'The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God,
and into the patient waiting for Christ.'--2
THESS. iii. 5.
A word or two of explanation of terms may preface our remarks on this,
the third of the Apostle's prayers for the Thessalonians in this letter.
The first point to be noticed is that by 'the Lord' here is meant, as
usually in the New Testament, Jesus Christ. So that here again we have
the distinct recognition of His divinity, and the direct address of
prayer to Him.
The next thing to notice is that by 'the love of God' is here meant, not
God's to us, but ours to Him; and that the petition, therefore, respects
the emotions and sentiments of the Thessalonians towards the Father in
heaven.
And the last point is that the rendering of the Authorised Version,
'patient waiting for Christ,' is better exchanged for that of the
Revised Version, 'the patience of Christ,' meaning thereby the same
patience as He exhibited in His earthly life, and which He is ready to
bestow upon us.
It is not usual in the New Testament to find Jesus Christ set forth as
the great Example of patient endurance; but still there are one or two
instances in which the same expression is applied to Him. For example,
in two contiguous verses in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we read of His
'enduring contradiction of sinners against Himself,' and 'enduring the
Cross, despising the shame,' in both of which cases we have the verb
employed of which the noun is here used. Then in the Apocalypse we have
such expressions as 'the patience of Christ,' of which John says that he
and his brethren whom he is addressing are 'participators,' and, again,
'thou hast kept the word of my patience.'
So, though unusual, the thought of our text as presented in the amended
version is by no means singular. These things, then, being premised, we
may now look at this petition as a whole.