We are studying the eschatology of Paul’s epistles to the Thessalonians believers. In chapter 4 Paul mentions the coming or return of Christ, but most Christians believe the Lord’s return is yet to occur and hasn’t happened in the 2000 years following Paul’s authoring those two epistles. Presently, we are looking at the context leading up to chapter four in First Thessalonians, and discovering that the time statements in them seem to point to 70 AD, which is when the Lord judged the Jewish nation and destroyed their Temple and Jerusalem. If all of the time statements before and following the fourth chapter of First Thessalonians, point to the coming of the Lord in the first century AD to judge Jerusalem, what would that say about the time of the Lord’s coming in chapter four of this epistle? Can anyone show just cause for removing 1Thessalonians 4 from the context of all of the preceding chapters of Paul’s first epistle? If Paul is speaking about events that had occurred and would occur in the first century AD, at what point did he begin speaking of a time in the far future, 2000 years and counting, and how would one support such a idea?
When we speak of the wrath (orge; G3709) that would come upon the Jewish nation as judgment (cp. 1Thessalonians 1:10), we need to realize that the affliction experienced by believers at the hand of the unbelieving Jews was something different. The one was the punishment of God upon unbelieving Jews, while the other was the punishment of mankind upon believers in Christ (usually Jewish believers), and usually by the hand of unbelieving Jewish authorities whether in Judea or those in every city throughout the empire. God promised the save believers out of the orge (G3709) but not from affliction (thlipsis; G2347; cp. 1Thessalonians 1:6). Therefore, believers in Christ would be persecuted. In fact, those who would embrace Christ in the first century AD were appointed to that end (1Thessalonians 3:3-4). In other words, it was foreordained that they would be at the mercy (or lack thereof) of unbelievers, and this is a theme that is attached to the preaching of the Gospel and Lord’s coming or return.
Although Paul does say the believers at Thessalonica were appointed by God to suffer affliction (thilipsis – G2347; 1Thessalonians 3:3-4), Luke doesn’t record that in his record of Paul’s visit to Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-10). However, he does record that Paul told the believers at Galatia (Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch; see Acts 14:19-23) that believers were destined to be persecuted, saying: “that we must through much tribulation (G2347) enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Notice that the word for tribulation in this verse is the same as the word Paul uses in 1Thessalonians 3:3, namely thlipsis (G2347), showing that it was the manner of Paul to warn new believers in the first century AD that they would suffer persecution for the sake of the Gospel. Thus, we see that believers will suffer thilipsis, the wrath of man, but will be saved from orge (G3709), the wrath of God, but where did Paul get this idea that believers **must** suffer?
In the Olivet Prophecy Jesus told his disciples: “Then they will deliver you up to be afflicted (thlipsis (G2347) and will kill you. And you will be hated of all nations for My name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9), and Luke records that Jesus said when these thing begin to occur, know that the Kingdom of God is near (Luke 21:31). Thus, just as Jesus predicted that his disciples would suffer affliction before entering the Kingdom of God, so Paul, likewise told new believers that through much affliction they would enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22; cp. 1Thessalonians 3:3-4), showing that persecution is a theme running through both Jesus’ testimony to the disciples and Paul’s testimony to new believers, and keep in mind that all these things were to occur in the first century AD, in that evil generation in which both Jesus and his disciples lived (Matthew 23:36; 24:34).
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