CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
1 Thessalonians 1:5. Our gospel.—The good news which we proclaimed; so when St. Paul in Romans 2:16 calls it “my gospel.” In word … in power.—The antithesis is sometimes between the word or declaration and the reality; here perhaps we have an advance on that. Not only was it a word the contents of which were really true, but efficacious too. In much assurance.—R.V. margin, “in much fulness.” “The power is in the gospel preached, the fulfilment in the hearers, and the Holy Spirit above and within them inspires both” (Findlay).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF 1 Thessalonians 1:5
The Gospel in Word and in Power.
You have passed through a bleak, barren moorland, where the soil seemed sown with stones and disfigured with stumps of trees, and the only signs of vegetable life were scattered patches of heather and flowerless lichen. After a while, you have again traversed the same region, and observed fields of grain ripening for the harvest, and budding saplings giving promise of the future forest. Whence this transformation? The cultivator has been at work. Not less apparent was the change effected in Thessalonica by the diligent toil and faithful preaching of the apostles. We have here two prominent features in the successful declaration of the gospel.
I. The gospel in word.—“Our gospel came unto you in word.” In the history of the introduction of the gospel into Thessalonica (Acts 17) we learn the leading themes of apostolic preaching. “Paul … reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3). It is worthy of note that the inspired apostle grounded his discourse on the Holy Scriptures. Even he did not feel himself free from their sacred bonds. The apostle’s preaching embraced three leading topics:—
1. He demonstrates that the promised Messiah was to be a suffering Messiah.—The mind of the Jewish people was so dazed with the splendid prophecies of the regal magnificence and dominion of Jesus, that they overlooked the painful steps by which alone He was to climb to this imperial greatness: the steps of suffering that bore melancholy evidence of the load of anguish under which the world’s Redeemer staggered—steps crimsoned with the blood of the sacred victim. Out of their Scriptures he proved that the only Messiah referred to there was to be a “Man of sorrows.”
2. He demonstrates that the Messiah who was thus to suffer and die was to rise again.—This declared the divine dignity of His person, and was the pledge of the future success and eternal stability of His redeeming work.
3. He insisted that the Jesus who thus suffered, died, and rose again was none other than the identical Messiah promised in their Scriptures.—The grand topic of apostolic preaching must be the staple theme of the pulpit to-day—JESUS CHRIST: Christ suffering, Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ regnant and triumphant. When John Huss was in prison at Constance for the gospel’s sake, he dreamt that his chapel at Prague was broken into and all the pictures of Christ on the walls destroyed. But immediately he beheld several painters in the chapel, who drew a greater number of pictures, and more exquisitely beautiful than those that had perished. While gazing on these with rapture, the sanctuary suddenly filled with his beloved congregation, and the painters, addressing them, said, “Now, let the bishops and priests come and destroy these pictures!” The people shouted for joy. Huss heartily joined them, and amid the acclamation awoke. So modern unbelievers may try to expunge the pictures of Christ familiar to the mind for generations, and to some extent they may succeed. But the divine Artist, with graving-tool of gospel word, will trace on the tablet of the soul an image more beautiful and enduring than that which has been destroyed; and by-and-by a universe of worshippers shall rejoice with thundering acclaim, while recognising in each other the reproduction of the image of Him whose visage was once marred more than any man’s, but whose face now gleams with celestial beauty and is radiant with the lustre of many crowns.
II. The gospel in power.—“Not in word only, but also in power.”
1. In the exercise of miraculous power.—The apostles were specially invested with this power, and used it in substantiating the great facts of the gospel.
2. In the Holy Ghost.—Not only in His miraculous manifestations necessary in that age, but in the ordinary exercise of His power, as continued down to the present day—enlightening, convincing, renewing.
3. With much assurance.—Literally, with full assurance, and much of it. Πληροφορία—full conviction—is from a word that means to fill up, and is used to denote the hurrying a ship on her career, with all her sails spread and filled with the wind. So the soul, filled with the full conviction of truth, is urged to a course of conduct in harmony with that conviction.
4. An assurance enforced by high integrity of character.—“As ye know what manner of men we were among you, for your sake.” Their earnest labours and upright lives showed they were men moved by profound conviction—a blending of evidence that is not less potent in these days.
Lessons.—
1. To receive the gospel in word only is disastrous.—In a certain mountainous region under the tropics the stillness of night is sometimes broken by a loud, sharp report, like the crack of a rifle. What causes this strange, alarming sound? It is the splitting of rocks charged with the intense heat of the tropical sun. Day by day the sun throws down its red-hot rays of fire, and bit by bit the rock, as it cools, is riven and crumbles into ruin. So is it with the mere hearer of the word. The gospel pours upon him its light and heat, and his heart, hardened with long and repeated resistance, becomes damaged by that which is intended to better it.
2. The gospel must be received in power.—What is wanted is strong, deep, faith-compelling conviction—conviction of the awful truth and saving power of the gospel. To be a mighty force, man must have clear, solid, all-powerful convictions.
GERM NOTE ON THE VERSE
1 Thessalonians 1:5. The Manner in which the Gospel comes to the Believing Soul.
I. The first is negative.—“The gospel came not in word only.” This description embraces various classes of persons.
1. Such as hear the gospel habitually without understanding it.
2. Such as partially understand the gospel without feeling its sanctifying influence.
3. Such as are affected by it only for a limited time.
II. In contradistinction to such, the gospel came to the believing Thessalonians in power.—
1. Power over the understanding.
2. Power over the conscience.
3. Power over the heart.
4. Power over the life.
III. In the Holy Ghost.—Explains the former.
1. The message was that of the Spirit.
2. The apostles were filled with the Spirit.
3. Signs and miraculous proofs were furnished by the Spirit.
4. An entrance for the word was procured by the Spirit.
IV. In much assurance.—
1. Fulness of apprehension.
2. Fulness of belief—the result.
3. Fulness of consequent hope.—Stewart.