1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 - The Ungodly

13 And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. 14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind 16 by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!

Target Date: Sunday, 24 July 2022

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

Wrath – God’s wrath is perfectly righteous.

In the prophets the context of wrath is the gracious and faithful love that God displays to Israel. All her offenses are a despising of this love. Hence wrath, as wounded love, is correlative to grace. It is a jealous zeal that will not tolerate the disloyalty of the chosen people.

For we have been consumed by Your anger And by Your wrath we have been dismayed. 8 You have placed our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your presence. 9 For all our days have declined in Your fury; We have finished our years like a sigh. – Psalm 90:7-9

all human life stands under the constant operation of the wrath of God.

Thoughts on the Passage:

14b-15 – This has nothing to do with racism or antisemitism.

The indictment of the Jews was not for their race or even for their religion, but for their attacks on the gospel.

This describes the very persecution he led at one time.

The point of this is not even to indict the Jews, but to encourage the Thessalonians in the persecution they were experiencing in the same measure from their countrymen.

We know from Acts 17 that the Thessalonian persecution began with the Jews, who hired wicked men (Gentiles) from the marketplace, but the persecution quickly spread and was carried on by the Gentile officials.

Although the Thessalonians had experienced troubles from the Jews, they were much more directly engaged by their Gentile countrymen.

Paul’s use of “the Jews” speaks much more about those who ruled over the Jewish people than the rank-and-file Jews who were primary objectives from much of the gospel preaching of the apostles.

After all, in Thessalonica, Paul, as was his custom, approached the synagogue before he preached to the Gentiles.

This echoes Stephen’s address to the Sanhedrin:

Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; 53 you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.” – Acts 7:52-53

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. – Matthew 23:13

So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? 34 “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, 35 so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. – Matthew 23:31-36

The vehemence of Paul’s description of the unbelieving Jews is meant to leave no equivocation as to which is the true worship of the Eternal God. The Jews, in holding to the corpse of their religion, have failed to embrace the risen Christ for their salvation.

Sermon Text:

Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at the faithfulness of God in relation to His church when she is faced with persecution and tribulation.

And we have seen how He faithfully brought these Thessalonian believers to Himself, and how they had grown in relationship to Him.

To the point in the days leading up to this letter that they had themselves endured persecution –

Much the same persecution they saw the apostles endure faithfully while they were in the city.

And we have seen that these persecutions were not unique to them as well – they were of the same type and character as the troubles the Judean church was experiencing from the leading Jews.

These were the very things Jesus had told His disciples to expect on the night He was betrayed:

These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. 2 They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. 3 These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. – John 16:1-3

Jews in the synagogues, pagans in the idolatrous temples – each thought they were doing service to their god by trying to force the followers of Jesus Christ to abandon Him.

Because that is where it begins:

The Christians are not tolerant of other points of view:

Meaning, they refuse to endorse what the Bible has clearly called “sin”.

They won’t worship any other god but Yahweh, and that through the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

They won’t bend before any representation of god that is not laid out in the Bible.

They won’t bend in their devotion to His name.

Persecution is never about the second table of the Law – the fifth through the tenth Commandment – nor should it be.

Persecution is ALWAYS about the first table of the Law, the one that defines our right relationship with God alone.

It is always about that table of the Law that the world will swear is irrelevant for today.

The four Commandments the atheists of the world claim to be so out of step with our modern times and thoughts.

The four Commandments that define EVERYTHING God has decreed in how we are to approach Him through Christ.

When Christians are decried, the first real attack is hardly ever on any moral stance – murder, adultery, disobedience to parents, stealing, lying, or even coveting.

To be sure, those controversies come along later, as we see today in the dogmatic assertions of baby-murderers that they have every right to kill a child.

Particularly if she has not taken her first breath of air yet.

But these moral battles grow immediately out of their assault on our devotion and obedience to God,

Our faithfulness to the One True God who will one day judge everyone individually, righteously, and mercilessly.

And if you are disturbed by the idea of the merciless judgment of God, please place that on hold for a minute, and I will return to it.

For many, the right to murder, or lie, or engage in all manner of sexual activity is simply their way to PROVE the God of the Commandments has no power over them,

no authority in their life.

And it is for this reason, all of God’s word through Scripture sums them under a single word: ungodly.

In many translations, the word “wicked” is used, and it is a good translation.

And while it may be more descriptive today, in my mind, it does not hold the horror of the word “ungodly”.

In fact, even when the best modern translations, NASB and ESV, translated Romans 5:6, they could find no better word to use there to convey the meaning:

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Earlier, I referred to God’s judgment as merciless, and this is precisely how I can say that.

Because it is, even for believers.

If you are in Christ through faith, you have indeed received His mercy.

But that is only because your sin was judged COMPLETELY and MERCILESSLY on Jesus Christ.

He died for the ungodly.

He died for God’s enemies (Romans 5:9).

There is no sin in you now or to come that was not paid for in full by the unimaginable suffering of the perfectly-obedient Son of God, Jesus the Messiah.

The mercy that you so freely received was bought at a price so dear that we can only understand the smallest bit of it.

You are alive and have this hope because God loved you and made you alive in Christ, applying His blood to your ungodliness and His righteousness to your imperfection.

But the ungodly who do not repent and come in faith to Jesus Christ, they will face God’s unfiltered and merciless judgment with no hope, unclothed in any righteousness at all.

Twice in this letter, Paul and Silas talk about how the faithful in Christ are saved from His wrath:

Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come. – 1:10

For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. – 5:9-10

But these ungodly, who persecute the church of our Lord by so many means and devices, great and small,

They receive God’s wrath.

God’s wrath overtakes them.

So in our passage today, let’s look together at what these ungodly people do, how they act.

For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. 45 The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. – Luke 6:44-45

So we see here that even those whose faith is not in God show their faith by their works.

The first thing we see is that the ungodly oppose God:

who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out

Now before we go on, I do want to make sure we are all certain with what is being said here.

Because there are and have been many who disparage the Jewish people with this verse, saying it was the “Jews” who killed the Lord Jesus Christ.

This verse has NOTHING to do with the so-called “race” of the Jews, nor does it even implicate the rank-and-file Jews of Paul’s day.

He is speaking specifically of those ungodly Jews, particularly those in leadership among their people, who accomplished these atrocities for the sake of their position and power.

Implicating any Jewish person alive today for the death of Jesus on the cross is ridiculous – they were not there.

Their sinfulness and unrighteousness is of no different measure than anyone’s.

And their salvation is accomplished through exactly the same means: the shed blood of Jesus Christ that can pay for all sins and all unrighteousness.

Some, both Jew and Gentile, however, will not repent.

They will harden their hearts and refuse to surrender to God.

It is those ungodly people, both Jews and Gentiles, were responsible for opposing God.

Ever since the Garden, when the first man chose to decide right and wrong for himself, we have, in our human nature, been at war with God.

It is the reason Paul called us enemies of God prior to our salvation, as we looked at earlier in Romans 5:9.

That is the very reason we are entirely unable, if we are not in Christ, to follow completely God’s Commandments, His moral Law.

But they do not confine their battle to God – they extend it to His people.

On the road to Damascus, Paul learned this lesson.

He thought he was going to imprison people who had left the Jewish faith for a damnable cult.

He had stood in complete agreement on the murder of Stephen.

He had breathed threats and imprisoned some for following the risen Christ.

He had persecuted the church terribly, to the point that the people in the church feared him and his reputation.

But as he was on the way to Damascus, he saw the risen Lord Jesus, and then:

he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” 5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting - Acts 9:4-5

He was ungodly;

He was persecuting God’s people.

And he was opposing God.

And God called him to follow, suffer, and be a witness for Jesus Christ the rest of his life.

Some ungodly repent;

Some will stand before God in terrifying judgment.

The second thing we see is that the ungodly displease God.

What would it mean to displease God?

We have an entire Bible with instruction and example of what pleases and displeases God, so I will summarize what might be most applicable to us from this verse.

The primary thing that displeases God is sin, disobedience.

In fact, we see the comment in verse 16: so as always to fill up the measure of their sins.

So many things, both things we do and things we ignore, are sinful.

And they aren’t sinful because God is hard to please.

They are sinful because we are fallen and unable to please God.

The ungodly don’t want to do good; they want to do good FOR THEMSELVES.

They don’t want to obey God; they want to bend God to their whim.

And if they do come to Him, they demand it is on their terms, in their way, as if they are doing God a favor by joining His team.

The only time they seek God is when there is something they want from Him.

And unfortunately, there are many in churches today who go only for what they can get from their sacrifice of time.

I was a little bothered when I was studying this passage, and I looked up the word used for “sin” in verse 16.

You may know that there are many words for “sin” in the Bible, often taught as indicating varying degrees.

So when I came to this word “sin” in regard to these wicked, ungodly people, I was hoping to see one of the stronger words for sin, indicating rebellion or transgression.

But the word here is based on the root for “missing the mark”.

Like an archer who can’t hit the bullseye…or perhaps even the target.

But we should never minimize this type of sin, this type of missing the mark.

We may try to console ourselves, saying we are only human, and even the best, most earnest, miss sometimes.

I have known many believers who have tried to explain away great sin with the excuse “I was weak.”

But look at the sin of the ungodly here: they are filling up the measure of their sin.

For those ungodly who are sinning, they aren’t even trying to hit the mark.

They may be making great excuses, justifying themselves loudly, but still they keep filling up their “sin-bucket”.

When I was young, a teenager, I attended a youth fellowship at a home where they had just remodeled their basement to create a family game room.

And one of the games in that room was a dartboard.

It was brand new, hung on a pristine wall.

But at the end of the fellowship, there were many more holes in the wall than there were in the dartboard.

Was it simply because as youth, we had underdeveloped hand-eye coordination, causing us to “miss the mark” often?

Sadly – no.

The wall was riddled with holes because several began to throw darts toward the target rather than AT the target.

By that, I mean that rather than playing the game as it was supposed to be played, the way that would have honored the generosity of the host,

Many threw with their eyes closed, others while turned completely away.

Others tried makeshift launchers to make the darts stick more deeply into the brand new drywall.

The point being that before long, it wasn’t anyone’s intention to HIT the mark.

And that is the state of the ungodly in sin – they have no interest in hitting the mark, which is God’s Commandment.

Their interests lie in having others see and applaud them.

To mock God even in His mercy and grace.

And to care nothing of what they ruin in the process so long as they are not bothered by it.

The third thing we see is the ungodly hinder the gospel.

They oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved.

Both Jew and Gentile were guilty of this in Thessalonica.

But why would anyone oppose the message of God’s grace and mercy and the opportunity for peace with Him?

For some, to be sure, they do not want to be discovered or found out in their sin.

The indictment of the ungodly here in our passage today sounds a lot like the indictment Stephen made before the Sanhedrin right before he was martyred:

Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; 53 you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.” – Acts 7:52-53

The ungodly don’t want to hear of forgiveness because it means they must first hear of sin.

Lastly, we need to look quickly at the last sentence in this passage: But wrath has come upon them at last.

We looked earlier at the contrast of these ungodly who were under God’s wrath and the believers who were saved from God’s wrath.

But what does he mean by that? That God’s wrath has come upon them at last?

There are some who see this as an entirely earthly statement, where God’s wrath is seen in some calamity.

The historian Josephus tells of a Roman massacre of 10,000 Jews in Jerusalem in AD 49 stemming from a riot begun by a rude gesture and insult by a legionnaire.

Others look to the destruction of the temple in AD 70.

But both of these explanations are problematic:

The Jews killed in the riot were not the leaders of the Sanhedrin, but ordinary people with some zealots in the mix.

Plus, while this was indeed a tragedy, it does not seem to be significant enough for Paul and Silas to equate with the fullness of God’s wrath.

And the destruction of the temple, while it would be catastrophic enough, happened 20 years after this letter was written.

And the wrath they are talking about had begun and was ongoing. (aorist active)

We should be careful not to discount all earthly features of God’s wrath, though.

God does indeed bring calamity on people and peoples, nations, and lands in His times and for His reasons.

But those earthly things are but shadows of the real terror of His great judgment, when all will be laid bare and judged in the full light of His holiness.

That, if anything, is the wrath the ungodly should fear.

All the calamities of earth, all the disasters and injustices,

Should bring us to Him in repentance and hope.

Because those tribulations on the ungodly are God’s call to turn from their wickedness and to Him for their good.

Just like troubles in the believer’s life are calls to faith, so are the difficulties in the lives of the ungodly.

Sometimes, those troubles bring people to the doors of the church, asking for help in their time of need.

Or to a neighbor, or to a friend.

And for we who are in Christ, this is our God-ordained opportunity to meet both their earthly and spiritual need.