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Commentary on "Preserving Relationships"
Day 6: Thursday, July 12, 2012 - Paul Reveals His Heart
Overview
In this lesson Paulien focusses on Paul’s feelings for the Thessalonians. He cites 1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:10 as the passage that reveals Paul’s emotional attachment to the Thessalonians and rom which we should relate to those to whom we minister. Paulien ends the letter with the observation that Paul’s joy in hearing of the Thessalonians’ faithfulness and loyalty to the gospel and to him “made a big difference to Paul. Paul’s sense of personal worth was, perhaps, to some degree tied to the success of his mission. He was, after all only human.”
Observations
The passage used in this lesson as a supposed glimpse into Paul’s personal emotions regarding the Thessalonians. In fact, this passage is not about Paul’s personal worth and feelings.
To be sure, Paul had great love for the Thessalonians as he did for all the people and churches he evangelized and established in Christ. But this love was not tied in some emotional way to Paul’s personal value and self-worth.
Paul gained his identity from the Lord Jesus, not from the people to whom he ministered. When he wrote in Colossians 3:1-3 he was articulating the mystery and miracle of being born of the Spirit:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Paul’s identity IS Christ. His life has been hidden in God, and when the Father looks at Paul, all He sees is the Son. Paul is made one with the Son, and because the Father poured out all His wrath on the Son, there is none left for Paul or for any of us who have been born again and hidden with Him in God. The Father loves Paul exactly as He loves His own Son.
Paul’s love for the Thessalonians had nothing at all to do with feelings of validation or of vindication of his ministry. His love for them grew out of the unity of the Holy Spirit who had birthed them and Him. They shared the same Spirit, and he loved them as part of his body. But he did not gain worth or identity from them or from their faithfulness.
Paul clearly stated his identity and worth in Philippians 1:21:
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Paul’s full identity and reason for being is Christ. He is not saying that living, for him, is working for Christ, nor is he saying that his success and ministry are his claim to God’s favor. On the contrary, it is the literal, actual person of Christ who is Paul’s life.
Paul is not just stating his reason for living; he is literally saying that his actual life—the eternal, spiritual life that is his new birth identity, IS CHRIST. For this reason, he death is actually gain, not loss, because his very life is eternal and IS CHRIST. His spirit will not annihilate when he dies; he will be with Christ when he dies; his life will continue hidden with Christ in God.
No, Paul did not gain identity, value, and satisfaction in a human sense from the Thessalonians. Rather, he saw them as living gems when he would present to Jesus as the fruit of his own submission to Christ—while concurrently rejoicing in Christ his life for the life He also gave to the Thessalonians.
Adventism has almost no ability to understand Paul’s identification with Christ because Adventism does not teach the biblical gospel. Adventism further does not believe humans have spirits that can know God and which are naturally dead in sin.
Scripture teaches that we are by nature children of wrath, dead in sin, but in His great mercy God has made us alive with Christ Jesus (when we believe in Him and His sacrifice) and has seated us with him in heavenly places. He has sealed us with His Spirit, guaranteeing our glorious future (Eph 1:13-14).
None of this new identity is ours, however, unless we embrace Christ. He calls us to repent, to admit that Scripture tells us the truth about ourselves, that we are born dead and hopelessly sinful and flawed. He asks us to repent and receive the eternal price paid by Jesus’ blood when He poured out His life and took the full wrath of God as became sin for us and became a curse for us (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13).
Look and live, as the Israelites did in the wilderness when Moses erected the bronze serpent as the antidote for the fatal snake bites
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life (Jn. 3:14-15).
Look on the Son and live! There is no other way. He will give you a completely new identity, and that new identity is eternal and secure. That identity is what Paul had, and that identity is what gave him the ability to love those to whom he ministered and to be stable and unmoved even when persecuted. His worth and value and identity did not depend at all upon the responses or faithfulness of men.
Paul’s identity was eternally secure in God; his life was hidden with Christ in God.
Summary
- Paul’s identity had nothing at all to do with the Thessalonians’ love and faithfulness.
- Paul’s life was hidden with Christ in God after he was born again.
- We must lose our identities and be born of the Spirit.
- Look at Jesus, lifted on the cross and bleeding to pay for your sin.
- Repent of your deep and incurable sin and receive His life which He poured out and took up again for your sake.
Copyright 2012 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised July 10, 2012. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Camp Verde, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
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