The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians by Gordon D. Fee

Author:Gordon D. Fee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL070000 Religion / Christianity / General
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Isa.:

so that

the name of the Lord

might be glorified

Although at first sight this usage may seem more tenuous as a case of genuine “intertextuality,” there are especially good reasons for viewing it as such. First, Paul’s language is that of the Septuagint Isaiah, a book with which Paul shows thoroughgoing acquaintance. Furthermore, second, Paul has just used language from this oracle earlier in verse 7. Third, Paul’s wording in this instance differs considerably from the Hebrew, since the Septuagint translator was here trying to make sense of some difficult lines in the Hebrew text. Thus original words of taunt by the postexilic “aristocratic religious” to Yahweh’s faithful ones (“Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy!”) had been turned by the translator into a promise to the faithful that “the name of the Lord might be glorified” and their persecutors will thus be brought to shame.

What is significant in this case is the similarity of the Isaianic context with that of the Thessalonians. Toward the end of his “thanksgiving” Paul had set forth the demonstration of God’s justice (vv. 7–10) with echoes from this same Isaianic oracle. At the same time he also picked up language from Isaiah 2 and from the Psalter to emphasize the contrasting eschatological futures of the Thessalonian believers and their tormentors. “Indeed,” he says, God intends for Christ “to be glorified in his saints.” Now Paul prays for the fulfillment of that promise by returning to Isaiah 66—with language spoken into a context similar to theirs. And again, “the Name = YHWH” now belongs to Christ Jesus through the Septuagint’s use of the anarthrous Kyrios78 for the divine name.

But Paul’s concern is for reciprocity of “glory”; that is, his primary prayer is for the name of the Lord to be glorified in you (believers). Although there is often an inherent ambiguity to this phrase in Greek, as to whether it means “in” or “among,” in this case that ambiguity seems to be removed by what follows immediately, where Paul prays that they in turn will be glorified in him (the Lord Jesus). And all of this is in keeping with divine grace, grace which, as in the salutation, is simultaneously that “of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This would hardly need further comment, except for the note in the TNIV: “Or [the grace of] our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Although this note renders what is a grammatical possibility, two matters stand strongly against it as a probability. First, despite how some would read this passage, as well as Romans 9:5 and Titus 2:13, there is simply no incontrovertible evidence (a) that Paul ever used theos to refer to Christ—rather, it is the word he used exclusively to refer to the Father—and (b) that Paul ever used kyrios to refer to the Father, since this divine name is reserved exclusively for Christ. The definitive moment for these distinctions in Paul occurs in his next letter, in 1 Corinthians 8:6, where the theos of the Shema is applied to God the Father and the kyrios to Christ the Son.

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