Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Thessalonians · About this commentary
The Righteous Judgment of God
2 Thessalonians 1:5-7
5 This is an obvious sign of the righteous judgment of God, to the end that you may be counted worthy of God’s Kingdom, for which you also suffer. · WEB
Their suffering is not evidence that God has lost control; it is evidence that a judgment is coming which will set the account straight.
This is an obvious sign of the righteous judgment of God. The claim is startling, and its logic is the point: the fact that the wrong people are suffering is itself the demonstration that a reckoning must exist. A world where affliction fell on the faithful and nothing followed would not be a righteous world.
Verse 6 states the principle plainly — it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you. Vengeance is God's to repay Romans 12:19, and naming it as his is what frees the sufferer from having to manage it. Verse 7 completes the pair with relief for the afflicted, and both halves arrive at the same moment: when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire. The word is an unveiling. What is now hidden is not absent; it is covered, and the covering comes off on a day.
settled What this mark means