1 Thessalonians 3:13
To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
Paul's prayer is that the Lord would direct his way to the believers and make them increase and abound in love toward one another and toward all people, and by that love the Lord Himself establishes their hearts unblameable in holiness before God the Father, ready for and in view of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. Increasing love for one another and for all people helps establish believers' hearts blameless in holiness before God, ready for that coming. God Himself does the establishing work through the increase and abundance of that love.
Holiness is the blameless character God requires, as made known by God's law, which reveals that character but does not create holiness. The preceding verse connects this establishing work with increasing and abounding in love toward one another and toward all people. The verse gives part of Bible election and one condition of salvation, showing that final salvation is not assured irrespective of conduct but rests wholly with each person whether to comply, and only those who meet the conditions will be crowned in the city of God.
Love for God and for others is evidence of true conversion, and believers who already love their fellow Christians are urged to abound in that love more and more. That abounding love means learning the infinite goodness and self-sacrificing love of the Father in not sparing His own Son as a sacrifice to be imparted in sympathy and love to others. Hearts are grown soft by contemplating Christ, acknowledging no walls of partition, because Christ died for all and all who believe may be cleansed and reach perfection of Christian character.
That abounding love is faith that works by love and purifies the soul, looking away from self to Christ and beholding His mercy and love until every barrier is broken down, harshness is melted away, the soul is refined and purified and changed into the same image, the law of kindness is upon the lips, and the life presents an offering to God in righteousness. Thinking and speaking evil imperils the soul, gives no real happiness, and unfits a person for entrance into bliss with the angels and the blood-washed throng. The verse calls each person to come to Jesus just as they are with humility of mind and contrition of soul and expressed penitence, making a vigilant, earnest, persevering effort to serve God.
The verse is to be read in the churches and carried into practice, with ministers of the Word and teachers in schools under solemn obligation to walk in harmony with it. Much is comprehended in its words, and keeping them means bearing fruit by which character is judged and showing by doing the Word that men are co-laborers with Jesus Christ. The establishing work of the verse is greatly needed where ministering in the churches is lacking. The same tender solicitude of Paul's prayer is extended to the church in Rockhampton, that God would do for them all that Paul desired for the Thessalonians.
The coming in the verse is the hope to be bound up with all words and works and associations and relationships, and all teaching of prophecy is plainly to reveal waiting, working, and praying for the coming of the Son of God. The truths of prophecy belong together as practical Christian truth calling for coming up higher by increasing more and more in faith, righteousness, and power through the Holy Spirit so that souls are converted.