2 Thessalonians 3:16 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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2 Thessalonians 3:16

Comments

‘Now the Lord of peace’ and reconciliation, and union with himself, of fellowship and brotherhood and co-operation – that is what peace means. If we keep the Scripture we can all have peace, unity, co-operation, fellowship in the Lord’s service. Wonderfully, in a church fellowship, large or small, peace should be the norm among us. It is not some distant objective, some hard standard to reach. We remember the dying will and testament, the legacy of the Lord to his disciples, ‘My peace I leave with you.’ We pray that will always be the hallmark of our fellowship – fellowship with one another in the service of Christ, praying for souls, honouring him, moving forward in holiness, everybody taking the apostle’s command fully seriously, with our great priority to please the Lord.‘The Lord be with you all’, speaks of the realisation of the presence of God with the believer all the time. In Psalm 16.8 king David says, ‘I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.’ He receives an insight of God, a great prophecy of the resurrection. He did not visualise him; he had no idea along those lines, but he was aware of him, and his presence, and his watchful eye, and his great power, and he thought of him as being there. And so should we, all the time.

Application

You remember he is there in order to thank him. Every long or hazardous journey you take, you thank him for safe travel, for deliverance, for help. In every situation you will have courage, and the danger will be checked. He will not suffer me to be tempted or tried beyond that which I am capable of bearing by his help; he will restrain it. He is, as it were, my trainer. This difficulty may be training me for some future service. It may be correcting the course I take. If I realise he is there and he knows and he is in every situation, I will take a long term view of every situation and trust the providence of God.

If I go through the Christian life without an awareness of his nearness, sure enough I will not be looking forward to the end of the journey or his coming and the eternal hereafter. If I am aware of his nearness with the eye of faith I see him there, and I shall long for him more, and I shall desire to be with him more.

See him as Saviour, see him as your righteousness, see him as your advocate, see him as your Lord and your King. See him as your surety and your preserver. See him as your source of life and your helper. See him as your future. Hear his voice – ‘I will be never leave thee, nor forsake thee.’ Day by day walk in the awareness of his nearness. That is the power of the Christian life.

Questions

What is the difference between the presence of the Lord and pietism? Pietism is something which to some extent infects the thinking of the people of God in every age. It is an excessive and often affected idea that I can almost see Christ, and I can in some tangible, physical way feel his presence – a tingling down the spine, a special, curiously physical, sense. Perhaps I can hear him, words come into my mind, and I run away with the idea that Christ is speaking to me. The Lord has told me this. When we speak of the nearness of Christ we are not talking about any tangible, physical contact. No felt touch, no hearing a communication directly from Christ, and yet, we must be aware by faith that Christ is ever with us. We walk by faith. The Lord appeared to Abraham, and to the other patriarchs, but yet these appearances were occasional, and in between times those men of God had to understand the nearness of God to them by faith just as we do.

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2 Thessalonians 3:16 Commentary and Bible Study