knowing, brethren beloved by God, your election.
Paul calls the Thessalonians loved by God, and says he knows God has chosen them. How could he be sure of that about people he had preached to for only three Sabbath days?
The title carries comfort for believers under attack, and Paul gave it to no other church:
The assurance of being "beloved in God the Father," or "beloved by God the Father," has special value. Suppose I am a young man, very young in the faith. I am facing the world's persecution and the hatred of men. What a comfort it is to know that I am beloved in God the Father! This is how the apostle Paul addressed the Thessalonians as a company. They are the only ones he ever addressed in this way. Most of the other assemblies met persecution gradually. These believers had it from the very start, from their conversion.
Paul read no hidden register of names. His certainty ran the other way — from what he could see back to God's choice:
He stood up in the synagogue at Thessalonica on those three Sabbath days. He could not have marked the back of each one who would believe before he began to preach. He had no private access to the Lamb's book of life. He did not know in advance the names of those God had chosen. Paul came to know it from the opposite direction. He saw the powerful way the gospel reached them, and the results the Spirit of God produced in them. So he had no doubt in his conclusion that God had chosen them.
One writer ties God's choice to His grace, then asks what proof others can see in us:
The God before whom this new life in Christ is lived is the God who chose the Thessalonians in His grace to be His children, beloved by Him. What proof of our election can others see, except the visible power of the life we have in Christ? And that life is kept up only by seeking to have a conscience in everything without offence toward God and men. To gather evidence for ourselves out of it is mere self-righteousness. It is also the unbelief that slights God's testimony to Christ and His work.
The order matters. Nobody comes to Christ by first proving he is elect:
We believe it is of the greatest importance for the anxious enquirer to know where he is called to stand when he looks at the cross of Christ. It is not the standpoint of election, but of conscious ruin. The grace of God meets him as a lost, dead, guilty sinner; not as an elect one. This is an unspeakable mercy. He knows he is a lost sinner. He cannot know he is elect until the gospel has come to him in power. … Paul preached to the Thessalonians as lost sinners. When the gospel had laid hold of them as lost, he could write to them as elect.
One writer gathers the marks from the verses around this one and turns them into questions for the reader:
Further marks of their election by God were these. The word of the Lord went out from them. They had turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven. Here were the proofs of their election by God. Beloved reader, can you say it is so with you? Has the gospel that Paul preached ever come with power to your soul? … Has God turned you from all the idols your heart once clung to?
Election is meant to settle believers, not to be preached at the unconverted:
Election has nothing to do with the sinner as such. The apostles never breathed a hint of it in any preaching on record, though they often referred to it to establish the faith of believers. Some unbalanced preachers of extreme views take it out of its setting in Scripture and force it on their unconverted hearers. As a rule, that is the only thing that makes it a difficulty in their minds.
Another writer puts it in one image:
Its true place, the place God appointed for it, is inside the house — to establish true believers. Instead, the enemy puts it outside the house, to trip up anxious enquirers.
- Loved first. Paul calls them loved by God. He addressed no other church this way, and it was what young believers under persecution needed to hear.
- Known backwards. Paul had no advance list of names. He saw the power of the gospel and the results the Spirit produced, and concluded that God had chosen them.
- Proved in life. The evidence was public: the word went out from them, idols left behind, the living God served, His Son awaited.
- Received as lost. Nobody comes to the cross as an elect person. Grace meets a ruined sinner, and only later can he be written to as chosen.
- Kept indoors. Election settles believers inside the house. It is not a stone to trip up anxious enquirers, and the apostles never preached it to the unconverted.
For our glad tidings were not with you in word only, but also in power, and in [the] Holy Spirit, and in much assurance; even as ye know what we were among you for your sakes
Paul has just told the Thessalonians that he knows they were chosen by God. This verse gives his reason: how the message reached them, and what the men who carried it were like. (Where the writers below say "much assurance," the ESV reads "with full conviction"; where they say "in word only," the ESV reads "not only in word.")
The verse opens with "because." It gives the evidence for the confidence Paul voiced a line earlier. One writer says what that confidence was not built on.
These things were clear and distinct in the Thessalonian believers. They led Paul to the confident conclusion that they were among God's elect. When he stood up in the synagogue at Thessalonica on those three Sabbath days, he could not have put a mark on the back of each one who would believe before he began to preach. He had no private access to the Lamb's book of life. He did not know in advance the names of those chosen by God. Paul's knowledge came from the opposite direction. He knew the powerful way the gospel had reached them. He saw the results the Spirit of God produced in them. So he had no doubt about his conclusion.
One writer traces the chain from the word itself to the assurance it produced.
The word had power in their heart — it came to them as the word of God. The Spirit Himself revealed Himself in it, giving the consciousness of His presence. The result was the full assurance of the truth in all its power, in all its reality.
Another writer explains what that power was, and what certainty it brought.
The power here is the "dynamite" of the gospel, an energy that produced decisive results. The Spirit of God was the living source of that power: supreme, divine, holy. "Much assurance" was the inevitable companion of this. No doubtfulness, no fears, no worries could remain in such an atmosphere. The apostle never gave souls the impression that God could truly save a person who might then be lost again. His gospel was one of certainty and "much assurance," and that was its effect on the Thessalonians.
Assurance is not the same as thinking something is probably true.
There must be unhesitating confidence in the things laid hold of; then there is power. If I say merely, "I suppose these things are true," this is not assurance. But they received the gospel "in much assurance." So they stood completely apart from the world. The world became their enemy.
The phrase "not only in word" leaves room for preaching that is correct and still stops short.
Sadly, there may be much correct gospel preaching. But too often it is "in word only." The power and work of the Holy Spirit are missing. One thing gives power to the preaching and leaves the Holy Spirit free to work: the consistent life of the preacher.
One writer traces the lack back to the man, not the method.
We may be sure that much of the shallowness of our work is the fruit of the shallowness of the workman. Where is the power? Where is the demonstration of the Spirit? Where is the "much assurance"?
The second half of the verse turns from the sermon to the preachers. Their conduct was part of the message.
The point to notice is that the life and walk of the apostle matched, and in fact embodied, his teaching. Surely this is the mark of a perfect servant! Nothing is sadder than the contradiction we often see between a witness's testimony and his life... The power of the Holy Spirit showed as much in his everyday life as in his preaching of the gospel of God's grace.
Read as a sequence, the verse sets out how these people passed from hearing to certainty.
Here we have the divine order of salvation. First, the message of the gospel is heard and believed. Then the Spirit of God shows His power in the conversion and the sealing of those who believed. The result is the full assurance of the truth in all its blessed power and reality... They were living witnesses of the power of the gospel they proclaimed. Their holy walk, their self-denial, their peace and quietness had its effect on the Thessalonian believers. They became imitators of the apostles.
- Word — the gospel came to them in words. The verse does not despise the word; it refuses to stop there.
- Power — the word reached the heart as the word of God, an energy that produced decisive results.
- Spirit — the Holy Spirit made Himself known in the message, and He is the living source of that power.
- Assurance — the outcome was certainty, not "I suppose these things are true." It left no room for fear of being saved and then lost.
- Life — the preachers' daily conduct embodied what they preached. From that whole chain Paul read back their election.