I. I and II Thessalonians
The whole teaching, whether oral or written, of the Apostles of the New Testament, was essentially prophetic. St. Paul, in entire harmony with the Old Testament conception, defines a prophet to be one who “knows mysteries and knowledge” (1 Cor. 13:2) and “speaks to men edification and exhortation and consolation” (1 Cor. 14:3). This is a fair description of his own work; his Epistles are full of mysteries and knowledge, and speak to men edification, strengthening, and comfort. Among the mysteries which they declare—the word, we must remember, does not denote something inherently inscrutable, but only something as yet unknown and needing to be revealed—there are not lacking some that have to do with the future. We may properly speak, therefore, of Paul’s prophecies, even in that narrow sense in which the word is popularly used, and which makes it synonymous with predictions. It is in this sense, indeed, although under a mild protest, that we use it in these papers. Our purpose is to study the predictions of Paul.
We begin with his earliest writings, the Epistles to the Thessalonians, which were written at Corinth in a.d. 52 and 53. As is well known to every careful reader of the New Testament, these Epistles are also the richest in predictions of all Paul’s writings. It is not too much to say that their main burden is the Coming of the Lord. To explanations concerning this, their only didactic portions are given; and, in the first Epistle at least, a constant allusion to it is woven like a golden thread throughout its whole texture, and each section, whatever its subject, is sure to reach its climax in a reference to it (1:10; 2:19; 3:13; 5:23). This seems strange to some. And it has been suggested, either that the Apostle in his early ministry made more of the Second Advent in his teaching than growing wisdom permitted him to do later; or else, that at this particular period, amid the special trials of his work —the persecutions in Macedonia, the chill indifference at Athens, the discouragements that met him at Corinth—he had his heart turned more than was usual with him to the blessed consolation of a Christian’s expectation of the coming glory. Both of these explanations are entirely gratuitous. A sufficient reason for this marked peculiarity lies at the hand of all in that other fact that distinguishes these letters from all their fellows—they are the only letters that have come down to us, which were addressed to an infant community just emerged from heathenism.
For it is undeniable that the staple of Paul’s preaching to the Gentiles was God and the Judgment. When addressing Jews he could appeal to prophecy, and he preached Jesus to them as Him whom all the prophets pointed unto, the Messiah whom God had graciously promised. But with Gentiles he could appeal only to conscience; and he preached Jesus to them as Him through whom God would judge the world in righteousness, whereof He hath given assurance to all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead. The address on the Areopagus, which was delivered only a few months before I Thessalonians was written, admirably illustrates how the Apostle tried to reach the consciences of his heathen hearers; and the totality of the message delivered in it was God (Acts 17:24–29) and the Judgment (Acts 17:30, 31). But if Christ coming for judgment was thus the very centre and substance of Paul’s proclamation to the Gentiles, it would not be strange if he had dwelt upon it to the Thessalonians also. And that he had preached just in this strain to them, when, so shortly before writing this letter, he was with them, he tells us himself (1 Thess. 1:9, 10). For, what he chiefly thanks God for in their case is that they “turned unto God from idols” in order to do two things:—“serve the living and true God,” and “await patiently His Son from the heavens, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath.” The parallel with the speech on Mars’ Hill is precise; it almost looks as if the Apostle had repeated at Athens the sermon that had been so effective at Thessalonica.
But we not only learn thus how it happens that Paul dwells so much on the Second Advent when writing to the Thessalonians, but we learn also what is much more important,—how he himself thought of the Advent and in what aspect he proclaimed it. Plainly to him it was above all things else the Judgment. It was the Judgment Day that he announced in its proclamation; and this was the lever with which he prized at Gentile consciences. “The day in which God will judge the world in righteousness” was what he proclaimed to the Athenians, and that it was just this that was in mind in 1 Thess. 1:10 is evident from the office assigned to the expected Jesus,—“the Deliverer from the coming wrath.” In harmony with this, every passage in which the Second Advent is adverted to in these Epistles conceives of it pointedly as the Judgment Day. The Apostle’s eager desire for the purity and sanctification of his readers is always referred to the Advent: he wishes to have them to boast of before the Lord Jesus at His coming (1 Thess. 2:19),—he prays that their hearts may be established un-blameworthy in holiness before God at the coming of our Lord Jesus (1 Thess. 3:13), —he beseeches the God of peace to preserve them in their whole being and all their faculties blameless, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:23),—he declares that the Day of the Lord will bring sudden destruction upon the wicked (1 Thess. 5:3), and will draw a sharp line in justice between the good and bad (2 Thess. 1:9). He speaks of the Advent freely as the “Day of the Lord” (1 Thess. 5:2, 4; 2 Thess. 1:10), a term which from Joel down had stood in all prophecy as the synonym of the final judgment.