1 Thessalonians 5:27

1 Thessalonians 5:27

The Witness to Christ of the Oldest Christian Writing.

If the books of the New Testament were arranged according to the dates of their composition, this epistle would stand first. It was written somewhere about twenty years after the Crucifixion, and long before any of the existing Gospels. It is, therefore, of peculiar interest, as being the most venerable extant Christian document, and as being a witness to Christian truth quite independent of the Gospel narratives.

I. Let us hear its witness to the Divine Christ. There is nothing in any part of Scripture more emphatic and more lofty in its unfaltering proclamation of the truth of Christ's Divinity than this altogether undoctrinal epistle. It takes it for granted that so deeply was that truth embedded in the consciousness of the converts that an allusion to it was all that was needed for their understanding and faith.

II. Let us ask what this witness has to say about the dying Christ. (1) As to the fact. The Jews killed the Lord Jesus. The historical fact, is here set forth distinctly. And then, beyond the fact, there is as distinctly, though in the same incidental fashion, set forth the meaning of the fact. "God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us."

III. Notice what the witness has to say about the risen and ascended Christ. The risen Christ is in the heavens. And Paul assumes that these people, just brought out of heathenism, have received that truth into their hearts, in the love of it, and know it so thoroughly that we can take for granted their entire acquiescence in and acceptance of it. Remember, we have nothing to do with the four gospels here; remember, not a line of them had yet been written we are dealing here with an entirely independent witness and then tell us what importance is to be attached to this evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Twenty years after His death, here is this man speaking about that Resurrection as being not only something that he had to proclaim, and believed, but as being the recognised and notorious fact which all the Churches accepted, and which underlay all their faith.

IV. Let us hear what this witness has to say about the returning Christ. These are the points of his testimony: (1) a personal coming, (2) a re-union of all believers in Him, in order to eternal felicity and mutual gladness, (3) the destruction that shall fall by His coming on those that turn away from Him. I remember once walking in the long galleries of the Vatican, on the one side of which there are Christian inscriptions from the catacombs, and on the other heathen inscriptions from the tombs. One side is all dreary and hopeless, one long sigh echoing along the line of white marbles, "Vale, vale, in aeternum vale!" on the other side, "In Christo, in Pace, in Spe." That is the witness that we have to lay to our hearts. And so death becomes a passage, and we let go the dear hands, believing that we shall clasp them again.

A. Maclaren, The God of the Amen,p. 41.