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.