1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

‘Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you. And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love, one toward another, and towards all men, even as we also do towards you, to the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.'

In the prayer that closes this section Paul clearly demonstrates that all must be of God. If they are to come to Thessalonika it must be because God directs them, removing the obstacles and the interference of Satan which has prevented it. Note again how God the Father and the Lord Jesus are in parallel. They are our God and Lord, working in full unity. And all our ways must be in their hands. That they are addressed in prayer together confirms the full deity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then he prays for their growth, that they may ‘increase and abound'. Both words convey the same general idea, growth and fullness. The growth and fullness are to be in love, first towards each other and then towards all men, a love comparable to that Paul has for them. The comparison brings out the genuineness of his love. This will then result in their fulfilling all God's requirements (Galatians 5:14 see also John 14:15), and prepare them for the coming of the Lord Jesus (1 Thessalonians 3:13). Love for one another was a central feature of the final words of Jesus Christ to His disciples (John 13:34; John 15:12; John 15:17). It was one way by which all men would be able to identify the true disciples of Christ (John 13:35).

‘To the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.' The purpose of this love being made to increase and abound in them is that their hearts may be established, ‘unblameable in holiness', ready to meet God at Jesus' second coming. We note again the importance of faith (1 Thessalonians 3:10 b), love (1 Thessalonians 3:12) and here, the Christian hope, the three foundation pillars manward of Christian belief.

‘He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness.' The verb ‘establish' is used in LXX Psalms 112:8 to signify someone whose heart is established so that he need not be afraid. It refers to a strong and sure position and attitude resulting from faith (‘the fear of the Lord') and past experience of righteousness. Thus here faith and its outworking in love is seen as establishing the hearts of Christians ‘unblameable in holiness'. The former, the faith and love, is the outworking of salvation as seen within man, unblameable in holiness is the outworking of salvation on God's part. It is through the sacrifice of Christ, resulting in sanctification and cleansing, that we are presented before God holy and without blame (Ephesians 5:25; Colossians 1:22), but it is our faith and love, worked within us by God, that give us the confidence that we will be so, and reproduce something of that holiness within us (see 2 Corinthians 7:1).

‘Before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.' At the coming (parousia) of our Lord Jesus with all His saints (all the people of God) (1 Thessalonians 4:14) we will be presented before our God and Father. Our Lord will ‘confess us', bear witness to us, before Him (Matthew 10:32; Luke 12:8). Then indeed we will need to be unblameable in holiness. Were that to mean in actuality as a result of righteous living none could stand before Him. We will indeed be clothed with ‘the righteous acts of the saints' (Revelation 19:8), and presented as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2), but our final assurance can only rest in the fact that our clothes have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14), that Christ is made unto us sanctification (1 Corinthians 1:30), that we have become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

‘With all his saints (holy ones).' The question has been asked whether this means His people as resurrected (1 Thessalonians 4:14), or His angels, or all His people. But in the New Testament the word ‘holy ones' always signifies the whole people of God or a section of the whole people of God (sixty times) with the possible exception of Jude 1:14, which is a quotation from extra-Biblical literature.

While therefore it is true that Christ will come with His angels (Matthew 16:27; Matthew 25:31; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; 2 Thessalonians 1:7), and in LXX angels are sometimes called ‘holy ones' (Zechariah 14:5; Daniel 8:13), but never in the New Testament outside of Jude's quotation from pre-New Testament days which is based on Deuteronomy 33:2 where the meaning is obscure, the force of the New Testament evidence is on translating this ‘saints' as meaning the whole people of God or a section of them.

Thus here it probably primarily means the resurrected saints who will accompany Him, although we would not exclude the possibility that it allows for the angels as also coming with them, a splendid and glorious array (the same question arises in Revelation 19:14). In view of the close connection with 1 Thessalonians 4:14 the primary connection with the resurrected saints is surely certain, and the non-mention of angels in that passage must be seen as telling.