The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Thessalonians — Section 15

bill reiro.rrection and ascension. Now they are sent forth to minister for them that ahall be hei?'ll of salvation; they encamp round about those who fear the Lord, and deliver them. They help in carrying on hill blessed work of love. But they are holy; they hat.e evil; they must tum away from those who have yielded themselves to the dominion of the evil one; they must execute at the last the awful judgment of God. Fearful thought, that the blessed angels, loving and holy as they are, must one day cast the hardened sinner into hell, as once they cast Satan out of heaven. (2) In flaming fire. The Lord shall be revealed in flaming fire, in that glory which he had before the world was. His throne is fiery flame (Dan. vii. 9). He himself is a con- suming fire. The sight will be appalling to the lost, full of unutterable terror; "they shall uy to the rocks, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us." "By thine agony and bloodJ sweat, by thy cross and passion, good Lord, deliver us." 2. The loat. Two classes are mentioned here. (1) Those who know not God-the heathen, They might have known him. Some of them did know him. They had not the Law, the outward Law, but it was written in their hearts; God spoke to them in the voice of conscience. They listened; they did by nature the things contained in the Law. Such men, we are sure, God in his great mercy will accept and save. But, alas! the fearful picture drawn by St. Paul in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans represents with only too much truth the general st&t.e of the heathen world in the apostolic times. Their blindness was criminal; it was the result of wilful and habitual sin; their ignorance was without excuse. (2) Those who obeyed not the gospel. All, whether Jews or Gentiles, who had heard the preaching of Christ. They had heard, as we have, ah that the Lord Jesus had done and suffered for us; they had had the opportunity of hearing his holy precepts. "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light." To know the gospel and not to obey it, to have the light around us and not to admit it into our hearts, not to walk as children of light-this must bring the judgment of God upon the disobedient. The greater the light, the heavier the responsibility of those who sin against light and knowledge. 3. The punishment. The Lord Jesus will award vengeance. "Vengeance is mine ; I will recompense, saith the Lord." Terrible thought, that vengeance must come from him, the mosi loving Saviour, who loved the souls of men with a love so burning, so intense in its Divine tenderness I But it must be so. The exceeding guilt of Bin is manifest in this; it turns the chiefest of blessings into an increase of con- demnation ; the cross is utter death to the impenitent and the ungodly. And that veng:eance takes effect in destruction. The destruction is eternal ; then it is not &nDihilation. It is the destruction of all gladness, hope, all that makes life worth living; it is the exclusion from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. Only the pure in heart can see God. The lost souls can.not see his face. The exclusion is eternal; is it endless? It continues through the ages; will those ages of misery ever end in restoration ? Can a soul, once BO hardened in guilt that it must be shut out of the presence of God, ever repent in that exclusion? It sinned obstinately against light during its time of probation; can it recover itself now that the light is withdrawn? It is hardened through the deceitfulness of sin and the power of evil habits; can it break those chains of darkness now? These are dnrk, awful questions. We may ask, on the other hand, how can "God be all in all," if sin is to exist for ever? how can it be that "in Christ shall all be made alive," while there is still a hell in the universe of God? The subject is beset with difficulties and perplexities; it excites bewildering, harrowing thoughts. We must leave it where Holy Scripture leaves it. We would gladly believe, if it were possible, that there is hope beyond the grave for those who die unblest; but such an expectation has no scriptural authority beyond a few slight and doubtful hints. Who would dare to trust to a hope BO exceeding slender? No; if we shrink in terror from the thought of being one day shut out of God's presence into the great outer darkness, let us try to live in that gracious presence now. IL THB GLOBY OJ' THB BIGBTEOUB. 1. It, time : when he ,hall come. They suffer now; sometimes they are persecuted, their name is cast out as evil. But they have their consolation ; they see indeed through a glass darkly, but yet they do se11 by faith the glory of the Lord; they are changed into the same image from glory to glory u by the Lord the Spirit. They have a glory now; but it is an inner 11piritual OB. L 1-12.) THE SECOND EPIS'l'LE TO THE THESSALONIANB. 13