a church in God the Father and
in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This newness and originality of Christianity could not fail to impress
those who first received it. The gospel made an immeasurable
difference to them, a difference almost equally great whether they had
been Jews or heathen before; and they were intensely conscious of the
gulf which separated their new life from the old. In another epistle
Paul describes the condition of Gentiles not yet evangelised. Once, he
says, you were apart from Christ, without God, in the world. The
world--the great system of things and interests separated from
God--was the sphere and element of their life. The gospel found them
there, and translated them. When they received it, they ceased to be
in the world; they were no longer apart from Christ, and without God:
they were in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing
could be more revolutionary in those days than to become a Christian:
old things passed away; all things became new; all things were
determined by the new relation to God and His Son. The difference
between the Christian and the non-Christian was as unmistakable and as
clear to the Christian mind as the difference between the shipwrecked
sailor who has reached the shore and him who is still fighting a
hopeless fight with wind and waves. In a country which has long been
Christian, that difference tends, to sense at least, and to
imagination, to disappear. We are not vividly impressed with the
distinction between those who claim to be Christians and those who do
not; we do not see a radical unlikeness, and we are sometimes disposed
to deny it. We may even feel that we are bound to deny it, were it
only in justice to God. He has made all men for Himself; He is the
Father of all; He is near to all, even when they are blind to Him; the
pressure of His hand is felt and in a measure responded to by all,
even when they do not recognise it; to say that any one is +atheos+,
or +choris Christou+, or that he is _not_ in God the Father and in the
Lord Jesus Christ, seems really to deny both God and man.

Yet what is at issue here is really a question of fact; and among
those who have been in contact with the facts, among those, above all,
who have had experience of the critical fact--who once were not
Christians and now are--there will not be two opinions about it. The
difference between the Christian and the non-Christian, though
historical accidents have made it less visible, or rather, less
conspicuous than it once was, is still as real and as vast as ever.
The higher nature of man, intellectual and spiritual, must always have
an element in which it lives, an atmosphere surrounding it, principles
to guide it, ends to stimulate its action; and it may find all these
in either of two places. It may find them in the world--that is, in
that sphere of things from which God, so far as man's will and intent
goes, is excluded; or it may find them in God Himself and in His Son.
It is no objection to this division to say that God cannot be excluded
from His own world, that He is always at work there whether
acknowledged or not; for the acknowledgment is the essential point;
without it, though God is near to man, man is still far from God.
Nothing could be a more hopeless symptom in character than the
benevolent neutrality which evades this truth; it takes away every
motive to evangelise the non-Christian, or to work out the originality
and distinctiveness of the Christian life itself. Now, as in the
apostolic age, there are persons who are Christians and persons who
are not; and, however alike their lives may be on the surface, they
are radically apart. Their centre is different; the element in which
they move is different; the nutriment of thought, the fountain of
motives, the standard of purity are different; they are related to
each other as life in God, and life without God; life in Christ, and
life apart from Christ; and in proportion to their sincerity is their
mutual antagonism.

In Thessalonica the Christian life was original enough to have formed
a new society. In those days, and in the Roman Empire, there was not
much room for the social instincts to expand. Unions of all kinds were
suspected by the governments, and discouraged, as probable centres of
political disaffection. Local self-government ceased to be interesting
when all important interests were withdrawn from its control; and even
had it been otherwise, there was no part in it possible for that great
mass of population from which the Church was so largely recruited,
namely, the slaves. Any power that could bring men together, that
could touch them deeply, and give them a common interest that engaged
their hearts and bound them to each other, met the greatest want of
the time, and was sure of a welcome. Such a power was the gospel
preached by Paul. It formed little communities of men and women
wherever it was proclaimed; communities in which there was no law but
that of love, in which heart opened to heart as nowhere else in all
the world, in which there was fervour and hope and freedom and
brotherly kindness, and all that makes life good and dear. We feel
this very strongly in reading the New Testament, and it is one of the
points on which, unhappily, we have drifted away from the primitive
model. The Christian congregation is not now, in point of fact, the
type of a sociable community. Too often it is oppressed with
constraint and formality. Take any particular member of any particular
congregation; and his social circle, the company of friends in which
he expands most freely and happily, will possibly have no connection
with those he sits beside in the church. The power of the faith to
bring men into real unity with each other is not lessened; we see this
wherever the gospel breaks ground in a heathen country, or wherever
the frigidity of the church drives two or three fervent souls to form
a secret society of their own, but the temperature of faith itself is
lowered; we are not really living, with any intensity of life, in God
the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. If we were, we would be drawn
closer to each other; our hearts would touch and overflow; the place
where we meet in the name of Jesus would be the most radiant and
sociable place we know.

Nothing could better illustrate the reality of that new character
which Christianity confers than the fact that men can be addressed as
Christians. Nothing, either, could better illustrate the confusion of
mind that exists in this matter, or the insincerity of much
profession, than the fact that so many members of churches would
hesitate before taking the liberty so to address a brother. We have
all written letters, and on all sorts of occasions; we have addressed
men as lawyers, or doctors, or men of business; we have sent or
accepted invitations to gatherings where nothing would have astonished
us more than the unaffected naming of the name of God; did we ever
write to anybody because he was a Christian, and because we were
Christians? Of all the relations in which we stand to others, is that
which is established by "our common Christianity," by our common life
in Jesus Christ, the only one which is so crazy and precarious that it
can never be really used for anything? Here we see the Apostle look
back from Corinth to Thessalonica, and his one interest in the poor
people whom he remembers so affectionately is that they are
Christians. The one thing in which he wishes to help them is their
Christian life. He does not care much whether they are well or ill off
in respect of this world's goods; but he is anxious to supply what is
lacking in their faith (iii. 10). How real a thing the Christian life
was to him! what a substantial interest, whether in himself or in
others, engrossing all his thought, absorbing all his love and
devotion. To many of us it is the one topic for silence; to him it was
the one theme of thought and speech. He wrote about it, as he spoke
about it, as though there were no other interest for man; and letters
like those of Thomas Erskine show that still, out of the abundance of
the heart, the mouth speaketh. The full soul overflows, unaffected,
unforced; Christian fellowship, as soon as Christian life is real, is
restored to its true place.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy wish the church of the Thessalonians grace
and peace. This is the greeting in all the Apostle's letters; it is
not varied except by the addition of "mercy" in the Epistles to
Timothy and Titus. In form it seems to combine the salutations current
among the Greeks and the Jews (+chairein+ and =shalom=), but in import
it has all the originality of the Christian faith. In the second
Epistle it runs, "Grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ." Grace is the love of God, spontaneous, beautiful,
unearned, at work in Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinful men;
peace is the effect and fruit in man of the reception of grace. It is
easy to narrow unduly the significance of peace; those expositors do
so who suppose in this passage a reference to the persecution which
the Thessalonian Christians had to bear, and understand the Apostle to
wish them deliverance from it. The Apostle has something far more
comprehensive in his mind. The peace, which Christ is; the peace with
God which we have when we are reconciled to Him by the death of His
Son; the soul-health which comes when grace makes our hearts to their
very depths right with God, and frightens away care and fear; this
"perfect soundness" spiritually is all summed up in the word. It
carries in it the fulness of the blessing of Christ. The order of the
words is significant; there is no peace without grace; and there is no
grace apart from fellowship with God in Christ. The history of the
Church has been written by some who practically put Paul in Christ's
place; and by others who imagine that the doctrine of the person of
Christ only attained by slow degrees, and in the post-apostolic age,
its traditional importance; but here, in the oldest extant monument of
the Christian faith, and in the very first line of it, the Church is
defined as existing in the Lord Jesus Christ; and in that single
expression, in which the Son stands side by side with the Father, as
the life of all believing souls, we have the final refutation of such
perverse thoughts. By the grace of God, incarnate in Jesus Christ, the
Christian is what he is; he lives and moves and has his being there;
apart from Christ, he is not. Here, then, is our hope. Conscious of
our own sins, and of the shortcomings of the Christian community of
which we are members, let us have recourse to Him whose grace is
sufficient for us. Let us abide in Christ, and in all things grow up
into Him. God alone is good; Christ alone is the Pattern and the
Inspiration of the Christian character; only in the Father and the Son
can the new life and the new fellowship come to their perfection.

[1] The date cannot be precisely assigned, but it is not later than 54
A.D., and cannot be so early as 52. Most scholars say 54. It was
written in Corinth.




II.

THE THANKSGIVING.


 "We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in
 our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith and
 labour of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before
 our God and Father; knowing, brethren beloved of God, your
 election."--1 THESS. i. 2-4. (R.V.).

The salutation in St. Paul's epistles is regularly followed by the
thanksgiving. Once only, in the Epistle to the Galatians, is it
omitted; the amazement and indignation with which the Apostle has
heard that his converts are forsaking his gospel for another which is
not a gospel at all, carries him out of himself for a moment. But in
his earliest letter it stands in its proper place; before he thinks of
congratulating, teaching, exhorting, admonishing, he gives God thanks
for the tokens of His grace in the Thessalonians. He would not be
writing to these people at all if they were not Christians; they would
never have been Christians but for the free goodness of God; and
before he says one word directly to them, he acknowledges that
goodness with a grateful heart.

In this case the thanksgiving is particularly fervent. It has no
drawback. There is no profane person at Thessalonica, like him who
defiled the church at Corinth at a later period; we give thanks, says
the Apostle, for you all. It is, as far as the nature of the case
permits, uninterrupted. As often as Paul prays, he makes mention of
them and gives thanks; he remembers without ceasing their new-born
graces. We ought not to extenuate the force of such words, as if they
were mere exaggerations, the idle extravagances of a man who
habitually said more than he meant. Paul's life was concentrated and
intense, to a degree of which we have probably little conception. He
lived for Christ, and for the churches of Christ; it was literal
truth, not extravagance, when he said, "This one thing I do": the life
of these churches, their interests, their necessities, their dangers,
God's goodness to them, his own duty to serve them, all these
constituted together the one dear concernment of his life; they were
ever with him in God's sight, and therefore in his intercessions and
thanksgivings to God. Other men's minds might surge with various
interests; new ambitions or affections might displace old ones;
fickleness or disappointments might change their whole career; but it
was not so with him. His thoughts and affections never changed their
object, for the same conditions appealed constantly to the same
susceptibility; if he grieved over the unbelief of the Jews, he had
unceasing (+adialeipton+) pain in his heart; if he gave thanks for the
Thessalonians, he remembered without ceasing (+adialeiptos+) the
graces with which they had been adorned by God.

Nor were these continual thanksgivings vague or formal; the Apostle
recalls, in each particular case, the special manifestations of
Christian character which inspire his gratitude. Sometimes, as in 1st
Corinthians, they are less spiritual--gifts, rather than graces;
utterance and knowledge, without charity; sometimes, as here, they are
eminently spiritual--faith, love, and hope. The conjunction of these
three in the earliest of Paul's letters is worthy of remark. They
occur again in the well-known passage in 1 Cor. xiii., where, though
they share in the distinction of being eternal, and not, like
knowledge and eloquence, transitory in their nature, love is exalted
to an eminence above the other two. They occur a third time in one of
the later epistles--that to the Colossians--and in the same order as
here. That, says Lightfoot on the passage, is the natural order.
"Faith rests on the past; love works in the present; hope looks to the
future." Whether this distribution of the graces is accurate or not,
it suggests the truth that they cover and fill up the whole Christian
life. They are the sum and substance of it, whether it looks back, or
looks round, or looks forward. The germ of all perfection is implanted
in the soul which is the dwelling-place of "these three."

Though none of them can really exist, in its Christian quality,
without the others, any of them may preponderate at a given time. It
is not quite fanciful to point out that each in its turn seems to
have bulked most largely in the experience of the Apostle himself. His
earliest epistles--the two to the Thessalonians--are pre-eminently
epistles of hope. They look to the future; the doctrinal interest
uppermost in them is that of the second coming of the Lord, and the
final rest of the Church. The epistles of the next period--Romans,
Corinthians, and Galatians--are as distinctly epistles of faith. They
deal largely with faith as the power which unites the soul to God in
Christ, and brings into it the virtue of the atoning death and
resurrection of Jesus. Later still, there are the epistles of which
Colossians and Ephesians are the type. The great thought in these is
that of the unity wrought by love; Christ is the head of the Church;
the Church is the body of Christ; the building up of the body in love,
by the mutual help of the members, and their common dependence on the
Head, preoccupies the apostolic writer. All this may have been more or
less accidental, due to circumstances which had nothing to do with the
spiritual life of Paul; but it has the look of being natural too. Hope
prevails first--the new world of things unseen and eternal outweighs
the old; it is the stage at which religion is least free from the
influence of sense and imagination. Then comes the reign of faith; the
inward gains upon the outward; the mystical union of the soul to
Christ, in which His spiritual life is appropriated, is more or less
sufficient to itself; it is the stage, if it be a stage at all, at
which religion becomes independent of imagination and sense. Finally,
love reigns. The solidarity of all Christian interests is strongly
felt; the life flows out again, in all manner of Christian service, on
those by whom it is surrounded; the Christian moves and has his being
in the body of which he is a member. All this, I repeat, can be only
comparatively true; but the character and sequence of the Apostle's
writings speak for its truth so far.

But it is not simply faith, love, and hope that are in question here:
"we remember," says the Apostle, "your _work_ of faith and
_labour_ of love and _patience_ of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."
We call faith, love, and hope the Christian graces; and we are apt to
forget that the associations of heathen mythology, thus introduced,
are disturbing rather than enlightening. The three Graces of the
Greeks are ideally beautiful figures; but their beauty is aesthetic,
not spiritual. They are lovely as a group of statuary is lovely; but
though "by (their) gift come unto men all pleasant things and sweet,
and the wisdom of a man and his beauty, and the splendour of his
fame," their nature is utterly unlike that of the three powers of the
Christian character; no one would dream of ascribing to them work, and
labour and patience. Yet the mere fact that "Graces" has been used as
a common name for both has diffused the idea that the Christian
graces also are to be viewed mainly as the adornments of character,
its unsought, unstudied beauties, set on it by God to subdue and charm
the world. That is quite wrong; the _Greek_ Graces are essentially
beauties; they confer on men all that wins admiration--personal
comeliness, victory in the games, a happy mood; but the _Christian_
graces are essentially powers; they are new virtues and forces which
God has implanted in the soul that it may be able to do His work in
the world. The heathen Graces are lovely to look at, and that is all;
but the Christian graces are not subjects for aesthetic contemplation;
they are here to work, to toil, to endure. If they have a beauty of
their own--and surely they have--it is a beauty not in form or colour,
not appealing to the eye or the imagination, but only to the spirit
which has seen and loved Christ, and loves His likeness in whatever
guise.

Let us look at the Apostle's words more closely: he speaks of a work
of faith; to take it exactly, of something which faith has done. Faith
is a conviction with regard to things unseen, that makes them present
and real. Faith in God as revealed in Christ, and in His death for
sin, makes reconciliation real; it gives the believer peace with God.
But it is not shut up in the realm of things inward and unseen. If it
were, a man might say what he pleased about it, and there would be no
check upon his words. Wherever it exists, it works; he who is interested
can see what it has done. Apparently the Apostle has some particular
work of faith in his mind in this passage; some thing which the
Thessalonians had actually done, because they believed but what it is
we cannot tell. Certainly not faith itself; certainly not love, as
some think, referring to Gal. v. 6; if a conjecture may be hazarded,
possibly some act of courage or fidelity under persecution, similar to
those adduced in Heb. xi. That famous chapter contains a catalogue of
the works which faith wrought; and serves as a commentary, therefore,
on this expression. Surely we ought to notice that the great Apostle,
whose name has been the strength and shield of all who preach
justification by faith alone, the very first time he mentions this
grace in his epistles, mentions it as a power which leaves its witness
in work.

It is so, also, with love: "we remember," he writes, "your labour of
love." The difference between +ergon+ (work) and +kopos+ (labour) is
that between effect and effort. The Apostle recalls something which
the faith of the Thessalonians did; he recalls also the wearisome toil
in which their love spent itself. Love is not so capable of abuse in
religion, or, at least, it has not been so rankly abused, as faith.
Men are much more apt to demand the proof of it. It has an inward side
as much as faith, but it is not an emotion which exhausts itself in
its own transports. Merely as emotion, indeed, it is apt to be
undervalued. In the Church of to-day emotion needs rather to be
stimulated than repressed. The passion of the New Testament startles
us when we chance to feel it. For one man among us who is using up the
powers of his soul in barren ecstasies, there are thousands who have
never been moved by Christ's love to a single tear or a single heart
throb. They must learn to love before they can labour. They must be
kindled by that fire which burned in Christ's heart, and which He came
to cast upon the earth, before they can do anything in His service.
But if the love of Christ has really met that answer in love for which
it waits, the time for service has come. Love in the Christian will
attest itself as it attested itself in Christ. It will prescribe and
point out the path of labour. The word employed in this passage is one
often used by the Apostle to describe his own laborious life. Love set
him, and will set every one in whose heart it truly burns, upon
incessant, unwearied efforts for others' good. Paul was ready to spend
and be spent at its bidding, however small the result might be. He
toiled with his hands, he toiled with his brain, he toiled with his
ardent, eager, passionate heart, he toiled in his continual
intercessions with God, and all these toils made up his _labour_ of
love. "A labour of love," in current language, is a piece of work
done so willingly that no payment is expected for it. But a labour of
love is not what the Apostle is speaking of; it is _laboriousness_, as
love's characteristic. Let Christian men and women ask themselves
whether their love can be so characterised. We have all been tired in
our time, one may presume; we have toiled in business, or in some
ambitious course, or in the perfecting of some accomplishment, or even
in the mastery of some game or the pursuit of some amusement, till we
were utterly wearied: how many of us have so toiled in love? How many
of us have been wearied and worn with some labour to which we set
ourselves for God's sake? This is what the Apostle has in view in this
passage; and, strange as it may appear, it is one of the things for
which he gives God thanks. But is he not right? Is it not a thing to
evoke gratitude and joy, that God counts us worthy to be
fellow-labourers with Him in the manifold works which love imposes?

The church at Thessalonica was not old; its first members could only
count their Christian age by months. Yet love is so native to the
Christian life, that they found at once a career for it; demands were
made upon their sympathy and their strength which were met at once,
though never suspected before. "What are we to do," we sometimes ask,
"if we would work the works of God?" If we have love enough in our
hearts, it will answer all its own questions. It is the fulfilling of
the law just because it shows us plainly where service is needed, and
puts us upon rendering it at any cost of pain or toil. It is not too
much to say that the very word chosen by the Apostle to characterise
love--this word +kopos+--is peculiarly appropriate, because it brings
out, not the issue, but only the cost, of work. With the result
desired, or without it; with faint hope, or with hope most sure, love
labours, toils, spends and is spent over its task: this is the very
seal of its genuine Christian character.

The third grace remains: "your patience of hope in our Lord Jesus
Christ." The second coming of Christ was an element in apostolic
teaching which, whether exceptionally prominent or not, had made an
exceptional impression at Thessalonica. It will more naturally be
studied at another place; here it is sufficient to say that it was the
great object of Christian hope. Christians not only believed Christ
would come again; they not only expected Him to come; they were eager
for His coming. "How long, O Lord?" they cried in their distress.
"Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," was their prayer.

It is matter of notoriety that hope in this sense does not hold its
ancient place in the heart of the Church. It holds a much lower place.
Christian men hope for this or that; they hope that threatening
symptoms in the Church or in society may pass away, and better things
appear; they hope that when the worst comes to the worst, it will not
be so bad as the pessimists anticipate. Such impotent and ineffective
hope is of no kindred to the hope of the gospel. So far from being a
power of God in the soul, a victorious grace, it is a sure token that
God is absent. Instead of inspiring, it discourages; it leads to
numberless self-deceptions; men _hope_ their lives are right with God,
when they ought to search them and see; they _hope_ things will turn
out well, when they ought to be taking security of them. All this,
where our relations to God are concerned, is a degradation of the very
word. The Christian hope is laid up in heaven. The object of it is the
Lord Jesus Christ. It is not precarious, but certain; it is not
ineffective, but a great and energetic power. Anything else is not
hope at all.

The operation of the true hope is manifold. It is a sanctifying grace,
as appears from 1 John iii. 3: "Every one that hath this hope set on
Him, purifieth himself, even as He is pure." But here the Apostle
characterises it by its patience. The two virtues are so inseparable
that Paul sometimes uses them as equivalent; twice in the Epistles to
Timothy and Titus, he says faith, love, and patience, instead of
faith, love, and hope. But what is patience? The word is one of the
great words of the New Testament. The corresponding verb is usually
rendered endurance, as in Christ's saying, "He that endureth to the
end, the same shall be saved." Patience is more than resignation or
meek submission; it is hope in the shade, but hope nevertheless; the
brave steadfastness which bears up under all burdens because the Lord
is at hand. The Thessalonians had much affliction in their early days
as Christians; they were tried, too, as we all are, by inward
discouragements--that persistence and vitality of sin that break the
spirit and beget despair; but they saw close at hand the glory of the
Lord; and in the patience of hope they held out, and fought the good
fight to the last. It is truly significant that in the Pastoral
Epistles patience has taken the place of hope in the trinity of
graces. It is as if Paul had discovered, by prolonged experience, that
it was in the form of patience that hope was to be mainly effective in
the Christian life. The Thessalonians, some of them, were abusing the
great hope; it was working mischief in their lives, because it was
misapplied; in this single word Paul hints at the truth which abundant
experience had taught him, that all the energy of hope must be
transformed into brave patience if we would stand in our place at the
last. Remembering their work of faith, and labour of love, and
patience of hope, in the presence of our God and Father, the Apostle
gives thanks to God always for them all. Happy is the man whose joys
are such that he can gratefully dwell on them in that presence: happy
are those also who give others cause to thank God on their behalf.

The ground of the thanksgiving is finally comprehended in one short
and striking phrase: "Knowing, brethren beloved of God, your
election." The doctrine of election has often been taught as if the
one thing that could never be known about anybody was whether he was
or was not elect. The assumed impossibility does not square with New
Testament ways of speaking. Paul knew the elect, he says here; at
least he knew the Thessalonians were elect. In the same way he writes
to the Ephesians: "God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the
world; ... in love He foreordained us to adoption as sons." Chose whom
before the foundation of the world? Foreordained whom? Himself, and
those whom he addressed. If the Church has learned the doctrine of
election from anybody, it has been from Paul; but to him it had a
basis in experience, and apparently he felt differently about it from
many theologians. He knew when the people he spoke to were elect; how,
he tells in what follows.




III.

THE SIGNS OF ELECTION.


 "How that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in
 power, and in the Holy Ghost, and _in_ much assurance; even as ye
 know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake.
 And ye became imitators of us, and of the Lord, having received the
 word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost; so that ye
 became an ensample to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For
 from you hath sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in
 Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is
 gone forth; so that we need not to speak anything."--1 THESS. i. 5-8
 (R.V.).

The Revised Version renders the +hoti+, with which ver. 5 begins, "how
that," the Authorised Version, "for." In the first case, the Apostle
is made to explain in what election consists; in the other, he
explains how it is that he knows the Thessalonians to be among the
elect. There is hardly room to doubt that it is this last which he
intends to do. Election does not consist in the things which he
proceeds to enlarge upon, though these may be in some sense its
effects or tokens; and there is something like unanimity among
scholars in favour of the rendering "for," or "because." What, then,
are the grounds of the statement, that Paul knows the election of the
Thessalonians? They are twofold; lying partly in his own experience,
and that of his fellow-labourers, while they preached the gospel in
Thessalonica; and partly in the reception which the Thessalonians gave
to their message.

I. The tokens in the preacher that his hearers are elect: "Our gospel
came not unto you in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost,
and in much assurance." That was the consciousness of the preachers
themselves, but they could appeal to those who had heard them: "even
as ye know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your
sake."

The self-consciousness of the preacher, we see from these words, is a
legitimate though a perilous study. Every one has been told that there
is no relation whatever between his own consciousness when preaching,
and the effect of what is preached; but has anybody ever quite
believed this? If there were no relation whatever between the
preacher's consciousness and his conscience; if he did not know that
many a time neglect of prayer or duty had separated him from God, and
made him useless as an evangelist, it would be easier to believe it;
but as our life is, the preacher may know quite well that it is no
proof of God's good will to men that _he_ is sent to preach to them;
or, on the other hand, he may have a humble but sure trust that when
he stands up to speak, God is with him for good to his hearers. Thus
it was with Paul at Thessalonica.

The heartiness with which he speaks here justifies the inference that
he had had experiences of an opposite and disappointing kind. Twice in
Asia (Acts xvi. 6 f.) he had been forbidden by the Spirit to preach at
all; he could not argue that the people so passed by were specially
favoured of God. Often, especially in his intercourse with the Jews,
he must have spoken, like Isaiah, with the depressing consciousness
that it was all in vain; that the sole issue would be to blind their
eyes and harden their hearts and seal them up in impenitence. In
Corinth, just before writing this letter, he had come forward with
unusual trepidation--in weakness and fear and much trembling; and
though there also the Holy Spirit and a divine power brought home the
gospel to men's hearts, he seems to have been so far from that inward
assurance which he enjoyed at Thessalonica, that the Lord appeared to
him in a vision by night to reveal the existence of an election of
grace even in Corinth. "Fear not: I have much people in this city." In
Thessalonica he had no such sinking of heart. He came thither, as he
hoped to go to Rome, in the fulness of the blessing of Christ (Rom.
xv. 29). He knew in himself that God had given it to him to be a true
minister of His grace; he was full of power by the Spirit of the Lord.
That is why he says so confidently, "Knowing your election."

The Apostle explains himself more precisely when he writes, "not in
word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance."
The gospel must come in word at least; but what a profanation it is to
preach it only in word. Not preachers only, but all Christians, have
to be on their guard, lest familiarity rob the great words of the
gospel of their reality, and they themselves sink into that worst
atheism which is for ever handling holy things without feeling them.
How easy is it to speak of God, Christ, redemption, atonement,
sanctification, heaven, hell, and to be less impressed and less
impressive than if we were speaking of the merest trivialities of
every-day life. It is hard to believe that an apostle could have seen
such a possibility even from afar; yet the contrast of "word" and
"power" leaves no room to doubt that such is his meaning. Words alone
are worthless. No matter how brilliant, how eloquent, how imposing
they may be, they cannot do the work of an evangelist. The call to
this requires "power."

No definition of power is given; we can only see that it is that which
achieves spiritual results, and that the preacher is conscious of
possessing it. It is not his own, certainly: it works through the very
consciousness of his own want of power; "when I am weak, then am I
strong." But it gives him hope and confidence in his work. Paul knew
that it needed a stupendous force to make bad men good; the forces to
be overcome were so enormous. All the sin of the world was arrayed
against the gospel; all the dead weight of men's indifference, all
their pride, all their shame, all their self-satisfaction, all their
cherished wisdom. But he came to Thessalonica _strong_ in the Lord,
confident that his message would subdue those who listened to it; and
therefore, he argued, the Thessalonians were the objects of God's
electing grace.

"Power" stands side by side with the "Holy Ghost." In a sense, the
Holy Ghost is the source of all spiritual virtues, and therefore of
the very power of which we have been speaking; but the words are
probably used here with some narrower meaning. The predominant use of
the name in the New Testament bids us think of that divine fervour
which the spirit kindles in the soul--that ardour of the new life
which Christ Himself speaks of as fire. Paul came to Thessalonica
aglow with Christian passion. He took that as a good omen in his work,
a sign that God meant well to the Thessalonians. By nature men do not
care passionately for each other as he cared for those to whom he
preached in that city. They are not on fire with love, seeking each
other's good in spiritual things; consumed with fervent longing that
the bad should cease from their badness, and come to enjoy the pardon,
the purity, and the company of Christ. Even in the heart of
apostles--for though they were apostles they were men--the fire may
sometimes have burned low, and a mission have been, by comparison,
languid and spiritless; but at least on this occasion the evangelists
were all on fire; and it assured them that God had a people waiting
for them in the unknown city.

If "power" and the "Holy Ghost" are in some degree to be judged only
by their effects, there can be no question that "much assurance," on
the other hand, is an inner experience, belonging strictly to the
self-consciousness of the preacher. It means a full and strong
conviction of the truth of the gospel. We can only understand this by
contrast with its opposite; "much assurance" is the counterpart of
misgiving or doubt. We can hardly imagine an apostle in doubt about
the gospel--not quite certain that Christ had risen from the dead;
wondering whether, after all, His death had abolished sin. Yet these
truths, which are the sum and substance of the gospel, seem, at times,
too great for belief; they do not coalesce with the other contents of
our mind; they do not weave easily into one piece with the warp and
woof of our common thoughts; there is no common measure for them and
the rest of our experience, and the shadow of unreality falls upon
them. They are so great that it needs a certain greatness to answer to
them, a certain boldness of faith to which even a true Christian may
feel momentarily unequal; and while he is unequal, he cannot do the
work of an evangelist. Doubt paralyses; God cannot work through a man
in whose soul there are misgivings about the truth. At least, His
working will be limited to the sphere of what is certain for him
through whom He works; and if we would be effective ministers of the
word, we must speak only what we are sure of, and seek the full
assurance of the whole truth. No doubt such assurance has conditions.
Unfaithfulness of one kind or another is, as our Lord teaches (John
vii. 17), the source of uncertainty as to the truth of His word; and
prayer, repentance, and obedience due, the way to certainty again. But
Paul had never been more confident of the truth and power of his
gospel than when he came to Thessalonica. He had seen it proved in
Philippi, in conversions so dissimilar as those of Lydia and the
jailor. He had felt it in his own heart, in the songs which God had
given him in the night while he suffered for Christ's sake. He came
among those whom he addresses confident that it was God's instrument
to save all who believed. This is his last personal reason for
believing the Thessalonians to be elect.

Strictly speaking, all this refers rather to the delivery of the
message than to the messengers, to the preaching than to the
preachers; but the Apostle applies it to the latter also. "Ye know,"
he writes, "what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your
sakes." I venture to think[2] that the word rendered "we showed
ourselves" has really the passive sense--"what God enabled us to be";
it is God's good will to the Thessalonians which is in view, and the
Apostle infers that good will from the character which God enabled him
and his friends to sustain for their sakes. Who could deny that God
had chosen them, when He had sent them Paul and Silas and Timothy; not
mere talkers, cold and spiritless, and dubious of their message; but
men strong in spiritual force, in holy fervour, and in their grasp of
the gospel? If that did not go to show that the Thessalonians were
elect, what could?

II. The self-consciousness of the preachers, however, significant as
it was, was no conclusive evidence. It only became such when their
inspiration was caught by those who listened to them; and this was the
case at Thessalonica. "Ye became imitators of us and of the Lord,
having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy
Ghost." This peculiar expression implies that the signs of God's
election were to be seen in the evangelists, and eminently in the
Lord. Paul shrinks from making himself and his companions types of the
elect, without more ado; they are such only because they are like Him,
of whom it is written "Behold my servant whom I uphold; Mine elect, in
whom My soul delighteth." He speaks here in the same strain as in 1
Cor. xi. 1: "Brethren, be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of
Christ." They who have become like the Lord are marked out as the
chosen of God.

But the Apostle does not rest in this generality. The imitation in
question consisted in this--that the Thessalonians received the word
in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost. It is, of course, in
the last part of the sentence that the point of comparison is found.
In a sense it is true that the Lord Himself received the word which He
spoke to men. "I do nothing of Myself," He says; "but as the Father
hath taught Me, I speak these things" (John viii. 28). But such a
reference is irrelevant here. The significant point is that the
acceptance of the gospel by the Thessalonians brought them into
fellowship with the Lord, and with those who continued His work, in
that which is the distinction and criterion of the new Christian
life--much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost. That is a summary
of the life of Christ, the Apostle of the Father (John xvii. 18). It
is more obviously a summary of the life of Paul, the apostle of Jesus
Christ. The acceptance of the gospel meant much affliction for him: "I
will show him how great things he must suffer for My name's sake." It
meant also a new and supernatural joy, a joy arising from, and
sustained by, the Holy Spirit, a joy triumphant in and over all
sufferings. This combination of affliction and spiritual joy, this
original, paradoxical experience, is the token of election. Where the
children of God live, as Christ and His apostles lived, in the midst
of a world at war with God and His cause, they will suffer; but
suffering will not break their spirit, or embitter them, or lead them
to desert God; it will be accompanied with spiritual exaltation,
keeping them sweet, and humble, and joyful, through it all. Paul knew
the Thessalonians were elect, because he saw that new power in them,
to rejoice in tribulations, which can only be seen in those who have
the spirit of God.

This test, obviously, can only be applied when the gospel is a
suffering cause. But if the profession of the Christian faith, and the
leading of a Christian life entail no affliction, what shall we say?
If we read the New Testament aright, we shall say that there is a
mistake somewhere. There is always a cross; there is always something
to bear or to overcome for righteousness' sake; and the spirit in
which it is met tells whether God is with us or not. Not every age is,
like the apostolic, an age of open persecution, of spoiling of goods,
of bonds, and scourging, and death; but the imitation of Christ in His
truth and faithfulness will surely be resented somehow; and it is the
seal of election when men rejoice that they are counted worthy to
suffer shame for His name. Only the true children of God can do that.
Their joy is in some sense a present recompense for their sufferings;
but for suffering they could not know it. "I never knew," said
Rutherford, "by my nine years' preaching, so much of Christ's love as
He hath taught me in Aberdeen, by six months' imprisonment." It is a
joy that never fails those who face affliction that they may be true
to Christ. Think of the Christian boys in Uganda, in 1885, who were
bound alive to a scaffolding and slowly burned to death. "The spirit
of the martyrs at once entered into these lads, and together they
raised their voices and praised Jesus in the fire, singing till their
shrivelled tongues refused to form the sound:--

  "'Daily, daily sing to Jesus,
    Sing my soul, His praises due;
  All He does deserves our praises,
    And our deep devotion too.

  "'For in deep humiliation,
    He for us did live below;
  Died on Calvary's cross of torture,
    Rose to save our souls from woe.'"[3]

Who can doubt that these three are among the chosen of God? And who
can think of such scenes, and such a spirit, and recall without
misgiving the querulous, fretful, aggrieved tone of his own life, when
things have not gone with him exactly as he could have wished?

The Thessalonians were so conspicuously Christian, so unmistakably
exhibited the new Divine type of character, that they became a model
to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. Their conversion called
the attention of all men to the gospel, like a clear and
far-resounding trumpet blast. Thessalonica was a place of much coming
and going on all sides; and the success of the evangelists there,
being carried abroad in various ways, advertised their work, and so
far prepared for their coming. Paul would naturally have spoken of it
when he went to a new city, but found it unnecessary; the news had
preceded him; in every place their faith to God-ward had gone forth.
So far as we learn, it was the most impressive incident which had yet
occurred in the progress of the gospel. A work of grace so
characteristic, so thorough, and so unmistakable, was a token of God's
goodness, not only to those who were immediately the subjects of it,
but to all who heard, and by hearing had their interest awakened in
the evangelists and their message.

This whole subject has a side for preachers, and a side for hearers of
the gospel. The preacher's peril is the peril of coming to men in word
only; saying things which he does not feel, and which others,
therefore, will not feel; uttering truths, it may be, but truths which
have never done anything for him--enlightened, quickened, or
sanctified him--and which he cannot hope, as they come from his lips,
will do anything for others; or worse still, uttering things of which
he cannot even be confident that they are true. Nothing could be less
a sign of God's grace to men than to abandon them to such a preacher,
instead of sending them one full of power, and of the Holy Ghost, and
of assurance. But whatever the preacher may be, there is something
left to the hearer. There were people with whom even Paul, full of
power and of the Holy Ghost, could not prevail. There were people who
hardened their hearts against Christ; and let the preacher be ever so
unworthy of the gospel, the virtue is in it, and not in him. He may
not do anything to commend it to men; but does it need his commendation?
Can we make bad preaching an excuse for refusing to become imitators
of the Lord? It may condemn the preacher, but it can never excuse us.
Look steadily at the seal which God sets upon His own--the union of
affliction with spiritual joy--and follow Christ in the life which is
marked by this character as not human only, but Divine. That is the
way prescribed to us here to make our election sure.

[2] With Godet and P. Schmidt; against Ellicott.

[3] _Life of Bishop Hannington._




IV.

_CONVERSION._


 "For they themselves report concerning us what manner of entering in
 we had unto you; and how ye turned unto God from idols, to serve a
 living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He
 raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivereth us from the wrath
 to come."--1 THESS. i. 9, 10 (R.V.).

These verses show what an impression had been made in other places by
the success of the gospel at Thessalonica. Wherever Paul went, he
heard it spoken about. In every place men were familiar with all its
circumstances; they had heard of the power and assurance of the
missionaries, and of the conversion of their hearers from heathenism
to Christianity. It is this conversion which is the subject before us.
It has two parts or stages. There is first, the conversion from idols
to the one living and true God; and then the distinctively Christian
stage of waiting for the Son of God from heaven. Let us look at these
in order.

The Apostle, so far as we can make out, judged the religions of
heathenism with great severity. He knew that God never left Himself
without a witness in the world, but God's testimony to Himself had
been perverted or ignored. Ever since the creation of the world, His
everlasting power and divinity might be seen by the things He had
made; His law was written on conscience; rain from heaven and
fruitful seasons proved His good and faithful providence; yet men were
practically ignorant of Him. They were not willing, in fact, to retain
Him in their knowledge; they were not obedient; they were not
thankful; when they professed religion at all, they made gods after
their own image, and worshipped them. They bowed before idols; and an
idol, says Paul, is nothing in the world. In the whole system of pagan
religion the Apostle saw nothing but ignorance and sin; it was the
outcome, in part, of man's enmity to God; in part, of God's judicial
abandonment of men; in part, of the activity of evil spirits; it was a
path on which no progress could be made; instead of pursuing it
farther, those who wished really to make spiritual advance must
abandon it altogether.

It is possible to state a better case than this for the religion of
the ancient world; but the Apostle was in close and continuous contact
with the facts, and it will take a great deal of theorising to reverse
the verdict of a conscience like his on the whole question. Those who
wish to put the best face upon the matter, and to rate the spiritual
worth of paganism as high as may be, lay stress on the ideal character
of the so-called idols, and ask whether the mere conception of Zeus,
or Apollo, or Athene, is not a spiritual achievement of a high order.
Let it be ever so high, and still, from the Apostle's ground, Zeus,
Apollo, and Athene are dead idols. They have no life but that which
is conferred upon them by their worshippers. They can never assert
themselves in action, bestowing life or salvation on those who honour
them. They can never be what the Living God was to every man of Jewish
birth--Creator, Judge, King, and Saviour; a personal and moral power
to whom men are accountable at every moment, for every free act.

"Ye turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and true God." We
cannot over-estimate the greatness of this change. Until we understand
the unity of God, we can have no true idea of His character, and
therefore no true idea of our own relation to Him. It was the
plurality of deities, as much as anything, which made heathenism
morally worthless. Where there is a multitude of gods, the real power
in the world, the final reality, is not found in any of them; but in a
fate of some sort which lies behind them all. There can be no moral
relation of man to this blank necessity; nor, while it exists, any
stable relation of man to his so-called gods. No Greek or Roman could
take in the idea of "serving" a God. The attendants or priests in a
temple were in an official sense the deity's ministers; but the
thought which is expressed in this passage, of serving a living and
true God by a life of obedience to His will, a thought which is so
natural and inevitable to either a Jew or a Christian, that without
it we could not so much as conceive religion--that thought was quite
beyond a pagan's comprehension. There was no room for it in his
religion; his conception of the gods did not admit of it. If life was
to be a moral service rendered to God, it must be to a God quite
different from any to whom he was introduced by his ancestral worship.
That is the final condemnation of heathenism; the final proof of its
falsehood as a religion.

There is something as deep and strong as it is simple in the words, to
serve the living and true God. Philosophers have defined God as the
_ens realissimum_, the most real of beings, the absolute reality; and
it is this, with the added idea of personality, that is conveyed by
the description "living and true." But does God sustain this character
in the minds even of those who habitually worship Him? Is it not the
case that the things which are nearest to our hand seem to be
possessed of most life and reality, while God is by comparison very
unreal, a remote inference from something which is immediately
certain? If that is so, it will be very difficult for us to serve Him.
The law of our life will not be found in His will, but in our own
desires, or in the customs of our society; our motive will not be His
praise, but some end which is fully attained apart from Him. "My
meat," said Jesus, "is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to
finish His work"; and He could say so because God who sent Him was to
Him the living and true God, the first and last and sole reality,
whose will embraced and covered all His life. Do we think of God so?
Are the existence of God and the claim of God upon our obedience the
permanent element in our minds, the unchanging background of all our
thoughts and purposes? This is the fundamental thing in a truly
religious life.

But the Apostle goes on from what is merely theistic, to what is
distinctively Christian. "Ye turned to God from idols ... to wait for
His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead."

This is a very summary description of the issue of Christian
conversion. Judging by the analogy of other places, especially in St.
Paul, we should have expected some mention of faith. In Acts xx.,
_e.g._, where he characterises his preaching, he names as its main
elements, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ. But here faith has been displaced by hope; the Thessalonians
are represented not as trusting in Christ, but as waiting for Him. Of
course, such hope implies faith. They only waited for Him because they
believed He had redeemed them, and would save them at the great day.
If faith and hope differ in that the one seems to look mainly to the
past and the other to the future, they agree in that both are
concerned with the revelation of the unseen.

Everything in this revelation goes back to the resurrection and rests
upon it. It is mentioned here, in the first instance, exactly as in
Rom. i. 4, as the _argumentum palmarium_ for the Divine Sonship of
Jesus. There are many proofs of that essential doctrine, but not all
can be brought forward in all circumstances. Perhaps the most
convincing at the present time is that which is drawn from the
solitary perfection of Christ's character; the more truly and fully we
get the impression of that character, as it is reflected in the
Gospels, the surer we are that it is not a fancy picture, but drawn
from life; and that He whose likeness it is, stands alone among the
sons of men. But this kind of argument it takes years, not perhaps of
study, but of obedience and devotion, to appreciate; and when the
apostles went forth to preach the gospel they needed a more summary
process of conviction. This they found in Christ's resurrection; that
was an event standing alone in the world's history. There had been
nothing like it before; there has been nothing like it since. But the
men who were assured of it by many infallible proofs, did not presume
to disbelieve it because of its singularity; amazing as it was, they
could not but feel that it became one so unique in goodness and
greatness as Jesus; it was not possible, they saw after the event,
that He should be holden by the power of death; the resurrection only
exhibited Him in His true dignity; it declared Him the Son of God,
and set Him on His throne. Accordingly in all their preaching they put
the resurrection in the forefront. It was a revelation of life. It
extended the horizon of man's existence. It brought into view realms
of being that had hitherto been hidden in darkness. It magnified to
infinity the significance of everything in our short life in this
world, because it connected everything immediately with an endless
life beyond. And as this life in the unseen had been revealed in
Christ, all the apostles had to tell about it centred in Him. The
risen Christ was King, Judge, and Saviour; the Christian's present
duty was to love, trust, obey, and wait for Him.

This waiting includes everything. "Ye come behind in no gift," Paul
says to the Corinthians, "waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus
Christ." That attitude of expectation is the bloom, as it were, of the
Christian character. Without it, there is something lacking; the
Christian who does not look upward and onward wants one mark of
perfection. This is, in all probability, the point on which we should
find ourselves most from home, in the atmosphere of the primitive
Church. Not unbelievers only, but disciples as well, have practically
ceased to think of the Second Advent. The society which devotes itself
to reviving interest in the truth uses Scripture in a fashion which
makes it impossible to take much interest in its proceedings; yet a
truth so clearly a part of Scripture teaching cannot be neglected
without loss. The door of the unseen world closed behind Christ as He
ascended from Olivet, but not for ever. It will open again; and this
same Jesus shall so come in like manner as the apostles beheld Him go.
He has gone to prepare a place for those who love Him and keep His
word; but "if I go," He says, "and prepare a place for you, I will
come again, and take you to Myself; that where I am, there ye may be
also." That is the final hope of the Christian faith. It is for the
fulfilment of this promise that the Church waits. The Second Coming of
Christ and His Resurrection stand and fall together; and it will not
long be possible for those who look askance at His return to receive
in all its fulness the revelation of life which He made when He rose
again from the dead. This world is too much with us; and it needs not
languor, but strenuous effort on the part of faith and hope, to make
the unseen world as real. Let us see that we come not behind in a
grace so essential to the very being of Christianity.

The last words of the verse describe the character in which the Son of
God is expected by Christians to appear--Jesus, our deliverer[4] from
the wrath to come (+tes orges tes erchomenes+). There is, then,
according to apostolic teaching, a coming wrath--a wrath impending
over the world, and actually on its way towards it. It is called the
wrath to come, in distinction from anything of the same nature of
which we have experience here. We all know the penal consequences
which sin brings in its train even in this world. Remorse, unavailing
sorrow, shame, fear, the sight of injury which we have done to those
we love and which we cannot undo, incapacity for service,--all these
are part and parcel of the fruit which sin bears. But they are not the
wrath to come. They do not exhaust the judgment of God upon evil.
Instead of discrediting it, they bear witness to it; they are, so to
speak, its forerunners; the lurid clouds that appear here and there in
the sky, but are finally lost in the dense mass of the thunderstorm.
When the Apostle preached the gospel, he preached the wrath to come;
without it, there would have been a missing link in the circle of
Christian ideas. "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," he says.
Why? Because in it the righteousness of God is revealed, a
righteousness which is God's gift and acceptable in God's sight. But
why is such a revelation of righteousness necessary? Because the wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men. The gospel is a revelation made to the world
in view of a given situation, and the most prominent and threatening
element in that situation is the impending wrath of God. The apostles
do not prove it; they declare it. The proof of it is left to conscience,
and to the Spirit of God reinforcing and quickening conscience; if
anything can be added to this, it is the gospel itself; for if there
were no such thing as the wrath of God, the gospel would be
gratuitous. We may, if we please, evade the truth; we may pick and
choose for ourselves among the elements of New Testament teaching, and
reject all that is distasteful; we may take our stand upon pride, and
decline to be threatened even by God; but we cannot be honest, and at
the same time deny that Christ and His apostles warn us of wrath to
come.

Of course we must not misconceive the character of this wrath. We must
not import into our thoughts of it all that we can borrow from our
experience of man's anger--hastiness, unreason, intemperate rage. The
wrath of God is no arbitrary, passionate outburst; it is not, as wrath
so often is with us, a fury of selfish resentment. "Evil shall not
dwell with Thee," says the Psalmist; and in that simple word we have
the root of the matter. The wrath of God is, as it were, the instinct
of self-preservation in the Divine nature; it is the eternal
repulsion, by the Holy One, of all evil. Evil shall _not_ dwell with
Him. That may be doubted or denied while the day of grace lasts, and
God's forbearance is giving space to the sinful for repentance; but a
day is coming when it will no more be possible to doubt it--the day
which the Apostle calls the day of wrath. It will then be plain to all
the world that God's wrath is no empty name, but the most terrible of
all powers--a consuming fire in which everything opposed to His
holiness is burnt up. And while we take care not to think of this
wrath after the pattern of our own sinful passions, let us take care,
on the other hand, not to make it an unreal thing, without analogy in
human life. If we go upon the ground of Scripture and of our own
experience, it has the same degree and the same kind of reality as the
love of God, or His compassion, or His forbearance. In whatever way we
lawfully think of one side of the Divine nature, we must at the same
time think of the other. If there is a passion of Divine love, there
is a passion of Divine wrath as well. Nothing is meant in either case
unworthy of the Divine nature; what is conveyed by the word passion is
the truth that God's repulsion of evil is as intense as the ardour
with which He delights in good. To deny that is to deny that He is
good.

The apostolic preacher, who had announced the wrath to come, and
awakened guilty consciences to see their danger, preached Jesus as the
deliverer from it. This is the real meaning of the words in the text;
and neither "Jesus which delivered," as in the Authorised Version,
nor, in any rigorous sense, "Jesus which delivereth," as in the
Revised. It is the character of Jesus that is in view, and neither the
past nor the present of His action. Every one who reads the words must
feel, How brief! how much remains to be explained! how much Paul must
have had to say about how the deliverance is effected! As the passage
stands, it recalls vividly the end of the second Psalm: "Kiss the Son,
lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way, for His wrath will soon be
kindled. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." To have
the Son a friend, to be identified with Jesus--so much we see at
once--secures deliverance in the day of wrath. Other Scriptures supply
the missing links. The atonement for sin made by Christ's death; faith
which unites the soul to the Saviour, and brings into it the virtue of
His cross and resurrection; the Holy Spirit who dwells in believers,
sanctifying them, and making them fit to dwell with God in the
light,--all these come into view elsewhere, and in spite of the brevity
of this notice had their place, beyond doubt, in Paul's teaching at
Thessalonica.[5] Not that all could be explained at once: that was
unnecessary. But from imminent danger there must be an instantaneous
escape; and it is sufficient to say that it is found in Jesus Christ.
"Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." The risen Son is
enthroned in power; He is Judge of all; He died for all; He is able to
save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. To commit
everything definitely to Him; to leave Him to undertake for us; to put
on Him the responsibility of our past and our future, as He invites us
to do; to put ourselves for good and all at His side,--this is to find
deliverance from the wrath to come. It leaves much unexplained that we
may come to understand afterwards, and much, perhaps, that we shall
never understand; but it guarantees itself, adventure though it be;
Christ never disappoints any who thus put their trust in Him.

This description in outline of conversion from paganism to the gospel
should revive the elementary Christian virtues in our hearts. Have we
seen how high a thing it is to serve a living and true God? Or is it
not so, that even among Christians, a _godly_ man--one who lives in
the presence of God, and is conscious of his responsibility to Him--is
the rarest of all types? Are we waiting for His Son from heaven, whom
He raised from the dead? Or are there not many who hardly so much as
form the idea of His return, and to whom the attitude of waiting for
Him would seem strained and unnatural? In plain words, what the New
Testament calls Hope is in many Christians dead: the world to come and
all that is involved in it--the searching judgment, the impending
wrath, the glory of Christ--have slipped from our grasp. Yet it was
this hope which more than anything gave its peculiar colour to the
primitive Christianity, its unworldliness, its moral intensity, its
command of the future even in this life. If there were nothing else to
establish it, would not its spiritual fruits be sufficient?

[4] The present participle here is simply equivalent to a substantive.

[5] Much has been made, by writers who wish to trace the spiritual
development of St. Paul, of the absence from his earliest epistles of
explicit teaching on the atonement and on justification by faith. But
we have to remember that the Epistles to the Thessalonians, like most
of his writings, were incidental; their topics were provided, and
limited, by special circumstances. The doctrinal matter in 1
Thessalonians was not even the principal thing; the +loipon+ in iv. 1
shows that by the end of chapter iii. the Apostle has done what he
intended to do when he began; even the paragraphs on the Parousia are
casual and supplementary. But if we consider that Paul had now been
preaching for perhaps seventeen years, and that within a few months he
delivered to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xv. 1-4) the one gospel known
alike to him and to the twelve,--the gospel which had for its
fundamental article "that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures,"--we shall see how unreal it is to exclude this doctrine
from his evangelistic work at Thessalonica. No doubt there, as at
Corinth, he delivered this "first of all."--See also chap. v. 10.




V.

_APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA._


 "For yourselves, brethren, know our entering in unto you, that it
 hath not been found vain: but having suffered before, and been
 shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we waxed bold in our
 God to speak unto you the gospel of God in much conflict. For our
 exhortation _is_ not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: but
 even as we have been approved of God to be intrusted with the
 gospel, so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God which proveth our
 hearts. For neither at any time were we found using words of
 flattery, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness, God is witness;
 nor seeking glory of men, neither from you, nor from others, when we
 might have been burdensome, as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle
 in the midst of you, as when a nurse cherisheth her own children:
 even so, being affectionately desirous of you, we were well pleased
 to impart unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own
 souls, because ye were become very dear to us. For ye remember,
 brethren, our labour and travail: working night and day, that we
 might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.
 Ye are witnesses, and God _also_, how holily and righteously and
 unblameably we behaved ourselves toward you that believe: as ye know
 how we _dealt_ with each one of you, as a father with his own
 children, exhorting you, and encouraging _you_, and testifying, to
 the end that ye should walk worthily of God, who calleth you into
 His own kingdom and glory."--1 THESS. ii. 1-12 (R.V.).

Our first impression, as we read these verses, is that they contain
little that is new. They simply expand the statement of ch. i., ver.
5: "Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power, and in
the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; even as ye know what manner of
men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake." But if their
substance is the same, their tone is very different. It is obvious at
a glance that the Apostle has a definite purpose in view in appealing
so pointedly as he does here to facts with which his readers were
familiar. The truth is, he is standing upon his defence. Unless it
were so, he would not think of writing, as he does in ver. 5, that he
had never had recourse to flattery, nor sought to make gain out of his
apostleship; nor as he does in ver. 10, that God knows the entire
purity of his life among them. Although he does not name them, it is
quite plain that he was already suffering from those enemies who never
ceased to vex him while he lived. As we learn afterwards, these
enemies were the Jews. When they had opportunity, they used open
violence; they roused the Gentile mob against him; they had him
scourged and stoned. When his body was out of their reach, they
assailed him through his character and affections. They crept into the
churches which his love and zeal had gathered here and there, and
scattered injurious suspicions against him among his disciples. He was
not, they hinted, all that he seemed to be. They could tell stories
about his early days, and advised those who did not know him so well
to be on their guard. Evangelising paid him quite as well as harder
work, and his paltry ambition was gratified by lording it over his
ignorant converts. Such messengers of Satan had apparently made their
appearance in Thessalonica since Paul left, and this chapter is his
reply to their insinuations.

There is something exquisitely painful in the situation thus created.
It would have been like a sword piercing the Apostle's heart, had his
enemies succeeded in their attempt to breed distrust in the
Thessalonians toward him. He could not have borne to think that those
whom he loved so utterly should entertain the faintest suspicion of
the integrity of his love. But happily he is spared that pain. He
writes, indeed, as one who has felt the indignity of the charges
brought against him, but with the frankness and heartiness of a man
who is confident that his defence will be well received. From baseless
insinuations he can appeal to facts which are well known to all. From
the false character in which he has been dressed by his adversaries he
can appeal to the true, in which he lived and moved familiarly among
them.

The first point in his favour is found in the circumstances under
which he had preached the gospel in Thessalonica. Had he been an
insincere man, with bye ends of his own to serve, he would never have
faced the career of an apostle. He had been scourged and put in the
stocks at Philippi; and when he left that city for Thessalonica, he
brought his troubles with him. Here also he had much conflict; he was
beset on every hand with difficulties; it was only in the strength of
God that he had courage to preach at all. You yourselves, he says,
know that; and how, in spite of that, our coming to you was not vain,
but full of power; surely it needs no more to prove the
disinterestedness of our mission.

From this point onward, the apology falls into two parts, a negative
and a positive: the Apostle tells us what his gospel and the
proclamation of it are not; and then he tells us what, at
Thessalonica, it had been.

In the first place, it is not of error. It does not rest on mistakes,
or imaginations, or cunningly devised fables; in the fullest sense it
is the truth. It would have taken the heart out of the Apostle, and
made him incapable of braving anything for its sake, had he been in
doubt of this. If the gospel were a device of man, then men might take
liberties with it, handle it deceitfully, make their own account out
of it; but resting as it does on facts and truth, it demands honest
dealing in all its ministers. Paul claims here a character in
agreement with the dispensation which he serves: can a minister of the
truth, he asks, be other than a true man?

In the next place, it is not of uncleanness; that is, it is not
prompted by any impure motive. The force of the word here must be
determined by the context; and we see that the impure motives
specially laid to the charge of Paul were avarice and ambition; or, to
use the words of the Apostle himself, covetousness, and the seeking of
honour from men. The first of these is so manifestly inconsistent with
any degree of spirituality that Paul writes instinctively "_a cloke_
of covetousness"; he did not make his apostolic labour a veil, under
cover of which he could gratify his love of gain. It is impossible to
exaggerate the subtle and clinging character of this vice. It owes its
strength to the fact that it can be so easily cloked. We seek money,
so we tell ourselves, not because we are covetous, but because it is a
power for all good purposes. Piety, charity, humanity, refinement,
art, science--it can minister to them all; but when we obtain it, it
is too easily hoarded, or spent in indulgence, display, and
conformity to the world. The pursuit of wealth, except in an utterly
materialised society, is always cloked by some ideal end to which it
is to minister; but how few there are in whose hands wealth is merely
an instrument for the furtherance of such ends. In many men the desire
for it is naked selfishness, an idolatry as undisguised as that of
Israel at Sinai. Yet all men feel how bad and mean it is to have the
heart set on money. All men see how base and incongruous it is to make
godliness a source of gain. All men see the peculiar ugliness of a
character which associates piety and avarice--of a Balaam, for
instance, a Gehazi, or an Ananias. It is not ministers of the gospel
only, but all to whom the credit of the gospel is entrusted, who have
to be on their guard here. Our enemies are entitled to question our
sincerity when we can be shown to be lovers of money. At Thessalonica,
as elsewhere, Paul had been at pains to make such calumny impossible.
Although entitled to claim support from the Church in accordance with
the law of Christ that they who preach the gospel should live by the
gospel, he had wrought night and day with his own hands that he might
not burden any of them. As a precaution, this self-denial was vain;
there can be no security against malice; but it gave him a triumphant
vindication when the charge of covetousness was actually made.

The other impure motive contemplated is ambition. Some modern students
of Paul's character--devil's advocates, no doubt--hint at this as his
most obvious fault. It was necessary for him, we are told, to be
first; to be the leader of a party; to have a following of his own.
But he disclaims ambition as explicitly as avarice. He never sought
glory from men, at Thessalonica or elsewhere. He used none of the arts
which obtain it. As apostles of Christ--he includes his friends--they
had, indeed, a rank of their own; the greatness of the Prince whom
they represented was reflected on them as His ambassadors; they might
have "stood upon their dignity,"[6] had they chosen to do so. Their
very self-denial in the matter of money formed a new temptation for
them here. They might well feel that their disinterested service of
the Thessalonians entitled them to a spiritual pre-eminence; and
indeed there is no pride like that which bases on ascetic austerities
the claim to direct with authority the life and conduct of others.
Paul escaped this snare. He did not compensate himself for renouncing
gain, with any lordship over souls. In all things he was the servant
of those to whom he preached.

And as his motives were pure, so were the means he used. His
exhortation was not in guile. He did not manipulate his message; he
was never found using words of flattery. The gospel was not his own to
do what he pleased with: it was God's; God had approved him so far as
to entrust it to him; yet every moment, in the discharge of his trust,
that same God was proving his heart still, so that false dealing was
impossible. He did not make his message other than it was; he did not
hide any part of the counsel of God; he did not inveigle the
Thessalonians by any false pretences into responsibilities which would
not have been accepted could they have been foreseen.

All these denials--not of error, not of uncleanness, not of guile; not
pleasing men, not using words of flattery, not cloking over
covetousness--all these denials presuppose the contrary affirmations.
Paul does not indulge in boasting but on compulsion; he would never
have sought to justify himself, unless he had first been accused. And
now, over against this picture, drawn by his enemies, let us look at
the true likeness which is held up before God and man.

Instead of selfishness there is love, and nothing but love. We are all
familiar with the great passage in the epistle to the Philippians
where the Apostle depicts the mind which was in Christ Jesus. The
contrast in that passage between the disposition which grasps at
eminence and that which makes itself of no reputation, between
+harpagmos+ and +kenosis+, is reproduced here. Paul had learned of
Christ; and instead of seeking in his apostolic work opportunities for
self-exaltation, he shrank from no service imposed by love. "We were
gentle in the midst of you, as when a nurse cherisheth her own
children." "Her own" is to be emphasised. The tenderness of the
Apostle was that of a mother warming her babe at her breast. Most of
the ancient authorities, the R.V. tells us in the margin, read "We
were _babes_ (+nepioi+) in the midst of you." If this were correct,
the thought would be that Paul stooped to the level of these infant
disciples, speaking to them, as it were, in the language of childhood,
and accommodating himself to their immaturity. But though this is
appropriate enough, the word +nepioi+ is not proper to express it.[7]
Gentleness is really what is meant. But his love went further than
this in its yearning over the Thessalonians. He had been accused of
seeking gain and glory when he came among them; but his sole desire
had been not to get but to give. As his stay was prolonged, the
disciples became very dear to their teachers; "we were well pleased to
impart unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls."
That is the true standard of pastoral care. The Apostle lived up to it
always. "_Now_ we _live_," he writes in the next chapter, "if ye stand
fast in the Lord." "Ye are in our hearts," he cries to the
Corinthians, "to live together and to die together." He not only kept
back from them nothing of the whole purpose of God; he kept back no
part of himself. His daily toil, his toil by night, his prayers, his
preaching, his spiritual ardour, his very soul, were theirs. They knew
his labour and travail; they were witnesses, and God also, how holily
and righteously and unblamably he had behaved toward them.

As the Apostle recalls these recent memories, he dwells for a
moment on another aspect of his love. It had not only the tender
fondness of a mother's, but the educative wisdom of a father's. One
by one he dealt with the disciples--which is not the way to gain
glory--exhorting, encouraging, bearing solemn testimony to the truth
of God. And his end in all this, as they knew, was ideal and
spiritual, an end as remote as possible from any worldly interest of
his own; that they might walk worthily of God who was calling them
into His own kingdom and glory. How far from the rewards and
distinctions of the present must that man's mind be who sees, as Paul
saw steadily, the things that are invisible. If he who is blind to the
golden crown above his head grasps the muck rake tightly and clutches
eagerly all it brings within his reach, surely he whose eye is set
upon the crown must be superior alike to the gain and the glory of the
world. That, at least, is the claim which the Apostle makes here.
Nothing could be more incongruous than that a man to whom the visible
world was transitory and unreal, and the invisible kingdom of God real
and eternal, should be eager for money and applause, and forget the
high calling with which he himself was calling men in Christ. So far
the apology of the Apostle.

The practical application of this passage is different, according as
we look at it in detail, or as a whole. It exhibits to us, in the
charges brought against Paul, those vices which even bad men can see
to be rankly inconsistent with the Christian character. Covetousness
is the foremost. No matter how we cloke it--and we always cloke it
somehow--it is incurably un-Christian. Christ had no money. He never
wished to have any. The one perfect life that has been lived in this
world is the life of Him who owned nothing, and who left nothing but
the clothes he wore. Whoever names the name of Christ, and professes
to follow Him, must learn of Him indifference to gain. The mere
suspicion of avarice will discredit, and ought to discredit, the most
pious pretensions. The second vice I have spoken of as ambition. It is
the desire to use others for one's own exaltation, to make them the
stepping stones on which we rise to eminence, the ministers of our
vanity, the sphere for the display of our own abilities as leaders,
masters, organisers, preachers. To put ourselves in that relation to
others is to do an essentially un-Christian thing. A minister whose
congregation is the theatre on which he displays his talents or his
eloquence is not a Christian. A clever man, to whom the men and women
with whom he meets in society are merely specimens of human nature on
whom he can make shrewd observations, sharpening his wits on them as
on a grindstone, is not a Christian. A man of business, who looks at
the labourers whom he employs as only so many instruments for rearing
the fabric of his prosperity, is not a Christian. Everybody in the
world knows that; and such men, if they profess Christianity, give a
handle to slander, and bring disgrace on the religion which they wear
merely as a blind. True Christianity is love, and the nature of love
is not to take but to give. There is no limit to the Christian's
beneficence; he counts nothing his own; he gives his very soul with
every separate gift. He is as tender as the mother to her infant; as
wise, as manly, as earnest as the father with his growing boy.

Looked at as a whole this passage warns us against slander. It must
needs be that slander is spoken and believed; but woe to the man or
woman by whom it is either believed or spoken! None are good enough to
escape it. Christ was slandered; they called Him a glutton and a
drunkard, and said He was in league with the devil. Paul was
slandered; they said he was a very smart man, who looked well to his
own interest, and made dupes of simple people. The deliberate
wickedness of such falsehoods is diabolical, but it is not so very
rare. Numbers of people who would not invent such stories are glad to
hear them. They are not very particular whether they are true or
false; it pleases them to think that an evangelist, eminent in
profession, gets a royalty on hymn-books; or that a priest, famous for
devotion, was really no better than he should have been; or that a
preacher, whose words regenerated a whole church, sometimes despised
his audience, and talked nonsense impromptu. To sympathise with
detraction is to have the spirit of the devil, not of Christ. Be on
your guard against such sympathy; you are human, and therefore need
to. Never give utterance to a suspicious thought. Never repeat what
would discredit a man, if you have only heard it and are not sure it
is true; even if you are sure of its truth, be afraid of yourself if
it gives you any pleasure to think of it. Love thinketh no evil; love
rejoiceth not in iniquity.

[6] So Alford renders +dynamenoi en barei einai+.

[7] +nepios+ always includes the idea of being undeveloped, unripe,
and has often a shade of censure in Paul.




VI.

_IMPEACHMENT OF THE JEWS._


 "And for this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that, when ye
 received from us the word of the message, _even the word_ of
 God, ye accepted _it_ not _as_ the word of men, but, as it is in
 truth, the word of God, which also worketh in you that believe. For
 ye, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in
 Judaea in Christ Jesus; for ye also suffered the same things of your
 own countrymen, even as they did of the Jews; who both killed the
 Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drave out us, and please not God,
 and are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles
 that they may be saved; to fill up their sins alway: but the wrath is
 come upon them to the uttermost."--1 THESS. ii. 13-16 (R.V.).

These verses complete the treatment of the subject with which this
chapter opens. The Apostle has drawn a moving picture of his life and
labours in Thessalonica; he has pointed to it as his sufficient
vindication from all the charges laid against him. Before carrying the
war into the enemies' camp, and depicting the traditions and the
spirit of his traducers, he lingers again for a moment on the happy
results of his work. In spite of persecution and calumny, he has cause
to thank God without ceasing when he remembers the reception of the
gospel by the Thessalonians.

When the message was brought to them, they accepted it, he says, not
as the word of men, but as what it was in truth, the word of God. It
is in this character that the gospel always presents itself. A word of
men cannot address men with authority; it must submit itself to
criticism; it must vindicate itself on grounds which man's understanding
approves. Now, the gospel is not irrational; it is its own demand that
the Christian shall be ready to answer every one who demands a
rational account of the hope that is in him. But neither does it, on
the other hand, come to us soliciting our approval; submitting itself,
as a system of ideas, to our scrutiny, and courting approbation. It
speaks with authority. It _commands_ repentance; it preaches
forgiveness on the ground of Christ's death--a supreme gift of God
which may be accepted or rejected, but is not proposed for discussion;
it exhibits the law of Christ's life as the law which is binding upon
every human being, and calls upon all men to follow him. Its decisive
appeal is made to the conscience and the will; and to respond to it is
to give up will and conscience to God. When the Apostle says, "Ye
received it as, what it is in truth, the word of God," he betrays, if
one may use the word, the consciousness of his own inspiration.
Nothing is commoner now than to speak of the theology of Paul as if it
were a private possession of the Apostle, a scheme of thought that he
had framed for himself, to explain his own experience. Such a scheme
of thought, we are told, has no right whatever to impose itself on us;
it has only a historical and biographical interest; it has no
necessary connexion with truth. The first result of this line of
thought, in almost every case, is the rejection of the very heart of
the apostolic gospel; the doctrine of the atonement is no longer the
greatest truth of revelation, but a rickety bridge on which Paul
imagined he had crossed from Pharisaism to Christianity. Certainly
this modern analysis of the epistles does not reflect the Apostle's
own way of looking at what he called "My gospel." To him it was no
device of man, but unequivocally Divine; in very truth, the word of
God. His theology certainly came to him in the way of his experience;
his mind had been engaged with it, and was engaged with it continually;
but he was conscious that, with all this freedom, it rested at bottom
on the truth of God; and when he preached it--for his theology was the
sum of the Divine truth he held, and he _did_ preach it--he did not
submit it to men as a theme for discussion. He put it above discussion.
He pronounced a solemn and reiterated anathema on either man or angel
who should put anything else in its stead. He published it, not for
criticism, as though it had been his own device; but, as the word of
God, for the obedience of faith. The tone of this passage recalls the
word of our Lord, "Whoso shall not receive the kingdom of God as a
little child shall in no wise enter therein." There are difficulties
enough connected with the gospel, but they are not of a kind that
disappear while we stand and look at them, or even stand and think
about them; unquestioning surrender solves many, and introduces us to
experiences which enable us to bear the rest with patience.

The word of God, in other words the gospel, proved its Divine
character in the Thessalonians _after_ it was received. "It also
worketh," says Paul, "in you that believe." The last words are not
superfluous. The word preached, we read of an earlier generation, did
not profit, not being mixed with faith in them that heard. Faith
conditions its efficacy. Gospel truth is an active force when it is
within the heart; but it can do nothing for us while doubt, pride, or
unacknowledged reserve, keep it outside. If we have really welcomed
the Divine message, it will not be inoperative; it will work within us
all that is characteristic of New Testament life--love, joy, peace,
hope, patience. These are the proofs of its truth. Here, then, is the
source of all graces: if the word of Christ dwell in us richly; if the
truth of the gospel, deep, manifold, inexhaustible, yet ever the same,
possess our hearts,--the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.

The particular gospel grace which the Apostle has here in view is
patience. He proves that the word of God is at work in the
Thessalonians by pointing to the fact that they have suffered for His
sake. "Had you been still of the world, the world would have loved its
own; but as it is, you have become imitators of the Christian churches
in Judaea, and have suffered the same things at the hands of your
countrymen as they from theirs." Of all places in the world, Judaea was
that in which the gospel and its adherents had suffered most
severely. Jerusalem itself was the focus of hostility. No one knew
better than Paul, the zealous persecutor of heresy, what it had cost
from the very beginning to be true to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
Scourging, imprisonment, exile, death by the sword or by stoning, had
rewarded such fidelity. We do not know to what extremity the enemies
of the gospel had gone in Thessalonica; but the distress of the
Christians must have been great when the Apostle could make this
comparison even in passing. He has already told them (ch. i. 6) that
much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost, is the very badge of
God's elect; and here he combines the same stern necessity with the
operation of the Divine word in their hearts. Do not let us overlook
this. The work of God's word (or if you prefer it, the effect of
receiving the gospel), is in the first instance to produce a new
character, a character not only distinct from that of the unconverted,
but antagonistic to it, and more directly and inevitably antagonistic,
the more thoroughly it is wrought out; so that in proportion as God's
word is operative in us, we come into collision with the world which
rejects it. To suffer, therefore, is to the Apostle the seal of faith;
it warrants the genuineness of a Christian profession. It is not a
sign that God has forgotten His people, but a sign that He is with
them; and that they are being brought by Him into fellowship with
primitive churches, with apostles and prophets, with the Incarnate Son
Himself. And hence the whole situation of the Thessalonians, suffering
included, comes under that heartfelt expression of thanks to God with
which the passage opens. It is not a subject for condolence, but for
gratitude, that they have been counted worthy to suffer shame for the
Name.

And now the Apostle turns from the persecuted to the persecutors.
There is nothing in his epistles elsewhere that can be compared with
this passionate outburst. Paul was proud with no common pride of his
Jewish descent; it was better in his eyes than any patent of nobility.
His heart swelled as he thought of the nation to which the adoption
pertained, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the
law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose were the fathers,
and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. Apostle of the
Gentiles though he was, he had great sorrow and unceasing pain in his
heart, when he remembered the antagonism of the Jews to the gospel; he
could have wished himself anathema from Christ for their sakes. He was
confident, too, that in some glorious future they would yet submit to
the Messiah, so that all Israel should be saved. The turning of the
heathen to God would provoke them to jealousy; and the Divine calling
with which the nation had been called in Abraham would reach its
predestined goal. Such is the tone, and such the anticipation, with
which, not very long afterwards, Paul writes in the epistle to the
Romans. Here he looks at his countrymen with other eyes. They are
identified, in his experience, with a fierce resistance to the gospel,
and with cruel persecutions of the Church of Christ. Only in the
character of bitter enemies has he been in contact with them in recent
years. They have hunted him from city to city in Asia and in Europe;
they have raised the populace against his converts; they have sought
to poison the minds of his disciples against him. He knows that this
policy is that with which his countrymen as a whole have identified
themselves; and as he looks steadily at it, he sees that in doing so
they have only acted in consistency with all their past history. The
messengers whom God sends to demand the fruit of His vineyard have
always been treated with violence and despite. The crowning sin of the
race is put in the forefront; they slew the Lord, Jesus; but before
the Lord came, they had slain His prophets; and after He had gone,
they expelled His apostles. God had put them in a position of
privilege, but only for a time; they were the depositaries, or
trustees, of the knowledge of God as the Saviour of men; and now, when
the time had come for that knowledge to be diffused throughout all the
world, they clung proudly and stubbornly to the old position. They
pleased not God and were contrary to all men, in forbidding the
apostles to preach salvation to the heathen. There is an echo, all
through this passage, of the words of Stephen: "Ye stiffnecked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost."
There are sentences in heathen authors, who repaid the contempt and
hatred of the Jews with haughty disdain, that have been compared with
this terrible impeachment by the Apostle; but in reality, they are
quite unlike. What we have here is not a burst of temper, though there
is undoubtedly strong feeling in it; it is the vehement condemnation,
by a man in thorough sympathy with the mind and spirit of God, of the
principles on which the Jews as a nation had acted at every period of
their history.

What is the relation of God to such a situation as is here described?
The Jews, Paul says, did all this "to fill up their sins at all
times." He does not mean that that was their intention; neither does
he speak ironically; but speaking as he often does from that Divine
standpoint at which all results are intended and purposed results, not
outside of, but within, the counsel of God, he signifies that this
Divine end was being secured by their wickedness. The cup of their
iniquity was filling all the time. Every generation did something to
raise the level within. The men who bade Amos begone, and eat his
bread at home, raised it a little; the men who sought Hosea's life in
the sanctuary, raised it further; so did those who put Jeremiah in the
dungeon, and those who murdered Zechariah between the temple and the
altar. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, the cup was full to the
brim. When those whom He left behind to be His witnesses, and to
preach repentance and remission of sins to an men, beginning at
Jerusalem, were expelled or put to death, it ran over. God could bear
no more. Side by side with the cup of iniquity the cup of judgment had
been filling also; and they overflowed together. Even when Paul wrote
he could say, "The wrath is come upon them to the very end."[8]

It is not easy to explain the precise force of these words. They seem
to point definitely[9] to some event, or some act of God, in which His
wrath had been unmistakably made manifest. To suppose that the fall of
Jerusalem is meant is to deny that Paul wrote the words. All that is
certain is that the Apostle saw in the signs of the times some
infallible token that the nation's day of grace had come to an end.
Perhaps some excess of a Roman procurator, now forgotten; perhaps one
of those famines that desolated Judaea in that unhappy age; perhaps the
recent edict of Claudius, expelling all Jews from Rome, and betraying
the temper of the supreme power; perhaps the coming shadow of an awful
doom, obscure in outline, but none the less inevitable, gave shape to
the expression. The Jews had failed, in their day, to recognise the
things that belonged to their peace; and now they were hid from their
eyes. They had disregarded every presage of the coming storm; and at
length the clouds that could not be charmed away had accumulated over
their heads, and the fire of God was ready to leap out.

This striking passage embodies certain truths to which we do well to
give heed. It shows us that there is such a thing as a national
character. In the providential government of God a nation is not an
aggregate of individuals, each one of whom stands apart from the rest;
it is a corporation with a unity, life and spirit of its own. Within
that unity there may be a conflict of forces, a struggle of good with
evil, of higher with lower tendencies, just as there is in the
individual soul; but there will be a preponderance on one side or the
other; and that side to which the balance leans will prevail more and
more. In the vast spirit of the nation, as in the spirit of each man
or woman, through the slow succession of generations as in the swift
succession of years, character gradually assumes more fixed and
definite form. There is a process of development, interrupted perhaps
and retarded by such conflicts as I have referred to, but bringing
out all the more decisively and irreversibly the inmost spirit of the
whole. There is nothing which the proud and the weak more dread than
inconsistency; there is nothing, therefore, which is so fatally
certain to happen as what has happened already. The Jews resented from
the first the intrusion of God's word into their lives; they had
ambitions and ideas of their own, and in its corporate action the
nation was uniformly hostile to the prophets. It beat one and killed
another and stoned a third; it was of a different spirit from them,
and from Him who sent them; and the longer it lived, the more like
itself, the more unlike God, it became. It was the climax of its sin,
yet only the climax--for it had previously taken every step that led
to that eminence in evil--when it slew the Lord Jesus. And when it was
ripe for judgment, judgment fell upon it as a whole.

It is not easy to speak impartially about our own country and its
character; yet such a character there undoubtedly is, just as there is
such a unity as the British nation. Many observers tell us that the
character has degenerated into a mere instinct for trade; and that it
has begotten a vast unscrupulousness in dealing with the weak. Nobody
will deny that there is a protesting conscience in the nation, a voice
which pleads in God's name for justice, as the prophets pled in
Israel; but the question is not whether such a voice is audible, but
whether in the corporate acts of the nation it is obeyed. The state
ought to be a Christian state. The nation ought to be conscious of a
spiritual vocation, and to be animated with the spirit of Christ. In
its dealings with other powers, in its relations to savage or
half-civilised peoples, in its care for the weak among its own
citizens, it should acknowledge the laws of justice and of mercy. We
have reason to thank God that in all these matters Christian sentiment
is beginning to tell. The opium trade with China, the liquor trade
with the natives of Africa, the labour trade in the South Seas, the
dwellings of the poor, the public-house system with its deliberate
fostering of drunkenness, all these are matters in regard to which the
nation was in danger of settling into permanent hostility to God, and
in which there is now hope of better things. The wrath which is the
due and inevitable accompaniment of such hostility, when persisted in,
has not come on us to the very end; God has given us opportunity to
rectify what is amiss, and to deal with all our interests in the
spirit of the New Testament. Let no one be backward or indifferent
when so great a work is in hand. The heritage of sin accumulates if it
is not put away by well doing; and with sin, judgment. It is for us to
learn by the word of God and the examples of history that the nation
and kingdom that will not serve Him shall perish.

Finally, this passage shows us the last and worst form which sin can
assume, in the words "forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they
should be saved." Nothing is so completely ungodly, so utterly unlike
God and opposed to Him, as that spirit which grudges others the good
things which it prizes for itself. When the Jewish nation set itself
relentlessly to prohibit the extension of the gospel to the
Gentiles--when the word was passed round the synagogues from head
quarters that this renegade Paul, who was summoning the pagans to
become the people of God, was to be thwarted by fraud or violence--God's
patience was exhausted. Such selfish pride was the very negation of
His love; the _ne plus ultra_ of evil. Yet nothing is more easy and
natural than for men who have occupied a position of privilege to
indulge this temper. An imperial nation, which boasts of its freedom,
grudges such freedom to others; it seems to lose the very consciousness
of being free, unless there is a subject people over which it can
tyrannise. In many relations of minor consequence, political and
social, we have cause to make this reflection. Do not think that what
is good for you, is anything else than good for your neighbour. If you
are a better man because you have a comfortable home, leisure,
education, interest in public affairs, a place in the church, so would
he be. Above all, if the gospel of Christ is to you the pearl above
all price, take care how you grudge that to any human soul. This is
not an unnecessary caution. The criticism of missionary methods, which
may be legitimate enough, is interrupted too often by the suggestion
that such and such a race is not fit for the gospel. Nobody who knows
what the gospel is will ever make such a suggestion; but we have all
heard it made, and we see from this passage what it means. It is the
mark of a heart which is deeply estranged from God, and ignorant of
the Golden Rule which embodies both gospel and law. Let us rather be
imitators of the great man who first entered into the spirit of
Christ, and discovered the open secret of His life and death,--the
mystery of redemption--that the heathen should be heirs with God's
ancient people, and of the same body, and partakers of the same
promises. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even
so to them."

[8] Weiss renders +eis telos+ "im hoechsten Masse."

[9] Observe the aorist +ephthasen+.




VII.

_ABSENCE AND LONGING._


 "But we, brethren, being bereaved of you for a short season, in
 presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more exceedingly to see your
 face with great desire: because we would fain have come unto you, I
 Paul once and again; and Satan hindered us. For what is our hope, or
 joy, or crown of glorying? Are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus at
 His coming? For ye are our glory and our joy. Wherefore when we could
 not longer forbear, we thought it good to be left behind at Athens
 alone; and sent Timothy, our brother and God's minister in the gospel
 of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your
 faith; that no man be moved by these afflictions; for yourselves know
 that hereunto we are appointed. For verily, when we were with you, we
 told you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction; even as it came
 to pass, and ye know. For this cause I also, when I could no longer
 forbear, sent that I might know your faith, lest by any means the
 tempter had tempted you, and our labour should be in vain."--1 THESS.
 ii. 17-iii. 5 (R.V.).

The Apostle has said all that he means to say of the opposition of the
Jews to the gospel, and in the verses before us turns to his own
relations to the Thessalonians. He had been compelled to leave their
city against his will; they themselves had escorted him by night to
Beroea. He cannot find words strong enough to describe the pain of
separation. It was a bereavement, although he hoped it would only last
for a short time. His heart was with them as truly as if he were still
bodily present in Thessalonica. His strongest desire was to look upon
their faces once more.

Here we ought to notice again the power of the gospel to create new
relations and the corresponding affections. A few months before Paul
had not known a single soul in Thessalonica; if he had been only a
travelling tent-maker, he might have stayed there as long as he did,
and then moved on with as little emotion as troubles a modern gipsy
when he shifts his camp; but coming as a Christian evangelist, he
finds or rather makes brothers, and feels his enforced parting from
them like a bereavement. Months after, his heart is sore for those
whom he has left behind. This is one of the ways in which the gospel
enriches life; hearts that would otherwise be empty and isolated are
brought by it into living contact with a great circle whose nature and
needs are like their own; and capacities, that would otherwise have
been unsuspected, have free course for development. No one knows what
is in him; and, in particular, no one knows of what love, of what
expansion of heart he is capable, till Christ has made real to him
those relations to others by which his duties are determined, and all
his powers of thought and feeling called forth. Only the Christian man
can ever tell what it is to love with all his heart and soul and
strength and mind.

Such an experience as shines through the words of the Apostle in this
passage furnishes the key to one of the best known but least
understood words of our Saviour. "Verily I say unto you," said Jesus
to the twelve, "there is no man that hath left house, or wife, or
brethren, or parents, or children, for the Kingdom of God's sake, who
shall not receive manifold more in this time, and in the world to come
eternal life." These words might almost stand for a description of
Paul. He had given up everything for Christ's sake. He had no home,
no wife, no child; as far as we can see, no brother or friend among
all his old acquaintances. Yet we may be sure that not one of those
who were most richly blessed with all these natural relations and
natural affections knew better than he what love is. No father ever
loved his children more tenderly, fervently, austerely and
unchangeably than Paul loved those whom he had begotten in the gospel.
No father was ever rewarded with affection more genuine, obedience
more loyal, than many of his converts rendered to him. Even in the
trials of love, which search it, and strain it, and bring out its
virtues to perfection--in misunderstandings, ingratitude, wilfulness,
suspicion--he had an experience with blessings of its own in which he
surpassed them all. If love is the true wealth and blessedness of our
life, surely none was richer or more blessed than this man, who had
given up for Christ's sake all those relations and connections through
which love naturally comes. Christ had fulfilled to him the promise
just quoted; He had given him a hundredfold in this life, houses and
brothers and sisters and mothers and children. It would have been
nothing but loss to cling to the natural affections and decline the
lonely apostolic career.

There is something wonderfully vivid in the idea which Paul gives of
his love for the Thessalonians. His mind is full of them; he imagines
all the circumstances of trial and danger in which they may be placed;
if he could only be with them at need! He seems to follow them as a
woman follows with her thoughts the son who has gone alone to a
distant town; she remembers him when he goes out in the morning,
pities him if there are any circumstances of hardship in his work,
pictures him busy in shop or office or street, looks at the clock when
he ought to be home for the day; wonders where he is, and with what
companions, in the evening; and counts the days till she will see him
again. The Christian love of the Apostle, which had no basis at all in
nature, was as real as this; and it is a pattern for all those who try
to serve others in the gospel. The power of the truth, as far as its
ministers are concerned, depends on its being spoken in love; unless
the heart of the preacher or teacher is really pledged to those to
whom he speaks, he cannot expect but to labour in vain.

Paul is anxious that the Thessalonians should understand the strength
of his feeling. It was no passing fancy. On two separate occasions he
had determined to revisit them, and had felt, apparently, some
peculiar malignity in the circumstances which foiled him. "Satan," he
says, "hindered us."

This is one of the expressions which strike us as remote from our
present modes of thought. Yet it is not false or unnatural. It
belongs to that profound biblical view of life, according to which all
the opposing forces in our experience have at bottom a personal
character. We speak of the conflict of good and evil, as if good and
evil were powers with an existence of their own, but the moment we
think of it we see that the only good force in the world is the force
of a good will, and the only bad force the force of a bad will; in
other words, we see that the conflict of good and evil is essentially
a conflict of persons. Good persons are in conflict with bad persons;
and so far as the antagonism comes to a head, Christ, the New
Testament teaches, is in conflict with Satan. These persons are the
centres of force on one side and on the other; and the Apostle
discerns, in incidents of his life which have now been lost to us, the
presence and working now of this, and now of that. An instructive
illustration is really furnished by a passage in Acts which seems at
the first glance of a very different purport. It is in the 16th chap.,
vv. 6-10, in which the historian describes the route of the Apostle
from the East to Europe. "They were _forbidden of the Holy Ghost_ to
speak the word in Asia" ... "they assayed to go into Bithynia; and
_the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not_" ... Paul saw a vision, after
which they "sought to go forth into Macedonia, _concluding that God
had called them_ to preach the gospel unto them." Here, we might
almost say, the three Divine Persons are referred to as the source of
intimations directing and controlling the course of the gospel; yet it
is evident, from the last mentioned, that such intimations might come
in the shape of any event providentially ordered, and that the
interpretation of them depended on those to whom they came. The
obstacles which checked Paul's impulse to preach in Asia and in
Bithynia he recognised to be of Divine appointment; those which
prevented him from returning to Thessalonica were of Satanic origin.
We do not know what they were; perhaps a plot against his life, which
made the journey dangerous; perhaps some sin or scandal that detained
him in Corinth. At all events it was the doing of the enemy, who in
this world, of which Paul does not hesitate to call him the god, has
means enough at his disposal to foil, though he cannot overcome, the
saints.

It is a delicate operation, in many cases, to interpret outward
events, and say what is the source and what the purpose of this or
that. Moral indifference may blind us; but those who are in the thick
of the moral conflict have a swift and sure instinct for what is
against them or on their side; they can tell at once what is Satanic
and what is Divine. As a rule, the two forces will show in their
strength at the same time; "a great door and effectual is opened unto
me, and there are many adversaries:" each is a foil to the other.
What we ought to remark in this connection is the fundamental
character of all moral action. It is not a figure of speech to say
that the world is the scene of incessant spiritual conflict; it is the
literal truth. And spiritual conflict is not simply an interaction of
forces; it is the deliberate antagonism of persons to each other. When
we do what is right, we take Christ's side in a real struggle; when we
do what is wrong, we side with Satan. It is a question of personal
relations; to whose will do I add my own? to whose will do I oppose my
own? And the struggle approaches its close for each of us as our will
is more thoroughly assimilated to that of one or other of the two
leaders. Do not let us dwell in generalities which disguise from us
the seriousness of the issue. There is a place in one of his epistles
in which Paul uses just such abstract terms as we do in speaking of
this matter. "What fellowship," he asks, "have righteousness and
iniquity? or what communion hath light with darkness?" But he clinches
the truth by bringing out the personal relations involved, when he
goes on, "And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what portion
hath a believer with an unbeliever?" These are the real quantities
concerned--all persons: Christ and Belial, believers and unbelievers;
all that happens is at bottom Christian or Satanic; all that we do is
on the side of Christ or on the side of the great enemy of our Lord.

The recollection of the Satanic hindrances to his visit does not
detain the Apostle more than a moment; his heart overflows them to
those whom he describes as his hope and joy and crown of glorying in
the day of the Lord Jesus. The form of words[10] implies that these
titles are not the property of the Thessalonians only; yet at the same
time, that if they belong to anybody, they belong to them.

It is almost a pity to analyse words which are spoken out of the
abundance of the heart; yet we pass over the surface, and lose the
sense of their truth, unless we do so. What then does Paul mean when
he calls the Thessalonians his hope? Every one looks at least a
certain distance into the future, and projects something into it to
give it reality and interest to himself. That is his hope. It may be
the returns he expects from investments of money; it may be the
expansion of some scheme he has set on foot for the common good; it
may be his children, on whose love and reverence, or on whose
advancement in life, he counts for the happiness of his declining
years. Paul, we know, had none of these hopes; when he looked down
into the future he saw no fortune growing secretly, no peaceful
retirement in which the love of sons and daughters would surround him
and call him blessed. Yet his future was not dreary or desolate; it
was bright with a great light; he had a hope that made life abundantly
worth living, and that hope was the Thessalonians. He saw them in his
mind's eye grow daily out of the lingering taint of heathenism into
the purity and love of Christ. He saw them, as the discipline of God's
providence had its perfect work in them, escape from the immaturity of
babes in Christ, and grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our
Lord and Saviour to the measure of the stature of perfect men. He saw
them presented faultless in the presence of the Lord's glory in the
great day. That was something to live for. To witness that spiritual
transformation which he had inaugurated carried on to completion gave
the future a greatness and a worth which made the Apostle's heart leap
for joy. He is glad when he thinks of his children walking in the
truth. They are "a chaplet of victory of which he may justly make his
boast"; he is prouder of them than a king of his crown, or a champion
in the games of his wreath.

Such words might well be charged with extravagance if we omitted to
look at the connection in which they stand. "What is our hope, or joy,
or crown of glorying? Are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus at His
coming?" _Before our Lord Jesus at His coming_: this is the presence,
this the occasion, with which Paul confronts, in imagination, his hope
and joy and triumph. They are such as give him confidence and
exultation even as he thinks of the great event which will try all
common hopes and put them to shame.

None of us, it may be presumed, is without hope when he looks into the
future; but how far does our future extend? For what situation is
provision made by the hope that we actually cherish? The one certain
event of the future is that we shall stand before our Lord Jesus, at
His coming; can we acknowledge there with joy and boasting the hope on
which our heart is at present set? Can we carry into that presence the
expectation which at this moment gives us courage to look down the
years to come? Not every one can. There are multitudes of human hopes
which terminate on material things, and expire with Christ's coming;
it is not these that can give us joy at last. The only hope whose
light is not dimmed by the brightness of Christ's appearing is the
disinterested spiritual hope of one who has made himself the servant
of others for Jesus' sake, and has lived to see and aid their growth
in the Lord. The fire which tries every man's work of what sort it is,
brings out the imperishable worth of this. The Old Testament as well
as the New tells us that souls saved and sanctified are the one hope
and glory of men in the great day. "They that be wise shall shine as
the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to
righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." It is a favourite
thought of the Apostle himself: "appear as lights in the world,
holding forth the word of life, _that I may have whereof to glory in
the day of Christ_." Even the Lord Himself, as he looks at the men
whom He has gathered out of the world, can say, _I am glorified_ in
them. It is His glory, as the Father's servant, that He has sought and
found and sanctified His Church.

We ought not to pass by such fervent utterances as if they must mean
less than they say. We ought not, because our own hold on the circle
of Christian facts is weak, to glide over the qualification, "before
our Lord Jesus at His coming," as if it were without any solid
meaning. The Bible is verbally inspired at least in the sense that
nothing in it is otiose; every word is meant. And we miss the main
lesson of this passage, if we do not ask ourselves whether we have any
hope which is valid on the grand occasion in question. Your future may
be secured as far as this world is concerned. Your investments may be
as safe as the National debt; the loyalty and virtue of your children
all that heart could wish; you are not afraid of poverty, loneliness,
age. But what of our Lord Jesus, and His coming? Will your hope be
worth anything before Him, at that day? You do not know how near it
is. For some it may be very near. There are people in every
congregation who know they cannot live ten years. No one knows that he
will live so long. And all are summoned to take that great event into
their view of the future, and to make ready for it. Is it not a fine
thing to think that, if we do so, we can look forward to the coming of
our Lord Jesus with hope and joy and triumph?

The intensity of Paul's love for the Thessalonians made his longing to
see them intolerable; and after being twice baffled in his attempts to
revisit them he sent Timothy in his stead. Rather than be without news
of them he was content to be left in Athens alone. He mentions this as
if it had been a great sacrifice, and probably it was so for him. He
seems to have been in many ways dependent on the sympathy and
assistance of others; and, of all places he ever visited, Athens was
the most trying to his ardent temperament. It was covered with idols
and exceedingly religious; yet it seemed to him more hopelessly away
from God than any city in the world. Never had he been left alone in a
place so unsympathetic; never had he felt so great a gulf fixed
between others' minds and his own; and Timothy had no sooner gone than
he made his way to Corinth, where his messenger found him on his
return.

The object of this mission is sufficiently plain from what has been
already said. The Apostle knew the troubles that had beset the
Thessalonians; and it was Timothy's function to establish them and to
comfort them concerning their faith, that no man should be moved by
these afflictions. The word translated "moved" occurs only this once
in the New Testament, and the meaning is not quite certain. It may be
quite as general as our version represents it; but it may also have a
more definite sense, viz., that of allowing oneself to be befooled, or
flattered out of one's faith, in the midst of tribulations. Besides
the vehement enemies who pursued Paul with open violence, there may
have been others who spoke of him to the Thessalonians as a mere
enthusiast, the victim in his own person of delusions about a
resurrection and a life to come, which he sought to impose upon
others; and who, when affliction came on the Church, tried by appeals
of this sort to wheedle the Thessalonians out of their faith. Such a
situation would answer very exactly to the peculiar word here used.
But however this may be, the general situation was plain. The Church
was suffering; suffering is a trial which not every one can bear; and
Paul was anxious to have some one with them who had learned the
elementary Christian lesson, that it is inevitable. The disciples had
not, indeed, been taken by surprise. The Apostle had told them before
that to this lot Christians were appointed; we are destined, he says,
to suffer affliction. Nevertheless, it is one thing to know this by
being told, and another to know it, as the Thessalonians now did, by
experience. The two things are as different as reading a book about a
trade, and serving an apprenticeship to it.

The suffering of the good because they are good is mysterious, in part
because it has the two aspects here made so manifest. On the one hand,
it comes by Divine appointment; it is the law under which the Son of
God Himself and all His followers live. But on the other hand, it is
capable of a double issue. It may perfect those who endure it as
ordained by God; it may bring out the solidity of their character, and
redound to the glory of their Saviour; or it may give an opening to
the tempter to seduce them from a path so full of pain. The one thing
of which Paul is certain is, that the salvation of Christ is cheaply
purchased at any price of affliction. Christ's life here and hereafter
is the supreme good; the one thing needful, for which all else may be
counted loss.

This possible double issue of suffering--in higher goodness, or in the
abandonment of the narrow way--explains the difference of tone with
which Scripture speaks of it in different places. With the happy issue
in view, it bids us count it all joy when we fall into divers
temptations; blessed, it exclaims, is the man who endures; for when he
is found proof, he shall receive the crown of life. But with human
weakness in view, and the terrible consequences of failure, it bids us
pray, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
The true Christian will seek, in all the afflictions of life, to
combine the courage and hope of the one view with the humility and
fear of the other.

[10] +Tis gar ... e ouchi kai hymeis?+




VIII.

_LOVE AND PRAYERS._


 "But when Timothy came even now unto us from you, and brought us glad
 tidings of your faith and love, and that ye have good remembrance of
 us always, longing to see us, even as we also _to see_ you; for this
 cause, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our distress and
 affliction through your faith: for now we live, if ye stand fast in
 the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we render again unto God for you,
 for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God; night
 and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face, and may
 perfect that which is lacking in your faith? Now may our God and
 Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way unto you: and the
 Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and
 toward all men, even as we also _do_ toward you; to the end He may
 stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father,
 at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints."--1 THESS. iii.
 6-13 (R.V.).

These verses present no peculiar difficulty to the expositor. They
illustrate the remark of Bengel that the First Epistle to the
Thessalonians is characterised by a kind of unmixed sweetness,--a
quality which is insipid to those who are indifferent to the relations
in which it is displayed, but which can never lose its charm for
simple, kindly, Christian hearts.

It is worth observing that Paul wrote to the Thessalonians the moment
Timothy returned.[11] Such promptitude has not only a business value,
but a moral and Christian worth as well. It not only prevents arrears
from accumulating; it gives those to whom we write the first and
freshest feelings of the heart. Of course one may write hastily, as
well as speak hastily; a living critic has had the audacity to say
that if Paul had kept the Epistle to the Galatians long enough to read
it over, he would have thrown it into the fire; but most of our faults
as correspondents arise, not from precipitation, but from undue
delay. Where our hearts prompt us to speak or to write, let us dread
procrastination as a sin. The letter of congratulation or condolence
is natural and in place, and it will be inspired by true feeling, if
it is written when the sad or joyful news has touched the heart with
genuine sympathy; but if it is put on till a more convenient season,
it will never be done as it ought to be. How fervent and hearty is the
language in which Paul here expresses himself. The news that Timothy
has brought from Thessalonica is a veritable gospel to him. It has
comforted him in all his necessities and distresses; it has brought
him new life; it has been an indescribable joy. If he had not written
for a fortnight, we should have missed this rebound of gladness; and
what is more serious, the Thessalonians would have missed it.
Cold-hearted people may think they would have survived the loss; but
it is a loss which the cold hearted cannot estimate. Who can doubt
that, when this letter was read in the little congregation at
Thessalonica, the hearts of the disciples warmed again to the great
teacher who had been among them, and to the message of love which he
had preached? The gospel is wonderfully commended by the manifestation
of its own spirit in its ministers, and the love of Paul to the
Thessalonians no doubt made it easier for them to believe in the love
of God, and to love one another. For good, as well as for evil, a
little spark can kindle a great fire; and it would only be natural if
the burning words of this letter kindled the flame of love anew in
hearts in which it was beginning to die.

There were two causes for Paul's joy,--one larger and more public; the
other, proper to himself. The first was the faith and love of the
Thessalonians, or, as he calls it further on, their standing fast in
the Lord; the other was their affectionate and faithful remembrance of
him, their desire, earnestly reciprocated on his part, to see his face
once more.

The visitation of a Christian congregation by a deputy from Synod or
Assembly is sometimes embarrassing: no one knows exactly what is
wanted; a schedule of queries, filled up by the minister or the
office-bearers, is a painfully formal affair, which gives little real
knowledge of the health and spirit of the Church. But Timothy was one
of the founders of the church at Thessalonica; he had an affectionate
and natural interest in it; he came at once into close contact with
its real condition, and found the disciples full of faith and love.
Faith and love are not easily calculated and registered; but where
they exist in any power, they are easily felt by a Christian man. They
determine the temperature of the congregation; and a very short
experience enables a true disciple to tell whether it is high or low.
To the great joy of Timothy, he found the Thessalonians unmistakably
Christian. They were standing fast in the Lord. Christ was the basis,
the centre, the soul of their life. Their faith is mentioned twice,
because that is the most comprehensive word to describe the new life
in its root; they still kept their hold of the Word of God in the
gospel; no one could live among them and not feel that unseen things
were real to their souls; God and Christ, the resurrection and the
coming judgment, the atonement and the final salvation, were the great
forces which ruled their thoughts and lives. Faith in these
distinguished them from their Pagan neighbours. It made them a
Christian congregation, in which an Evangelist like Timothy at once
found himself at home. The common faith had its most signal exhibition
in love; if it separated the brethren from the rest of the world, it
united them more closely to each other. Every one knows what love is
in a family, and how different the spiritual atmosphere is, according
as love reigns or is disregarded in the relations of the household. In
some homes, love does reign: parents and children, brothers and
sisters, masters and servants, bear themselves beautifully to each
other; it is a delight to visit them; there is openness and
simplicity, sweetness of temper, a willingness to deny self, a
readiness to be interested in others, no suspicion, reserve, or gloom;
there is one mind and one heart in old and young, and a brightness
like the sunshine. In others, again, we see the very opposite:
friction, self-will, captiousness, mutual distrust, readiness to
suspect or to sneer, a painful separation of hearts that should be
one. And the same holds good of churches, which are in reality large
families, united not by natural but by spiritual bonds. We ought all
to be friends. There ought to be a spirit of love shed abroad in our
hearts, drawing us to each other in spite of natural differences,
giving us an unaffected interest in each other, making us frank,
sincere, cordial, self-denying, eager to help where help is needed and
it is in our power to render it, ready to resign our own liking, and
our own judgment even, to the common mind and purpose of the Church.
These two graces of faith and love are the very soul of the Christian
life. It is good news to a good man to hear that they exist in any
church. It is good news to Christ.

But besides this more public cause for joy, which Paul shared to some
extent with all Christian men, there was another more private to
himself,--their good remembrance of him, and their earnest desire to
see him. Paul wrought for nothing but love. He did not care for money
or for fame; but a place in the hearts of his disciples was dear to
him above everything else in the world. He did not always get it.
Sometimes those who had just heard the gospel from his lips, and
welcomed its glad tidings, were prejudiced against him; they deserted
him for more attractive preachers; they forgot, amid the multitude of
their Christian instructors, the father who had begotten them in the
gospel. Such occurrences, of which we read in the Epistles to the
Corinthians and Galatians, were a deep grief to Paul; and though he
says to one of these thankless churches, "I will very gladly spend and
be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you the less I be
loved," he says also, "Brethren, receive us; make room for us in your
hearts; _our_ heart has been opened wide to _you_." He hungered
and thirsted for an answer of love to all the love which he lavished
on his converts; and his heart leapt up when Timothy returned from
Thessalonica, and told him that the disciples there had good
remembrance of him, that is, spoke of him with love, and longed to see
him once more. Nobody is fit to be a servant of Christ in any degree,
as parent, or teacher, or elder, or pastor, who does not know what
this craving for love is. It is not selfishness: it is itself one side
of love. Not to care for a place in the hearts of others; not to wish
for love, not to need it, not to miss it if it is wanting, does not
signify that we are free from selfishness or vanity: it is the mark of
a cold and narrow heart, shut up in itself, and disqualified for any
service the very essence of which is love. The thanklessness or
indifference of others is not a reason why we should cease to serve
them; yet it is apt to make the attempt at service heartless; and if
you would encourage any who have ever helped you in your spiritual
life, do not forget them, but esteem them very highly in love for
their works' sake.

When Timothy returned from Thessalonica, he found Paul sorely in need
of good news. He was beset by distress and affliction; not inward or
spiritual troubles, but persecutions and sufferings, which befell him
from the enemies of the gospel. So extreme was his distress that he
even speaks of it by implication as death. But the glad tidings of
Thessalonian faith and love swept it at once away. They brought
comfort, joy, thanksgiving, life from the dead. How intensely, we are
compelled to say, did this man live his apostolic life! What depths
and heights are in it; what depression, not stopping short of despair;
what hope, not falling short of triumph. There are Christian workers
in multitudes whose experience, it is to be feared, gives them no key
to what we read here. There is less passion in their life in a year
than there was in Paul's in a day; they know nothing of these
transitions from distress and affliction to unspeakable joy and
praise. Of course all men are not alike; all natures are not equally
impressible; but surely all who are engaged in work which asks the
heart or nothing should suspect themselves if they go on from week to
week and year to year with heart unmoved? It is a great thing to have
part in a work which deals with men for their spiritual interests--which
has in view life and death, God and Christ, salvation and judgment.
Who can think of failures and discouragements without pain and fear?
who can hear the glad tidings of victory without heartfelt joy? Is it
not those only who have neither part nor lot in the matter?

The Apostle in the fulness of his joy turns with devout gratitude
toward God. It is He who has kept the Thessalonians from falling, and
the only return the Apostle can make is to express his thankfulness.
He feels how unworthy words are of God's kindness; how unequal even to
his own feelings; but they are the first recompense to be made, and he
does not withhold them. There is no surer mark of a truly pious spirit
than this grateful mood. Every good gift and every perfect gift is
from above; most directly and immediately are all gifts like love and
faith to be referred to God as their source, and to call forth the
thanks and praise of those who are interested in them. If God does
little for us, giving us few signs of His presence and help, may it
not be because we have refused to acknowledge His kindness when He has
interposed on our behalf? "Whoso offereth praise," He says, "glorifieth
Me." "In everything give thanks."

Paul's love for the Thessalonians did not blind him to their
imperfections. It was their faith which comforted him in all his
distress, yet he speaks of the deficiencies of their faith as
something he sought to remedy. In one sense, faith is a very simple
thing, the setting of the heart right with God in Christ Jesus. In
another, it is very comprehensive. It has to lay hold on the whole
revelation which God has made in His Son, and it has to pass into
action through love in every department of life. It is related on the
one side to knowledge, and on the other to conduct. Now Timothy saw
that while the Thessalonians had the root of the matter in them, and
had set themselves right with God, they were far from perfect. They
were ignorant of much which it concerned Christians to know; they had
false ideas on many points in regard to which God had given light.
They had much to do before they could be said to have escaped from the
prejudices, the instincts, and the habits of heathenism, and to have
entered completely into the mind of Christ. In later chapters we shall
find the Apostle rectifying what was amiss in their notions both of
truth and duty; and, in doing so, opening up to us the lines on which
defective faith needs to be corrected and supplemented.

But we should not pass by this notice of the deficiencies of faith
without asking ourselves whether our own faith is alive and
progressive. It may be quite true and sound in itself; but what if it
never gets any further on? It is in its nature an engrafting into
Christ, a setting of the soul into a vital connection with Him; and if
it is what it should be, there will be a transfusion, by means of it,
of Christ into us. We shall get a larger and surer possession of the
mind of Christ, which is the standard both of spiritual truth and of
spiritual life. His thoughts will be our thoughts; His judgment, our
judgment; His estimates of life and the various elements in it, our
estimates; His disposition and conduct, the pattern and the
inspiration of ours. Faith is a little thing in itself, the smallest
of small beginnings; in its earliest stage it is compatible with a
high degree of ignorance, of foolishness, of insensibility in the
conscience; and hence the believer must not forget that he is a
disciple; and that though he has entered the school of Christ, he has
only entered it, and has many classes to pass through, and much to
learn and unlearn, before he can become a credit to his Teacher. An
Apostle coming among us would in all likelihood be struck with
manifest deficiencies in our faith. This aspect of the truth, he would
say, is overlooked; this vital doctrine is not really a vital piece of
your minds; in your estimate of such and such a thing you are betrayed
by worldly prejudices that have survived your conversion; in your
conduct in such and such a situation you are utterly at variance with
Christ. He would have much to teach us, no doubt, of truth, of right
and wrong, and of our Christian calling; and if we wish to remedy the
defects of our faith, we must give heed to the words of Christ and His
Apostles, so that we may not only be engrafted into Him, but grow up
into Him in all things, and become perfect men in Christ Jesus.

In view of their deficiencies, Paul prayed exceedingly that he might
see the Thessalonians again; and conscious of his own inability to
overcome the hindrances raised in his path by Satan, he refers the
whole matter to God. "May our God and Father Himself, and our Lord
Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you." Certainly in that prayer the
person directly addressed is our God and Father Himself; our Lord
Jesus Christ is introduced in subordination to Him; yet what a dignity
is implied in this juxtaposition of God and Christ! Surely the name of
a merely human creature, even if such could be exalted to share the
throne of God, could not possibly appear in this connexion. It is not
to be overlooked that both in this and in the similar passage in 2
Thess. ii. 16 f., where God and Christ are named side by side, the
verb is in the singular number. It is an involuntary assent of the
Apostle to the word of the Lord, "I and My Father are one." We can
understand why He added in this place "our Lord Jesus Christ" to "our
God and Father." It was not only that all power was given to the Son
in heaven and on earth; but that, as Paul well knew from that day on
which the Lord arrested him by Damascus, the Saviour's heart beat in
sympathy with His suffering Church, and would surely respond to any
prayer on its behalf. Nevertheless, he leaves the result to God; and
even if he is not permitted to come to them, he can still pray for
them, as he does in the closing verses of the chapter: "The Lord make
you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all
men, even as we also do toward you; to the end He may stablish your
hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father, at the
coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints."

Here it is distinctly Christ who is addressed in prayer; and what the
Apostle asks is that He may make the Thessalonians increase and abound
in love. Love, he seems to say, is the one grace in which all others
are comprehended; we can never have too much of it; we can never have
enough. The strong words of the prayer really ask that the
Thessalonians may be loving in a superlative degree, overflowing with
love. And notice the aspect in which love is here presented to us: it
is a power and an exercise of our own souls certainly, yet we are not
the fountain of it; it is the Lord who is to make us rich in love.
The best commentary on this prayer is the word of the Apostle in
another letter: "The love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts
through the Holy Ghost which was given unto us." "We love, because He
first loved us." In whatever degree love exists in us, God is its
source; it is like a faint pulse, every separate beat of which tells
of the throbbing of the heart; and it is only as God imparts His
Spirit to us more fully that our capacity for loving deepens and
expands. When that Spirit springs up within us, an inexhaustible
fountain, then rivers of living water, streams of love, will overflow
on all around. For God is love, and he that dwells in love dwells in
God, and God in him.

Paul seeks love for his converts as the means by which their hearts
may be established unblameable in holiness. That is a notable
direction for those in search of holiness. A selfish, loveless heart
can never succeed in this quest. A cold heart is not unblameable, and
never will be; it is either pharisaical or foul, or both. But love
sanctifies. Often we only escape from our sins by escaping from
ourselves; by a hearty, self-denying, self-forgetting interest in
others. It is quite possible to think so much about holiness as to put
holiness out of our reach: it does not come with concentrating thought
upon ourselves at all; it is the child of love, which kindles a fire in
the heart in which faults are burnt up. Love is the fulfilling of the
law; the sum of the ten commandments; the end of all perfection. Do
not let us imagine that there is any other holiness than that which is
thus created. There is an ugly kind of faultlessness which is always
raising its head anew in the Church; a holiness which knows nothing of
love, but consists in a sort of spiritual isolation, in censoriousness,
in holding up one's head and shaking off the dust of one's feet
against brethren, in conceit, in condescension, in sanctimonious
separateness from the freedom of common life, as though one were too
good for the company which God has given him: all this is as common in
the Church as it is plainly condemned in the New Testament. It is an
abomination in God's sight. Except your righteousness, says Christ,
exceed this, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Love exceeds it infinitely, and opens the door which is closed to
every other claim.

The kingdom of heaven comes before the Apostle's mind as he writes.
The Thessalonians are to be blameless in holiness, not in the judgment
of any human tribunal, but before our God and Father, at the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. At the end of each of these
three chapters this great event has risen into view. The coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ is a scene of judgment for some; of joy and glory
for others; of imposing splendour for all. Many think that the last
words here, "with all His saints," refer to the angels, and Zech. xiv.
5,--"The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee,"--in
which angels are undoubtedly meant, has been quoted in support of this
view; but such a use of "saints" would be unexampled in the New
Testament.[12] The Apostle means the dead in Christ, who, as he
explains in a later chapter, will swell the Lord's train at His
coming. The instinctiveness with which Paul recurs to this great event
shows how large a place it filled in his creed and in his heart. His
hope was a hope of Christ's second coming; his joy was a joy which
would not pale in that awful presence; his holiness was a holiness to
stand the test of those searching eyes. Where has this supreme motive
gone in the modern Church? Is not this one point in which the
apostolic word bids us perfect that which is lacking in our faith?

[11] +Arti+ is naturally taken with +elthontos+: as by Ellicott.

[12] Yet see Jude 14, quoting from Enoch.




IX.

_PERSONAL PURITY._


 "Finally then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus,
 that, as ye received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God,
 even as ye do walk,--that ye abound more and more. For ye know what
 charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of
 God, _even_ your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication;
 that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in
 sanctification and honour, not in the passion of lust, even as the
 Gentiles which know not God; that no man transgress, and wrong his
 brother in the matter: because the Lord is an avenger in all these
 things, as also we forewarned you and testified. For God called us
 not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. Therefore he that
 rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth His Holy Spirit
 unto you."--1 THESS. iv. 1-8 (R.V.).

The "finally" with which this chapter opens is the beginning of the
end of the Epistle. The personal matter which has hitherto occupied us
was the immediate cause of the Apostle's writing; he wished to open
his heart to the Thessalonians, and to vindicate his conduct against
the insidious accusations of his enemies; and having done so, his main
purpose is fulfilled. For what remains--this is the meaning of
"finally"--he has a few words to say suggested by Timothy's report
upon their state.

The previous chapter closed with a prayer for their growth in love,
with a view to their establishment in holiness. The prayer of a good
man avails much in its working; but his prayer of intercession cannot
secure the result it seeks without the co-operation of those for whom
it is made. Paul, who has besought the Lord on their behalf, now
beseeches the Thessalonians themselves, and exhorts them in the Lord
Jesus, to walk as they had been taught by him. The gospel, we see
from this passage, contains a new law; the preacher must not only do
the work of an evangelist, proclaiming the glad tidings of
reconciliation to God, but the work of a catechist also, enforcing on
those who receive the glad tidings the new law of Christ. This is in
accordance with the final charge of the Saviour: "Go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you." The Apostle had followed this Divine
order; he had made disciples in Thessalonica, and then he had taught
them how to walk and to please God. We who have been born in a
Christian country, and bred on the New Testament, are apt to think
that we know all these things; our conscience seems to us a sufficient
light. We ought to know that, though conscience is universal in the
human race, and everywhere distinguishes between a right and a wrong,
there is not one of our faculties which is more in need of
enlightenment. No one doubts that men who have been converted from
heathenism, like the Thessalonians, or the fruits of modern missions
in Nyassaland or Madagascar, need to be _taught_ what kind of life
pleases God; but in some measure we all need such teaching. We have
not been true to conscience; it is set in our human nature like the
unprotected compass in the early iron ships: it is exposed to
influences from other parts of our nature which bias and deflect it
without our knowledge. It needs to be adjusted to the holy will of
God, the unchangeable standard of right, and protected against
disturbing forces. In Thessalonica Paul had laid down the new law, he
says, _through the Lord Jesus_. If it had not been for Him, we should
have been without the knowledge of it altogether; we should have had
no adequate conception of the life with which God is well pleased. But
such a life is exhibited to us in the Gospels; its spirit and
requirements can be deduced from Christ's example, and are explicitly
set forth in His words. He left us an example, that we should follow
in His steps. "Follow Me," is the sum of His commandments; the one
all-embracing law of the Christian life.

One of the subjects of which we should gladly know more is the use of
the Gospels in the early Church; and this passage gives us one of the
earliest glimpses of it. The peculiar mention of the Lord Jesus in the
second verse shows that the Apostle used the words and example of the
Master as the basis of his moral teaching; the mind of Christ is the
norm for the Christian conscience. And if it be true that we still
need enlightenment as to the claims of God and the law of life, it is
here we must seek it. The words of Jesus have still their old
authority. They still search our hearts, and show us all things that
ever we did, and their moral worth or worthlessness. They still reveal
to us unsuspected ranges of life and action in which God is not yet
acknowledged. They still open to us gates of righteousness, and call
on us to enter in, and subdue new territories to God. The man who is
most advanced in the life which pleases God, and whose conscience is
most nearly identical with the mind of Christ, will be the first to
confess his constant need of, and his constant dependence upon, the
word and example of the Lord Jesus.

In addressing the Thessalonians, Paul is careful to recognise their
actual obedience. Ye do walk, he writes, according to this rule. In
spite of sins and imperfections, the church, as a whole, had a
Christian character; it was exhibiting human life in Thessalonica on
the new model; and while he hints that there is room for indefinite
progress, he does not fail to notice their present attainments. That
is a rule of wisdom, not only for those who have to censure or to
teach, but for all who wish to judge soberly the state and prospects
of the Church. We know the necessity there is for abounding more and
more in Christian obedience; we can see in how many directions,
doctrinal and practical, that which is lacking in faith requires to be
perfected; but we need not therefore be blind to the fact that it is
in the Church that the Christian standard is held up, and that
continuous, and not quite unsuccessful efforts, are made to reach it.
The best men in a community, those whose lives come nearest to
pleasing God, are to be found among those who are identified with the
gospel; and if the worst men in the community are also found in the
Church at times, that is because the corruption of the best is worst.
If God has not cast off His Church altogether, He is teaching her to
do His will.

"For this," the Apostle proceeds, "is the will of God, even your
sanctification." It is assumed here that the will of God is the law,
and ought to be the inspiration, of the Christian. God has taken him
out of the world that he may be His, and live in Him and for Him. He
is not his own any longer; even his will is not his own; it is to be
caught up and made one with the will of God; and that is
sanctification. No human will works apart from God to this end of
holiness. The other influences which reach it, and bend it into accord
with them, are from beneath, not from above; as long as it does not
recognise the will of God as its rule and support, it is a carnal,
worldly, sinful will. But the will of God, to which it is called to
submit, is the saving of the human will from this degradation. For the
will of God is not only a law to which we are required to conform, it
is the one great and effective moral power in the universe, and it
summons us to enter into alliance and co-operation with itself. It is
not a dead thing; it is God Himself working in us in furtherance of
His good pleasure. To tell us what the will of God is, is not to tell
us what is against us, but what is on our side; not the force which we
have to encounter, but that on which we can depend. If we set out on
an un-Christian life, on a career of falsehood, sensuality,
worldliness, God is against us; if we go to perdition, we go breaking
violently through the safeguards with which He has surrounded us,
overpowering the forces by which He seeks to keep us in check; but if
we set ourselves to the work of sanctification, He is on our side. He
works in us and with us, because our sanctification is His will. Paul
does not mention it here to dishearten the Thessalonians, but to
stimulate them. Sanctification is the one task which we can face
confident that we are not left to our own resources. God is not the
taskmaster we have to satisfy out of our own poor efforts, but the
holy and loving Father who inspires and sustains us from first to
last. To fall in with His will is to enlist all the spiritual forces
of the world in our aid; it is to pull with, instead of against, the
spiritual tide.

In the passage before us the Apostle contrasts our sanctification with
the cardinal vice of heathenism, impurity. Above all other sins, this
was characteristic of the Gentiles _who knew not God_. There is
something striking in that description of the pagan world in this
connection: ignorance of God was at once the cause and the effect of
their vileness; had they retained God in their knowledge, they could
never have sunk to such depths of shame; had they shrunk from
pollution with instinctive horror, they would never have been
abandoned to such ignorance of God. No one who is not familiar with
ancient literature can have the faintest idea of the depth and breadth
of the corruption. Not only in writers avowedly immoral, but in the
most magnificent works of a genius as lofty and pure as Plato, there
are pages that would stun with horror the most hardened profligate in
Christendom. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that on the whole
matter in question the heathen world was without conscience: it had
sinned away its sense of the difference between right and wrong; to
use the words of the Apostle in another passage, being past feeling
men had given themselves up to work all manner of uncleanness. They
gloried in their shame. Frequently, in his epistles, Paul combines
this vice with covetousness,--the two together representing the great
interests of life to the ungodly, the flesh and the world. Those who
do not know God and live for Him, live, as he saw with fearful
plainness, to indulge the flesh and to heap up gain. Some think that
in the passage before us this combination is made, and that ver.
6--"that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in _any_
matter"--is a prohibition of dishonesty in business; but that is
almost certainly[13] a mistake. As the Revised Version shows, the
Apostle is speaking of the matter in hand; in the Church especially,
among brethren in Christ, in the Christian home, the uncleanness of
heathenism can have no place. Marriage is to be sanctified. Every
Christian, marrying in the Lord, is to exhibit in his home-life the
Christian law of sanctification and noble self-respect.

The Apostle adds to his warning against sensuality the terrible
sanction, "The Lord is an avenger in all these things." The want of
conscience in the heathen world generated a vast indifference on this
point. If impurity was a sin, it was certainly not a crime. The laws
did not interfere with it; public opinion was at best neutral; the
unclean person might presume upon impunity. To a certain extent this
is the case still. The laws are silent, and treat the deepest guilt as
a civil offence. Public opinion is indeed stronger and more hostile
than it once was, for the leaven of Christ's kingdom is actively at
work in society; but public opinion can only touch open and notorious
offenders, those who have been guilty of scandal as well as of sin;
and secrecy is still tempted to count upon impunity. But here we are
solemnly warned that the Divine law of purity has sanctions of its own
above any cognisance taken of offences by man. "The Lord is an avenger
in all these things." "Because of these things cometh the wrath of God
upon the sons of disobedience."

Is it not true? They are avenged on the bodies of the sinful.
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The holy law of
God, wrought into the very constitution of our bodies, takes care that
we do not violate it without paying the penalty. If it is not at the
moment, it is in the future, and with interest,--in premature old age;
in the torpor which succeeds all spendthrift feats, excesses of man's
prime; in the sudden break-down under any strain put on either
physical or moral courage. They are avenged in the soul. Sensual
indulgence extinguishes the capacity for feeling: the profligate man
would love, but cannot; all that is inspiring, elevating, redeeming in
the passions is lost to him; all that remains is the dull sense of
that incalculable loss. Were there ever sadder lines written than
those in which Burns, with his life ruined by this very thing, writes
to a young friend and warns him against it?

  "I wave the quantum o' the sin,
    The hazard o' concealing;
  But Och! it hardens a' within,
    And petrifies the feeling."

This inward deadening is one of the most terrible consequences of
immorality; it is so unexpected, so unlike the anticipations of
youthful passion, so stealthy in its approach, so inevitable, so
irreparable. All these sins are avenged also in the will and in the
spiritual nature. Most men repent of their early excesses; some never
cease to repent. Repentance, at least, is what it is habitually
called; but that is not really repentance which does not separate the
soul from sin. That access of weakness which comes upon the back of
indulgence, that break-down of the soul in impotent self-pity, is no
saving grace. It is a counterfeit of repentance unto life, which
deludes those whom sin has blinded, and which, when often enough
repeated, exhausts the soul and leaves it in despair. Is there any
vengeance more terrible than that? When _Christian_ was about to
leave the Interpreter's house, "Stay," said the Interpreter, "till I
have showed thee a little more, and after that thou shalt go on thy
way." What was the sight without which Christian was not allowed to
start upon his journey? It was the Man of Despair, sitting in the
iron cage,--the man who, when Christian asked him "How camest thou in
this condition?" made answer: "I left off to watch and be sober; I
laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light
of the word and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and He
is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked
God to anger, and He has left me; I have so hardened my heart that I
cannot repent." This is no fancy picture: it is drawn to the life; it
is drawn from the life; it is the very voice and tone in which many a
man has spoken who has lived an unclean life under the cloak of a
Christian profession. They who do such things do not escape the
avenging holiness of God. Even death, the refuge to which despair so
often drives, holds out no hope to them. There remaineth no more a
sacrifice for sin, but a fearful expectation of judgment.

The Apostle dwells upon God's interest in purity. He is the avenger of
all offences against it; but vengeance is His strange work. He has
called us with a calling utterly alien to it,--not based on
uncleanness or contemplating it, like some of the religions in
Corinth, where Paul wrote this letter; but having sanctification,
purity in body and in spirit, for its very element. The idea of
"calling" is one which has been much degraded and impoverished in
modern times. By a man's calling we usually understand his trade,
profession, or business, whatever it may be; but our calling in
Scripture is something quite different from this. It is our life
considered, not as filling a certain place in the economy of society,
but as satisfying a certain purpose in the mind and will of God. It is
a calling _in Christ Jesus_; apart from Him it could not have
existed. The Incarnation of the Son of God; His holy life upon the
earth; His victory over all our temptations; His consecration of our
weak flesh to God; His sanctification, by His own sinless experience,
of our childhood, youth, and manhood, with all their unconsciousness,
their bold anticipations, their sense of power, their bent to
lawlessness and pride; His agony and His death upon the Cross; His
glorious resurrection and ascension,--all these were necessary before
we could be called with a Christian calling. Can any one imagine that
the vices of heathenism, lust or covetousness, are compatible with a
calling like this? Are they not excluded by the very idea of it? It
would repay us, I think, to lift that noble word "calling" from the
base uses to which it has descended; and to give it in our minds the
place it has in the New Testament. It is God who has called us, and He
has called us in Christ Jesus, and therefore called us to be saints.
Flee, therefore, all that is unholy and unclean.

In the last verse of the paragraph the Apostle urges both his appeals
once more: he recalls the severity and the goodness of God.

"Therefore he that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God". "Rejecteth"
is a contemptuous word; in the margin of the Authorised Version it is
rendered, as in some other places in Scripture, "despiseth." There are
such things as sins of ignorance; there are cases in which the
conscience is bewildered; even in a Christian community the vitality
of conscience may be low, and sins, therefore, be prevalent, without
being so deadly to the individual soul; but that is never true of the
sin before us. To commit this sin is to sin against the light. It is
to do what every one in contact with the Church knows, and from the
beginning has known, to be wrong. It is to be guilty of deliberate,
wilful, high-handed contempt of God. It is little to be warned by an
apostle or a preacher; it is little to despise him: but behind all
human warnings is the voice of God; behind all human sanctions of the
law is God's inevitable vengeance; and it is that which is braved by
the impure. "He that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God."

But God, we are reminded again in the last words, is not against us,
but on our side. He is the Holy One, and an avenger in all these
things; but He is also the God of Salvation, our deliverer from them
all, who _gives His Holy Spirit unto us_. The words put in the
strongest light God's interest in us and in our sanctification. It is
our sanctification He desires; to this He calls us; for this He works
in us. Instead of shrinking from us, because we are so unlike Him, He
puts His Holy Spirit into our impure hearts, He puts His own strength
within our reach that we may lay hold upon it, He offers us His hand
to grasp. It is this searching, condescending, patient, omnipotent
love, which is rejected by those who are immoral. They grieve the Holy
Spirit of God, that Spirit which Christ won for us by His atoning
death, and which is able to make us clean. There is no power which can
sanctify us but this; nor is there any sin which is too deep or too
black for the Holy spirit to overcome. Hearken to the words of the
Apostle in another place: "Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves
with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor
extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God. And such were some of
you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified
in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God."

[13] Still I do not feel quite certain (in spite of 2 Cor. ii. 11)
that +pleonektein+ and +pleonexia+ in St. Paul can refer to anything
but covetousness. This is the view taken by Schmidt, who refers to the
combination, in 1 Cor. v. 10, vi. 10, of +pleonektes+ with +harpax+
and +kleptes+. If it is correct, +en to pragmati+ must be translated
"in business"; "_dass in geschaeftlichen Dingen Keiner ausschreite und
seinen Bruder ausbeute_." Certainly the combination of sensuality and
avarice as the cardinal vices of heathendom is characteristic of the
Apostle.




X.

_CHARITY AND INDEPENDENCE._


 "But concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write
 unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another;
 for indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all
 Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more;
 and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to
 work with your hands, even as we charged you; that ye may walk
 honestly toward them that are without, and may have need of
 nothing."--1 THESS. iv. 9-12 (R.V.).

When the gospel first came abroad in the world, two characteristics of
its adherents attracted general attention, namely, personal purity and
brotherly love. Amid the gross sensuality of heathenism, the Christian
stood out untainted by indulgence of the flesh; amid the utter
heartlessness of pagan society, which made no provision for the poor,
the sick, or the aged, the Church was conspicuous for the close union
of its members and their brotherly kindness to each other. Personal
purity and brotherly love were the notes of the Christian and of the
Christian community in the early days; they were the new and
regenerating virtues which the Spirit of Christ had called into
existence in the heart of a dying world. The opening verses of this
chapter enforce the first; those at present before us treat of the
second.

"Concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write unto
you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another." The
principle, that is, of brotherly love is of the very essence of
Christianity; it is not a remote consequence of it which might easily
be overlooked unless it were pointed out. Every believer is taught of
God to love the brother who shares his faith; such love is the best
and only guarantee of his own salvation; as the Apostle John writes,
"We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love
the brethren." It is perhaps not unnecessary to remark that, in the
New Testament, brethren means fellow-Christians, and not fellow-men.
We _have_ duties to all men, which the Bible does not fail to
recognise and enforce; we are one with them in the nature God has
given us, and the great alternatives life sets before us; and that
natural unity is the basis of duties which all owe to each other.
Honour _all_ men. But the Church of Christ creates new relations
between its members, and with these new relations mutual obligations
still more strong and binding. God Himself is the Saviour of all,
specially of them that believe; and Christians in like manner are
bound, as they have opportunity, to do good unto all men, but
specially to those who are of the household of faith. This is not
sufficiently considered by most Christian people; who, if they looked
into the matter, might find that few of their strongest affections
were determined by the common faith. Is not love a strong and peculiar
word to describe the feeling you cherish toward some members of the
Church, brethren to you in Christ Jesus? yet love to the brethren is
the very token of our right to a place in the Church for ourselves.
"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."

These words of John give us the key to the expression "taught of God
to love one another." It is not likely that they refer to anything so
external as the words of Scripture, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself." Even in the Old Testament, to be taught of God was something
more spiritual than this; it was the same thing as to have the law
written on the heart. That is what the Apostle has in view here. The
Christian has been born again, born of God; he has a new nature, with
new instincts, a new law, a new spontaneity; it is now native to him
to love. Until the Spirit of God enters into men's hearts and
recreates them, life is a war of all against all; man is a wolf to
man; but in the Church that internecine strife has ended, for its
members are the children of God, and every one that loveth Him that
begat loveth him also that is begotten of Him. The selfishness of
man's nature is veiled, and to some extent repressed, in other
societies; but it is not, as a principle, exterminated except in the
Church and by the Spirit of Christ. A family ought to be an unselfish
place, ruled only by and fostering the spirit of love; yet if Christ
be not there, what selfish passions assert themselves in spite of all
restraint. Any association working for the common good--a town council
even--ought to be an unselfish body; yet how often, in such places, is
rivalry conspicuous and self-seeking, and envy, and detraction, and
all that is unlike Christ. In the Church which has been taught of God,
or, in other words, which has learned of Christ, we find at least some
manifestations of a better spirit. It does contain people who love one
another because they are Christians; who are unselfish, giving way to
each other, esteeming each other, helping each other; if it contained
none such, it would not be a Church at all.

The brotherly love of the early Church was not only visible to the
world; it was its great recommendation in the world's eyes. It had
brought a new thing into being, a thing for which the world was
pining, namely, vital society. The poor people in the cities of Asia
and Europe saw with wonder, joy, and hope, men and women united to one
another in a spiritual union, which gave scope to all their gifts for
society, and satisfied all their desires for it. The early Christian
churches were little companies of people where love was at a high
temperature, where outward pressure very often tightened the inward
bonds, and where mutual confidence diffused continual joy. Men were
drawn to them irresistibly by the desire to share this life of love.
It is the very same force which at this moment draws those who are
outcasts from society into the Salvation Army. Whatever the failings
of that organisation may be, its members are as brothers; the sense of
union, of mutual obligation, of mutual confidence, in one word, of
brotherly love, is very strong; and souls that pine for that
atmosphere are drawn to it with overpowering force. It is not good for
man to be alone; it is vain for him to seek the satisfaction of his
social instincts in any of the casual, selfish, or sinful associations
by which he is often betrayed: even the natural affection of the
family, pure and strong as it may be, does not answer to the width of
his spiritual nature; his heart cries out for that society founded on
brotherly love which only the Church of Christ provides. If there is
one thing more than another which explains the Church's failure in
missionary work, it is the absence of this spirit of love among her
members. If men were compelled to cry still, as in the early days of
the gospel, "Behold these Christians, how they love one another," they
would not be able to remain outside. Their hearts would kindle at the
glow, and all that hindered their incorporation would be burned up.

The Apostle acknowledges the progress of the Thessalonians. They show
this brotherly love to all the brethren that are in all Macedonia; but
he beseeches them to abound more and more. Nothing is more
inconsistent with the gospel than narrowness of mind or heart,
however often Christians may belie their profession by such vices.
Perhaps of all churches in the world, the church of our own country is
as much in need of this admonition as any, and more than most. Would
it not be higher praise than some of us deserve, to say that we loved
with brotherly cordiality all the Christian churches in Britain, and
wished them God speed in their Christian work? And as for churches
outside our native land, who knows anything about them? There was a
time when all the Protestant churches in Europe were one, and lived on
terms of brotherly intimacy; we sent ministers and professors to
congregations and colleges in France, Germany, and Holland, and took
ministers and professors from the Continent ourselves; the heart of
the Church was enlarged towards brethren whom it has now completely
forgotten. This change has been to the loss of all concerned; and if
we would follow the Apostle's advice, and abound more and more in this
supreme grace, we must wake up to take an interest in brethren beyond
the British Isles. The Kingdom of Heaven has no boundaries that could
be laid down on a map, and the brotherly love of the Christian is
wider than all patriotism. But this truth has a special side connected
with the situation of the Apostle. Paul wrote these words from
Corinth, where he was busily engaged in planting a new church, and
they virtually bespeak the interest of the Thessalonians in that
enterprise. Christian brotherly love is the love which God Himself
implants in the heart; and the love of God has no limitations. It goes
out into all the earth, even to the end of the world. It is an ever
advancing, ever victorious force; the territory in which it reigns
becomes continually wider and wider. If that love abounds in us more
and more, we shall follow with live and growing interest the work of
Christian missions. Few of us have any idea of the dimensions of that
work, and of the nature of its successes. Few of us have any
enthusiasm for it. Few of us do anything worth mentioning to help it
on. Not very long ago the whole nation was shocked by the disclosures
about the Stanley expedition; and the newspapers were filled with the
doings of a few profligate ruffians, who, whatever they failed to do,
succeeded in covering themselves, and the country they belong to, with
infamy. One would fain hope that this exhibition of inhumanity would
turn men's thoughts by contrast to those who are doing the work of
Christ in Africa. The national execration of fiendish wickedness is
nothing unless it passes into deep and strong sympathy with those who
are working among the Africans in brotherly love. What is the merit of
Stanley or his associates, that their story should excite the interest
of those who know nothing of Comber and Hannington and Mackay, and
all the other brave men who loved not their lives to the death for
Christ's sake and Africa's? Is it not a shame to some of us that we
know the horrible story so much better than the gracious one? Let
brotherly love abound more and more; let Christian sympathy go out
with our brethren and sisters in Christ who go out themselves to dark
places; let us keep ourselves instructed in the progress of their
work; let us support it with prayer and liberality at home; and our
minds and hearts alike will grow in the greatness of our Lord and
Saviour.

Brotherly love in the early Church, within the limits of a small
congregation, often took the special form of charity. Those who were
able helped the poor. A special care was taken, as we see from the
Book of Acts, of widows, and no doubt of orphans. In a later epistle
Paul mentions with praise a family which devoted itself to ministering
to the saints. To do good and to communicate, that is, to impart of
one's goods to those who had need, is the sacrifice of praise which
all Christians are charged not to forget. To see a brother or a sister
destitute, and to shut up the heart against them, is taken as proof
positive that we have not the love of God dwelling in us. It would be
difficult, one might mink, to exaggerate the emphasis which the New
Testament lays on the duty and the merit of charity. "Sell all that
thou hast, and give to the poor," Christ said to the rich young man,
"and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." "Give alms," He cried to the
Pharisees, "of such things as ye have; and behold, all things are
clean unto you." Charity sanctifies. Nor have these strong sayings
been without their due effect. Charity, both organised and private, is
characteristic of Christendom, and of Christendom only. The pagan
world made no provision for the destitute, the sick, the aged. It had
no almshouses, no infirmaries, no orphanages, no convalescent homes.
The mighty impulse of the love of Christ has created all these, and to
this hour it sustains them all. Acknowledged or unacknowledged, it is
the force which lies behind every effort made by man for the good of
his fellows; wherever this disinterested love burns in a human bosom,
it is the fire which Christ cast upon the earth, and He rejoices at
its kindling. As a recent example, look at the great scheme of General
Booth: it is the love of Christ which has inspired it; it is the love
of Christ that must provide all the subordinate agents by whom it is
to be administered, if it is ever carried into effect; it is on the
public conviction that he is animated by the love of Christ and has no
by-ends of his own to secure, that General Booth depends for his
funds. It is only this Christ-enkindled love which gives charity its
real worth, and furnishes any sort of guarantee that it will confer
a double blessing, material and spiritual, on those who receive it.

For charity is not without its dangers, and the first and greatest of
these is that men learn to depend upon it. When Paul preached the
gospel in Thessalonica, he spoke a great deal about the Second Advent.
It was an exciting subject, and some at least of those who received
his message were troubled by "ill-defined or mistaken expectations,"
which led to moral disorder in their lives. They were so anxious to be
ready for the Lord when He came, that they neglected their ordinary
duties, and became dependent upon the brethren. They ceased working
themselves, and so became a burden upon those who continued to work.
Here we have, in a nutshell, the argument against a monastic life of
idleness, against the life of the begging friar. All men must live by
labour, their own or some other's; and he who chooses a life without
labour, as the more holy, really condemns some brother to a double
share of that labouring life to which, as he fancies, the highest
holiness is denied. That is rank selfishness; only a man without
brotherly love could be guilty of it for an hour.

Now in opposition to this selfishness,--unconscious at first, let us
hope,--and in opposition to the unsettled, flighty, restless
expectations of these early disciples, the Apostle propounds a very
sober and humble plan of life. Make it your ambition, he says, to be
quiet, and to busy yourselves with your own affairs, and to work with
your own hands, as we commanded you. There is a grave irony in the
first words--make it your ambition to be quiet; set your honour in
that. The ordinary ambition seeks to make a noise in the world, to
make itself visible and audible; and ambition of that type is not
unknown even in the Church. But it is out of place there. No Christian
ought to be ambitious of anything but to fill as unobtrusively as
possible the place in life which God has given him. The less notorious
we are, the better for us. The necessities of our situation,
necessities imposed by God, require most of us to spend so many hours
a day in making our daily bread. The bulk of most men's strength, by
an ordinance of God that we cannot interfere with, is given to that
humble but inevitable task. If we cannot be holy at our work, it is
not worth taking any trouble to be holy at other times. If we cannot
be Christians and please God in those common activities which must
always absorb so much of our time and strength, the balance of life is
not worth thinking about. Perhaps some of us crave leisure, that we
may be more free for spiritual work; and think that if we had more
time at our disposal, we should be able to render many services to
Christ and His cause which are out of our power at present. But that
is extremely doubtful. If experience proves anything, it proves that
nothing is worse for most people than to have nothing to do but be
religious. Religion is not controlled in their life by any contact
with realities; in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they do not know
how to be quiet, but are vain, meddlesome, impracticable, and
senseless. The man who has his trade or his profession to work at, and
the woman who has her household and social duties to attend to, are
not to be condoled with; they are in the very place in which religion
is at once necessary and possible; they can study to be quiet, and to
mind their own business, and to work with their own hands, and in all
this to serve and please God. But those who get up in the morning with
nothing to do but to be pious, or to engage in Christian works, are in
a position of enormous difficulty, which very few can fill. The daily
life of toil, at the bench or the desk, in the shop, the study, or the
street, does not rob us of the Christian life; it really puts it
within our reach. If we keep our eyes open, it is easy to see that
this is so.

There are two reasons assigned by the Apostle for this life of quiet
industry, both of which are noticeable. First, "That ye may walk
honestly toward them that are without." Honestly is too colourless a
word in modern English; the corresponding adjective in different
places is translated honourable and comely.[14] What the Apostle
signifies is, that the Church has a great character to sustain in the
world, and that the individual Christian has that character, to some
extent, in his charge. Idleness, fussiness, excitability, want of
common sense, these are discreditable qualities, inconsistent with the
dignity of Christianity, and to be guarded against by the believer.
The Church is really a spectacle to the world; those who are without
have their eye upon it; and the Apostle would have it a worthy and
impressive spectacle. But what is there so undignified as an idle
busybody, a man or woman neglecting duty on the pretence of piety, so
excited by an uncertain future as to disregard the most crying
necessities of the present? Perhaps there is none of us who does
anything so bad as this; but there are some in every church who are
not careful of Christian dignity. Remember that there is something
great in true Christianity, something which should command the
veneration of those who are without; and do nothing inconsistent with
that. As the sun breaks through the darkest cloud, so honour peereth
in the meanest habit; and the lowliest occupation, discharged with
diligence, earnestness, and fidelity, gives scope enough for the
exhibition of true Christian dignity. The man who does his common
duties as they ought to be done will never lose his self-respect, and
will never discredit the Church of Christ.

The second reason for the life of quiet industry is, "That ye may have
lack of nothing." Probably the truer interpretation would be, That ye
may have lack of no one. In other words, independence is a Christian
duty. This is not inconsistent with what has been said of charity, but
is its necessary supplement. Christ commands us to be charitable; He
tells us plainly that the need for charity will not disappear; but He
tells us as plainly that to count upon charity, except in the case of
necessity, is both sinful and shameful. This contains, of course, a
warning to the charitable. Those of us who wish to help the poor, and
who try to do so, must take care to do it in such a way as not to
teach them to depend on help; that is to do them a serious wrong. We
are all familiar with the charges brought against charity; it
demoralises, it fosters idleness and improvidence, it robs those who
receive it of self-respect. These charges have been current from the
beginning; they were freely brought against the Church in the days of
the Roman Empire. If they could be made good, they would condemn what
passes for charity as un-Christian. The one-sided enforcement of
charity, in the sense of almsgiving, in the Romish Church, has
occasionally led to something like a glorification of pauperism; the
saint is usually a beggar. One would hope that in our own country,
where the independence of the national character has been reinforced
by the most pronounced types of Protestant religion, such a deformed
conception of Christianity would be impossible; yet even among us the
caution of this verse may not be unnecessary. It _is_ a sign of grace
to be charitable; but though one would not speak an unkind word of
those in need, it is _not_ a sign of grace to require charity. The
gospel bids us aim not only at brotherly love, but at independence.
Remember the poor, it says; but it says also, Work with your hands,
that you may preserve a Christian dignity in relation to the world,
and have need of no one.

[14] See 1 Cor. xii. 24; vii. 35; Acts xiii. 50; xvii. 12.




XI.

_THE DEAD IN CHRIST._


 "But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that
 fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, which have no
 hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them
 also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For
 this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive,
 that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede
 them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from
 heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the
 trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we that
 are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in
 the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with
 the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."--1 THESS.
 iv. 13-18 (R.V.).

The restlessness of the Thessalonians, which caused some of them to
neglect their daily work, was the result of strained expectations of
Christ's second coming. The Apostle had taught them that the Saviour
and Judge of all might appear no one knew when; and they were consumed
with a feverish anxiety to be found ready when He came. How terrible
it would be to be found unready, and to lose one's place in the
heavenly kingdom! The Thessalonians were dominated by such thoughts as
these when death visited the church, and gave rise to new
perplexities. What of the brethren who had been taken away so soon,
and of their part in the glory to be revealed? Had they been robbed,
by death, of the Christian hope? Had the inheritance which is
incorruptible, undefiled, and imperishable, passed for ever beyond
their grasp, because they had died before Christ came to take His
people to Himself?

This was what some of the survivors feared; and it is to correct
their mistaken ideas, and to comfort them in their sorrow, that the
Apostle writes the words we are now to study. "We would not have you
ignorant," he says, "concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow
not, even as the rest, which have no hope." The last words refer to
those who are away from Christ, and without God in the world. It is a
frightful thing to say of any man, and still more of the mass of men,
that they have no hope; yet it is not only the Apostle who says it; it
is the confession, by a thousand voices, of the heathen world itself.
To that world the future was a blank, or a place of unreality and
shades. If there were great exceptions, men who, like Plato, could not
give up faith in immortality and in the righteousness of God, even in
the face of death, these were no more than exceptions; and even for
them the future had no substance compared with the present. Life was
here, and not there. Wherever we can hear the pagan soul speak of the
future, it is in this blank, heartless tone. "Do not," says Achilles
in the Odyssey, "make light of death to me. Rather would I on earth be
a serf to another, a man of little land and little substance, than be
prince over all the dead that have come to nought." "Suns," says
Catullus, "may set and rise again. When once our brief light has set,
one unbroken night of sleep remains." These are fair specimens of the
pagan outlook; are they not fair enough specimens of the non-Christian
outlook at the present day? The secular life is quite avowedly a life
without hope. It resolutely fixes its attention on the present, and
avoids the distraction of the future. But there are few whom death
does not compel, at some time or other, to deal seriously with the
questions the future involves. If we love the departed, our hearts
cannot but go with them to the unseen; and there are few who can
assure themselves that death ends all. For those who can, what a
sorrow remains! Their loved ones have lost everything. All that makes
life is here, and _they_ have gone. How miserable is their lot, to
have been deprived, by cruel and untimely death, of all the blessings
man can ever enjoy! How hopelessly must those who are left behind
lament them!

This is exactly the situation with which the Apostle deals. The
Christians in Thessalonica feared that their brethren who had died
would be shut out of the Messiah's kingdom; they mourned for them as
those mourn who have no hope. The Apostle corrects their error, and
comforts them. His words do not mean that the Christian may lawfully
sorrow for his dead, provided he does not go to a pagan extreme; they
mean that the hopeless pagan sorrow is not to be indulged by the
Christian at all. We give their proper force if we imagine him saying:
"Weep for yourselves, if you will; that is natural, and God does not
wish us to be insensible to the losses and sorrows which are part of
His providential government of our lives; but do not weep for _them_;
the believer who has fallen asleep in Christ is not to be lamented; he
has lost nothing; the hope of immortality is as sure for him as for
those who may live to welcome the Lord at His coming; _he_ has gone to
be with Christ, which is _far_, far better."

The 14th verse gives the Christian proof of this consoling doctrine.
"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also
that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."[15] It is
quite plain that something is wanting here to complete the argument.
Jesus did die and rise again, there is no dispute about that; but how
is the Apostle justified in inferring from this that God will bring
the Christian dead again to meet the living? What is the missing link
in this reasoning? Clearly it is the truth, so characteristic of the
New Testament, that there is a union between Christ and those who
trust Him so close that their destiny can be read in His. All that He
has experienced will be experienced by them. They are united to Him as
indissolubly as the members of the body to the head; and being
planted together in the likeness of His death, they shall be also in
the likeness of His resurrection. Death, the Apostle would have us
understand, does not break the bond between the believing soul and the
Saviour. Even human love is stronger than the grave; it goes beyond it
with the departed; it follows them with strong yearnings, with wistful
hopes, sometimes with earnest prayers. But there _is_ an impotence, at
which death mocks, in earthly love; the last enemy does put a great
gulf between souls, which cannot be bridged over; and there is no such
impotence in the love of Christ. He is never separated from those who
love Him. He is one with them in death, and in the life to come, as in
this life. Through Him God will bring the departed again to meet their
friends. There is something very expressive in the word "bring."
"Sweet word," says Bengel: "it is spoken of living persons." The dead
for whom we mourn are not dead; they all live to God; and when the
great day comes, God will bring those who have gone before, and unite
them to those who have been left behind. When we see Christ at His
coming, we shall see also those that have fallen asleep in Him.

This argument, drawn from the relation of the Christian to the
Saviour, is confirmed by an appeal to the authority of the Saviour
Himself. "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord:" as if he
said, "It is not merely a conclusion of our own; it is supported by
the express word of Christ." Many have tried to find in the Gospels
the word of the Lord referred to, but, as I think, without success.
The passage usually quoted (Matt. xxiv. 31: "He shall send forth His
angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together
His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other"),
though it covers generally the subject with which the Apostle is
dealing, does not touch upon the essential point, the equality of
those who die before the Second Advent with those who live to see it.
We must suppose that the word of the Lord referred to was one which
failed to find a place in the written Gospels, like that other which
the Apostle preserved, "It is more blessed to give than to receive";
or that it was a word which Christ spoke to him in one of the many
revelations which he received in his apostolic work. In any case, what
the Apostle is going to say is not his own word, but the word of
Christ, and as such its authority is final for all Christians. What,
then, does Christ say on this great concern?

He says that "we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the
Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep." The
natural impression one takes from these words is that Paul expected
himself to be alive when Christ came; but whether that impression is
justifiable or not,[16] it is no part of the truth which can claim the
authority of the Lord. Christ's word only assures us that those who
are alive at that day shall have no precedency over those that have
fallen asleep; it does not tell us who shall be in the one class, and
who in the other. Paul did not know when the day of the Lord would be;
but as it was the duty of all Christians to look for and hasten it, he
naturally included himself among those who would live to see it. Later
in life, the hope of surviving till the Lord came alternated in his
mind with the expectation of death. In one and the same epistle, the
Epistle to the Philippians, we find him writing (iv. 5), "The Lord is
at hand"; and only a little earlier (i. 23), "I have the desire to
depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better." Better,
certainly, than a life of toil and suffering; but not better than the
Lord's coming. Paul could not but shrink with a natural horror from
death and its nakedness; he would have preferred to escape that dread
necessity, the putting off of the body; not to be unclothed, was his
desire, but to be clothed upon, and to have mortality swallowed up of
life. When he wrote this letter to the Thessalonians, I do not doubt
that this was his hope; and it does not impugn his authority in the
least that it was a hope destined not to be fulfilled. With the Lord,
a thousand years are as one day; and even those who are partakers in
the kingdom seldom partake to an eminent degree in the patience of
Jesus Christ. Only in the teaching of the Lord Himself does the New
Testament put strongly before us the duration of the Christian era,
and the delays of the Second Advent. How many of His parables, _e.g._,
represent the kingdom as subject to the law of growth--the Sower, the
Wheat and the Tares which have both to ripen, the Mustard Seed, and
the Seed Growing Gradually. All these imply a natural law and goal of
progress, not to be interrupted at random. How many, again, like the
parable of the Unjust Judge, or the Ten Virgins, imply that the delay
will be so great as to beget utter disbelief or forgetfulness of His
coming. Even the expression, "The times of the Gentiles," suggests
epochs which must intervene before men see Him again.[17] But over
against this deep insight and wondrous patience of Christ, we must not
be surprised to find something of impatient ardour in the Apostles.
The world was so cruel to them, their love to Christ was so fervent,
their desire for re-union so strong, that they could not but hope and
pray, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus." Is it not better to recognise the
obvious fact that Paul was mistaken as to the nearness of the Second
Advent, than to torture his words to secure his infallibility? Two
great commentators--the Roman Catholic Cornelius a Lapide, and the
Protestant John Calvin--save Paul's infallibility at a greater cost
than violating the rules of grammar. They admit that his words mean
that he expected to survive till Christ came again; but, they say, an
infallible apostle could not really have had such an expectation; and
therefore we must believe that Paul practised a pious fraud in writing
as he did, a fraud with the good intention of keeping the
Thessalonians on the alert. But I hope, if we had the choice, we would
all choose rather to tell the truth, and be mistaken, than to be
infallible, and tell lies.

After the general statement, on Christ's authority, that the living
shall have no precedency of the departed, Paul goes on to explain the
circumstances of the Advent by which it is justified. "The Lord
Himself shall descend from heaven." In that emphatic _Himself_ we
have the argument of ver. 14 practically repeated: the Lord, it
signifies, who knows _all_ that are His. Who can look at Christ
as He comes again in glory, and not remember His words in the Gospel,
"Because I live, ye shall live also;" "where I am, there shall also
My servant be"? It is not another who comes, but He to whom all
Christian souls have been united for ever. "The Lord Himself shall
descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel,
and with the trump of God." The last two of these expressions are in
all probability the explanation of the first; the voice of the
archangel, or the trumpet of God, is the signal-shout, or as the hymn
expresses it, "the great commanding word," with which the drama of the
last things is ushered in. The archangel is the herald of the
Messianic King. We cannot tell how much is figure in these
expressions, which all rest on Old Testament associations, and on
popular beliefs amongst the Jews of the time; neither can we tell what
precisely underlies the figure. But this much is clearly meant, that a
Divine summons, audible and effective everywhere, goes forth from
Christ's presence; that ancient utterance, of hope or of despair, is
fulfilled: "Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee." When the signal
is given, the dead in Christ rise first. Paul says nothing here of the
resurrection body, spiritual and incorruptible; but when Christ comes,
the Christian dead are raised in that body, prepared for eternal
blessedness, before anything else is done. That is the meaning of "the
dead in Christ shall rise _first_." It does not contrast the
resurrection of the Christian dead with a second resurrection of all
men, either immediately afterwards, or after a thousand years; it
contrasts it as the first scene in this drama with the second, namely,
the rapture of the living. The first thing will be that the dead rise;
the next, that those that are alive, that are left, shall at the same
time, and in company with them, be caught up together in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air. The Apostle does not look beyond this; so,
he says, shall we--that is, we all, those that live and those that are
fallen asleep--be ever with the Lord.

A thousand questions rise to our lips as we look at this wonderful
picture; but the closer we look, the more plainly do we see the
parsimony of the revelation, and the strictness with which it is
measured out to meet the necessities of the case. There is nothing in
it, for instance, about the non-Christian. It tells us the blessed
destiny of those who have fallen asleep in Christ, and of those who
wait for Christ's appearing. Much of the curiosity about those who die
without Christ is not disinterested. People would like to know what
_their_ destiny is, because they would like to know whether there
is not a tolerable alternative to accepting the gospel. But the Bible
does not encourage us to look for such an alternative. "Blessed," it
says, "are the dead who die in the Lord"; and blessed also are the
living who live in the Lord; if there are those who reject this
blessedness, and raise questions about what a life without Christ may
lead to, they do it at their peril.

There is nothing, again, about the nature of the life beyond the
Advent, except this, that it is a life in which the Christian is in
close and unbroken union with Christ--ever with the Lord. Some have
been very anxious to answer the question, Where? but the revelation
gives us no help. It does not say that those who meet the Lord in the
air ascend with Him to heaven, or descend, as some have supposed, to
reign with Him on earth. There is absolutely nothing in it for
curiosity, though everything that is necessary for comfort. For men
who had conceived the terrible thought that the Christian dead had
lost the Christian hope, the veil was withdrawn from the future, and
living and dead alike revealed united, in eternal life, to Christ.
That is all, but surely it is enough. That is the hope which the
gospel puts before us, and no accident of time, like death, can rob us
of it. Jesus died and rose again; He is Lord both of the dead and the
living; and all will, at the great day, be gathered together to Him.
Are _they_ to be lamented, who have this future to look forward
to? Are we to sorrow over those who pass into the world unseen, as if
they had no hope, or as if we had none? No; in the sorrow of death
itself, we may comfort one another with these words.

Is it not a striking proof of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
we have, on the express authority of His word, a special revelation,
the exclusive aim of which is to comfort? Jesus knew the terrible
sorrow of bereavement; He had stood by the bedside of Jairus'
daughter, by the young man's bier at Nain, by Lazarus' tomb. He knew
how inconsolable it was, how subtle, how passionate; He knew the dead
weight at the heart which never passes away, and the sudden rush of
feeling which overpowers the strongest. And that all this sorrow might
not rest upon His Church unrelieved, He lifted the curtain that we
might see with our eyes the strong consolation beyond. I have spoken
of it as if it consisted simply in union to Christ; but it is as much
a part of the revelation that Christians whom death has separated are
re-united to each other. The Thessalonians feared they would never see
their departed friends again; but the word of the Lord says, You will
be caught up, in company with them, to meet Me; and you and they shall
dwell with Me for ever. What congregation is there in which there is
not need of this consolation? Comfort one another, the Apostle says.
One needs the comfort to-day, and another to-morrow; in proportion as
we bear each other's burdens, we all need it continually. The unseen
world is perpetually opening to receive those whom we love; but though
they pass out of sight and out of reach, it is not for ever. They are
still united to Christ; and when He comes in His glory He will bring
them to us again. Is it not strange to balance the greatest sorrow of
life against words? Words, we often feel, are vain and worthless; they
do not lift the burden from the heart; they make no difference to the
pressure of grief. Of our own words that is true; but what we have
been considering are not our own words, but the word of the Lord. His
words are alive and powerful: heaven and earth may pass away, but they
cannot pass; let us comfort one another with that.

[15] There is a certain difficulty about the connection of the words
in the last clause; it would probably be more correct to render them:
Even so them also that are fallen asleep will God through Jesus bring
with Him.

[16] It is easy to state the inference too strongly. Paul tell us
expressly that he did not know when Christ would come; he could not
therefore know that he himself would have died long before the Advent;
and it was inevitable, therefore, that he should include himself here
in the category of such as might live to see it.

[17] On this subject see Bruce's _Kingdom of God_, chap. xii.




XII.

_THE DAY OF THE LORD._


 "But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need
 that aught be written unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that
 the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. When they are
 saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them,
 as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall in no wise escape.
 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake
 you as a thief: for ye are all sons of light, and sons of the day: we
 are not of the night, nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep, as
 do the rest, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep
 in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But
 let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate
 of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God
 appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation
 through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake
 or sleep, we should live together with Him. Wherefore exhort one
 another, and build each other up, even as also ye do."--1 THESS. v.
 1-11 (R.V.).

The last verses of the fourth chapter perfect that which is lacking,
on one side, in the faith of the Thessalonians. The Apostle addresses
himself to the ignorance of his readers: he instructs them more fully
on the circumstances of Christ's second coming; and he bids them
comfort one another with the sure hope that they and their departed
friends shall meet, never to part, in the kingdom of the Saviour. In
the passage before us he perfects what is lacking to their faith on
another side. He addresses himself, not to their ignorance, but to
their knowledge; and he instructs them how to improve, instead of
abusing, both what they knew and what they were ignorant of, in regard
to the last Advent. It had led, in some, to curious inquiries; in
others, to a moral restlessness which could not bind itself patiently
to duty; yet its true fruit, the Apostle tells them, ought to be hope,
watchfulness, and sobriety.

"The day of the Lord" is a famous expression in the
Old Testament; it runs through all prophecy, and is one of its most
characteristic ideas. It means a day which belongs in a peculiar sense
to God: a day which He has chosen for the perfect manifestation of
Himself, for the thorough working out of His work among men. It is
impossible to combine in one picture all the traits which prophets of
different ages, from Amos downward, embody in their representations of
this great day. It is heralded, as a rule, by terrific phenomena in
nature: the sun is turned into darkness and the moon into blood, and
the stars withdraw their light; we read of earthquake and tempest, of
blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The great day ushers in the
deliverance of God's people from all their enemies; and it is
accompanied by a terrible sifting process, which separates the sinners
and hypocrites among the holy people from those who are truly the
Lord's. Wherever it appears, the day of the Lord has the character of
finality. It is a supreme manifestation of judgment, in which the
wicked perish for ever; it is a supreme manifestation of grace, in
which a new and unchangeable life of blessedness is opened to the
righteous. Sometimes it seemed near to the prophet, and sometimes far
off; but near or far, it bounded his horizon; he saw nothing beyond.
It was the end of one era, and the beginning of another which should
have no end.

This great conception is carried over by the Apostle from the Old
Testament to the New. The day of the Lord is identified with the
Return of Christ. All the contents of that old conception are carried
over along with it. Christ's return bounds the Apostle's horizon; it
is the final revelation of the mercy and judgment of God. There is
sudden destruction in it for some, a darkness in which there is no
light at all; and for others, eternal salvation, a light in which
there is no darkness at all. It is the end of the present order of
things, and the beginning of a new and eternal order. All this the
Thessalonians knew; they had been carefully taught it by the Apostle.
He did not need to write such elementary truths, nor did he need to
say anything about the times and seasons[18] which the Father had kept
in His own power. They knew perfectly all that had been revealed on
this matter, viz., that the day of the Lord comes exactly as a thief
in the night. Suddenly, unexpectedly, giving a shock of alarm and
terror to those whom it finds unprepared,--in such wise it breaks upon
the world. The telling image, so frequent with the Apostles, was
derived from the Master Himself; we can imagine the solemnity with
which Christ said, "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that
watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see
his shame."[19] The New Testament tells us everywhere that men will be
taken at unawares by the final revelation of Christ as Judge and
Saviour; and in so doing, it enforces with all possible earnestness
the duty of watching. False security is so easy, so natural,--looking
to the general attitude, even of Christian men, to this truth, one is
tempted to say, so inevitable,--that it may well seem vain to urge the
duty of watchfulness more. As it was in the days of Noah, as it was in
the days of Lot, as it was when Jerusalem fell, as it is at this
moment, so shall it be at the day of the Lord. Men will say, Peace and
safety, though every sign of the times says, Judgment. They will eat
and drink, plant and build, marry and be given in marriage, with their
whole heart concentrated and absorbed in these transient interests,
till in a moment suddenly, like the lightning which flashes from east
to west, the sign of the Son of Man is seen in heaven. Instead of
peace and safety, sudden destruction surprises them; all that they
have lived for passes away; they awake, as from deep sleep, to
discover that their soul has no part with God. It is too late then to
think of preparing for the end: the end has come; and it is with
solemn emphasis the Apostle adds, "They shall in no wise escape."

A doom so awful, a life so evil, cannot be the destiny or the duty of
any Christian man. "Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day
should overtake you as a thief." Darkness, in that saying of the
Apostle, has a double weight of meaning. The Christian is not in
ignorance of what is impending, and forewarned is forearmed. Neither
is he any longer in moral darkness, plunged in vice, living a life the
first necessity of which is to keep out of God's sight. Once the
Thessalonians had been in such darkness; their souls had had their
part in a world sunk in sin, on which the day-spring from on high had
not risen; but now that time was past. God had shined into their
hearts; He who is Himself light had poured the radiance of His own
love and truth into them till ignorance, vice, and wickedness had
passed away, and they had become light in the Lord. How intimate is
the relation between the Christian and God, how complete the
regeneration, expressed in the words, "Ye are all _sons_ of light,
and _sons_ of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness"!
There _are_ shady things in the world, and shady persons, but they
are not in Christianity, nor among Christians. The true Christian
takes his nature, all that characterises and distinguishes him, from
light. There is no darkness in him, nothing to hide, no guilty secret,
no corner of his being into which the light of God has not penetrated,
nothing that makes him dread exposure. His whole nature is full of
light, transparently luminous, so that it is impossible to surprise
him or take him at a disadvantage. This, at least, is his ideal
character; to this he is called, and this he makes his aim. There are
those, the Apostle implies, who take their character from night and
darkness,--men with souls that hide from God, that love secrecy, that
have much to remember they dare not speak of, that turn with
instinctive aversion from the light which the gospel brings, and the
sincerity and openness which it claims; men, in short, who have come
to love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. The
day of the Lord will certainly be a surprise to them; it will smite
them with sudden terror, as the midnight thief, breaking unseen
through door or window, terrifies the defenceless householder; it will
overwhelm them with despair, because it will come as a great and
searching light,--a day on which God will bring every hidden thing to
view, and judge the secrets of men's hearts by Christ Jesus. For those
who have lived in darkness the surprise will be inevitable; but what
surprise can there be for the children of the light? They are
partakers of the Divine nature; there is nothing in their souls which
they would not have God know; the light that shines from the great
white throne will discover nothing in them to which its searching
brightness is unwelcome; Christ's coming is so far from disconcerting
them that it is really the crowning of their hopes.

The Apostle demands of his disciples conduct answering to this ideal.
Walk worthy, he says, of your privileges and of your calling. "Let us
not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober." "Sleep" is
certainly a strange word to describe the life of the worldly man. He
probably thinks himself very wide awake, and as far as a certain
circle of interests is concerned, probably is so. The children of this
world, Jesus tells us, are wonderfully wise for their generation. They
are more shrewd and more enterprising than the children of light. But
what a stupor falls upon them, what a lethargy, what a deep
unconscious slumber, when the interests in view are spiritual. The
claims of God, the future of the soul, the coming of Christ, our
manifestation at His judgment seat, they are not awake to any concern
in these. They live on as if these were not realities at all; if they
pass through their minds on occasion, as they look at the Bible or
listen to a sermon, it is as dreams pass through the mind of one
asleep; they go out and shake themselves, and all is over; earth has
recovered its solidity, and the airy unrealities have passed away.
Philosophers have amused themselves with the difficulty of finding a
scientific criterion between the experiences of the sleeping and the
waking state, _i.e._, a means of distinguishing between the kind of
reality which belongs to each; it is at least one element of sanity to
be able to make the distinction. If we may enlarge the ideas of sleep
and waking, as they are enlarged by the Apostle in this passage, it is
a distinction which many fail to make. When they have the ideas which
make up the staple of revelation presented to them, they feel as if
they were in dreamland; there is no substance to them in a page of St.
Paul; they cannot grasp the realities that underlie his words, any
more than they can grasp the forms which swept before their minds in
last night's sleep. But when they go out to their work in the world,
to deal in commodities, to handle money, then they are in the sphere
of real things, and wide awake enough. Yet the sound mind will reverse
their decisions. It is the visible things that are unreal and that
ultimately pass away; the spiritual things--God, Christ, the human
soul, faith, love, hope--that abide. Let us not face our life in that
sleepy mood to which the spiritual is but a dream; on the contrary,
as we are of the day, let us be wide awake and sober. The world is
full of illusions, of shadows which impose themselves as substances
upon the heedless, of gilded trifles which the man whose eyes are
heavy with sleep accepts as gold; but the Christian ought not to be
thus deceived. Look to the coming of the Lord, Paul says, and do not
sleep through your days, like the heathen, making your life one long
delusion; taking the transitory for the eternal, and regarding the
eternal as a dream; that is the way to be surprised with sudden
destruction at the last; watch and be sober; and you will not be
ashamed before Him at His coming.

It may not be out of place to insist on the fact that "sober" in this
passage means sober as opposed to drunk. No one would wish to be
overtaken drunk by any great occasion; yet the day of the Lord is
associated in at least three passages of Scripture with a warning
against this gross sin. "Take heed to yourselves," the Master says,
"lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and
drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly
as a snare." "The night is far spent," says the Apostle, "the day is
at hand.... Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in revelling and
drunkenness." And in this passage: "Let us, since we are of the day,
be sober; they that be drunken are drunken in the night." The
conscience of men is awakening to the sin of excess, but it has much
to do before it comes to the New Testament standard. Does it not help
us to see it in its true light when it is thus confronted with the day
of the Lord? What horror could be more awful than to be overtaken in
this state? What death is more terrible to contemplate than one which
is not so very rare--death in drink?

Wakefulness and sobriety do not exhaust the demands made upon the
Christian. He is also to be on his guard. "Put on the breastplate of
faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation." While
waiting for the Lord's coming, the Christian waits in a hostile world.
He is exposed to assault from spiritual enemies who aim at nothing
less than his life, and he needs to be protected against them. In the
very beginning of this letter we came upon the three Christian graces;
the Thessalonians were commended for their work of faith, labour of
love, and patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. There they were
represented as active powers in the Christian life, each manifesting
its presence by some appropriate work, or some notable fruit of
character; here they constitute a defensive armour by which the
Christian is shielded against any mortal assault. We cannot press the
figure further than this. If we keep our faith in Jesus Christ, if we
love one another, if our hearts are set with confident hope on that
salvation which is to be brought to us at Christ's appearing, we need
fear no evil; no foe can touch our life. It is remarkable, I think,
that both here and in the famous passage in Ephesians, as well as in
the original of both in Isaiah lix. 17, salvation, or, to be more
precise, the hope of salvation, is made the helmet. The Apostle is
very free in his comparisons; faith is now a shield, and now a
breastplate; the breastplate in one passage is faith and love, and in
another righteousness; but the helmet is always the same. Without
hope, he would say to us, no man can hold up his head in the battle;
and the Christian hope is always Christ's second coming. If He is not
to come again, the very word hope may be blotted out of the New
Testament. This assured grasp on the coming salvation--a salvation
ready to be revealed in the last times--is what gives the spirit of
victory to the Christian even in the darkest hour.

The mention of salvation brings the Apostle back to his principal
subject. It is as if he wrote, "for a helmet the hope of salvation;
salvation, I say; for God did not appoint us to wrath, but to the
obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." The day of the
Lord is indeed a day of wrath,--a day when men will cry to the
mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of
Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for
the great day of their wrath is come. The Apostle cannot remember it
for any purpose without getting a glimpse of those terrors; but it is
not for these he recalls it at this time. God did not appoint
Christians to the wrath of that day, but to its salvation,--a
salvation the hope of which is to cover their heads in the day of
battle.

The next verse--the tenth--has the peculiar interest of containing the
only hint to be found in this early Epistle of Paul's teaching as to
the mode of salvation. We obtain it through Jesus Christ, who died for
us. It is not who died instead of us, nor even on our behalf
(+hyper+), but, according to the true reading, who died a death in
which we are concerned. It is the most vague expression that could
have been used to signify that Christ's death had something to do with
our salvation. Of course it does not follow that Paul had said no more
to the Thessalonians than he indicates here; judging from the account
he gives in 1st Corinthians of his preaching immediately after he left
Thessalonica, one would suppose he had been much more explicit;
certainly no church ever existed that was not based on the Atonement
and the Resurrection. In point of fact, however, what is here made
prominent is not the mode of salvation, but one special result of
salvation as accomplished by Christ's death, a result contemplated
by Christ, and pertinent to the purpose of this letter; He died for
us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should together live with Him.
The same conception precisely is found in Rom. xiv. 9: "To this end
Christ died, and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead
and the living." This was His aim in redeeming us by passing through
all modes of human existence, seen and unseen. It made Him Lord of
all. He filled all things. He claims all modes of existence as His
own. Nothing separates from Him. Whether we sleep or wake, whether we
live or die, we shall alike live with Him. The strong consolation, to
impart which was the Apostle's original motive in approaching this
subject, has thus come uppermost again; in the circumstances of the
church, it is this which lies nearest to his heart.

He ends, therefore, with the old exhortation: "Comfort one another,
and build each other up, as also ye do." The knowledge of the truth is
one thing; the Christian use of it is another: if we cannot help one
another very much with the first, there is more in our power with
regard to the last. We are not ignorant of Christ's second coming; of
its awful and consoling circumstances; of its final judgment and final
mercy; of its final separations and final unions. Why have these
things been revealed to us? What influence are they meant to have in
our lives? They ought to be consoling and strengthening. They ought
to banish hopeless sorrow. They ought to generate and sustain an
earnest, sober, watchful spirit; strong patience; a complete
independence of this world. It is left to us as Christian men to
assist each other in the appropriation and application of these great
truths. Let us fix our minds upon them. Our salvation is nearer than
when we believed. Christ is coming. There _will be_ a gathering
together of all His people unto Him. The living and the dead shall be
for ever with the Lord. Of the times and the seasons we can say no
more than could be said at the beginning; the Father has kept them in
His own power; it remains with us to watch and be sober; to arm
ourselves with faith, love, and hope; to set our mind on the things
that are above, where our true country is, whence also we look for the
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

[18] "_The times_ (+chronoi+) are, in Augustine's words, 'ipsa spatia
temporum,' and these contemplated merely under the aspect of their
duration, over which the Church's history should extend; but _the
seasons_ (+kairoi+) are the joints or articulations in these times,
the critical epoch-making periods foreordained of God (+kairoi
protetagmenoi+, Acts xvii. 26; cf. Augustine, _Conf._, xi., 13: 'Deus
operator temporum'); when all that has been slowly, and often without
observation, ripening through long ages is mature and comes to the
birth in grand decisive events, which constitute at once the close of
one period and the commencement of another."--Trench, _Synonyms_, p.
211.

[19] Rev. xvi. 15.




XIII.

_RULERS AND RULED._


 "But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labour among you,
 and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them
 exceeding highly in love for their work's sake. Be at peace among
 yourselves. And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the disorderly,
 encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be longsuffering toward
 all. See that none render unto any one evil for evil; but alway
 follow after that which is good, one toward another, and toward
 all."--1 THESS. v. 12-15 (R.V.).

At the present moment, one great cause of division among Christian
churches is the existence of different forms of Church government.
Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians are separated
from each other much more decidedly by difference of organisation than
by difference of creed. By some of them, if not by all, a certain form
of Church order is identified with the existence of the Church itself.
Thus the English-speaking bishops of the world, who met some time ago
in conference at Lambeth, adopted as a basis, on which they could
treat for union with other Churches, the acceptance of Holy Scripture,
of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, of the Apostles'
and Nicene creeds, and of the Historic Episcopate. In other words,
diocesan bishops are as essential to the constitution of the Church as
the preaching of the Word of God and the administration of the
Sacraments. That is an opinion which one may say, without offence, has
neither history nor reason on its side. Part of the interest of this
Epistle to the Thessalonians lies in the glimpses it gives of the
early state of the Church, when such questions would simply have been
unintelligible. The little community at Thessalonica was not quite
without a constitution--no society could exist on that footing--but
its constitution, as we see from this passage, was of the most
elementary kind; and it certainly contained nothing like a modern
bishop.

"We beseech you," says the Apostle, "to know them that labour among
you." "To labour"[20] is the ordinary expression of Paul for such
Christian work as he himself did. Perhaps it refers mainly to the work
of catechising, to the giving of that regular and connected
instruction in Christian truth which followed conversion and baptism.
It covers everything that could be of service to the Church or any of
its members. It would include even works of charity. There is a
passage very like this in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, (xvi.
15 f.), where the two things are closely connected: "Now I beseech
you, brethren (ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the
firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have set themselves to minister
unto the saints), that ye also be in subjection unto such, and to
every one that helpeth in the work and laboureth." In both passages
there is a certain indefiniteness. Those who labour are not
necessarily official persons, elders, or, as they are often called in
the New Testament, bishops, and deacons; they may have given
themselves to the work without any election or ordination at all. We
know that this is often the case still. The best workers in a church
are not always or necessarily found among those who have official
functions to perform. Especially is it so in churches which provide no
recognition for women, yet depend for their efficiency as religious
agencies even more on women than on men. What would become of our
Sunday Schools, of our Home Missions, of our charities, of our
visitation of the sick, the aged, and the poor, but for the labour of
Christian women? Now what the Apostle tells us here is, that it is
_labour_ which, in the first instance, is entitled to respect. "Know
them that labour among you," means "Know them for what they are";
recognise with all due reverence their self-denial, their
faithfulness, the services they render to you, their claim upon your
regard. The Christian labourer does not labour for praise or flattery;
but those who take the burden of the church upon them in any way, as
pastors or teachers or visitors, as choir or collectors, as managers
of the church property, or however else, are entitled to our
acknowledgment, and ought not to be left without it. There is no doubt
a great deal of unknown, unheeded, unrequited labour in every church.
That is inevitable, and probably good; but it should make us the more
anxious to acknowledge what we see, and to esteem the workers very
highly in love because of it. How unseemly it is, and how unworthy of
the Christian name, when those who do not work busy themselves with
criticising those who do,--inventing objections, deriding honest
effort, anticipating failure, pouring cold water upon zeal. That is
bad for all, but bad especially for those who practise it. The
ungenerous soul, which grudges recognition to others, and though it
never labours itself has always wisdom to spare for those who do, is
in a hopeless state; there is no growth for it in anything noble and
good. Let us open our eyes on those who labour among us, men or women,
and recognise them as they deserve.

There are two special forms of labour to which the Apostle gives
prominence: he mentions as among those that labour "them that are over
you in the Lord, and admonish you." The first of the words here
employed, the one translated "them that are over" you, is the only
hint the Epistle contains of Church government. Wherever there is a
society, there must be order. There must be those through whom the
society acts, those who represent it officially by words or deeds. At
Thessalonica there was not a single president, a minister in our
sense, possessing to a certain extent an exclusive responsibility; the
presidency was in the hands of a plurality of men, what Presbyterians
would call a Kirk Session. This body, as far as we can make out from
the few surviving indications of their duties, would direct, but not
conduct, the public worship, and would manage the financial affairs,
and especially the charity, of the church. They would as a rule be
elderly men; and were called by the official name, borrowed from the
Jews, of elders. They did not, in the earliest times, preach or teach;
they were too old to learn that new profession; but what may be called
the administration was in their hands; they were the governing
committee of the new Christian community. The limits of their
authority are indicated by the words "in the Lord." They are over the
members of the church in their characters and relations as church
members; but they have nothing to do with other departments of life,
so far as these relations are unaffected by them.

Side by side with those who preside over the church, Paul mentions
those "who admonish you." Admonish is a somewhat severe word; it means
to speak to one about his conduct, reminding him of what he seems to
have forgotten, and of what is rightly expected from him. It gives us
a glimpse of discipline in the early Church, that is, of the care
which was taken that those who had named the Christian name should
lead a truly Christian life. There is nothing expressly said in this
passage about doctrines. Purity of doctrine is certainly essential to
the health of the Church, but rightness of life comes before it. There
is nothing expressly said about teaching the truth; that work belonged
to apostles, prophets, and evangelists, who were ministers of the
Church at large, and not fixed to a single congregation; the only
exercise of Christian speech proper to the congregation is its use in
admonition, _i.e._, for practical moral purposes. The moral ideal of
the gospel must be clearly before the mind of the Church, and all who
deviate from it must be admonished of their danger. "It is difficult
for us in modern times," says Dr. Hatch, "with the widely different
views which we have come to hold as to the relation of Church
government to social life, to understand how large a part discipline
filled in the communities of primitive times. These communities were
what they were mainly by the strictness of their discipline.... In the
midst of 'a crooked and perverse nation' they could only hold their
own by the extreme of circumspection. Moral purity was not so much a
virtue at which they were bound to aim as the very condition of their
existence. If the salt of the earth should lose its savour, wherewith
should it be salted? If the lights of the world were dimmed, who
should rekindle their flame? And of this moral purity the officers of
each community were the custodians. 'They watched for souls as those
that must give account.'" This vivid picture should provoke us to
reflection. Our minds are not set sufficiently on the practical duty
of keeping up the Christian standard. The moral originality of the
gospel drops too easily out of sight. Is it not the case that we are
much more expert at vindicating the approach of the Church to the
standard of the non-Christian world, than at maintaining the necessary
distinction between the two? We are certain to bring a good deal of
the world into the Church without knowing it; we are certain to have
instincts, habits, dispositions, associates perhaps, and likings,
which are hostile to the Christian type of character; and it is this
which makes admonition indispensable. Far worse than any aberration in
thought is an irregularity in conduct which threatens the Christian
ideal. When you are warned of such a thing in your conduct by your
minister or elder, or by any Christian, do not resent the warning.
Take it seriously and kindly; thank God that He has not allowed you to
go on unadmonished; and esteem very highly in love the brother or
sister who has been so true to you. Nothing is more un-Christian than
fault-finding, nothing is more truly Christian than frank and
affectionate admonishing of those who are going astray. This may be
especially commended to the young. In youth we are apt to be proud and
wilful; we are confident that we can keep ourselves safe in what the
old and timid consider dangerous situations; we do not fear
temptation, nor think that this or that little fall is more than an
indiscretion; and, in any case, we have a determined dislike to being
interfered with. All this is very natural; but we should remember
that, as Christians, we are pledged to a course of life which is not
in all ways natural; to a spirit and conduct which are incompatible
with pride; to a seriousness of purpose, to a loftiness and purity of
aim, which may all be lost through wilfulness; and we should love and
honour those who put their experience at our service, and warn us
when, in lightness of heart, we are on the way to make shipwreck of
our life. They do not admonish us because they like it, but because
they love us and would save us from harm; and love is the only
recompense for such a service.

How little there is of an official spirit in what the Apostle has been
saying, we see clearly from what follows. In one way it is specially
the duty of the elders or pastors in the Church to exercise rule and
discipline; but it is not so exclusively their duty as to exempt the
members of the Church at large from responsibility. The Apostle
addresses the whole congregation when he goes on, "Be at peace among
yourselves. And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the disorderly,
encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be longsuffering toward
all." Let us look more closely at these simple exhortations.

"Admonish," he says, "the disorderly." Who are they? The word is a
military one, and means properly those who leave their place in the
ranks. In the Epistle to the Colossians (ii. 5) Paul rejoices over
what he calls the solid front presented by their faith in Christ. The
solid front is broken, and great advantage given to the enemy, when
there are disorderly persons in a church,--men or women who fall short
of the Christian standard, or who violate, by irregularities of any
kind, the law of Christ. Such are to be admonished by their brethren.
Any Christian who sees the disorder has a right to admonish them; nay,
it is laid upon his conscience as a sacred duty tenderly and earnestly
to do so. We are too much afraid of giving offence, and too little
afraid of allowing sin to run its course. Which is better--to speak to
the brother who has been disorderly, whether by neglecting work,
neglecting worship, or openly falling into sin: which is better, to
speak to such a one as a brother, privately, earnestly, lovingly; or
to say nothing at all to him, but talk about what we find to censure
in him to everybody else, dealing freely behind his back with things
we dare not speak of to his face? Surely admonition is better than
gossip; if it is more difficult, it is more Christlike too. It may be
that our own conduct shuts our mouth, or at least exposes us to a rude
retort; but unaffected humility can overcome even that.

But it is not always admonition that is needed. Sometimes the very
opposite is in place; and so Paul writes, "Encourage the
fainthearted." Put heart into them. The word rendered "fainthearted"
is only used in this single passage; yet every one knows what it
means. It includes those for whose benefit the Apostle wrote in chap.
iv. the description of Christ's second coming,--those whose hearts
sunk within them as they thought they might never see their departed
friends again. It includes those who shrink from persecution, from the
smiles or the frowns of the un-Christian, and who fear they may deny
the Lord. It includes those who have fallen before temptation, and are
sitting despondent and fearful, not able to lift up so much as their
eyes to heaven and pray the publican's prayer. All such timid souls
need to be heartened; and those who have learned of Jesus, who would
not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax, will know how
to speak a word in season to them. The whole life of the Lord is an
encouragement to the fainthearted; He who welcomed the penitent, who
comforted the mourners, who restored Peter after his triple denial, is
able to lift up the most timid and to make them stand. Nor is there
any work more Christlike than this. The fainthearted get no quarter
from the world; bad men delight to trample on the timid; but Christ
bids them hope in Him, and strengthen themselves for battle and for
victory.

Akin to this exhortation is the one which follows, "Support the weak."
That does not mean, Provide for those who are unable to work; but, Lay
hold of those who are weak in the faith, and keep them up. There are
people in every congregation whose connection with Christ and the
gospel is very slight; and if some one does not take hold of them,
they will drift away altogether. Sometimes such weakness is due to
ignorance: the people in question know little about the gospel; it
fills no space in their minds; it does not awe their weakness, or
fascinate their trust. Sometimes, again, it is due to an unsteadiness
of mind or character; they are easily led away by new ideas or by new
companions. Sometimes, without any tendency to lapsing, there is a
weakness due to a false reverence for the past, and for the traditions
and opinions of men, by which the mind and conscience are enslaved.
What is to be done with such weak Christians? They are to be supported.
Some one is to lay hands upon them, and uphold them till their
weakness is outgrown. If they are ignorant, they must be taught. If
they are easily carried away by new ideas, they must be shown the
incalculable weight of evidence which from every side establishes the
unchangeable truth of the gospel If they are prejudiced and bigoted,
or full of irrational scruples, and blind reverence for dead customs,
they must be constrained to look the imaginary terrors of liberty in
the face, till the truth makes them free. Let us lay this exhortation
to heart. Men and women slip away and are lost to the Church and to
Christ, because they were weak, and no one supported them. Your word
or your influence, spoken or used at the right time, might have saved
them. What is the use of strength if not to lay hold of the weak?

It is an apt climax when the Apostle adds, "Be longsuffering toward
all." He who tries to keep these commandments--"Admonish the
disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak"--will have
need of patience. If we are absolutely indifferent to each other, it
does not matter; we can do without it. But if we seek to be of use to
each other, our moral infirmities are very trying. We summon up all
our love and all our courage, and venture to hint to a brother that
something in his conduct has been amiss; and he flies into a passion,
and tells us to mind our own business. Or we undertake some trying
task of teaching, and after years of pains and patience some guileless
question is asked which shows that our labour has been in vain; or we
sacrifice our own leisure and recreation to lay hold on some weak one,
and discover that the first approach of temptation has been too strong
for him after all. How slow, we are tempted to cry, men are to respond
to efforts made for their good! Yet we are men who so cry,--men who
have wearied God by their own slowness, and who must constantly appeal
to His forbearance. Surely it is not too much for us to be
longsuffering toward all.

This little section closes with a warning against revenge, the vice
directly opposed to forbearance. "See that none render unto any one
evil for evil; but alway follow after that which is good, one toward
another, and toward all." Who are addressed in this verse? No doubt, I
should say, all the members of the Church; they have a common interest
in seeing that it is not disgraced by revenge. If forgiveness is the
original and characteristic virtue of Christianity, it is because
revenge is the most natural and instinctive of vices. It is a kind of
wild justice, as Bacon says, and men will hardly be persuaded that it
is not just. It is the vice which can most easily pass itself off as
a virtue; but in the Church it is to have no opportunity of doing so.
Christian men are to have their eyes about them; and where a wrong has
been done, they are to guard against the possibility of revenge by
acting as mediators between the severed brethren. Is it not written in
the words of Jesus, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
called sons of God?" We are not only to refrain from vengeance
ourselves, but we are to see to it, as Christian men, that it has no
place among us. And here, again, we sometimes have a thankless task,
and need to be longsuffering. Angry men are unreasonable; and he who
seeks the blessing of the peacemaker sometimes earns only the ill name
of a busybody in other men's matters. Nevertheless, wisdom is
justified of all her children; and no man who wars against revenge,
out of a heart loyal to Christ, can ever be made to look foolish. If
that which is good is our constant aim, one toward another, and toward
all, we shall gain the confidence even of angry men, and have the joy
of seeing evil passions banished from the Church. For revenge is the
last stronghold of the natural man; it is the last fort which he holds
against the spirit of the gospel; and when it is stormed, Christ
reigns indeed.

[20] Those "who toil among you and preside over you and admonish you"
are identified by Wight (_Composition of the Four Gospels_, p. 12) as
"the catechists, the presbyters, and evangelists." The third case is
certainly doubtful; and the fact that the article is used only once
makes the whole attempt at such a discrimination of officials
illegitimate.




XIV.

_THE STANDING ORDERS OF THE GOSPEL._


 "Rejoice alway; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks: for
 this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you-ward."--1 THESS. v.
 16-18 (R.V.).

The three precepts of these three verses may be called the standing
orders of the Christian Church. However various the circumstances in
which Christians may find themselves, the duties here prescribed are
always binding upon them. We are to rejoice alway, to pray without
ceasing, and in everything to give thanks. We may live in peaceful or
in troubled times; we may be encompassed with friends or beset by
foes; we may see the path we have chosen for ourselves open easily
before us, or find our inclination thwarted at every step; but we must
always have the music of the gospel in our hearts in its own proper
key. Let us look at these rules in order.

"Rejoice alway." There are circumstances in which it is natural for us
to rejoice; whether we are Christians or not, joy fills the heart till
it overflows. Youth, health, hope, love, these richest and best
possessions, give almost every man and woman at least a term of unmixed
gladness; some months, or years perhaps, of pure light-heartedness,
when they feel like singing all the time. But that natural joy can
hardly be kept up. It would not be good for us if it could; for it
really means that we are for the time absorbed in ourselves, and
having found our own satisfaction decline to look beyond. It is quite
another situation to which the Apostle addresses himself. He knows
that the persons who receive his letter have had to suffer cruelly for
their faith in Christ; he knows that some of them have quite lately
stood beside the graves of their dead. Must not a man be very sure of
himself, very confident of the truth on which he stands, when he
ventures to say to people so situated, "Rejoice alway"?

But these people, we must remember, were Christians; they had received
the gospel from the Apostle; and, in the gospel, the supreme assurance
of the love of God. We need to remind ourselves occasionally that the
gospel is good news, glad tidings of great joy. Wherever it comes, it
is a joyful sound; it puts a gladness into the heart which no change
of circumstances can abate or take away. There is a great deal in the
Old Testament which may fairly be described as doubt of God's love.
Even the saints sometimes wondered whether God was good to Israel;
they became impatient, unbelieving, bitter, foolish; the outpourings
of their hearts in some of the psalms show how far they were from
being able to rejoice evermore. But there is nothing the least like
this in the New Testament. The New Testament is the work of Christian
men, of men who had stood quite close to the supreme manifestation of
God's love in Jesus Christ. Some of them had been in Christ's company
for years. They knew that every word He spoke and every deed He
wrought declared His love; they knew that it was revealed, above all,
by the death which He died; they knew that it was made almighty,
immortal, and ever-present, by His resurrection from the dead. The
sublime revelation of Divine love dominated everything else in their
experience. It was impossible for them, for a single moment, to forget
it or to escape from it. It drew and fixed their hearts as
irresistibly as a mountain peak draws and holds the eyes of the
traveller. They never lost sight of the love of God in Christ Jesus,
that sight so new, so stupendous, so irresistible, so joyful. And
because they did not, they were able to rejoice evermore; and the New
Testament, which reflects the life of the first believers, does not
contain a querulous word from beginning to end. It is the book of
infinite joy.

We see, then, that this command, unreasonable as it appears, is not
impracticable. If we are truly Christians, if we have seen and
received the love of God, if we see and receive it continually, it
will enable us, like those who wrote the New Testament, to rejoice
evermore. There are places on our coast where a spring of fresh water
gushes up through the sand among the salt waves of the sea; and just
such a fountain of joy is the love of God in the Christian soul, even
when the waters close over it. "As sorrowful," says the Apostle, "yet
alway rejoicing."

Most churches and Christians need to lay this exhortation to heart. It
contains a plain direction for our common worship. The house of God is
the place where we come to make united and adoring confession of His
name. If we think only of ourselves, as we enter, we may be despondent
and low spirited enough; but surely we ought to think, in the first
instance, of Him. Let God be great in the assembly of His people; let
Him be lifted up as He is revealed to us in Jesus Christ, and joy will
fill our hearts. If the services of the Church are dull, it is because
He has been left outside; because the glad tidings of redemption,
holiness, and life everlasting are still waiting for admission to our
hearts. Do not let us belie the gospel by dreary, joyless worship: it
is not so that it is endeared to ourselves or commended to others.

The Apostle's exhortation contains a hint also for Christian temper.
Not only our united worship, but the habitual disposition of each of
us, is to be joyful. It would not be easy to measure the loss the
cause of Christ has sustained through the neglect of this rule.
A conception of Christianity has been set before men, and especially
before the young, which could not fail to repel; the typical Christian
has been presented, austere and pure perhaps, or lifted high above the
world, but rigid, cold, and self-contained. That is not the Christian
as the New Testament conceives him. He is cheerful, sunny, joyous; and
there is nothing so charming as joy. There is nothing so contagious,
because there is nothing in which all men are so willing to partake;
and hence there is nothing so powerful in evangelistic work. The joy
of the Lord is the strength of the preacher of the gospel. There is an
interesting passage in 1 Cor. ix., where Paul enlarges on a certain
relation between the evangelist and the evangel. The gospel, he tells
us, is God's free gift to the world; and he who would become a
fellow-worker with the gospel must enter into the spirit of it, and
make his preaching also a free gift. So here, one may say, the gospel
is conceived as glad tidings; and whoever would open his lips for
Christ must enter into the spirit of his message, and stand up to
speak clothed in joy. Our looks and tones must not belie our words.
Languor, dulness, dreariness, a melancholy visage, are a libel upon
the gospel. If the knowledge of the love of God does not make us glad,
what does it do for us? If it does not make a difference to our
spirits and our temper, do we really know it? Christ compares its
influence to that of new wine; it is nothing if not exhilarating; if
it does not make our faces shine, it is because we have not tasted it.
I do not overlook, any more than St. Paul did, the causes for sorrow;
but the causes for sorrow are transient; they are like the dark clouds
which overshadow the sky for a time and then pass away; while the
cause of joy--the redeeming love of God in Christ Jesus--is permanent;
it is like the unchanging blue behind the clouds, ever-present,
ever-radiant, overarching and encompassing all our passing woes. Let
us remember it, and see it through the darkest clouds, and it will not
be impossible for us to rejoice evermore.

It may seem strange that one difficult thing should be made easy when
it is combined with another; but this is what is suggested by the
second exhortation of the Apostle, "Pray without ceasing." It is not
easy to rejoice alway, but our one hope of doing so is to pray
constantly. How are we to understand so singular a precept?

Prayer, we know, when we take it in the widest sense, is the primary
mark of the Christian. "Behold, he prayeth," the Lord said of Saul,
when He wished to convince Ananias that there was no mistake about his
conversion. He who does not pray at all--and is it too much to suppose
that some come to churches who never do?--is no Christian. Prayer is
the converse of the soul with God; it is that exercise in which we
hold up our hearts to Him, that they may be filled with His fulness,
and changed into His likeness. The more we pray, and the more we are
in contact with Him, the greater is our assurance of His love, the
firmer our confidence that He is with us to help and save. If we once
think of it, we shall see that our very life as Christians depends on
our being in perpetual contact and perpetual fellowship with God. If
He does not breathe into us the breath of life, we have no life. If He
does not hour by hour send our help from above, we face our spiritual
foes without resources.

It is with such thoughts present to the mind that some would interpret
the command, "Pray without ceasing." "Cherish a spirit of prayer,"
they would render it, "and make devotion the true business of life.
Cultivate the sense of dependence on God; let it be part of the very
structure of your thoughts that without Him you can do nothing, but
through His strength all things." But this is, in truth, to put the
effect where the cause should be. This spirit of devotion is itself
the fruit of ceaseless prayers; this strong consciousness of
dependence on God becomes an ever-present and abiding thing only when
in all our necessities we betake ourselves to Him. Occasions, we must
rather say, if we would follow the Apostle's thought, are never
wanting, and will never be wanting, which call for the help of God;
therefore, pray without ceasing. It is useless to say that the thing
cannot be done, before the experiment has been made. There are few
works that cannot be accompanied with prayer; there are few indeed
that cannot be preceded by prayer; there are none at all that would
not profit by prayer. Take the very first work to which you must set
your mind and your hand, and you know it will be better done if, as
you turn to it, you look up to God and ask His help to do it well and
faithfully, as a Christian ought to do it for the Master above. It is
not in any vague, indefinite fashion, but by taking prayer with us
wherever we go, by consciously, deliberately, and persistently lifting
our hearts to God as each emergency in life, great or small, makes its
new demand upon us, that the apostolic exhortation is to be obeyed. If
prayer is thus combined with all our works, we shall find that it
wastes no time, though it fills all. Certainly it is not an easy
practice to begin, that of praying without ceasing. It is so natural
for us not to pray, that we perpetually forget, and undertake this or
that without God. But surely we get reminders enough that this
omission of prayer is a mistake. Failure, loss of temper, absence of
joy, weariness, and discouragement are its fruits; while prayer brings
us without fail the joy and strength of God. The Apostle himself knew
that to pray without ceasing requires an extraordinary effort; and in
the only passages in which he urges it, he combines with it the duties
of watchfulness and persistence (Eph. vi. 15; Col. iv. 2; Rom. xii.
12). We must be on our guard that the occasion for prayer does not
escape us, and we must take care not to be wearied with this incessant
reference of everything to God.

The third of the standing orders of the Church is, from one point of
view, a combination of the first and second; for thanksgiving is a
kind of joyful prayer. As a duty, it is recognised by every one within
limits; the difficulty of it is only seen when it is claimed, as here,
without limits: "In everything give thanks." That this is no
accidental extravagance is shown by its recurrence in other places. To
mention only one: in Phil. iv. 6 the Apostle writes, "In everything by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made
known to God." Is it really possible to do this thing?

There are times, we all know, at which thanksgiving is natural and
easy. When our life has taken the course which we ourselves had
purposed, and the result seems to justify our foresight; when those
whom we love are prosperous and happy; when we have escaped a great
danger, or recovered from a severe illness, we feel, or say we feel,
so thankful. Even in such circumstances we are possibly not so
thankful as we ought to be. Perhaps if we were our lives would be a
great deal happier. But at all events we frankly admit that we have
cause for thanksgiving; God has been good to us, even in our own
estimate of goodness; and we ought to cherish and express our grateful
love toward Him. Let us not forget to do so. It has been said that an
unblessed sorrow is the saddest thing in life; but perhaps as sad a
thing is an unblessed joy. And every joy is unblessed for which we do
not give God thanks. "Unhallowed pleasures" is a strong expression,
which seems proper only to describe gross wickedness; yet it is the
very name which describes any pleasure in our life of which we do not
recognise God as the Giver, and for which we do not offer Him our
humble and hearty thanks. We would not be so apt to protest against
the idea of giving thanks in everything, if it had ever been our habit
to give thanks in anything. Think of what you call, with thorough
conviction, your blessings and your mercies,--your bodily health, your
soundness of mind, your calling in this world, the faith which you
repose in others and which others repose in you; think of the love of
your husband or wife, of all those sweet and tender ties that bind our
lives into one; think of the success with which you have wrought out
your own purposes, and laboured at your own ideal; and with all this
multitude of mercies before your face, ask whether even for these you
have given God thanks. Have they been hallowed and made means of grace
to you by your grateful acknowledgment that He is the Giver of them
all? If not, it is plain that you have lost much joy, and have to
begin the duty of thanksgiving in the easiest and lowest place.

But the Apostle rises high above this when he says, "In everything
give thanks." He knew, as I have remarked already, that the
Thessalonians had been visited by suffering and death: is there a
place for thanksgiving there? Yes, he says; for the Christian does not
look on sorrow with the eyes of another man. When sickness comes to
him or to his home; when there is loss to be borne, or disappointment,
or bereavement; when his plans are frustrated, his hopes deferred, and
the whole conduct of his life simply taken out of his hands, he is
still called to give thanks to God. For he knows that God is love. He
knows that God has a purpose of His own in his life,--a purpose which
at the moment he may not discern, but which he is bound to believe
wiser and larger than any he could purpose for himself. Every one who
has eyes to see must have seen, in the lives of Christian men and
women, fruits of sorrow and of suffering which were conspicuously
their best possessions, the things for which the whole Church was
under obligation to give thanks to God on their behalf. It is not
easy at the moment to see what underlies sorrow; it is not possible to
grasp by anticipation the beautiful fruits which it yields in the long
run to those who accept it without murmuring: but every Christian
knows that all things work together for good to them that love God;
and in the strength of that knowledge he is able to keep a thankful
heart, however mysterious and trying the providence of God may be.
That sorrow, even the deepest and most hopeless, has been blessed, no
one can deny. It has taught many a deeper thoughtfulness, a truer
estimate of the world and its interests, a more simple trust in God.
It has opened the eyes of many to the sufferings of others, and
changed boisterous rudeness into tender and delicate sympathy. It has
given many weak ones the opportunity of demonstrating the nearness and
the strength of Christ, as out of weakness they have been made strong.
Often the sufferer in a home is the most thankful member of it. Often
the bedside is the sunniest spot in the house, though the bedridden
one knows that he or she will never be free again. It is not
impossible for a Christian in everything to give thanks.

But it is only a Christian who can do it, as the last words of the
Apostle intimate: "This is the will of God _in Christ Jesus_ to
you-ward." These words may refer to all that has preceded: "Rejoice
alway; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks"; or they may
refer to the last clause only. Whichever be the case, the Apostle
tells us that the ideal in question has only been revealed in Christ,
and hence is only within reach of those who know Christ. Till Christ
came, no man ever dreamt of rejoicing alway, praying without ceasing,
and giving thanks in everything. There were noble ideals in the world,
high, severe, and pure; but nothing so lofty, buoyant, and exhilarating
as this. Men did not know God well enough to know what His will for
them was; they thought He demanded integrity, probably, and beyond
that, silent and passive submission at the most; no one had conceived
that God's will for man was that his life should be made up of joy,
prayer, and thanksgiving. But he who has seen Jesus Christ, and has
discovered the meaning of His life, knows that this is the true ideal.
For Jesus came into our world, and lived among us, that we might know
God; He manifested the name of God that we might put our trust in it;
and that name is Love; it is Father. If we know the Father, it is
possible for us, in the spirit of children, to aim at this lofty
Christian ideal; if we do not, it will seem to us utterly unreal. The
will of God in Christ Jesus means the will of the Father; it is only
for children that His will exists. Do not put aside the apostolic
exhortation as paradox or extravagance; to Christian hearts, to the
children of God, he speaks words of truth and soberness when he says,
"Rejoice alway; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks." Has
not Christ Jesus given us peace with God, and made us friends instead
of enemies? Is not that a fountain of joy too deep for sorrow to
touch? Has He not assured us that He is with us all the days, even to
the end of the world? Is not that a ground upon which we can look up
in prayer all the day long? Has He not told us that all things work
together for good to them that love God? Of course we cannot trace His
operation always; but when we remember the seal with which Christ
sealed that great truth; when we remember that in order to fulfil the
purpose of God in each of us He laid down His life on our behalf, can
we hesitate to trust His word? And if we do not hesitate, but welcome
it gladly as our hope in the darkest hour, shall we not try even in
everything to give thanks?




XV.

_THE SPIRIT._


 "Quench not the Spirit: despise not prophesyings: (but) prove all
 things: hold fast that which is good; abstain from every form of
 evil."--1 THESS. v. 20-22 (R.V.).

These verses are abruptly introduced, but are not unconnected with
what precedes. The Apostle has spoken of order and discipline, and of
the joyful and devout temper which should characterise the Christian
Church; and here he comes to speak of that Spirit in which the Church
lives, and moves, and has her being. The presence of the Spirit is, of
course, presupposed in all that he has said already: how could men,
except by His help, "rejoice alway, pray without ceasing, and in
everything give thanks"? But there are other manifestations of the
Spirit's power, of a more precise and definite character, and it is
with these we have here to do.

_Spiritus ubi est, ardet._ When the Holy Spirit descended on the Church
at Pentecost, "there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like
as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them"; and their lips were
opened to declare the mighty works of God. A man who has received this
great gift is described as fervent, literally, boiling (+zeon+) with
the Spirit. The new birth in those early days _was_ a new birth; it
kindled in the soul thoughts and feelings to which it had hitherto
been strange; it brought with it the consciousness of new powers; a
new vision of God; a new love of holiness; a new insight into the Holy
Scriptures, and into the meaning of man's life; often a new power of
ardent, passionate speech. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians
Paul describes a primitive Christian congregation. There was not one
silent among them. When they came together every one had a psalm, a
revelation, a prophecy, an interpretation. The manifestation of the
Spirit had been given to each one to profit withal; and on all hands
the spiritual fire was ready to flame forth. Conversion to the
Christian faith, the acceptance of the apostolic gospel, was not a
thing which made little difference to men: it convulsed their whole
nature to its depths; they were never the same again; they were new
creatures, with a new life in them, all fervour and flame.

A state so unlike nature, in the ordinary sense of the term, was sure
to have its inconveniences. The Christian, even when he had received
the gift of the Holy Ghost, was still a man; and as likely as not a
man who had to struggle against vanity, folly, ambition, and
selfishness of all kinds. His enthusiasm might even seem, in the first
instance, to aggravate, instead of removing, his natural faults. It
might drive him to speak--for in a primitive church anybody who
pleased might speak--when it would have been better for him to be
silent. It might lead him to break out in prayer or praise or
exhortation, in a style which made the wise sigh. And for those
reasons the wise, and such as thought themselves wise, would be apt to
discourage the exercise of spiritual gifts altogether. "Contain
yourself," they would say to the man whose heart burned within him,
and who was restless till the flame could leap out; "contain yourself;
exercise a little self-control; it is unworthy of a rational being to
be carried away in this fashion."

No doubt situations like this were common in the church at
Thessalonica. They are produced inevitably by differences of age and
of temperament. The old and the phlegmatic are a natural, and,
doubtless, a providential, counterweight to the young and sanguine.
But the wisdom which comes of experience and of temperament has its
disadvantages as compared with fervour of spirit. It is cold and
unenthusiastic; it cannot propagate itself; it cannot set fire to
anything and spread. And because it is under this incapacity of
kindling the souls of men into enthusiasm, it is forbidden to pour
cold water on such enthusiasm when it breaks forth in words of fire.
That is the meaning of "Quench not the Spirit." The commandment
presupposes that the Spirit can be quenched. Cold looks, contemptuous
words, silence, studied disregard, go a long way to quench it. So does
unsympathetic criticism.

Every one knows that a fire smokes most when it is newly kindled; but
the way to get rid of the smoke is not to pour cold water on the fire,
but to let it burn itself clear. If you are wise enough you may even
help it to burn itself clear, by rearranging the materials, or
securing a better draught; but the wisest thing most people can do
when the fire has got hold is to let it alone; and that is also the
wise course for most when they meet with a disciple whose zeal burns
like fire. Very likely the smoke hurts their eyes; but the smoke will
soon pass by; and it may well be tolerated in the meantime for the
sake of the heat. For this apostolic precept takes for granted that
fervour of spirit, a Christian enthusiasm for what is good, is the
best thing in the world. It may be untaught and inexperienced; it may
have all its mistakes to make; it may be wonderfully blind to the
limitations which the stern necessities of life put upon the generous
hopes of man: but it is of God; it is expansive; it is contagious; it
is worth more as a spiritual force than all the wisdom in the world.

I have hinted at ways in which the Spirit is quenched; it is sad to
reflect that from one point of view the history of the Church is a
long series of transgressions of this precept, checked by an equally
long series of rebellions of the Spirit. "Where the Spirit of the Lord
is," the Apostle tells us elsewhere, "there is liberty." But liberty
in a society has its dangers; it is, to a certain extent, at war with
order; and the guardians of order are not apt to be too considerate of
it. Hence it came to pass that at a very early period, and in the
interests of good order, the freedom of the Spirit was summarily
suppressed in the Church. "The gift of ruling," it has been said,
"like Aaron's rod, seemed to swallow up the other gifts." The rulers
of the Church became a class entirely apart from its ordinary members,
and all exercise of spiritual gifts for the building up of the Church
was confined to them. Nay, the monstrous idea was originated, and
taught as a dogma, that they alone were the depositaries, or, as it is
sometimes said, the custodians, of the grace and truth of the gospel;
only through them could men come into contact with the Holy Ghost. In
plain English, the Spirit was quenched when Christians met for
worship. One great extinguisher was placed over the flame that burned
in the hearts of the brethren; it was not allowed to show itself; it
must not disturb, by its eruption in praise or prayer or fiery
exhortation, the decency and order of divine service. I say that was
the condition to which Christian worship was reduced at a very early
period; and it is unhappily the condition in which, for the most part,
it subsists at this moment. Do you think we are gainers by it? I do
not believe it. It has always come from time to time to be
intolerable. The Montanists of the second century, the heretical sects
of the middle ages, the Independents and Quakers of the English
Commonwealth, the lay preachers of Wesleyanism, the Salvationists, the
Plymouthists, and the Evangelistic associations of our own day,--all
these are in various degrees the protest of the Spirit, and its right
and necessary protest, against the authority which would quench it,
and by quenching it impoverish the Church. In many Nonconformist
churches there is a movement just now in favour of a liturgy. A
liturgy may indeed be a defence against the coldness and incompetence
of the one man to whom the whole conduct of public worship is at
present left; but our true refuge is not this mechanical one, but the
opening of the mouths of all Christian people. A liturgy, however
beautiful, is a melancholy witness to the quenching of the Spirit: it
may be better or worse than the prayers of one man; but it could never
compare for fervour with the spontaneous prayers of a living Church.

Among the gifts of the Spirit, that which the Apostle valued most
highly was prophecy. We read in the Book of Acts of prophets, like
Agabus, who foretold future events affecting the fortunes of the
gospel, and possibly at Thessalonica the minds of those who were
spiritually gifted were preoccupied with thoughts of the Lord's
coming, and made it the subject of their discourses in the church; but
there is no necessary limitation of this sort in the idea of
prophesying. The prophet was a man whose rational and moral nature had
been quickened by the Spirit of Christ, and who possessed in an
uncommon degree the power of speaking edification, exhortation, and
comfort. In other words, he was a Christian preacher,[21] endued with
wisdom, fervour, and tenderness; and his spiritual addresses were
among the Lord's best gifts to the Church. Such addresses, or
prophesyings, Paul tells we are not to despise.

Now despise is a strong word; it is, literally, to set utterly at
naught, as Herod set at naught Jesus, when he clothed Him in purple,
or as the Pharisees set at naught the publicans, even when they came
into the Temple to pray. Of course, prophecy, or, to speak in the
language of our own time, the preacher's calling, may be abused: a man
may preach without a message, without sincerity, without reverence for
God or respect for those to whom he speaks; he may make a mystery, a
professional secret, of the truth of God, instead of declaring it even
to little children; he may seek, as some who called themselves
prophets in early times sought, to make the profession of godliness a
source of gain; and under such circumstances no respect is due. But
such circumstances are not to be assumed without cause. We are rather
to assume that he who stands up in the Church to speak in God's name
has had a word of God entrusted to him; it is not wise to despise it
before it is heard. It may be because we have been so often disappointed
that we pitch our hopes so low; but to expect nothing is to be guilty
of a sort of contempt by anticipation. To despise not prophesyings
requires us to look for something from the preacher, some word of God
that will build us up in godliness, or bring us encouragement or
consolation; it requires us to listen as those who have a precious
opportunity given them of being strengthened by Divine grace and
truth. We ought not to lounge or fidget while the word of God is
spoken, or to turn over the leaves of the Bible at random, or to look
at the clock; we ought to hearken for that word which God has put
into the preacher's mouth for us; and it will be a very exceptional
prophesying in which there is not a single thought that it would repay
us to consider.

When the Apostle claimed respect for the Christian preacher, he did
not claim infallibility. That is plain from what follows; for all the
words are connected. Despise not prophesyings, but put all things to
the test, that is, all the contents of the prophesying, all the
utterances of the Christian man whose spiritual ardour has urged him
to speak. We may remark in passing that this injunction prohibits all
passive listening to the word. Many people prefer this. They come to
church, not to be taught, not to exercise any faculty of discernment
or testing at all, but to be impressed. They like to be played upon,
and to have their feelings moved by a tender or vehement address; it
is an easy way of coming into apparent contact with good. But the
Apostle here counsels a different attitude. We are to put to the proof
all that the preacher says.

This is a favourite text with Protestants, and especially with
Protestants of an extreme type. It has been called "a piece of most
rationalistic advice"; it has been said to imply "that every man has a
verifying faculty, whereby to judge of facts and doctrines, and to
decide between right and wrong, truth and falsehood." But this is a
most unconsidered extension to give to the Apostle's words. He does
not say a word about every man; he is speaking expressly to the
Thessalonians, who were Christian men. He would not have admitted that
any man who came in from the street, and constituted himself a judge,
was competent to pronounce upon the contents of the prophesyings, and
to say which of the burning words were spiritually sound, and which
were not. On the contrary, he tells us very plainly that some men have
no capacity for this task--"The natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit"; and that even in the Christian Church, where all are
to some extent spiritual, some have this faculty of discernment in a
much higher degree than others. In 1 Cor. xii. 10, "discernment of
spirits," this power of distinguishing in spiritual discourse between
the gold and that which merely glitters, is itself represented as a
distinct spiritual gift; and in a later chapter he says (xiv. 29),
"Let the prophets speak by two or three, and let the others" (that is,
in all probability, the other prophets) "discern." I do not say this
to deprecate the judgment of the wise, but to deprecate rash and hasty
judgment. A heathen man is no judge of Christian truth; neither is a
man with a bad conscience, and an unrepented sin in his heart; neither
is a flippant man, who has never been awed by the majestic holiness
and love of Jesus Christ,--all these are simply out of court. But the
Christian preacher who stands up in the presence of his brethren
knows, and rejoices, that he is in the presence of those who can put
what he says to the proof. They _are_ his brethren; they are in the
same communion of all the saints with Christ Jesus; the same Christian
tradition has formed, and the same Christian spirit animates, their
conscience; their power to prove his words is a safeguard both to them
and to him.

And it is necessary that they should prove them. No man is perfect,
not the most devout and enthusiastic of Christians. In his most
spiritual utterances something of himself will very naturally mingle;
there will be chaff among the wheat; wood, hay, and stubble in the
material he brings to build up the Church, as well as gold, silver,
and precious stones. That is not a reason for refusing to listen; it
is a reason for listening earnestly, conscientiously, and with much
forbearance. There is a responsibility laid upon each of us, a
responsibility laid upon the Christian conscience of every
congregation and of the Church at large, to put prophesyings to the
proof. Words that are spiritually unsound, that are out of tune with
the revelation of God in Christ Jesus, ought to be discovered when
they are spoken in the Church. No man with any idea of modesty, to say
nothing of humility, could wish it otherwise. And here, again,
we have to regret the quenching of the Spirit. We have all heard the
sermon criticised when the preacher could not get the benefit; but
have we often heard it spiritually judged, so that he, as well as
those who listened to him, is edified, comforted, and encouraged? The
preacher has as much need of the word as his hearers; if there is a
service which God enables him to do for them, in enlightening their
minds or fortifying their wills, there is a corresponding service
which they can do for him. An open meeting, a liberty of prophesying,
a gathering in which any one could speak as the Spirit gave him
utterance, is one of the crying needs of the modern Church.

Let us notice, however, the purpose of this testing of prophecy.
Despise not such utterances, the Apostle says, but prove all: hold
fast that which is good, and hold off from every evil kind. There is a
curious circumstance connected with these short verses. Many of the
fathers of the Church connect them with what they consider a saying of
Jesus, one of the few which is reasonably attested, though it has
failed to find a place in the written gospels. The saying is, "Show
yourselves approved money-changers." The fathers believed, and on such
a point they were likely to be better judges than we, that in the
verses before us the Apostle uses a metaphor from coinage. To prove is
really to assay, to put to the test as a banker tests a piece of
money; the word rendered "good" is often the equivalent of our
sterling; "evil," of our base or forged; and the word which in our old
Bibles is rendered "appearance"--"Abstain from all appearance of
evil"--and in the Revised Version "form"--"Abstain from every form of
evil"--has, at least in some connections, the signification of mint or
die. If we bring out this faded metaphor in its original freshness, it
will run something like this: Show yourselves skilful money-changers;
do not accept in blind trust all the spiritual currency which you find
in circulation; put it all to the test; rub it on the touchstone; keep
hold of what is genuine and of sterling value, but every spurious coin
decline. Whether the metaphor is in the text or not,--and in spite of
a great preponderance of learned names against it, I feel almost
certain it is,--it will help to fix the Apostle's exhortation in our
memories. There is no scarcity, at this moment, of spiritual currency.
We are deluged with books and spoken words about Christ and the
gospel. It is idle and unprofitable, nay, it is positively pernicious,
to open our minds promiscuously to them; to give equal and impartial
lodgment to them all. There is a distinction to be made between the
true and the false, between the sterling and the spurious; and till we
put ourselves to the trouble to make that distinction, we are not
likely to advance very far. How would a man get on in business who
could not tell good money from bad? And how is any one to grow in the
Christian life whose mind and conscience are not earnestly put to it
to distinguish between what is in reality Christian and what is not,
and to hold to the one and reject the other? A critic of sermons is
apt to forget the practical purpose of the discernment here spoken of.
He is apt to think it his function to pick holes. "Oh," he says, "such
and such a statement is utterly misleading: the preacher was simply in
the air; he did not know what he was talking about." Very possibly;
and if you have found out such an unsound idea in the sermon, be
brotherly, and let the preacher know. But do not forget the first and
main purpose of spiritual judgment--hold fast that which is good. God
forbid that you should have no gain out of the sermon except to
discover the preacher going astray. Who would think to make his
fortune only by detecting base coin?

In conclusion, let us recall to our minds the touchstone which the
Apostle himself supplies for this spiritual assaying. "No one," he
writes to the Corinthians, "can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy
Ghost." In other words, whatever is spoken in the Holy Ghost, and is
therefore spiritual and true, has this characteristic, this purpose
and result, that it exalts Jesus. The Christian Church, that community
which embodies spiritual life, has this watchword on its banner,
"Jesus is Lord." That presupposes, in the New Testament sense of it,
the Resurrection and the Ascension; it signifies the sovereignty of
the Son of Man. Everything is genuine in the Church which bears on it
the stamp of Christ's exaltation; everything is spurious and to be
rejected which calls that in question. It is the practical recognition
of that sovereignty--the surrender of thought, heart, will, and life
to Jesus--which constitutes the spiritual man, and gives competence to
judge of spiritual things. He in whom Christ reigns judges in all
spiritual things, and is judged by no man; but he who is a rebel to
Christ, who does not wear His yoke, who has not learned of Him by
obedience, who assumes the attitude of equality, and thinks himself at
liberty to negotiate and treat with Christ, _he_ has no competence,
and no right to judge at all. "Unto Him that loveth us, and loosed us
from our sins by His blood; ... to Him be the glory and the dominion
for ever and ever. Amen."

[21] The contrast drawn by Dr. Hatch in his Hibbert Lectures between
the early Christian prophet and the modern Christian preacher--the
"rhetorical religionist," as he calls him--is, like every other
contrast in that notable book, strained till it becomes utterly false.
It would not be true to say that there was no difference between the
prophet and the preacher; but it would be far truer than to say that
there was no likeness. The prophet was one who spoke, as Paul tells
us, edification, exhortation, and comfort; and as that, we may hope,
is what most preachers try to do, the ideal of the callings is
identical. And it is only by their ideals that they ought to be
compared or criticised.




XVI.

_CONCLUSION._


 "And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your
 spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the
 coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calleth you, who
 will also do it. Brethren, pray for us. Salute all the brethren with
 a holy kiss. I adjure you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto
 all the brethren. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
 you."--1 THESS. v. 23-28 (R.V.).

These verses open with a contrast to what precedes, which is more
strongly brought out in the original than in the translation. The
Apostle has drawn the likeness of a Christian church, as a Christian
church ought to be, waiting for the coming of the Lord; he has
appealed to the Thessalonians to make this picture their standard, and
to aim at Christian holiness; and conscious of the futility of such
advice, as long as it stands alone and addresses itself to man's
unaided efforts, he turns here instinctively to prayer: "The God of
peace Himself"--working in independence of your exertions and my
exhortations--"sanctify you wholly."

The solemn fulness of this title forbids us to pass it by. Why does
Paul describe God in this particular place as the God of peace? Is it
not because peace is the only possible basis on which the work of
sanctification can proceed? I do not think it is forced to render the
words literally, the God of the peace, _i.e._, the peace with which
all believers are familiar, the Christian peace, the primary blessing
of the gospel. The God of peace is the God of the gospel, the God who
has come preaching peace in Jesus Christ, proclaiming reconciliation
to those who are far off and to those who are near. No one can ever be
sanctified who does not first accept the message of reconciliation. It
is not possible to become holy as God is holy, until, being justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This
is God's way of holiness; and this is why the Apostle presents his
prayer for the sanctification of the Thessalonians to the God of
peace. We are so slow to learn this, in spite of the countless ways in
which it is forced upon us, that one is tempted to call it a secret;
yet no secret, surely, could be more open. Who has not tried to
overcome a fault, to work on a vicious temper, to break for good with
an evil habit, or in some other direction to sanctify himself, and
withal to keep out of God's sight till the work was done? It is of no
use. Only the God of Christian peace, the God of the gospel, can
sanctify us; or to look at the same thing from our own side, we cannot
be sanctified until we are at peace with God. Confess your sins with a
humble and penitent heart; accept the forgiveness and friendship of
God in Christ Jesus; and then He will work in you both will and deed
to further His good pleasure.

Notice the comprehensiveness of the Apostle's prayer in this place. It
is conveyed in three separate words--wholly (+holoteleis+), entire
(+holokleron+), and without blame (+amemptos+). It is intensified by
what has, at least, the look of an enumeration of the parts or
elements of which man's nature consists--"your spirit and soul and
body." It is raised to its highest power when the sanctity for which
he prays is set in the searching light of the Last Judgment--in the
day of our Lord Jesus Christ. We all feel how great a thing it is
which the Apostle here asks of God: can we bring its details more
nearly home to ourselves? Can we tell, in particular, what he means by
spirit and soul and body?

The learned and philosophical have found in these three words a
magnificent field for the display of philosophy and learning; but
unhappily for plain people, it is not very easy to follow them. As the
words stand before us in the text, they have a friendly Biblical look;
we get a fair impression of the Apostle's intention in using them; but
as they come out in treatises on Biblical Psychology, though they are
much more imposing, it would be rash to say they are more strictly
scientific, and they are certainly much less apprehensible than they
are here. To begin with the easiest one, everybody knows what is meant
by the body. What the Apostle prays for in this place is that God
would make the body in its entirety--every organ and every function of
it--holy. God made the body at the beginning; He made it for Himself;
and it is His. To begin with, it is neither holy nor unholy; it has no
character of its own at all; but it may be profaned or it may be
sanctified; it may be made the servant of God or the servant of sin,
consecrated or prostituted. Everybody knows whether his body is being
sanctified or not. Everybody knows "the inconceivable evil of
sensuality." Everybody knows that pampering of the body, excess in
eating and drinking, sloth and dirt, are incompatible with bodily
sanctification. It is not a survival of Judaism when the Epistle to
the Hebrews tells us to draw near to God "in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies
washed with pure water." But sanctification, even of the body, really
comes only by employment in God's service; charity, the service of
others for Jesus' sake, is that which makes the body truly His. Holy
are the feet which move incessantly on His errands; holy are the hands
which, like His, are continually doing good; holy are the lips which
plead His cause or speak comfort in His Name. The Apostle himself
points the moral of this prayer for the consecration of the body when
he says to the Romans, "Present your members as servants to
righteousness unto sanctification."

But let us look, now, at the other two terms--spirit and soul.
Sometimes one of these is used in contrast with body, sometimes the
other. Thus Paul says that the unmarried Christian woman cares for the
things of the Lord, seeking only how she may be holy in body and in
spirit,--the two together constituting the whole person. Jesus, again,
warns His disciples not to fear man, but to fear Him who can destroy
both soul and body in hell; where the person is made to consist, not
of body and spirit, but of body and soul. These passages certainly
lead us to think that soul and spirit must be very near akin to each
other; and that impression is strengthened when we remember such a
passage as is found in Mary's song: "My soul doth magnify the Lord,
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour"; where, according to
the laws of Hebrew poetry, soul and spirit must mean practically the
same thing. But granting that they do so, when we find two words used
for the same thing, the natural inference is that they give us each a
different look at it. One of them shows it in one aspect; the other in
another. Can we apply that distinction here? I think the use of the
words in the Bible enables us to do it quite decidedly; but it is
unnecessary to go into the details. The soul means the life which is
in man, taken simply as it is, with all its powers; the spirit means
that very same life, taken in its relation to God. This relation may
be of various kinds: for the life that is in us is derived from God;
it is akin to the life of God Himself; it is created with a view to
fellowship with God; in the Christian it is actually redeemed and
admitted to that fellowship; and in all those aspects it is spiritual
life. But we may look at it without thinking of God at all; and then,
in Bible language, we are looking, not at man's spirit, but at his
soul.

This inward life, in all its aspects, is to be sanctified through and
through. All our powers of thought and imagination are to be
consecrated; unholy thoughts are to be banished; lawless, roving
imaginings, suppressed. All our inventiveness is to be used in God's
service. All our affections are to be holy. Our heart's desire is not
to settle on anything from which it would shrink in the day of the
Lord Jesus. The fire which He came to cast on the earth must be
kindled in our souls, and blaze there till it has burned up all that
is unworthy of His love. Our consciences must be disciplined by His
word and Spirit, till all the aberrations due to pride and passion and
the law of the world have been reduced to nothing, and as face answers
face in the glass, so our judgment and our will answer His. Paul prays
for this when he says, May your whole soul be preserved blameless. But
what is the special point of the sanctification of the spirit? It is
probably narrowing it a little, but it points us in the right
direction, if we say that it has regard to worship and devotion. The
spirit of man is his life in its relation to God. Holiness belongs to
the very idea of this; but who has not heard of sins in holy things?
Which of us ever prays as he ought to pray? Which of us is not weak,
distrustful, incoherent, divided in heart, wandering in desire, even
when he approaches God? Which of us does not at times forget God
altogether? Which of us has really worthy thoughts of God, worthy
conceptions of His holiness and of His love, worthy reverence, a
worthy trust? Is there not an element in our devotions even, in the
life of our spirits at their best and highest, which is worldly and
unhallowed, and for which we need the pardoning and sanctifying love
of God? The more we reflect upon it, the more comprehensive will this
prayer of the Apostle appear, and the more vast and far-reaching the
work of sanctification. He seems himself to have felt, as man's
complex nature passed before his mind, with all its elements, all its
activities, all its bearings, all its possible and actual profanation,
how great a task its complete purification and consecration to God
must be. It is a task infinitely beyond man's power to accomplish.
Unless he is prompted and supported from above, it is more than he can
hope for, more than he can ask or think. When the Apostle adds to his
prayer, as if to justify his boldness, "Faithful is He that calleth
you, who will also do it," is it not a New Testament echo of David's
cry, "Thou, O Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, hast revealed to Thy
servant, saying, I will build thee an house: therefore hath Thy
servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto Thee"?

Theologians have tried in various ways to find a scientific expression
for the Christian conviction implied in such words as these, but with
imperfect success. Calvinism is one of these expressions: its
doctrines of a Divine decree, and of the perseverance of the saints,
really rest upon the truth of this 24th verse,--that salvation is of
God to begin with; and that God, who has begun the good work, is in
earnest with it, and will not fail nor be discouraged until He has
carried it through. Every Christian depends upon these truths,
whatever he may think of Calvinistic inferences from them, or of the
forms in which theologians have embodied them. When we pray to God to
sanctify us wholly; to make us His in body, soul, and spirit; to
preserve our whole nature in all its parts and functions blameless in
the day of the Lord Jesus, is not our confidence this, that God has
called us to this life of entire consecration, that He has opened the
door for us to enter upon it by sending His Son to be a propitiation
for our sins, that He has actually begun it by inclining our hearts to
receive the gospel, and that He may be depended upon to persevere in
it till it is thoroughly accomplished? What would all our good
resolutions amount to, if they were not backed by the unchanging
purpose of God's love? What would be the worth of all our efforts and
of all our hopes, if behind them, and behind our despondency and our
failures too, there did not stand the unwearying faithfulness of God?
This is the rock which is higher than we; our refuge; our stronghold;
our stay in the time of trouble. The gifts and calling of God are
without repentance. We may change, but not He.

What follows is the affectionate desultory close of the letter. Paul has
prayed for the Thessalonians; he begs their prayers for himself. This
request is made no less than seven times in his Epistles--including the
one before us: a fact which shows how priceless to the Apostle was the
intercession of others on his behalf. So it is always; there is
nothing which so directly and powerfully helps a minister of the
gospel as the prayers of his congregation. They are the channels of
all possible blessing both for him and those to whom he ministers. But
prayer for him is to be combined with love to one another: "Salute all
the brethren with a holy kiss."[22] The kiss was the ordinary greeting
among members of a family; brothers and sisters kissed each other
when they met, especially after long separation; even among those who
were no kin to each other, but only on friendly terms, it was common
enough, and answered to our shaking of hands. In the Church the kiss
was the pledge of brotherhood; those who exchanged it declared
themselves members of one family. When the Apostle says, "Greet one
another with a holy kiss," he means, as holy always does in the New
Testament, a Christian kiss; a greeting not of natural affection, nor
of social courtesy merely, but recognising the unity of all members of
the Church in Christ Jesus, and expressing pure Christian love. The
history of the kiss of charity is rather curious, and not without its
moral. Of course, its only value was as the natural expression of
brotherly love; where the natural expression of such love was not
kissing, but the grasping of the hand, or the friendly inclination of
the head, the Christian kiss ought to have died a natural death. So,
on the whole, it did; but with some partial survivals in ritual, which
in the Greek and Romish Churches are not yet extinct. It became a
custom in the Church to give the kiss of brotherhood to a member newly
admitted by baptism; that practice still survives in some quarters,
even when children only are baptized. The great celebrations at
Easter, when no element of ritual was omitted, retained the kiss of
peace long after it had fallen out of the other services. At Solemn
Mass in the Church of Rome the kiss is ceremonially exchanged between
the celebrant and the assistant ministers. At Low Mass it is omitted,
or given with what is called an osculatory or Pax. The priest kisses
the altar; then he kisses the osculatory, which is a small metal
plate; then he hands this to the server, and the server hands it to
the people, who pass it from one to another, kissing it as it goes.
This cold survival of the cordial greeting of the Apostolic Church
warns us to distinguish spirit from letter. "Greet one another with a
holy kiss" means, Show your Christian love one to another, frankly and
heartily, in the way which comes natural to you. Do not be afraid to
break the ice when you come into the church. There should be no ice
there to break. Greet your brother or your sister cordially and like a
Christian; assume and create the atmosphere of home.

Perhaps the very strong language which follows may point to some lack
of good feeling in the church at Thessalonica: "I adjure you by the
Lord that this epistle be read unto _all_ the brethren." Why
should he need to adjure them by the Lord? Could there be any doubt
that everybody in the church would hear his Epistle? It is not easy to
say. Perhaps the elders who received it might have thought it wiser
not to tell all that it contained to everybody; we know how
instinctive it is for men in office--whether they be ministers of the
church or ministers of state--to make a mystery out of their business,
and, by keeping something always in reserve, to provide a basis for a
despotic and uncontrolled authority. But whether for this or some
other purpose, consciously or unconsciously influencing them, Paul
seems to have thought the suppression of his letter possible; and
gives this strong charge that it be read to all. It is interesting to
notice the beginnings of the New Testament. This is its earliest book,
and here we see its place in the Church vindicated by the Apostle
himself. Of course when he commands it to be read, he does not mean
that it is to be read repeatedly; the idea of a New Testament, of a
collection of Christian books to stand side by side with the books of
the earlier revelation, and to be used like them in public worship,
could not enter men's minds as long as the apostles were with them;
but a direction like this manifestly gives the Apostle's pen the
authority of his voice, and makes the writing for us what his personal
presence was in his lifetime. The apostolic word is the primary
document of the Christian faith; no Christianity has ever existed in
the world but that which has drawn its contents and its quality from
this; and nothing which departs from this rule is entitled to be
called Christian.

The charge to read the letter to _all_ the brethren is one of the
many indications in the New Testament that, though the gospel is a
_mysterion_, as it is called in Greek, there is no mystery about
it in the modern sense. It is all open and aboveboard. There is not
something on the surface, which the simple are to be allowed to
believe; and something quite different underneath, into which the wise
and prudent are to be initiated. The whole thing has been revealed
unto babes. He who makes a mystery out of it, a professional secret
which it needs a special education to understand, is not only guilty
of a great sin, but proves that he knows nothing about it. Paul knew
its length and breadth and depth and height better than any man; and
though he had to accommodate himself to human weakness, distinguishing
between babes in Christ and such as were able to bear strong meat, he
put the highest things within reach of all; "Him we preach," he
exclaims to the Colossians, "warning every man, and teaching every man
in every wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ."
There is no attainment in wisdom or in goodness which is barred
against any man by the gospel; and there is no surer mark of
faithlessness and treachery in a church than this, that it keeps its
members in a perpetual pupilage or minority, discouraging the free use
of Holy Scripture, and taking care that all that it contains is not
read to all the brethren. Among the many tokens which mark the Church
of Rome as faithless to the true conception of the gospel, which
proclaims the end of man's minority in religion, and the coming to age
of the true children of God, her treatment of Scripture is the most
conspicuous. Let us who have the Book in our hands, and the Spirit to
guide us, prize at its true worth this unspeakable gift.

This last caution is followed by the benediction with which in one
form or another the Apostle concludes his letters. Here it is very
brief: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." He ends with
practically the same prayer as that with which he began: "Grace to you
and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." And
what is true of this Epistle is true of all the rest: the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ is their +A+ and their +O+, their first word and
their last. Whatever God has to say to us--and in all the New
Testament letters there are things that search the heart and make it
quake--begins and ends with grace. It has its fountain in the love of
God; it is working out, as its end, the purpose of that love. I have
known people take a violent dislike to the word grace, probably
because they had often heard it used without meaning; but surely it is
the sweetest and most constraining even of Bible words. All that God
has been to man in Jesus Christ is summed up in it: all His
gentleness and beauty, all His tenderness and patience, all the holy
passion of His love, is gathered up in grace. What more could one soul
wish for another than that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ should
be with it?

[22] Is it a fair inference from these words that the Epistle was to
be delivered to the elders or ruling body in the church? In other
places the Apostle writes, "Greet one another."




THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE

THESSALONIANS.




I.

_SALUTATION AND THANKSGIVING._


 "Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy, unto the church of the
 Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; Grace to
 you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 "We are bound to give thanks to God alway for you, brethren, even as
 it is meet, for that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the love of
 each one of you all toward one another aboundeth; so that we
 ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and
 faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions which ye
 endure."--2 THESS. i. 1-4 (R.V.).

In beginning to expound the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, it is
necessary to say a few words by way of introduction to the book as a
whole. Certain questions occur to the mind whenever such a document as
this is presented to it; and it will put us in a better position for
understanding details if we first answer these. How do we know, for
instance, that this Epistle is really the _second_ to the
Thessalonians? It has been maintained that it is the earlier of the
two. Can we justify its appearance in the place which it usually
occupies? I think we can. The tradition of the church itself counts
for something. It is quite unmistakable, in other cases in which there
are two letters addressed to the same people,--_e.g._, the
Epistles to the Corinthians and to Timothy,--that they stand in the
canon in the order of time. Presumably the same is the case here. Of
course a tradition like this is not infallible, and if it can be
proved false must be abandoned; but at the present moment, the tendency
in most minds is to under-estimate the historical value of such
traditions; and, in the instance before us, tradition is supported by
various indications in the Epistle itself. For example, in the other
letter, Paul congratulates the Thessalonians on their reception of the
gospel, and the characteristic experiences attendant upon it; here it
is the wonderful growth of their faith, and the abounding of their
love, which calls forth his thanksgiving,--surely a more advanced
stage of Christian life being in view. Again, in the other Epistle
there are slight hints of moral disorder, due to misapprehension of
the Lord's Second Coming; but in this Epistle such disorder is broadly
exposed and denounced; the Apostle has heard of unruly busybodies, who
do no work at all; he charges them in the name of the Lord Jesus to
change their conduct, and bids the brethren avoid them, that they may
be put to shame. Plainly the faults as well as the graces of the
church are seen here at a higher growth. Once more, in chap. ii. 15 of
this letter, there is reference to instruction which the Thessalonians
have already received from Paul in a letter; and though he may quite
conceivably have written them letters which no longer exist, still the
natural reference of these words is to what we call the First Epistle.
If anything else were needed to prove that the letter we are about to
study stands in its right place, it might be found in the appeal of
chap. ii. 1. "Our gathering together unto Him" is the characteristic
revelation of the other, and therefore the earlier letter.

But though this Epistle is certainly later than the other, it is not
much later. The Apostle has still the same companions--Silas and
Timothy--to join in his Christian greeting. He is still in Corinth or
its neighbourhood; for we never find these two along with him but
there. The gospel, however, has spread beyond the great city, and
taken root in other places, for he boasts of the Thessalonians and
their graces in _the churches_ of God. His work has so far
progressed as to excite opposition; he is in personal peril, and asks
the prayers of the Thessalonians, that he may be delivered from
unreasonable and evil men. If we put all these things together, and
remember the duration of Paul's stay in Corinth, we may suppose that
some months separated the second Epistle from the First.

What, now, was the main purpose of it? What had the Apostle in his
mind when he sat down to write? To answer that, we must go back a
little way.

A great subject of apostolic preaching at Thessalonica had been the
Second Advent. So characteristic was it of the gospel message, that
Christian converts from heathenism are defined as those who have
turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to
wait for His Son from heaven. This waiting, or expectation, was the
characteristically Christian attitude; the Christian's hope was
hidden in heaven, and he could not but look up and long for its
appearing. But this attitude became strained, under various
influences. The Apostle's teaching was pressed, as if he had said, not
only that the day of the Lord was coming, but that it was actually
here. Men, affecting to speak through the Spirit, patronised such
fanaticism. We see from chap. ii. 2 that pretended words of Paul were
put in circulation; and what was more deliberately wicked, a forged
epistle was produced, in which his authority was claimed for this
transformation of his doctrine. Weak-minded people were carried off
their feet, and bad-hearted people feigned an exaltation they did not
feel; and both together brought discredit on the church, and injured
their own souls, by neglecting the commonest duties. Not only decorum
and reputation were lost, but character itself was endangered. This
was the situation to which Paul addressed himself.

We do not need to be fastidious in dealing with the Apostle's teaching
on the Second Advent; our Saviour tells us that of the day and the
hour no man knows, nor angel; nay, not even the Son, but the Father
only. Certainly St. Paul did not know; and almost as certainly, in the
ardour of his hope, he anticipated the end sooner than it was actually
to arrive. He spoke of himself as one who might naturally enough
expect to see the Lord come again; and it was only as experience
brought him new light that in his later years he began to speak of a
desire to depart, and to be with Christ. Not to die, had been his
earlier hope, but to have the mortal being swallowed up of life; and
it was this earlier hope he had communicated to the Thessalonians.
They also hoped not to die; as the sky grew darker over them with
affliction and persecution, their heated imaginations saw the glory of
Christ ready to break through for their final deliverance. The present
Epistle puts this hope, if one may say so, to a certain remove. It
does not fix the date of the Advent; it does not tell us when the day
of the Lord shall come; but it tells us plainly that it is not here
yet, and that it will not be here till certain things have first
happened. What these things are is by no means obvious; but this is
not the place to discuss the question. All we have to notice is this:
that with a view to counteracting the excitement at Thessalonica,
which was producing bad consequences, St. Paul points out that the
Second Advent is the term of a moral process, and that the world must
run through a spiritual development of a particular kind before Christ
can come again. The first Advent was in the fulness of the times; so
will the second be; and though he might not be able to interpret all
the signs, or tell when the great day would dawn, he could say to the
Thessalonians, "The end is not yet."

This, I say, is the great lesson of the Epistle, the main thing which
the Apostle has to communicate to the Thessalonians. But it is
preceded by what may be called, in a loose sense, a consolatory
paragraph, and it is followed up by exhortations, the same in purport
as those of the First Epistle, but more peremptory and emphatic. The
true preparedness for the Lord's Second Coming is to be sought, he
assures them, not in this irrational exaltation, which is morally
empty and worthless, but in diligent, humble, faithful performance of
duty; in love, faith, and patience.

The greeting with which the Epistle opens is almost word for word the
same as that of the First Epistle. It is a church which is addressed;
and a church subsisting in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Apostle has no other interest in the Thessalonians than as
they are Christian people. Their Christian character and their
Christian interests are the only things he cares for. One could wish
it were so among us. One could wish our relation to God and His Son
were so real and so dominant, that it gave us an unmistakable
character, in which we might naturally address each other, without any
consciousness or suspicion of unreality. With every desire to think
well of the Church, when we look to the ordinary tone of conversation
and of correspondence among Christians, we can hardly think that this
is so. There is an aversion to such directness of speech as was alone
natural to the Apostle. Even in church meetings, there is a
disposition to let the Christian character fall into the background;
it is a sensible relief to many to be able to think of those about
them as ladies and gentlemen, rather than as brothers and sisters in
Christ. Yet it is this last relation only in virtue of which we form a
church; it is the interests of this relation that our intercourse with
one another as Christians is designed to serve. We ought not to look
in the Christian assembly for what it was never meant to be,--for a
society to further the temporal interests of its members; for an
educational institution, aiming at the general enlightenment of those
who frequent its meetings; still less, as some seem to be inclined to
do, for a purveyor of innocent amusements: all these are simply beside
the mark; the Church is not called to any such functions; her whole
life is in God and Christ; and she can _say_ nothing and _do_ nothing
for any man until his life has been brought to this source and centre.
An apostolic interest in the Church is the interest of one who cares
only for the relation of the soul to Christ; and who can say no more
to those he loves best than John says to Gaius, "Beloved, I pray that
in all things thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul
prospereth."

It is in accordance with this Spirit that the Apostle wishes the
Thessalonians not any outward advantages, but grace and peace. Grace
and peace are related as cause and effect. Grace is God's unmerited
love, His free and beautiful goodness to the sinful; and when men
receive it, it bears the fruit of peace. Peace is a far bigger word in
the Bible than in common usage; and it has its very largest sense in
these salutations, where it represents the old Hebrew greeting
_Shalom_. Properly speaking, it means completeness, wholeness,
health--the perfect soundness of the spiritual nature. This is what
the Apostle wishes for the Thessalonians. Of course, there is a
narrower sense of peace, in which it means the quieting of the
perturbed conscience, the putting away of the alienation between the
soul and God; but that is only the initial work of grace, the first
degree of the great peace which is in view here. When grace has had
its perfect work, it results in a more profound and steadfast
peace,--a soundness of the whole nature, a restoration of the shattered
spiritual health, which is the crown of all God's blessings. There is
a vast difference in the degrees of bodily health between the man who
is chronically ailing, always anxious, nervous about himself, and
unable to trust himself if any unexpected drain is made upon his
strength, and the man who has solid, unimpaired health, whose heart is
whole within him, and who is not shaken by the thought of what may be.
It is this radical soundness which is really meant by peace; thorough
spiritual health is the best of God's blessings in the Christian life,
as thorough bodily health is the best in the natural life. Hence the
Apostle wishes it for the Thessalonians before everything else; and
wishes it, as alone it can come, in the train of grace. The free love
of God is all our hope. Grace is love imparting itself, giving itself
away, as it were, to others, for their good. Only as that love comes
to us, and is received in its fulness of blessing into our hearts, can
we attain that stable spiritual health which is the end of our
calling.

The salutation is followed, as usual, by a thanksgiving, which at the
first glance seems endless. One long sentence runs, apparently without
interruption, from the third verse to the end of the tenth. But it is
plain, on a more attentive glance, that the Apostle goes off at a
tangent; and that his thanksgiving is properly contained in the third
and fourth verses: "We are bound to give thanks to God alway for you,
brethren, even as it is meet, for that your faith groweth exceedingly,
and the love of each one of you all toward one another aboundeth; so
that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your
patience and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions
which ye endure." It is worthy of remark that the mere existence of
faults in a church never blinded the Apostle to its graces. There was
much in this congregation to rectify, and a good deal to censure;
there were ignorance, fanaticism, falsehood, sloth, unruliness; but
though he knew of them all, and would rebuke them all before he had
done, he begins with this grateful acknowledgment of a Divine work
among them. It is not merely that Paul was constitutionally of a
bright temperament, and looked naturally on the promising side of
things,--I hardly think he was,--but he must have felt it was
undutiful and unbecoming to say anything at all to Christian people,
who had once been pagans, without thanking God for what He had done
for them. Some of us have this lesson to learn, especially in regard
to missionary and evangelistic work and its results. We are too ready
to see everything in it except what is of God,--the mistakes made by
the worker, or the misconceptions in new disciples that the light has
not cleared up, and the faults of character that the Spirit has not
overcome; and when we fix our attention on these things, it is very
natural for us to be censorious. The natural man loves to find fault;
it gives him at the cheapest rate the comfortable feeling of
superiority. But it is a malignant eye which can see and delight in
nothing but faults; before we comment on deficiencies or mistakes
which have only become visible against the background of the new life,
let us give thanks to God that the new life, in however lowly and
imperfect a form, is there. It need not yet appear what it shall be.
But we are bound, by duty, by truth, by all that is right and seemly,
to say, Thanks be to God for what He has begun to do by His grace.
There are some people who should never see half-done work; perhaps the
same people should be forbidden to criticise missions either at home
or abroad. The grace of God is not responsible for the faults of
preachers or of converts, but it is the source of their virtues; it is
the fountain of their new life; it is the hope of their future; and
unless we welcome its workings with constant thanksgiving, we are in
no spirit in which it can work through us.

But let us see for what fruit of grace the Apostle gives thanks here.
It is because the faith of the Thessalonians grows exceedingly, and
their mutual love abounds. In a word, it is for their progress in the
Christian character. Here is a point of the first interest and
importance. It is the very nature of life to grow; when growth is
arrested, it is the beginning of decay. I would not like to fall into
the very fault I have been exposing, and speak as if there were no
progress, among Christians in general, in faith and love; but one of
the discouragements of the Christian ministry is undoubtedly the
slowness, or it may be the invisibility, not to say the absence, of
growth. At a certain stage in the physical life, we know, equilibrium
is attained: we are at the maturity of our powers; our faces change
little, our minds change little; the tones of our voices and the
character of our handwriting are pretty constant; and when we get past
that point, the progress is backward. But we can hardly say that this
is an analogy by which we may judge the spiritual life. It does not
run its full course here. It has not a birth, a maturity, and an
inevitable decay, within the limits of our natural life. There is room
for it to grow and grow unceasingly, because it is planned for
eternity, and not for time. It should be in continual progress, ever
improving, advancing from strength to strength. Day by day and year by
year Christians should become better men and better women, stronger in
faith, richer in love. The very steadiness and uniformity of our
spiritual life has its disheartening side. Surely there is room, in a
thing so great and expansive as life in Jesus Christ, for fresh
developments, for new manifestations of trust in God, for new
enterprises prompted and sustained by brotherly love. Let us ask
whether we ourselves, each in his own place, face the trials of our
life, its cares, its doubts, its terrible certainties, with a more
unwavering faith in God than we had five years ago? Have we _learned_
in that interval, or in all the years of our Christian profession, to
commit our life more unreservedly to Him, to trust Him to undertake
for us, in our sins, in our weakness, in all our necessities, temporal
and spiritual? Have we become more loving than we were? Have we
overcome any of our irrational and un-Christian dislikes? Have we made
advances, for Christ's sake and His Church's, to persons with whom we
were at variance, and sought in brotherly love to foster a warm and
loyal Christian feeling in the whole body of believers? God be
thanked, there are some who know what faith and love are better than
they once did; who have learned--and it needs learning--what it is to
confide in God, and to love others in Him; but could an Apostle thank
God that this advance was universal, and that the charity of every one
of us all was abundant to all the rest?

The apostolic thanksgiving is supplemented in this particular case by
something, not indeed alien to it, yet on a quite different level--a
glorying before men. Paul thanked God for the increase of faith and
love at Thessalonica; and when he remembered that he himself had been
the means of converting the Thessalonians, their progress made him
fond and proud; he boasted of his spiritual children in the churches of
God. "Look at the Thessalonians," he said to the Christians in the
south; "you know their persecutions, and the afflictions they endure;
yet their faith and patience triumph over all; their sufferings only
serve to bring their Christian goodness to perfection." That was a
great thing to be able to say; it would be particularly telling in
that old pagan world, which could meet suffering only with an inhuman
defiance or a resigned indifference; it is a great thing to be able to
say yet. It _is_ a witness to the truth and power of the gospel,
of which its humblest minister may feel justly proud, when the new
spirit which it breathes into men gives them the victory over sorrow
and pain. There is no persecution now to test the sincerity or the
heroism of the Church as a whole; but there are afflictions still; and
there must be few Christian ministers but thank God, and would do it
always, as is meet, that He has allowed them to see the new life
develop new energies under trial, and to see His children out of
weakness made strong by faith and hope and love in Christ Jesus. These
things are our true wealth and strength, and we are richer in them
than some of us are aware. They are the mark of the gospel upon human
nature; wherever it comes, it is to be identified by the combination
of affliction and patience, of suffering and spiritual joy. That
combination is peculiar to the kingdom of God: there is not the like
found in any other kingdom on earth. Blessed, let us say, be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us such proofs of
His love and power among us; He only doeth such wondrous things; let
the earth be filled with His glory.




II.

_SUFFERING AND GLORY._


 "A manifest token of the righteous judgment of God; to the end that
 ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also
 suffer: if so be that it is a righteous thing with God to recompense
 affliction to them that afflict you, and to you that are afflicted
 rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with
 the angels of His power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them
 that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord
 Jesus: who shall suffer punishment, _even_ eternal destruction
 from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His might, when He
 shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be marvelled at in
 all them that believed (because our testimony unto you was
 believed[23]) in that day. To which end we also pray always for you,
 that our God may count _you_ worthy of your calling, and fulfil
 every desire of goodness, and (every) work of faith, with power; that
 the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and ye in Him,
 according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."--2 THESS.
 i. 5-12 (R.V.).

In the preceding verses of this chapter, as in the opening of the
First Epistle, the Apostle has spoken of the afflictions of the
Thessalonians, and of the Christian graces which they have developed
under them. To suffer for Christ's sake, he says, and at the same time
to abound in faith and love and spiritual joy, is to have the mark of
God's election on us. It is an experience so truly and characteristically
Christian that the Apostle cannot think of it without gratitude and
pride. He gives thanks to God on every remembrance of his converts. He
boasts of their progress in all the churches of Achaia.

In the verses before us, another inference is drawn from the
afflictions of the Thessalonians, and their gospel patience under
them. The whole situation is a proof, or manifest token, of the
righteous judgment of God. It has this in view, that the Thessalonians
may be deemed worthy of the (heavenly) kingdom of God, on behalf of
which they suffer. Here, we see, the Apostle sanctions with his
authority the argument from the injustices of this life to the coming
of another life in which they will be rectified. God is just, he says;
and therefore this state of affairs, in which bad men oppress the
innocent, cannot last for ever. It calls aloud for judgment; it
proclaims its approach; it is a prognostic, a manifest token of it.
The suffering which is here in view cannot be an end in itself. Even
the graces which come to perfection in maintaining themselves against
it, do not explain the whole meaning of affliction; it would remain a
blot upon God's justice if it were not counterbalanced by the joys of
His kingdom. "Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and
persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My
sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in
heaven." This is the gracious side of the judgment. The suffering
which is borne with joy and brave patience for Christ's sake proves
how dear Christ is to the sufferer; and this love, tried with fire, is
requited in due time with an answer in love that makes him forget it
all.

This is one of the doctrines of Scripture that untroubled times find
it easy to dispense with. There is even an affectation of superiority
to what is called the moral vulgarity of being good for the sake of
something beyond goodness. It is idle to enter on any abstract
discussion of such a question. We are called by the gospel to a new
life under certain definite conditions, one of them being the
condition of suffering for its sake. The more thoroughly that
condition is accepted, the less disposition will there be to criticise
the future blessedness which is its counterpoise and compensation. It
is not the confessors and martyrs of the Christian faith--the men who
die daily, like Paul, and share in the tribulations and patience of
Jesus Christ, like John--who become weary of the glory which is to be
revealed. And it is such only who are in a position to judge of the
value of this hope. If it is dear to them, an inspiration and an
encouragement, as it certainly is, it is surely worse than vain for
those who are living an easier and a lower life to criticise it on
abstract grounds. If we have no need of it, if we can dispense with
any sight or grasp of a joy beyond the grave, let us take care that it
is not owing to the absence from our life of that present suffering
for Christ's sake, without which we cannot be His. "The connection,"
Bishop Ellicott says, "between holy suffering and future blessedness
is mystically close and indissoluble"; we _must_ through great
tribulations enter into the kingdom of God; and all experience proves
that, when such tribulation comes and is accepted, the recompense of
reward here spoken of, and the Scriptures which give prominence to
it, rise to the highest credit in the mind of the Church. It is not a
token of our enlightenment and moral superiority, if we undervalue
them; it is an indication that we are not drinking of the Lord's cup,
or being baptized with His baptism.

But the reward is only one side of the righteous judgment foretold by
the suffering of the innocent. It includes punishment as well. "It is
a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that
afflict you." We see here the very simplest conception of God's
justice. It is a law of retribution, of vindication; it is the
reaction, in this particular case, of man's sin against himself. The
reaction is inevitable: if it does not come here, it comes in another
world; if not now, in another life. The hope of the sinner is always
that in some way or other this reaction may never take place, or that,
when it does take place, it may be evaded; but that hope is doomed to
perish. "If it were done when 'tis done," he says as he contemplates
his sin in prospect; but it never _is_ so done; it is exactly
half done when he is finished with it; and the other half is taken in
hand by God. Punishment is the other half of sin; as inseparable from
it as heat from fire, as the inside of a vessel from the outside. "It
is a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that
afflict you." "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

One of the favourite pastimes of some modern historians is the
whitewashing of persecutors. A dispassionate interest in the facts
shows, we are told, in many cases, that the persecutors were not so
black as they have been painted, and that the martyrs and confessors
were no better than they should have been. Where fault is found at
all, it is laid rather at the door of systems than of individuals;
judgment is passed on institutions and on centuries that persons and
their actions may go free. Practically that comes to writing history,
which is the story of man's moral life, without recognising the place
of conscience; it may sometimes have the look of intelligence, but at
bottom it is immoral and false. Men must answer for their actions. It
is no excuse for murdering the saints that the murderers think they
are doing God service; it is an aggravation of their guilt. Every man
knows that it is wicked to afflict the good; if he does not, it is
because he has quite corrupted his conscience, and therefore has the
greater sin. Moral blindness may include and explain every sin, but it
justifies none; it is itself the sin of sins. "It is a righteous thing
with God to recompense affliction to those who afflict." If they
cannot put themselves by sympathy into the place of others--which is
the principle of all right conduct--God will put them in that place,
and open their eyes. His righteous judgment is a day of grace to the
innocent sufferers; He rewards their trouble with rest; but to the
persecutor it is a day of vengeance; he eats the fruit of his doings.

It is characteristic of this Epistle, and of the preoccupation of the
Apostle's mind when he wrote it, that he here expands his notice of
the time when this judgment is to take place into a vivid statement of
its circumstances and issues. The judgment is executed at the
_revelation_ of the Lord Jesus from heaven, with the angels of
His power, in flaming fire. "At this moment," he would say, "Christ is
unseen, and therefore by wicked men ignored, and sometimes by good men
forgotten; but the day is coming when every eye shall see Him." The
Apostle Peter, who had seen Christ in the flesh, as Paul had never
done, and who probably felt His invisibility as few could feel it, is
fond of this word "revelation" as a name for His reappearing. He
speaks of faith which is to be found unto praise and honour and glory
at the _revelation_ of Jesus Christ. "Be sober," he says, "and
hope to the end for the grace that is being brought to you at the
_revelation_ of Jesus Christ." And in another passage, much in
keeping with this of St. Paul's, he says, "Inasmuch as ye are
partakers of Christ's sufferings, rejoice; that at the _revelation_
of His glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy." It is one of the
great words of the New Testament; and its greatness is heightened in
this place by the accompanying description. The Lord is revealed,
attended by the angels of His power, in flaming fire. These
accessories of the Advent are borrowed from the Old Testament; the
Apostle clothes the Lord Jesus at His appearing in all the glory of
the God of Israel.[24]

When Christ is thus revealed, it is in the character of a Judge: He
renders vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Two classes of guilty men are
quite plainly distinguished by these words; and as plainly, though the
English alone would not enable us to lay stress upon it, those two
classes are the heathen and the Jews. Ignorance of God is the
characteristic of paganism; when Paul wishes to describe the Gentiles
from the religious point of view, he speaks of them as the Gentiles
which know not God. Now, with us, ignorance is usually regarded as an
excuse for sin; it is an extenuating circumstance, which calls for
compassion rather than condemnation; and we are almost astonished in
reading the Bible to find it used as a summary of the whole guilt and
offence of the heathen world. But we must remember what it is that men
are said not to know. It is not theology; it is not the history of the
Jews, or the special revelations it contains; it is not any body of
doctrines; it is God. And God, who is the fountain of life, the only
source of goodness, does not hide Himself from men. He has His
witnesses everywhere. There is something in all men which is on His
side, and which, if it be regarded, will bring their souls to Him.
Those who know not God are those who have stifled this inner witness,
and separated themselves in doing so from all that is good. Ignorance
of God means ignorance of goodness; for all goodness is from Him. It
is not a lack of acquaintance with any system of ideas about God that
is here exposed to the condemnation of Christ; but the practical lack
of acquaintance with love, purity, truth. If men are familiar with the
opposites of all these; if they have been selfish, vile, bad, false;
if they have said to God, "Depart from us; we desire not the knowledge
of Thy ways; we are content to have no acquaintance with Thee"--is it
not inevitable that, when Christ is revealed as Judge of all, they
should be excluded from His kingdom? What could they do in it? Where
could they be less in place?

The difficulty which some have felt about the ignorance of the
Gentiles can hardly be raised about the disobedience of the Jews. The
element of wilfulness, of deliberate antagonism to the good, to which
we give such prominence in our idea of sin, is conspicuous here. The
will of God for their salvation had been fully made known to this
stubborn race; but they disobeyed, and persisted in their
disobedience. "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck"--so
ran their own proverb--"shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without
remedy." Such was the sentence to be executed on them in the day of
Christ.

When it is said that ignorance of God and disobedience to the gospel
are here presented as the characteristics respectively of Gentile and
Jew, it is not said that the passage is without significance for us.
There may be some of us who are sinking day by day into an ever deeper
ignorance of God. Those who live a worldly and selfish life, whose
interests and hopes are bounded by this material order, who never
pray, who do nothing, give nothing, suffer nothing for others, they,
whatever their knowledge of the Bible or the catechism may be, do not
know God, and fall under this pagan condemnation. And what of
disobedience to the gospel? Notice the word which is here used by the
Apostle; it implies a conception of the gospel which we are apt, in
magnifying the grace of God, to overlook. We speak of receiving the
gospel, believing it, welcoming it, and so forth; it is equally
needful to remember that it claims our obedience. God not only
beseeches us to be reconciled, He commands us to repent. He makes a
display of His redeeming love in the gospel--a love which contains
pardon, renewal, and immortality; and He calls on all men for a life
in correspondence with that love. Salvation is not only a gift, but a
vocation; we enter into it as we obey the voice of Jesus, "Follow Me";
and if we disobey, and choose our own way, and live a life in which
there is nothing that answers to the manifestation of God as our
Saviour, what can the end be? Can it be anything else than the
judgment of which St. Paul here speaks? If we say, every day of our
life, as the law of the gospel rings in our ears, "No: we will not
have this Man to reign over us," can we expect anything else than that
He will render vengeance? "Do we provoke the Lord to anger? Are we
stronger than He?"

The ninth verse describes the terrible vengeance of the great day.
"Such men," says the Apostle, "shall pay the penalty, everlasting
destruction, away from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His
might." These are awful words, and it is no wonder that attempts have
been made to empty them of the meaning which they bear upon their
face. But it would be false to sinful men, as well as to the Apostle,
and to the whole of New Testament teaching, to say that any art or
device could in the least degree lessen their terrors. It has been
boldly asserted, indeed, that the word rendered everlasting does not
mean everlasting, but age-long; and that what is in view here is "an
age-long destruction from the presence and glory of Christ, _i.e._,
the being shut out from all sight of and participation in the triumphs
of Christ during _that_ age" ["the age perhaps which immediately
succeeds this present life"]. And this assertion is crowned by
another, that those thus excluded nevertheless "abide in His presence
and share His glory in the ages beyond."[25] Anything more gratuitous,
anything less in keeping with the whole tone of the passage, anything
more daring in its arbitrary additions to the text, it would be
impossible even to imagine. If the gospel, as conceived in the New
Testament, has any character at all, it has the character of finality.
It is God's _last word_ to men. And the consequences of accepting or
rejecting it are final; it opens no prospect beyond the life on the
one hand, and the death on the other, which are the results of
obedience and disobedience. Obey, and you enter into a light in which
there is no darkness at all: disobey, and you pass eventually into a
darkness in which there is no light at all. What God says to us in
all Scripture, from beginning to end, is not, Sooner or later? but,
Life or death? These are the alternatives before us; they are
absolutely separate; they do not run into one another at any time, the
most remote. It is necessary to speak the more earnestly of this
matter, because there is a disposition, on the plea that it is
impossible for us to divide men into two classes, to blur or even to
obliterate the distinction between Christian and non-Christian. Many
things prompt us to make the difference merely one of quantity--a more
or less of conformity to some ideal standard--in which case, of
course, a little more, or a little less, is of no great account. But
that only means that we never take the distinction between being right
with God, and being wrong with God, as seriously as God takes it; with
Him it is simply infinite. The difference between those who obey, and
those who do not obey, the gospel, is not the difference of a little
better and a little worse; it is the difference of life and death. If
there is any truth in Scripture at all, this is true--that those who
stubbornly refuse to submit to the gospel, and to love and obey Jesus
Christ, incur at the Last Advent an infinite and irreparable loss.
They pass into a night on which no morning dawns.

This final ruin is here described as separation from the face of the
Lord and the glory of His might. In both the Old Testament and the
New, the vision of God is the consummation of blessedness. Thus we
read in one psalm, "Before Thy face is fulness of joy"; in another,
"As for me, I shall behold Thy face in uprightness: I shall be
satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness." In one of the Gospels,
our Saviour says that in heaven the angels of the little ones do
always behold the face of their Father who is in heaven; and in the
Book of Revelation it is the crown of joy that His servants shall
serve Him and shall see his face. From all this joy and blessedness
they condemn themselves to exclusion who know not God, and disobey the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Far from the face of the Lord and the
glory of His power, their portion is in the outer darkness.

But in vivid contrast with this--for the Apostle does not close with
this terrible prospect--is the lot of those who have chosen the good
part here. Christ is revealed taking vengeance on the wicked, as has
just been described; but He comes also to be glorified in His saints
and to be admired in all them that believed--including those
Christians at Thessalonica. This is the Lord's and the Christian's
interest in the great day. The glory that shines from Him is mirrored
in and reflected from them. If there is a glory of the Christian even
while he wears the body of his humiliation, it will be swallowed up in
a glory more excellent when his change comes. Yet that glory will not
be his own: it will be the glory of Christ which has transfigured him;
men and angels, as they look at the saints, will admire not them, but
Him who has made them anew in the likeness of himself. All this is to
take place "on that day"--the great and terrible day of the Lord. The
voice of the Apostle rests with emphasis upon it; let it fill our
minds and hearts. It is a day of revelation, above all things: the day
on which Christ comes, and declares which life is eternally of worth,
and which for ever worthless; the day on which some are glorified, and
some pass finally from our view. Do not let the difficulties and
mysteries of this subject, the problems we cannot solve, the decisions
we could not give, blind our eyes to what Scripture makes so plain: we
are not the judges, but the judged, in this whole scene; and the
judgment is of infinite consequence for us. It is _not_ a question of
less or more, of sooner or later, of better or worse; what is at stake
in our attitude to the gospel is life or death, heaven or hell, the
outer darkness or the glory of Christ.

[23] "It seems hopeless to find an intelligible meaning for +eph'
hymas+ in connection with +episteuthe+. Apparently, as conjectured by
Markland, +episteuthe+ is a primitive corruption of +epistothe+,
suggested by the preceding +pisteusasin+, as well as by the
familiarity of +pisteuo+ and its _prima-facie_ appropriateness to
+martyrion+. The reference is probably to vv. 4, 5: the Christian
testimony of suffering for the faith had been confirmed and sealed
upon the Thessalonians. Cf. 1 Cor. i. 6: +Kathos to martyrion tou
Christou ebebaiothe en hymin+; also Ps. xciii. (xcii.) 4, 5:
+Thaumastos en hypselois ho Kyrios; ta martyria sou epistothesan
sphodra+; and for an analogous use of +pistousthai+ followed by +epi+
with the accusative, 1 Chr. xvii. 23; 2 Chr. i. 9."--F.J.A. HORT.

[24] For an excellent and instructive study of the relations of Jewish
and Christian eschatology, see Stanton's _Jewish and Christian
Messiah_.

[25] The quotations are from Cox's _Salvator Mundi_, 13th Edition, pp.
128-9. When the time import of +aionios+ is in view, many writers
render it, like Dr. Cox, age-long, intending thereby to signify that
aeonian time has an end; its finitude, in fact, is the one thing of
which Dr. Cox consents to think. But the very point of the meaning is
that no end is visible. AEonian time is time that fills the mind and
imagination to the furthest horizon and beyond it; there is no
ulterior prospect.




III.

_THE MAN OF SIN._


 "Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus
 Christ, and our gathering together unto Him; to the end that ye be
 not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by
 spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the
 Lord is _now_ present; let no man beguile you in any wise: for
 _it will not be_, except the falling away come first, and the
 man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and
 exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is
 worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself
 forth as God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told
 you these things?"--2 THESS. ii. 1-5 (R.V.).

In the first chapter of this Epistle Paul depicted the righteous
judgment of God which accompanies the advent of Christ. Its terrors
and its glories blazed before his eyes as he prayed for those who were
to read his letter. "With this in view," he says, "we also pray always
for you, that our God would count _you_ worthy of the calling."
The emphatic word in the sentence is _you_. Among all believers
in whom Christ was to be glorified, as they in Him, the Thessalonians
were at this moment nearest to the Apostle's heart. Like others, they
had been called to a place in the heavenly kingdom; and he is eager
that they should prove worthy of it. They will be worthy only if God
powerfully carries to perfection in them their delight in goodness,
and the activities of their faith. That is the substance of his
prayer. "The Lord enable you always to have unreserved pleasure in
what is good, and to show the proof of faith in all you do. So you
shall be worthy of the Christian calling, and the name of the Lord
shall be glorified in you, and you in Him, in that day."

The second chapter seems, in our English Bibles, to open with an
adjuration: "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him." If that were
right, we might suppose Paul's meaning to be: As you long for this
great day, and anticipate its appearing as your dearest hope, let me
conjure you not to entertain mischievous fancies about it; or, as you
dread the day, and shrink from the terrible judgment which it brings,
let me adjure you to think of it as you ought to think, and not
discredit it by unspiritual excitement, bringing reproach on the
Church in the eyes of the world. But this interpretation, though apt
enough, is hardly justified by the use of the New Testament, and the
Revised Version is nearer the truth when it gives the rendering
"touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is of it the
Apostle wishes to speak; and what he has to say is, that the true
doctrine of it contains nothing which ought to produce unsettlement or
vague alarms. In the First Epistle, especially in chap. v., he has
enlarged on the moral attitude which is proper to those who cherish
the Christian hope: they are to watch and be sober; they are to put
off the works of darkness, and put on, as children of the day, the
armour of light; they are to be ready and expectant always. Here he
adds the negative counsel that they are not to be quickly shaken from
their mind, as a ship is driven from her moorings by a storm, nor yet
upset or troubled, whether by spirit, or by word or letter purporting
to be from him. These last expressions need a word of explanation. By
"spirit" the Apostle no doubt means a Christian man speaking in the
church under a spiritual impulse. Such speakers in Thessalonica would
often take the Second Advent as their theme; but their utterances were
open to criticism. It was of such utterances that the Apostle had said
in his earlier letter, "Despise not prophesyings; but prove all that
is said, and hold fast that which is good." The spirit in which a
Christian spoke was not necessarily the spirit of God; even if it
were, it was not necessarily unmixed with his own ideas, desires, or
hopes. Hence discernment of spirits was a valued and needful gift, and
it seems to have been wanted at Thessalonica. Besides misleading
utterances of this kind in public worship, there were circulated words
ascribed to Paul, and if not a forged letter, at all events a letter
purporting to contain his opinion, none of which had his authority.
These words and this letter had for their substance the idea that the
day of the Lord was now present--or, as one might say in Scotch, just
here. It was this which produced the unspiritual excitement at
Thessalonica, and which the Apostle wished to contradict.

A great mystery has been made out of the paragraph which follows, but
without much reason. It certainly stands alone in St. Paul's writings,
an Apocalypse on a small scale, reminding us in many respects of the
great Apocalypse of John, but not necessarily to be judged by it, or
brought into any kind of harmony with it. Its obscurity, so far as it
is obscure, is due in part to the previous familiarity of the
Thessalonians with the subject, which allowed the Apostle to take much
for granted; and in part, no doubt, to the danger of being explicit in
a matter which had political significance. But it is not really so
obscure as it has been made out to be by some; and the reputation for
humility which so many have sought, by adopting St. Augustine's
confession that he had no idea what the Apostle meant, is too cheap to
be coveted. We must suppose that St. Paul wrote to be understood, and
was understood by those to whom he wrote; and if we follow him word by
word, a sense will appear which is not really questionable except on
extraneous grounds. What, then, does he say about the delaying of the
Advent?

He says it will not come till the falling away, or apostasy, has come
first. The Authorised Version says "_a_" falling away, but that is
wrong. The falling away was something familiar to the Apostle and his
readers; he was not introducing them to any new thought. But a falling
away of whom? or from what? Some have suggested, of the members of the
Christian Church from Christ;[26] but it is quite plain from the
whole passage, and especially from ver. 12f., that the Apostle is
contemplating a series of events in which the Church has no part but
as a spectator. But the "apostasy" is clearly a religious defection;
though the word itself does not necessarily imply as much, the
description of the falling away does; and if it be not of Christians,
it must be of the Jews; the Apostle could not conceive of the heathen
"who know not God" as falling away from him. This apostasy reaches its
height, finds its representative and hero, in the man of sin, or, as
some MSS. have it, the man of lawlessness. When the Apostle says _the
man_ of sin, he means the _man_,--not a principle, nor a system, nor a
series of persons, but an individual human person who is identified
with sin, an incarnation of evil as Christ was of good, an
Antichrist. The man of sin is also the son of perdition; this name
expressing his fate--he is doomed to perish--as the other his nature.
This person's portrait is then drawn by the Apostle. He is the
adversary _par excellence_, he who sets himself in opposition, a human
Satan, the enemy of Christ. The other features in the likeness are
mainly borrowed from the description of the tyrant king Antiochus
Epiphanes in the Book of Daniel: they may have gained fresh meaning to
the Apostle from the recent revival of them in the insane Emperor
Caligula. The man of sin is filled with demoniac pride; he lifts
himself on high against the true God, and all gods, and all that men
adore; he seats himself in the temple of God; he would like to be
taken by all men _for_ God. There has been much discussion over the
temple of God in this passage. It is no doubt true that the Apostle
sometimes uses the expression figuratively, of a church and its
members--"The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are"--but it is
surely inconceivable that a _man_ should _take his seat_ in _that_
temple; when these words were fresh, no one could have put that
meaning on them. The temple of God is, therefore, the temple at
Jerusalem; it was standing when Paul wrote; and he expected it to
stand till all this was fulfilled. When the Jews had crowned their
guilt by falling away from God; in other words, when they had finally
and as a whole decided against the gospel, and God's purpose to save
them by it; when the falling away had been crowned by the revelation
of the man of sin, and the profanation of the temple by his impious
pride, _then_, and not till then, would come the end. "Do you not
remember," says the Apostle, "that when I was with you I used to tell
you this?"

When Paul wrote this Epistle, the Jews were the great enemies of the
gospel; it was they who persecuted him from city to city, and roused
against him everywhere the malice of the heathen; hostility to God was
incarnated, if anywhere, in them. They alone, because of their
spiritual privileges, were capable of the deepest spiritual sin.
Already in the First Epistle he has denounced them as the murderers of
the Lord Jesus and of their own prophets, a race that please not God
and are contrary to all men, sinners on whom the threatened wrath has
come without reserve. In the passage before us the course is outlined
of that wickedness against which the wrath was revealed. The people of
God, as they called themselves, fall definitely away from God; the
monster of lawlessness who rises from among them can only be pictured
in the words in which prophets pourtrayed the impiety and presumption
of a heathen king; he thrusts God aside, and claims to be God himself.

There is only one objection to this interpretation of the Apostle's
words, namely, that they have never been fulfilled. Some will think
that objection final; and some will think it futile: I agree with the
last. It proves too much; for it lies equally against every other
interpretation of the words, however ingenious, as well as against the
simple and natural one just given. It lies, in some degree, against
almost every prophecy in the Bible. No matter what the apostasy, and
the man of sin, are taken to be, nothing has ever appeared in history
which answers exactly to Paul's description. The truth is that
inspiration did not enable the apostles to write history before it
happened; and though this forecast of the Apostle's has a spiritual
truth in it, resting as it does on a right perception of the law of
moral development, the precise anticipation which it embodies was not
destined to be realised. Further, it must have changed its place in
Paul's own mind within the next ten years; for, as Dr. Farrar has
observed, he barely alludes again to the Messianic surroundings (or
antecedents) of a second personal advent. "He dwells more and more on
the mystic oneness with Christ, less and less on His personal return.
He speaks repeatedly of the indwelling presence of Christ, and the
believer's incorporation with Him, and hardly at all of that visible
meeting in the air which at this epoch was most prominent in his
thoughts."

But, it may be said, if this anticipation was not to be fulfilled, is
it not altogether deceptive? is it not utterly misleading that a
prophecy should stand in Holy Scripture which history was to falsify?
I think the right answer to that question is that there is hardly any
prophecy in Holy Scripture which has not been in a similar way
falsified, while nevertheless in its spiritual import true. The
details of this prophecy of St. Paul were not verified as he
anticipated, yet the soul of it was. The Advent was _not_ just
then; it was delayed till a certain moral process should be
accomplished; and this was what the Apostle wished the Thessalonians
to understand. He did not know when it would be; but he could see so
far into the law of God's working as to know that it would not come
till the fulness of time; and he could understand that, where a final
judgment was concerned, the fulness of time would not arrive till evil
had had every opportunity, either to turn and repent, or to develop
itself in the most utterly evil forms, and lie ripe for vengeance.

This is the ethical law which underlies the Apostle's prophecy; it is
a law confirmed by the teaching of Jesus Himself, and illustrated by
the whole course of history. The question is sometimes discussed
whether the world gets better or worse as it grows older, and
optimists and pessimists take opposite sides upon it. Both, this law
informs us, are wrong. It does not get better only, nor worse only,
but both. Its progress is not simply a progress in good, evil being
gradually driven from the field; nor is it simply a progress in evil,
before which good continually disappears: it is a progress in which
good and evil alike come to maturity, bearing the ripest fruit,
showing all that they can do, proving their strength to the utmost
against each other; the progress is not in good in itself, nor in evil
in itself, but in the antagonism of the one to the other. This is the
same truth which we are taught by our Lord in the parable of the wheat
and the tares: "Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the
time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares,"
etc. _In the time of harvest_: not till all is ripe for judgment, not
till the wheat and the tares alike have shown all that is in them,
will the judgment come. This is what St. Paul understood, and what the
Thessalonians did not understand; and if his ignorance of the scale of
the world, and the scale of God's purposes, made him apply this law to
the riddle of history hastily, with a result which the event has not
justified, that is nothing to the prejudice of the law itself, which
was true when he applied it with his imperfect knowledge, and is true
for application still.

One other remark is suggested by the description of the character in
which sin culminates, viz., that as evil approaches its height it
assumes ever more spiritual forms. There are some sins which betray
man on the lower side of his nature, through the perversion of the
appetites which he has in common with the brutes: the dominance of
these is in some sense natural; they are not radically and essentially
evil. The man who is the victim of lust or drunkenness may lose his
soul by his sin, but he is its _victim_; there is not in his guilt
that malignant hatred of good which is here ascribed to the man of
sin. The crowning wickedness is this demoniac pride: the temper of one
who lifts himself on high above God, owning no superior, nay, claiming
for himself the highest place of all. This is rather spiritual than
sensual: it may be quite free from the gross vices of the flesh,
though the connection between pride and sensuality is closer than is
sometimes imagined; but it is more conscious, deliberate, malignant,
and damnable than any brutality could be. When we look at the world in
any given age--our own or another--and make inquiry into its moral
condition, this is a consideration which we are apt to lose sight of,
but which is entitled to the utmost weight. The collector of moral
statistics examines the records of criminal courts; he investigates
the standard of honesty in commerce; he balances the evidences of
peace, truth, purity, against those of violence, fraud, and
immorality, and works out a rough conclusion. But that material
morality leaves out of sight what is most significant of all--the
spiritual forms of good and of evil in which the opposing forces show
their inmost nature, and in which the world ripens for God's judgment.
The man of sin is not described as a sensualist or a murderer; he is
an apostate, a rebel against God, a usurper who claims not the palace
but the temple for his own. This God-dethroning pride is the utmost
length to which sin can go. The judgment will not come till it has
fully developed; can any one see tokens of its presence?

In asking such a question we pass from the interpretation of the
Apostle's words to their application. Much of the difficulty and
bewilderment that have gathered about this passage are due to the
confusion of these two quite different things.[27] The interpretation
gives us the meaning of the very words the Apostle used. We have seen
what that is, and that in its precise detail it was not destined to be
fulfilled. But when we have passed behind the surface meaning, and
laid hold on the law which the Apostle was applying in this passage,
then we can apply it ourselves. We can use it to read the signs of
the times in our own or in any other age. We may see developments of
evil, resembling in their main features the man of sin here depicted,
in one quarter or another, and in one person or another; and if we do,
we are bound to see in them tokens that a judgment of God is at hand;
but we must not imagine that in so applying the passage we are finding
out what St. Paul meant. That lies far, far behind us; and our
application of his words can only claim our own authority, not the
authority of Holy Scripture.

Of the multitude of applications which have been made of this passage
since the Apostle wrote it, one only has had historical importance
enough to be of interest to us--I mean that which is found in several
Protestant confessions, including the Westminster Confession of Faith,
and which declares the Pope of Rome, in the words of this last, to be
"that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth
himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God." As
an interpretation, of course, that is impossible; the man of sin is
one man, and not a series, like the Popes; the temple of God in which
a man sits is a temple made with hands, and not the Church; but when
we ask whether or not it is a fair _application_ of the Apostle's
words, the question is altered. Dr. Farrar, whom no one will suspect
of sympathy with the Papacy, is indignant that such an uncharitable
idea should ever have crossed the mind of man. Many in the churches
which hold by the Westminster Confession would agree with him. Of
course it is a matter on which every one is entitled to judge for
himself, and, whether right or wrong, ought not to be in a confession;
but for my own part I have little scruple in the matter. There have
been Popes who could have sat for Paul's picture of the man of sin
better than any characters known to history--proud, apostate, atheist
priests, sitting in the seat of Christ, blasphemously claiming His
authority, and exercising His functions. And individuals apart--for
there have been saintly and heroic Popes as well, true servants of the
servants of God--the hierarchical system of the Papacy, with the
monarchical priest at its head, incarnates and fosters that very
spiritual pride of which the man of sin is the final embodiment; it is
a seed-bed and nursery of precisely such characters as are here
described. There is not in the world, nor has ever been, a system in
which there is less that recalls Christ, and more that anticipates
Antichrist, than the Papal system. And one may say so while
acknowledging the debt that all Christians owe to the Romish Church,
and while hoping that it may somehow in God's grace repent and reform.

It would ill become us, however, to close the study of so serious a
subject with the censure of others. The mere discovery that we have
here to do with a law of moral development, and with a supreme and
final type of evil, should put us rather upon self-scrutiny. The
character of our Lord Jesus Christ is the supreme and final type of
good; it shows us the end to which the Christian life conducts those
who follow it. The character of the man of sin shows the end of those
who obey not His gospel. They become, in their resistance to Him, more
and more identified with sin; their antagonism to God settles into
antipathy, presumption, defiance; they become gods to themselves, and
their doom is sealed. This picture is set here for our warning. We
cannot of ourselves see the end of evil from the beginning; we cannot
tell what selfishness and wilfulness come to, when they have had their
perfect work; but God sees, and it is written in this place to startle
us, and fright us from sin. "Take heed, brethren, lest haply there
shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away
from the living God: but exhort one another day by day, so long as it
is called To-day; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness
of sin."

[26] There are indications of such a thing in various words of Jesus.
"Many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many astray. And
because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax
cold."--Matt. xxiv. 11f. "There shall arise false Christs, and false
prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so as to lead
astray, if possible, even the elect."--Matt. xxiv. 24. "When the Son
of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?"--Luke xviii. 8. What
answers to these in St. Paul's writings we see in Acts xx. 29f.; Eph.
iv. 14; 1 Tim. iv. 1. But these passages belong to the very latest
years in his life, and they are not connected with any such
anticipations as are characteristic of the Thessalonian Apocalypse.
The history of the Church, as Paul foresaw it, did not include in
itself a phenomenon which could be described as +he apostasia+.

[27] A conspectus of the historical interpretations, most of which are
really applications, of this passage, is given in most commentaries.
The fullest is Luenemann's, which is followed by Alford. Farrar's
Appendix is briefer.




IV.

_THE RESTRAINT AND ITS REMOVAL._


 "And now ye know that which restraineth to the end that he may be
 revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth
 already work: only _there is_ one that restraineth now, until he
 be taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed the lawless one,
 whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and
 bring to nought by the manifestation of His coming; _even he_,
 whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and
 signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness for
 them that are perishing; because they received not the love of the
 truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sendeth them
 a working of error, that they should believe a lie: that they all
 might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in
 unrighteousness."--2 THESS. ii. 6-12 (R.V.).

Christ cannot come, the Apostle has told us, until the falling away
has first come, and the man of sin been revealed. In the verses before
us, we are told that the man of sin himself cannot come, in the full
sense of the word, he cannot be revealed in his true character of the
counter-Christ, till a restraining force, known to the Thessalonians,
but only obscurely alluded to by the Apostle, is taken out of the way.
The Last Advent is thus at two removes from the present. First, there
must be the removal of the power which holds the man of sin in check;
then the culmination of evil in that great adversary of God; and not
till then the return of the Lord in glory as Saviour and Judge.

We might think that this put the Advent to such a distance as
practically to disconnect it from the present, and make it a matter of
little interest to the Christian. But, as we have seen already, what
is significant in this whole passage is the spiritual law which
governs the future of the world, the law that good and evil must ripen
together, and in conflict with each other; and it is involved in that
law that the final state of the world, which brings on the Advent, is
latent, in all its principles and spiritual features, in the present.
That day is indissolubly connected with this. The life that we now
live has all the importance, and ought to have all the intensity,
which comes from its bearing the future in its bosom. Through the eyes
of this New Testament prophet we can see the end from the beginning;
and the day on which we happen to read his words is as critical, in
its own nature, as the great day of the Lord.

The end, the Apostle tells us, is at some distance, but it is
preparing. "The mystery of lawlessness doth already work." The forces
which are hostile to God, and which are to break out in the great
apostasy, and the insane presumption of the man of sin, are even now
in operation, but secretly. They are not visible to the careless, or
to the infatuated, or to the spiritually blind; but the Apostle can
discern them. Taught by the Spirit to read the signs of the times, he
sees in the world around him symptoms of forces, secret, unorganised,
to some extent inscrutable, yet unmistakable in their character. They
are the beginnings of the apostasy, the first workings, fettered as
yet and baffled, of the power which is to set itself in the place of
God. He sees also, and has already told the Thessalonians, of another
power of an opposite character. "Ye know," he says, "that which
restraineth ... only _there is_ one that restraineth now, until he be
taken out of the way." This restraining power is spoken of both in the
neuter and the masculine, both as a principle or institution, and as a
person; and there is no reason to doubt that those fathers of the
Church are right who identified it with the Empire of Rome and its
sovereign head. The apostasy was to take place among the Jews; and the
Apostle saw that Rome and its Emperor were the grand restraint upon
the violence of that stubborn race. The Jews had been his worst
enemies, ever since he had embraced the cause of the Nazarene Messiah
Jesus; and all that time the Romans had been his best friends. If
injustice had been done him in their name, as at Philippi, atonement
had been made; and, on the whole, he had owed to them his protection
against Jewish persecution. He felt sure that his own experience was
typical; the final development of hatred to God and all that was on
God's side could not but be restrained so long as the power of Rome
stood firm. That power was a sufficient check upon anarchic violence.
While it held its ground, the powers of evil could not organise
themselves and work openly; they constituted a mystery of iniquity,
working, as it were, underground. But when this great restraint was
removed, all that had been labouring so long in secret would come
suddenly to view, in its full dimensions; the lawless one would stand
revealed.

But, it may be asked, could Paul imagine that the Roman power, as
represented by the Emperor, was likely to be removed within any
measurable time? Was it not the very type and symbol of all that was
stable and perpetual in man's life? In one way, it was; and as at
least a temporary check on the final eruption of wickedness, it is
here recognised to have a degree of stability; but it was certainly
not eternal. Paul may have seen plainly enough in such careers as
those of Caligula and Claudius the impending collapse of the Julian
dynasty; and the very obscurity and reserve with which he expresses
himself amount to a distinct proof that he has something in his mind
which it was not safe to describe more plainly. Dr. Farrar has pointed
to the remarkable correspondence between this passage, interpreted of
the Roman Empire, and a paragraph in Josephus, in which that historian
explains the visions of Daniel to his pagan readers. Josephus shows
that the image with the head of gold, the breast and arms of silver,
the belly and thighs of brass, and the ankles and feet of iron,
represents a succession of four empires. He names the Babylonian as
the first, and indicates plainly that the Medo-Persian and the Greek
are the second and third; but when he comes to the fourth, which is
destroyed by the stone cut out without hands, he does not venture, as
all his countrymen did, to identify it with the Roman. That would have
been disloyal in a courtier, and dangerous as well; so he remarks,
when he comes to the point, that he thinks it proper to say nothing
about the stone and the kingdom it destroys, his duty as a historian
being to record what is past and gone, and not what is yet to come. In
a precisely similar way does St. Paul here hint at an event which it
would have been perilous to name. But what he means is: When the Roman
power has been removed, the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord
will come to destroy him.

What was said of the man of sin in the last lecture has again its
application here. The Roman Empire did _not_ fall within any such
period as Paul anticipated; nor, when it did, was there any such
crisis as he describes. The man of sin was not revealed, and the Lord
did not come. But these are the human elements in the prophecy; and
its interest and meaning for us lie in the description which an
inspired writer gives of the final forms of wickedness, and their
connection with principles which were at work around him, and are at
work among us. He does not, indeed, come to these at once. He passes
over them, and anticipates the final victory, when the Lord shall
destroy the man of sin with the breath of His mouth, and bring him to
nought by the appearance of His coming; he would not have Christian
men face the terrible picture of the last workings of evil until they
have braced and comforted their hearts with the prospect of a crowning
victory. There _is_ a great battle to be fought; there _are_ great
perils to be encountered; there is a prospect with something in it
appalling to the bravest heart; but there is light beyond. It needs
but the breath of the Lord Jesus; it needs but the first ray of His
glorious appearing to brighten the sky, and all the power of evil is
at an end. Only after he has fixed the mind on this does St. Paul
describe the supreme efforts of the enemy.

His coming, he says--and he uses the word applied to Christ's advent,
as though to teach us that the event in question is as significant for
evil as the other for good--his coming is according to the working of
Satan. When Christ was in the world, His presence with men was
according to the working of God; the works that the Father gave Him to
do, the same He did, and nothing else. His life was the life of God
entering into our ordinary human life, and drawing into its own mighty
and eternal current all who gave themselves up to Him. It was the
supreme form of goodness, absolutely tender and faithful; using all
the power of the Highest in pure unselfishness and truth. When sin
has reached its height, we shall see a character in whom all this is
reversed. Its presence with men will be according to the working of
Satan; not an ineffective thing, but very potent; carrying in its
train vast effects and consequences; so vast and so influential, in
spite of its utter badness, that it is no exaggeration to describe its
coming (+parousia+), its "appearing" (+epiphaneia+), and its
"revelation" (+apokalypsis+), by the very same words which are
applied to Christ Himself. If there is one word which can characterise
this whole phenomenon, both in its principle and in its consummation,
it is falsehood. The devil is a liar from the beginning, and the
father of lies; and where things go on according to the working of
Satan, there is sure to be a vast development of falsehood and
delusion. This is a prospect which very few fear. Most of us are
confident enough of the soundness of our minds, of the solidity of our
principles, of the justice of our consciences. It is very difficult
for us to understand that we can be mistaken, quite as confident about
falsehood as about truth, unsuspecting victims of pure delusion. We
can see that some men are in this wretched plight, but that very fact
seems to give us immunity. Yet the falsehoods of the last days, St.
Paul tells us, will be marvellously imposing and successful. Men will
be dazzled by them, and unable to resist. Satan will support his
representative by power and signs and wonders of every description,
agreeing in nothing but in the characteristic quality of falsehood.
They will be lying miracles. Yet those who are of the truth will not
be left without a safeguard against them, a safeguard found in this,
that the manifold deceit of every kind which the devil and his agents
employ, is deceit of unrighteousness. It furthers unrighteousness; it
has evil as its end. By this it is betrayed to the good; its moral
quality enables them to penetrate the lie, and to make their escape
from it. However plausible it may seem on other grounds, its true
character comes out under the touchstone of conscience, and it stands
finally condemned.

This is a point for consideration in our own time. There is a great
deal of falsehood in circulation--partly superstitious, partly
quasi-scientific--which is not judged with the decision and severity
that would be becoming in wise and good men. Some of it is more or
less latent, working as a mystery of iniquity; influencing men's souls
and consciences rather than their thoughts; disinclining them to
prayer, suggesting difficulties about believing in God, giving the
material nature the primacy over the spiritual, ignoring immortality
and the judgment to come. The man knows very little, who does not know
that there is a plausible case to be stated for atheism, for
materialism, for fatalism, for the rejection of all belief in the
life beyond the grave, and its connection with our present life; but
however powerful and plausible the argument may be, he has been very
careless of his spiritual nature, who does not see that it is a deceit
of unrighteousness. I do not say that only a bad man could accept it;
but certainly all that is bad in any man, and nothing that is good,
will incline him to accept it. Everything in our nature that is
unspiritual, slothful, earthly, at variance with God; everything that
wishes to be let alone, to forget what is high, to make the actual and
not the ideal its portion; everything that recalls responsibilities of
which such a system would discharge us for ever, is on the side of its
doctrines. But is not that itself a conclusive argument against the
system? Are not all these most suspicious allies? Are they not, beyond
dispute, our very worst enemies? and can it be possible that a way of
thinking is true, which gives them undisputed authority over us? Do
not believe it. Do not let any plausibility of argument impose upon
you; but when the moral issue of a theory is plainly immoral, when by
its working it is betrayed to be the leaven of the Sadducees, reject
it as a diabolical deceit. Trust your conscience, that is, your whole
nature, with its instinct for what is good, rather than any dialectic;
it contains far more of what you are; and it is the whole man, and not
the most unstable and self-confident of his faculties, that must
judge. If there is nothing against a spiritual truth but the
difficulty of conceiving how it can be, do not let that mental
incapacity weigh against the evidence of its fruits.

The Apostle points to this line of thought, and to this safeguard of
the good, when he says that those who come under the power of this
vast working of falsehood are those who are perishing, because they
received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. But for
this clause we might have said, Why expose men, defenceless, to such a
terrific trial as is here depicted? Why expect weak, bewildered,
unstable creatures to keep their feet, when falsehood comes in like a
flood? But such queries would show that we mistook the facts. None are
carried away by the prevailing falsehood but those who received not
the love of the truth that they might be saved. It is a question, we
see, not of the intelligence simply, but of the whole man. He does not
say, They received not the truth; that might have been due to some
cause over which they had no control. They might never have had so
much as a good look at the truth; they might have got an incurable
twist in their education, a flaw in their minds like a flaw in a
mirror, that prevented them from ever seeing what the truth was like.
These would be cases to stand apart. But he says, "They received not
the love of the truth." That truth which is presented for our
acceptance in the gospel is not merely a thing to scrutinise, to
weigh, to judge by the rules of the bench or the jury box: it is a
truth which appeals to the heart; from cultured and uncultured, from
the clear-headed and the puzzle-headed; from the philosopher and the
message boy, it demands the answer of love. It is this which is the
true test of character--the answer which is given, not by the brain,
disciplined or undisciplined, but by the whole man, to the revelation
of the truth in Jesus Christ. Intelligence, by itself, may be a very
little matter; all that some men have is but a tool in the hands of
their passions; but the love of the truth, or its opposite, shows
truly what we are. Those who love it are safe. They cannot love
falsehood at the same time; all the lies of the devil and his agents
are powerless to do them any harm. Satan, we see here, has no
advantage over us that we do not first give him. The absence of
_liking_ for the truth, want of sympathy with Christ, a disposition to
find less exacting ways than His, a _resolution_ to find them or to
_make_ them, ending in a positive antipathy to Christ and to all the
truth which He teaches and embodies,--these give the enemy his
opportunity and his advantage over us. Put it to yourself in this
light if you wish to discern your true attitude to the gospel. You
may have difficulties and perplexities about it on one side or
another; it runs out into mystery on every hand; but these will not
expose you to the danger of being deceived, as long as you receive the
love of it in your heart. It _is_ a thing to command love; the truth
as truth is in Jesus. All that is good in us is enlisted in its
favour; not to love it is to be a bad man. A recent Unitarian lecturer
has said that to love Jesus is not a religious duty; but that is
certainly not a New Testament doctrine. It is not only a religious
duty, but the sum of all such duties; to do it, or not to do it, is
the decisive test of character, and the arbiter of fate. Does not He
Himself say--He who is the Truth--"He that loveth father or mother
more than Me is not worthy of Me"? Does not His Apostle say, "If any
man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema?" Depend upon
it, love to Him is all our goodness, and all our defence against the
powers of evil. To grow cold and indifferent is to give the enemy of
our souls an opening against us.

The last two verses in this passage are very striking. We have seen
already two agents in the destruction of men's souls. They perish by
their own agency, in that they do not welcome and love the truth; and
they perish by the malevolence of the devil, who avails himself of
this dislike to the truth to befool them by falsehood, and lead them
ever further and further astray. But here we have a third agent, most
surprising of all, God Himself. "For this cause God sendeth them a
working of error, that they should believe a lie: that they all might
be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in
unrighteousness." Is God, then, the author of falsehood? Do the
delusions that possess the minds of men, and lead them to eternal
ruin, owe their strength to Him? Can He intend anybody to believe a
lie, and especially a lie with such terrific consequences as are
here in view? The opening words--"for this cause"--supply the answer
to these questions. For this cause, _i.e._, because they have not
loved the truth, but in their liking for evil have turned their backs
upon it, for this cause God's judgment comes upon them, binding them
to their guilt. Nothing is more certain, however we may choose to
express it, than the word of the wise man: "His own iniquities shall
take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his
sin." He chooses his own way, and he gets his fill of it. He loves the
deceit of unrighteousness, the falsehood which delivers him from God
and from His law; and by God's righteous judgment, acting through the
constitution of our nature, he comes continually more and more under
its power. He believes the lie, just as a good man believes the truth;
he becomes every day more hopelessly beclouded in error; and the end
is that he is judged. The judgment is based, not on his intellectual,
but on his _moral_ state. It is true he has been deluded, but his
delusion is due to this, that he had pleasure in unrighteousness. It
was this evil in him which gave weight to the sophistries of Satan.

Again and again in Scripture this is represented as the punishment of
the wicked, that God gives them their own way, and infatuates them in
it. The error works with ever greater power in their souls, till they
cannot imagine that it is an error; none can deliver himself, or say,
Is there not a lie in my right hand? "My people would not hearken to
My voice, and Israel would none of Me. So I gave them up unto their
own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels." "When they
knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; ...
wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness." "They changed the truth of
God into a lie; ... for this cause God gave them up unto vile
affections." "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge....
God gave them over to a reprobate mind." "They received not the love
of the truth: and for this cause God sendeth unto them a working of
error." Sin bears its punishment in itself; when it has had its
perfect work, we see that it has been executing a judgment of God more
awful than anything we could conceive. If you would have Him on your
side, your ally and not your adversary, receive the love of the truth.

This is the final lesson of the passage. We do not know all the forces
that are at work in the world in the interest of error; but we know
there are many. We know that the mystery of iniquity is already in
operation. We know that falsehood, in this spiritual sense, has much
in man which is its natural ally; and that we need to be steadily on
our guard against the wiles of the devil. We know that passion is
sophistical, and reason often weak, and that we see our true selves in
the action of heart and conscience. Be faithful, therefore, to God at
the core of your nature. Love the truth that you may be saved. This
alone is salvation. This alone is a safeguard against all the
delusions of Satan; it was one who knew God, who lived in God, who did
always the works of God, who loved God as the only begotten Son the
Father, who could say, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath
nothing in Me."




V.

_THE THEOLOGY OF PAUL._


 "But we are bound to give thanks to God alway for you, brethren
 beloved of the Lord, for that God chose you from the beginning unto
 salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:
 whereunto He called you through our gospel, to the obtaining of the
 glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brethren, stand fast, and
 hold the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word, or by
 epistle of ours.

 "Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father which loved us
 and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your
 hearts and stablish them in every good work and word."--2 THESS. ii.
 13-17 (R.V.).

The first part of this chapter is mysterious, awful, and oppressive.
It deals with the principle of evil in the world, its secret working,
its amazing power, its final embodiment in the man of sin, and its
decisive overthrow at the Second Advent. The characteristic action of
this evil principle is deceit. It deludes men, and they become its
victims. True, it can only delude those who lay themselves open to its
approach by an aversion to the truth, and by delight in
unrighteousness; but when we look round us, and see the multitude of
its victims, we might easily be tempted to despair of our race. The
Apostle does not do so. He turns away from that gloomy prospect, and
fixes his eyes upon another, serene, bright, and joyful. There
_is_ a son of perdition, a person doomed to destruction, who will
carry many to ruin in his train; but there is a work of God going on
in the world as well as a work of evil; and it also has its triumphs.
Let the mystery of iniquity work as it will, "_we_ are bound to give
thanks alway to God for _you_, brethren beloved of the Lord, for that
God chose you from the beginning _unto salvation_."

The thirteenth and fourteenth verses of this chapter are a system of
theology in miniature. The Apostle's thanksgiving covers the whole
work of salvation from the eternal choice of God to the obtaining of
the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ in the world to come. Let us
observe the several points which it brings out. As a thanksgiving, of
course, God is the main subject in it. Every separate clause only
serves to bring out another aspect of the fundamental truth that
salvation is of the Lord. What aspects, then, of this truth are
presented in turn?

(1) In the first place, the original idea of salvation is God's. He
chose the Thessalonians to it from the beginning. There are really two
assertions in this simple sentence--the one, that God chose them; the
other, that His choice is eternal. The first of these is obviously a
matter on which there is an appeal to experience. These Christian men,
and all Christian men, could tell whether it was true or not that they
owed their salvation to God. In point of fact, there has never been
any doubt about that matter in any church, or, indeed, in any
religion. All good men have always believed that salvation is of the
Lord. It begins on God's side. It can most truly be described from His
side. Every Christian heart responds to the word of Jesus to the
disciples: "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." Every
Christian heart feels the force of St. Paul's words to the Galatians:
"After that ye have known God, or rather were known of God." It is His
taking knowledge of us which is the original, fundamental, decisive
thing in salvation. That is a matter of experience; and so far the
Calvinist doctrine of election, which has sometimes an unsubstantial,
metaphysical aspect, has an experimental basis. We are saved, because
God in His love has saved us; that is the starting-point. That also
gives character, in all the Epistles, to the New Testament doctrine of
election. The Apostle never speaks of the elect as an unknown
quantity, a favoured few, hidden in the Church, or in the world,
unknown to others or to themselves: "God," he says, "chose
_you_,"--the persons addressed in this letter,--"and you
_know_ that He did." So does every one who knows anything of God
at all. Even when the Apostle says, "God chose you from the
beginning," he does not leave the basis of experience. "Known unto God
are all His works from the beginning of the world." The purpose of
God's love to save men, which comes home to them in their reception of
the gospel, is not a thing of to-day or yesterday; they know it is
not; it is the manifestation of His nature; it is as eternal as
Himself; they can count on it as securely as they can on the Divine
character; if God has chosen them at all, He has chosen them from the
beginning. The doctrine of election in Scripture is a religious
doctrine, based upon experience; it is only when it is separated from
experience, and becomes metaphysical, and prompts men to ask whether
they who have heard and received the gospel are elect or not--an
impossible question on New Testament ground--that it works for evil in
the Church. If you have chosen God, you know it is because He first
chose you; and His will revealed in that choice is the will of the
Eternal.

(2) Further, the means of salvation for men are of God. "He chose
you," says the Apostle, "in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of
the truth." Perhaps "means" is not the most precise word to use here;
it might be better to say that sanctification wrought by the Spirit,
and belief of the truth, are the state in which, rather than the means
by which, salvation is realised. But what I wish to insist upon is,
that both are included in the Divine choice; they are the instruments
or the conditions of carrying it into effect. And here, when we come
to the accomplishment of God's purpose, we see how it combines a
Divine and a human side. There is a sanctification, or consecration,
wrought by the Spirit of God upon the spirit of man, the sign and seal
of which is baptism, the entrance of the natural man into the new and
higher life; and coincident with this, there is the belief of the
truth, the acceptance of God's message of mercy, and the surrender of
the soul to it. It is impossible to separate these two things, or to
define their relation to each other. Sometimes the first seems to
condition the second; sometimes the order is reversed. Now it is the
Spirit which opens the mind to the truth; again it is the truth which
exercises a sanctifying power like the Spirit. The two, as it were,
interpenetrate each other. If the Spirit stood alone, man's mind would
be baffled, his moral freedom would be taken away; if the reception of
the truth were everything, a cold, rationalistic type of religion
would supplant the ardour of the New Testament Christian. The eternal
choice of God makes provision, in the combination of the Spirit and
the truth, at once for Divine influence and for human freedom; for a
baptism of fire and for the deliberate welcoming of revelation; and it
is when the two are actually combined that the purpose of God to save
is accomplished. What can we say here on the basis of experience? Have
we believed the truth which God has declared to us in His Son? Has its
belief been accompanied and made effectual by a sanctification wrought
by His Spirit, a consecration which has made the truth live in us, and
made us new creatures in Christ? God's choice does not become
effective apart from this; it comes out in this; it secures its own
accomplishment in this. His chosen are not chosen to salvation
irrespective of any experience; _none_ are chosen except as they
believe the truth and are sanctified by His Spirit.

(3) Once more, the execution of the plan of salvation in time is of
God. To this salvation, says Paul, _He_ called you by our gospel.
The apostles and their companions were but messengers: the message
they brought was God's. The new truths, the warnings, the summonses,
the invitations, all were His. The spiritual constraint which they
exercised was His also. In speaking thus, the Apostle magnifies his
office, and magnifies at the same time the responsibility of all who
heard him preach. It is a light thing to listen to a man speaking his
own thoughts, giving his own counsel, inviting assent to his own
proposals; it is a solemn thing to listen to a man speaking truly in
the name of God. The gospel that we preach is ours, only because we
preach it and because we receive it; but the true description of it
is, the gospel of God. It is His voice which proclaims the coming
judgment; it is His voice which tells of the redemption which is in
Christ Jesus, even the forgiveness of our trespasses; it is His voice
which invites all who are exposed to wrath, all who are under the
curse and power of sin, to come to the Saviour. Paul had thanked God
in the First Epistle that the Thessalonians had received his word,
not as the word of man, but as what it was in truth, the word of the
living God; and here he falls back again on the same thought in a new
connection. It is too natural for us to put God as far as we can out
of our minds, to keep Him for ever in the background, to have recourse
to Him only in the last resort; but that easily becomes an evasion of
the seriousness and the responsibilities of our life, a shutting of
our eyes to its true significance, for which we may have to pay dear.
_God_ has spoken to us all in His word and by His Spirit,--God, and
not only some human preacher: see that ye despise not Him that
speaketh.

(4) Lastly, under this head, the end proposed to us in obeying the
gospel call is of God. It is the obtaining of the glory of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Paul became a Christian and an Apostle, because he saw
the Lord of Glory on the way to Damascus; and his whole conception of
salvation was shaped by that sight. To be saved meant to enter into
that glory into which Christ had entered. It was a condition of
perfect holiness, open only to those who were sanctified by Christ's
Spirit; but perfect holiness did not exhaust it. Holiness was
manifested in glory, in a light surpassing the brightness of the sun,
in a strength superior to every weakness, in a life no longer
assailable by death. Weak, suffering, destitute--dying daily for
Christ's sake--Paul saw salvation concentrated and summed up in the
glory of Christ. To obtain this was to obtain salvation. "When Christ
who is our life shall appear," he says elsewhere, "then shall ye also
appear with Him in glory." "This corruptible must put on incorruption,
and this mortal must put on immortality." If salvation were anything
lower than this, there might be a plausible case to state for man as
its author; but reaching as it does to this immeasurable height, who
can accomplish it but God? It needs the operation of the might of His
power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.

One cannot read these two simple verses without wondering at the new
world which the gospel created for the mind of man. What great
thoughts are in them--thoughts that wander through eternity, thoughts
based on the most sure and blessed of experiences, yet travelling back
into an infinite past, and on into immortal glory; thoughts of the
Divine presence and the Divine power interpenetrating and redeeming
human life; thoughts addressed originally to a little company of
working people, but unmatched for length and breadth and depth and
height by all that pagan literature could offer to the wisest and the
best. What a range and sweep there is in this brief summary of God's
work in man's salvation. If the New Testament is uninteresting, can
it be for any other reason than that we arrest ourselves at the words,
and never penetrate to the truth which lies beneath?

On this review of the work of God the Apostle grounds an exhortation
to the Thessalonians. "So then, brethren," he writes, "stand fast, and
hold the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word, or by
epistle of ours." The objection that is brought against Calvinism is
that it destroys every motive for action on our part, by destroying
all need of it. If salvation is of the Lord, what is there for us to
do? If God conceived it, planned it, executes it, and alone can
perfect it, what room is left for the interference of man? This is a
species of objection which would have appeared extremely perverse to
the Apostle. Why, he would have exclaimed, if God left it to us to do,
we might well sit down in despair and do nothing, so infinitely would
the task exceed our powers; but since the work of salvation is the
work of God, since He Himself is active on that side, there is reason,
hope, motive, for activity on our part also. If we work in the same
line with Him, toward the same end with Him, our labour will not be
cast away; it will be triumphantly successful. God _is_ at work;
but so far from that furnishing a motive to non-exertion on our part,
it is the strongest of all motives to action. Work out your own
salvation, not because it is left to you to do, but because it is God
who is working in you both will and deed in furtherance of His good
pleasure. Fall in, the Apostle virtually says in this place, with the
purpose of God to save you; identify yourselves with it; stand fast,
and hold the traditions which ye were taught.

"Traditions" is an unpopular word in one section of the Church,
because it has been so vastly abused in another. But it is not an
illegitimate word in any church, and there is always a place for what
it means. The generations are dependent on each other; each transmits
to the future the inheritance it has received from the past; and that
inheritance--embracing laws, arts, manners, morals, instincts,
religion--can all be comprehended in the single word tradition. The
gospel was handed over to the Thessalonians by St. Paul, partly in
oral teaching, partly in writing; it was a complex of traditions in
the simplest sense, and they were not to let any part of it go.
Extreme Protestants are in the habit of opposing Scripture to
tradition. The Bible alone, they say, is our religion; and we reject
all unwritten authority. But, as a little reflection will show, the
Bible itself is, in the first instance, a part of tradition; it is
handed down to us from those who have gone before; it is delivered to
us as a sacred deposit by the Church; and as such we at first regard
it. There are good reasons, no doubt, for giving Scripture a
fundamental and critical place among traditions. When its claim to
represent the Christianity of the apostles is once made out, it is
fairly regarded as the criterion of everything else that appeals to
their authority. The bulk of so-called traditions in the Church of
Rome are to be rejected, not because they are traditions, but because
they are not traditions, but have originated in later times, and are
inconsistent with what is known to be truly apostolic. We ourselves
are bound to keep fast hold of all that connects us historically with
the apostolic age. We would not disinherit ourselves. We would not
lose a single thought, a single like or dislike, a single conviction
or instinct, of all that proves us the spiritual posterity of Peter
and Paul and John. Sectarianism destroys the historical sense; it
plays havoc with traditions; it weakens the feeling of spiritual
affinity between the present and the past. The Reformers in the
sixteenth century--the men like Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin--made
a great point of what they called their catholicity, _i.e._, their
claim to represent the true Church of Christ, to be the lawful
inheritors of apostolic tradition. They were right, both in their
claim, and in their idea of its importance; and we will suffer for it,
if, in our eagerness for independence, we disown the riches of the
past.

The Apostle closes his exhortation with a prayer. "Now our Lord Jesus
Christ Himself, and God our Father which loved us and gave us eternal
comfort and good hope through grace, comfort[28] your hearts and
stablish them in every good work and word." All human effort, he seems
to say, must be not only anticipated and called forth, but supported,
by God. He alone it is who can give steadfastness to our pursuit of
good in word and deed.

In his prayer the Apostle goes back to great events in the past, and
bases his request on the assurance which they yield: "God," he says,
"who _loved_ us and _gave_ us eternal comfort and good hope
through grace." When did God do these gracious things? It was when He
sent His Son into the world for us. He does love us now; He will love
us for ever; but we go back for the final proof, and for the first
conviction of this, to the gift of Jesus Christ. There we see God who
_loved_ us. The death of the Lord Jesus is specially in view.
"Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us." "Herein
is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son
to be the propitiation for our sins." The eternal consolation is
connected in the closest possible way with this grand assurance of
love. It is not merely an unending comfort, as opposed to the
transitory and uncertain joys of earth; it is the heart to exclaim
with St. Paul, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword?... Nay, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through Him that loved us." Here, and now, this eternal
consolation is given to the Christian heart; here, and now, rather, it
is enjoyed; it _was_ given, once for all, on the cross at Calvary.
Stand there, and receive that awful pledge of the love of God, and see
whether it does not, even now, go deeper than any sorrow.

But the eternal consolation does not exhaust God's gifts. He has also
in His grace given us good hope. He has made provision, not only for
the present trouble, but for the future uncertainty. All life needs an
outlook; and those who have stood beside the empty grave in the garden
know how wide and glorious is the outlook provided by God for the
believer in Jesus Christ. In the very deepest darkness, a light is
kindled for him; in the valley of the shadow of death, a window is
opened to him in heaven. Surely God, who sent His Son to die for us
upon the Cross; God, who raised Him again from the dead on our behalf,
and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places,--surely He who
has been at such cost for our salvation will not be slow to second all
our efforts, and to establish our hearts in every good work and word.

How simply, one is tempted to say, it all ends--good works and good
words; are these the whole fruits which God seeks in His great work of
redemption? Does it need consolation so wonderful, hope so
far-reaching, to secure patient continuance in well-doing? We know
only too well that it does. We know that the comfort of God, the hope
of God, prayer to God, are all needed; and that all we can make of all
of them combined is not too much to make us steadily dutiful in word
and deed. We know that it is not a disproportionate or unworthy moral,
but one befitting the grandeur of his theme, when the Apostle
concludes the fifteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians in a tone very
similar to that which rules here. The infinite hope of the
Resurrection is made the basis of the commonest duties. "Therefore, my
beloved brethren," he says, "be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your
labour is not in vain in the Lord." That hope is to bear fruit on
earth--in patience and loyalty, in humble and faithful service. It is
to shed its radiance over the trivial round, the common task; and the
Apostle does not think it wasted if it enables men and women to do
well and not weary.

The difficulty of expounding this passage lies in the largeness of the
thoughts; they include, in a manner, every part and aspect of the
Christian life. Let each of us try to bring them near to himself. God
has called us by His gospel: He has declared to us that Jesus our Lord
was delivered for our offences, and that He was raised again to open
the gates of life to us. Have we believed the truth? That is where the
gospel begins for us. Is the truth within us, written on hearts that
God's Spirit has separated from the world, and devoted to a new life?
or is it outside of us, a rumour, a hearsay, to which we have no vital
relation? Happy are those who have believed, and taken Christ into
their souls, Christ who died for us and rose again: they have the
forgiveness of sins, a pledge of love that disarms and vanquishes
sorrow, an infallible hope that outlives death. Happy are those to
whom the cross and the empty tomb give that confidence in God's love
which makes prayer natural, hopeful, joyful. Happy are those to whom
all these gifts of grace bring the strength to continue patiently in
well-doing, and to be steadfast in every good work and word. All
things are theirs--the world, and life, and death; things present and
things to come; everlasting consolation and good hope; prayer,
patience, and victory: all are theirs, for they are Christ's, and
Christ is God's.

[28] For the verb in the singular, and its import, compare 1st Epistle
iii. 11.




VI.

_MUTUAL INTERCESSION._


 "Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run
 and be glorified, even as also _it is_ with you; and that we may
 be delivered from unreasonable and evil men; for all have not faith.
 But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and guard you from
 the evil _one_. And we have confidence in the Lord touching you,
 that ye both do and will do the things which we command. And the Lord
 direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of
 Christ."--2 THESS. iii. 1-5 (R.V.).

The main part of this letter is now finished. The Apostle has
completed his teaching about the Second Advent, and the events which
precede and condition it; and nothing remains to dispose of but some
minor matters of personal and practical interest.

He begins by asking again, as at the close of the First Epistle, the
prayers of the Thessalonians for himself and his fellow-workers. It
was a strength and comfort to him, as to every minister of Christ, to
know that he was remembered by those who loved him in the presence of
God. But it is no selfish or private interest that the Apostle has in
view when he begs a place in their prayers; it is the interest of the
work with which he has identified himself. "Pray for us, that the word
of the Lord may run and be glorified." This was the one business and
concern of his life; if it went well, all his desires were satisfied.

Hardly anything in the New Testament gives us a more characteristic
look of the Apostle's soul than his desire that the word of the Lord
should _run_. The word of the Lord is the gospel, of which he is the
principal herald to the nations; and we see in his choice of this word
his sense of its urgency. It was glad tidings to all mankind; and how
sorely needed wherever he turned his eyes! The constraint of Christ's
love was upon his heart, the constraint of men's sin and misery; and
he could not pass swiftly enough from city to city, to proclaim the
reconciling grace of God, and call men from darkness unto light. His
eager heart fretted against barriers and restraints of every
description; he saw in them the malice of the great enemy of Christ:
"I was minded once and again to come unto you, but Satan hindered me."
Hence it is that he asks the Thessalonians to pray for their removal,
that the word of the Lord may run. The ardour of such a prayer, and of
the heart which prompts it, is far enough removed from the common
temper of the Church, especially where it has been long established.
How many centuries there were during which Christendom, as it was
called, was practically a fixed quantity, shut up within the limits of
Western European civilisation, and not aspiring to advance a single
step beyond it, fast or slow. It is one of the happy omens of our own
time that the apostolic conception of the gospel as an ever-advancing,
ever-victorious force, has begun again to take its place in the
Christian heart. If it is really to us what it was to St. Paul--a
revelation of God's mercy and judgment which dwarfs everything else, a
power omnipotent to save, an irresistible pressure of love on heart
and will, glad tidings of great joy that the world is dying for--we
shall share in this ardent, evangelical spirit, and pray for all
preachers that the word of the Lord may run very swiftly. How it
passed in apostolic times from land to land and from city to
city--from Syria to Asia, from Asia to Macedonia, from Macedonia to
Greece, from Greece to Italy, from Italy to Spain--till in one man's
lifetime, and largely by one man's labour, it was known throughout the
Roman world. It is easy, indeed, to over-estimate the number of the
early Christians; but we can hardly over-estimate the fiery speed with
which the Cross went forth conquering and to conquer. Missionary zeal
is one note of the true Apostolic Church.

But Paul wishes the Thessalonians to pray that the word of the Lord
may be glorified, as well as have free course. The word of the Lord is
a glorious thing itself. As the Apostle calls it in another place, it
is the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. All that makes the
spiritual glory of God--His holiness, His love, His wisdom--is
concentrated and displayed in it. But its glory is acknowledged, and
in that sense heightened, when its power is seen in the salvation of
men. A message from God that did nothing would not be glorified: it
would be discredited and shamed. It is the glory of the gospel to lay
hold of men, to transfigure them, to lift them out of evil into the
company and the likeness of Christ. For anything else it does, it may
not fill a great space in the world's eye; but when it actually brings
the power of God to save those who receive it, it is clothed in glory.
Paul did not wish to preach without seeing the fruits of his labour.
He did the work of an evangelist; and he would have been ashamed of
the evangel if it had not wielded a Divine power to overcome sin and
bring the sinful to God. Pray that it may always have this power. Pray
that when the word of the Lord is spoken it may not be an ineffective,
fruitless word, but mighty through God.

There is an expression in Titus ii. 10 analogous to this: "Adorning
the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." That expression is
less fervent, spoken at a lower level, than the one before us; but it
more readily suggests, for that very reason, some duties of which we
should be reminded here also. It comes home to all who try to bring
their conduct into any kind of relation to the gospel of Christ. It is
only too possible for us to disgrace the gospel; but it is in our
power also, by every smallest action we do, to illustrate it, to set
it off, to put its beauty in the true light before the eyes of
men. The gospel comes into the world, like everything else, to be
judged on its merits; that is, by the effects which it produces in the
lives of those who receive it. We are its witnesses; its character, in
the general mind, is as good as our character; it is as lovely as we
are lovely, as strong as we are strong, as glorious as we are
glorious, and no more. Let us seek to bear it a truer and worthier
witness than we have yet done. To adorn it is a calling far higher
than most of us have aimed at; but if it comes into our prayers, if
its swift diffusion and powerful operation are near our hearts in the
sight of God, grace will be given us to do this also.

The next request of the Apostle has more of a personal aspect, yet it
also has his work in view. He asks prayer that he and his friends may
be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men, he says,
have not faith. The unreasonable and wicked men were no doubt the Jews
in Corinth, from which place he wrote. Their malignant opposition was
the great obstacle to the spread of the gospel; they were the
representatives and instruments of the Satan who perpetually hindered
him. The word here rendered unreasonable is a rare one in the New
Testament. It occurs four times in all, and in each case is
differently translated: once it is "amiss," once "harm," once
"wickedness," and here "unreasonable." The margin in this place
renders it "absurd." What it literally means is, "out of place"; and
the Apostle signifies by it, that in the opposition of these men to
the gospel there was something preposterous, something that baffled
explanation; there was no reason in it, and therefore it was hopeless
to reason with it. That is a disposition largely represented both in
the Old Testament and the New, and familiar to every one who in
preaching the gospel has come into close contact with men. It was one
of the great trials of Jesus that He had to endure the contradiction
of those who were sinners against themselves; who rejected the counsel
of God in their own despite; in other words, were unreasonable men.
The gospel, we must remember, is good news; it is good news to all
men. It tells of God's love to the sinful; it brings pardon, holiness,
immortal hope, to every one. Why, then, should anybody have a quarrel
with it? Is it not enough to drive reason to despair, that men should
wantonly, stubbornly, malignantly, hate and resist such a message? Is
there anything in the world more provoking than to offer a real and
indispensable service, out of a true and disinterested love, and to
have it contemptuously rejected? That is the fate of the gospel in
many quarters; that was the constant experience of our Lord and of St.
Paul. No wonder, in the interests of his mission, the Apostle prays to
be delivered from unreasonable men. Are there any of us who come
under this condemnation? who are senselessly opposed to the gospel,
enemies in intention of God, but in reality hurting no one so much as
ourselves? The Apostle does not indicate in his prayer any mode of
deliverance. He may have hoped that in God's providence his
persecutors would have their attention distracted somehow; he may have
hoped that by greater wisdom, greater love, greater power of
adaptation, of becoming all things to all men, he might vanquish their
unreason, and gain access to their souls for the truth. In any case,
his request shows us that the gospel has a battle to fight that we
should hardly have anticipated--a battle with sheer perversity, with
blind, wilful absurdity--and that this is one of its most dangerous
foes. "O that they were wise," God cries of His ancient people, "O
that they understood." He has the same lament to utter still.

We ought to notice the reason appended to this description of Paul's
enemies: absurd and evil men, he says; for all men have not faith.
Faith, of course, means the Christian faith: all men are not believers
in Christ and disciples of Christ; and therefore the moral unreason
and perversity of which I have spoken actually exist. He who has the
faith is morally sane; he has that in him which is inconsistent with
such wickedness and irrationality. We can hardly suppose, however,
that the Apostle meant to state such a superfluous truism as that all
men were not Christians. What he does mean is apparently that not all
men have affinity for the faith, have aptitude or liking for it; as
Christ said when He stood before Pilate, the voice of truth is only
heard by those who are _of_ the truth. So it was when the apostles
preached. Among their hearers there were those who were _of_ the
truth, in whom there was, as it were, the instinct for the faith; they
welcomed the message. Others, again, discovered no such natural
relation to the truth; in spite of the adaptation of the message to
human needs, they had no sympathy with it; there was no reaction in
their hearts in its favour; it was unreasonable to them; and to God
they were unreasonable. The Apostle does not explain this; he simply
remarks it. It is one of the ultimate and inexplicable facts of human
experience; one of the meeting-points of nature and freedom which defy
our philosophies. Some _are_ of kin to the gospel when they hear it;
they have faith, and justify the counsel of God, and are saved: others
are of _no_ kin to the gospel; its wisdom and love wake no response in
them; they have not faith; they reject the counsel of God to their own
ruin; they are preposterous and evil men. It is from such, as
hinderers of the gospel, that Paul prays to be delivered.

In the two verses which follow, he plays, as it were, with this word
"faith." All men have not faith, he writes; but _the Lord_ is
faithful, and _we_ have _faith_ in the Lord touching you. Often the
Apostle goes on thus at a word. Often, especially, he contrasts the
trustworthiness of God with the faithlessness of men. Men may not take
the gospel seriously; but the Lord does. He is in indubitable earnest
with it; He may be depended upon to do His part in carrying it into
effect. See how unselfishly, at this point, the Apostle turns from his
own situation to that of his readers. The Lord is faithful who will
stablish _you_, and keep you from the evil one. Paul had left the
Thessalonians exposed to very much the same trouble as beset himself
wherever he went; but he had left them to One who, he well knew, was
able to keep them from falling, and to preserve them against all that
the devil and his agents could do.

And side by side with this confidence in God stood his confidence
touching the Thessalonians themselves. He was sure in the Lord that
they were doing, and would continue to do, the things which he
commanded them; in other words, that they would lead a worthy and
becoming Christian life. The point of this sentence lies in the words
"in the Lord." Apart from the Lord, Paul could have had no such
confidence as he here expresses. The standard of the Christian life is
lofty and severe; its purity, its unworldliness, its brotherly love;
its burning hope, were new things then in the world. What assurance
could there be that this standard would be maintained, when the small
congregation of working people in Thessalonica was cast upon its own
resources in the midst of a pagan community? None at all, apart from
Christ. If _He_ had left them along with the Apostle, no one could
have risked much upon their fidelity to the Christian calling. It
marks the beginning of a new era when the Apostle writes, "We have
confidence _in the Lord_ touching you." Life has a new element now, a
new atmosphere, new resources; and therefore we may cherish new hopes
of it. When we think of them, the words include a gentle admonition to
the Thessalonians, to beware of forgetting the Lord, and trusting to
themselves; that is a disappointing path, which will put the Apostle's
confidence toward them to shame. But it is an admonition as hopeful as
it is gentle; reminding them that, though the path of Christian
obedience cannot be trodden without constant effort, it is a path on
which the Lord accompanies and upholds all who trust in Him. Here
there is a lesson for us all to learn. Even those who are engaged in
work for Christ are too apt to forget that the only hope of such work
is the Lord. "Trust no man," says the wisest of commentators, "left to
himself." Or to put the same thing more in accordance with the spirit
of the text, there always is room for hope and confidence when the
Lord is not forgotten. _In the Lord_, you may depend upon those who
_in themselves_ are weak, unstable, wilful, foolish. In the Lord, you
may depend on them to stand fast, to fight their temptations, to
overcome the world and the wicked one. This kind of assurance, and the
actual presence and help of Christ which justified it, are very
characteristic of the New Testament. They explain the joyous, open,
hopeful spirit of the early Church; they are the cause, as well as the
effect, of that vigorous moral health which, in the decay of ancient
civilisation, gave the Church the inheritance of the future. And still
we may have confidence in the Lord that all whom He has called by His
gospel will be able by His spiritual presence with them to walk worthy
of that calling, and to confute alike the fears of the good and the
contempt of the wicked. For the Lord is faithful, who will stablish
them, and preserve them from the evil one.

Once more the Apostle bursts into prayer, as he remembers the
situation of these few sheep in the wilderness: "The Lord direct your
hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of Christ." Nothing
could be a better commentary than one of Paul's own affectionate
Epistles on that much discussed text, "Pray without ceasing." Look,
for instance, through this one with which we are engaged. It begins
with a prayer for grace and peace. This is followed by a thanksgiving
in which God is acknowledged as the Author of all their graces. The
first chapter ends with a prayer--an unceasing prayer--that God would
count them worthy of His calling. In the second chapter Paul renews
his thanksgiving on behalf of his converts, and prays again that God
may comfort their hearts and stablish them in every good work and
word. And here, the moment he has touched upon a new topic, he
returns, as it were by instinct, to prayer. "The Lord direct your
hearts." Prayer is his very element; he lives, and moves, and has his
being, in God. He can do nothing, he cannot conceive of anything being
done, in which God is not as directly participant as himself, or those
whom he wishes to bless. Such an intense appreciation of God's
nearness and interest in life goes far beyond the attainments of most
Christians; yet here, no doubt, lies a great part of the Apostle's
power.

The prayer has two parts: he asks that the Lord may direct their
hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of Christ. The love
of God here means love to God; this is the sum of all Christian
virtue, or at least the source of it. The gospel proclaims that God is
love; it tells us that God has proved His love by sending His Son to
die for our sins; it shows us Christ on the cross, in the passion of
that love with which He loved us when He gave Himself for us; and it
waits for the answer of love. It comprehended the whole effect of the
gospel, the whole mystery of its saving and re-creating power, when
the Apostle exclaimed, "The love of Christ constraineth us." It is
this experience which in the passage before us he desires for the
Thessalonians. There is no one without love, or at least without the
power of loving, in his heart. But what is the object of it? On what
is it actually directed? The very words of the prayer imply that it is
easily misdirected. But surely if love itself best merits and may best
claim love, none should be the object of it before Him who is its
source. God has earned our love; He desires our love; let us look to
the Cross where He has given us the great pledge of His own, and yield
to its sweet constraint. The old law is not abolished, but to be
fulfilled: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind."
If the Lord fix our souls to Himself by this irresistible attraction,
nothing will be able to carry us away.

Love to God is naturally joyous; but life has other experiences than
those which give free scope for its joyous exercise; and so the
Apostle adds, "into the patience of Jesus Christ." The Authorised
Version renders, "the patient waiting for Christ," as if what the
Apostle prayed for were that they might continue steadfastly to hope
for the Last Advent; but although that idea is characteristic of
these Epistles, it is hardly to be found in the words. Rather does he
remind his readers that in the difficulties and sufferings of the path
which lies before them, no strange thing is happening to them, nothing
that has not already been borne by Christ in the spirit in which it
ought to be borne by us. Our Saviour Himself had need of patience. He
was made flesh, and all that the children of God have to suffer in
this world has already been suffered by Him. This prayer is at once
warning and consoling. It assures us that those who will live godly
will have trials to bear: there will be untoward circumstances; feeble
health; uncongenial relations; misunderstanding and malice;
unreasonable and evil men; abundant calls for patience. But there will
be no sense of having missed the way, or of being forgotten by God; on
the contrary, there will be in Jesus Christ, ever present, a type and
a fountain of patience, which will enable them to overcome all that is
against them. The love of God and the patience of Christ may be called
the active and the passive sides of Christian goodness,--its free,
steady outgoing to Him who is the source of all blessing; and its
deliberate, steady, hopeful endurance, in the spirit of Him who was
made perfect through suffering. The Lord direct our hearts into both,
that we may be perfect men in Christ Jesus.




VII.

_THE CHRISTIAN WORTH OF LABOUR._


 "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
 that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh
 disorderly, and not after the tradition which they received of us.
 For yourselves know how ye ought to imitate us: for we behaved not
 ourselves disorderly among you; neither did we eat bread for nought
 at any man's hand, but in labour and travail, working night and day,
 that we might not burden any of you: not because we have not the
 right, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you, that ye should
 imitate us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, If
 any will not work, neither let him eat. For we hear of some that walk
 among you disorderly, that work not at all, but are busybodies. Now
 them that are such we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ,
 that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread. But ye,
 brethren, be not weary in well-doing. And if any man obeyeth not our
 word by this epistle, note that man, that ye have no company with
 him, to the end that he may be ashamed. And yet count him not as an
 enemy, but admonish him as a brother."--2 THESS. iii. 6-15 (R.V.).

This passage is very similar in contents to one in the fourth chapter
of the First Epistle. The difference between the two is in tone; the
Apostle writes with much greater severity on this than on the earlier
occasion. Entreaty is displaced by command; considerations of
propriety, the appeal to the good name of the church, by the appeal to
the authority of Christ; and good counsel by express directions for
Christian discipline. Plainly the moral situation, which had caused
him anxiety some months before, had become worse rather than better.
What, then, was the situation to which he here addresses himself so
seriously? It was marked by two bad qualities--a disorderly walk and
idleness.

"We hear," he writes, "of some that walk among you disorderly." The
metaphor in the word is a military one; the underlying idea is that
every man has a post in life or in the Church, and that he ought to be
found, not away from his post, but at it. A man without a post is a
moral anomaly. Every one of us is part of a whole, a member of an
organic body, with functions to discharge which can be discharged by
no other, and must therefore be steadily discharged by himself. To
walk disorderly means to forget this, and to act as if we were
independent; now at this, now at that, according to our discretion or
our whim; not rendering the community a constant service, in a place
of our own--a service which is valuable, largely because it can be
counted on. Every one knows the extreme unsatisfactoriness of those
men who never can keep a place when they get it. Their friends plague
themselves to find new openings for them; but without any gross
offence, such as drunkenness or dishonesty, they persistently fall out
of them; there is something about them which seems to render them
incapable of sticking to their post. It is an unfortunate
constitution, perhaps; but it is a grave moral fault as well. Such men
settle to nothing, and therefore they render no permanent service to
others; whatever they might be worth otherwise, they are worth nothing
in any general estimate, simply because they cannot be depended upon.
What is more, they are worth nothing to themselves; they never
accumulate moral, any more than material, capital; they have no
reserve in them of fidelity, sobriety, discipline. They are to be
pitied, indeed, as all sinners are to be pitied; but they are also to
be commanded, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to lay their minds to
their work, and to remember that steadfastness in duty is an
elementary requirement of the gospel. Among the Thessalonians it was
religious excitement that unsettled men, and made them abandon the
routine of duty; but whatever be the cause, the evil results are the
same. And, on the other hand, when we are loyal, constant, regularly
at our post, however humble it be, we render a real service to others,
and grow in strength of character ourselves. It is the beginning of
all discipline and of all goodness to have fixed relations and fixed
duties, and a fixed determination to be faithful to them.

Besides this disorderly walk, with its moral instability, Paul heard
of some who worked not at all. In other words, idleness was spreading
in the church. It went to a great and shameless length. Christian men
apparently thought nothing of sacrificing their independence, and
eating bread for which they had not wrought. Such a state of affairs
was peculiarly offensive at Thessalonica, where the Apostle had been
careful to set so different an example. If any one could have been
excused for declining to labour, on the ground that he was preoccupied
with religious hopes and interests, it was he. His apostolic ministry
was a charge which made great demands upon his strength; it used up
the time and energy which he might otherwise have given to his trade:
he might well have urged that other work was a physical impossibility.
More than this, the Lord had ordained that they who preached the
gospel should live by the gospel; and on that ground alone he was
entitled to claim maintenance from those to whom he preached. But
though he was always careful to safeguard this right of the Christian
ministry, he was as careful, as a rule, to refrain from exercising it;
and in Thessalonica, rather than prove a burden to the church, he had
wrought and toiled, night and day, with his own hands. All this was an
example for the Thessalonians to imitate; and we can understand the
severity with which the Apostle treats that idleness which alleges in
its defence the strength of its interest in religion. It was a
personal insult.

Over against this shallow pretence, Paul sets the Christian virtue of
industry, with its stern law, "If any man _will_ not work, neither let
him eat." If he claims to lead a superhuman angelic life, let him
subsist on angels' food. What we find in this passage is not the
exaggeration which is sometimes called the gospel of work; but the
soberer and truer thought that work is essential, in general, to the
Christian character. The Apostle plays with the words when he writes,
"That work not at all, but are busybodies"; or, as it has been
reproduced in English, who are busy only with what is not their
business. This is, in point of fact, the moral danger of idleness, in
those who are not otherwise vicious.[29] Where men are naturally bad,
it multiplies temptations and opportunities for sin; Satan finds some
mischief still for idle hands to do. But even where it is the good who
are concerned, as in the passage before us, idleness has its perils.
The busybody is a real character--a man or a woman who, having no
steady work to do, which must be done whether it is liked or disliked,
and which is therefore wholesome, is too apt to meddle in other
people's affairs, religious or worldly; and to meddle, too, without
thinking that it _is_ meddling; an impertinence; perhaps a piece of
downright, stone-blind Pharisaism. A person who is not disciplined and
made wise by regular work has no idea of its moral worth and
opportunities; nor has he, as a rule, any idea of the moral
worthlessness and vanity of such an existence as his own.

There seem to have been a good many fussy people in Thessalonica,
anxious about their industrious neighbours, concerned for their lack
of interest in the Lord's coming, perpetually meddling with them--and
living upon them. It is no wonder that the Apostle expresses himself
with some peremptoriness: "If any man will not work, neither let him
eat." The difficulty about the application of this rule is that it has
no application except to the poor. In a society like our own, the
busybody may be found among those for whom this law has no terror;
they are idle, simply because they have an income which is independent
of labour. Yet what the Apostle says has a lesson for such people
also. One of the dangers of their situation is that they should
under-estimate the moral and spiritual worth of industry. A retired
merchant, a military or naval officer on half-pay, a lady with money
in the funds and no responsibilities but her own,--all these have a
deal of time on their hands; and if they are good people, it is one of
the temptations incident to their situation, that they should have
what the Apostle calls a busybody's interest in others. It need not be
a spurious or an affected interest; but it misjudges the moral
condition of others, and especially of the labouring classes, because
it does not appreciate the moral content of a day full of work. If the
work is done honestly at all, it is a thing of great price; there are
virtues embedded in it, patience, courage, endurance, fidelity, which
contribute as much to the true good of the world and the true
enrichment of personal character as the pious solicitude of those who
have nothing to do but be pious. Perhaps these are things that do not
require to be said. It may rather be the case in our own time that
mere industry is overvalued; and certainly a natural care for the
spiritual interests of our brethren, not Pharisaic, but Christian, not
meddlesome, but most earnest, can never be in excess. It is the
busybody whose interference is resented; the brother, once he is
recognised as a brother, is made welcome.

Convinced as he is that for mankind in general "no work" means "no
character," Paul commands and exhorts in the Lord Jesus all such as he
has been speaking of to work with quietness, and to eat their own
bread. Their excitement was both unnatural and unspiritual. It was
necessary for their moral health that they should escape from it, and
learn how to walk orderly, and to live at their post. The quietness of
which he speaks is both inward and outward. Let them compose their
minds, and cease from their fussiness; the agitation within, and the
distraction without, are equally fruitless. Far more beautiful, far
more Christlike, than any busybody, however zealous, is he who works
with quietness and eats his own bread. Probably the bulk of the
Thessalonian Church was quite sound in this matter; and it is to
encourage them that the Apostle writes, "But ye, brethren, be not
weary in well-doing." The bad behaviour of the busybodies may have
been provoking to some, infectious in the case of others; but they are
to persevere, in spite of it, in the path of quiet industry and good
conduct. This has not the pretentiousness of an absorbed waiting for
the Lord, and a vaunted renunciation of the world; but it has the
character of moral loveliness; it exercises the new man in the powers
of the new life.

Along with his judgment on this moral disorder, the Apostle gives the
Church directions for its treatment. It is to be met with reserve,
protest, and love.

First, with reserve: "Withdraw yourselves from every brother that
walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which they received of
us; ... note that man, that ye have no company with him." The
Christian community has a character to keep, and that character is
compromised by the misconduct of any of its members. To such
misconduct, therefore, it cannot be, and should not be, indifferent:
indifference would be suicidal. The Church exists to maintain a moral
testimony, to keep up a certain standard of conduct among men; and
when that standard is visibly and defiantly departed from, there will
be a reaction of the common conscience in the Church, vigorous in
proportion to her vitality. A bad man may be quite at home in the
world; he may find or make a circle of associates like himself; but
there is something amiss, if he does not find himself alone in the
Church. Every strong life closes itself against the intrusion of what
is alien to it--a strong moral life most emphatically of all. A wicked
person of any description ought to feel that the public sentiment of
the Church is against him, and that as long as he persists in his
wickedness he is virtually, if not formally, excommunicated. The
element of communion in the Church is spiritual soundness; "If we walk
in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with
another." But if any one begins to walk in darkness, he is out of the
fellowship. The only hope for him is that he may recognise the justice
of his exclusion, and, as the Apostle says, be ashamed. He is shut out
from the society of others that he may be driven in upon himself, and
compelled, in spite of wilfulness, to judge himself by the Christian
standard.

But reserve, impressive as it may be, is not enough. The erring
brother is to be admonished; that is, he is to be gravely spoken to
about his error. Admonition is a difficult duty. Not every one feels
at liberty, or _is_ at liberty, to undertake it. Our own faults
sometimes shut our mouths; the retort courteous, or uncourteous, to
any admonition from us, is too obvious. But though such considerations
should make us humble and diffident, they ought not to lead to
neglect of plain duty. To think too much of one's faults is in some
circumstances a kind of perverted vanity; it is to think too much of
oneself. We have all our faults, of one kind or another; but that does
not prohibit us from aiding each other to overcome faults. If we avoid
anger, and censoriousness; if we shun, as well as disclaim, the spirit
of the Pharisee, then with all our imperfections God will justify us
in speaking seriously to others about their sins. We do not pretend to
judge them; we only appeal to themselves to say whether they are
really at ease when they stand on one side, and the word of God and
the conscience of the Church on the other. In a sense, this is
specially the duty of the elders of the Church. It is they who are
pastors of the flock of God, and who are expressly responsible for
this moral guardianship; but there is no officialism in the Christian
community which limits the interest of any member in all the rest, or
exempts him from the responsibility of pleading the cause of God with
the erring. How many Christian duties there are which seem never to
have come in the way of some Christians.

Finally, in the discipline of the erring, an essential element is
love. Withdraw from him, and let him feel he is alone; admonish him,
and let him be convinced he is gravely wrong; but in your admonition
remember that he is not an enemy, but a brother. Judgment is a
function which the natural man is prone to assume, and which he
exercises without misgiving. He is so sure of himself, that instead of
admonishing, he denounces; what he is bent upon is not the
reclamation, but the annihilation, of the guilty. Such a spirit is
totally out of place in the Church; it is a direct defiance of the
spirit which created the Christian community, and which that community
is designed to foster. Let the sin be never so flagrant, the sinner is
a brother; he is one for whom Christ died. To the Lord who bought him
he is inexpressibly valuable; and woe to the reprover of sin who
forgets this. The whole power of discipline which is committed to the
Church is for edification, not for destruction; for the building up of
Christian character, not for pulling it down. The case of the offender
is the case of a brother; if we are true Christians, it is our own. We
must act toward him and his offence as Christ acted toward the world
and its sin: no judgment without mercy, no mercy without judgment.
Christ took the sin of the world on Himself, but He made no compromise
with it; He never extenuated it; He never spoke of it or treated it
but with inexorable severity. Yet though the sinful felt to the depth
of their hearts His awful condemnation of their sins, they felt that
in assenting to that condemnation there was hope. To them, as opposed
to their sins, He was winning, condescending, loving. He received
sinners, and in His company they sinned no more.

Thus it is that in the Christian religion everything comes back to
Christ and to the imitation of Christ. He is the pattern of those
simple and hardy virtues, industry and steadfastness. He wrought at
his trade in Nazareth till the hour came for Him to enter on His
supreme vocation; who can undervalue the possibilities of goodness in
the lives of men who work with quietness and eat their own bread, that
remembers it was over a village carpenter the heavenly voice sounded,
"This is My beloved Son"? Christ is the pattern also for Christian
discipline in its treatment of the erring. No sinner could feel
himself, in his sin, in communion with Christ: the Holy One
instinctively withdrew from him, and he felt he was alone. No offender
had his offence simply condoned by Jesus: the forgiveness of sins
which He bestows includes condemnation as well as remission; it is
wrought in one piece out of His mercy and His judgment. But neither,
again, did any offender, who bowed to Christ's judgment, and suffered
it to condemn him, find himself excluded from His mercy. The Holy One
was the sinner's friend. Those whom He at first repelled were
irresistibly drawn to Him. They began, like Peter, with "Depart from
me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord"; they ended, like him, with "Lord,
to whom shall we go?" This, I say, is the pattern which is set before
us, for the discipline of the erring. This includes reserve,
admonition, love, and much more. If there be any other commandment, it
is summarily comprehended in this word, "Follow Me."

[29] _Cf._ 1 Tim. v. 13: "And withal they learn also to be idle, going
about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and
busybodies, speaking things which they ought not."




VIII.

_FAREWELL._


 "Now the Lord of peace Himself give you peace at all times in all
 ways. The Lord be with you all.

 "The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in
 every epistle: so I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
 you all."--2 THESS. iii. 16-18 (R.V.).

The first verse of this short passage is taken by some as in close
connection with what goes before. In the exercise of Christian
discipline, such as it has been described by the Apostle, there may be
occasions of friction or even of conflict in the Church; it is this
which he would obviate by the prayer, "The Lord of peace Himself give
you peace always." The contrast is somewhat forced and disproportioned;
and it is certainly better to take this prayer, standing as it does at
the close of the letter, in the very widest sense. Not merely freedom
from strife, but peace in its largest Christian meaning, is the burden
of his petition.

The Lord of peace Himself is Christ. He is the Author and Originator
of all that goes by that name in the Christian communion. The word
"peace" was not, indeed, a new one; but it had been baptized into
Christ, like many another, and become a new creation. Newman said that
when he passed out of the Church of England into the Church of Rome,
all the Christian ideas, were so to speak, magnified; everything
appeared on a vaster scale. This is a very good description, at all
events, of what one sees on passing from natural morality to the New
Testament, from writers so great even as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius
to the Apostles. All the moral and spiritual ideas are magnified--sin,
holiness, peace, repentance, love, hope, God, man, attain to new
dimensions. Peace, in particular, was freighted to a Christian with a
weight of meaning which no pagan could conceive. It brought to mind
what Christ had done for man, He who had made peace by the blood of
His Cross; it gave that assurance of God's love, that consciousness of
reconciliation, which alone goes to the bottom of the soul's unrest.
It brought to mind also what Christ had been. It recalled that life
which had faced all man's experience, and had borne through all a
heart untroubled by doubts of God's goodness. It recalled that solemn
bequest: "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you." In every
sense and in every way it was connected with Christ; it could neither
be conceived nor possessed apart from Him; He was Himself the Lord of
the Christian peace.

The Apostle shows his sense of the comprehensiveness of this blessing
by the adjuncts of his prayer. He asks the Lord to give it to the
Thessalonians uninterruptedly and in all the modes of its
manifestation. Peace may be lost. There may be times at which the
consciousness of reconciliation passes away, and the heart cannot
assure itself before God; these are the times in which we have somehow
lost Christ, and only through Him can we have our peace with God
restored. "Uninterruptedly" we must count upon Him for this first and
fundamental blessing; He is the Lord of Reconciling Love, whose blood
cleanses from all sin, and makes peace between earth and Heaven for
ever. Or there may be times at which the troubles and vexations of
life become too trying for us; and instead of peace within, we are
full of care and fear. What resource have we then but in Christ, and
in the love of God revealed to us in Him? His life is at once a
pattern and an inspiration; His great sacrifice is the assurance that
the love of God to man is immeasurable, and that all things work
together for good to them that love Him. When the Apostle prayed this
prayer, he no doubt thought of the life which lay before the
Thessalonians. He remembered the persecutions they had already
undergone at the hands of the Jews; the similar troubles that awaited
them; the grief of those who were mourning for their dead; the deeper
pain of those on whose hearts rushed suddenly, from time to time, the
memory of days and years wasted in sin; the moral perplexities that
were already rising among them,--he remembered all these things, and
because of them he prayed, "The Lord of peace Himself give you peace
at all times in every way." For there are many ways in which peace may
be possessed; as many ways as there are disquieting situations in
man's life. It may come as penitent trust in God's mercy; it may come
as composure in times of excitement and danger; as meekness and
patience under suffering; as hope when the world would despair; it may
come as unselfishness, and the power to think of others, because we
know God is taking thought for us,--as "a heart at leisure from
itself, to soothe and sympathise." All these are peace. Such peace as
this--so deep and so comprehensive, so reassuring and so
emancipating--is the gift of Christ alone. He can give it without
interruption; He can give it with virtues as manifold as the trials of
the life without or the life within.

Here, properly speaking, the letter ends. The Apostle has communicated
his mind to the Thessalonians as fully as their situation required;
and might end, as he did in the First Epistle, with his benediction.
But he remembers the unpleasant incident, mentioned in the beginning
of ch. ii., of a letter purporting to be from him, though not really
his; and he takes care to prevent such a mistake for the future. This
Epistle, like almost all the rest, had been written by some one to the
Apostle's dictation; but as a guarantee of genuineness, he closes it
with a line or two in his own hand. "The salutation of me Paul with
mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write." What
does "so I write" mean? Apparently, "You see the character of my
writing; it is a hand quite recognisable as mine; a few lines in this
hand will authenticate every letter that comes from me."

Perhaps "every letter" only means every one which he would afterwards
write to Thessalonica; certainly attention is not called in all the
Epistles to this autographic close. It is found in only two
others--1st Corinthians (xvi. 21) and Colossians (iv. 18)--exactly as
it stands here, "The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand"; in
others it may have been thought unnecessary, either because, like
Galatians, they were written throughout in his own hand; or, like 2nd
Corinthians and Philemon, were conveyed by persons equally known and
trusted by the Apostle and the recipients. The great Epistle to the
Romans, to judge from its various conclusions, seems to have been from
the very beginning a sort of circular letter; and the personal
character, made prominent by the autograph signature, was less in
place then. The same remark applies to the Epistle to the Ephesians.
As for the pastoral Epistles, to Timothy and Titus, they may have been
autographic throughout; in any case, neither Timothy nor Titus was
likely to be imposed upon by a letter falsely claiming to be Paul's.
They knew their master too well.

If it was possible to make a mistake in the Apostle's lifetime, and to
take as his an Epistle which he never wrote, is it impossible to be
similarly imposed upon now? Have we reasonable grounds for believing
that the thirteen Epistles in the New Testament, which bear his name
upon their front, really came from his hand? That is a question which
in the last hundred years, and especially in the last fifty, has been
examined with the amplest learning and the most minute and searching
care. Nothing that could possibly be alleged against the authenticity
of any of these Epistles, however destitute of plausibility, has been
kept back. The references to them in early Christian writers, their
reception in the early Church, the character of their contents, their
style, their vocabulary, their temper, their mutual relations, have
been the subject of the most thorough investigation. Nothing has ever
been more carefully tested than the historical judgment of the Church
in receiving them; and though it would be far from true to say that
there were no difficulties, or no divergence of opinion, it is the
simple truth that the consent of historical critics in the great
ecclesiastical tradition becomes more simple and decided. The Church
did not act at random in forming the apostolic canon. It exercised a
sound mind in embodying in the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour
the books which it did embody, and no other. Speaking of Paul in
particular, one ought to say that the only writings ascribed to him,
in regard to which there is any body of doubtful opinion, are the
Epistles to Timothy and Titus. Many seem to feel, in regard to these,
that they are on a lower key than the undoubtedly Pauline letters;
there is less spirit in them, less of the native originality of the
gospel, a nearer approach to moral commonplace; they are not unlike a
half-way house between the apostolic and the post-apostolic age. These
are very dubious grounds to go upon; they will impress different minds
very differently; and when we come to look at the outward evidence for
these letters, they are almost better attested, in early Christian
writers, than anything else in the New Testament. Their semi-legal
character, and the positive rules with which they abound, inferior as
they make them in intellectual and spiritual interest to high works of
inspiration like Romans and Colossians, seem to have enabled simple
Christian people to get hold of them, and to work them out in their
congregations and their homes. All that Paul wrote need not have been
on one level; and it is almost impossible to understand the authority
which these Epistles immediately and universally obtained, if they
were not what they claimed to be. Only a very accomplished scholar
could appreciate the historical arguments for and against them; yet I
do not think it is unfair to say that even here the traditional
opinion is in the way, not of being reversed, but of being confirmed.

The very existence of such questions, however, warns us against
mistaken estimates of Scripture. People sometimes say, if there be one
point uncertain, our Bible is gone. Well, there _are_ points
uncertain; there are points, too, in regard to which an ordinary
Christian can only have a kind of second-hand assurance; and this of
the genuineness of the pastoral Epistles is one. There is no doubt a
very good case to be made out for them by a scholar; but not a case
which makes doubt impossible. Yet our Bible is not taken away. The
uncertainty touches, at most, the merest fringe of apostolic teaching;
nothing that Paul thought of any consequence, or that is of any
consequence to us, but is abundantly unfolded in documents which are
beyond the reach of doubt. It is not the letter, even of the New
Testament, which quickens, but the Spirit; and the Spirit exerts its
power through these Christian documents as a whole, as it does through
no other documents in the world. When we are perplexed as to whether
an apostle wrote this or that, let us consider that the most important
books in the Bible--the Gospels and the Psalms--do not name their
authors at all. What in the Old Testament can compare with the
Psalter? Yet these sweet songs are practically anonymous. What can be
more certain than that the Gospels bring us into contact with a real
character--the Son of Man, the Saviour of sinners? Yet we know their
authors only through a tradition, a tradition indeed of weight and
unanimity that can hardly be over-estimated; but simply a tradition,
and not an inward mark such as Paul here sets on his letter for the
Thessalonians. "The Church's one Foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;"
as long as we are actually brought into connection with Him through
Scripture, we must be content to put up with the minor uncertainties
which are inseparable from a religion which has had a birth and a
history.

But to return to the text. The Epistle closes, as the Apostle's custom
is, with a benediction: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you all." Grace is pre-eminently a Pauline word; it is found alike in
the salutations with which Paul addresses his churches, and in the
benedictions with which he bids them farewell; it is the beginning and
the end of his gospel; the element in which Christians live, and move,
and have their being. He excludes no one from his blessing; not even
those who had been walking disorderly, and setting at nought the
tradition they had received from him; their need is the greatest of
all. If we had imagination enough to bring vividly before us the
condition of one of these early churches, we would see how much is
involved in a blessing like this, and what sublime confidence it
displays in the goodness and faithfulness of our Lord. The
Thessalonians, a few months ago, had been heathens; they had known
nothing of God and His Son; they were living still in the midst of a
heathen population, under the pressure of heathen influences both on
thought and conduct, beset by numberless temptations; and if they were
mindful of the country from which they had come forth, not without
opportunity to return. Paul would willingly have stayed with them to
be their pastor and teacher, their guide and their defender, but his
missionary calling made this impossible. After the merest introduction
to the gospel, and to the new life to which it calls those who receive
it, they had to be left to themselves. Who should keep them from
falling? Who should open their eyes to understand the ideal which the
Christian is summoned to work out in his life? Amid their many
enemies, where could they look for a sufficient and ever-present ally?
The Apostle answers these questions when he writes, "The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." Although he has left them, they
are not really alone. The free love of God, which visited them at
first uncalled, will be with them still, to perfect the work it has
begun. It will beset them behind and before; it will be a sun and a
shield to them, a light and a defence. In all their temptations, in
all their sufferings, in all their moral perplexities, in all their
despondencies, it will be sufficient for them. There is not any kind
of succour which a Christian needs which is not to be found in the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here, then, we bring to a close our study of the two earliest Epistles
of St. Paul. They have given us a picture of the primitive apostolic
preaching, and of the primitive Christian Church. That preaching
embodied revelations, and it was the acceptance of these revelations
that created the new society. The Apostle and his fellow-evangelists
came to Thessalonica telling of Jesus, who had died and risen again,
and who was about to return to judge the living and the dead. They
told of the impending wrath of God, that wrath which was revealed
already against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, and was to
be revealed in all its terrors when the Lord came. They preached Jesus
as the Deliverer from the coming wrath, and gathered, through faith in
Him, a Church living in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.
To an uninterested spectator, the work of Paul and his companions
would have seemed a very little thing; he would not have discovered
its originality and promise; he would hardly have counted upon its
permanence. In reality, it was the greatest and most original thing
ever seen in the world. That handful of men and women in Thessalonica
was a new phenomenon in history; life had attained to new dimensions
in them; it had heights and depths in it, a glory and a gloom, of
which the world had never dreamed before; all moral ideas were
magnified, as it were, a thousandfold; an intensity of moral life was
called into being, an ardent passion for goodness, a spiritual fear
and hope, which made them capable of all things. The immediate
effects, indeed, were not unmixed; in some minds not only was the
centre of gravity shifted, but the balance utterly upset; the future
and unseen became so real to them, or were asserted to be so real,
that the present and its duties were totally neglected. But with all
misapprehensions and moral disorders, there was a new experience; a
change so complete and profound that it can only be described as a new
creation. Possessed by Christian faith, the soul discovered new powers
and capacities; it could combine "much affliction" with "joy of the
Holy Ghost"; it could believe in inexorable judgment and in infinite
mercy; it could see into the depths of death and life; it could endure
suffering for Christ's sake with brave patience; it had been lost, but
had found itself again. The life that had once been low, dull, vile,
hopeless, uninteresting, became lofty, vast, intense. Old things had
passed away; behold, all things had become new.

The Church is much older now than when this Epistle was written; time
has taught her many things; Christian men have learned to compose
their minds and to curb their imaginations; we do not lose our heads
nowadays, and neglect our common duties, in dreaming on the world to
come. Let us say that this is gain; and can we say further that we
have lost nothing which goes some way to counterbalance it? Are the
new things of the gospel as real to us, and as commanding in their
originality, as they were at the first? Do the revelations which are
the sum and substance of the gospel message, the warp and woof of
apostolic preaching, bulk in our minds as they bulk in this letter? Do
they enlarge our thoughts, widen our spiritual horizon, lift to their
own high level, and expand to their own scale, our ideas about God and
man, life and death, sin and holiness, things visible and invisible?
Are we deeply impressed by the coming wrath and by the glory of
Christ? Have we entered into the liberty of those whom the revelation
of the world to come enabled to emancipate themselves from this? These
are the questions that rise in our minds as we try to reproduce the
experience of an early Christian church. In those days, everything was
of inspiration; now, so much is of routine. The words that thrilled
the soul then have become trite and inexpressive; the ideas that gave
new life to thought appear worn and commonplace. But that is only
because we dwell on the surface of them, and keep their real import at
a distance from the mind. Let us accept the apostolic message in all
its simplicity and compass; let us believe, and not merely say or
imagine we believe, that there is a life beyond death, revealed in the
Resurrection, a judgment to come, a wrath of God, a heavenly glory;
let us believe in the infinite significance, and in the infinite
difference, of right and wrong, of holiness and sin; let us realise
the love of Christ, who died for our sins, who calls us to fellowship
with God, who is our Deliverer from the coming wrath; let these truths
fill, inspire, and dominate our minds, and for us, too, faith in
Christ will be a passing from death unto life.




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End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expositor's Bible: The Epistles to
the Thessalonians, by James Denney

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