And all these facts and images are, as it were, piled up in one half of the Apostle’s sky, as in thunderous lurid masses; and on the other side there is the pure blue and the peaceful sunshine. … ¶ There be the two halves–the aspect of that day to those to whom it is the revelation of a stranger, and the aspect of that day to those to whom it is the glorifying of Him who is their life. (MacLaren)
The two Epistles to the Thessalonians, which are the Apostle’s earliest letters, both give very great prominence to the thought of the second coming of our Lord to judgment. In the immediate context we have that coming described, with circumstances of majesty and of terror. He ‘shall be revealed . . . with the angels of His power.’ ‘Flaming fire’ shall herald His coming; vengeance shall be in His hands, punishment shall follow His sentence; everlasting destruction shall be the issue of evil confronted with ‘the face of the Lord’–for so the words in the previous verse rendered ‘the presence of the Lord’ might more accurately be translated. ¶ And all these facts and images are, as it were, piled up in one half of the Apostle’s sky, as in thunderous lurid masses; and on the other side there is the pure blue and the peaceful sunshine. For all this terror and destruction, and flashing fire, and punitive vengeance come to pass in the day when ‘He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be wondered at in all them that believe.’ ¶ There be the two halves–the aspect of that day to those to whom it is the revelation of a stranger, and the aspect of that day to those to whom it is the glorifying of Him who is their life. (MacLaren)
“Rest with us.” By the word “rest” Paul directs the thoughts of his reader forward and upward, “All but opening heaven already by his word.” There is, indeed, a power in the word to comfort and sustain those in whose hearts burns “the hot fever of unrest.” It is a word of promise to all faithful but weary workers in every noble cause. Erasmus once wrote “No one will believe how anxiously, for a long time, I have wished to retire from these labours into a scene of tranquillity, and for the rest of my life (dwindled, it is true, to the shortest space) to converse only with Him who once cried and who still cries, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ In this turbulent, and I may say, raging world, amid so many cares, which the state of the times heaps upon me in public, or which declining years or infirmities cause me in private, nothing do I find on which my mind can more comfortably repose than on this sweet communion with God.” The pathetic longing of these words for a repose that comes not at man’s call is yet to attain to satisfaction. When earth and time be passed away, “there remaineth a rest to the people of God.”
(Nicoll; he cited J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 252 and References: 2 Thessalonians 1:3 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 205; vol. xxxi., No. 1857.)
Nicoll said, “True steadfastness is a standing fast, but it can never be a standing still.”
That opposition, how formidable soever it may be, is no excuse for our turning back from God. What are our persecutions in comparison of those which they endured? Yet they were “stedfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” Should we then be intimidated? No; we should take up our cross cheerfully; and having counted the cost, should be content to pay it. (Excell)
There you get the crowning marvel of marvels, and the highest of miracles. He did wonderful works upon earth which we rightly call miraculous,–things to be wondered at–but the highest of all His wonders is the wonder that takes such material as you and me, and by such a process, and on such conditions, simply because we trust Him, evolves such marvellous forms of beauty and perfectness from us. ‘He is to be wondered at in all them that believe.’ (MacLaren)
Such results from such material! Chemists tell us that the black bit of coal in your grate and the diamond on your finger are varying forms of the one substance. What about a power that shall take all the black coals in the world and transmute them into flashing diamonds, prismatic with the reflected light that comes from His face, and made gems on His strong right hand? The universe will wonder at such results from such material. (MacLaren)
The highest end, the great purpose of the Gospel and of all God’s dealings with us in Christ Jesus is to make us like our Lord. As we have borne the image of the earthly we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. ‘We, beholding the glory, are changed into the glory.’ … ¶ One would have thought that, if the Apostle wanted to speak of the glorifying of Jesus Christ, he would have pointed to the great white throne, His majestic divinity, the solemnities of His judicial office; but he passes by all these, and says, ‘Nay! the highest glory of the Christ lies here, in the men [and women] whom He has made to share His own nature.’ (MacLaren)