1 Thessalonians 1:4

Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. Which intends not an election to an office, for this epistle is written not to the officers of the church only, but to the whole church; nor to the

Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. Knowing - as we know. The three participles (1 Thessalonians 1:2-4) give the time, manner, and reason for 'giving thanks' (1 Thessalonians 1:2).

Another ground of his thanksgiving for them. By the manner of their receiving the gospel, and the evident operation of the graces of God’ s Spirit, the apostle knew their election of God. We cannot know election as in God’ s secret decree, but as made manifest in the fruits and effects of it. As there is a knowledge of things a priori, when we argue from the cause to the effect, so a posteriori, when we argue from the effects to the cause. And thus the apostle came to know their election. Not, we hope it, or conjecture it, but we know it; and not by extraordinary revelation, but by evident outward tokens. And if the apostle knew this, why should we think they themselves might not know it also; and the words may be read: Ye knowing your election of God. And election imports the choosing of some out of others; for election cannot comprehend all. Some deny all eternal election of particular persons, and make it a temporal separation of persons to God in their conversion; but is not this separation from a pre-existing decree, God doing all things after the counsel of his own will? . Or, they will yield an eternal election of persons, but only conditional; one condition whereof is perseverance to the end. But the apostle asserts their election at present, before he saw their perseverance.

4 Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. Ver. 4. Knowing, brethren beloved of God] Knowing it by the judgment of charity, not of infallibility. He that believeth hath the witness in himself, 1 John 5:10. But the white stone, the new name, and the hidden man of the heart are not certainly known to any, but to such as have them. Howbeit, holy men in some degree are known one to another, to make the communion of saints the sweeter. Strong confidence one may have of another’ s salvation; but no certainty either of sense or of science, much less of faith, or immediate revelation.

(4) “The reason why the sight delights us is because it proves that God loves you, and has set His heart upon you.” Beloved.—The proper translation is, knowing brethren who have been so beloved of God, your election, as in the margin: the Greek idiom cannot allow of the Authorised rendering. The tense of the word “beloved” represents not only God’s attitude to them in the present, but the long continuance of it in the past, especially as proved by His election of them. (Comp. Romans 8:28-30, and 2 Thessalonians 2:13.) Election, in the language of (at any rate) St. Paul and St. Peter, seems primarily to refer to a gracious admission into religious privileges in this life. The word implies nothing as to the final condition of the person thus elected (see 2 Peter 1:10, and comp. Ephesians 1:4 with Ephesians 5:5-7). God elects us to become members of the Holy Church, and all baptised persons are elect, with heaven in reversion (1 Peter 1:2-5); but they may, according as they please, unsettle their election, or make it sure. St. Paul rejoices, because the continued possession of spiritual privileges, used or abused, is an assurance of God’s continued “favour and goodness towards us.” Of course, however, this observation does not much affect the mysterious doctrine of predestination. The question must still remain why God brings some in this life to the knowledge of His truth, and others not; but the observation, at any rate, destroys the notion of an arbitrary damnation and salvation.

Verse 4. Knowing - your election of God.] Being assured, from the doctrine which I have delivered to you, and which God has confirmed by various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, that he has chosen and called the Gentiles to the same privileges to which he chose and called the Jews; and that, as they have rejected the offers of the Gospel, God has now elected the Gentiles in their stead. This is the election which the Thessalonians knew; and of which the apostle treats at large in his Epistle to the Romans, and also in his Epistles to the Galatians and Ephesians. No irrespective, unconditional, eternal, and personal election to everlasting glory, is meant by the apostle. As God had chosen the Jews, whom, because of their obstinate unbelief, he had now rejected; so he had now chosen or elected the Gentiles. And in neither case was there any thing absolute; all was most specifically conditional, as far as their final salvation was concerned; without any merit on their side, they were chosen and called to those blessings which, if rightly used, would lead them to eternal glory. That these blessings could be abused-become finally useless and forfeited, they had an ample proof in the case of the Jews, who, after having been the elect of God for more than 2000 years, were now become reprobates.

4. knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God] Better, following the A. V. margin and R. V., knowing, brethren beloved by God, your election: comp. 2 Thessalonians 2:13, “brethren beloved by the Lord.”The Apostle thinks of his readers as brethren, for he has just been carrying them in his thoughts in prayer “before our God and Father.” The knowledge that God their Father loves them and has chosen them for His own, gives confidence to the Apostle’s prayers for them and inexpressible joy to his thanksgivings. Comp. 2 Thessalonians 2:13 : “We are bound to give thanks always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you,” &c.; and Ephesians 1:3-5, “Blessed be God …, Who blessed us in every spiritual blessing, … according as He chose us in Christ,” &c.The participle “beloved” is not however present in tense, as though the Thessalonians were simply loved now, in consequence of their newly-acquired Christian worth; it is in the Greek perfect tense, signifying a love existing in the past and realised in the present, the antecedent and foundation of their goodness. So in 1 John 3:1 : “Behold what manner of love the Father hath given us, that we should be called sons of God!”The Christian excellence of the Thessalonians, therefore, moved the Apostle and his companions to thanksgiving (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3), not simply on its own account, but because it marked them out as the objects of God’s loving choice. The word election, here occurring for the first time in St Paul’s Epistles, and expressing one of his most important doctrines, needs to be carefully studied. The N. T. use of the word originates in the O. T. idea of Israel as God’s “peculiar possession,” “the people whom He chose for His inheritance” (see Psalms 33:12; Psalms 135:4; Deuteronomy 14:2; Isaiah 43:1-7; &c.). Such “election” implies two things—(1) selection out of others, nations or men, who are not thus chosen—“the rest” (ch. 1 Thessalonians 4:13, 1 Thessalonians 5:6); and (2) appropriation by God for His own love and service. Since Israel as a people now rejected Christ, St Paul was compelled to distinguish between national Israel and the true “election,” the spiritual kernel of the chosen people, who were the real objects of God’s favour: “the election obtained what Israel seeks after, but the rest were hardened” (Romans 11:7). With this true election, through Christ all believing Gentiles are identified—“wild olive shoots, grafted into the good olive-tree” (Romans 11:17-24). So the national gives place to a spiritual election—the “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16); and the Apostle Paul applies the term, as in this place, to Jewish and Gentile members of the Church indiscriminately. This transference is strikingly expressed in 1 Peter 2:9 : “You (who believe in Christ) are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” God’s election no longer marks out a nation or body of men as such, but it concerns individuals, each believer in Christ being the personal object of this loving choice—the “election of grace” (Romans 11:5).

Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God - The margin here reads, “beloved of God, your election.” The difference depends merely on the pointing, and that which would require the marginal

4. Election of, or by, God—Lunemann says, concisely and peremptorily: “Election signifies the action of God by which he predestines from eternity the individual to faith in Christ.” But we have