for they themselves relate concerning us what entering in we had to you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God,
Paul did not have to advertise what happened in Thessalonica. Other people were already telling the story — how the Thessalonians received him, and how they turned to God from idols.
Onlookers who never heard Paul preach could see his message in the people who believed it.
Paul's presence caused trouble in the world, among the people he passed through. These Thessalonians displayed the power of the hope, and that made the trouble greater. Paul could point to what people saw in them as the very sum and substance of his own teaching. That is where the power of his presenting the truth lay.
The wording is exact: they turned to God from idols, not from idols to God. Commentators press this order, because it explains where a person finds the power to let go.
You tell a sinner to give up his sins, to turn from this and that sin, and he hesitates; he does not have the power to do it. You set God before him, and the claims of His grace. If the word takes hold of him and he turns to the living God, he will turn away from sin. That is the difference. It is not turning from sin to God, but to God from sin. There is power in that.
So this was not a protest movement against false religion, and not the swapping of one deity for another.
They had given up objects they could see for One they had never seen... It was not a change of gods, but the finding of God for the first time... Notice the language — "they turned to God from idols." A simple negative was not what occupied them. They did not merely take up a position of protesting against error. Their hearts were taken up with something positive — they turned to God from idols.
The Thessalonians left real statues behind. But an idol can be far more than a statue, and this verse doubles as a definition of conversion.
"You turned to God from idols." Here we have a Scriptural definition of conversion. It is not only a turning. It is a turning to God, and therefore from idols. Idols are not only the ugly images that idol-worshippers honour and fear. An idol is anything, elegant or ugly, that takes over the place in a person's heart which belongs by right to God alone — the place of supreme rule. Idols are in front of the face of every fallen sinner, charming his heart, and God is behind his back. Conversion happens — and look, God is before his face and idols are behind his back!
One danger remains: a compromise that keeps the old objects under new names.
Satan has a great aim: to combine the world with God, and to allow the flesh while claiming the Spirit. The end of it is to fall under his delusions while professing Christ. You see the opposite of all this confusion in the entrance the apostle had among the Thessalonians. You see it in the complete break made for their souls from everything opposed to God... They turned to God from their idols instead of giving them Christian names and mocking Him. They served not forms or doctrines or institutions, but a living and true God.
Turning is one word here, but it covers the whole person and a new object for the heart.
Here, in Thessalonica, these souls were brought out to serve the living and true God. The whole man turned to God — a completely new state from beginning to end. This is not merely relief for the conscience. It is God Himself in Christ becoming the object before the soul. This is the full meaning of conversion, as we have it in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10. A man is turned round to God. There is repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Two words describe the God they now served: living, and true. Both stand against what they had left.
What a contrast between the living God and the idols they had served. He was a God deeply interested in them. They could turn to Him at any time. They knew His ear heard their prayers, and His eyes took notice of everything they were going through. He was a true God — true in contrast to everything false. He was true also in being perfectly reliable, open and fully revealed.
Serving God did not mean a change of career.
I do not think these Thessalonians acted in some special way. I do not think they gave up their calling in life and threw themselves exclusively into spreading the gospel... The letter implies that they went on with their work, in their usual occupation. They stayed in the place and circumstances they had been brought up in — only now they worked for their God above. They had found a living and true God, and they had found out how to serve Him in the middle of their ordinary duties.
- Reported — the change was so plain that others told the story for Paul. What people saw in the Thessalonians was his teaching made visible.
- Turned — the movement is to God first; set God before a person and the idols fall away behind his back.
- From — an idol is anything, ugly or elegant, that takes the place in the heart belonging to God alone.
- Whole — conversion in full is not just a quieted conscience. It is God Himself in Christ as the new object of the soul, with no old gods renamed and kept.
- Serve — the living God hears, and He is reliable. You serve Him in the same job, home and town where you already stood.
and to await his Son from the heavens, whom he raised from among the dead, Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath.
The Thessalonians turned from idols to serve God. Now Paul shows what they wait for: a Person, raised from the dead, who rescues them from a wrath still to come.
How often does the New Testament mention the Lord's coming? Darby thought counting was the wrong measure.
Some people have taken the trouble to count how many times it occurs. But my point is not merely this. It is so bound up with every part of Christian life that if you take it out, you take away what gives the whole Christian life its character. Take conversion: people say, what has that to do with the Lord's coming? That is part of what they were converted to: "to wait for God's Son from heaven."
What they awaited was not an event on a calendar but someone.
Here it is the object itself that is presented, the Person of the Lord. God's own Son will come, and will satisfy all the heart's desire. This is neither His kingdom, nor the judgment, nor even rest. It is the Son of God. And this Son of God is Jesus, risen from among the dead, who has delivered us from the wrath to come. For wrath is coming. Each believer therefore expects the Son of God for himself — expects Him from heaven.
That rules out several substitutes people put in Christ's place.
Notice, it is not signs they looked for, but Christ. Not some remarkable events still to happen on earth. Not some special feeling to come over them, but the Lord Himself. Not death or judgment, but the Saviour Himself coming to change their bodies and carry them to glory.
If the Son is coming from heaven, then nothing on earth is worth waiting for.
Besides this new source and centre for the present, there is something else to wait for. It gives this blessing its form and character: "waiting for His Son from heaven." What an extraordinary thing to do! Waiting for God's Son! That is, all our hopes are right outside this world. Do not expect anything from earth. Look for something from heaven — and that something is God's Son Himself.
An older English translation put this rescue in the past tense. The verb in fact looks forward.
It is God's Son who is coming, and He comes from the heavens where He is now seated. His name is Jesus, and we know Him as our Deliverer from the coming wrath. The verb is not in the past tense — "delivered" — as in our Authorised Version. It is rather, "Jesus, who delivers us," or "Jesus, our Deliverer." The point is that Jesus who is coming from heaven will deliver us from the wrath that is coming.
There is a striking turn here. The Judge and the Deliverer are the same Person.
From that wrath to come we have a deliverer, even Jesus, the one who will carry out that wrath. Him we await from heaven. Blessed hope of our souls!
Does this mean God's judgments on the earth, or His judgment in eternity? The word is used in more than one way.
Again and again both Testaments use the word wrath for the heavy judgments of God that are coming on this earth. We do not deny for a moment that several New Testament passages widen its meaning. There it takes in the penal judgment of God, which stretches out into eternity. Still, the main use of the word is the one we have given, as anyone who reads the book of Revelation with care can see.
This wrath falls on more than individual people.
There is a wrath to come to get out of. Not only was man to be judged, but the whole scene is to be judged. When Christ returns to this earth, it will be to judge it. They knew wrath was coming, but they had nothing to do with it. Those who were looking for Christ were entirely delivered from the wrath to come.
The resurrection settles how they wait.
They turned to God from their idols instead of giving them Christian names and mocking Him. They served no forms or doctrines or institutions, but a living and true God. And they awaited His Son from the heavens, not as a dreaded and awful Judge, but as their Deliverer from the coming wrath. He is the One God raised from the dead — the pledge of their justification and the pattern of the new life in which they lived to God by faith in Him.
- Turned — waiting for God's Son was not advanced teaching for mature believers. It was part of what these new believers turned to God for.
- Raised — the resurrection of Jesus is the pledge that the coming One is a Deliverer and not a dreaded Judge.
- Delivers — the tense points forward. Jesus is coming from heaven, and He will take His own out of the coming wrath.
- Awaited — they looked for a Person, not for signs, feelings, or even rest. Their hope lay right outside this world.
- Unafraid — the One who will carry out that judgment is the One believers look for. That is why His coming is a hope, not a terror.