Thessalonians 1

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

13 July 2012

                  Paul is asking the members of Thessalonians to remember (Thessalonians 1:3). They need to remember the basis or backbone of the heavenly intercession by Christ, which consists of two parts: His work of godly love and secondly, His obedience of faith while a human on earth and beyond. For the works of godly love, he is using a word that is not common for work = ergos, but the word kopos. In Classical Greek it had the meaning of toil, suffering or the like, a beating. It is the beating of godly love in the suffering of Christ that one must remember. Secondly, and connected to that, is His obedience until death, unquivering, unshaken, absolutely obedient without any blemish or spot. Truly the Lamb of God.

                  In Thessalonians 1:4 Paul is pointing out that we can only be the godly loved ones through God. The Greek is loaded with that meaning. Godly love is not possible without God. There is no substitute for it. This process is the election of the saints. To be elected is to be involved in the drama. It is to be placed in history in such a locality and in such a time as not to miss any aspects of this great process of all times.

Their gospel or good news did not become/generated in the Word alone, as important as the Word of God is, and without it no becoming could be imagined, but also in power [probably of miracles] since this is a supernatural event of no similarity on earth (1 Thessalonians 1:5). It was accompanied with the Holy Spirit as well and with the fullness of all wisdom. The Spirit is a teacher as well and leads people into the whole truth, truth that is not mystical but revealed in the Word of God but not always clearly understood by sinful, feeble humans. The Word, the miracle, the Holy Spirit and fullness of wisdom are the ingredients of the becoming of the good news or gospel. The Gospel is an event that is generated also in the listener or human grasping the meaning of what Christ did in His godly love. Understanding the process in heaven (1 Thessalonians 1:3) the process in us through these four aspects takes place (1 Thessalonians 1:5). There is no room here for the 1960-1980’s dichotomy of Spirit and the Word of God. There is no room here for the artificial polarity of “give me Jesus” not “doctrines”. As Edward Heppenstall so correctly saw in his Our High Priest, it is not an either-or but a both.

The gospel became a vital process (egenethemen) in them as they know comparingly (kathoos) the vital process in Paul, Timothy and Silvanus. The process was passed on from Paul and the preachers to the members of the Thessalonians church and now they also became passers-on of what they received (umin di’ humas).

                  The members of Thessalonians became imitators of Paul and the leaders and of Christ (1 Thessalonians 1:6). The Urbild becomes the Nachbild and finally the Vorbild. From Christ to Paul to the members. As Richard Davidson said in this dissertation on Typology page 160 citing Goppelt: “The more a life is moulded by the word, the more it becomes a typos, a model or mold [prägendes Vorbild]”.

                  They were receivers (the right hand, but also a reservoirs) of the Word in much tribulation with the grace of the Holy Spirit. The Word filled up their mental tank like a reservoir (dexamenoi).

                  This process happened to them so that they could be a type to all the believers in Macedonia and in the Achean (1 Thessalonians 1:7). Paul says that from these members that followed the example of Paul which Paul followed of Christ, the Word of the Lord went out not only in Macedonia and in Achean but in every place your faith which has gone forth towards God (1 Thessalonians 1:8). Then Paul used a phrase that is very important. “So that we have no need of saying anything” (1 Thessalonians 1:8). The principle here is that what is not necessary to be said, is not. It means that absence of information does not mean information of absence. 0% information can mean 100% information. The fact that we read on this side of the tunnel 0% information is not a security that they on that side of the tunnel in the past had also 0% information. They may have had 100% information.

                  Paul recall the reports that came from other members who were the observers how the Thessalonians turned from the worship of idols to worshipping the true and living God (1 Thessalonians 1:9).

                  Not only did they begin to worship the living God, but they are waiting Adventists, expecting the coming of His Son from heaven (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Although the Spirit of God is here, the Son is in heaven and thus the Trinity doctrine is a reality, not just mathematical games. Jesus was raised from the dead by the Father and Christ is the One who delivers us from the Wrath to come (ek tes orges tes ergomenes) (1 Thessalonians 1:10). The doctrine is here very clear. Hell is to come and does not exist now. The Wrath is the Day of the Lord or the Executive Judgment and that is still future. There is no place of fire or punishment that people go to after they die.