CHAPTER XII.

THE EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS

(continued).

T was only to be expected that in his letter to the Church of the Thessalonians, S. Paul would carry on the same line of instruction that he had begun during his brief ministry

among them.

One point that S. Paul had evidently laid great stress upon in his preaching was that Jesus was the Christ, the true King, the King of Israel, the King of men. And this was the reason that the Jews at Thessalonica instigated the special charge against S. Paul, that he had proclaimed another, a different King, one Jesus.

S. Paul had comforted his converts by telling them that their King would soon come, that His coming would be the crown and completion of their faith, and would bring about a terrible punishment upon those who had been hindering His work and persecuting His truth.

The speedy coming of the King and Judge, to judge and to save, was the point S. Paul had most insisted upon in his preaching; and you cannot read these two Epistles without seeing that this speedy coming is their great subject.

The Thessalonian Christians were thus firmly impressed with the belief that the day of the Lord was at hand. But this belief showed itself in ways which their great teacher could not approve of.

They seemed to have argued, If the day of the Lord is indeed so near, what occasion is there for us to toil and labour? Why should we sow fields that will never be reaped? What need to prune our vines and dig round our olives, when the vintage of the world is at hand? What need to attend to business in the shop, or at the wharf, when the end of all things is at hand? How can we be expected to trouble about domestic duties in such a time as this, must we not devote every moment to prayer and watching? In the First Epistle, S. Paul in very gentle terms censures this overwrought exaggeration of feeling. Nothing can be more admirable than the way in which S. Paul calms the excitement of the Thessalonians. It reminds us of the story told of S. Carlo Borromeo. The saintly bishop was one day playing at chess, when the conversation of the company turned upon the Day of Judgment. One of those present asked the rest what they should do if it were suddenly announced that Christ was at hand. "I should begin to pray" said one. "I should go to confession" said another. At last they asked the Saint what he should do. "I should go on with my game of chess," was his reply, "for I began it to the glory of God, and should continue it for the same end." Without

telling them in so many words that they were not labouring with their own hands, not walking wisely toward their heathen neighbours, S. Paul contrived to imply as much.

Ch. iv. 11: We exhort you, brethren, that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you, that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and may have need of nothing.

In the Second Epistle, when he found that this evil

had increased instead of diminished, the Apostle speaks more plainly and more sharply.

2 Ep. iii. 11: We hear of some that walk among you disorderly, that work not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort that with quietness they work and eat their own bread. . . . If any will not work, neither let him eat.

But there was another cause for anxiety which seemed to spring from the very expectation which the Apostle had encouraged them to entertain.

Since his leaving Thessalonica some deaths had occurred in the Christian community, and "these deaths had been regarded by some of the survivors with a peculiar despondency. They had been taught again and again to hope for, to look unto, the coming of Christ, as the solution of all difficulties, the righting of all wrongs, the consolation of all sufferings."

What then was to be said about those who had died without seeing the day of Christ's coming? To this solemn question S. Paul addresses himself in the well-known passage which has comforted so many Christian mourners from that time to this.

Ch. iv. 13: But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him (i. e. with Christ). For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the

Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

However we may understand these words, there can be no question that the Thessalonian Christians would understand them as speaking of events which would come to pass in their own days. There can hardly be a doubt that at this time, at any rate, S. Paul expected the Day of the Lord in his own time. Indeed Christ Himself had said that the existing generation should not pass away till all should be fulfilled. He had told His Apostles that they would hardly have gone through the cities of Israel before His coming. He had said of S. John that he should tarry till He came. The question is, were the Apostles mistaken in thinking that the Day of the Lord was very near, that it might come in their own day? Or were they right in so thinking? Did the Lord come? Did S. John tarry on earth long enough to see his Lord's coming? Did the Lord descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God?

This is much too weighty a question to be lightly dismissed. I will ask you to read very carefully the following words of one of the foremost of our living divines, the occupant of the Chair of Theology at one of our Universities:

"No one can study the New Testament without feeling that the thought of Christ's Return was everywhere present and powerful in the first age. ... And more than this: it was instant. The dawn of an endless day was held to be already breaking after a weary night . . . The Apostles looked for Christ, and Christ came in the life-time of S. John. He founded His immoveable kingdom. He gathered before Him the nations of the earth, old and new, and passed sentence upon them. He judged, in

that shaking of earth and heaven, most truly and most decisively the living and the dead. He established fresh foundations for society, and a fresh standard of worth. The fall of Jerusalem was for the religious history of the world an end as complete as death. The establishment of a spiritual Church was a beginning as glorious as the Resurrection. The Apostles, I repeat, looked for Christ's coming in their own generation, and Christ came. The form of His coming, His coming to judgment, then, is a lesson for all time. As we study it we can learn part at least of the meaning of our present faith that He shall come again . . . that Christ has not yet revealed the fulness of His power, or uttered the last voice of His judgment. For beyond all these preparatory comings there is a day when 'every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him.' . . . When His Presence shall be made clear, clear in the world at large, clear in our own souls, clear with the manifestation of perfect righteousness, and with the consequence of inevitable retribution." (Dr. Westcott, Historic Faith.)

The great matter for us is to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ, and for the Day of His judgment, whatever shape that coming may take, and in whatever way that judgment may be manifested. And no lessons of preparation can be better than those which S. Paul enforces in these Epistles to the Thessalonians. As when he says,

Ch. v. 4: Ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief: for ye are all sons of light, and sons of the day. So then let us not sleep

as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober ;—

or when he says in the Second Epistle,—

2 Ep. ii. 1: Now we beseech you, brethren, . . . that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be