Paul urges Christians to put on the hope of salvation like a helmet to crown and protect the head (v. 8). But what is the true ground of assurance of salvation? Paul points his struggling friends to the gospel truths that he had preached to them: salvation from sin, salvation to new life, and salvation by God’s sovereign grace. He writes, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (vv. 9-10).

According to Paul, his readers should look with confidence to the return of Christ because they had been saved from sin: “For God has not destined us for wrath” (v. 9). In saying this, the apostle makes the important assumption that punishment for sin is the chief threat to our eternal well-being. The gospel that Paul preached, therefore, and that we should believe and preach today, is a gospel of salvation from the ruinous effects of sin.

In particular, Paul considers salvation from sin in terms of deliverance from the wrath of God. Our problem, he indicates, is not merely that sin harms us but that God will punish us in anger for our sins against His law. This being the problem, Paul’s good news to believers in Jesus is that “God has not destined us for wrath.” The question may be raised as to how a holy God delivers sinners from His wrath. Paul answers that believers “obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us” (vv. 9-10). Christians are saved from God’s wrath because Jesus “died for us.”

In these words, we hear the heart of Paul’s gospel: “Jesus…died for us.” The us that Paul refers to is believers in Christ, who have confessed the guilt of their sin and sought forgiveness by trusting Christ’s death. Paul speaks of Christ’s death in a way that implies penal substitutionary atonement – the evangelical doctrine that Jesus died in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. The apostle teaches that Jesus’ death had the effect of saving us from God’s wrath. We are not saved simply by having our hearts warmed by a demonstration of God’s love or by receiving an inspiring example to follow. Jesus died to save us from God’s wrath, substituting Himself as a sacrifice in our place.

Paul’s point in the context of our passage is that his readers should not fear the return of Jesus and the final judgment He will bring, since Christians have been saved from God’s wrath by Jesus’ sin-atoning death on the cross. Christ’s people, for whom He died, will not be destroyed in His coming but will be saved to the uttermost. Christ’s second coming will consummate the salvation He purchased in His first coming at such great cost to Himself. As Paul sees it, therefore, joyful Christians – those who are most assured of salvation and who most eagerly await Christ’s return – are those most willing to see the truth of their sin so as to be most fervently reliant on the finished work of Christ’s death.

Looking away from ourselves to Jesus does not mean, however, that Christ does nothing within us in salvation. According to Paul, the same gospel that delivers us from the wrath also saves us to a new life: He “died for us so that…we might live with him” (v. 10). The words so that express a purpose clause: Jesus’ death had a purpose not only to delivering us from wrath but also enabling us to live for and with Him. Paul expanded the same idea in 2 Corinthians 5:15: “He died…, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

According to the Bible, the Christian’s new life begins at the moment of faith and salvation. Paul said that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). As reborn believers, we are to pursue godliness and good works in keeping with our discipleship to Christ. Having been saved by grace and through faith, apart from works, we realize that “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

Paul has emphasized dual aspects of salvation in 1 Thessalonians. In 5:9, he highlighted our salvation from God’s wrath – this is justification. In 4:3, he stated that “this is the will of God, your sanctification.” Therefore, to be saved is both to be justified – forgiven and accounted righteous in God’s sight for Jesus’ sake – and to be sanctified – increasingly transformed by God’s grace – through our union with Christ in faith. This is Paul’s point: Jesus “died for us” so that “we might live with him” (v. 5:10). These two connections – “for us” and “with him” – make up Christian salvation, through union with Christ in faith.

In encouraging his readers about their hope in Christ, Paul further appeals to the sovereignty of God. Believers can be sure of their salvation because “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 9). The believer’s salvation ultimately rests not in time but in eternity, when God has destined – elsewhere, he will specify “predestined” (Rom. 8:29-30; Eph. 1:5) – His people to be saved.

The Bible teaches that the whole of our salvation rests on the saving decree of God in eternity past. According to Scripture, God did not simply ordain that those who believe will be saved, but selected persons for Himself, sending His Son to die for their sins and then sovereignly bringing them to faith so that they receive eternal life. Paul proclaimed in Ephesians 1:4 that God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” God chose not merely the way of salvation in principle but actual people to be saved: “He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:5).

The sovereignty of God is not limited to the predestination of His people to come to faith for salvation. God is also sovereign in the perseverance of believers, so that we continue in faith until death or the return of Christ. Here is the concern pressing on the Thessalonians’ minds: would life or death find them ready of Jesus’ coming? Paul answers that since they believe in Jesus, they can trust that “God has not destined” them “for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 9).

Paul acknowledges here the necessity of trusting in Christ for salvation. We “obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,” that is, through faith in Him. Yet this requirement for faith does not throw us back onto our own resources and strength, so that, we would nervously sweat the return of Jesus, wondering whether we will measure up. Rather, the God who was sovereign in ordaining our salvation through faith is also sovereign in maintaining our salvation through faith. Peter wrote that “by God’s power [we] are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5). Yes, perseverance is “through faith,” so that Christians must continue believing in Jesus. Yet through faith we “are being guarded” by a sovereign God who has committed Himself to our salvation in the return of Christ.

In his brief by potent application, Paul tells us that God’s purpose should become the basis of our ministry in the church: “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (v. 11). We see in Paul’s exhortation a threefold agenda in response to the saving message of God’s salvation in Christ. First, we must receive the gospel in personal faith. This is clear in verse 9, where Paul says that we are destined “to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Second, having received salvation, we continue to serve God’s purpose by encouraging one another with words of gospel truth. The idea is coming alongside those in weakness, difficulty, or doubt so as to help one another to continue in faith. Third, when Paul speaks of exhorting others so as to build them up, this implies that Christians are to be growing spiritually. We are not to be like the tribes of Israel when they settled into the Promised Land of Canaan. When Paul uses the phrase “just as you are doing” (v. 11), he acknowledges that his readers had started well in encouraging one another to Christian growth.

When we work Paul’s approach to being joyfully ready for Christ’s return, we cultivate a joyful assurance and hope by looking in faith to the cross, by responding to faith with good works and obedience, and then by taking part in the body of God’s people, in the family, the church and the world, building up one another with God’s Word of truth, the same gospel message by which we received salvation “through our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 9).

1 Thessalonians 5:9-11 Study Questions:

The Thessalonians were already children of the day, children of light. God’s new world had broken in upon the sad, sleepy, drunken and deadly world. In verse 11 Paul encourages the Thessalonians to continue to “strengthen one another, and build each other up.” In what practical ways can the community of believers you are part of encourage each other to live out verses 8-11?

What is the true ground of assurance of salvation?

What are the dual aspects of salvation?