Eschatological Law-Gospel Dynamics in 1 Thessalonians

Aaron Michael Jensen

March 8, 2016

The Last Day was simply a greater point of emphasis for the Apostle Paul than it tends to
be for most Lutherans today. While exact counts may vary concerning how many references he
made to Christ’s return (depending on what parameters are set when making such a tally), it is
without question that this topic was frequently on Paul’s mind. Beyond the times where the Last
Day is his main subject of discussion, references to the Last Day are infused within other topics
as well. This doctrine was a vital aspect of Paul’s preaching.
Law and Gospel, and the properly distinguished uses of them, remain for the Lutheran
Church a key point of emphasis, as it was also with Paul. To follow Paul in his Law-Gospel
preaching, we do well to observe the various skillful ways in which he by inspiration employs
eschatological themes in service of Law-Gospel proclamation. 1 Thessalonians, with its strong
and repeated references to the Last Day, serves as an excellent case study to see how Paul does
so.

Eschatological Law as Curb

4:6 διότι ἔκδικος κύριος περὶ πάντων τούτων, καθὼς καὶ προείπαμεν ὑμῖν καὶ διεμαρτυράμεθα.

While we may be wrong to locate the Lord’s extracting of vengeance to Judgment Day
exclusively, that is certainly the preeminent act of Christ’s punishing judgment. In light of Paul’s
focus on the Last Day throughout the epistle and the Thessalonians’ own apparent attention to
the Lord’s return, this passage would have directed Paul’s original audience to the final act of
judgment.
διότι is a causal conjunction. This clause is given as a reason for the Thessalonians to not
take part in the sinful activity characteristic of the unbelieving gentiles mentioned in verses 5 and
6, namely, making use of their vessels in a lustful manner and taking advantage of others. While
Paul will appeal to the new man in verse 7 by reminding the Christian of his calling, here he is
using Christ’s judgment as a threat designed to restrain sinfulness.

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 The predicate adjective ἔκδικος is moved into emphatic first position. Paul uses the
Lord’s judgment as a way of characterizing the Lord himself, and the two-fold implication is
clear: that Christ is not happy or even neutral towards sins such as some of the Thessalonians
were committing, and that Christ will justly punish these sins. While the basis for the judgment is
mentioned, Paul leaves unspecified who will be on the receiving end of this distributive justice.
The rhetorical effect of this omission is that this preaching of the law as curb would hit the
Thessalonian Christians directly and yet would not risk implying something untrue. The Lord
Christ will punish adultery at his coming, and the very kind of adultery Paul is warning the
Thessalonians not to commit, and yet at the same time Paul does not state that these believers
themselves will come under judgment, because he still considers them believers. In using the
Last Day as a warning and threat, Paul does not present judgment as what they can expect, but as
a road they do not want to go down.
Paul is using the terrors of judgment as a curb against Christians. He is not seeking to
motivate good behavior; he is holding sinful urges in check. The law as curb never on its own
results in true sanctification, because the law as curb has as its object the unconverted person, or,
in the case of Christians, their sinful nature which remains unconverted. For unbelievers, this
means that product of the law will be merely civic righteousness. But Paul shows here that in the
case of believers, the law as curb seeks more than civic righteousness. The law as curb seeks to
be a handmaiden to the law as guide. Immediately after giving the Thessalonians a powerful law-
reason not to commit sexual immorality, he gives them a powerful gospel-reason. The curb is
meant to beat back the sinful nature so that the new man, motivated by the gospel, may better
live its sanctified life. Or perhaps more accurately, Paul’s preaching of the law as a curb is meant
to threaten the sinful nature into submission to the new man, who itself is motivated not by
threats but by grace. The curb plays a positive but subordinate role in the work of sanctification,
as Paul shows in verses 3 and7 is his purpose here (ὁ ἁγιασμὸς ὑμῶν, ἐν ἁγιασμῷ).
While temporal threats and rewards can serve this purpose of curb as well, it cannot be
denied how much more intense the curb is when looking ahead to the final judgment. There are
two reasons for this. First, the consequences due at the last judgment are considerably more
severe. In light of God’s eternal punishment there is no room to question whether sin would still
be worth it despite the consequences. Secondly, the consequences due at the last judgment are
certain. We cannot state with certainty what temporal consequences each different sin will have.

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Sometimes sins seem to escape all temporal consequence whatsoever. Christ’s return, however,
is a certain thing, and so is the eternal judgment which follows on unbelievers. The threat of the
Lord’s eternal vengeance, then, makes for the most emphatic and most effective curb.

Eschatological Law as Guide

5:3-8 ὅταν λέγωσιν, Εἰρήνη καὶ ἀσφάλεια, τότε αἰφνίδιος αὐτοῖς ἐφίσταται ὄλεθρος ὥσπερ ἡ
ὠδὶν τῇ ἐν γαστρὶ ἐχούσῃ, καὶ οὐ μὴ ἐκφύγωσιν. ὑμεῖς δέ, ἀδελφοί, οὐκ ἐστὲ ἐν σκότει, ἵνα ἡ
ἡμέρα ὑμᾶς ὡς κλέπτης καταλάβῃ· πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς υἱοὶ φωτός ἐστε καὶ υἱοὶ ἡμέρας. οὐκ ἐσμὲν
νυκτὸς οὐδὲ σκότους· ἄρα οὖν μὴ καθεύδωμεν ὡς οἱ λοιποὶ ἀλλὰ γρηγορῶμεν καὶ νήφωμεν. οἱ
γὰρ καθεύδοντες νυκτὸς καθεύδουσιν καὶ οἱ μεθυσκόμενοι νυκτὸς μεθύουσιν· ἡμεῖς δὲ ἡμέρας
ὄντες νήφωμεν ἐνδυσάμενοι θώρακα πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης καὶ περικεφαλαίαν ἐλπίδα σωτηρίας

Paul uses two interesting rhetorical techniques in theses verses to support his use of the
Last Day as a guide for sanctified living. Using alternatio Paul repeatedly goes back and forth
between the positive terms (day, light, alert, sober) and the negative terms (night, dark, sleep,
drunk). By this sustained alternating, Paul reinforces the idea that there are two distinct and
mutually exclusive groups/ways of life. When transitioning back to believers, a strong
adversative is found (ὑμεῖς δέ, ἡμεῖς δὲ). This, then, could also be labelled as vituperatio, which
is a vilifying criticism of an outside group intended to reinforce the differing identity and activity
of the group of which the audience is a part. By characterizing the behavior and the future of
unbelievers in harsh and negative terms, Paul solidifies the starkly contrasting behavior and
future of the family of believers.
While preaching the law as a mirror a preacher should lump all people together under the
law and not give the impression that believers are different and are above sin, and so those
outside the church should not be railed on. But when preaching the law as guide, a preacher will
want to highlight the difference between believers and unbelievers, and Paul does so in strongest
terms by talking about what will happen to unbelievers on the Last Day. On Judgment Day the
division between believers and unbelievers is realized to its fullest extent, and so Paul reaches
ahead to that obvious division as a way of encouraging a continued division in their lives right
now.

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 Paul strongly urges spiritual watchfulness and moral sobriety in light of the coming of the
Last Day. The purpose here is not to scare the Thessalonians to make sure that they will not be
caught off guard. He already states in no uncertain terms that they will not be caught off guard.
And so because they are ready for the day, because they are Day-people, they should live as
such.
As Paul shows clearly in so many of the places in which he preaches sanctification, to
preach Biblical sanctification is simply to preach, “Be what you are,” or, as it has been more
grammatically described, “The imperative is grounded on the indicative.” But Paul shows here
also (and perhaps even more clearly in Romans 13) that there is very much a future element to
this kind of core sanctification preaching. The Thessalonians belonged to that Day when Christ
would return. On that Day they would receive salvation in its fullest sense, be pulled out of the
destruction of the world, be spared of all the effects of sin, and be with Jesus. All those things
would happen to them whenever that Day came, and so Paul encourages them to act like people
to whom all those things would happen. We could say that in sanctification there is also the
encouragement to “Be what you will be,” or, again, to put it more grammatically, “The
imperative is also urged by the future indicative.” But we must note also what this does not
mean, and Paul makes this clear also. The urging “Be what you will be” does not tell believers to
be something they are not yet. Paul repeatedly refers to the Thessalonians as already being of the
light and of the Day. However, in keeping with the New Testament tension between the “now”
of faith and the “not yet” of eternity, Paul motivates sanctification not just by pointing to the
hidden glory they already possess but also by pointing them ahead to when they will display it
fully and out in the open.
Paul further portrays our hope of salvation as a helmet with which we protect ourselves in
this time as we wait. Our hope in eternal life guards us from temptation in this life. As we see
frequently happens when Paul brings in eschatological themes, this gives his entire presentation
an enhanced sense of urgency and intensity. And yet while here his plea for sanctification
becomes that much more urgent, it never loses its gospel-centered motivation or resorts to mere
threats, and it never overshadows the gospel itself either. Because of the sure hope we have of
eternal life, everyday living should be Last Day Living.

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Eschatological Law as Mirror

Paul does not use the Last Day for the purpose of showing the Thessalonians their sins.
This is really not surprising because to do so Paul would have to speak outside the realm of
reality and inside the realm of hypotheticals. Hypothetically, if the Thessalonians had not
become Christians, or if Christ had not died and risen, they would have to be fearful over
Christ’s return and would face judgment at that time. This would be a legitimate way to proclaim
the law as mirror, if done cautiously, but Paul avoids doing so here, most likely because of how
seriously he takes the Thessalonians’ new wrath-free status in Christ, and so even in
hypotheticals he does not seek to use the future to show them their sinfulness. (He does,
however, make extensive use of Judgment Day as mirror in Romans 2 and 3, but there Paul
needed to undercut the Jewish reliance on their works for justification. In Thessalonica there did
not seem to be such a question.)
The law, however, always does accuse, and so even in Paul’s use of the Last Day as curb
and guide the Christian’s conscience will be struck by its failure to live in the holiness which
God seeks. There is also the implicit law incorporated within the statements of gospel. For
example, when Jesus is said to rescue us from the coming wrath, this reminds us momentarily of
our need to be saved from wrath just long enough for us to appreciate the saving.

Eschatological Gospel with regard to Justification

1:10 καὶ ἀναμένειν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν, ὃν ἤγειρεν ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, Ἰησοῦν τὸν
ῥυόμενον ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης.

The Lord will come back on the Last Day, and for God’s people this is a comforting
thought. In this verse early on in the epistle, Paul does not give more details about the Last Day,
but fills the idea of Christ’s return with comfort by the way he goes about describing Christ. All
of these descriptions help to flesh out in subtle ways who the returning Lord is and what he is
like, reminding the Thessalonians why his return is something they are rightly awaiting.
Referring to Christ as being God’s Son and coming from heaven alludes to his exalted
kingship, a comforting thought especially to those who were undergoing persecution. That he

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was raised from the dead recalls everything Jesus did for us in dying and rising, but also suggests
victory over death. At this point it was then unnecessary for Paul to specify who he was talking
about, because the Thessalonians would definitely have known, but Paul calls Jesus by his
personal name Jesus. As it is his personal name, it carries a warmth and emotional proximity
which other names do not. Finally, Jesus is described as the one who rescues us from the coming
wrath, and therefore his coming cannot mean any wrath for us. Paul uses all these heart-warming
gospel descriptions of Jesus to color in our mental image of him, reinforcing for us the idea that
his return is the best thing that could and will happen to us. We do well to imitate Paul’s
technique and not simply say, “Jesus will come back again,” but characterize the return of Jesus
by characterizing him as the loving Savior he is by the addition of a phrase such as, “Jesus, your
loving Savior, will come back again.”

4:14-17 εἰ γὰρ πιστεύομεν ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἀπέθανεν καὶ ἀνέστη, οὕτως καὶ ὁ θεὸς τοὺς κοιμηθέντας
διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἄξει σὺν αὐτῷ. Τοῦτο γὰρ ὑμῖν λέγομεν ἐν λόγῳ κυρίου, ὅτι ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες οἱ
περιλειπόμενοι εἰς τὴν παρουσίαν τοῦ κυρίου οὐ μὴ φθάσωμεν τοὺς κοιμηθέντας· ὅτι αὐτὸς ὁ
κύριος ἐν κελεύσματι, ἐν φωνῇ ἀρχαγγέλου καὶ ἐν σάλπιγγι θεοῦ, καταβήσεται ἀπʼ οὐρανοῦ καὶ
οἱ νεκροὶ ἐν Χριστῷ ἀναστήσονται πρῶτον, ἔπειτα ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες οἱ περιλειπόμενοι ἅμα σὺν
αὐτοῖς ἁρπαγησόμεθα ἐν νεφέλαις εἰς ἀπάντησιν τοῦ κυρίου εἰς ἀέρα· καὶ οὕτως πάντοτε σὺν
κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθα.

5:9-10 ὅτι οὐκ ἔθετο ἡμᾶς ὁ θεὸς εἰς ὀργὴν ἀλλὰ εἰς περιποίησιν σωτηρίας διὰ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν
Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ ἀποθανόντος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, ἵνα εἴτε γρηγορῶμεν εἴτε καθεύδωμεν ἅμα σὺν
αὐτῷ ζήσωμεν.

Both of these verses show that both Christ’s own return on the Last Day, as well as the
bodily resurrection of his people which he will bring about, are the intimately connected
corollaries of the truth of Christ’s own bodily resurrection. Christ’s death and resurrection is the
promise that the dead in Christ will rise. The good news of Easter is the good news of the Last
Day.
While it is true that the souls of believers go to be with Jesus instantly at death, and that
this is a source of comfort to God’s people, Paul does not dwell on this fact. There is a greater

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comfort which Paul points to: Christ’s return and the glorious resurrection he will effect. With
our culture’s tendency to fixate more on the intermediate state of the bodiless heaven than the
eternal and ultimate state of soul and body with Jesus forever, we should take care to follow Paul
and make sure that this greater promise is given the greater emphasis and is not short-changed.
The conclusions of both halves of Paul’s extended eschatological discussions in chapters
4 and 5 emphasize our being with Jesus. This is held up as the greatest hope for God’s people,
and it is something for the believer which is in no way affected by whether or not he is still living
at Christ’s return. As great as it is that all of God’s people will be reunited all together, it is even
greater, Paul shows, that all together we will be with Jesus.
Paul here is speaking to comfort God’s people in death, and so he only presents Judgment
Day here in positive terms. He portrays it only as a wonderful experience for God’s people,
because that is what it will be. There is an excitement to his tone here as can be heard from the
three consecutive prepositional phrases ἐν κελεύσματι, ἐν φωνῇ ἀρχαγγέλου καὶ ἐν σάλπιγγι
θεοῦ. He presents Christ’s return as an exciting moment, and wants us to think of it as such.

5:4 ὑμεῖς δέ, ἀδελφοί, οὐκ ἐστὲ ἐν σκότει, ἵνα ἡ ἡμέρα ὑμᾶς ὡς κλέπτης καταλάβῃ·

As was mentioned above in connection with this verse (it’s impossible to treat the law as
guide without already talking gospel), Paul makes clear that the Thessalonians will not be caught
off guard by the Lord’s return. While they may be surprised by the date, they will not be
surprised by the Day because they are of the Day and ready for it. He reassures them by telling
them that they are ready for this because by faith they no longer do belong to the darkness. Since
Paul will infer from this that they should live like light people, we are safe to say that “not being
in the darkness” is an expression for their justified status by faith.
Often people say things like, “It’s not the end of the world,” as a way of saying that
things are not so bad. This would seem to imply that the end of the world is a bad thing and
worthy of being feared. For those who are “not in the darkness” that is not the case. By
reassuring the Thessalonians of their status at Christ’s return, Paul provides them excellent
gospel reassurance of their status with Christ in general. This future application of the gospel is
concrete and therefore easier to appropriate. Instead of merely saying, “You are fine with God.
You don’t have to worry about what he thinks of you,” the future coming of Christ serves to

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make this truth concrete: “You are fine with God. You don’t have to worry about when he comes
back because you’re ready.”

Eschatological Gospel with regard to Sanctification

3:12-13 ὑμᾶς δὲ ὁ κύριος πλεονάσαι καὶ περισσεύσαι τῇ ἀγάπῃ εἰς ἀλλήλους καὶ εἰς πάντας
καθάπερ καὶ ἡμεῖς εἰς ὑμᾶς, εἰς τὸ στηρίξαι ὑμῶν τὰς καρδίας ἀμέμπτους ἐν ἁγιωσύνῃ
ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πατρὸς ἡμῶν ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ μετὰ πάντων τῶν
ἁγίων αὐτοῦ, ἀμήν.

5:23 Αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης ἁγιάσαι ὑμᾶς ὁλοτελεῖς, καὶ ὁλόκληρον ὑμῶν τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ ἡ
ψυχὴ καὶ τὸ σῶμα ἀμέμπτως ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τηρηθείη.

In both of these benedictory statements, Paul expresses his hope for God to keep the
Thessalonians blameless for the time of Christ’s return. This is spoken not as a threat, because
the assumption is that God will accomplish this through his means of grace. While the
Thessalonians would take from this the inference that they should remain blameless, the overall
thrust of such a blessing is that God will work the sanctification. Paul does not put the pressure
on the Thessalonians to fix themselves up for the Last Day. He encourages them with the gospel
truth that God will hold them blameless. The emphasis on our hearts in 3:13, as well as the focus
on the inner man in 5:23, makes clear that Paul’s encouragement is much deeper than simply,
“Don’t be caught sinning when Jesus returns.” He encourages the Thessalonian to be blameless
both inwardly and outwardly as an entire way of life so that there is nothing which can be held
against them when Christ returns.
Blameless here does not refer to the Thessalonians being righteous by faith, since the
context makes clear that they would be made blameless by their abounding in love. Blameless
here also does not refer to sinlessness. (Paul showed that when he referred to his own blameless
conduct in 2:10.) Blameless would mean that their lives are unimpeachable when it comes to
sanctification. No one can take issue with them on the Last Day. Paul’s knowledge that
sinlessness is unattainable in this life does not prevent him from making such a bold statement,
as well as expressing the confidence which God will carry it out.

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Eschatological Gospel with regard to Friends

2:19-20 τίς γὰρ ἡμῶν ἐλπὶς ἢ χαρὰ ἢ στέφανος καυχήσεως — ἢ οὐχὶ καὶ ὑμεῖς — ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ
κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ παρουσίᾳ; ὑμεῖς γάρ ἐστε ἡ δόξα ἡμῶν καὶ ἡ χαρά.

As a way of showing both his love for the Thessalonians and his confidence of their
status before God, Paul declares that they will be his hope, joy, and victory crown on the Last
Day. They already are his pride and joy, but by portraying them as such at Christ’s coming the
point becomes that much more emphatic. As Paul stands before the Lord on the Last Day, the
fact that the Thessalonian are there too is God’s commendation on his apostolate and his reward
for his faithful gospel ministry. Paul shows the Thessalonians how valuable they are to him—
they are both his greatest accomplishment and the greatest gift he has been given, and by
intertwining their standing before the Lord as believers with Paul’s own eschatological hope, he
reinforces the certainty of their being saved with him on the Last Day.

4:13 Οὐ θέλομεν δὲ ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν, ἀδελφοί, περὶ τῶν κοιμωμένων, ἵνα μὴ λυπῆσθε καθὼς καὶ οἱ
λοιποὶ οἱ μὴ ἔχοντες ἐλπίδα.

4:18 Ὥστε παρακαλεῖτε ἀλλήλους ἐν τοῖς λόγοις τούτοις.

The gospel primarily addresses us with the solution to our greatest problem—our own sin
and death. But the gospel also gives us comfort when dealing with all of our other problems
which are a result of sin. This includes when someone else dies in Christ. The gospel truths of
the Last Day which first need to be appropriated with regard to ourselves, should also be
appreciated with regard to each other, and as well as applied to each other.

Eschatological Gospel with regard to Enemies

2:16 κωλυόντων ἡμᾶς τοῖς ἔθνεσιν λαλῆσαι ἵνα σωθῶσιν, εἰς τὸ ἀναπληρῶσαι αὐτῶν τὰς
ἁμαρτίας πάντοτε. ἔφθασεν δὲ ἐπʼ αὐτοὺς ἡ ὀργὴ εἰς τέλος.

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 While this way of speaking is more common in the Old Testament than the New
Testament, the good gospel news that one’s spiritual enemies will destroyed and paid back for
the harm they have caused God’s people is consistent with all of Scripture. Paul promises that
God’s ultimate wrath comes upon the enemies of Christ and his people. While it is perhaps
impossible to nail down what all events and circumstances Paul was embracing within this
reference, God’s wrath still ultimately centers on the final judgment.
Paul here links all enemies of the gospel into a single group. Whether they are Jewish or
Gentile, whether they are persecuting Christ directly or doing so indirectly by persecuting his
people, they are a single group who will face the full wrath of God for their sins. By
conglomerating all of the enemies of the gospel, Paul here again emphasizes that in the end there
are only two groups, and what defines those groups is not one’s ethnicity but one’s relation to the
gospel. The Thessalonians are on Christ’s side, as their suffering shows, and Christ’s side is the
side which has the victory. All the enemies of Christ’s side will be punished. As the
Thessalonians suffer persecution, this would have been very comforting. Not only would every
wrong they suffer be avenged by God, but also all the wrongs they suffer would at some point
come to an end, as God’s just wrath would prevent any such enemies from doing his people any
further harm.

A Final Thought

In that it is still Law and Gospel preaching, doing so with Last Day themes varies very
little from preaching about things in the past, the present, or the more temporary future. Yet in 1
Thessalonians Paul shows us by his own skillful preaching of Last Day themes that relating any
particular theological discussion or discourse to the Last Day helps to bring things into clearer
focus and makes their importance more transparent (which is likely why these themes seem to
appear at the end of chapters as a way of bringing topics to finality). While sin is a problem now,
it is even more clearly so on the Last Day. While we are justified now, on Judgment Day we get
to hear that “not-guilty” sentence from our Lord’s own lips. While we are sanctified now (yet
still also sinner), in eternity sin will be removed and that sanctification will be complete, and so
let us live like people who will live forever free of sin and in that light. May all Lutheran Law-
Gospel preachers also follow Paul in being bold Last Day preachers.

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