Chapter 8

1 Thessalonians 5:23–28

Literary Context

Paul ends his letter, as was usually done in Greco-Roman correspondence, with a benediction and final greeting. But it does not follow that these are “mere” closing remarks. As with the introduction (1:1–2), he gears his conclusion to his particular audience. The prayer for their full sanctification, in light of Christ’s parousia, is a reflection of his earlier petition that they be “blameless … with regard to holiness, before our God and Father, in the coming of our Lord Jesus” (3:13). He reminds them of God’s “call” (5:24) as he did in 2:12 and 4:7. He uses the language of “brothers and sisters” (5:25) and even asks them to give each other “a holy kiss” (5:26). He charges them to have this letter read aloud to all members of God’s family (5:27). First Thessalonians thus concludes true to form, as the letter that most emphasizes Christian brother- and sisterhood.

It is worth comparing this letter with 1 Corinthians, in which Paul hints that he has not resolved every problem in Corinth (1 Cor 11:34), even after many labored chapters of instruction and correction. First Thessalonians, while touching on themes that would later become problematic (work, the time of the second coming), ends on a confident note.

  1. VIII. Final Exhortations (5:12–22)
  2. IX. Conclusion (5:23–28)
    1. A. The apostles pray for the Thessalonians’ full sanctification at the return of Christ (5:23–24)
    2. B. The apostles ask the Thessalonians to pray for the apostles’ work (5:25)
    3. C. The apostles direct the congregations to other actions (5:26–27)
    4. D. The apostles give a benediction to the Thessalonians (5:28)

Main Idea

The goal of the Thessalonian church family is eschatologically oriented: to be holy, together, at Christ’s appearing.

Translation

Structure

The closing of the letter contains, as does the introduction, typical elements from Greco-Roman rhetoric. Yet true to form, the apostle shapes convention to serve his own ends. He begins with a prayer in 5:23; as in 5:12 he marks it with “and now” (the preferred rendering of δέ in this context). His prayer uses two optatives: “may he make holy” and “may [your spirit] be kept” or “protected.” He bases his prayer on the reality that God is faithful (5:24).

The remainder of the letter does not use discourse markers, and so it reads like a list of statements. Paul uses an imperative “pray,” to ask the Thessalonians to intercede for his team’s work (5:25). This is followed by an imperative, “greet all the brothers and sisters” (5:26). This sort of “family” emphasis leads naturally into 5:27, where he puts them under a formal oath that they read the letter to all brothers and sisters.

The final sentence (5:28) is a benediction, a prayer that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ may be with them. It is identical to 2 Thess 3:18, except that the second letter reads “with you all.” As throughout the two letters, prayer may be directed toward God the Father (5:23) or to the Lord Jesus (5:28).

Exegetical Outline

  1. I. The Apostles Pray for the Thessalonians’ Full Sanctification at the Return of Christ (5:23–24).
  2. II. The Apostles Ask the Thessalonians to Pray for the Apostles’ Work (5:25).
  3. III. The Apostles Direct the Congregations to Other Actions (5:26–27).
    1. A. They should exchange the holy kiss (5:26).
    2. B. They should carefully transmit this epistle (5:27).
  4. IV. The Apostles Give a Benediction to the Thessalonians (5:28).

Explanation of the Text

5:23–24 And now may God himself, the source of peace, make all of you perfectly holy; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept perfectly without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. [The God] who calls you is faithful, that is, he who will do it. (Αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης ἁγιάσαι ὑμᾶς ὁλοτελεῖς, καὶ ὁλόκληρον ὑμῶν τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ τὸ σῶμα ἀμέμπτως ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τηρηθείη. πιστὸς ὁ καλῶν ὑμᾶς, ὃς καὶ ποιήσει). Paul now prays directly for the Thessalonians. We translate δέ as “and now,” since Paul is moving from exhortation to prayer. The long sentence is driven by two optatives, “may he sanctify” (ἁγιάσαι) and “may [your spirit] be kept” or “protected” (τηρηθείη); see comments on 3:12. He will invoke the “the Lord of peace” with an optative again in 2 Thess 3:16. He uses the descriptive genitive “of peace” (τῆς εἰρήνης) to show that peace comes from God (see also Gal 5:22). His reference to God is underscored with the intensive pronoun “himself” (αὐτός).

What is the content of this prayer? That God will wholly “sanctify” them or “make them consistently holy” (ἁγιάσαι). This is no casual blessing, since Paul has already prayed for their sanctification in 3:13 and apparently makes this a regular topic in his prayer for them. Paul also prays that the Thessalonians may be kept blameless. Earlier he prayed that the Thessalonians be kept entirely strong “in blamelessness” (3:13, using the adjective ἀμέμπτους), whereas here he prays that they may be kept “without blame” (using the adverb ἀμέμπτως); Paul’s end goal for this prayer is the eschatological parousia of Jesus. While in 3:13 there is a past tense to Paul’s theology of sanctification as well as a progressive work, here there is inherent a purposeful movement toward to the return of Christ, at which point the believer might be completely holy (cf. also 4:3–4; 1 Cor 1:8; 2 Cor 3:18).

Paul heaps up language and uses the triad “your spirit and soul and body.” Some use this verse as a proof text for the tripartite view of human nature, that is, that an individual is composed of three sections.1 While that is a possible reading, the context and other biblical passages must be brought to bear. First, the Scriptures in general, and Paul in particular, use strings of nouns to describe the entirety of the human person. For example, Deut 6:5 mentions heart, soul, and strength, yet few scholars argue that it teaches a three-part human nature; nor does Jesus’ reference to that verse (Matt 22:37). Nor does the Lord Jesus in the Synoptic parallel (Mark 12:30) mean to say that heart, soul, mind, and strength point toward four-part human beings. For his part, Paul casts the work of sanctification in terms of spirit and body in 2 Cor 7:1, again, with no sense that he is leaving out the soul.

Second, 5:23 is a Pauline triad (see comments on 1:3), that is, a point at which Paul uses effusive language of three terms to convey his idea. It is demonstrably fulsome already, with its dyad of “perfect” (ὁλοτελεῖς) and “complete” (ὁλόκληρον) and its long sentence structure. We take the spirit, soul, and body to be three aspects of human nature, not a statement of its tripartite nature.

It is theologically important to note that sanctification includes both the outer and inner person. As in 2 Cor 7:1, Paul asks for the sanctification of the physical person; sin may also infect the inner person, whether termed soul or (as in that verse) spirit. This truth overturns the misapplied Platonism that said that works of the body are not important to God and only the spiritual matters. It also short-circuits the notion (reflected in 1 John 1:8, 10) that the spirit is wholly sanctified in this life. No, teaches Paul, there are sins that touch the spirit and pollute it.

“The God who calls you” hearkens back to God’s call of them in 1:4. Paul describes him with the relative clause “he who will do it” (ὃς καὶ ποιήσει). This future tense is oriented to the parousia of Christ; see below for the theological implications of 5:23–24.

5:25 Brothers and sisters, pray for us too (Ἀδελφοί, προσεύχεσθε καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν). Having just prayed for the Thessalonians, Paul asks that they in turn pray for the apostolic team. The “too” (καί) is missing from some ancient manuscripts, but was included with doubts by the NA27 committee.2 Paul frequently asks his disciples to pray for him (e.g., Rom 15:30–32; 2 Cor 1:11; Col 4:3–4). As their model evangelist, Paul implies that when they go out with the gospel, the Thessalonians too need to recruit other Christians to pray for their work.

5:26 Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss (Ἀσπάσασθε τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς πάντας ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ). Paul refers to the Christian kiss elsewhere, coincidentally, always in letters originating from Corinth or sent to Corinth (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; see too the use of a cognate verb in Acts 20:37; also 1 Pet 5:14). The word for “kiss” (φίλημα) is rooted in the love (φιλ-) word group. Here it consists of the kissing of people of both sexes.3 Kissing was hardly normal within the Greco-Roman context. Kissing was a family matter, yet even between married couples, public displays of affection were considered gauche. Within Judaism, kissing was reserved for family members but was hardly common. In fact, “there is no basis in ancient texts, Jewish and Greco-Roman, outside the NT for the transformation of the kiss into a sign of religious community.”4

For members of a congregation to kiss one other was not simply a show of affection; it was the affirmation that the church is the true family. The martyrs of Carthage went to their execution but “first kissed one another, that they might consummate their martyrdom with the kiss of peace.”5 The “holy kiss” became a part of the early liturgy; Justin Martyr places it just before the communion.6 We are not certain of its role in the church in Paul’s day, although its widespread reference suggests a regular practice. Nevertheless, Klassen goes too far when he claims that the Christians kissed each other whenever or wherever they met, whether in a meeting or in public.7

The kiss between sexes was bound to raise questions. Late in the second century, Athenagoras attributed to Jesus the chilling caveat: “The Logos again says to us, ‘If any one kiss a second time because it has given him pleasure, [he sins];’ adding, ‘Therefore the kiss, or rather the salutation, should be given with the greatest care, since, if there be mixed with it the least defilement of thought, it excludes us from eternal life.’ ”8 Around the same time, Clement of Alexandria wanted the emphasis to be shifted from the literal kiss to the inner feeling of love: “But love is not proved by a kiss, but by kindly feeling. But there are those, that do nothing but make the churches resound with a kiss, not having love itself within.”9 Somewhat later, Tertullian too was nervous about his wife meeting “any one of the brethren to exchange the kiss.”10 At least as early as the fourth century, by the time of the Apostolic Constitutions, it was taught, “then let the men give the men, and the women give the women, the Lord’s kiss.”11 By the time of Augustine, not only was the kiss same-sex; the sexes were segregated in church.12

5:27 I put you under oath by the Lord [Jesus] to have this letter read [aloud] to all the brothers and sisters (Ἐνορκίζω ὑμᾶς τὸν κύριον ἀναγνωσθῆναι τὴν ἐπιστολὴν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς). Paul now solemnly charges the Thessalonians to ensure the spread and oral reading of 1 Thessalonians. The verb “adjure” is a hapax legomenon in the NT and is not easy to render in English. It means something like, “I hereby make you responsible before God, as if you yourself have taken an oath.” The most memorable usage of a cognate is found in the mouth of the Jewish high priest when he tells Jesus, “I charge you under oath [ἐξορκίζω] by the living God” (Matt 26:63). The verb takes a double accusative, that is, the object of the adjuration “you” (ὑμᾶς) and “by whom or what” (τὸν κύριον, apparently the Lord Jesus, again assuming the attributes of divinity).

This oath obligates a course of action—in this case, that this letter “be read” (ἀναγνωσθῆναι) aloud. Paul makes plain that “all the brothers and sisters” should hear it. At the very least, this means all the Thessalonian Christians. Malherbe gives an excellent analysis of why Paul says this: the church was growing at such a rate that care must be taken that all hear the word. What is more, “this letter is … part of an ongoing process of communication, and Paul wants to ensure it has wide a distribution as possible.”13 Yet Paul’s words could be taken further, to apply to all Christians with whom they came into contact, beginning with all Macedonians (1 Thess 1:8; 4:10). In a similar vein, Paul would direct that the Laodiceans and the Colossians swap the letters they have received (Col 4:16).14

5:28 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you (Ἡ χάρις τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ μεθ’ ὑμῶν). Paul concludes with a benediction, asking for the Lord’s grace on them.15 The wording is similar to that found in Rom 16:20 and 16:24 (Majority Text) and 2 Thess 3:18. Again, it is the Lord Jesus who gives divine grace, thus assuming the characteristics of the deity.

Theology in Application

Theology in Thessalonica

Just as an exordium signals the major themes of a letter (see 1:1–10, “Literary Context”), so the concluding words do the same. It comes, then, as no surprise that at the very end Paul returns to the sanctification of the Thessalonians. The letter, for all its brevity, has some of the strongest teaching on Christian holiness.

The Thessalonians know that their growth in sanctification lies at least in part in their own hands. Paul exhorts them “that you thrive even more” (4:1). Christians understand that God’s principal goal is their holiness (4:3). They must accept, not reject, God’s command (4:8). Believers who understand their own nature must live according to it (5:6–8).

The believer must also remain focused on the future. Paul’s prayer in 3:11–13 includes apostolic intercession “that your entire person be made strong in blamelessness … with regard to holiness, before our God and Father, in the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy angels.” This eschatological center of attention is captured again near the conclusion of the letter, that God “make all of you perfectly holy; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept perfectly without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The reader will hear echoes in other verses, notably Phil 1:6: “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” It is an important point, but little observed, that this too is a prayer: “I always pray with joy … being confident of this …” (Phil 1:4–6).

Biblical Theology

The doctrine of sanctification has long been a point of deep contention between Catholic, Reformed, Wesleyan, and other groups. The debate is an extraordinarily difficult to untangle, and it is impossible to do it justice here.16 The special contribution of 1 Thessalonians is:

Message of This Passage for the Church Today

When it comes to sanctification, one might be tempted to reason: Why should I expend energy praying for my brother or sister to be holy at the return of Christ (3:13; 5:23), when we believe the resurrection will automatically consummate the work of sanctification? Truly, this is an area where we are to follow God’s instructions, whether or not we fully grasp the mystery, and assume that our prayers are part of the recipe for our family’s being made fully holy.

What one Christian prays for another, that prayer is being grounded in Scripture and also the direction of the Holy Spirit, who knows each person’s heart. A prayer might be general or specific, as indicated by their need. For example, in 5:23, Paul prays that the Thessalonians be holy. In 3:12 he prays more specifically that their love might abound.

Evangelical Christians have begun to discover anew the worth of personal accountability between one believer and another. This is an excellent practice, and it should be widely applied. Nevertheless, no Christian will become sanctified simply by sharing with another his or her trials or victories. Only the Holy Spirit can effect real change within, and so it is to God in prayer that we must go.