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Persecution by the Jews - 1Thess. 2
Persecution by the Jews - 1Thess. 2
“They,” the Jews, “were not pleasing to God” (1Thess. 2:15). This is an interesting statement from the fact that Paul WAS A JEW and he had been a persecutor of Christians! This is not anti-Semitic, but a statement concerning beliefs, convictions, and actions.
Paul’s statement included: they killed the Lord Jesus, they killed the prophets, they drove out Paul and his fellow disciples, they are not pleasing to God, they are hostile to all men, they hindered the preaching of the gospel. These are not just personal opinions, but rather simple statements of who they are based upon what they did. They were not being judged by the color of their skin, but by their character proven by their deeds.
They were thus “Filling up the measure of their sins”. Jesus proclaimed concerning the Jews who rejected and killed him: “Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers” (Matthew 23:32). This is sin to fullest: they rejected the Son of God and thus rejected God. They not only rejected the word of God, they rejected the prophets, and then they killed Jesus. They were now persecuting and killing the proclaimers of the gospel of Jesus.
It is for THIS that the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. This is the wrath of God. This is judicial wrath. This is what they faced in the coming judgment. This is what Jesus could save them from! If only… if only they would change!
THEY COULD CHANGE – Paul did! They were not condemned for being Jews, any more than non-Jews are condemned for being gentiles They were condemned because they had sinned. As Paul would state in Romans, the “wrath of God is revealed again all ungodliness of men...”, and “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 1:18, 6:23).
Again, such wrath of God was not because they were Jewish, but because they rejected God. Paul’s preaching in Thessalonica was to the Jew first and then the gentile. He, according to his custom, entered into their synagogue and “for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ."
The result was that “some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women” (Acts 17:2-4). They “received the word of God” and “accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13). These Jews (and gentiles) were saved from the wrath of God by Jesus (1Thess. 1:10).
So it is today. Men either accept the word of God in trusting Jesus or they reject God. For us who believe, we must also desire that others would change and put their trust in Jesus. Are you holding forth the word of the Lord to those who are facing the wrath of God?
Hugh DeLong
