Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father
Divine love and its gifts
It is an ill wind which blows no one any good.
We owe this prayer to the needless alarms of the Thessalonians.
I. The blessed fact of the Divine love. This is a fact not to be learned from a dictionary or uttered in speech, but to be felt.
1. God hath loved us.
(1) The text does not say that God pitied us, although that would be true. You may pity a person whom you dislike.
(2) Nor does it say that God has had mercy on us. A man is merciful to his east, to his enemies, but it does not follow that he loves them.
(3) Nor is the word benevolence. A mother is not benevolent to her child, a bridegroom to his bride.
(4) Theologians talk of God’s love of complacency, but that is too cold.
(5) We must keep to the simple term, love. You know, mother, how you love the dear child in your arms. It seems part of yourself. Now, as God has united us to Himself by cords of love He thinks of us as He thinks of Himself.
2. He hath loved us, so insignificant, frail, foolish, sinful, and therefore so uncomely, ungrateful, provoking, deserving to be abhorred. We can understand His love to apostles, martyrs, etc., but that He should love us is wonderful.
3. This love is the great fountain of our Spiritual blessings. What is called the source of the Thames is a tiny rivulet; its real source is the whole watershed. But suppose the Thames a full-grown river from one fountain head, what a sight it would be. Now, the mercy of God to us in Christ leaps in all its fulness from the infinite depths of God’s love.
4. The apostle joins the name of the Lord Jesus with that of God the Father, denoting not only equality of being, but holy concert in all that concerns our well-being. Christ is the gift of the Father’s love, but Jesus loves His own.
5. Christ is here put first because He is first to us in our experience. We began our dealings with heaven not by going first to the Father, but to the Son.
6. Christ is “ours.” Paul might have written, “the Lord,” etc., but when he was testifying of this great love he must use a word of possession. Faith takes hold of Jesus and says, “He is all my salvation, and all my desire.”
7. This love enables us, too, to say. “Our Father” (1Jn_3:1).
8. We are not told when that love began, only, “hath loved us.” He loved us when we first came to Him repenting, when we were at the swine trough, ere we had a being, ere the world was formed, from everlasting.
II. The manifestation of this love.
1. Everlasting consolation. He found us wretched, when the arrows of conviction were sticking in our hearts; then He came to us with His consolations. Since then consolation has always followed on the heels of tribulation. What are our consolations?
(1) That God has forgiven us.
(2) That His promises are Yea and Amen in Christ.
(3) That all things work together for our good.
(4) That because Christ lives we shall live also, and live with Him.
2. Good hope. It is good because based on a good foundation. The fanatic’s hopes will pass away with the vapours which produced them, but the believer’s hope is founded in grace. Why is it, then, that some believers’ hopes flicker? Because they get away from a hope in grace and look towards themselves.
III. The prayer flowing out of this.
1. That God would comfort your hearts. This is of the utmost importance. Cheerfulness ought to be the atmosphere you breathe, and if you believe that God loves you, you cannot but be happy.
2. That he would stablish us in every good word and work. This establishment is derived from the consciousness of God’s love. Don’t be disheartened at the discouraging signs of the times. God loves you; work and bear witness for Him. Dark nights are but the prelude to bright days. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Free grace a motive for free giving
I. It is of the utmost importance that believers should enjoy consolation. Every commander knows that if he has not his soldiers in good heart, there may be a great many of them, and they may be well trained, but the battle is not likely to be won. This importance is seen--
1. In the very existence of the text. It is the prayer of an inspired man.
2. In the fact that Christ is called upon “Himself,” without any intermediate agency, and “God, even our Father” (2Th_3:16).
3. In that it affects the Christian’s heart. It is well to have a strong hand, how else shall we labour? to have a firm tread, how else shall we stand? Yet these are secondary matters compared with a healthy heart (Joh_14:1).
4. Because it is needful to prevent impatience and other evils. Perhaps it was the lack of comfort which led certain of the Thessalonians to preach the immediate coming of the Lord; their impatience excited the wish, and the wish the assertion. When men lose the present comfort of plain gospel doctrines, they are apt to begin speculating (2Th_3:5). Laziness and despondency lead many to say, “Why are His chariots so long in coming?”
5. Because it promotes fruitfulness (2Th_2:17). When we are not happy in the Lord we do not give ourselves heartily to His service (2Th_3:13).
II. Gospel consolation is freely bestowed.
1. It is described as a gift; and nothing can be freer than a gift. We have purchased nothing; what have we to purchase it with?
2. This freeness is seen in every part of it.
(1) It covers the past, “Which hath loved us.” Why? The sole reply is, “Even so father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” Shall not the bridegroom elect his own bride.
(2) As for the present, “He hath given us everlasting consolation.” The pardon and perfect righteousness of Christ, lie in, union to, marriage with Him is ours, assuredly as a gift; how could it be otherwise?
(3) As for the future, we have “good hope through grace,” in which there is not a trace of legal claim. It comes not by way of reward, but of Divine favour.
3. This freeness is shown by the persons from whom the consolation comes. The comfort of the gospel must be free since it is brought to us by Christ, and God our Father. A father does not pay wages to his children, his gifts are freely bestowed out of the love of his fatherly heart. What father expects to be paid for what he does for his sons and daughters?
4. This freeness is shown by the source of consolation--the Divine love. What can there be in me for God to love? Love is unpurchaseable. Consolation is “through grace.”
III. Since the consolations of God’s love have been so freely bestowed, they should lead us to a life of holy benevolence, We ought to be free in our giving to others, since God has been so free in His giving to us.
1. In every benevolent enterprise Christian men should take a hearty interest (2Th_2:17).
2. This interest should be shown in actions as well as words. In the best MSS. “work” comes before “word.” Some people think that word should be everything and work nothing. These professors speak a great deal about what they will do, talk much about what others ought to do, and more about what others fail to do.
3. This should be done without pressure. No one could lay constraint upon God to bless His people; no pressure was put upon Christ to redeem them. Even so should men give to God out of an overflowing heart. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Everlasting consolation
1. The prayer passes by a sudden transition from the human duty to the Divine grace.
2. The Lord Jesus is the Being addressed, but with a peculiar relation to the Father. In only one other instance are Father and Son united by a verb in the singular, and in no other instance is His name placed first. This should be noticed by those who hold that Paul’s estimate of his Saviour only reached by degrees an exaggerated loyalty.
3. It is a rule that God should be addressed under an aspect appropriate to the specific supplication. The God of all grace turns a countenance infinitely varied towards His petitioners. Here the apostle is about to ask that the Thessalonians may be consoled, strengthened, and established, and accordingly, with exquisite precision, he calls upon Christ, and God as the everlasting Consoler and Strengthener through grace.
I. The invocation. God in Christ is invoked as having loved us.
1. And more generally.
(1) This is St. Paul’s first allusion to the supreme and ultimate source of redemption. It is the first clear declaration that in the economy of human salvation love has the preeminence. The only saying that could surpass this was reserved for St. John in his first Epistle, the last document of revelation.
(2) The link between the love that gave and the gift itself is grace. The love of God must by its very nature impart. There is something of grace in every Divine gift; but grace is the medium of the gifts of the love of God as they reach us through redemption.
2. More particularly in the gift of love.
(1) The gift is two-fold and comprises the whole sum of our benefit in Christ. The blessing is an “everlasting consolation” as it comes from God, and a “good hope” as we receive it.
(2) “Everlasting consolation” is a phrase nowhere else used. It implies the healing of the great wound of sin, and the removal of its consequences; an eternal assuagement of a sorrow that would otherwise know no end.
(a) Nothing is more certain than that of itself the misery of sin must last forever; it has in its nature no resources of cure, no elements of change.
(b) The consolation is eternal, unlike the beggarly and fleeting solaces of time, in which it is the joy that endureth for a night, while sorrow comes in the morning. It is an eternal consolation springing from an eternal redemption (Heb_9:12).
(c) But it is treasured up only for those who flee to it for refuge. Hence adjective of boundless meaning is elsewhere applied to the exact opposite “everlasting destruction.”
(3) The “good hope” describes that part of the gift which has reference to the future, and is another unparalleled expression, although it has near approximations. As the Epistle to the Hebrews supplies “eternal redemption,” so it supplies “bringing in of a better hope.” This hope embraces the whole Christian benediction, for such blessings as are received are only earnests of something better. It is a hope good in itself; “better” in relation to the promises given to the fathers; it is really the best inheritance that God can give, Christ merit, or we receive.
II. The prayer.
1. Generally we understand the purport of a prayer by its immediate occasion. Confidence within and stability without were the graces that the apostle aimed to strengthen (verse 2). In the former Epistle the coming of death was the disturbing thought; in this it is the coming of the Lord of death foreshadowed by the “man of sin.” Hence the abundance of hortatory language in both. But a higher comforter than Paul was necessary. Hence the sudden turn, “May the Lord Himself comfort your hearts.”
2. The comfort prayed for is not what we call by the name. It is always in Scripture at once exhortation to the soul and invigoration as the result. The heart here is not the seat of the feelings, but the centre of the man; and the inner man is comforted when words are spoken to him by the Spirit which strengthens his own energies (Joh_6:63).
3. The idea of establishment in Christian life is as familiar in this Epistle as that of consolation. By keeping the heart strong in His consolation, the Lord stablishes the life in His obedience. But all is dependent on firm faith in Christian doctrine (verse 15). Whatever scruple may arise on this subject is obviated by the reflection that “word” and “work” are here linked into one idea. The Christian life is one of entire goodness, based upon and growing out of perfect truth. Conclusion: A touching comment on our prayer is given in chap. 3:8. It is as if the Divine Spirit had without delay, “while he was yet speaking,” ratified the request. (W. B. Pope, D. D.)
