Read 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9

The truth of eternal punishment is unpopular today. It is the ultimate conclusion of the reality of an ultimate authority (God) with an ultimate standard to which we are all held to account. There must be a reckoning for failing to meet the standard. Since our world does not want to be held accountable to God’s standard, they reject the idea of eternal punishment in Hell. The seemingly unloving nature of Hell is also something believers seek to shy away from.

We cannot shy away from what the Bible teaches, even when it makes us uneasy. Hell is a terrible reality. The eternal punishment of hell is terrible, because of its nature and its duration. It is terrible, but it is ultimately just, because it is the sentence pronounced by an infinitely holy and just God.

In the previous opening verses of 2 Thessalonians, Paul taught that everyone will stand before God to receive his righteous judgement. All will give account for their acts, and for their treatment of those God has saved through repenting and believing the Gospel.

For those who refuse to repent; who “do not know God and … do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (v.8) will be the just and righteous outcome for their unbelief and unrighteous rebellion against God.

“They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (v.9).

While it may seem it sometimes, we do not live in a Creation where there are no consequences. There are always consequences, felt now and later. Paul makes it clear that unbelief will be met with punishment from God.

It is simply untrue to suggest that everyone will ultimately escape punishment. God is certainly a loving God, but not to the exclusion of his other attributes like justice and anger at sin! As Hebrews 9:27 points out, “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment”. There are no second chances. Jesus warned the Jewish leaders “unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins” (John 8:24).

That punishment is described as “eternal destruction”. Some people teach that destruction means a form of annihilation, similar to how a destroyed building is a pile of rubble. But destruction used here does not refer so much to pulverisation as it does to the loss of everything worthwhile. An analogy might be in the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon, which left nothing of worth in the city especially compared to God’s blessing in the days of David and Solomon.

This eternal destruction being an ongoing loss and punishment is also in keeping with Jesus’ teaching on eternal punishment. For instance, Jesus says in Matthew 25:46 that the unrighteous “will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life”. Eternal punishment is the opposite of eternal life.

This also explains the phrase that Hell is “away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” which seems to conflict with God’s everywhere-present nature. God’s presence and glory is a comfort for believers (cf. Num. 6:24-26). Being away from God’s presence in the Old Testament was a ritualistic cutting off from the blessings of God and instead being an object of God’s wrath.

Ironically, those who want nothing to do with God in this life get their wish in the next, but not as they would like it. Separated entirely from God’s love (expressed to all through his common grace, and to believers additionally by God’s saving grace), they instead experience the full impact of God’s anger at their sin. Instead of the light of God, only “the outer darkness… [where] there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12).

The terrible reality of these verses, and others in Scripture which speak of eternal punishment (many of which we have not touched), should awaken us to the terrible reality of sin. We all tend to downplay our sin, or that of those we care for, but God does not. If we view eternal punishment as unfair or unjust, it suggests that we do not fully realise just how terrible our sin is to an infinitely holy and just God.

The terrible reality of hell should serve as a warning for the consequences of unforgiven sin. And even though, in Christ, our sins are forgiven, it shows us how deeply offensive to our adoptive father our sins are – so why do we continue sinning so?

And the terrible reality of hell should spur us to a desire for the lost. We proclaim the gospel so that others too might escape the coming judgement, and instead repent of their sins and give thanks to a loving and merciful God.

Because the terrible reality of hell should also throw us at God’s feet in thanks for his great mercy. Apart from God’s great saving love shown to us through Jesus, this would be our fate too. Thanks to Christ, we receive the blessings of eternal life.

Read 2 Thessalonians 1:5-8

“Judge not!” may be the most popular incomplete and incorrect quotation of Scripture by modern Westerners today. Our culture does not like the idea of judgement, and emphasises love and tolerance over it. In fact, they can be very judgemental about the whole thing! The cultural concept of a god, if one is acknowledged, is of a completely non-judgemental being. Not the God of the Bible.

Because while the God who reveals himself in his Word is indeed the most loving being that exists, God also is one who is fully and completely just, and will bring righteous judgement upon all who do not repent and believe. This view may not be popular with the world, and may bring us exclusion or persecution, just as the Thessalonians were afflicted and persecuted. But as Paul asserts in 2 Thessalonians, all will stand before God’s throne to give account and receive judgement.

Paul’s second letter to the church at Thessalonica opened with thanksgiving and boasting over the Thessalonian church’s faithfulness. This faithfulness was despite the various afflictions and persecutions they were enduring. The Thessalonians were growing in their faith and love, and this growth gave them the strength to endure.

This growth in faith and love, in the not-so-loving context of afflictions and persecution, was evidence that they were believers. “This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering” (v.5) Paul stated.

God was not punishing the Thessalonians through afflictions and persecution. Their lives of faithfulness and love in the face of affliction was evidence that God’s judgement was right. Instead, God had judged them righteously as deserving of membership in God’s eternal kingdom. It was because of their membership in the Kingdom that they were suffering. Their membership in God’s kingdom did not exempt them from suffering.

In other words, their status as believers marked them out as targets by the unbelieving world for affliction and persecution. They were “enemy combatants” and treated accordingly by the world, even though they showed love and care for the unbelieving world surrounding them.

But would the world get away with its mistreatment of the Thessalonian believers? No, they would not, “since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you” (v.6). Here, Paul states that God is a proponent of divine retribution for sin. 

God’s righteous judgement includes vindication and justice for the citizens of his kingdom for the unjust treatment they received at the hands of an unbelieving world. Yet while we might prefer that this judgement occurs at the time of affliction, God works to his own timetable.

God will “grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (vv.7-8).

The day of vindication and relief for believers will be the day of Jesus’ return to judge the living and the dead. That point will be the one when believers will finally be relieved of their afflictions, and unbelievers will finally receive God’s vengeance for their sin.

This will not be a quiet appearing but a dramatic one, arriving with his angels in flaming fire. There will be no mistaking Jesus’ appearing, nor the reason he has returned.

While some may try and argue that they were not given a chance to change their ways, this judgement will also be shown to be entirely just. It is not arbitrary but based on rejecting God’s standard of righteousness. And it is not for lack of opportunity, but for rejecting God and the opportunity to repent and rely on the Gospel to escape the coming fire.

As with other passages which deal with judgement and Christ’s return, these verses are meant as an encouragement for us to persevere and endure.

The afflictions and persecution we may face are not God’s punishment, but are evidence that we are loved by him and members of his kingdom. We have passed through judgement by the power of the Gospel to enjoy God’s favour, not his anger. If we were not loved by God, those who oppose God would not attack us.

They are also afflictions which will end. Justice will be done at Jesus’ return. Evildoers will not get away with it. They will face God’s righteous judgement.

By knowing God as revealed in Christ and in God’s Word, and in resting in God’s Gospel, others may escape God’s righteous judgement, poured out on Jesus on our behalf, and theirs too. This is the one great decision for every person – whether to open your heart to God and embrace the forgiveness he supplies, or reject him and receive God’s righteous judgement in vengeance for sin.

In God’s righteous judgement, there are still many today who will escape God’s vengeance at Christ’s return through repenting and believing the Gospel.

Are you one of them?

Read 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4

What makes a successful church? Is it a large number of people attending every week? A massive budget? A good looking church building? Lots of programmes and activities? That sounds more like a business than a church. Paul would not likely consider those marks of a successful church.

What then would Paul consider a successful church? Thankfully we have an answer in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonian Church. Paul’s idea of a church that is successful, one that he liked to boast about to other churches, is one where its members grow in faith and love. That growth equips them for God’s service, and allows them to ensure hardship.

Paul’s second letter to the church at Thessalonica continues developing themes which Paul and the congregation there discussed in his first letter. It was likely written around 51AD, within a relatively short period after his first letter.

Paul’s opening to the congregation there is extremely similar to his greeting in his first letter. “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (vv.1-2).

As in Paul’s first letter, he also greeted them on behalf of his missionary companions Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy. However, in 2 Thessalonians Paul speaks of God as not just the Father of Jesus, but as our Father. In the same way, the source of grace and peace is explicitly said to be from both the Father and Jesus.

In these verses, Paul reminded the Thessalonians that as believers they were adopted into God’s family. The Father was not just the Son’s father, but was their father by adoption too. They too were children of God.

Secondly, the source of God’s favour and peace was not just Jesus, who had purchased it on their behalf by his life of perfect obedience and his perfect sacrifice, but God the Father who sent the Son on this saving mission.

Grace and peace flow to his children, through Jesus Christ. This flow comes from their faith, which unites them to Christ and makes them God’s beloved children by adoption.

Paul then spoke of how he ought always to give thanks to God because “your faith is growing abundantly” (v.3). Their faith was not stagnant, nor was it wilting and shrinking, but growing more and more, like the camellia in our front garden which this summer finally decided to take off.

Secondly, Paul spoke of giving thanks to God because “the love of every one of you for one another is increasing” (v.3). The Thessalonians were more than just club members, they were family. In the same way we encourage our children to demonstrate love and care towards each other, so too they should love each other more as siblings in God’s household.

That they were doing so was an indication of the Holy Spirit at work in their lives. God as the true source or proper, ordered love, was working in them to help them love each other more, just as the Holy Spirit was working in their lives to grow their faith.

This growth in faith and love was important. It gave them “steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring” (v.4). When the difficulties of life came upon them, as it always does, they did not wilt and wither but trusted in God’s goodness and relied on it to carry them through.

It was this steadfastness and faith in the face of troubles which caused Paul, Silas, and Timothy to “boast about you in the churches of God” (v.4) as an example to them and to give glory to God. Not buildings, bodies, and budgets.

The same is true for the church today. We are tempted to fall into our modern, economic and consumer-minded ways and assume that successful churches have large facilities, great numbers of attendees, or massive annual budgets. While these things can be a blessing to a congregation of God’s people, and those in that position should constantly thank God and consider how to glorify God with those resources, what makes a church successful is actually how it relates to God and to each other – God’s adopted children.

Any church, big or small in resources and people, is a successful church if it is one which encourages growing in faith and in love for one another. These churches do that which pleases God – worship and glorify him, in good times and bad – and that is what we ought to do. That is what caused Paul the apostle to boast in his day, and should encourage us in ours.

Paul’s encouragement towards growth in faith in love tells us what is important. That we do the same. Through dwelling in God’s Word daily, through prayer and renewed trust each day, and through loving each other. As we trust God our Father more, our faith and love will grow, and we will be strengthened to endure difficulties, steadfast in Jesus Christ.