1 Thessalonians 5:8–9

As sons of day, they already belonged to the day of glory, and its light filled their hearts with radiant hope… They were told to be clear and open in motive and in movement, alert, and marked by self-control and wakeful activity.

Third, we are urged to be sober. The opposite is the state pictured by drunkenness, which brings a man under an evil influence. We must take care that we never come under the intoxicating influences of the world. Toward Christ and His day, we are to watch. Toward the world, we are to be sober.

So the believer is called to be armed as well as watchful and sober. But the weapons here are not for attack. They are for defence only, since it was young Christians who were being addressed. They are the three marks of their life here below: faith, love, and hope.

The breastplate covered and protected the vital organs. It covered the heart, the centre of life and the seat of the affections. It also covered the breathing organs, which supply the breath the life of faith needs… The helmet, peri-kephale, means literally "round the head," not just "on" it. It is the hope of salvation. It covers and protects the mind from the wanderings of human wisdom and from the dark, subtle suggestions of Satan.

To escape the world of sight we need faith, for faith is not ruled by sight. It lives in the light of what is unseen. To escape the lust of the world, love must rule us. To escape the world's empty plans for the future, with their trapping prospects and empty hopes, we need "the hope of salvation".

But have you thought it through, my soul? Our "helmet" is a salvation we know we have. It is much more than merely hoping to be saved at last. The enemy would soon knock a helmet like that off your head. Is it not right, then, to hope for salvation? True — but in 1 Thessalonians 5 the apostle is speaking of the hope of the Lord's coming, not of our forgiveness and acceptance.

Two things can be seen here. The "putting on" means clothing ourselves inwardly, so faith, love, and hope are to be the marks of our spiritual life… Salvation is used here in its full and complete sense. It includes the resurrection of the body, and being for ever with the Lord… That assurance makes us fearless, whatever dangers we have to meet, for this is a helmet no weapon of the enemy can pierce.

In Ephesians we are in conflict with enemies… So there the breastplate is practical righteousness, which we must have if we are to fight Satan successfully… In Thessalonians the armour is one part of our life with God, seen in its final result as a matter of hope. It is the active energy of that life with God in faith, love and hope, lived out in a sober walk among the dangers and enemies down here.

God has appointed the Christ-rejecting world to wrath, when He will pour out the bowls of His judgment on the earth. We find the details of that solemn time in the book of Revelation. He has appointed us, however, to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. God's appointments are always kept on time. They never fail. Wrath for the world and salvation for the saints are alike sure.

Much depends on how we understand the words "the wrath to come." What is this? The popular explanation is hell, the lake of fire. That will be the doom of all whose names are not found in the book of life, when the great white throne is set (Rev. 20:15). But look closely at 1 Thessalonians 5. It is true that God will cast all who have rejected His testimony in any age into the lake of fire. Even so, "the wrath to come" does not have that final outcome in view. It means instead the judgments God will pour out on this world in a future day — the wrath connected with the coming of the day of the Lord.

There is an immense difference between being appointed to afflictions and being appointed to wrath. The former is our lot, as we have seen; but, thank God, not the latter... There were then those who used the afflictions of the Thessalonians as an occasion to rob them of the Christian's hope, assuming that the afflictions were wrath poured out. That misrepresented the character of God's dealings with His children.

To sustain "faith," "love," and "hope," we need to grasp God's purpose for us. God has not appointed the believer to wrath but "for obtaining salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." Here salvation means the future, final, and complete deliverance from the world and its coming judgment.

The Holy Spirit of God had a clear purpose: to separate "the children of light and the children of day" in daily life from the confusion and utter godlessness around them. So in these words He reminds them of their glorious future: "God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation" — that is, of the body, since they already had the salvation of the soul — "by our Lord Jesus Christ."

"For God has not appointed us to wrath." Faith understands that love — what God wills, His mind concerning us. "But to obtain salvation." This is what we hope for. He speaks of salvation as the final deliverance "by our Lord Jesus Christ." He naturally adds, "who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep" — that is, we have died before His coming, or are alive then — "we should live together with Him." Death does not deprive us of this deliverance and glory, because Jesus died. Death became the means of obtaining them for us. He died for us, in our place, so that, whatever happens, we should live with Him.

In Thessalonians, salvation is from coming wrath. In the Son of God they had found a Deliverer; and God had not appointed them to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. For a helmet they were to have the hope of salvation — unlike the Ephesians, who were to put on the helmet of salvation, a salvation that was already theirs.