1 Thessalonians 1:4-6

‘Knowing, brothers beloved of God, your election, how that our Good News did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and much assurance, even as you know what manner of men we showed ourselves towards you for your sake, and you became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit.'

This was the third thing for which Paul gave thanks, that their election by God was clear from the power and response revealed in their lives, which he knew could only be the work of the Holy Spirit. He had no time for a Gospel that was not life transforming.

‘Brothers'. When used in general the word means ‘brothers and sisters', fellow siblings. The thought ties in with the previous mention of ‘our God and Father' and is that true Christians are all one family because they have one Father. Here it excludes the thought of the universal Fatherhood of God, and ‘Father' is used in a personal sense. While the universal Fatherhood of God has some truth in that God is the Creator of all (a possible interpretation of Malachi 2:10, and even there His people were specifically in mind; compare 1 Corinthians 8:6, and His regular description as ‘the Father'), it must be distinguished from the central idea of His personal Fatherhood found in both the Old and the New Testament message.

Throughout Scripture the idea of the personal Fatherhood of God has special relationship with the idea of the sonship of His people. Israel was His son, His firstborn (Exodus 4:22) and this was indicating that they were unique and precious. They were chosen out to be uniquely His children (Deuteronomy 14:1 compare Isaiah 1:2). There was no thought of the Fatherhood of God before this. But from now on they saw Him as their Father by adoption and election (Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 63:16; Isaiah 64:8; Jeremiah 3:4; Malachi 1:6; Malachi 2:10), and the idea of redemption is central to the thought (explicitly in Isaiah 63:16). He is their Father in a way that He is not to others.

When Jesus refers to ‘your Father' He has this in mind. For by their lives His people were to reveal that they were true children of their Father (Matthew 5:45). Thus those who pray ‘our Father' do so on the basis of Old Testament expectations (Matthew 6:9). It is the righteous who will shine forth in ‘their Father's' kingdom (Matthew 13:43). When the Pharisees claimed that God was their Father Jesus denied it. Had God been their Father they would have loved Jesus and believed in Him (John 8:41).

It should be noted that we should distinguish this personal use from the more austere ‘the Father' where the idea is more of the Creator and sovereign of the Universe, the One Who is over all, and judge of all, and offers redemption to all. To all God is ‘the Father', to His people only He is ‘our Father'.

This idea is confirmed in the rest of the New Testament. Those who believe in Jesus Christ become His children (John 1:12) and are ‘born -- of God' (John 1:13). We can call God ‘Abba, Father' when we have been adopted through the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). To become His sons and daughters we must turn away from all that defiles, especially idolatry (2 Corinthians 6:16).

Thus when Paul says ‘brothers' it has a very powerful significance. He is speaking to those whom he believes are true children of God, who can say ‘our Father', as indeed his next words reveal.

‘Beloved of God.' ‘Beloved' is a perfect participle, ‘those who have become beloved by response to Christ and now are beloved'. And they are so beloved because of their election. They are beloved because they are ‘in Christ'. In the words of the hymnwriter, ‘the love wherewith He loves His Son, such is His love for me'.

‘Your election.' The idea of God choosing out for Himself those who are His is constant throughout Scripture. He said of Abraham that He had ‘known' him in order that he might fulfil His purposes (Genesis 18:19). This ‘knowing' was a personal choosing out and calling, a ‘foreknowing' resulting in Abraham's final response. Thus His elect are chosen because He has set His love upon them (Deuteronomy 7:6) that they may be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6). They are chosen to be His servant (Isaiah 41:8; Isaiah 43:10; Isaiah 44:1; Isaiah 45:4; Isaiah 65:9). And being ‘known' by Him in this way results in special responsibility (Amos 3:2).

It should be noted that while they have been chosen to be redeemed (Isaiah 43:1; Isaiah 43:14) and to be filled with His Holy Spirit (Isaiah 44:1), that very election puts upon them a great responsibility. To be chosen involves great demands. A none active member of ‘the elect' is a contradiction in terms. The work of faith, the labour of love, the patient endurance of hope are expected of them.

The same idea continues through the New Testament. We are elect through God's ‘foreknowing' (an active ‘knowing' (pro-gnosis) as in Genesis 18:19 as opposed to intellectual knowledge) to obedience  and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus (1 Peter 1-2). We are called to full obedient response to God and to reconciliation and cleansing through the blood of Jesus. We put the latter first, God puts the former, although the one would not be possible without the other.

Thus Jesus speaks of the fact that men come to Him because the Father draws them (John 6:44), because it is given to them by the Father (John 6:65), because they are His sheep (John 10:26). That is why they respond and obey. The disciples were not those who had chosen Him, but those whom He had chosen to bear fruit, in other words both for salvation and for service (John 15:16; John 15:19 compare John 13:18). For He alone had the words of eternal life (John 6:68).

Paul also speaks of Christians as those ‘called according to His purpose' (Romans 8:28). They are called in the will and purpose of God. Then he describes the grand eternal process through which that calling was and will be accomplished (Romans 8:29), ‘personally known beforehand by God, foreordained to be made Christlike, called, declared righteous in Him, and finally glorified'. Notice that all this results from God's purpose and will, and that the purpose is not solely that we should be forgiven, that is only a part, albeit an important part, of the route, but that we should be made Christlike, fit for companionship with Him, and glorified.

Then Paul follows this up in Romans 9 by making quite clear that this election is of God. It is not something deserved but given before a man is born (Romans 9:11). It is a matter of God's free choice (Romans 9:15). The Potter has a right to do what He will with the clay (Romans 9:21), and there are those whom he has prepared beforehand for glory (Romans 9:23). Nevertheless ‘whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved' (Romans 10:13). The doctrine of election does not prevent anyone from coming to Him, only unbelief does that.

But did not God ‘foreknow' His people in Old Testament days? Has He then now cast off those whom He foreknew? Paul's reply is ‘never!'. (Romans 11:1). The fact is that those truly foreknown have always been a remnant, as Scripture clearly indicates. He has already pointed out that God's election was restricted. God ‘foreknew' Abraham (Genesis 18:19). But only one of Abraham's sons was certainly elect (Romans 9:7) and only one of Isaac's (Romans 9:11). Then he points out that in Elijah's time there were only seven thousand who were elect and chosen by God (Romans 11:4). And this was demonstrated by belief and faithfulness (Romans 11:4), in contrast with unbelief (Romans 11:20). Yet if the latter respond in faith they too will be restored (Romans 11:23). Thus God's saving purpose has not been thwarted. For ‘the gifts and calling of God are not subject to a change of mind' (Romans 11:29). God will never cast off those whom He has ‘foreknown'.

These ‘elect ones' have been chosen by God (Mark 13:20) and will be preserved throughout all that comes (Matthew 24:22; Mark 13:20), will by implication not be deceived by false prophets (Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22), and will be gathered up to Christ in the final day (Matthew 24:31; Mark 13:27). Injustice wrought upon them will be noted and avenged (Luke 18:7) and no charge can be laid on them before God because God has declared them righteous in Christ (Romans 8:33). The Gospel is ‘the faith of God's elect' (Titus 1:1), thus those who truly hold that faith are the elect and they must demonstrate their election by adherence to their faith and by their lives (Colossians 3:12; 2 Peter 1:10). They have been ‘chosen in Him before the foundation of the world that they may be holy and without blemish before Him in love,' being ‘foreordained -- to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will' (Ephesians 1:4). His purpose is their true holiness and their spiritual sonship, first reckoned to them in Christ, then wrought by the Holy Spirit.

So he can tell the Thessalonians, ‘God chose you from the beginning to salvation, in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, to which He called you through our Good News to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ' (2 Thessalonians 2:13). Notice the stress on ‘from the beginning'. Here the idea is of the beginning of all things (John 1:1; Genesis 1:1; Ephesians 1:4; 2 Timothy 1:9). Our salvation was determined in the mind of God from the beginning, and is wrought by the separating, purifying power of the Holy Spirit which is manifested by our belief of the truth and will result in our obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is no wonder that Paul gives thanks when he thinks of their ‘election'.

And how does he know that they are ‘elect'? Because they not only received the word but they experienced power, they experienced the Holy Spirit, they experienced a deep assurance of faith, in the same way as Paul and his companions had experienced them. And this resulted in their emulation of Paul and of Christ Himself. In other words their lives and their way of living were transformed.

‘ Our  Good News.' The Good News that Paul and his associates had brought was a Good News that they had made personally their own. It had been experienced by them before they had brought it to the Thessalonians. And it had so thrilled them that they had had to pass it on. Alternately the ‘our' might be contrasting their Good News with other Gospels which were not Gospels (Galatians 1:7). In 1 Thessalonians 2:2 he describes it as ‘the Good News of God'.

‘Came to you not in words only but in power and in the Holy Spirit and much assurance.' The question must be asked, does this refer to the preachers or to the recipients? Our answer is that it must be seen as to both. When men preach in power and the Holy Spirit and in assurance that is how the recipients receive and experience it. This word coming ‘in power in the Holy Spirit and much assurance' is related both to their ‘election' (1 Thessalonians 1:4) which resulted in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, and to ‘what manner of men we showed ourselves to be' (1 Thessalonians 1:5). God's powerful word was going out to accomplish His purpose (Isaiah 55:11). We have only to read Acts to discover that in the early church ‘power' was constantly experienced and revealed (Acts 4:33; Acts 6:8) and received. And this power was closely tied in with the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:31; Acts 6:5). The early church expected the power of God at work among them, with signs and miracles and most importantly with the dynamic transformation of lives.

Their words were not just words, they were words of power, for they were ‘the living and powerful -- word of God' (Hebrews 4:12). The word for power is ‘dunamis' from which we get the word dynamite. It was active, explosive power. As Paul says elsewhere ‘the Good News -- is the  power  of God for salvation to everyone who believes' (Romans 1:16). ‘For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God' (1 Corinthians 1:18). It has a power that seizes men and takes them out from under the power of darkness and translates them into the Kingly Rule of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). They are made fit and suitable to become inheritors of ‘the inheritance of the saints in light' (Colossians 1:12). So that power then works within the hearer, changing and transforming. They are the recipients of transfiguring power.

‘In the Holy Spirit and much assurance.' The preachers spoke ‘in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance'. But that same Holy Spirit worked within the hearers so that they believed and responded fully to the call of Christ, being born of, and transformed by, the Spirit, and receiving a full assurance of salvation. They too experienced ‘the Holy Spirit and much assurance'. The idea of a powerful, good and holy Spirit Who was over all and all triumphant was indeed also Good News to the Gentiles who lived in a world of fear of malevolent spirits.

Here this work of the Spirit is linked closely with ‘much assurance'. This is part of the work of the Spirit. He brings men peace and certainty in a world of doubt, bolstering their faith and making the Good News real in their hearts, as the Thessalonians had themselves experienced.

‘Even as you know what manner of men we showed ourselves towards you for your sakes, and you became emulators of us and of the Lord.' This confirms the dual meaning. On the one hand the Thessalonians saw in the preachers power and the Holy Spirit and much assurance, and then they became ‘emulators', experiencing and revealing it within themselves. The word mimeomai means to emulate, follow the example of, imitate, do as others do. So having witnessed the purity of the lives of Paul and his companions, having witnessed their fearlessness in the face of adversity (Acts 17:4 - which demonstrates that their period of preaching was accompanied by continuing and growing opposition from outsiders which finally resulted in an attempt to have them imprisoned) and having witnessed the power that they had manifested through the same Holy Spirit, they became powerfully enabled to reveal the same.

‘And of the Lord.' Paul not only preached the Gospel, he was also one of its greatest ornaments. But he pointed not so much to himself as the One Who was at work through him. That was finally what mattered, that they became emulators of the Lord (compare 1 Corinthians 11:1). When Christians are new born they need an immediate example to follow, and that should be found in their godly teachers, but once they have become founded in the word and see Jesus more clearly, He is the final example that we should encourage them to follow.

‘And you became imitators of us and of the Lord having received the word in much affliction.' Facing up to affliction was one way in which they emulated Him. These new Christians too had had to face up to adversity on becoming Christians and they faced it bravely as Paul and his companions had, and indeed as the Lord Himself had, following the example of both their teachers and their Lord. They ‘followed in His steps' (1 Peter 2:21). For ‘all who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution' in one way or another (2 Timothy 3:12; John 15:18; John 16:2; John 16:33).

‘With joy of the Holy Spirit.' But even more their response to affliction had been with fullness of joy because of, and as a result of, the work of the Holy Spirit within them (compare Acts 13:52; John 16:22). Their affliction had not resulted in a gritting of the teeth (although that is sometimes necessary) but in a time of rejoicing in that they could suffer for Christ's sake. Joy is one aspect of the fruit which the Holy Spirit produces within (Galatians 5:22), especially in the face of adversity, which is to the Christian a cause for rejoicing because of its effectiveness in making him more Christ-like (Romans 5:3; 1 Peter 4:12; James 1:2).

Joy is different from happiness. The latter comes when things ‘hap' our way, when all is going well. But joy is something deep within that survives even when the going is hard and life is tough and we are being fully tested. It comes from knowing God and being indwelt by His Spirit and being confident that we are in His hand.