The really striking feature of these Epistles is the equal emphasis on Christ the Lord and God the Father as severally and jointly the source of all Christian experience, and the ground of all Christian hope. In the opening verse of each Epistle, Christ and the Fatlier are combined as the sphere in which the Church at Thessalonica has its being. In 1 Th 3" the words ' our God and Father and our Lord Jesus Christ ' appear as the subject of a verb in the singular numlier, express- ing a prayer that the Apostle may be guided on his way (cf. 2 Th 2'6). It is from Christ no less
than from God that the Apostle claims to have received his commission (1 Th 2'^), and it is ' through the Lord Jesus' that he utters his precepts (1 Th f [cf. 5-^"], 2 Th 3«- '2). And though Christ is not in these Epistles directly referred to as Judge, it is implied that in the work of Judgment the Son will also have a part (1 Th 3^^ 4« 5-, 2 Th V 2^).
It will be already plain that 6 Kvpios is the con- stantly recurring description of Christ ; but, more than that, it is used only of Him. For the phrase consecrated by OT usage, ' the Lord God,' St. Paul has in fact substituted- ' God the Father and the Lord.' The usage of various names for Clirist in these Epistles has been examined by G. Milligan {St. Paul's Epp. to Thess., 1908, p. 135) with the following results. The human name 'Jesus' by itself is found only twice (1 Th P" 4'*). The name ' Christ ' standing alone is also comparatively rare, occurring four times ('apostles of Christ,' ' gospel of Christ,' 'dead in Christ,' 'patience in Christ'). The combination ' Christ Jesus ' denoting the Saviour alike in His official and in His personal character, the use of which in the NT is confined to St. Paul, occurs twice. On the other hand, Ki^ptos occurs twenty-two times in all, eight times with, and fourteen times without, the article. The fact that nearly two-thirds of these instances are anar- throus shows how completely the word was al- ready accepted as a proper name, and appropriated to Christ.
It is consistent with the significance we have assigned to this use of Ki^ptos that the phrase 17 i)fj.epa. Tov Kvpiov, which in the OT means ' the Day of Jahweh,' is employed here without hesitation and without explanation to describe the day of Christ's return in judgment (1 Th 5- ; cf. 2 Th 2-). Of like significance are the parallel use and the interchange of 'God' and 'Lord,' e.g. 1 Th 5-^ 'the God of peace himself,' and 2 th 3i« 'the Lord of peace himself ; 1 Th I* ' brethren beloved of God,' and 2 Th 2^^ ' brethren beloved of the Lord.' These phenomena are the more remark- able inasmuch as tliej- occur in Epistles whicli otherwise are distinguished for an unusually per- sistent expression of what may be called ' God- consciousness.' It is not so much a doctrine con- cerning God that forces itself on the attention, as a habit of referring everything to ' God.' It is God who has called the Thessalonians (1 Th 2'^), the gospel of God that they have received (2^), to God that they have turned from idols (1^), faith toward God that they show (P). It is God whose love they experience (1^), whose rule is their supreme authority (4^ 5^^), who gives them the Holy Spirit (4^), who is to sanctify them wholly {o^), who is to bring again the dead (4^*). All these references (and they are not exhaustive) are in the First Epistle ; and further illustration of the same characteristic is furnished by the Second.
It is, therefore, in letters which at the same time testify so continuously and so emphatically to the unchallenged monotheism of the Apostle that we find equally striking evidence that even at this stage he assigned to Christ rank, dimity, authority, and sovereign importance for religion, such as are surpassed in none of his later writings. And yet it cannot be said that in any essential particular these Epistles carry us beyond the Christology of the pre- Pauline Church. The fact is that all, or nearly all, that St. Paul ever taught concerning the Person of Christ is involved in His 'Lordship.'
' The confession of Christ's Lordship is the confession of His Divinity. There is no doubt that to Paul and the mass of believers the Man Christ Jesus, Risen and Exalted, . . . was the object of worship. In Him they saw God manifested in a human form. In His influence upon them they perceived the influence of the Spirit of God. _ Of His Divine power thej" had the most convincing evidence in the consciousness of the new
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life, with the moral strength it imparted, which He had quickened within them. . . . The ease and naturalness with which Paul passes from the thought of God to that of Christ shows that he knew of no other God save the God who was one with Christ and Christ with Him, that in turning in faith and prayer to Christ he was conscious he was drawing near to God in the truest way, and that in calling on God he was calling on Christ, in whom alone God was accessible to men' (D. Somer- vUle, St. Paul's Conception of Christ, 1897, p. 145 and 144 n.)-