1 THESSALONIANS 3
CAC We have noticed before that what we get in this epistle is not the unfolding of doctrine, but rather the flow of divine affections; the epistle appeals to us in that way.
Rem In every chapter we get the coming of the Lord spoken of.
CAC This was the first epistle the apostle wrote, and he tells us the truth of the rapture as a matter of revelation. It is striking that the coming of the Lord is presented as the natural result of the course the saints are pursuing, as a moral continuation of it. What belongs to the present is the flow of divine affections, and when we get into the presence of the Lord it will be the same.
What wonderful joy the apostle had in the saints; he thinks of what they would be to him at the coming of the Lord. We dwell on our individual blessedness, that we [p. 249] shall see the Lord and be like Him, but a great part of the blessing will be to see the saints.
‘Nor what is next Thy heart
Can we forget;
Thy saints, O Lord, with Thee
In glory met’. (160:8)
The last two verses of chapter 2 are so beautiful; they suggest to me first love.
Rem The Lord said, “Behold, I and the children which God has given me”, Hebrews 2: 13.
CAC Yes, it is the Lord’s peculiar joy to have His saints. He will gather them all up in courts above and present them to His Father; that is His joy and it will be the joy of the saints. Paul was so imbued with the love of Christ that his joy too was to have the saints, particularly his own converts, there. It is a great thing to think about the saints and care about them with an eye on the future, even if we do not see a great deal now. Paul was thinking of what the saints would be in the day of glory. We need to keep that in view, not only in service, but in all our thoughts of the saints. If we have before us what the saints will be in the day of Christ we shall seek to promote it, and we shall be jealous and careful over one another. See the jealousy and care of the apostle. “Being no longer able to refrain” — he could not bear the suspense any longer; all sorts of fears came into his mind. He was a true father and he could not bear any longer not to know about them.
Ques Did you say that christianity was seen in power in the apostle?
CAC It impresses me more and more that the Lord has put christianity before us in a living way in the life and service of Paul; it is seen in a man “of like passions with you”. The Lord has taken pains to shew us that Paul, as a man, was marked by the same frailties as other people. This magnifies the grace that could work so effectively in [p. 250] him to produce these affections and to sustain them. Paul never departed from first love, he maintained it to the finish. Neither Paul nor John nor Peter ever left first love.
Rem It is like the Lord, “Having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end”.
CAC Yes, the Lord entered on a path of service of love and went through with it absolutely. He serves all His saints so marvellously. He never says like Moses, “I am not able to bear all this people”.
The apostles were not a reflection merely of this love, but were filled with the same love as was in the heart of the Lord; it never failed, and they went right through, jealously caring for the good of the saints. Then there is Timothy too; he was a like-minded man and he comes in as an encouragement. We might think there was especial power with an apostle, and so there was, but then we have Timothy, who cared “with genuine feeling” for their state (Philippians 2: 20). He is likeminded, so Paul calls him his own brother and fellow workman.
Rem Timothy was to confirm them.
CAC Certain afflictions had come on Paul and on the Thessalonians. Paul had told them beforehand of it and in this time of special affliction there is special confirmation in the visit of Timothy. We ought to look for special confirmation just now when all saints are under pressure; some are under great pressure, and in a time of special affliction we should look for special confirmation. I think it comes to make the things of faith more real. When things are easy we live in the outward and visible, but when affliction comes the inward and spiritual come into view. It is a question here of faith, “to... encourage you concerning your faith”, and then in verse 5, “I... sent to know your faith”. In verse 6 Timothy “brought to us the glad tidings of your faith”; then Paul speaks in verse 10 about coming to them to “perfect what is lacking in your faith”.
Ques Is faith the same as confidence?
CAC It is rather the whole world of unseen things, presented to them in connection with the coming kingdom, all that which was coming in with the advent of the Son of God from heaven. Paul was jealous lest all this should get dim. There was something lacking in their faith; they were disappointed when some died, or were martyred. They thought these people would miss the kingdom, so there was something lacking in their faith and Paul supplied it in this epistle. He was comforted because they stood firm in the Lord (verse 8), that is, in everything connected with the Lord, and what He would bring in. It is like the thief on the cross; he had lost sight of present things in time; he was occupied with the thought of the Man on the cross coming in His kingdom. He could see the crown on His forehead, though others saw Him as a malefactor — He “was reckoned with the lawless”. The thief saw the glory of the kingdom encircling the Lord’s brow, and he says to Him, ‘Think of me’.
Rem These afflictions came on Paul in the right path, but the tempter would tempt the Thessalonians through Paul’s persecution. Supposing a servant came here and many were converted, and then town after town where he went, no one listened, and he got stoned, it would be a test.
CAC The Lord seems to allow these special tests. I heard recently of a missionary in China who was used to a number of conversions, and one day he was struck dead by lightning. That was a test; some of the converts went back, and others went on. The Lord allowed this dreadful test, that the man who brought them the message of life should be struck down by God! In the same way with the saints; there are often things you cannot account for, and the [p. 252] tendency is that faith fails. It is a real test — “lest perhaps the tempter had tempted you”. How freely Paul speaks of his exercises, does he not?
Rem Instead of their faith failing, Timothy comes back bringing glad tidings of how they desired to see Paul.
CAC It is beautiful; first love had not declined in them any more than it had in Paul. I like to think of the church in its first love. We must not lose sight of the fact that the church did stand once in first love, though the Lord had after to say, “Thou hast left thy first love”.
Ques Is there no recovery? Could the return ever be the same?
CAC Certainly. The Lord says, “Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works”, Revelation 2: 5. It is a call to go back from what they are to what they had left. First love means first in quality, not in time. Some of us might never have reached first love. It is a peculiar character of love that marked the saints at Ephesus at a certain time. First love is that we should love one another as Christ loved us. “Love one another, as I have loved you”, John 15: 12.
Ques Would it be true of quite young converts?
CAC We see it in these Thessalonians here. Things are so feeble with us that perhaps we never know what it is to come to it. If we are not settled in faith we cannot go on to love. The two things go together. We see in Scripture that the believer is also a lover.
Rem Any thought of the Lord Jesus would bring a response from us.
CAC Then you get a sense that He loves His saints, for if He loves me He loves all, and you think of the saints as the subjects of His love. If Christ loves the saints, and I am affected by His love, I must love them too. Paul says, “We have been comforted in you”. He takes such delight in the saints that he does not know how to thank God [p. 253] enough! He has such joy in them he does not know where to begin, or how to leave off. He says, ‘How shall we do it?’ “What thanksgiving can we render”? That is the true bond. A man said lately to a brother, ‘Are you on the square?’ That is freemasonry, which is the great imitation of christianity. It is a great fellowship and a true freemason will do anything to help another. The brother replied, ‘No, but I am in the circle’. God puts you in the circle.
We need a deepening sense of the blessedness of the christian circle. When we get that we want to see as much of the saints as possible. Paul yearned after the saints and they after him; they could not bear separation. I do not suppose they stayed away from the meetings!
Rem Love goes out to all. It is divine order to go out from the circle.
CAC It is like the living waters, flowing out from the temple in the world to come. Ezekiel tells us how the waters flow from the sanctuary into the world. There is a circle where divine affections flow; we see it in the mutual yearning for one another between Paul and the Thessalonians; this is the circle from which blessing flows. And we cannot enjoy it alone; Thomas missed a good deal by not being at the meeting! It is rubbish for people to say they can be as happy at home as with the saints; it shews they are out of touch with the Lord; the Lord is attracted when His saints are together. It is a great thing to see the saints in that light; nothing gives the Lord such pleasure now as seeing the saints together. He is the One who gathers; He died that He might “gather together into one the children of God who were scattered abroad”. “He that gathers not with me scatters”. Every activity of the Lord to us is of the nature of gathering and never to leave us as units. Love is the way of holiness. Paul speaks of their exceeding and abounding “in love toward one another... in order to the confirming of your hearts [p. 254] unblamable in holiness... at the coming of our Lord Jesus”. The abounding of love is the way to it, so holiness is a moral continuation; it is not that the coming of the Lord brings in new elements. Christians like to think of being in glory as the fruit of redemption and divine grace and love, as though there was no moral preparation on their part, but God’s idea is to have a people morally suited for translation, so that it is in accord with all God’s principles to take them. Translation was the appropriate termination of such a course as Enoch’s; he was converted at the age of sixty-five, and walked with God for three hundred years. What could God do with such a man? He could not let him go into death; He took him. Enoch was in communion with God’s heavenly thoughts, as Noah was with His earthly thoughts. Both Enoch and Noah walked with God. So here, if there is a people exceeding and abounding in love toward one another, it is not a very wonderful thing if they go into heaven without dying, and come out of heaven with the Lord. The christian circle is a little bit of heaven let down into the world. You cannot find anything like it in the world; people are kind and benevolent and do many things for each other, but there is nothing like divine love. How much we need to pray, “The Lord make [you] to exceed and abound in love toward one another” (verse 12). It is the Lord alone who can do it; He can originate and maintain this divine flow of affection. There is something exquisitely sensitive in divine love, and that is why it promotes holiness. Legality feels a spot because it is a reproach on me, but love feels it because it is a reproach on those Christ loves, and on Christ. Nothing is so sanctifying as love, so you get a wonderful standard of holiness if love is in activity; it is the divine nature, God’s nature is holy love.
Rem Christ could go in and out amongst men without defilement.
CAC [p. 255] Yes. Love is repellent of all evil, nothing is so repellent of evil as that intense yearning for the good of another. I have lately been struck very much as to deliverance, that practically we only get it on the line of positive good. The principle of lust is something for self, but the principle of love is the good of another. If we are in the activity of love, every kind of unholy movement is put in the place of death. It is lovely to think of saints as unblamable in holiness. ‘When in holiness bright we sit down’. Every saint is to sit down in the presence of the Lord with not a stain, nothing unsuited to the holy glory of that kingdom which is about to shine forth. That is the moral result of the working of these affections in the circle.
I do not think holiness is connected with the conscience; it cannot be separated from the heart. There seems to be suggested here that there is a result for God in their exceeding and abounding in love; it is in order to their being “unblamable in holiness before our God and Father”. It is the Lord who effects the result; it is the Lord effecting the pleasure of God, and the way He does it is by making His saints exceed and abound in love, and that leads to their being unblamable in holiness. Thus they are set before God in that character, so that the apostle can say in another place, “God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God”.
We are carried to a very high point here. We get the affection of Paul for the saints; he delights in them, and Christ delights in them, and the climax is that through the exercise of love on the part of Paul, and on the part of the Lord, they are brought into perfect suitability to God and the Father. They are brought step by step until they reach the satisfaction of God and the Father in the saints. We cannot get higher than that!