To Whom? (06/24/22)

We have here one of those wonderfully concise prayers of Paul’s.  There is a certain profundity to be found in its very brevity.  Much is conveyed in these few, simple verses.  It doesn’t raise a lot of questions for us, nor does it explore deep theological truths, although it does, if we are willing to see it, touch on some.  It is simple and to the point.

The first thing we might observe about this prayer is its addressee.  What is perhaps most interesting of all is that of the three Persons of the Godhead, one is conspicuously absent.  The Holy Spirit is not mentioned here.  For all that, there’s little or no mention of the third Person of God at all in this letter.  Why it should be that way, I don’t know.  In other cases, such as with Corinth, there was good cause to minimize reference to the Spirit because they had over-emphasized the Spirit’s gifts beyond all proper measure.  But here, we have no underlying error to explain the omission.  He simply isn’t mentioned.

Of course, by a fairly standard understanding of the relationship of the Persons of the Godhead and their respective roles in the work of salvation and sanctification, this shouldn’t be terribly surprising.  The Spirit doesn’t come to us seeking attention.  He doesn’t come as exalting Himself as the means of our redemption.  No.  He comes to glorify Christ, even as Christ Himself lived to glorify the Father.  He comes to instruct and advise, and ever and always with an eye to directing us Christ-ward.

Here, then, Paul directs his prayers to the Father and to the Son.  He isn’t carefully phrasing his thoughts so as to direct prayer to the Father via the Son.  That, after all, is far more than a formality.  It is a mindset, an understanding that God, particularly in the Person of the Father, remains entirely too holy for the likes of us to approach.  We have need of a Mediator, and we have one.  One.  Our Mediator is not the Holy Spirit.  It is Jesus Himself, the God-Man, provided as such by the Father, and of Whose good offices we are reminded by the Spirit.

So, we have prayer to God the Father.  He is Father in that He is the originator, the author, if you will, of all being.  Thayer tightens the scope a bit to make Him Father of all intelligent beings, but is it not a more full-throated recognition of His majesty to note that He is author and originator of all beings, and for that matter, of all existence?  Yes, but I suppose we can insist that He is Father, particularly to those made in His image, which is to say, to mankind.  And then, we may reduce scope even further to note that this relationship applies particularly to those who, through Christ, have entered into that close intimate, familial relationship with Him which is the very definition of being a Christian.  That relationship, of course, applies to Son and Spirit as well.  We are in the family of God in three Persons.  And they are in relationship one with the other amongst His Persons, that even in this, He might be perfect in Himself and lacking nothing.

So, then, in directing prayer to the Father, our thoughts are directed to the Father, and to consideration of Who He is in relation to us, and who we are in relation to Him.  We are reminded of His utter holiness.  And, by the very word Father, we are reminded of His choice of adopting us as His own children.  We are reminded of our unruliness as His children, but also of our pride in knowing this is our heritage.  In all, however, we cannot but be put in mind of the utter holiness, the power, and the pure justness of our great and mighty God.

Then, we turn to the Son, but it is not as son that Paul addresses Him.  Rather, He is our Lord.  He is kurios.  That term is wide-ranging in its application, and could, in some settings be little more than a matter of polite address, akin to the way we might refer to somebody as sir or madam.  It conveys a certain respect, but little more.  Here, however, as one considers the Second Person of God, it must take on greater significance.  It is, after all, the name above all names, by some accounts.  He is not merely Lord, but Lord of lords.  We might even amplify that to make clear that He is Lord of all lords, and over all lords.  He, He alone, has the power of deciding.  And, much like the relationship of the Father to intelligent life, so, His Lordship, His power of deciding applies to all intelligent life, with particular application to those whom He knows as His own.

He is Lord, then, whether one would have Him so or not.  His power to decide is not in any way bound by our acceptance of that power.  If we refuse to acknowledge Him as Lord, that in no way alters the reality that He IS Lord.  As I have often observed, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess this Truth in the end.  Some will do so willingly and gladly, others as grudging acceptance of reality, quite possibly forced to their knees, not unlike prisoners brought before an earthly ruler.

Here is something we must needs bear in mind, who know Him not only as Lord but as brother.  He retains that power of decision, even with us – especially with us.  We may know love for Him, but if our love leads us to lose reverence for Him, we are ill-served by our emotions.  He, just as much as our Father, remains utterly holy, remains utterly intolerant of sin, remains perfectly, inescapably just.  Yes, He, along with the Father and the Spirit, has arrived at a means by which we who could never hope to satisfy the demands of justice on our part may yet be rendered just, our debt to heaven’s court paid in full.  But He remains utterly Holy.  He is not some cuddly deity to comfort us with his compliant nature.  He is Lord.  He decides.  And this should ever and always inform the tone of our prayers.

Hear it in Paul’s approach.  He doesn’t come demanding things from God.  He doesn’t present his list of accomplishments and seek payment.  As if!  And surely, if one with his track record could not consider placing demands upon God, we’re in no position to play that game.  He doesn’t come with thoughts of, “You said…”  That’s a game children play, seeking to cajole their parents into giving them their current whim.  Prayer is not like that.  We don’t come seeking to have our whims fulfilled.  We come before a holy God, seeking that He might work His will in us.  We come with utmost humility, remembering ever and always that we pray to Him Who made us, Him Who bought us, Him Who alone has the power of deciding.  We come knowing that He listens, that He hears, and that He answers.  But we come, if we are wise children, with the clear understanding that His answer will come as He chooses, as He directs from His position of knowing all things, and being perfect in wisdom as He directs all things.  We come, as well, with the full assurance that He, in this knowledge and wisdom, and in the relationship He has established with us, works all things for the good of those who love Him and are entered into His service.  That, dear ones, is you and me, if in fact we are in Christ.

Father, with all of this in mind, I can but come humbly before You this morning seeking that Your will might be done in us today.  You know our situation and our desires.  You know the many healings that we deem needful, the plans we might make, and the pursuits with which we might occupy ourselves.  But I set them down.  Do as You will.  You do so anyway, but I pray that You would find us willing vessels, fruitful vineyards, useful instruments in Your hands, to do with as You decide.  Jesus, use us as You will.  Spirit direct us according to Your good purpose, and may we be found rejoicing in all that You direct.

For What? (06/25/22-06/26/22)

Having considered to Whom prayer is addressed, we move on to the subject of what is sought.  These matters are presented as potentialities, if you will.  It is not, by any stretch, demanding of God, nor even seeking that He might stamp our plans with His approval.  While these are presented as requests, or hoped-for outcomes, it cannot but be recognized that what Paul requests is that which God does.  May He – Father, Son, and Spirit, though the latter goes unmentioned – cause love to abound in you, and not the gauzy, vaporous sort of love that one finds in romance movies, nor even that familial love that marks our best friendships.  No, this is that unique, agape love which is defined by God’s own love towards us.

This is love of the benevolent, even sacrificial sort.  This is that sort of love which will willingly suffer harm to self if only it serves the true best interests of the object of that love.  This is the sort of love which Jesus put on universal display when He allowed Himself to be humiliated at the hands of men, crucified for sins He never once committed, having lived a life of perfect obedience to the whole of God’s Law.  Indeed, so stunning was this display of love that angels in heaven stood stunned by what was happening.  Here was victory torn from the jaws of defeat, the enemy stopped short in his victory dance.  And all of this for a people that had wanted nothing to do with such a Savior.

This is the nature of God’s love, that He would do even this, even sending His own Son, His own self, to die on behalf of ingrates who neither knew Him nor sought Him.  Is this not your story and mine?  I know it is mine.  I was not seeking God in any way shape or form.  Oh, there had been those curiosities as to the supernatural, but at that particular juncture, no.  I wasn’t seeking anything.  I was pretty comfortable with the idea that I was a good man.  What need had I for a savior, when I was not a criminal?  What use had I for God when I was happily self-sufficient, so far as my limited thinking was concerned?  But God wanted me, and God found me.  And He made known to me just how insufficient I was, and slowly, steadily, He revealed just how far from guilt-free I was.  But I have to say that in my case, it was not the need of rescue that spearheaded God’s call, but simply the realization of His truly being God.  Here, let me show you that I Am.  And show me, He did.  And I have been His ever since, however poorly I have been so at times.

That love poured out upon me.  It wasn’t condemnation, and it wasn’t conviction.  It was just evidence.  He lives!  And now, as the old song says, my Jesus lives in me!  This is a stunning, humbling yet marvelous realization.  This is a true revelation, the one true revelation, I should think, that every believer must find revealed to himself.  It cannot be conveyed, really.  The best of sermons cannot in and of itself make this reality known to the most tender heart.  No.  It requires God causing His love to abound in us.  And as that love abounds, it does indeed increase for others, firstly for those we discover to be our brothers, our sisters, our new family in Christ.  But as we see Paul praying here, it expands farther.  It encompasses all people.  Now, we shall likely have to admit to deficiency in this regard.  We no doubt meet those in the course of our days who are not exactly prime material for love.  I can think of a few examples just in the last few days.  For all that, I can put myself forth as an example during certain moments of those days.

But this love which God showed towards us was not a response to our lovable nature, and neither is our outpouring of His love to be meted out according to perceived merit.  No.  It is to increase in us to the point that it overflows, pours out from us unrestricted, touching one and all who may come into contact with us.  I rather liked the way the NIrV presented this.  “May the Lord make your love grow.  May it be like a rising flood.  May your love for one another increase.  May it also increase for everyone else.  May it be just like our love for you.”  I just love that idea of a rising flood.  Having just read about the New England flood of 1936, the idea of those waters of God’s love overtopping the dam of our nature to pour unimpeded is a vivid image of what our lives are intended to be like.

And so, we see that what Paul has prayed for here is what God does already.  And he proceeds from there, to seek that God might establish their hearts blameless and holy before Him.  This, too, is a prayer for what God does by very nature.  This, we might suggest, is the particular work of the Holy Spirit in this process of salvation and sanctification, as He constantly brings us to remembrance of what our Savior said and did, what He taught and commanded.  His is that voice of conscience in us, observing always our acts, whether good or bad, praising the former and strengthening us, convicting and correcting us as to the latter; all with that goal in view of presenting us holy and without blame before our Father at Christ’s return.

Now, once again, Paul has presented this as request, in the Optative mood of possibility.  Yet, it is not merely possibility, perchance God might deign to satisfy, prayer.  What he seeks here is no less than that which constitutes our blessed assurance.  And it reflects no doubt on His part as to whether God will bring it about.  No, this is the same Paul who elsewhere observes that He Who began the good work is faithful to see it completed (Php 1:6).

Indeed, one might ask, if these things are certainties already, why pray for them at all?  This, I think, gets us to questions as to the nature and purpose of prayer.  Does prayer shift God’s course?  Is prayer somehow capable of causing God to revise His plans?  Does He need these ticklers to recall His intentions towards us?  Of course not.  And I would say, of course God does not revise His plans, period, certainly not for so vaporous a thing as our prayers.  I’m sure there are theological arguments to the contrary, but it strikes me that prayer is, more often than not, for our benefit, not intended as some manipulative management of spiritual activity.  This ought to inform our humility in coming before God with our prayers.  It ought to teach us to follow Paul’s example here and pray that which we already know reflects God’s nature and intention.

It does not, I should note, limit us to simply reciting known blessings when we pray.  But it might keep us mindful of our need for reminding, for encouragement.  When we pray for that which God by nature does, it serves to stir up confidence in us as regards His benevolence towards us.  When we pray that His love might pour out, it serves to affirm our realization that indeed, His love does pour out on us.  And perhaps, just perhaps, it stirs us to added effort in sharing that love.  When we pray for hearts established in holiness, it reminds us that this is exactly what God is doing in us, and doing in all the sundry circumstances of our day.  The events that try us, perhaps disrupt our plans and desires a bit, or even quite a lot, come not merely to annoy us.  They are not simply barbs of the enemy’s attack seeking to undermine our peace.  Even his attacks, as we may recall, are confined by the will of God to such things as will serve our best good.  For, as Paul will write some years later, “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Ro 8:28).  Prayer, then, comes as reminder of what we know.  When we pray for others, it serves well that we should pray such reminders for them.  Here is the comfort offered by the prophet.  It is not in mysterious revealings of things to come.  There’s a place for that.  But as reminders of who God is, and of what He is already doing for those He has called according to His purpose?  This is of immense value to us, for we are, as Peter observes, a forgetful people, and such reminders are eminently needful for our well-being.

The only one of these requests that might reasonably retain the full potentiality of the Optative mood, rather than phrasing assured outcomes in appropriately reverent terms, is the first:  That God might direct Paul’s path to them.  Yet even this in reality conveys an assured truth.  God directs.  Paul, bond-servant of Christ Jesus, is bound by God’s directing.  He may express his wishes as to where things might lead, but in the end, it is up to God to direct, and up to Paul to obey.  So, too, with us.  The mind of man plan’s his course, but God directs his footsteps (Pr 16:9).  It is ever thus, and really, there’s no value in complaining of that direction doesn’t go quite the way we had hoped.

Observe how this counteracts any misunderstanding that might have arisen by Paul’s assigning his absence to the interference of Satan (1Th 2:18).  He may have been the material cause, but God remained the directing force.  Paul had wanted to return, but God was directing otherwise.  Satan, whatever his intentions, was serving as the tool of God’s direction.  So, it is to God that Paul prays that perhaps future direction might permit of returning to Thessalonica.  This clearly expresses Paul’s desire, his wished-for outcome.  But it does so with acknowledgement that the decision is God’s to make.  God directs.  And if He directs elsewhere, then elsewhere Paul will go.  But, should it please God and serve His purpose, it sure would be nice to go back there and minister to the benefit of these dear brothers.

So, we see that Paul’s prayer is in fact deeply doctrinal, although it is not prayed as some didactic tool.  God directs.  God causes.  God establishes.  He is our Cause.  He is our Lord, our Director, our Master.  Oh, how we cringe away from using that term in this age.  And yet, God uses it unashamedly, and His best employees gladly pronounce themselves His slaves, devoid of personal agency as to their assignments.  Again, that doesn’t prevent them making their interests known to God.  But it subjugates those interests to God’s planning, approval, or alteration.  The best prayers must ever and always take from our Lord’s example.  It is no confession of unbelief to conclude prayer with, “Nevertheless, Thy will be done.”  It is simple confession of reality.  Indeed, how did Jesus teach His disciples to pray?  “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name!  Thy will be done on earth just as Thy will is done in heaven” (Lk 11:2-4).  And upon review of that passage, I must note, to my surprise, that in fact it does not bear in it that phrase regarding His will being done.  It is simply, “Your kingdom come.”  I will argue, though, that where His kingdom has come, His will is done.

There is that most wonderful promise that Jesus made to His disciples, and through them, to us.  “Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” (Jn 14:13-14).  Now, the fact that in both forms of His promise, there is the notice of asking in His name, we do well to pay heed to that requirement.  This is not, you see, carte blanche.  This is assuredly not God binding Himself to heed our whims.  As others have observed (I probably picked it up from R. C. Sproul, but I can’t swear to it), if this was as simple as it is made to seem, then cancer would have long since ceased from being an issue.  Or we could make it current, and suggest that Covid would have been stopped at the outset.

We could observe the obvious difficulties that arise if this is simply an assurance of being able to direct God as we please.  Why, even phrasing it that way ought to give us pause, and more than merely pause.  But let us suppose we have on the one hand a farmer who, being a man of faith and knowing his crops need rain, prays for same.  Next door, let us suppose another man of faith who, knowing he has a long journey ahead, prays for fair weather to take his goods to market without them being soaked.  How is this to be answered?  Is God now stuck trying to produce micro-climate controls to satisfy each individual’s request?  And adding in the clause from His teaching on church discipline doesn’t help.  Two or more may just as easily have been agreed as to each of the conflicting weather requests.

No, when we pray in His name, it is not merely a clause we add at the end to seal our prayer envelope, nor is it an opening greeting, to ensure we’re addressing the right deity, or the right Person of the Godhead.  It is, in fact, a statement regarding authorization.  To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray the prayer He would pray in the same situation.  It is to pray with His purposes, His commandments, His interests in view.  It is to pray for what He desires.  As I observed before, prayer is not about changing God’s mind.  It’s about reminding ours, about aligning ourselves with what He is doing.

Does prayer move God to action?  I suppose in some sense we could say it does, but I think my more general answer is no.  Rather, I think we might do well to consider that prayer is, at least when done right, the prompting of the Holy Spirit bringing to light what God is doing, reminding us of Who He Is, and aligning us with His good and perfect plan.  The heart of prayer, you see, is not about seeking our own desires and our own ends.  It is about seeing God glorified as His will is done.  “Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”  Revered be Your majesty.  Honored be Your Lordship.  Obeyed be Your Word.  Here on earth, let it be so, even as it is in heaven.  Indeed, Thy Kingdom come.  Let all the nations of the earth bow before You, for You are God.  You alone are God.

This is what we should bear quite consciously in mind when we pray.  This is not some genie we seek to manipulate.  This is God – the only God – the One Who created us, the One Who though He already had right of rule over us by the nature of our relationship as Creator and created, yet bought us to be His own people, His own family.  He paid our debt that we might live as His children forever.  Yes, Jesus loves us.  But it’s so very far beyond mere tender affections.  And He is far more than merely a boon companion.  He is Lord.  He reigns.  Our prayers have need of bearing that in mind.  We assuredly don’t come to Him with demands.  One hopes we learned as children that coming to our parents with demands was a serious lapse in judgment.  One hopes we learned early that such presumption was highly unlikely to obtain the end we desired.  This mindset only becomes more appropriate, more needful, when our attention turns to our Father Who is in heaven.

Nothing Paul prays here seeks to place demands on God.  As we have already observed, two of the three requests here simply reflect God as He truly is, and the remaining request certainly keeps this same boundary in view.  God directs.  If He is willing, may He direct our way to you.  But there is that open-ended aspect to this, that be His direction what it may, we shall go His way.  It has ever been thus, has it not?  When Israel departed Egypt, and spent the next several decades proceeding the few miles from the Nile to the Negev, what determined their course day by day?  There was the tangible presence of God in the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day.  Where that pillar stood, Israel encamped.  When that pillar moved out, so did they.  Where He led, they would follow.  When He said stay, they stayed.  And when they failed at this relatively simple duty, things went south very quickly.  They learned that obedience meant obeying always, not when it happened to suit their fancy.  They learned, or they were shorn of their position as God’s people.  Indeed, an entire generation was shorn away for unbelief, for disobedience, for demanding their own way and insisting God do as they say.  It didn’t work then.  It won’t work now.

When we pray, then, or when we abide under the prayers of others, let us be attentive to what is being sought.  Let us hear past the heart of the one who prays, and hear the heart of Him to Whom we pray.  We think of the Spirit as somehow filtering error out of our prayers, getting the phrasing right, before they ascend to the ear of the Father, or perhaps of Jesus, our Mediator, filtering out the more outrageous aspects of our requests lest Father be offended at our insolence.  But I honestly believe we need to shift a bit, and to seek what the Spirit is bringing to mind as we pray, seek to understand what God is up to, what He is directing, and allowing this to align and shape our prayers.

And if we are hearing the prayers of another, let us listen with more in mind than getting to know how that other thinks, or where his or her concerns may lie.  Let us listen for that in their prayers which truly reflects the true God.  As I have said already, and more than once, what we have here is doctrinal if we will listen aright.  God directs.  We may suggest an alternate route, but in the end (and at the beginning, for all that) God directs.  Our proper response, whatever our prayers may say, is to proceed as He indicates.  “Thy will be done.”

The Lord causes.  If we are seeing productive faith, if we are perceiving spiritual growth, it is no cause to pat ourselves on the back.  It is cause for gratitude in abundance, for it is the Lord’s doing.   Does love, properly understood and properly exercised, abound?  God is present and active.  Let His work be evident as His love, not our sappy emotions, but God’s real, active, useful, beneficent love flowing out from us even as it flows in.  “Freely you have received, freely give.”  This is our instruction.  Paul’s prayer asks nothing more than that God do what He does.

The Lord establishes.  Even faith, as he reminds us elsewhere, is by the grace of God, not by our will or strength.  There is nothing of boasting to faith, except to boast in Jesus Christ and His work accomplished in us.  He has brought us to faith.  He has implanted that faith in us, and seen it properly watered, properly nurtured, so as to grow and blossom richly.  If we stand, it is because He causes us to stand.  Again, this is simply prayer that God do what He does.

This is the sort of prayer to which we can readily attach our amen.  There are prayers to which I find it difficult to do that thing.  Our amen, after all, is as a seal of approval, or a declaration of agreement.  Yes, Lord, let it be so.  In light of what we have considered here, we might see it also as saying, yes, Lord, this is who we know You to be.  This is how we think You act.  We fully concur with what has just been said.  Be careful with that!  Amen is not something to be said from excitement, nor something we say to encourage whoever is preaching or praying.  It is a stamp of approval.  Yes, Lord!  We agree!  We sign on with this.

I think of Israel out there when Moses explained the demands of the covenant.  Oh yes, we’ll sign the contract.  Amen!  So let it be, and so let it be done to us should we fail to keep our end of the deal.  Such dangerous enthusiasm, and such evidence of an utter failure to truly apprehend the holiness of God.  Abraham had a much clearer sense of Whom he was dealing with.  The time came to enter into covenant with this God, and he about lost it.  But God, in His mercy, took the terms of that covenant upon Himself.  Abraham understood, and God, I think, was pleased to be accounted holy by this one.  Here was promise not only that He would keep His end of the deal, but that He would also take upon Himself the penalties when Abraham and his descendants failed to keep theirs.  Now, there’s something we can easily supply with our amen.  Indeed, Lord, thank You, and so be it.  You have been most gracious.  And if it please Thee, do so work upon us that we might manage at least in some part to abide by these terms in our own turn.  And again, thank You for this stunning assurance that even should we fail (as we surely will), You will remain faithful and more than faithful.  You will have mercy upon us, even when mercy is least deserved.

So, then, let us pray with intentional concern for God’s direction.  Let us listen to prayer with an ear to perceive the God Who Is, not ticking off the sundry blessings we would seek from Him, but seeking instead His heart, His direction.  And when we have heard His direction, let us then supply our amen, and having done so, set ourselves to live our amen.  Concurrence requires attention.  Let us pray attentively, whether as giving voice to prayer, or as sharing the prayer of another.  Let us not drift and wander in our thoughts, but remain attentive to this God Who Is, this God Who has loved us as no other ever will and no other ever could.  Let us attend to what the Spirit is saying, and let us, with every fiber of our being, seek to align ourselves in thought and in act with what He says.  And far be it from us to seek that we might manipulate the Almighty, All-wise God into playing our game.  By no means!  But may we seek to be reminded ever and always of His ways, that we may walk in them.  Amen.

To What End? (06/27/22)

In the final request of this brief prayer, we gain an understanding of the purpose God has in what He does.  Or perhaps we should better understand it as the purpose Paul has in mind as he prays, but I should like to think the two are closely aligned.  His reason for desiring a return to Thessalonica is not a matter of licking his wounds, or resting from his labors.  How could it be, given the way he had been driven from there and the way those believers had been persecuted ever since?  I suppose one could posit a bit of relief for Paul in ministering to a receptive group, but to think it would be some sort of respite would be wrong.  No, his desire to return is for one cause:  To establish them more fully in their understanding of the substance of faith.

Likewise, we may apply the prayer for super-abounding love being expressed by them to this same end.  This expansive love for all can only come of a full-fledged faith.  It can only come as the outpouring of that love which God pours out upon us.  And that abounding love pours where faith is found strong and true, where faith is not a feeling, and not a worked-up emotion, but rather a firm, abiding trust in the God Who Is, trusting in Him as He Is.  So, what is it that Paul would see established?  It is their hearts.  It is their hearts made holy before God, and driving their lives in a path which admits of no blame, no unforgiven sin.

We have, then, this clause:  “So that He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.”  I have to wonder, in viewing this, who ‘He’ is, given that we’ve already spoken of Father and Son here, and it was to Father and Son Paul addressed this brief prayer.  Is this our missing Holy Spirit, perhaps?  Or is Paul simply as challenged to speak of the Triune God appropriately within the confines of language?  By some translations, at least, that introductory clause sought out our God, our Father, and our Lord Jesus, but we tend to read that as reducing to two and then mentally trying to maintain the essential Oneness.  Thus, we have the NASB with ‘our God and Father Himself’, which seems to present us with one Person, while ‘Jesus our Lord’ presents another.

And that is, in fact, what the underlying Greek conveys as well:  ho theos kai pater hemon.  And it comes with that ‘Himself’ in the place of emphasis, moved to the front of the sentence.  Himself, our God and Father and our Lord Jesus, direct.  So, I suppose my theory that the introduction meets with the final clause in this needs reconsidering, doesn’t it?  There are two Persons present in the requesting, and this question of establishing is assigned to the subject of this whole prayer, which, depending where you choose to pick it up, is either the combined Persons of Father and Son, or Jesus alone.

Let me try and break this down a bit further, and I apologize if this seems a diversion of thought.  It is a diversion of thought from what I thought I was going to consider here, but I expect I’ll get to that in due course.  But we have, it seems, two sentences in this prayer.  The first, which we have largely considered already, sought that Father and Son might direct Paul to return to Thessalonica.  That comes both as opening the prayer, and as closing out the discussion of why he had remained absent, and why Timothy had been sent as proxy.  Then comes a new sentence, with a new subject, and here, the subject is simply the Lord.  He is the One whose action is sought in the hoped-for increase of love in their expression of increasing faith, and it continues to be He who is the subject when we come to this question of establishing.  So, let me revise my thinking just a wee bit, and observe that it is expressly this super-abounding love which establishes hearts in holiness.  And it is Jesus, our Lord, who performs the action, both of love outpoured, and of hearts sanctified.

That sanctification, then, is the purpose of love’s action in and through us.  See?  I have arrived at my intended point, but with a slight refining of cause and effect.  And understand, this idea of establishing is set before us as an infinitive, a verbal noun which in the usage here indicates the purpose or result of what precedes.  And where’s the emphasis in this case?  You!  You, the Lord make to increase and abound in love.  You particularly, brothers.  And that love:  May it extend to all, even as our love extends to you.  Why?  Is Paul just missing his friends?  No.  This is love with a purpose, love to a purpose.  This is, after all, not the philos of friendship and shared interests, and it assuredly isn’t eros.  It is agape, that uniquely Christian love which even benevolence and charity fall short in describing.  It’s active loving of one’s fellow man, supplying their need, caring for their hurt, knowing they matter.  It is a sort of love that recognizes, even in the most fallen of our neighbors, even in the most sin-marred rebel against God’s rightful rule, there remains an image-bearer.  Here is one made in God’s image.  Here is one whose life matters.  It matters to God.  And because it matters to God, it surely must matter to us.  And we, as God’s ambassadors, have a commission to fulfill in regard to them:  That of being living expressions of His love for them.  They may respond well, they may respond poorly.  It matters not.  Our mission remains the same in either case.  Love them.  Love them unconditionally.  Love them actively.

I cannot but go back to that discussion Jesus had with His disciples regarding the separating of sheep and goats at His return.  I will choose to focus on the sheep for this discussion.  “‘I was hungry, and you gave Me to eat.  I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink.  I was a stranger and you welcomed Me in.  You clothed My nakedness, tended My sickness, comforted Me in My imprisonment.’  ‘When, Lord?  When did we do these things?’  And the King will answer, “To the extent that you did so to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me’” (Mt 25:35-40).  Thing is, we don’t always know who is brother to our Lord.  Indeed, from the Christian perspective, we must begin from the assumption that every man is brother to Him.  Some may be brothers yet lost and unaware of their true parentage.  And it may be that our love, our expression of God’s love, towards such a one may be the means by which the Spirit chooses to break through and open that one’s heart to faith.  Or, it may be that we but plant seed for another to water.  It may be that the seed we thus plant dies and never sprouts into faith.  That is not our concern.  Our concern is obedience to our Lord, and to represent Him truly.  His love, this unique, agape love which acts even when action is not desired by the one acted upon, is how He broke through in us, and it is how we are to express His real nature to a broken world around us.

And this love, pouring into, through, and out of us, is to a purpose in us, as well.  It establishes us as holy in heart.  That is not to say that our expression of God’s love renders us holy.  No.  Turn it around.  Our expression of God’s love gives evidence of the sanctifying work He has already been doing in our hearts.  It is not a rendering of ourselves as holy, assuredly.  Neither is it love as agent of sanctification in any direct sense.  Love is the means, to be sure, but it is also the product, the output if you will.  This love, then, turns us resolutely in a particular direction:  that of holiness.  It makes our faith stable.  It strengthens us in sanctification, and renders our devotion to the purposes of God constant.  And that, after all, is what it means to be holy.  It means we are set apart for Him; His exclusively.  We are prepared for God by solemn rite, rendered pure and clean thereby.  And this godly sort of love poured over and through us, pouring down over us like the oil on Aaron’s beard, is that solemn rite.  There is your purpose:  God so working upon us, that we may indeed be holy before Him.

Let me just return to that syntax business briefly, picking up the question I began as to who “He” is.  He establishes, and He does so before our God and Father.  God and Father is presented in the Genitive, here, what we might think of as the possessive.  It gives us a relationship between nouns here, between ‘He’ and ‘Father’.  It is indicating, in this case, where we are established, and where we are established is before our God and Father, in front of Him, we might say before His eyes, had He eyes like our own.  Our established holiness is, then, to be as in audience before the Almighty, and how needful it shall be in that place!  This is, after all, God, perfect in Holiness.  This is God Who cannot, will not tolerate sin in His presence.  For sinful man to find himself thus set before our God and Father is a death sentence for that man.  The ancient Jews understood this well.  As was reviewed in Table Talk this week, Isaiah’s calling gives expression to that realization.  Woe is me!  I am undone.  For this sinful man has seen the Lord.  Peter felt it when Jesus entered his fishing boat and directed him to that massive catch of fish.  Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinner!  Your presence must kill me, such as I am.

But here, the promise is of something wonderful:  We are presented before this very God, this Father of all being, this perfectly Holy, all-Powerful, unanswerable Deity, refit so as to be blameless, to be perfected in holiness in our own turn.  This is not our doing.  This is the cleansing action of agape, truly rendering our souls whiter than white.  And so, we are presented unblameable.  There can be no accusation raised against us.  By some accounting, the Accuser cannot even come before that throne to level his accusations any longer, and why?  Because the Son has come.

That brings us to the other clause of this sentence, the coming of our Lord Jesus.  Here, we have the Dative of coming.  It is the object, the place and time at which this presentation shall transpire.  And it has its own Genitive, in our Lord Jesus, they being the ones coming.  We, after all, are already here, and Father remains, as ever, upon His eternal throne.  But Jesus is coming, our Lord is returning.  And until that time when He comes, He is active, pouring out this love upon us, cleansing us from sin, purifying heart and soul, and as we learn elsewhere, refashioning this mortal physical plant so as to render it suitable for eternity.  Now, there’s something worth being established in!

As to the question I asked in preparation, as to whether it is His saints or His angels with which He comes, I think I shall satisfy myself with answering, yes.  Honestly, I’m not certain which are intended here, or whether, indeed, Paul intends us to perceive both.  There are certain to be those who have departed this life for the next when He returns, but elsewhere we are told they shall meet Him in the air.  Is that accounted as prior to, coincident with, or subsequent to His return?  I suppose it depends how you view it, but I would tend to see it as subsequent, as transpiring in response to His return.  But then, there are those saints crying out from below His throne as heaven awaits that return.  So, perhaps there are those who will come with Him, alongside the angels, when He comes.  As to those angels, their presence alongside their Warrior King is, I should think, a given.  Let me leave it there.

And again, I feel I cannot but pray having so long considered this brief prayer.  Father God, You are magnificent.  You are so perfect in Yourself, and holy beyond our capacity to truly appreciate, even with such witnesses as Isaiah and Peter to point the way.  And yet, You choose not to destroy us, but to transform us.  You choose not to disown us, but to adopt us.  You choose to render us holy, as You are holy, so that we might know the inestimable wonder of dwelling in Your immediate presence – God with us! – forevermore.  How this can be, I shall never fully understand, unless it be, perhaps, understood when I am thus with You.  Jesus!  The love You have shown for us, may it indeed flow through me, out of me.  May I, somehow, give reasonable representation to Your true nature, Your endless love for fallen man, and Your desire to help, to cure, to wash clean.  And Holy Spirit, thank You, as well, for Your continued efforts to render this miserable man a suitable sanctuary for Yourself, for True God, Who Is Who He Is, and somehow, some way, manages to be so in me.  Thank You.