+I. Our Lord's coming is called a revealing of Him.+--Here He is
revealed in the outer world and in the Gospel. There he will be
revealed in glory, without disguise or veil.
+II. Look at the troublers and their portion.+--"It is a righteous
thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you."
Sorrow of the acutest kind without comfort or alleviation.
+III. Look at the portion of the troubled.+--"Rest." A heaven of
quietness and repose, and yet of ceaseless and tireless activity in
praising God.
+IV. The righteousness of the Divine conduct.+--"It is a righteous
thing with God." The Lord's second coming is not on an errand of
mercy; His main business is to dispense justice.--_C. Bradley._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 7-10.
_The Day of Judgment._
The apostle sought to comfort the persecuted and suffering Church at
Thessalonica by assuring them of a coming day of recompense, in which
the Divine righteousness would be satisfactorily cleared, His enemies
punished, and His people rewarded. He now proceeds to depict the
startling scenes of that promised day--"that day for which all other
days were made"--and to indicate the twofold aspect of severity and
mercy which will characterise the awards of the great Judge. In
dealing with a subject of such overwhelming import, and which affords
such scope for the play of the most powerful imagination, special
care should be taken to keep within the limits of the revealed Word.
These verses suggest:--
+I. That the day of judgment will be ushered in with awful
splendour.+--1. _The person of the Judge will be clothed with
dazzling brightness._ "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
in flaming fire" (vers. 7, 8). The career of Christ on earth was one
of obscurity, humiliation, and suffering, relieved now and then with
outbursts of Divine glory; but when He comes the second time, He will
appear in all the unveiled charms of His peerless majesty, clad with
heavenly splendour and brilliant as a fiery flame. The revelation of
Jehovah is often referred to in the Old Testament under the emblem of
fire (Exod. xiii. 21; Num. ix. 15; Deut. iv. 24; Isa. x. 16, 17,
etc.). The glimpse caught by the seer of Patmos of the ineffable
beauty and glory of the God-man bowed him with astonishment and awe
(Rev. i. 13-17). And who shall stand before the flashing splendours
of the great and holy Judge! Heaven is too narrow for the full
display of the Divine majesty; it glances on every globe; it
irradiates the universe.
2. _The Judge will be attended by an angelic retinue._--"With His
mighty angels" (ver. 7). The pomp and state of the earthly judge, the
gaily decked chariot, the sounding trumpets, the accompanying
officers of justice, are but a feeble representation of the pomp and
state of the heavenly Judge, "who maketh the clouds His chariot, who
walketh upon the wings of the wind" (Ps. civ. 3), and whose gorgeous
train is composed of hosts of mighty angels, who attend to execute
His will, to punish the wicked, and to assist at the final
consummation (Matt. xiii. 41, 42). These angels of might are
ministers of His power, and by their agency He will make His power
felt. We have an illustration of the colossal mightiness of these
angelic messengers in the apparent ease with which one angel in a few
hours laid thousands of the Assyrians low (2 Kings xix. 35).
+II. That the day of judgment will be a time of punishment to the
disobedient.+--1. _The objects of punishment._ "Them that know not
God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" (ver. 8).
Not that ample opportunity has not been given to all to acquire a
knowledge of God. To punish for not knowing what we cannot know would
be an injustice and a cruelty. God has given to all the double light
of His works and Word. He has also given the eyes of sense and
reason, and the help of His Holy Spirit to guide all to the knowledge
of Himself and of "the glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1 Tim.
i. 11). It is not the involuntary ignorance of the uninstructed that
is meant, but the wilful ignorance of the determined adversary, who
not only rejected the Gospel himself, but barbarously persecuted
those who received and obeyed it. Knowledge of God is of little value
if it does not lead to obedience. Confused, indistinct, inoperative
knowledge is no knowledge. To know and not to obey the Gospel
involves a heavier condemnation.
2. _The character of the punishment._--"Who shall be punished with
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the
glory of His power" (ver. 9). Awful words! Who can fully explain what
they really involve? If destruction means annihilation, how can it be
everlasting? Besides, the notion of the absolute extinction of
anything God has made--the reduction to nothingness of either a
reasonable soul or a material atom--has as little support from the
teachings of revelation as of science. Again, it is urged that
"everlasting" does not always in Scripture mean what lasts for ever,
but sometimes what lasts only for a long period. But the utmost this
argument could prove would be that the present possibly may be, not
that it is, one of these peculiar cases. Were it the only fact in the
case, there would still be the terrible uncertainty. "But then
remember," says Dr. Lillie, "that if it had really been intended to
teach the eternity of future punishment, no stronger words, phrases,
and images could have been found for the purpose than those actually
employed." Whatever the punishment may be in itself, is it not
punishment enough to be for ever excluded "from the presence of the
Lord," driven, a moral wreck, "from the glory of His power"? Let the
words of this ninth verse be seriously weighed in private meditation,
and some sense of their awful signification cannot fail to be
realised.
+III. That the day of judgment will be a revelation of the glory and
blessedness of the faithful.+--1. _The glory of Christ is bound up
and reflected in His Church._ "When He shall come to be glorified in
His saints and to be admired in all them that believe in that day"
(ver. 10). The Church is the creation of Christ; for her He lived,
suffered, died, and triumphed, and into her He poured the glory of
His matchless character. "The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given
them" (John xvii. 22). His Church, like a mirror, shall reflect to
the gaze of an admiring universe the unutterable glory of the great
Redeemer. "The beauty of the Lord our God shall be upon her, and His
glory shall be seen upon her" (Ps. xc. 17). How great a change is
this from the sins, the struggles, the failures, the disappointments,
and sufferings of earth!
2. _A life of faith leads to a life of glory._--"Because our
testimony among you was believed" (ver. 10). Faith rests on testimony
and is vitally affected by the character of the testimony. Saving
faith relies on the infallible testimony of the Word of God
concerning Christ. The faith exercised in the midst of
discouragements and persecution is often tenacious and vigorous. The
Gospel is backed by evidence sufficient to convince every sane and
reasonable mind. All may believe it who will; none will be excluded
from glory but those who _will not_ believe. In ancient Athens were
two temples--a temple of Virtue and a temple of Honour--and none
could enter the temple of Honour but by passing through the temple of
Virtue. So, none can enter the temple of Glory who does not first
pass through the temple of Faith.
+Lessons.+--1. _The day of judgment, though future, is inevitable._
2. _The proceedings of that day will be in harmony with the holiest
principles of Divine justice._ 3. _That day should be solemnly
contemplated in its approach, in its attendant circumstances, and in
its final decisions._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._