‘For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus, for you also suffered the same things of your own countrymen, even as they did of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out (or ‘persecuted us'), and do not please God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved. To fill up their sins always. But the wrath is come on them to the uttermost.'
Paul now likens them to the churches in Judea ‘in Christ Jesus'. They too are suffering persecution as the Christians in Judea are, partly, or even largely, instigated by the Jews in Thessalonika. ‘Imitators' means those who go through the same things. They are not alone in their sufferings. The Jews are also causing them elsewhere, as they always have.
The Thessalonians' persecution would last a long time, and so would their steadfastness. Some six years later Paul would still speak of the churches of Macedonia as enduring 'a severe test of affliction' and as continuing to give evidence of the reality of their faith in that 'their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of liberality' (2 Corinthians 8:1-2). The 'extreme poverty' might well have been the result of mob violence and looting, and having their property confiscated. Elsewhere in the New Testament we learn of those who, in the early days of their faith, 'joyfully accepted' the plundering of their property in addition to other forms of illtreatment (Hebrews 10:32-34).
The comparison Paul makes is interesting in that it includes both Old and New Testament churches. ‘The church', the righteous believers in God, have always suffered at the hands of the Jews, whether it was the Prophets or the Lord Jesus Himself.
It is clear from this that the continual persecution of Christians in Judea was well known throughout the churches. They were suffering for Christ's sake. It was nothing new. It had happened to the Prophets throughout history, as Jesus emphasised. That this signifies the Old Testament prophets as well as the New (Matthew 23:34) is indicated by the fact that it is they of whom we have a record that they had been killed (Matthew 23:31; Matthew 23:35; Matthew 23:37; Luke 11:47-50; Acts 7:52). Indeed Jesus links them together (Matthew 23:29-36). But Jesus had clearly shown what they would do to those who believed in Him (Mark 13:9-13; Matthew 10:17; Matthew 10:23; Matthew 23:34; John 16:2-3).
‘Who -- killed the Lord, even Jesus.' They had capped all their infamy by killing ‘the Lord, even Jesus'. Paul in his Greek distinguishes the Lord from Jesus by placing the verb between them. He wants his hearers to take in the full enormity of it. They had killed ‘the Lord', He Who was over all, He Who they claimed to worship. And that Lord was Jesus.
Interestingly this is the only place in Paul where the blame is specifically attached to the Jews by him, but that is because here he was thinking of the Jews as persecutors. Elsewhere the blame is laid squarely on everyone, both Jew and Gentile. Compare also Acts 4:27. But Luke regularly shows the Apostles as having done so in Acts 3:15; Acts 4:10; Acts 7:52; Acts 10:39.
His indictment of the Jews is frightening. ‘Who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out (or ‘persecuted us'), and do not please God, and are contrary to all men.' Yet on the whole the Jews would have accepted it as true (although they blamed their fathers for what had been done to the Prophets and they would not have agreed that they did not please God). They were proud that they had killed Jesus, they were still driving Christians out and persecuting them and they still looked on the rest of the world as unacceptable, unless of course they became proselytes, and as a nation they spurned preaching to them for that purpose. They considered the Gentiles as not worthy of consideration and had no feeling of friendship towards them, rather the opposite. They would in fact have accepted that they were ‘contrary to them'. ‘Do not please God' is Paul's summary of the whole. They had become the opposite of what God had intended them to be (Exodus 19:6; Isaiah 42:4; Isaiah 49:6).
Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved. To fill up their sins always. But the wrath is come on them to the uttermost.' Thus the Jews, with some exceptions, opposed preaching to the Gentiles. They were angry at those who did so, condemning what they were doing. If Gentiles wanted to be saved, they said, let hem become proselytes, but they did not seek to make them so (although paradoxically they were angry when the God-fearers, those on the fringes who attended synagogues, became Christians).
‘To fill up their sins always.' Does this refer to the Jews or the Gentiles? Did he mean that by their behaviour the Jews were simply piling up sin upon sin, capping the sins of which they were guilty by adding to them and filling them to the full. Or does it mean that by their behaviour they were leaving the Gentiles to become more and more filled up with sin, leaving them to wallow in them. The former is more probable. It explains why the wrath has come upon them.
‘But the wrath has come on them to the uttermost (or ‘to the end').' Here ‘the wrath' clearly refers to what God has determined to do to them because of their sinfulness, and because of the slaying of His Son. The aorist tense signifies a once for all decision. They are now under wrath. It thus includes all wrath to be directed at the Jews, the wrath to be poured out on them at the destruction and treading down of Jerusalem and the scattering of the nation (Luke 21:23-24; Matthew 23:37), the wrath which is the consequence of sin (Romans 9:22; Romans 1:18; Ephesians 5:6; Colossians 3:6), the wrath revealed in the devastations of ‘the end times', whenever they may be (Revelation 15:1; Revelation 15:7; Revelation 16:1; Revelation 16:19) and the wrath of judgment (1 Thessalonians 5:9; Revelation 6:17; Revelation 11:18; Revelation 14:10; Revelation 14:19). They have passed the point of no return (although as ever there will be mercy for those who return to God) and have been rejected as a nation. All that awaits them as a nation is continually the wrath of God. This applies whether we translate ‘to the uttermost' or ‘to the end'. For ‘the end' would mean the end of all things.
Paul was aware of what Jesus had prophesied about Jerusalem, he was aware of what the Old Testament had said awaited the Jews (and the world) e.g. Daniel 9:27 b, he was aware that at the Judgment the final wrath of God would be revealed. He saw it all as one. It was all the consequence of their rejection of their destiny. His emphasis is on that rejection, with its resulting consequence, not on the detail of the outworking of the wrath.