APPROBATION AND BLESSING.
“Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith with power: that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”—2 Thess. i. ii, 12.
Two words sum up the Christian life—Grace and Glory; and both are associated with the two Comings of the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace particularly with the first Coming, and Glory especially with the second. This twofold aspect of Christianity comes before us in the prayer of the Apostle which we now have to consider.
1. The Reason of the Prayer.
This thought is brought before us very clearly in the Revised Version: “To which end we also pray.” In the Authorised Version it is: “Wherefore also we pray.” Following the original, the R.V. refers definitely to what has preceded. The whole context is a reason for the prayer which now follows.
The Triumphant Future is part of the reason of his prayer. “When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believe in that day.” The Apostle looks forward to “the crowning day” that is coming, and bases upon this glorious hope the prayer that follows.
The Testing Present is another part of the reason for this prayer. The Church of Thessalonica was suffering persecutions and afflictions, and was passing through the fire of testing (vers. 4-7); and it was this fact—their then-existing severe experiences—that prompted the Apostle to pray for them, as well as to express the hope concerning their deliverance from the furnace of affliction.
Thus present and future are blended in his thought, and form the ground or reason of his intercession.