so that we ourselves make our boast in you in the assemblies of God for your endurance and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations, which ye are sustaining;
Paul tells other churches about the believers in Thessalonica. He does not boast about their size or their comfort. He boasts because they were under attack and had not broken. Two things stand out: what he singles out for praise, and what he leaves out.
Paul names their steadfastness and faith as the things worth telling other churches about. Other translations render that word "endurance" or "patience", as the writers quoted here do. One writer shows what this praise measures.
The very high praise of verse 3 was not mere flattery. Paul was impressed with how the Thessalonians were getting on, and he held them up to others as an example. In the first letter he had no need to speak about them (1 Thess. 1:8), but here there was a need. They had endurance and faith for, and in, persecutions and tribulations. He later wrote to the Colossians, wanting them strengthened for all endurance and patience (Col. 1:11). Here Paul equates the right handling of difficulty with living, praiseworthy Christianity. It isn't numerical growth. It isn't material prosperity. What Paul boasts in and publicises is Christ-like moral qualities shown in a time of difficulty.
The pressure was not a sign that something had gone wrong. It was what happens to a church where faith and love keep growing.
A church where faith was growing and love abounding would not, in that day or this, escape the attacks of Satan. So we learn they were going through persecutions and tribulations. Yet God allowed these trials to test their faith, for the proving of faith "works endurance" (James 1:3). With the Thessalonian believers, Satan's efforts did only one thing. They drew out their faith in Christ, their love for one another, and their endurance in trial. Such qualities stirred the apostle's thankfulness to God and let him boast about them in other churches.
In the first letter Paul praised their patience of hope. Here that phrase is gone. One writer explains why.
The patience of hope, which he mentioned in the first Epistle, is left out. The false teachers and alarmists had dimmed their hope. They wanted the Thessalonians to believe they were heading into all the tribulations of the day of the Lord. The persecutions and tribulations they endured disturbed them deeply. The suggestion was that these were the judgments of the day of the Lord. They looked more at what was happening to them than at the Lord.
The praise is genuine, and yet hope had slipped. Another writer names the danger in that.
To that degree decline had set in. We must not miss this. It is a healthy warning for our own souls, and a danger always present, even though the coming of the Lord is so much nearer now... Satan would use persecution and at the same time inject his favourite poison, discouragement. He wants to persuade saints to settle down in the world and become absorbed in it enough to lose all distinctive testimony.
Paul reads their tribulations as evidence of where they stood.
On the occasion of their sufferings for the gospel, he recognises their good standing in Christ, and finds in their tribulations evidence that they were really in the Christian position.
Verse 5 goes on to speak of being counted worthy of the kingdom. That word is easy to misread.
This worthiness, here or in Matthew, does not refer to standing before God; for the ground of forgiveness of sins and of acceptance with God is grace alone, never merit of any kind (Eph. 2:8). The point is not relationship but discipleship. And this must be pressed home: suffering for Christ's sake is a leading mark of a true follower of our Lord. To dodge the cross is to forfeit the title of a worthy witness for the Lord Jesus in the world. And the opposite is just as true. Patient courage under fiery trials for the name of Christ proclaims the unwavering loyalty that marks someone worthy of the devotion he professes to his Master.
Most readers will not face what Thessalonica faced. The trial takes another shape, but it calls for the same response.
In this country we may not have to face active persecution, but we shall still have tribulation. In a day of confusion and scattering among the people of God, the trials we meet come more often from the flesh showing itself in various forms inside the circle of God's people than from opposition outside. God allows such trials to produce endurance. Sadly, we too often miss the lesson God would teach us. We resent the trial instead, and repay evil for evil, insult for insult.
- Attack — a church where faith grows and love abounds becomes a target. The pressure showed health, not failure.
- Proving — God allowed the attacks to test their faith. The test drew out faith, love and endurance.
- Boasting — Paul told other churches about Christ-like qualities under difficulty, not size or prosperity. That is his measure of a thriving church.
- Missing — Paul drops "patience of hope." They were watching what was happening to them instead of watching for the Lord.
- Worthy — their suffering showed they were truly Christ's. Worthiness here is about discipleship, not about acceptance with God, which rests on grace alone.
a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, to the end that ye should be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for the sake of which ye also suffer;
Enemies hunted and harassed the believers in Thessalonica, and outsiders took that as proof God had left them. Paul reads it the other way: their patient endurance is a visible sign of God's righteous judgment, and of the kingdom they suffer for.
Their suffering pointed forward. It showed where they stood with God, and how He would deal with those who attacked them.
The persecutions the Thessalonians endured proved that they were "considered worthy of the kingdom of God." God's judgment would bring this into the open. It would also show what the persecutors had done.
Their pagan neighbours read the same suffering the opposite way.
God, whatever people might be, was righteous. Their pagan friends might point to their sufferings as proof that the gods were rightly angry — the gods whose altars they had left and whose worship they condemned. They might also taunt them that their God did nothing to help them. The apostle drew a very different conclusion, and he set it before them. Their sufferings proved that they were God's people. Rest would be their portion, along with Paul and God's other people then on earth, when God's judgment from heaven overtakes the godless in the world.
Does endurance buy a place in the kingdom? The answer separates two very different things.
This worthiness, here and in Matthew, is not about standing before God. Forgiveness of sins and acceptance with God rest on grace alone, never on merit of any kind (Eph. 2:8). The point is not relationship but discipleship. And suffering for Christ's sake is a prime mark of a true follower of our Lord. To shirk the cross is to forfeit the title of a worthy witness in the world for the Lord Jesus. And in the same way, to show patient endurance under fiery trials for the name of Christ is to proclaim the unswerving loyalty which marks one worthy of the devotion he professes to his Master.
If nothing is merited, why is the word "righteous" used at all? Because God is acknowledging what He Himself has worked.
He does not mean or say that suffering, any more than working, could give any title to acceptance from the Righteous God. Someone like Paul could never say such a thing. It was grace (as he says again to the Philippians) that gave them even to suffer for Christ's sake. But grace had righteous title to count them worthy. And to acknowledge what grace had produced in them was itself righteousness.
Bearing wrong patiently takes faith. And the pressure is doing something in them.
To bear wrongful suffering patiently takes faith in a righteous God. He will not always let evil go unchecked, but will judge at the proper time. God allows this persecution against His people now for their own good. It is a training that molds character. It produces in them a true submission to authority as subjects of the King, and so makes them "worthy of the kingdom of God." How thankful we ought to be for this wise way in which God secures for us the greatest good.
The "kingdom of God" here is not a vague word for heaven. Writers connect it to Christ's coming reign on earth — the reign they suffer for.
"The kingdom" implies Christ's coming to reign over the earth. In 1 Thess. 2:12 the apostle speaks of God calling to this, as an encouragement to walking worthily of God; and 2 Thess. 1 shows that the enemy used their persecutions and troubles to claim the day of the Lord had already come. Even before he clears away this delusion, the apostle treats their troubles the other way round. They are a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, "that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering."
The verse looks ahead to a reversal that has not yet happened, and that shapes what a Christian expects now.
Let us, dear fellow-Christians, clearly grasp that the kingdom of God must suffer. "Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." Soon the tables will be turned. The troubled shall rest, and the troublers be punished. God's kingdom shall triumph; man's shall perish. In the near future our calling is glory. Our present calling is to suffer in true and hearty sympathy with His kingdom and its rejected heavenly King — and may our God count us worthy of it.
- Token — Their suffering was not a sign of God's displeasure. It was proof that they were His people, and that judgment will fall the other way.
- Grace — Worthiness here is never merit; forgiveness and acceptance are by grace alone. The issue is discipleship, not relationship.
- Righteous — Grace gave them their suffering. Grace also has righteous title to own what it produced in them.
- Training — God permits the pressure as a school, forming subjects fit for the King they will live under.
- Reversal — The kingdom they suffer for is Christ's coming reign. When He appears, the troubled will rest and their persecutors will face judgment.
if at least [it is a] righteous thing with God to render tribulation to those that trouble you,
Paul writes to believers under persecution, and he grounds their comfort in the character of God Himself. Why tell them about the trouble coming on their enemies — and what does that say about the day they feared had already come?
The reversal Paul describes rests on who God is, and on the day He has already fixed.
No one can dispute this who believes that God is, and that He rewards those who seek Him out, and avenges all wrong against God and man. He is now dealing in grace. In that day He will judge the inhabited world in righteousness by the Man He has appointed. He has given assurance of this to all men by raising Him from the dead. What then will His attitude be toward those who persecute His children, and toward His children who suffered in this way? He will give trouble to those who troubled them, and rest to His now troubled children.
These believers feared the day of the Lord had already come. Paul answers by pointing at their own circumstances.
The "day of the Lord" was the coming of the Lord in judgment. But He was not coming to make His own suffer. He was coming to punish the wicked. So persecution could not be the day of the Lord. In persecution the wicked have the upper hand, do their own will, and make those whom the Lord loves suffer. Could that be His day! ... When God takes the matter in hand, He will repay trouble to those who troubled His children, and these will have rest — they will be in peace.
This repayment has a set time. Commentators separate it from the moment believers go to be with Christ.
The time of repayment is not when Jesus comes, but when He is revealed. For though at His coming the Church is caught up, there is nothing yet of a repaying character. It is favour, not a process of judgment. But the revelation and the day of the Lord are clearly linked with judgment. So there is the public award of God, made known to the world then for the first time.
If God is righteous, the present state of things cannot be His final word. The faithful are crushed while the cruel stay comfortable.
This truth matters greatly. It shows that we must wait for a future day for the final settlement of God's righteous government. God's righteousness is not fully seen in this life, either in rewarding those who do good or in judging those who do evil. Job's friends were wrong to argue that it is. Now the people of God often have to endure suffering while the wicked prosper. Yet in the world to come everything will be brought to a conclusion. Then men and angels will see that God has not forgotten the sufferings of His people through the ages, and was never indifferent to the violence and corruption of their enemies.
The word "you" in the verse names God's own people as the ones being afflicted.
The Lord is gathering His people for Himself, and at the same time He is noting their enemies. To touch them is to touch Him. And if the people are written down for blessing, their enemies are just as surely marked for judgment. The adversary may escape for a time, but his day is coming: "God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you." This may not be the highest motive for endurance in the present time, but it is one that God Himself has given.
This truth can go wrong in us. God has taken the repayment into His own hands, so the sufferer need not carry it in his own heart.
In this day of grace, the danger is of allowing a judicial spirit. It shows not only in our own minds, like the sons of Zebedee who would have called down fire from heaven to burn up their opponents, but also in how we read God's dealings with others, if not with ourselves. The apostle would have the saints bright in their worst troubles, looking forward with joy to the day of repayment. Then the sufferings of the saints will be swallowed up in their glorious rest.
- Righteous — The repayment is not God losing patience; it is God being right. He is now dealing in grace. In that day He will judge the world in righteousness through the Man He raised from the dead.
- Righteously reversed — The day of the Lord brings trouble to the troublers and rest to the troubled. So the persecution the Thessalonians suffered proved that day had not come.
- Righteously timed — The repayment belongs to the revelation of Christ, not to the moment the Church is caught up. That earlier moment is favour, with nothing of judgment in it.
- Righteously recorded — God has not forgotten one of His people's sufferings, nor overlooked one act of their enemies. The full settlement waits for a future day.
- Righteously left to Him — The account is His to close. So the suffering believer can be bright under the worst trouble, instead of nursing a judicial spirit.
and to you that are troubled repose with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven, with [the] angels of his power,
Paul writes to believers under persecution. His comfort is not that their trouble will soon end, but that the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven — and that day will bring them rest and bring their persecutors trouble.
The word behind "rest" carries a picture — a tight cord going slack.
The word anesis, from a verb meaning 'to loose', is more the relaxing of cords or bonds, or rest from tribulation. Felix ordered the centurion to let Paul have 'liberty' and that his friends might visit him. Acts 24:23. While Paul waited to hear how the Corinthians had taken his first letter, he had no 'rest' in his spirit until Titus arrived... He also speaks tenderly of the saints at Thessalonica passing out of their tribulation into 'rest' or 'repose' with him and others when the Lord Jesus is revealed.
Some read the verse as fixing the exact moment believers first get relief. Commentators here argue the word describes a condition, not a starting point.
The word can mean the time when relief comes, but it is used just as much for a state of ease, or even pleasure. Scripture never uses it for the moment relief from trial arrives. It always carries the general sense of a state of ease, the opposite of distress. The apostle's whole argument is this. The Lord Himself brings in that day. So when the day is here, it cannot be a day of distress for His people. Clearly it will be a day of distress for His enemies and for those who persecute them.
The Thessalonians feared their sufferings meant the day of the Lord had already arrived. The character of that day rules it out. That day reverses how things stand now.
They were now to learn that this could not be true. The very character of that day rules it out. It is a day of rest for the troubled saints, and of trouble paid back to their foes... This does not mean that saints may not go one by one to be with Christ in the meantime. Nor does it mean that He may not come first to gather us to Himself. But their rest, justly given, and the vengeance on their enemies stay out of public view until He is revealed in flaming fire...
Put simply, the two groups swap places:
Now it is the saints that are troubled, then it will be the world. Now the saints suffer at the world's hands; then the world will be punished by the Lord's hand.
Paul does not comfort them from outside the trouble. He was suffering too, and the rest he promises is rest shared with him. (Older translations read "rest with us" where the ESV has "as well as to us.")
While he was suffering the strongest persecutions, the thought of the appearing of Jesus came in as the time of rest. "Rest with us," says the apostle — rest for you who are troubled, "when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels." How could such a thought comfort the soul, if this hope of Jesus was not a real and present hope?
At His revelation the saints are not gathered to Christ. They arrive with Him. That order matters.
Now the saints were in trouble from these enemies. Then they will be at rest, and they will come with Him when He takes vengeance on those who troubled them. They will be with Him as His company, and like Him. So He must have called them up beforehand to be with Him, as other Scriptures show. "When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory" (Col. 3:4).
Angels were present at His first coming too. What changes is the work they come to do.
At His first coming He came in humility and grace. The angels announced the good news, and a great crowd of the heavenly hosts was there to celebrate His praise, and to announce blessing to man and glory to God. At His second coming He will be revealed in power. Again the angels of His might will be present, but this time to carry out judgment on a world that has rejected His grace.
- Rest defined. The word pictures loosened bonds and lifted pressure. It is a settled state of ease, not just the moment relief arrives.
- Rest reversed. Today the saints are troubled and the world is at ease. In that day the positions swap, and the world carries the trouble.
- Rest shared. Paul puts himself among the persecuted. For him the appearing of Jesus is a real and present hope.
- Rest revealed. This rest stays out of public view until Christ is unveiled from heaven. Commentators note that believers may be with Him before that, but they come with Him on that day.
- Rest enforced. The same angels who once announced good news to men come the second time to carry out His judgment.