Destined for Salvation
“For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
That little sentence is one of the richest promises and assurances that we find in the Scriptures. It is a treasure chest, so let’s open it and behold the riches together, particularly as it pertains to the two key words, “wrath” and “salvation.”
NOT WRATH
First, I’m guessing that the wrath of God is not a topic that most of us are excitedly discussing during our Sunday evening dinners -- but we must understand the wrath of God if we want to root ourselves more deeply in the love of God, and if we want to grasp the full implications of this promise.
I think one of the more common misunderstandings of God’s wrath, is that he exercises it on anyone for any form of disobedience whatsoever. So because of this misconception, there are Christians who love Jesus and trust him, who are striving for holiness, and when the rushing waters of hardship come crashing over their heads, they start thinking things like, “God must be so furious with me. I must have done something terrible to upset him.”
But God’s wrath does not work like that. Paul just told us that. He also tells us in Ephesians 5:6 that God’s wrath and fury is stored up for the day of judgment against the sons of disobedience; that is, the wrath of God is reserved for those who continue to indulge their desires without thought, who exhaust avenues of sin and do not bow the knee to Jesus (John 3:36). The wrath of God is reserved for those who never turn to God (and if you want a picture of the wrath of God, just read the prophets; you don’t want to be on the receiving end of it).
God’s wrath is not demonstrated toward those who believe in him and belong to him. Wrath is not the fate that he has determined for those who love him and whom he’s called. Now, does God discipline those whom he loves? Yes (Hebrews 12:5-11). Are we promised that we will suffer affliction and hardship? Yes, Paul says that in 1 Thessalonians 3:3 as a matter of fact. But if you belong to Jesus, whatever discipline or affliction or hardship you have to endure is not God venting his wrath upon you. The rod of God’s discipline is very different from the sword of his wrath. The promise of Romans 8 dovetails with the promise of 1 Thessalonians 5, in that God actually will end up working all discipline and affliction and hardship for your good if you belong to him.
So if you trust in Jesus and love him like no one else, then that moment when you’re sitting in a sterile-smelling doctor’s office waiting for bad news is not God’s wrath toward you. The empty chair at your dinner table where a loved one once sat is not God’s wrath toward you. The way that all your plans can’t seem to pan out and the doors that looked so open are suddenly slamming shut is not God’s wrath toward you.
Why? Because God has not destined you for wrath; on the contrary, the destiny and final fate of all who believe is to receive and obtain salvation! Untouchable, unshakable, indestructible deliverance!
That verse alone has sustained me through countless moments when I feared that all my hope would just be washed out and carried away. When everything in my life feels like it is falling apart and going wrong and maybe God has it out for me, I cling to this particular promise like it is a lifeline pulling me up out of a typhoon and into a helicopter. The hardships and afflictions of my life are not God’s fury toward me; on the contrary, his plan for me is salvation and deliverance and he will flip the tables and turn hardships for my good.
DESTINED FOR SALVATION
So what exactly does this “salvation” entail? On one hand, we know that it means that we’re delivered from wrath and fury and ultimate destruction; but what exactly are we saved to? In other words, God not only holds back his wrath for us, but he also reaches out and gives us something. But what, exactly? Well, here’s the answer in short form: God has given us life that neither hardship nor death can take away.
Salvation accomplishes so much for the Christian, but the ultimate goal of salvation is that we might live forever with God and dwell with him again in a new creation that is totally freed from evil and corruption and death. To paraphrase GK Chesterton, we will finally come home, to a place older than Eden and a city stronger than Rome. And that gift of life, freely given through Jesus, is so certain and secure that not even when you die can it be taken from you. Here is what Paul says:
“He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:10).
So if you work your way through that verse backwards, you see the end goal of our salvation is to live together with Jesus. And this salvation that we receive through Jesus, in its broadest sense, is twofold: on one hand, we will live with Jesus face-to-face at the end of all things, in a place older than Eden and a city stronger than Rome, freed from corruption and evil and death. But on the other hand of salvation, we have abundant life in Christ even now while we await his return! Jesus himself said in John 5:24 that those who believe in him have already passed from death to life. Paul says famously in Galatians 2:20, I no longer live but Christ lives in me.
So even now the gift of salvation is a bit like a Russian nesting doll: you keep opening it and pulling more out of it! You receive forgiveness of sins now, and once your sins are forgiven the shackles of shame that once bound you can be undone, and once you’re loosed out of the shackles of shame you’re freed to live into a mission and a purpose for the Creator of the universe, and on and on it goes!
But notice that little phrase that Paul slipped in there, “whether we are awake or asleep.” Throughout the New Testament, the imagery of sleep was used to describe those who had died. This imagery is even reflected in our funerals today: we lay our loved ones down in a casket almost like a bed, at rest. in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul himself had just referred to the dead in Christ as those who were “asleep.” So you have those who are awake, or bodily alive; and those who are asleep, or have bodily died.
Now the Thessalonians seemed to think that Christ would come back before any of them died. But he hadn’t. The floodwaters of hardship and affliction continued to rush toward them, and they had to bury brothers and sisters whom they deeply loved -- and they began to wonder, “What will happen to them now that they’ve died before Christ’s return?” Paul’s encouragement to them was, “Whether alive or dead, we live with him,” because even though the heart may stop pumping blood and the body may go down into that yawning grave, those who belong to Christ are still alive with him.
Salvation is not just for abundant life now or restored life at Christ’s return. Salvation also means that even when the final hardship of death comes, and the floodwaters do finally overtake us and our bodies expire, it’s only our bodies that die -- and only for a little while. Those who belong to Jesus go straight from life to life, into a paradise the likes of which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no heart has imagined -- until the time when Christ does return to reunite Spirit with body, on the Day when he calls out to those sleeping bodies, “It is time to wake up; it is time to come into a place older than Eden and a city stronger than Rome.” So in the end, there is no hardship -- not even death -- that can take away the gift of God’s life and love from you.
And of course, we know this is possible and true, because of what Paul says at the beginning of the verse: he, Christ, died for us. His body went under. He rose again. And because he did, we will too. To live life now is Christ, and even the greatest affliction of death is gain. God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation. Thanks be to him.
