Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Thessalonian 1:11
Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of [this] calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of [his] goodness, and the work of faith with power:
11. Wherefore also we pray always for you ] Rather, To which end also we pray always for you (comp. 1Th 1:2; 1Th 3:10), that our God may count you worthy of His calling. God was “calling” the Thessalonians “to His own kingdom and glory,” and calling them accordingly to the sanctification of their whole nature, such as would enable them to be presented faultless at the coming of Christ. All this we have learnt from the First Epistle (1Th 2:12; 1Th 4:3-8; 1Th 5:23-24). Now a third aspect of this calling is presented, which combines and completes the other two. The Thessalonian believers in Christ are called by the fruit and effect of their faith to crown their Saviour with glory. For that this is, in St Paul’s mind, the end of their calling is manifest both from 2Th 1:10 ; 2Th 1:12. To exhibit in oneself the honour and worth of the Lord Jesus so as to make others think more highly of Him, to add something to the splendour of His heavenly crown, is a privilege of which we may well pray “that God may count us worthy.”
For St Paul’s idea of Christian worthiness, comp. 2Th 1:5 ; 1Th 2:12; 1Th 3:13, and notes; also Luk 20:35; Rev 3:4, “They shall walk with Me in white; for they are worthy.”
and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power ] Lit., every good pleasure of goodness and work of faith in power. As much as to say, “May God mightily accomplish in you all that goodness would desire and that faith can effect.”
The “goodness,” like the “faith,” must be in the readers, since the two clauses are parallel not “ His (God’s) goodness,” therefore, as in the A. V. The Apostle afterwards tells the Romans how he is persuaded of them that they are “full of all goodness” (Rom 15:14). He thinks quite as highly of the Thessalonians, and believes that their desires are bent in the direction of Christ’s glory. Still he is not thinking of their goodness so much as of what goodness in itself, goodness as being goodness must approve and desire. His prayer resembles the Collect for the days of Easter Week: “That as by Thy special grace preventing us Thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by Thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect.”
For “work of faith” comp. 1Th 1:3 (note). Goodness holds to Faith a relation similar to that of Love; it is bonitas and benignitas, an active excellence of disposition. “Goodness,” the first “fruit of the Light” in Eph 5:9 (R. V.), accompanies Love, the first “fruit of the Spirit” in Gal 5:22.
“In power” belongs to the verb “fulfil,” denoting the manner and style of God’s working in believing men. See 1Th 1:5; also Col 1:29; Eph 3:20, for similar expressions.
The verb “fulfil” applies to will ( good pleasure) and work in not quite the same sense. To fulfil the former is to carry it into practice and effect; to fulfil the latter is to perfect what is already commenced.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wherefore also we pray always for you – See the notes, 1Th 1:2.
That our God would count you worthy of this calling. – Margin, or, vouchsafe. The meaning is, that he would regard you as worthy of this calling; see the notes on ver. 5. Of this calling; see the notes, Eph 4:1. The calling here, is that which had brought them into the kingdom, and led them to become Christians.
And fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness. – That is, make the work of salvation complete and effectual. Oldshausen has well expressed the sense: May God fill you with all that good which is pleasing to him. The thoughts in the passage are:
(1)That the purpose toward them on the part of God was one of goodness or benevolence;
(2)That there was a state of mind which would be regarded by him as pleasing, or as his good pleasure; and,
(3)That Paul wished that this might be accomplished in them. He desired that there might be in them everything which would be pleasing to God, and which his benevolence was fitted to secure.
And the work of faith – The work which faith is adapted to produce on the soul; see 1Jo 5:4-5.
With power – Effectually, completely. The apostle prays that so much power may be exerted as will be sufficient to secure the object. The work of religion on the soul is always represented in the Bible as one of power.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
2Th 1:11
That our God would count you worthy of this calling
Salvation the result of the pleasure of Gods goodness and His power
I.
It flows from the pleasure of Gods goodness. In the whole course of our salvation this is to be observed:
1. The coming of Christ (Luk 2:14).
2. The covenant of grace (Col 1:19-20).
3. The ministry (1Co 1:21).
4. The grace to embrace the covenant offered (Mat 11:26).
5. The blessings of the covenant.
(1) By the way (Deu 33:16),
(2) at the end of the journey (Luk 12:32).
II. It is accomplished by His almighty power. The power of God is necessary–
1. To bring us into a state of grace. Nothing but it can overcome mans obstinacy and change his heart (Job 14:4). The work is called a new creation (2Co 5:17; Eph 2:10; Eph 4:24), and creation is a work of omnipotence, whether physical or spiritual.
2. To maintain us in a state of grace. Here consider–
(1) The necessity of Gods power (1Pe 1:5). None but this Almighty Guardian can keep and preserve us by the way, that we may come safe to our journeys end (Act 17:28; Heb 13:21). Remember the adversaries (Gal 5:17; 1Pe 5:8); but remember the assurance (Mat 19:26).
(2) The sufficiency of this power (Jud 1:24).
(a) To enable for all duties (Php 4:18; Eph 3:16).
(b) To support in all trials (Deu 33:22).
(c) To resist all temptations (1Jn 4:4; Eph 6:10). (T. Manton, D. D.)
Worthiness of Divine calling
I. What is this calling? The Christian calling is holy (2Ti 1:9); heavenly (Heb 3:1). The one relates to the way, the other to the end; hence it is a calling to virtue and glory (2Pe 1:3). Both may be considered either as they are represented–
1. In the offer of the Word. There God is often set forth as calling us–
(1) From sin to holiness (1Th 4:7).
(2) From misery to happiness (1Pe 5:10).
2. As impressed upon us by the operation of the Spirit (Rom 1:7), by which we have a right to the heavenly blessedness (Heb 9:15).
II. What is it to be counted or made worthy of this calling? There is a threefold worthiness–
1. Of desert and proper merit (Rev 4:11). God deserves all that the creature can give Him, and infinitely more (Rev 5:12). The workman is worthy in this sense of His meat (Mat 10:10). When preachers are sustained by hearers, it is not our alms but a debt (1Ti 5:17). But it is not so between us and God (Gen 32:10).
2. Of meekness and suitableness (Col 1:10 : Eph 4:1). In this sense God makes us worthy when He makes us more holy and heavenly (1Th 2:12; Col 1:12). This meetness consists in–
(1) Holiness (1Pe 1:15). The calling–
(a) Puts a holy nature into us.
(b) Obliges us to live by a holy rule.
(c) Offers us a holy reward.
(d) And all to engage us to the service of a holy God, who will be sanctified to all who are near to Him. Therefore, to make His people such who were once sinners, He has appointed means (Gal 5:26) and providences (Heb 12:10), and all accomplished with the operation of the Holy Spirit (2Th 2:13).
(2) Heavenliness; for God, by inviting men, draws them off this world to a better. The more they obey His will, the more heavenly they are. It is heaven–
(a) They seek (Col 3:1-2).
(b) Hope for (1Pe 1:3).
(c) Count their portion (Mat 6:20-21).
(d) Their home and happiness (Heb 11:13).
(e) Their work and scope (Php 3:14).
(f) Their end, solace and support (2Co 4:18). Their course becomes their choice (Php 3:20).
3. Acceptance (Act 5:41), which notes liberality in the giver but no worth in the receiver (Luk 21:36; Rev 2:4).
III. This is an excellent benefit, and the mere fruit of Gods grace.
1. It is an excellent benefit. By this calling–
(1) Our natures are ennobled (2Pe 1:4; 2Co 3:18). Holiness is the beauty of God. His image impressed on us.
(2) We are brought into an estate wherein not only are we amenable to God, but He to us all Joh 3:1; Rom 1:6).
(3) We are under the special protection of God, so that things work together for good (Rom 8:28).
(4) We are admitted to ever-lasting blessedness (Eph 1:18; Php 3:14; 1Pe 3:9).
2. It is the fruit of Gods grace (Rom 9:11; 2Ti 1:9).
(1) For the beginning. He was pleased to call us at first. From what a state of sin and misery He called us (Col 1:21).
(2) For the progress. God that began the good work continues it (1Pe 5:10; 1Th 5:24).
(3) For the end. God must count us worthy to the last. Consider–
(a) The infinite disproportion between our best services and greatest sufferings and the promised glory (Rom 8:18).
(b) The imperfection of our best obedience (Isa 64:6).
(c) Our unprofitableness to God, who is above our injuries and benefits (Job 22:23; Job 35:7-8; Luk 17:10).
(d) The interruptions of our obedience (Jam 3:2; 1Jn 1:10).
Conclusion: Behave as a people called by God, because your calling is–
1. A peculiar favour (Eph 5:8).
2. A great honour (1Th 2:12).
3. A rich talent, faculty and power (2Pe 1:3).
4. A special trust (1Pe 2:9). (Ibid.)
Faith fulfilled
Let us conceive a chemist experimenting along a certain line, and presently beginning to suspect the existence of some great unknown law. He pursues his investigations. There are certain converging lines of evidence pointing to this conclusion. He stands on the verge of a great discovery. He multiplies experiments, and his suspicion becomes now a conviction–not a certainty. His mind has overleapt the interval and fastened upon the truth before the labouring processes of reason have verified it. This is faith. Nothing remains but to make the crowning experiment. All hangs on this, and we can conceive with what breathless interest he watches its development. It is successful, and a great tide of joy rushes in upon his soul that a new, great truth is born into the world, which shall forever live, bearing his name imprinted upon it. We, then, are in the condition of that chemist in the interval between the conviction and the making of the last experiment. We see lines of evidence leading up to God. Faith overleaps the interval and fastens upon the truth. The crowning experiment shall be made in eternity, when sight shall set the seal to faith, and give us the last conclusive evidence which shall forever silence question. We shall then leap all at once unto the full assurance of the things in which we believed. We shall have issued from the realm of faith into the serene everlasting certainty of heaven. (W. Sparrow.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
2Th 1:11-12
Wherefore also we pray always for you
The good pleasure of goodness
At the point where the intercession rises out of the text we see St.
Pauls manner of giving a devotional turn to every subject. He had been contemplating the glorification of God in the punishment of the wicked and the salvation of the saints. Whilst assuming that the Thessalonians were among the latter a change passes over his mind. The language of exultation becomes that of hope; and hope takes refuge in prayer–
I. That God may count them worthy of so high a dignity. Here he thinks only of the condescending grace that will confirm to the end a vocation resting only on an imputed worthiness. The call is one; but it may be viewed in a threefold gradation, and in each the honour is conferred on man as unworthy in himself but reckoned worthy through the grace of Christ.
1. The first call to salvation is altogether independent of our merit. The gospel invites all alike to an equal place in the Divine favour. The first summons to Gods presence where mercy awaits the vilest is a distinction of which we are reckoned worthy for Christs sake alone.
2. We are also called unto holiness, and those who are accepted and renewed are termed specifically the called. But their name and place among the saints depend upon the gracious imputation of the Divine tolerance. The saint is always and only reckoned to be holy, not because his holiness is unreal, but because with all his sanctity he is only a sinner saved by grace.
3. We are called by God to His kingdom and glory; but that the consummate issue of the Divine purpose will be as much the conferring of an undeserved distinction as the first acceptance was. Their sanctity will be their garment of righteousness, unspotted from the world; but the judgment of God, which never forgets though it forgives the past, will bear witness that that garment was once stained. Their good deeds will follow them, but so will their forgiven sins. Hence we see the appropriateness of the term as introducing the prayer. It gives to God the glory of the full and complete salvation it supplicates.
II. That He may also make them worthy.
1. The combination of imputed and imparted worthiness. These always go together. The enemies of justification say that God never reckons a man to be what he is not, which is true. The Divine grace mercifully waits while the process is going on, and God is always making His justified ones worthy of their justification. Nor will He present them faultless and crown them until their sanctification is complete. The imputation of worthiness is complete at once, but the infusion is gradual. The reckoning awaits awhile for the reality, which will surely come; and then will the counting and the making be merged into one.
2. Hence we must regard the two phrases employed as embracing the entire compass of religion. All the good pleasure of His goodness, etc., is one of those striking summaries in which the apostle delights to throw out his views of finished godliness. All that goodness can delight in and desire refers to the formation of a perfect character within; whilst the work of faith must include as the antithesis, all that the external duties of religion involve.
3. We must, however, mark more specifically the union of the Divine and human in the perfect holiness prayed for. Not that the Divine part is the pleasure of His goodness, and the human our work of faith. No such distinction is in the words. They speak of the complacency our own souls feel in goodness as a desire satisfied by God; and our work of faith as fulfilled in Divine power. Both and equally unite the two ever necessary elements.
(1) Take the former. The apostle uses terms which make no distinction between the Divine energy in us and our own. The delight our regenerate souls feel in all kinds and degrees of goodness is no other than a fruit of the Spirits renewing grace. It is the desire of God beating in our own hearts. The unregenerate may admire all excellencies, and yet sigh to think of them as an unattainable ideal; it is only the renewed soul that takes a tranquil delight in the thought of the attainment of these things. Abhorring that which is evil they cleave to that which is good; and thus delighting themselves in God, and aspiring after holiness, they have their hearts desire (Psa 21:2).
(2) Take the latter. The work of mans faith is his own work; but it is a work which God fulfils in us. Here again the prayer makes no distinction. Faith is mans acting in the strength of God. The Divine blessing does not simply assist and reward our efforts. When the dejected disciples said, Lord, increase our faith, Christ told them that their faith, nourished by devotion, should be a principle of Divine power working within, and accomplishing wonders possible only to God (Mat 17:20).
4. It remains to dwell upon the perfect attainment of worthiness during the present discipline of the Christian life. It is impossible to put too much strength into the words fulfil with power, which belong both to the external and internal life of grace. And whether we think of the power of God or the fulfilment in us, there is obvious no limit to attainment. What can be impracticable to that Power? And as for fulfil, that is a word always reserved for, very high service. The prayer is that God may accomplish in our hearts all that we desire, all that goodness finds congenial, all that we have set our heart on.
III. That He may crown imputed and imparted worthiness with glory (2Th 1:12). These words are an echo of 2Th 1:10.
1. The finished holiness of the saints, with every desire fulfilled and duty discharged, will redound to the glory of the name of Jesus. What they shall be He will have made them; and as the name of the Father is glorified in the Son, through the revelation of His redeeming Person and work, so the name of the Son is glorified in the saints in their full acceptance and sanctification through His atonement.
2. But we are also to be glorified in Him. The name is not now mentioned; because it is only through our most intimate union with Himself that we attain our supreme glorification. Here the prayer of the servant is like the prayer of the Master, but supplementing what He left unexpressed (Joh 17:24). When we remember all that is meant by being glorified in Him, we must needs feel persuaded that He whose name is thus spoken of is God. In God alone is the sphere of the creatures blessedness and glory. (W. B. Pope, D. D.)
Experimental Christianity
All the great principles of our common Christianity are stated in these verses by St. Paul, so far as the experience of believers is involved.
I. Christianity in its nature. It renders Christians worthy. While we guard against self-righteousness on the one hand, we should be careful against a mock humility on the other. There is a worthiness with which God is well pleased, and which is the blessed result of the working of Christianity in the soul (Col 1:9-10; Rev 3:4). Just as a tree is known by its fruits, so Christianity is known by the moral and spiritual effects it produces in those who profess it.
II. Christianity in its source. The good pleasure of His goodness. And this absolutely alone; for none could have merited it as system of restoration. In fact, there is no merit either in unfallen angel or unfallen man, much less in fallen creatures such as we are. Christianity, then, originated in the good pleasure of goodness, and that goodness was Divine.
III. Christianity in its activity. The work of faith. Faith is its active grace. This produces all religious affections, and this sustains all religious affections. It is as coal to the fire, as oil to the lamp.
IV. Christianity in its design. That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him. A double glorification–that of the Master, and that of His servant. What, has not Christ glory enough in heaven with His Father and the holy angels? If He has, can He receive glory from such creatures as His saints? Yes. The original signifies that He can be inglorified in His saints; that is, by something within them–by the gracious work he has wrought in them.
V. Christianity in its measure. According to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father and the Son are the givers of grace, and by their names being linked together we are to understand that they will give grace in all its fulness. There is more grace in them than there can be sin in us, or in the whole world. Some sinners are allowed to run mightily on the Divine score, to manifest that, though they are beggared, Divine grace is not. Grace always rises higher in its tide than sin, and bears it down by its flow, just as the rolling tide of the sea rises higher than the streams of a river, and beats them back, with all they contain in them. Divine grace neither knows measure nor end. (J. Burns, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. We pray – that our God would count you worthy] It is our earnest prayer that God would make you worthy, , afford those continual supplies of grace by his Holy Spirit, without which you cannot adorn your holy vocation; you are called into the Christian Church, and, to be proper members of this Church, you must be members of the mystical body of Christ; and this implies that you should be holy, as he who has called you is holy.
Fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness]
1. The goodness of God-his own innate eternal kindness, has led him to call you into this state of salvation.
2. It is the pleasure of that goodness to save you unto eternal life.
3. It is the good pleasure; nothing can please God more than your receiving and retaining his utmost salvation.
4. It is all the good pleasure of his goodness thus to save you; this he has amply proved by sending his Son to die for you, beyond which gift he has none greater. In this, all the good pleasure of his goodness is astonishingly manifested.
5. And if you be faithful to his grace, he will fulfil-completely accomplish, all the good pleasure of his goodness in you; which goodness is to be apprehended and is to work by faith, the power of which must come from him, though the act or exercise of that power must be of yourselves; but the very power to believe affords excitement to the exercise of faith.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The apostle here again mentions his praying for these Thessalonians, as he had often mentioned it in the former Epistle. And the reason might be, because he was absent from them; they might the more need his prayer, and by telling them of it, he thereby assures them that he forgot them not. And the prayer he here makes for them hath reference to the discourse he had been upon, as appears by this word :
Wherefore, or for, or in order to which, we pray, & c.
This calling; which is figuratively to be understood of the blessed state they were called to, for the calling itself they had received already. And so it is the same in effect mentioned before, 2Th 1:5, called there the kingdom of God; or to have Christ glorified and admired in them, 2Th 1:10. And elsewhere termed the prize of the high calling of God, Phi 3:14. And that God would count them worthy of it; as he had used the same expression before; only there it was mentioned with respect to their sufferings, here in a way of prayer. He encouraged them under their sufferings, that they might thereupon be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, and now prays that God would count them worthy; their worthiness arising more from the gracious account of God than their own sufferings. A Christians calling hath duty annexed to it, whereupon the apostle exhorts the Ephesians to walk worthy of it in discharge of those duties, Eph 4:1,2. And it hath a state of blessedness belonging to it, which is meant here; and none shall partake of it, but those whom God shall count worthy of it. But Gods account is not according to the strictness of the law, but the gracious indulgence of the covenant of grace; but yet his prayer implies such a walking according to this covenant, as whereby they might be counted worthy of the blessed state they were called unto.
And fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness: the gracious purposes of God towards his people are called often his good pleasure, as Mat 11:26; Luk 12:32; Eph 1:5,9; and the same is meant Isa 53:10;
The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand; the Hebrew word Chephets being of the same signification with the Greek word here used. Christ shall accomplish the gracious purposes of God towards his people. And called his
good pleasure, partly because they have no reason out of the sovereign will of God, and they are such also as he hath great complacence and delight in; and though they are executed in time, yet they were in his heart from everlasting, and therefore called eternal, Eph 3:11. And I find purpose and good pleasure put both together, Eph 1:9. It is here called
the good pleasure of his goodness, which is not a tautology, as it may seem to be, but to make his expression of Gods grace the more emphatical; or rather, to show that this good pleasure of God towards his people ariseth out of his goodness. God hath purposes of wrath towards some, but such cannot be called the good pleasure of his goodness. Goodness is that excellency in God, whereby he is ready to communicate good to his creature; but by goodness here is meant Gods special goodness, which is peculiar to his people whom he hath chosen. To
fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, is to accomplish all those good purposes that were in his heart; some whereof were already fulfilled in their calling, adoption, justification, and sanctification begun, but the whole was not yet fulfilled, which he therefore here prays for; so that as their election, and their first conversion, were not from any worthiness or foresight of faith in them, but the good pleasure of his will, so the progress and perfection of their salvation was also to be from the same good pleasure.
And the work of faith with power: by the work of faith is either meant faith itself, which is the work of God, or else the fruits of faith; and so work is here taken for works or operations of faith. And the apostle addeth this in his prayer, to show that we are not saved only by Gods good pleasure without faith, such a faith that worketh. And to perfect their salvation is a fulfilling the work of faith, for perseverance and progress towards perfection is from the work of faith. Or it may particularly refer to their patience and constancy under their sufferings, which he had before spoken of, and which is a peculiar work of faith. But because faith is not sufficient of itself, and the work of faith may fail, he therefore addeth, in power, or
with power; that is, the power of God, which is his Spirit, so called, Luk 1:35. Our faith and the power of God are here joined together, as 1Pe 1:5. The same power that first worketh faith, afterwards co-worketh by it and with it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. WhereforeGreek,“With a view to which,” namely, His glorification in you asHis saints.
alsoWe not onlyanticipate the coming glorification of our Lord in His saints, butwe also pray concerning (so the Greek) YOU.
our Godwhom we serve.
count you worthyTheprominent position of the “You” in the Greek makesit the emphatic word of the sentence. May you be found amongthe saints whom God shall count worthy of their calling (Eph4:1)! There is no dignity in us independent of God’s calling ofus (2Ti 1:9). The callinghere is not merely the first actual call, but the whole of God’selecting act, originating in His “purpose of grace given us inChrist before the world began,” and having its consummation inglory.
the good pleasure of,c.on the part of God [BENGEL].
faithon your part.ALFORD refers the formerclause, “good pleasure of his goodness,” also to man,arguing that the Greek for “goodness” is neverapplied to God, and translates, “All [that is, every possible]right purpose of goodness.” WAHL,”All sweetness of goodness,” that is, impart in fullto you all the refreshing delights of goodness. I think that, as inthe previous and parallel clause, “calling” refers to GOD’Spurpose and as the Greek for “good pleasure” mostlyis used of God, we ought to translate, “fulfil (His)every gracious purpose of goodness (on your part),”that is, fully perfect in you all goodness according to Hisgracious purpose. Thus, “the grace of our God,” 2Th1:12, corresponds to God’s “good pleasure” here,which confirms the English Version, just as “the grace ofthe Lord Jesus Christ” is parallel to “work offaith,” as Christ especially is the object of faith. “Thework of faith”; Greek, (no article; supply from theprevious clause all) work of faith”; faithmanifested by work, which is its perfected development (Jas1:4; compare Note, see on 1Th1:3). Working reality of faith.
with powerGreek,“in power,” that is, “powerfully fulfil in you”(Col 1:11).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Wherefore also we pray always for you,…. Not only observe the above things to your comfort, to support you under sufferings, but we add our prayers, and not only now, but always, that you may be among them in whom Christ will be glorified and admired; in order to which we most sincerely pray,
that our God would count you worthy of this calling. The Syriac version reads, “your calling”, as in 1Co 1:26. The Vulgate Latin reads, “his own calling”, meaning their effectual calling. This is indeed of God, and not of man; and is owing, not to any previous worthiness in man, as appears from the instances of Matthew the publican, Zacchaeus, the Apostle Paul, the Corinthians, and others, but entirely to the free grace of God, who counts them worthy, not for any worthiness there is in them; but “vouchsafes”, as the word may be rendered, this blessing of grace, their effectual calling, of his own good will and pleasure: but this cannot be meant here, because these persons were partakers of that grace, God had called them to his kingdom and glory; unless the sense of the petition is, that God would cause them to walk worthy of the calling with which they were called, which becoming walk is owing to the grace of God: or else the meaning may be, that God would grant unto them perseverance in the grace, by and to which they were called, that so they might enjoy eternal glory; which though certain, should be prayed for by saints, both for themselves and others: the words may be rendered, “that our God would count you worthy of the call”; of the call of Christ when he shall be revealed from heaven, and come a second time; for then will he first call the saints out of their graves, as he did Lazarus, and they shall hear his all powerful voice, and come forth to the resurrection of life, the first and better resurrection, which those that have part in will be secure from the second death; this the apostle was desirous of attaining to himself, and prays that God would vouchsafe it to others; of this Job speaks in Job 14:15. And next Christ will call the righteous, when raised and set at his right hand, to inherit the kingdom and glory prepared by his Father for them; and happy are those who by the grace of God will be counted worthy of this call or rather by calling here is meant, the ultimate glory itself, which the saints are called unto; this God gives a right unto in the justifying righteousness of his Son, and makes meet for by his own grace; and the thing itself is a free grace gift of his through Jesus Christ. In this sense calling seems to be used in Eph 4:4 and to this agrees the Ethiopic version here, “that God may impart unto you that to which he hath called you”; and that is eternal glory, which though certainly and inseparably connected with the effectual calling, may, and should be prayed for:
and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness; not providential, but special goodness; not the good pleasure of his strict justice in the condemning of the wicked, denying his grace to them, and hiding from them the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, which is a part of his good pleasure, even of the good pleasure of his righteousness; but this is the good pleasure of his grace and kindness in Christ Jesus, and intends the whole of his gracious designs towards his people: and to express the free, rich, sovereign grace of God in them, the apostle uses a variety of words, calling them “his pleasure”, “his good pleasure”; and, as if this was not enough, “the good pleasure of his goodness”; and desires that all of it might be fulfilled; it consisting of many things, some of which were fulfilled, and others remained to be fulfilled. It consists of the choice of persons in Christ, and the predestination of them to the adoption of children, which is according to the good pleasure of the will of God; the redemption of them by Christ, in which are displayed the exceeding riches of his grace; the free justification of them by the righteousness of Christ; the full pardon of all their sins, and their adoption into the household of God, and their regeneration, of rich grace, and abundant mercy; all these instances of the good pleasure of divine goodness were fulfilled in these persons; what remained were the carrying on and finishing the work of grace upon their souls, and their enjoyment of the heavenly glory: and for the former, in order to the latter, the apostle prays in the next clause,
and the work of faith with power; faith is not only an operative grace, [See comments on 1Th 1:3] and is attended with good works; but it is a work itself, not of man’s, for he cannot produce it in himself, nor exercise it of himself; but it is the work of God, of his operation which he works in his people; it has not only God for its object, and therefore the Arabic version reads, “the work of faith on him”; but it has God for its author: and this now, though it had grown exceedingly in these believers, was not as yet fulfilled or perfect; something was still lacking in it; wherefore the apostle prays that he who was the author would be the finisher of it: and this will be done “with power”; not of man’s, for this work is neither begun, nor carried on, nor will it be finished by the might and power of men; but the same hands which laid the foundation of it, raise it up, carry it on, and give the finishing stroke to it; it is done by the power of God, and so the Arabic and Ethiopic versions read, “by his own power”: which is greatly displayed in the production of faith at first; for a poor sensible sinner, in a view of all his sins, and the just deserts of them, to venture his soul on Christ alone for salvation; for a man to go out of himself and renounce his own righteousness, and trust to the righteousness of Christ for his justification before God, and acceptance with him, is owing to the exceeding greatness of God’s power to them that believe; and the same power is seen in enabling faith to do the things it does; see Heb 11:1 and in encouraging, supporting, and maintaining it under the most difficult circumstances, as in the case of Abraham; and to make it stand fast under the severest persecutions, and at the hour of death, and in the view of an awful eternity, when it receives its full completion.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Apostle Prayer. | A. D. 52. |
11 Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: 12 That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In these verses the apostle again tells the Thessalonians of his earnest and constant prayer for them. He could not be present with them, yet he had a constant remembrance of them; they were much upon his thoughts; he wished them well, and could not express his good-will and good wishes to them better than in earnest constant prayer to God for them: Wherefore also we pray, c. Note, The believing thoughts and expectation of the second coming of Christ should put us upon prayer to God for ourselves and others. We should watch and pray, so our Saviour directs his disciples (Luke xxi. 36), Watch therefore, and pray always, that you may be counted worthy to stand before the Son of man. Observe,
I. What the apostle prayed for, <i>v. 11. It is a great concern to be well instructed what to pray for; and without divine instruction we know not what to pray for, as without divine assistance we shall not pray in such a manner as we ought. Our prayers should be suitable to our expectations. Thus the apostle prays for them, 1. That God would begin his good work of grace in them; so we may understand this expression: That our God would count you (or, as it might be read, make you) worthy of this calling. We are called with a high and holy calling; we are called to God’s kingdom and glory; and no less than the inheritance of the saints is the hope of our calling, nothing less than the enjoyment of that glory and felicity which shall be revealed when Christ Jesus shall be revealed from heaven. Now, if this be our calling, our great concern should be to be worthy of it, or meet and prepared for this glory: and because we have no worthiness of our own, but what is owing purely to the grace of God, we should pray that he would make us worthy, and then count us worthy, of this calling, or that he would make us meet to partake of the inheritance of the saints in light, Col. i. 12. 2. That God would carry on the good work that is begun, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness. The good pleasure of God denotes his gracious purposes towards his people, which flow from his goodness, and are full of goodness towards them; and it is thence that all good comes to us. If there be any good in us, it is the fruit of God’s good-will to us, it is owing to the good pleasure of his goodness, and therefore is called grace. Now, there are various and manifold purposes of grace and good-will in God towards his people; and the apostle prays that all of them may be fulfilled or accomplished towards these Thessalonians. There are several good works of grace begun in the hearts of God’s people, which proceed from this good pleasure of God’s goodness, and we should desire that they may be completed and perfected. In particular, the apostle prays that God would fulfil in them the work of faith with power. Note, (1.) The fulfilling of the work of faith is in order to the fulfilling of every other good work. And, (2.) It is the power of God that not only begins, but that carries on and perfects the work of faith.
II. Why the apostle prayed for these things (v. 12): That the name of the Lord Jesus may be glorified; this is the end we should aim at in every thing we do and desire, that God and Christ in all things may be glorified. Our own happiness and that of others should be subordinate to this ultimate end. Our good works should so shine before men that others may glorify God, that Christ may be glorified in and by us, and then we shall be glorified in and with him. And this is the great end and design of the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ, which is manifested to us and wrought in us. Or thus: it is according to the grace of God and Christ, that is, it is an agreeable thing, considering the grace that is manifested to us and bestowed on us, by God and Christ, that we direct all we do to the glory of our Creator and Redeemer.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
To which end ( ). So Col 1:29. Probably purpose with reference to the contents of verses 5-10. We have had the Thanksgiving (verses 3-10) in a long, complicated, but rich period or sentence. Now he makes a brief Prayer (verses 11-12) that God will fulfil all their hopes and endeavours. Paul and his colleagues can still pray for them though no longer with them (Moffatt).
That (). Common after (Col 4:3; Eph 1:17; Phil 1:9) when the content of the prayer blends with the purpose (purport and purpose).
Count you worthy ( ). Causative verb (aorist active subjunctive) like in verse 5 with genitive.
Of your calling ( ). can apply to the beginning as in 1Cor 1:26; Rom 11:29, but it can also apply to the final issue as in Phil 3:14; Heb 3:1. Both ideas may be here. It is God’s calling of the Thessalonians.
And fulfil every desire of goodness ( ). “Whom he counts worthy he first makes worthy” (Lillie). Yes, in purpose, but the wonder and the glory of it all is that God begins to count us worthy in Christ before the process is completed in Christ (Ro 8:29f.). But God will see it through and so Paul prays to God. (cf. Lu 2:14) is more than mere desire, rather good pleasure, God’s purpose of goodness, not in ancient Greek, only in LXX and N.T. like a dozen other words in – occurs only in late Greek. This word occurs only in LXX, N.T., writings based on them. It is made from , good, akin to , to admire. May the Thessalonians find delight in goodness, a worthy and pertinent prayer.
Work of faith ( ). The same phrase in 1Th 1:3. Paul prays for rich fruition of what he had seen in the beginning. Work marked by faith, springs from faith, sustained by faith.
With power ( ). In power. Connect with (fulfil), God’s power (Rom 1:29; Col 1:4) in Christ (1Co 1:24) through the Holy Spirit (1Th 1:5).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Wherefore [ ] . Better, to which end. Comp. Col 1:29. The end is, “that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God,” ver. 5. The same thought is continued in ver. 11.
Count – worthy [] . Comp. 1Ti 5:17; Heb 3:3; Heb 10:29. Your calling [ ] . Including both the act and the end of the Christian calling. Comp. Phi 3:14; 1Th 2:12; Eph 4:1.
All the good pleasure of his goodness [ ] . Wrong. Paul does not mean all the goodness which God ts pleased to bestow, but the delight of the Thessalonians in goodness. He prays that God may perfect their pleasure in goodness. So Weizsacker, die Freude an allem Guten. The Rev. desire for eujdokian is infelicitous, and lacks support. Agaqwsunh goodness (P. see on Rom 3:19) is never predicated of God in N. T. In LXX, see Neh 9:25, 35. Eudokia good pleasure, delight, is a purely Biblical word. As related to one’s self, it means contentment, satisfaction : see Sir. 29 23; Ps. of Sol 3:4; 16 12. As related to others, good will, benevolence. Luk 10:21, Eph 1:5, 9; Phi 1:15; Phi 2:13; Ps. of Sol 8:39.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Wherefore also we pray always for you” (eis ho kai proseuchometha pantote peri humon) “For which (reason) indeed we pray always concerning you all”; we pray because you will one day meet the Lord and be judged, 2Co 5:10-11; Paul continually prayed for churches and spiritual maturity of her members, 1Th 2:13-14.
2) “That our God may count you worthy of this calling” (hina humas aksiose tes kleseos ho theos) “In order that God may deem you all worthy of this calling”; a calling to moral and ethical excellence, after the pattern of Christ, as Paul followed Him, Mat 4:19; Mat 8:34; 1Co 11:1-2; Eph 5:1; Php_3:17.
3) “And fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness
(kai plerose pase eudokian agathosenes) “and may fulfill or complete every good pleasure of (his) goodness”; See 2Th 1:5. Moral and ethical growth and strengthening of character, under persecution and trial, prepares one to be glorified together with the Master, and to fulfill His good pleasure, meriting His welcome words “well done”, 1Pe 1:5; 1Pe 1:10-11; Heb 12:2; Mat 25:21.
4) “And the work of faith with power” (kai ergon pisteos de dunamei) “and (the) work of faith in (with) dynamic power”, powerfully. This prayer of Paul was that all members of the church of Thessalonica might so live that when the good man who left His house returns, each servant may be an object of His glory, before the Father, Mar 13:33-35; 1Ti 3:14; 2Co 11:1-3.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
11 On which account we pray always. That they may know that they need continual help from God, he declares that he prays in their behalf. When he says on this account, he means, in order that they may reach that final goal of their course, as appears from the succeeding context, that he would fulfill all the good pleasure, etc. It may seem, however, as if what he has mentioned first were unnecessary, for God had already accounted them worthy of his calling. He speaks, however, as to the end or completion, which depends on perseverance. For as we are liable to give way, our calling would not fail, so far as we are concerned, to prove sooner or later vain, if God did not confirm it. Hence he is said to account us worthy, when he conducts us to the point at which we aimed.
And fulfill. Paul goes to an amazing height in extolling the grace of God, for not contenting himself with the term good pleasure, he says that it flows from his goodness, unless perhaps any one should prefer to consider the beneficence (635) as arising from this good pleasure, which amounts to the same thing. When, however, we are instructed that the gracious purpose of God is the cause of our salvation, and that that has its foundation in the goodness of the same God, are we not worse than mad, if we venture to ascribe anything, however small, to our own merits? For the words are in no small degree emphatic. He might have said in one word, that your faith may be fulfilled, but he terms it good pleasure. Farther, he expresses the idea still more distinctly by saying, that God was prompted by nothing else than his own goodness, for he finds nothing in us but misery.
Nor does Paul ascribe to the grace of God merely the beginning of our salvation, but all departments of it. Thus that contrivance of the Sophists is set aside, that we are, indeed, anticipated by the grace of God, but that it is helped by subsequent merits. Paul, on the other hand, recognizes in the whole progress of our salvation nothing but the pure grace of God. As, however, the good pleasure of God has been already accomplished in him, referring in the term subsequently employed by him to the effect which appears in us, he explains his meaning when he says — and work of faith. And he calls it a work, with regard to God, who works or produces faith in us, as though he had said — “that he may complete the building of faith which he has begun.”
It is, also, not without good reason, that he says with power, for he intimates that the perfecting of faith is an arduous matter, and one of the greatest difficulty. This, also, we know but too well from experience; and the reason, too, is not far to seek, if we consider how great our weakness is, how various are the hindrances that obstruct us on every side, and how severe are the assaults of Satan. Hence, unless the power of God afford us help in no ordinary degree, faith will never rise to its full height. For it is no easier task to bring faith to perfection in an individual, than to rear upon water a tower that may by its firmness withstand all storms and fury of tempests, and may surmount the clouds in height, for we are not less fluid than water, and it is necessary that the height of faith reach as high as heaven.
(635) “ Ceste bonté et beneficence;” — “This goodness and beneficence.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
2Th. 1:11. And fulfil all the good pleasure.R.V. every desire of goodness. As much as to say, May God mightily accomplish in you all that goodness would desire and that faith can effect (Findlay).
2Th. 1:12. That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you.A little mirror may not increase the sum-total of sunlight, but it may cause some otherwise unobservant eye to note its brightness. So Christs infinite and eternal glory cannot be augmented but only shared by Christians (Joh. 17:22).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.2Th. 1:11-12
A Prayer for Completeness of Moral Character.
To meet Christ at His coming, and to dwell with Him in the bliss of the future, demands a moral preparedness. To promote this should be the constant, unwearied solicitude of both pastor and people. The possession of any measure of divine grace supplies the strongest motives for seeking the highest possible degree of moral excellence. In this passage observe:
I. That completeness of moral character is really the attainment of the divine ideal.That our God would count you worthy of this calling (2Th. 1:11). The tyro in religion pictures to himself a more or less definite outline of what he may become and what he may do. The charm of novelty, the enthusiasm of first love, the indefiniteness of the untried and the unknown, throw a romantic glamour over the Christian career, and the mind is elated with the prospect of entering upon grand enterprises and winning signal victories. But mature thought and experience and a more familiar acquaintance with the divine mind lead us to modify many of our earlier views, and to readjust the main features of our own ideal of the Christian character, so as to be more in harmony with the divine ideal. God calls us to purity of heart and life, and makes us worthy, and gives us power to attain it. We have no worthiness in ourselves or in our works. The fitness for heavenly glory is acquired by following out the God-given inspiration to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present world.
II. That completeness of moral character consists in the delighting in goodness.And fulfil all the good pleasure of His goodness (2Th. 1:11). Some are influenced to be good because they are afraid of the penalties attached to a life of sin. Others because of the substantial rewards and benefits found in a life of probity and uprightness. But the highest type is to love goodness for its own sake, and to delight in it as goodness; to be wholly possessed with a life-absorbing passion to find and to diffuse goodness everywhere. This approaches nearest to the divine ideal. He hath pleasure in uprightness, and hath no pleasure in wickedness (1Ch. 29:17; Psa. 5:4). There is no pleasure like that we find in true goodness. Severus, emperor of Rome, confessed on his deathbed, I have been everything, and now find that everything is nothing. Then, directing that the urn should be brought to him, he said, Little urn, thou shalt contain one for whom the world was too little.
III. That completeness of moral character is attained by the exercise of a divinely inspired faith.And the work of faith with power (2Th. 1:11). We have no innate righteousness. It is God-given. It is received, maintained, and extended in the soul by faith in the merits of the all-righteous Saviour. While faith itself is the gift of God, it is no less an exercise of the mind and heart of man. And because, like everything else about man, it partakes of his great weakness, it needs ever, as it walks in the light of the divine word, to stay itself on the divine hand. Faith is the mighty instrument by which the divine life is propagated in the soul, and by which its loftiest blessings are secured.
IV. That completeness of moral character promotes the divine glory.That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in Him (2Th. 1:12). It will be seen at the last that Christ has been more abundantly glorified by a humble, holy life than by wealthy benefactions or by gigantic enterprises. The name now so much despised, and for which those who now bear it suffer so much, shall be magnified and exalted above every name. The followers of Christ shall share in the glory of their Lord. Their excellencies redound to His glory; and His glory is reflected on them in such a way that there is a mutual glorification. What a glory it will be to them before all creatures that He who sits upon the throne once shared their sorrows and died for them! What a glory that He still wears their nature, and is not ashamed to call them brethren! What a glory to be for ever clothed with His righteousness! What a glory to reign with Him and be glorified together! (Lillie).
V. That completeness of moral character is rendered possible by the provisions of divine grace.According to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ (2Th. 1:12). The source of all human goodness, in all its varying degrees, is in the divine favour. It is worthy of note that Christ is here recognised as on an equality with the Father, and as being with Him the fontal source of grace. The glory which it is possible for sanctified humanity to reach is according to grace. The grace is exceeding abundant; so is the glory. There is a fathomless mine of moral wealth provided for every earnest seeker after God.
VI. That completeness of moral character should be the subject of constant prayer.Wherefore also we pray always for you (2Th. 1:11). The Thessalonians were favoured in having the prayers of the apostles. It is a beautiful example of the unselfishness of the Christian spirit when we are so concerned for others as to pray for them. We value that about which we pray the most. We have need of prayer to help us to attend faithfully to the little things which make up the daily duties of the Christian life. Attention to trifles is the way to completeness of moral character. The great Italian sculptor, Michael Angelo, was once visited by an acquaintance, who remarked, on entering his studio, Why, you have done nothing to that figure since I was here last? Yes, was the reply, I have softened this expression, touched off that projection, and made other improvements. Oh! said the visitor, these are mere trifles. True, answered the sculptor; but remember that trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.
Lessons.
1. It is important to have a lofty ideal of Christian perfection constantly in view.
2. While humbled by failures we are not to be disheartened.
3. Earnest, persevering prayer wins great moral victories.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2Th. 1:11-12. Genuine Religion illustrated.
I. Religion in its nature.It is a worthiness into which we are called and with which we are invested.
II. Religion in its source.The goodness of God.
1. All present religious views and feelings are the effect of divine grace.
2. Man has no rightful claim to divine grace.
3. Religion has its true source in the good pleasure of God.
III. Religion in its principle.Faith. The work of faith with power. The producing and sustaining principle of religion.
IV. Religion in its end.
1. The glory of the Redeemer. That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you.
2. The glory of the redeemed. And ye in Him.
V. Religion in its measure or rule of dispensation.According to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.Zeta.
2Th. 1:12. Christ glorified in His People.The bust of Luther was shut out from the Walhalla, or German Westminster Abbey. The people were indignant, but said, Why need we a bust when he lives in our hearts? And thus the Christian ever feels when he beholds many around him multiplying pictures and statues of Christ, and he can say, I need them not, for He is ever with me; he lives perpetually in my heart.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Text (2Th. 1:11-12)
11 To which end we also pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire of goodness and every work of faith, with power; 12 that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Translation and Paraphrase
11.
(Desiring greatly that our Lord may truly be glorified in you,) we pray always unto that (end) concerning you, (asking) that our God may count you worthy of the calling (which we have described), and (that He may) fulfill every good pleasure of (his) goodness (in His dealings with you), and (fulfill every) work of faith with power.
12.
(We ask for these things) in order that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in (the work and faith) you (show), and (that) you (in return shall be glorified) by (your fellowship with) Him, according to the (program of the) grace of our God and (our) Lord Jesus Christ.
Notes (2Th. 1:11-12)
1.
We call this prayer that closes chapter one a prayer for Gods blessings. It has three petitions in it, and two purposes for the petitions:
(1)
The petitions; 2Th. 1:11
a.
That God would count them worthy of the calling.
b.
That God would fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness.
c.
That God would fulfill the work of faith with power.
(2)
The purposes; 2Th. 1:12
a.
That the name of Jesus may be glorified in you.
b.
That you may be glorified in him.
2.
Have you ever prayed as Paul prayed here, that God would count certain people worthy of His calling? Have you ever prayed that God would fulfill the good pleasure of His goodness in the activities of some church.
3.
The wherefore beginning 2Th. 1:11 literally means, Unto that end, and refers back to Pauls statement in 2Th. 1:10 about how Jesus will be glorified in His saints. Paul prayed always that Jesus would truly be glorified in the character and labors of the Thessalonians. Have you ever prayed that such holy character might be developed in your brethren that they would bring glory to Jesus?
4.
Paul prayed that God would count them worthy of the glorious calling we have as Christians (or, more particularly, the calling of glorifying Jesus), This verse brings up again the matter of being worthy, which we mentioned in the notes on 2Th. 1:5, par. 8. It is wrong to say that we can never be worthy. God will count us worthy if we strive to attain the goal. (For the meaning of worthy, see notes on 1Th. 2:12, par. 4.)
5.
Then Paul prayed that God would fulfill in them all the good pleasure of His goodness. Knowing that Gods goodness is unlimited, this is a GREAT request. May God accomplish in you all that goodness would desire, and that faith can effect. (Preachers Homiletic Com.)
6.
It is not enough that we have good intentions of goodness. We must fulfill them with Gods help. Good intentions without fulfillment are insufficient.
7.
Then Paul prayed that God would fulfill the work of faith with power. Oh, how we long to see the POWER of God displayed! When we read of how God displayed His power on Mt. Carmel as Elijah called down fire on the Lords altar, we are tempted to pray, Lord, do it again! We are not anticipating miracles of the type God showed to Elijah, but we long to see heart-heating, soul-saving, saint-stirring power in our churches. Maybe modern churches lack this power because they have not asked for it as Paul did here.
8.
The conjunction that at the beginning of verse twelve indicates the purpose or end desired. In our translation, we have rendered it in order that.
9.
The purposes Paul had in mind in his prayer were that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in us, and we be glorified in him. In the Bible a NAME is not merely a tag of identification, but it is descriptive of the person himself. Note Act. 4:12.
10.
We cannot glorify the name of Jesus and be glorified ourselves by our own ability, but only according to the grace (or favor) of God, God supplies the ability and the grace.
11.
Concerning how Jesus is to be glorified in you, see notes on 2Th. 1:10, par. 4.
12.
We shall be glorified by Jesus, because our association with Him gives us all the glories of holiness, obedience, immortality, and goodness which Jesus has. He is glorious. We shall be like Him. We are glorified by being in fellowship with Him.
13.
Note that Jesus and God are on an equality as being the source of grace that will result in our glorification. Compare notes on 1Th. 3:11, par. 4.
STUDY SUGGESTIONSee if you can now answer the Did You Learn? questions that follow immediately [see Chapter Comments].
II THESSALONIANS, CHAPTER TWO
Chapter Topic:
The Man of Sin
There shall come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed. 2Th. 2:3
Chapter Topic: The Man of Sin
1.
By (or concerning) what two things did Paul beseech the Thessalonians in chapter two? 2Th. 2:1.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________.
2.
Paul lists three things by which they were not to be shaken or be troubled. 2Th. 2:2. What were they?
________________________; _____________________; _____________________ as from us.
3.
They were troubled, thinking that the _______________ of _______________ ___________ was at hand. 2Th. 2:2.
4.
What two things must precede the day of Christ? 2Th. 2:3. __________ _________________________________; _________________________________ ______________________________________.
5.
The man of sin is called the son of _________________________________________ ________. 2Th. 2:3.
6.
The man of sin ______________________________ and _______________________ ______________________ himself above all that is called ___________ or that is worshipped. 2Th. 2:4.
7.
The man of sin sitteth in the _____________________ of God, showing himself that he is ____________ 2Th. 2:4.
8.
True or false (circle which)Paul mentioned the man of sin for the first time in this chapter. 2Th. 2:5.
9.
Concerning the man of sin, Paul says, Now ye know what _______________________________ that he might revealed in his time. 2Th. 2:6.
10.
What was already working in Pauls time? 2Th. 2:7.
________________________________________________________________________
11.
The man of sin would have appeared sooner, only he who now letteth (that is, hinders) will let (hinder) until he _________________________________________________ ______________ of the way. 2Th. 2:7.
12.
By what two means will the Lord destroy that Wicked one? 2Th. 2:8. ____________________ ________; _______________________________________________________________ ______________.
13.
The wicked ones coming is after the working of whom? 2Th. 2:9. ______________.
14.
He comes with all ____________________ and _______________________ and ________________ 2Th. 2:9
15.
He comes with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that ____________________. 2Th. 2:10
16.
These people perish because they ______________________________ _______________ the ________________ of the ____________. 2Th. 2:10
17.
What does God send these people because of their attitude? 2Th. 2:11. ___________________________________________________________.
18.
God sends these, that they should ____________________________ a __________________. 2Th. 2:11.
19.
In what did these people who were deceived by the Man of sin take pleasure? 2Th. 2:12. ______________
20.
Paul was bound (obligated) to give thanks for the Thessalonians, because God hath from the beginning ___________________ ______________ you to _________________________. 2Th. 2:13
21.
Through what two things had God chosen them to salvation? 2Th. 2:13. _______________________________________________________________________ _________________________; _____________________________________________ __________________.
22.
By what were the Thessalonians called? 2Th. 2:14. ______________________ _______________.
23.
To what had God called them? 2Th. 2:14 ___________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
24.
Therefore, brethren, ______________________________, and hold the _______________________ which ye have been taught. 2Th. 2:15.
25.
By what two means had they been taught? 2Th. 2:15. _____________________________; ________________________________.
26.
Unto whom did Paul pray? 2Th. 2:16, (2 answers) __________________________________ ___________________________________; _______________.
27.
What has God given us through grace? 2Th. 2:16. (2 answers) _________________________________________________________________________________________; ____________________________________________.
28.
Paul prayed that God would _________________________________ your ____________________, and ____________________________ you in every good _________________ and _______________. 2Th. 2:17.
29.
Memorize 2Th. 2:3; 2Th. 2:14.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(11) Wherefore.Literally, whereuntoi.e., to their being found among the blessed. The also serves to emphasise the pray: we do not content ourselves with merely hoping, but we direct actual prayer to that end. The word whereunto seems grammatically to depend upon the word callingof the calling whereunto, we pray also for you always, that our God would count you worthy.
Count you worthy of this calling.The word this would, perhaps, have been, better left out; the calling of which St. Paul is thinking is the calling in that day, such as is expressed in Mat. 25:34, and the act is the same as that of 2Th. 1:5. But had they not been called to glory already? Yes (1Th. 4:7), and had obeyed the call; and God was still calling them hourly (see Notes on 1Th. 2:12; 1Th. 5:24); but that was no security that they would remain worthy of that last decisive call. Many are called, but few chosen. In the original there is some, emphasis laid on the pronoun: count you
Fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness.Rather, fulfil every purpose of goodness; or, everything which beneficence deems good. Most modern commentators take the goodness to be the goodness of the Thessalonians themselves, thus making the clause logically antecedent to the foregoing: May count you worthy of His calling, and (for that purpose) fulfil every good moral aspiration you may entertain. But this seems unnecessary. The beneficence is used absolutely, in almost a personified sense; it is, of course, in reality, Gods beneficence, but is spoken of as beneficence in the abstract. Thus the clause preserves its natural place as an explanation of the preceding: May finally call you. and there accomplish upon your persons all that beneficence can devise.
And the work of faith with power.This work, too, is Gods work, not the work of the Thessalonians. It is used in the same sense as a like phrase in Cowpers well-known hymn
Thou shalt see My glory soon,
When the work of grace is done.
It means, not perfect your faithful activity, as in 1Th. 1:3, but bring to its mighty consummation the work that faith was able to effect in you. Faith, therefore, is here opposed as much to sight as to unbelief. The beneficence and the power thus exerted upon (rather than through) the Thessalonians. produces upon all spectators of the judgment, both angels and men, the effect described in the next verse.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Prayer for their salvation, 2Th 1:11-12.
11. Wherefore Rather, To which end; that is, the end of Christ’s being finally admired in you.
Also we pray for you As well as glory in you, 2Th 1:4.
This calling The calling to be glorified in, and to glorify, Christ at his coming. This calling was first a call to repentance; next, in consequence of their obedience to the call, it was a calling to holiness and heaven.
Good pleasure Right-seeming.
His goodness From which your calling, election, and glorification result.
Work of faith In which both God and you co-work.
With power To produce holiness here, and holiness and glory hereafter.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘To which end we also pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfil every desire of goodness and every work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.’
Having in mind the glory that is to be theirs Paul now assures them that that is why he and his companions can continually pray for them in full confidence. And their prayer is that God, counting them worthy of their calling (compare 2Th 1:5), will empower them to fulfil every desire of goodness and every work of faith. That He will work in them to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php 2:13) so that their seeking after righteousness will be fulfilled, and their believing, and its fruit, will grow more and more. For those who are ‘called’ by Him, it is His work within them that results in progression in righteousness and goodness, and in the faith as He puts the desire within them.
‘Every desire (literally ‘good pleasure’) of goodness.’ As it is the good pleasure of His people to reveal His goodness through them, so He will fill their good pleasure to the full.
‘Every work of faith.’ Compare 1Th 1:3. True faith ever produces ‘work’, activity in the name of Christ whether social or spiritual, and Paul’s prayer is that through the power of God that work, wrought through faith, may be successful and fruitful.
‘That the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him.’ The name signifies the fullness of what a person is, so that the first end of this is that the Lord Jesus might receive glory continually through the splendour of their lives and behaviour, and finally be marvelled at, at His coming, because of what He has wrought in them. The second is that they themselves may be glorified in Him, not in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of His people and the heavenly host.
‘According to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.’ All this will be the result of the grace of God, the unmerited love and favour of God and the Lord Jesus Christ at work on them and within them. The ‘our’ introduces a strong sense of belonging as in 2Th 1:11.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Paul’s prayer of intercession:
v. 11. Wherefore also we pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power;
v. 12. that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle never loses sight of the fact that his readers are still in the world, in the midst of the enmity and persecution of the world. He therefore adds his sincere intercession to his grateful prayer: To which end also tend our prayers concerning you always, that our God may consider you worthy of the calling, and fulfill every good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power. That is the end and object of the apostle’s cordial prayer for the Thessalonians, of which he here again states that he makes it without ceasing, that it has become a habit with him. He supplicates the Lord in behalf of his readers that God would deem them worthy of the calling which He has done in their case by bringing them to the knowledge of their salvation, of their vocation as Christians. After the Holy Ghost has called men by the Gospel, enlightened them with His gifts, and sanctified them by the transmission of the redemption won by the blood of Christ, it is He who must also keep them in the faith to the end. So Paul prays that God would do this very thing by fulfilling every good pleasure of goodness, that He would bring about so much in the heart of every Christian, every one without exception now taking pleasure in, being fully inclined to, all goodness. God must be not only the teacher, but also the power, supplying the strength to men who by nature are prone to evil only. He must perform the work of faith in power. Every work of every believer that springs from faith and is in accordance with faith is due to the power of the living God. Hence the believer puts all self-confidence far from him and confidently relies upon the power of God, which works in him with power.
If the sanctification of the Christians will but proceed along the lines as here laid down by the apostle, then the end will be: So that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ. In the entire life of every Christian the name of the blessed Redeemer should be hallowed, praised, and glorified; His essence, His attributes, His holy will should receive honor and glory in consequence of our entire life. Where pure doctrine and holy life go hand in hand, there the lives of the Christians will be testimonies for the perfectness of Gospel-preaching, and men will, voluntarily or involuntarily, give credit to the Lord. And we, in turn, living in the Lord, are made partakers of His glory. All this, moreover, does not happen to us by our own work and merit, but by the grace, by the merciful favor of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, who are, as One, the Source of all the spiritual blessings which come to men through the Gospel. Human pride and self-righteousness are entirely excluded by the plain words of the apostle. Thus the Christians, adorned with the graces of the Spirit of God and of Christ, grow in grace and sanctification day by day, until, finally, at the great revelation of the glory of God, the name and honor of Christ will be praised and magnified, world without end.
Summary
After the opening salutation the apostle tells the Thessalonian Christians of his prayer of thanksgiving in their behalf, that their faith and patience have continued in spite of all tribulations; he adds an intercession for their further perfection in sanctification.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
2Th 1:11. That our God would count you worthy Would make, or render you worthy, &c. Heylin and Doddridge. Instead of the good pleasure of his goodness, Blackwall would render the original the benevolence of his goodness; and observes, that it is the shortest and most charming representation any where to be found, of that infinite goodness which passes all expression, but was never so happily and properly expressed as here.
Inferences.How solemn and august will Christ’s appearance to judgment be at the last day! How tremendous to sinners! and how transporting to the saints! he will then be visibly seen, as coming from heaven with aweful majesty and surrounding hosts of angels; a flame of fire will go before him to devour his enemies; and he will execute righteous judgment in taking dreadful vengeance on those who have finally stifled the divine light under their respective dispensations, and especially on those who have rebelled against the clearer light of the gospel, and on all the persecutors of his church and people: they shall be banished from his blissful presence, and punished with immediate impressions of his Almighty power upon them to their everlasting destruction. But with what a different aspect, and to what better purposes will he, at the same time, manifest himself to his faithful saints, whose hearts have been purified by faith! he will come to be glorified and admired in them; and they shall be glorified in and with him, as members in union with him. Then the holy and blessed creation of God shall see to all eternity, from what ruin Jesus could raise, and to what felicity he could exalt, those who were once captives of Satan, slaves of sin, and heirs of death and hell! happy souls! who cordially embrace the divine testimony which is given in the gospel concerning him, and which shall be confirmed, with a glorious accomplishment of it to all the faithful, in the great day. What thanks will be eternally due to God on their behalf! and with what patience, faith, and hope, may we endure all tribulations which befal us here below, in view and prospect of this blessed day, when the righteous God will, according to his promise, and the merit of his Son, make rich amends to his saints for all their sufferings for him! May grace and peace be multiplied to them from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! May all the good pleasure of God’s goodness, and the work of faith, be fulfilled in them with power, by perfecting all that concerns them, in order to their glorifying the name of Christ in this world, and their being glorified with him in the world to come, according to the riches of the Father and Son’s grace, as revealed in the gospel.
REFLECTIONS.1st, The apostle joins the same persons with himself in the inscription of this epistle as in the former. Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians, in God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace unto you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. He expresses his thankfulness to God on their behalf. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, and gratefully to acknowledge his blessings and mercies, especially those spiritual blessings, which he hath so richly bestowed upon you, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, in fuller discoveries of the gospel, and more unshaken confidence in the promises, as is evident in all the blessed fruits of grace and holiness which flourish among you; and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth, the sure proof of your faith unfeigned. Note; (1.) They, who are most advanced in grace, have still need to pray, Increase our faith. (2.) Where genuine faith is, every other grace must follow; for it worketh by love.
2. Their eminence in grace gave him occasion to boast of them to other churches. So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God; as for your other gifts and graces, so especially for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure, with holy intrepidity, unshaken perseverance, and calm submission, bearing up under every trial.
3. The sufferings of the faithful people of God would soon end in eternal rest, and the authors of them suffer condign vengeance; which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, who will soon make his impartial justice to appear; and even now it is your honour, and wisely ordered by him, that such tribulation should befal you, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer, conformed thus to your Head, and made meet to reign with him; seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble you, who shall shortly feel the arm of an avenging judge; but to you who are troubled, rest with us, even the present rest in God, into which they who believe do now enter; and soon that eternal rest will come, which remaineth for the faithful people of God, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in all the pomp of tremendous majesty; in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, whether idolatrous Gentiles and unbelieving Jews, or impenitent sinners of every kind, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; driven into eternal banishment from his blissful abode, and suffering in body and soul the vengeance of eternal fire: when, in that happy day for his faithful people, he shall come to be glorified in his saints, whose salvation shall then be fully accomplished; and to be admired in all them that believe, being henceforward the subject of their everlasting adoration, love, and praise:because our testimony among you was believed, and you will, if you perseveringly cleave to Christ, reap the blessed fruits of your faith in that great day. Note; (1.) There is a day at hand, when the persecutors and the persecuted will have impartial justice done them at the bar of God. (2.) The prospect of that tribunal should comfort us under all the unjust reproaches, revilings, and tribulations which we now endure. (3.) The appearing of the Lord will be terrible to the ungodly and the sinner, whose neglect of God and his gospel will then be avenged; when wrath to the uttermost shall overtake them, and, driven with confusion from the presence of an angry Judge, the jaws of hell shall yawn to receive them; and, deep ingulphed in everlasting burnings, they shall sink, and never rise up again. (4.) Christ will be the eternal object of his faithful people’s admiration; and while with wonder they trace from first to last the amazing dispensations of his grace, their hearts will glow with rapture, and their tongues be filled with never-ending praise.
2nd, In the prospect of this day the apostle redoubled his supplications for them. Wherefore also we pray always for you:
1. That our God, in whose favour and love we have a glorious interest, would count you worthy of this calling; enabling you to walk as becomes your vocation, and bring you to the possession of the glory that he proposes to you; and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, carrying on and completing in you the salvation which he hath begun; and the work of faith with power, strengthening this radical grace, that all the rest may flourish with greater vigour.
2. He prays, That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, by your exemplary conduct and conversation; and ye in him, as now united to him by faith, through the operations of his Holy Spirit; according to the grace of our God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who hath bestowed it on you for this great end, that his glorious name might be for ever exalted, and all the praise of your salvation be ascribed to him alone, and you yourselves made meet for the inheritance of the saints.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2Th 1:11 . in reference to which , namely, that such a glorification of Christ in His people is to be expected. Comp. Bernhardy, Syntax , p. 220; Khner, II. p. 279. Philologically incorrect, Grotius, Flatt, Pelt, Baumgarten-Crusius take as equivalent with quapropter , and Koppe as “mera particula transeundi,” equivalent with itaque . Logically incorrect, de Wette, Bloomfield, Hofmann, and Riggenbach: “ to which end .” For, since must refer to the chief thought in 2Th 1:10 , this could only be analysed by: “in order that the and the of Christ may be realized in believers.” But this fact in itself is clear to the apostle as a settled truth; he cannot think on it as dependent on his prayer; he can only have it in view in his prayers, that the Thessalonians also may find themselves in the number of those among whom Christ will be glorified.
] belongs not to , so that the suitableness of this (supposed) design was denoted (de Wette), but to . It imports that the prayer of the apostle was added on behalf of the Thessalonians to the fact of the .
] The contents of the prayer in the form of a purpose. is that to which Paul would attain through his prayer. Comp. Meyer on Phi 1:9 .
] means to judge worthy; comp. 1Ti 5:17 ; Heb 3:3 ; Heb 10:29 . It never has the meaning to make worthy, which Luther, Grotius, Flatt, Olshausen, Ewald attribute to it. From this it follows that cannot express the act [40] of the divine calling, already belonging to the past, but must denote something future. is accordingly to be understood, as in Phi 3:14 , in a passive sense, as the good thing to which we are called, i.e. the future heavenly blessedness of the children of God. [41] Col 1:5 (see Meyer on that passage) is entirely analogous, where , elsewhere active, is used in a passive or objective sense.
With . . ., which is grammatically subordinate to , Paul adds, logically considered, the means which is to lead to the result of being judged worthy.
] to bring to completion or perfection.
] cannot be referred to God , as if it meant all His good pleasure, and denoted the divine decree of election (Oecumenius, Zwingli, Calvin, Estius, Justinian, Beza, Calixt, Wolf, Benson, Bengel, Macknight, Koppe, Flatt, Pelt, Bisping, and others). It is against this that , which forms an additional accusative to , is undoubtedly to be referred to the Thessalonians; that is never used by Paul of God; and lastly, that would require to have been written instead of . Others refer partly to God and partly to the Thessalonians. Thus Theophylact: , , , , . Grotius: Omnem bonitatem sibi gratam , . Olshausen, [42] with whom Bloomfield agrees: May God fill you with all the good which is pleasing to Him. This second explanation is even more inadmissible than the first. It is not even supported by the appearance of justification, as at least must be put, in order to afford a point of connection for it. The exclusively correct meaning is to understand both and of the Thessalonians . But does not denote benevolence (Chandler, Moldenhauer, Nsselt, Schott), but moral goodness generally. Comp. Rom 15:14 ; Gal 5:22 ; Eph 5:9 . Accordingly, with is expressed every satisfaction in moral goodness .
] here, as in 1Th 1:3 , represents faith as an , i.e. as something begun with energy, and persevered in amid persecution.
] belongs to , and takes the place of an adverb. See Bernhardy, Syntax , p. 209. Comp. Rom 1:4 ; Col 1:29 . Thus powerfully .
[40] So also Meyer on Phi 3:14 ; likewise Grimm in the Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1850, Part 4, p. 806 f.: “The Christians are declared worthy of the call already promulgated to them, or the may be in reference to them (Rom 11:29 ), because the Christian can again make himself unworthy of the divine grace which he has received (Rom 11:20 ff.; 2Co 6:1 ; Gal 5:4 ).”
[41] Alford incorrectly objects to the passive interpretation adopted by me, that the position of the words would require to be . For the emphasis rests on placed first, whilst with the idea, already supposed as well known by , ver. 5, as well as by the contents of ver. 10, is only resumed, although under a different form. Alford, appealing to 1Co 7:20 , understands “not merely as the first act of God, but as the enduring state produced by that act, the normal termination of which is glory .”
[42] In an excess of arbitrariness, Olshausen besides takes and as absolute accusatives, whilst he unites not only with , but likewise with .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 2212
MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN DESIRED
2Th 1:11-12. We pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
VARIOUS are the offices of Christian love; but none more valuable than that of intercession. In all its personal efforts, it communicates only such benefits as a creature can bestow: but in its applications to God in the behalf of any one, it brings down all the blessings of grace and glory. We say not indeed that intercession must of necessity prevail to the full extent of the blessings asked, or for every individual in whose behalf they are solicited: but they do prevail to a far greater extent than we are apt to imagine: and we know of nothing wherein love can exercise itself so profitably, as in frequent and fervent supplications to God for the object beloved. St. Pauls love was of no common cast: in fact, it knew no bounds: the sacrifice of life itself was welcomed by him, if it might but subserve the interests of immortal souls. In his prayers for them, there is a richness and fulness which marked at once the ardour of his mind, the depth of his knowledge, and the enlargement of his heart. No petition he could offer seemed sufficient to express the full extent of his desires. This appears in many of his prayers: and it is abundantly evident in that which we have selected for our consideration at this time.
Three things we must distinctly notice;
I.
The great object which he desired in their behalf
This was, that they might find acceptance with God in the day of judgment
[Of that day he is speaking in the preceding context: and he declares, that a sweet rest in the bosom of their God will be the portion of all who have approved themselves faithful to him under all their trials. This is the calling of which he speaks, and which he so designates, because it is the object to which believers are called: They are called unto Gods eternal glory by Christ Jesus [Note: 1Pe 5:10.].
Of this calling he prays that they may be counted worthy. What is the import of this expression, may be seen in the foregoing context, where it evidently refers, not to any merit in man, whereby he shall be justified before God, but to that meetness for heaven which shall serve to illustrate and display the equity of the Judge in his final decisions. The day of judgment is appointed not altogether for the purpose of awarding to men their proper doom; (for that, in reference to the soul at least, is adjudged to every one at the instant of his death:) it is rather appointed for the displaying before the whole assembled universe the righteousness of God in his dealings with the children of men; on which account it is called the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God [Note: Rom 2:5.]: and the description given of that day in the preceding context particularly presents it to us in that view. We say then, that the being accounted worthy of that calling refers to the meetness of the soul for the participation of it; and the petition thus expressed, must be understood to this effect: I pray, that in the last day you may be found to have possessed such a character, to have maintained such a conduct in this world, as shall be an evident token of the righteous judgment of God when he shall assign to you the everlasting possession of his kingdom and glory [Note: ver. 5.].
We have dwelt the more carefully on this, that we might cut off all occasion for mistake respecting the Apostles meaning in the text, throughout every part of which he most determinately marks the whole of our salvation as altogether of grace.]
Taking the petition then in this sense, we ask, Is it not such a petition as we are all concerned to offer both for ourselves and others?
[Who can reflect on the solemnities of that day, who can think of the discoveries which will then be brought to light, and the unexpected sentences that will be then awarded, and not earnestly desire, both for himself and for all who are dear to him, that the sentence which God shall pass on them may be one of approbation, and not of condemnation? I pray you, brethren, lay to heart this infinitely important subject; and never cease to pour out your souls before God, that you and yours may find acceptance before him in that day ]
In his further petitions for this object, he specifics,
II.
The means by which he expected it to be accomplished
[He considers the work as altogether of grace, in its origin, its progress, its consummation. God, in his infinite goodness, has ordained that his people shall possess such a measure of piety, as shall render them fully meet for the enjoyment of his presence and glory in the eternal world: and in reference both to the persons who shall possess it, and the measure in which they shall partake of it, he has exercised his good pleasure, disposing of all according to his own inscrutable purposes, and the eternal counsel of his own will [Note: Eph 1:5; Eph 1:9; Eph 1:11.]. This good pleasure the Apostle desired might be fulfilled in them by the mighty working of Gods power, calling forth into activity the faith he had bestowed, and giving it a more transforming efficacy upon their souls.
It is in this way, and this way alone, that the divine life is carried on and perfected. It is by the production of faith in the soul that the soul begins to live: it is by the exercise of that faith that the soul is enabled to do and suffer what God requires: and it is by the augmentation of that faith that the soul is perfected after the Divine image. It is faith which realizes the things that are invisible to mortal eyes, and gives to futurity a present existence [Note: Heb 11:1.]. It is the one principle in the soul, by which all its energies are called forth, and all its efforts are made effectual. The whole eleventh chapter to the Hebrews proves and illustrates this; and shews with what wisdom, as well as piety, the Apostle poured out his supplications before God.]
We shall not wonder at his desiring this great object, if we notice,
III.
The end which he foresaw was to be accomplished by it
Then will the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified in them
[Even in this world he is glorified in and by his saints, as he himself has expressly declared [Note: Joh 17:10.]. But the Apostle has respect rather to that day, wherein Christ will come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe [Note: ver. 10.]. Verily he will then be glorified in them. In what bright colours will then the whole assembled universe behold the virtue of his sacrifice, and the efficacy of his grace, and his fidelity to all his promises! Of those that have been given him by the Father, not one will be lost [Note: Joh 17:12.]: not one will be found to have been ever plucked out of his hands [Note: Joh 10:28.]. What hosannahs will resound to him from all the hosts of the redeemed, all singing, To Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and our Father, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever; Amen!
Then will the saints also be glorified in him
[Already, as members, do they participate in the glory of their Head, in and with whom they are already sitting, as it were, in heavenly places: they may be considered also as already glorified in and with him, in that they are placed by him as a city set on a hill, and made both the salt of the earth, and the lights of a dark world. But in that day their glory will he complete: for they shall then be like him, even in his perfect image, and be acknowledged by him in the presence of his Father and his holy angels, as his peculiar people, the purchase of his blood, the fruit of his travail, the jewels of his crown. Then shall all that is his, be theirs: his crown, his throne, his kingdom, his glory, all will be theirs, their inalienable property, their everlasting possession.]
Then too will all the wonders of Gods covenant, and the purposes of his grace, be unvailed and complete
[All will then be seen to have been according to the grace of our God, and the Lord Jesus Christ; between whom all was concerted from eternity: The counsel of peace, says the prophet, was between them both [Note: Zec 6:13.]. What wonder will not the developement of these stupendous mysteries excite throughout all the regions of the blessed; and to what songs of praise will it not give rise, through the never-ending ages of eternity!
Contemplate these things, the object desired, the means by which it was to be effected, and the wonderful ends to be attained by it; and this prayer will be found no less instructive to the mind, than it is reviving and refreshing to the soul.]
Address
1.
Those who have no experience of the things here prayed for
[How many are at this moment ignorant of the work of faith, and of that divine power with which it operates in the soul! How many are altogether strangers to the idea of Christ being glorified in them, or their being glorified in him, or of the eternal purposes of Gods grace being displayed in them! Little have such persons known of true religion: they even need to be taught the very first principles of the oracles of God. O brethren, the Gospel is not such a meagre thing as you make it! it is a wonderful display of Gods mercy and grace in the redemption of a ruined world: and, wherever it is received aright, it will fill the soul with such views and such desires as are expressed in our text. Do not, I beseech you, continue ignorant of these things: for, if you know them not, or feel not their influence, how shall you stand accepted at the judgment-seat of Christ? It will be too late to commence your inquiries then: they must be begun now: yea, you must now glorify Christ by a life of faith in this world, if ever you are to be glorified with him in the world to come.]
2.
Those whose prayers and intercessions accord with those of the holy Apostle
[Doubtless there are many amongst you whose hearts go forth with the petitions in our text; and who shall ultimately experience all that our text unfolds. But, in order to this desirable end, we recommend to all to consider the strictness of the scrutiny at that day. Verily, the Judge, as he himself tells us, has eyes like a flame of fire: and he tries the very hearts and reins, in order to give to every man according to his works [Note: Rev 2:18; Rev 2:23.]. It will be to little purpose to be accounted worthy by your fellow-creatures, if you he not so accounted by your God: and it must not be forgotten, that there are many who have a name to live, whilst yet, in reality, they are dead. O dread lest that should prove your state at the last: and be earnest with God in prayer, that he would fulfil in you all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power. Be satisfied with nothing short of this. Aspire after the highest possible attainments, that the Lord Jesus Christ may even now be glorified in you, and that your meetness for his glory may be conspicuous in the eyes of all. So shall your intercessions prevail for others also; and in that great day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, you shall shine forth as the sun in the firmament for ever and ever.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
(11) Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: (12) That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I pray the Reader to observe how sweetly Paul closeth the Chapter, as he had began, with prayer. What can be more proper for ministers, than to open and close all their ministerial services in the same manner. By the Lord’s counting the people worthy of this calling, cannot be supposed to mean any worthiness in them, for he had before ascribed all to the grace of God. But the counting worthy of this calling, means the Lord’s counting them one with Jesus; so that now, when the Church comes to be glorified in Jesus, the blessed testimonies of all that is past may appear in their first call by grace, and their being justified, adopted, sanctified, and the whole events they had past through, from grace to glory, might show their union and oneness with Christ from everlasting; so, that as all along their lives had been hid with Christ in God; now, when Christ, who is their life, appears, they appear with him in glory. Col 3:3-4 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
11 Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:
Ver. 11. The work of faith with power ] Without which power neither the goodness of God, nor the good pleasure of his goodness, that is, his decree of glorifying us, nor the work of faith, could be effected.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
11 .] With a view to which (consummation, the , &c., above, in your case , as is shewn below: not ‘ wherefore ,’ as E. V., Grot., Pelt, &c.) we pray also (as well as wish: had the imported (as Ln.) that the prayer of the Apostle was added on behalf of the Thessalonians to the fact (?) of the , it would have been .) always concerning you, that (see note on 1Co 14:13 ) our God may count YOU (emphatic) worthy (not ‘ make you worthy ,’ as Luth., Grot., Olsh., al., which the word cannot mean. The verb has the secondary emphasis: see below) of your calling (just as we are exhorted to walk , Eph 4:1 the calling being taken not merely as the first act of God, but as the enduring state produced by that act (see especially 1Co 7:20 ), the normal termination of which is, glory . So that is not ‘the good thing to which we are called,’ as Ln.: which besides would require : now that is sheltered behind the verb, it is taken as a matter of course, ‘your calling,’ an acknowledged fact), and may fulfil (complete, bring to its fulness in you) all (possible) right purpose of goodness (it is quite impossible, with many ancient Commentators, E. V., &c., to refer to God ‘ His good pleasure .’ In that case we must at least have and . will not refer with any propriety either to God, of whom the word is never used (occurring Rom 15:14 ; Gal 5:22 ; Eph 5:9 only, and always of MAN), or to the Thessalonians ( . ). It ( ) must then apply to the Thessalonians, as it does to human agents in Phi 1:15 . And then may be either a gen. objecti , ‘approval of that which is good,’ or a gen. appositionis , a consisting in . The latter I own seems to me (agst Ellic.) far the best: as is in all the above citations a subjective quality, and the approval of that which is good would introduce an element here which seems irrelevant) and (all) work of faith (activity of faith: see ref. 1 Thess. note. The genitive is again one of apposition), in power (belongs to , q. d. mightily ), that &c. On , cf. Phi 2:9 ff. Lnemann refers to , ‘and ye in it :’ but surely the expression is one too appropriated in sacred diction, for it to refer to any but our Lord Himself: cf. 1Co 1:5 ; 2Co 13:4 ; Eph 1:4 ; Eph 4:21 ; Col 2:10 , al.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
2Th 1:11 . . . ., we pray as well as render thanks (2Th 1:3 ) for you. Unable any longer to give the Thessalonians their personal example and instructions the time for that had passed ( ) Paul and his colleagues can still pray for them. The duties of a preacher or evangelist do not cease with the utterance of his message. : one proof that God deemed them worthy of His kingdom lay in the discipline of suffering by means of which He developed their patient faith (2Th 1:4-5 ), but Paul here finds another proof of it in their broader development of moral character and vital religion ( cf. 10). f1 includes as well as ; the prayer is for success to every practical enterprise of faith as well as for the satisfaction of every aspiration and desire after moral excellence. Compare Dante’s Paradiso , xviii. 58 60. is “the position you are called to occupy,” “your vocation,” as heirs of this splendid future a not unnatural extension ( cf. Phi 3:14 ) of its ordinary use (= 1Co 1:26 , etc.). This implies that a certain period of moral ripening must precede the final crisis. In 2Th 2:1 to 2Th 3:5 , Paul proceeds to elaborate this, in order to allay the feverish excitement at Thessalonica, while in 2Th 3:6 f., he discusses the further ethical disorders caused by the church’s too ardent hope. The heightened misery of the present situation must neither break down their patience (4 f.), nor on the other hand must it be taken as a proof that the end was imminent.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
2 Thessalonians
WORTHY OF YOUR CALLING
2Th 1:11-12 .
In the former letter to the Church of Thessalonica, the Apostle had dwelt, in ever-memorable words–which sound like a prelude of the trump of God–on the coming of Christ at the end to judge the world, and to gather His servants into His rest. That great thought seems to have excited some of the hotter heads in Thessalonica, and to have led to a general feverishness of unwholesome expectancy of the near approach or actual dawn of the day. This letter is intended as a supplement to the former Epistle, and to damp down the fire which had been kindled. It, therefore, dwells with emphasis on the necessary preliminaries to the dawning of that day of the Lord, and throughout seeks to lead the excited spirits to patience and persistent work, and to calm their feverish expectations. This purpose colours the whole letter.
Another striking characteristic of it is the frequent gushes of short prayer for the Thessalonians with which the writer turns aside from the main current of his thoughts. In its brief compass there are four of these prayers, which, taken together, present many aspects of the Christian life, and hold out much for our hopes and much for our efforts. The prayer which I have read for our text is the first of these. The others, the consideration of which will follow on subsequent occasions, are these:–’Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work.’ And, again, ‘The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.’ And, finally, summing up all, ‘The Lord of peace Himself give you peace always, by all means.’ So full, so tender, so directed to the highest blessings, and to those only, are the wishes of a true Christian teacher, and of a true Christian friend, for those to whom He ministers and whom He loves. It is a poor love that cannot express itself in prayer. It is an earthly love which desires for its objects anything less than the highest of blessings.
I. Notice, first, here, the divine test for Christian lives: ‘We pray for you, that God would count you worthy of your calling.’
Now, it is to be observed that this ‘counting worthy’ refers mainly to a future estimate to be made by God of the completed career and permanent character brought out of earth into another state by Christian souls. That is obvious from the whole strain of the letter, which I have already pointed out as mainly being concerned with the future coming to judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is also, I think, made probable by the fact that the same expression, ‘counting worthy,’ occurs in an earlier verse of this chapter, where the reference is exclusively to the future judgment.
So, then, we are brought face to face with this thought of an actual, stringent judgment which God will apply in the future to the lives and characters of professing Christians. Now, that is a great deal too much forgotten in our popular Christian teaching and in our average Christian faith. It is perfectly true that he who trusts in Jesus Christ will ‘not come into condemnation, but has passed from death unto life.’ But it is just as true that ‘judgment shall begin at the house of God,’ and that, ‘the Lord will judge His people.’ And therefore, it becomes us to lay to heart this truth, that we, just because, if we are Christians, we stand nearest to God, are surest to be searched through and through by the light that streams from Him, and to have every flaw and corrupt speck and black spot brought out into startling prominence. Let no Christian man fancy that he shall escape the righteous judgment of God. The great doctrine of forgiveness does not mean that He suffers our sin to remain upon us unjudged, ay! or unavenged. But just as, day by day, there is an actual estimate in the divine mind, according to truth, of what we really are, so, at the last, God’s servants will be gathered before His throne. ‘They that have made a covenant with Him by sacrifice’ shall be assembled there–as the Psalm has it–’that the Lord may judge His people.’
Then, if the actual passing of a divine judgment day by day, and a future solemn act of judgment after we have done with earth, and our characters are completed, and our careers rounded into a whole, is to be looked for by Christians, what is the standard by which their worthiness is to be judged?
‘Your calling.’ The ‘this’ of my text in the Authorised Version is a supplement, and a better supplement is that of the Revised Version, ‘your calling.’ Now calling does not mean ‘avocation’ or ‘employment,’ as I perhaps need scarcely explain, but the divine fact of our having been summoned by Him to be His. Consider who calls. God Himself. Consider how He calls. By the Gospel, by Jesus Christ, or, as another apostle has it, ‘by His own glory and virtue’ manifested in the world. That great voice which is in Jesus Christ, so tender, so searching, so heart-melting, so vibrating with the invitation of love and the yearning of a longing heart, summons or calls us. Consider, also, what this calling is to. ‘God hath not called us to uncleanness, but to holiness,’ or, as this letter has it, in another part, ‘unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.’ By all the subduing and animating and restraining and impelling tones in the sacrifice and life of Jesus Christ we are summoned to a life of self-crucifixion, of subjection of the flesh, of aspiration after God, of holy living according to the pattern that was showed us in Him. We are summoned here and now to a life of purity and righteousness and self-sacrifice. But also ‘He hath called us to His everlasting kingdom and glory.’ That voice sounds from above now. From the Cross it said to us, ‘I die that ye may live’; from the throne it says to us, ‘Live because I live, and come to live where I live.’ The same invitation, which calls us to a life of righteousness and self-suppression and purity, also calls us, with the sweet promise that is firm as the throne of God, to the everlasting felicities of that perfect kingdom in which, because the obedience is entire, the glory shall be untremulous and unstained. Therefore, considering who summons, by what He summons, and to what He calls us, do there not lie in the fact of that divine call to which we Christians say that we have yielded, the solemnest motives, the loftiest standard, the most stringent obligations for life? What sort of a life will that be which is worthy of that voice? Is yours? Is mine? Are there not the most flagrant examples of professing Christians, whose lives are in the most outrageous discordance with the lofty obligations and mighty motives of the summons which they profess to have obeyed? ‘Worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called!’ Have I made my own the things which I am invited to possess? Have I yielded to the obligations which are enwrapped in that invitation? Does my life correspond to the divine purpose in calling me to be His? Can I say, ‘Lord, Thou art mine, and I am Thine, and here my life witnesses to it, because self is banished from it, and I am full of God, and the life which I live in the flesh I live not to myself, but to Him that died for me?’
An absolute correspondence, a complete worthiness or perfect desert, is impossible for us all, but a worthiness which His merciful judgment who makes allowance for us all may accept, as not too flagrantly contradictory of what He meant us to be, is possible even for our poor attainments and our stained lives. If it were Paul’s supreme prayer, should it not be our supreme aim, that we may be worthy of Him that hath called us, and ‘walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called’?
II. Note, here, the divine help to meet the test.
If it were a matter of our own effort alone, who of us could pretend to reach to the height of conformity with the great design of the loving Father in summoning us, or with the mighty powers that are set in motion by the summons for the purifying of men’s lives? But here is the great characteristic and blessing of God’s Gospel, that it not only summons us to holiness and to heaven, but reaches out a hand to help us thither. Therein it contrasts with all other voices–and many of them are noble and pathetic in their insistence and vehemence–which call men to lofty lives. Whether it be the voice of conscience, or of human ethics, or of the great ones, the elect of the race, who, in every age, have been as voices crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord’–all these call us, but reach no hand out to draw us. They are all as voices from the heights and are of God, but they are voices only; they summon us to noble deeds, and leave us floundering in the mire.
But we have not a God who tells us to be good, and then watches to see if we will obey, but we have a God who, with all His summonses, brings to us the help to keep His commandments. Our God has more than a voice to enjoin, He has a hand to lift, ‘Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt,’ said Augustine. There is the blessing and glory of the Gospel, that its summons has in it an impelling power which makes men able to be what it enjoins them to become. My text, therefore, follows the prayer ‘that God would count you worthy,’ which contemplates God simply as judging men’s correspondence with the ideal revealed in their calling, and is the cry of faith to the giving God, who works in us, if we will let Him, that which He enjoins on us. There are two directions of that divine working specified in the text. Paul asks that God would fulfil ‘every desire of goodness and every work of faith,’ as the Revised Version renders the words. Two things, then, we may hope that God will do for us–He will fulfil every yearning after righteousness and purity in our hearts, and will perfect the active energy which faith puts forth in our lives.
Paul says, in effect, first, that God will fulfil every desire that longs for goodness. He is scarcely deserving of being called good who does not desire to be better. Aspiration must always be ahead of performance in a growing life, such as every Christian life ought to be. To long for any righteousness and beauty of goodness is, in some imperfect and incipient measure, to possess the good for which we long. This is the very signature of a Christian life–yearning after unaccomplished perfection. If you know nothing of that desire that stings and impels you onwards; if you do not know what it is to say, ‘Oh! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ if you do not know what it is to follow the fair ideal realised in Jesus Christ with infinite longing, what right have you to call yourself a Christian? The very essence of the Christian life is yearning for completeness, and restlessness as long as sin has any power over us. We live not only by admiration, faith, and love, but we live by hope; and he who does not hunger and thirst after righteousness has yet to learn what are the first principles of the Gospel of Christ.
If there be not the desire after goodness, the restlessness and dissatisfaction with every present good, the brave ambition that says, ‘Forgetting the things that are behind, I reach forth unto the things that are before,’ there is nothing in a man to which God’s grace can attach itself. God cannot make you better if you do not wish to be better. There is no point upon which His hallowing and ennobling grace can lay hold in your hearts without such desire. ‘Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.’ If, as is too often the case with hosts of professing Christians, you shut your mouths tight and lock your teeth, how can God put any food between your lips? There must, first of all, be the aspiration, and then there will be the satisfaction.
I look out upon my congregation, or, better still, I look into my own heart, and I say, If I, if you, dear brethren, are not worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called, we have not because we ask not. If there be no desire after goodness in our hearts, God cannot make us good. Our wishes are the mould into which the molten metal from the great furnace of His love will run. If we bring but a little vessel we cannot get a large supply. The manna lies round our tents; it is for us to determine how much we will gather.
And in like manner, says Paul, God will fulfil every work of faith. Our faith in Jesus Christ will naturally tend to influence our lives, and to manifest itself as a driving power which will set all the wheels of conduct in motion. Paul is quite sure that if we trust ourselves to God, all the beneficent and holy work that flows from such confidence will by Him be fully perfected.
God’s fulfilment is to be done with power . That is to say, He will fit us to be worthy of our calling, He will answer our desires, He will give energy to our faith, and complete in number and in quality its operations in our lives, by reason of His dwelling with us and in us by that spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind which works all righteousness in believing hearts, and sheds divine beauty and goodness over character and life.
III. Lastly, note the divine glory of the worthy.
This fulfilment of every desire of goodness and work of faith is in order ‘that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him.’
Here, again, as in the first clause of our text, I take, in accordance with the prevailing tone of this letter, the reference to be mainly, though perhaps not exclusively, to a future transcendent glorifying of the name of Christ in perfected saints, and glorifying of perfected saints in Jesus Christ.
We have, then, set forth, first, as the result of the fulfilling of Christian men’s desires after goodness, and the work of their faith, the glory that accrues to Christ from perfected saints. They are His workmanship. You remember the old story of the artist who went into a fellow-artist’s studio and left upon the easel one complete circle, swept with one master-whirl of the brush. Jesus Christ presents perfected men to an admiring universe as specimens of what He can do. His highest work is the redeeming of poor creatures like you and me, and the making of us perfect in goodness and worthy of our calling. We are His chefs-d’oeuvre , the master work of the great divine artist.
Think, then, brethren, how, here and now, Christ’s reputation is in our hands. Men judge of Him by us. The name of the Lord Jesus is glorified in you if you live ‘worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,’ and people will think better of the Master if His disciples are faithful. Depend upon it, if we of this church, for instance, and the Christian people within these walls now, lived the lives that they ought to do, and manifested the power of the Gospel as they might, there would be many who would say, ‘They have been with Jesus, and the Jesus that has made them what they are must be mighty and great.’ The best evidence of the power of the Gospel is your consistent lives.
Think, too, of that strange dignity that in the future, in manners and in regions all undiscernible by us, Christians, who have been made out of stones into children of God, will make known ‘unto principalities and powers in heavenly places’ the wisdom and the love and the energy of the redeeming God. Who knows to what regions the commission of the perfected saints to make Christ known may carry them? Light travels far, and we cannot tell into what remote corners of the universe this may penetrate. This only we know, that they who shall be counted worthy to attain that life and the Resurrection from the dead shall bear the image of the heavenly, and perhaps to creations yet uncreated, and still to be evolved through the ages of eternity, it may be their part to carry the lustre of the light of the glory of God who redeemed and purified them.
On the other hand, there is glory accruing to perfected saints in Christ. ‘And ye in Him.’ There will be a union so close as that nothing closer is possible, personality being preserved, between Christ and the saints above, who trust Him and love Him and serve Him there. And that union will lead to a participation in His glory which shall exalt their limited, stained, and fragmentary humanity into ‘the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.’ Astronomers tell us that dead, cold matter falls from all corners of the system into the sun, drawn by its magic magnetism from farthest space, and, plunging into that great reservoir of fire, the deadest and coldest matter glows with fervid heat and dazzling light. So you and I, dead, cold, dull, opaque, heavy fragments, drawn into mysterious oneness with Christ, the Sun of our souls, shall be transformed into His own image, and like Him be light and heat which shall radiate through the universe.
Brethren, meditate on your calling, the fact, its method, its aim, its obligations, and its powers. Cherish hopes and desires after goodness, the only hopes and desires that are certain to be fulfilled. Cultivate the life of faith working by love, and let us all live in the light of that solemn expectation that the Lord will judge His people. Then we may hope that the voice which summoned us will welcome us, and proclaim even of us, stained and undeserving as we rightly feel ourselves to be: ‘They have not defiled their garments, therefore they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Wherefore = With a view to (Greek. eis) which.
also we pray = we pray (App-134.) also.
that = in order that. Greek. hina.
count . . . worthy. Greek. axioo. See Act 15:38.
fulfil. App-125.
good pleasure. Greek. eudokia. See Rom 10:1.
goodness. Greek. agathosune. See Rom 15:14.
power. App-172. 1, as 2Th 1:7.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
11.] With a view to which (consummation, the , &c., above, in your case, as is shewn below: not wherefore, as E. V., Grot., Pelt, &c.) we pray also (as well as wish: had the imported (as Ln.) that the prayer of the Apostle was added on behalf of the Thessalonians to the fact (?) of the , it would have been .) always concerning you, that (see note on 1Co 14:13) our God may count YOU (emphatic) worthy (not-make you worthy, as Luth., Grot., Olsh., al., which the word cannot mean. The verb has the secondary emphasis: see below) of your calling (just as we are exhorted to walk , Eph 4:1-the calling being taken not merely as the first act of God, but as the enduring state produced by that act (see especially 1Co 7:20), the normal termination of which is, glory. So that is not the good thing to which we are called, as Ln.: which besides would require : now that is sheltered behind the verb, it is taken as a matter of course, your calling, an acknowledged fact), and may fulfil (complete,-bring to its fulness in you) all (possible) right purpose of goodness (it is quite impossible, with many ancient Commentators, E. V., &c., to refer to God-His good pleasure. In that case we must at least have -and . will not refer with any propriety either to God, of whom the word is never used (occurring Rom 15:14; Gal 5:22; Eph 5:9 only, and always of MAN), or to the Thessalonians (. ). It () must then apply to the Thessalonians, as it does to human agents in Php 1:15. And then may be either a gen. objecti, approval of that which is good,-or a gen. appositionis, a consisting in . The latter I own seems to me (agst Ellic.) far the best: as is in all the above citations a subjective quality, and the approval of that which is good would introduce an element here which seems irrelevant) and (all) work of faith (activity of faith: see ref. 1 Thess. note. The genitive is again one of apposition), in power (belongs to , q. d. mightily),-that &c. On , cf. Php 2:9 ff. Lnemann refers to , and ye in it: but surely the expression is one too appropriated in sacred diction, for it to refer to any but our Lord Himself: cf. 1Co 1:5; 2Co 13:4; Eph 1:4; Eph 4:21; Col 2:10, al.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
2Th 1:11. , for which object) We strive for this in prayer.-, would make you worthy) There is no dignity in us before we are called, 2Ti 1:9. It is not until afterwards conferred upon us in that way, which is presently described.- ) our God, whom we serve.-, good pleasure) on the part of God.-, of faith) on your part.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
2Th 1:11
To which end we also pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling,-On account of the superior glory that will come to those who believe in him, Paul prayed constantly that God would count them worthy of the calling to which he had called them. [In the bestowal of reward, whether for suffering or for service, grace reigns. At best the servant is unprofitable (Luk 17:10), yet because it was in his heart to serve (1Ki 8:18), and because he did what he could (Mar 14:8), using what was at his disposal (2Co 8:12), according to the opportunity provided (Mat 25:15), God will reward him not according to the actual attainment or to the work accomplished, but according to the riches of his grace in Christ. Christians are to be holy, for God is holy (1Pe 1:15); to be perfect, as their heavenly Father is perfect (Mat 5:48); to be imitators of God, since they are his beloved children (Eph 5:1). Thus the expression worthy describes the ideal Christian life, the ideal of every spiritually-minded person.]
and fulfil every desire of goodness-[The word rendered desire of goodness is that which Paul uses when he says: My hearts desire and my supplication to God is for them, that they may be saved (Rom 10:1), and is commonly used for desire, especially when the desire is a benevolent one. The prayer of Paul is that God would so increase their goodness as to make these desires themselves perfect, irrespective of their results, and would enable them to maintain and perfect that activity and endurance to which faith had prompted them. His mind still dwells on the grand graces-work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope-which they had displayed (1Th 1:3), and for the two graces he prays for completion.]
and every work of faith, with power;-The work was peculiar to their faith, by which it was characterized, inasmuch as it was something begun with energy and held fast with resoluteness, in spite of all obstacles and oppositions.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
we pray: Rom 1:9, Eph 1:16, Eph 3:14-21, Phi 1:9-11, Col 1:9-13, 1Th 3:9-13
our God: Psa 48:14, Psa 68:20, Isa 25:9, Isa 55:7, Dan 3:17, Rev 5:10
would: 2Th 1:5, Col 1:12, Rev 3:4
count: or, vouchsafe
calling: 2Th 2:14, Rom 8:30, Rom 9:23, Rom 9:24, Phi 3:14, 1Th 2:12, Heb 3:1, 1Pe 5:10
fulfil: Psa 138:8, Pro 4:18, Isa 66:9, Hos 6:3, Zec 4:7, Mar 4:28, 1Co 1:8, Phi 1:6
the good: Psa 51:18, Luk 12:32, Eph 1:5, Eph 1:9, Phi 2:13, Tit 3:4-7
the work: Joh 6:27-29, Eph 1:19, Eph 1:20, 1Th 1:3, 1Th 2:13, Heb 12:2
Reciprocal: Psa 68:28 – strengthen Isa 53:10 – the pleasure Mar 9:24 – help Act 2:39 – as many Eph 1:18 – his calling Eph 4:1 – vocation 1Th 3:10 – might perfect
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
A PRAYER
To which end we also pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfil every desire of goodness and every work of faith, with power; that the Name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2Th 1:11-12 (R.V.)
These words of the Apostle Paul were a prayer for the infant Christian Church at Thessalonica, a church founded by him some twenty years after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. St. Paul was wishing to encourage the Thessalonian Christiansa small body of believers in the midst of much opposition and many perplexitiesto be steadfast in their faith. He bids them look on for the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven, as an event in which all righteous judgment should culminate.
I. The Name of our Lord Jesus had for the Apostle Paul, and has for all who believe as Paul did, a sacred, a personal, a living significance. No one can fail to perceive the parallel which suggests itself between the petition taught by Christ to His disciples in the prayer to our Father in heaven, and the wish of St. Paul here as he looks up and away from earths sin and suffering to the yearned-for future of a perfected salvation.
Hallowed be Thy Name is the primary attitude of a soul turned Godward. But, it may be asked, is such attitude legitimate, Christward? Most assuredly yes, if we honestly receive and believe the gospel records of what Christ was, and taught, and did.
II. How is this Name glorified?Think of two utterances of Christ Himself. The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. He then intimates that through suffering and death should come the glorious issue; and His soul is troubled within Him, and yet confident as to the final victory. Again, our Lord in speaking to His disciples about the Spirit of Truth said, He shall glorify Me. God glorified in Christ; Christ glorified by the Spirit; the world attracted, the disciples taught; and disciples thus enlightened, inspired, encouraged, are to preach remission of sins in Christs Name unto all the nations of the earth: this is, in brief sum, the function of the Messianic age, the progressive glorification of the Name of our Lord Jesus among men.
III. The effect upon human progress of Christs claims and of the response to them is indisputable.Men recognise Christianity as a great transforming power, and as a great ethical force in the world; but do not let us forget that its power is personal and its force is spiritual energy, exercised in the life of Christians. It is no abstract system of theology or ethics that has produced the ameliorating, or expanding, or elevating effects which show themselves in connection with the spread and reception of the Christian religion; it is the practical outcome of glorifying the Name of our Lord Jesus.
Archbishop Saumarez Smith.
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Christ Jesus cannot be disestablished from human history; nor can His resurrection be disproved, though it can be denied. Non-Christian critics are themselves compelled to some extent to glorify Christs Name. When Strauss, the German critic, says, Jesus stands in the first line of those who have developed the idea of humanity, and that in Him is condensed all that is good and excellent in our nature; when Renan, the French man of letters, says that Jesus is the individual who has made His species take the greatest step towards the Divine; when John Stuart Mill, the English philosopher (in a passage often quoted), tells us that it would not even now be easy for an unbeliever to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract to the concrete than to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life; the Christian believer maynot self-complacently, but gratefullyfeel how these testimonies tend to prove that the logical position and the moral certainty of the Christian, who believes, is superior to that of the non-believer, who criticises.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
2Th 1:11. In Eph 4:1 Paul exhorts brethren to walk worthy of their calling, and in this verse he expresses the same thought in a differ-ent wording. He prays that God would count or consider the Thessalonians worthy, which would require that they live as they should, since God will not favor any unworthy persons. God is perfectly good, and will not take pleasure in the disciples unless they fulfill the conditions on which such grace is promised. Those conditions must be a work of faith, and that means according to the Gospel, since it is the power that directs men and women into salvation (Rom 1:16).
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
2Th 1:11. To which end. An expression equivalent to, and with a view to this glorious consummation.
We also pray. We not only give you these assurances regarding this great future event, but in our prayers it is present to our thoughts, showing us more distinctly what you need to make you partakers of its glory.
That our God would count you worthy of this calling. This is the matter of his prayer, but blended, as Ellicott remarks, with the purpose of making it. The calling to which Paul refers is that destiny of the saints which he has just been describing. Calling is here used, as it so commonly is in our familiar use of the word, for that to which a person is called, precisely as hope is used not only of the sentiment within us, but also of the object which excites it. Of course no man is, strictly speaking, worthy of such a destiny. Had it been a mare matter of justice, such a prayer as this of Pauls would have been inappropriate if not impertinent. But while it is by Gods grace any one is counted worthy, there is a corresponding conduct looked for and required in those who are visited by this grace. There is a walking worthy of this vocation. Our Lord warns us (Luk 21:36) that watching and praying are needed if we are to be counted worthy; and we know that by a law of His kingdom, increased grace is given only to those who have rightly used what has already been bestowed. All this work, however, in and by the Christian is, as Paul here reminds us, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Fulfil all the good pleasure of goodness and the work of faith. As the second member of this double petition certainly refers to the faith of the Thessalonians, it is probable that the first member of it likewise refers to the goodness of the Thessalonians. And this is confirmed by the circumstance that the word here translated goodness is never used of the goodness of God, but always of that of men. The word rendered good pleasure is that which Paul uses when he says, My hearts desire for Israel is, that they may be saved, and is commonly used for desire, especially (though not always) when the desire is a benevolent one. The prayer of Paul therefore is, that God would powerfully bring to complete and satisfactory result every desire or purpose which their goodness of heart engendered, or more probably would so increase their goodness as to make these desires themselves perfect, irrespective of their results, and would enable them to maintain and perfect that activity and endurance to which faith had prompted them. His mind still dwells on the two grand graces which the Thessalonians had displayed, their work of faith and labour of love (1Th 1:3), and for these two graces he now begs completion.
With power, i.e. powerfully.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
In these words St. Paul assures the Thessalonians, that although he could not come to them, that yet he prayed fervently for them: We pray always for you. The faithful ministers of Christ can as soon forget themselves as their people in their prayers to God.
Observe next, what he prayed for, on their behalf,–
1. That God would count them worthy, that is, fit and meet for his calling; that is, for the fore-mentioned glory, which they were called to the expectation of, for they were already called; and therefore calling here must denote that unto which they were called, even the kingdom of glory.
2. That in order to this, God would fulfil, fully perform and accomplish, his whole purpose, here called his pleasure, and the pleasure of his goodness; to show that nothing but his own goodness was the cause of his own purpose.
3. He prays that God by his own power would strengthen the work of faith in them. And the work of faith with power.
Where note, 1. That we are not only saved by God’s good pleasure, but by faith.
2. That there is no saving faith, but what is a working faith.
3. That faith is wrought by a wonderful power, which doth produce wonderful effects.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Paul’s Prayer During Their Affliction Paul wanted them to be prepared for the kingdom of God when Christ would come again for judgment. So, he, along with Silas and Timothy, prayed for them that they would be considered by God ready to enter heaven ( Mat 25:14-30 ). Christians must strive to live a righteous life and perform all of the works one who truly believes in God and His Son. Notice, to truly do this requires God’s help, which Paul prayed for in their behalf. Also, if there were no concern about falling from grace, Paul’s prayer would be meaningless.
When Christians live according to the Lord’s will, His name is glorified ( Mat 5:16 ). In turn, wearing the name of God’s own Son and being a part of His body will bring glory to the Christian. This is only possible because of the unmerited gift of God’s help ( 2Th 1:11-12 ).
2Th 2:1-3
At Peace With the Lord’s Second Coming
Paul assured them that the Lord’s second coming could not occur until some went away from the truth and took their stand somewhere else. Also, the son of perdition, or perishing who is also called the man of sin, would have to be made known. It is interesting to note that Judas was called the son of perdition ( Joh 17:12 ). While he was not Satan, certainly he allowed himself to be made his agent by yielding control of his heart to him ( 2Th 2:1-3 ; Joh 13:21-30 ).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
2Th 1:11-12. Wherefore In regard of which, as we rejoice in what is already done, and have the most earnest concern that the precious seed we have sown may answer the hope with which we see it springing up, and may at length advance to full maturity; we pray always for you We are incessant in our supplications to God; that he would account you worthy of this calling That is, would make you meet for the glory to which you are called; see Eph 4:4; and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness Which is no less than perfect holiness: that he would produce in you all those amiable and happy affections and tempers, which his paternal regard for our happiness engages him to recommend and require. This, observes Mr. Blackwall, (Sac. Class., vol. 1. p. 184,) is the shortest and the most charming emphatical representation that is anywhere to be found, of that immense graciousness and admirable benignity of God, which no words can fully express, but was never so happily and so fully expressed as here. And the work of faith with power That faith which is his work, wrought by his almighty power, Eph 1:19-20; that is, that he would perfect your faith in Christ and in his gospel, and by it your holiness in all its branches. That the name The love and power; of our Lord Jesus Christ While you act in a manner so suitable to the relation in which you stand to him; may be glorified Gloriously displayed; in you That is, in these works of his grace and power wrought in and by you; and ye in him May also be glorified, may have the honour of approving yourselves his true, faithful, obedient servants; the excellent of the earth, and may for ever share in the glory he hath prepared for such in heaven; according to the grace The free, unmerited favour and love of our merciful God and the Lord Jesus Christ By whom that grace is so fully manifested to, and so plentifully bestowed upon us.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
To which end [i. e., with a view to this glorious consummation; viz.: of being glorified in Christ] we also pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfil every desire of goodness and every work of faith, with power;
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
1:11 {8} Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of {b} [this] calling, and fulfil {c} all the good pleasure of [his] goodness, and the {d} work of faith with power:
(8) Seeing that we have the mark set before us, it remains that we go to it. And we go to it, by certain degrees of causes: first by the free love and good pleasure of God, by virtue of which all other inferior causes work: from there proceeds the free calling to Christ, and from calling, faith, upon which follows both the glorifying of Christ in us and us in Christ.
(b) By “calling” he does not mean the very act of calling, but that self same thing to which we are called, which is the glory of that heavenly kingdom.
(c) Which he determined long ago, only upon his gracious and merciful goodness towards you.
(d) So then, faith is an excellent work of God in us: and we plainly see here that the apostle leaves nothing to free will, to make it something which God works through, as the papists dream.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
C. Prayer for success 1:11-12
Paul and his companions "always" prayed that the Thessalonians would continue to experience purification through their trials rather than experience apostasy. [Note: See my comments on 2:3-4] They also prayed that God would note and approve their worth.
"God counts men worthy as they consent to and endeavor to do that which He works in them." [Note: Hiebert, p. 296.]
The apostle also asked that God would by His power bring to full expression every good purpose of his readers to glorify God and every act motivated by their faith in Him. The ultimate goal was the glory of the Lord Jesus manifested through the Thessalonian believers.
"The ’name’ in Biblical times stood for the whole personality and was an expression of the personality." [Note: Morris, The Epistles . . ., p. 122.]
This is the first of five prayers for the Thessalonians contained in this short letter (cf. 2Th 2:16-17; 2Th 3:5; 2Th 3:16; 2Th 3:18).
". . . Christlike behavior is more important than words of praise in the glorifying of the Lord. For praise from a life transformed by the power of the Spirit rings true and sweet, but godless living makes a mockery of praise." [Note: Martin, p. 219.]
"Here strict syntax requires, since there is only one article with theou [God] and kuriou [lord] that one person be meant, Jesus Christ, as is certainly true in Tit 2:13; 2Pe 1:1 . . . This otherwise conclusive syntactical argument . . . is weakened a bit by the fact that Kurios is often employed as a proper name without the article, a thing not true of soter [savior] in Tit 2:13 and 2Pe 1:1. So in Eph 5:5 en tei basileiai tou Christou kai theou the natural meaning is in the Kingdom of Christ and God regarded as one, but here again theos, like Kurios, often occurs as a proper name without the article. So it has to be admitted that here Paul may mean ’according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ,’ though he may also mean ’according to the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.’" [Note: A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 4:46.]
This section of verses (2Th 1:3-12) gives us great insight into God’s reasons for allowing His saints to undergo affliction for their faith (cf. James 1). Persecution can be a great blessing from God and can bring great glory to our Lord Jesus Christ both now and in the future.