Here is the first aspect of the Thessalonians' radiant state. The Apostle, "wishing to show that he remembers the Thessalonians not only in prayers, but also apart from prayer, says: remembering without ceasing" (St. Chrysostom).
The Apostle said that whenever he remembers them in prayer, he always gives thanks to God. For what reason? Because the image of their Christian perfection stands continually in his soul. This unceasing remembrance of their good state, which is from God, makes him always thank God for them in his prayers.
St. Paul remembers the perfections that he himself had seen, and those about which St. Timothy had told him. He speaks of them with such expressiveness because afterward he intends to speak favorably about his activity among them. "First he speaks of their struggles, and then of his own, so that he may not seem to exalt himself" (Chrysostom).
He speaks in this way not to purchase their attention for what follows, but as a father rejoicing over the perfection of his children. Yet it may also be allowed that the Apostle intended to sketch what they should manifest in their life with ever greater perfection.
By portraying the firstfruits of a perfect life as perfections, he stirs up zeal to attain the indicated limit of perfection. The single remembrance of the holy Apostles is threefold in its objects. This threefoldness consists of the three chief Christian virtues: faith, hope, and love.
These are the powers, foundations, and elements of grace-filled Christian life. In the act of regeneration in Christ, they are poured into Christian hearts by the Holy Spirit. Without them, no truly Christian disposition or action is possible.
For this reason St. Paul often introduces them into his discourse in his epistles (cf. 1 Thess 5:8; 1 Cor 13:3; Col 1:4). Here his discourse about them has this special feature: he does not simply mention them, but characterizes each by special traits.
These traits define how they appeared in the Thessalonians' life in deed. He assures them that he remembers their work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope. He does not mean only work, labor, and patience, nor only faith, love, and hope.
He means both together in mutual interpenetration, as though saying: hopeful patience and patient hope, loving labor and laboring love, active faith and believing activity. In reality, they mutually give birth to one another, and they support and preserve one another.
The work of faith is harder to define precisely than the other two terms. The work of faith is both the first act in believing and a work that is neither small nor easy. It is the beginning and root of all other manifestations of Christianity.
Faith is not formed at once. First there appears the thought: should I believe? This thought enters into struggle with what is within and what is without. When everything is overcome, the decision is pronounced in the heart: I believe. Then the work of faith is accomplished.
Whether one understands this act as God's action or as the inclination and decision of the heart, it is always something memorable. The Apostle says, then: I remember how you believed.
In this sense, the work of faith is the work that the Savior required of the Jews who asked what they should do: that you believe in Him whom God has sent (Jn 6:29).
But this work is more or less invisible. Here, however, by correspondence with the labor of love and patience of hope, which are visible, the work of faith must be something visible. The visibility of faith is its manifestation in what signifies faith.
Faith has its own sphere of self-manifestations. These include, for example, receiving the mysteries, its confession, communion with those of the same faith in one spirit with them, and withdrawal from false believers and from everything by which false belief is manifested.
Whoever manifests all this performs the work of faith. In this sense, the work of faith is the constant, firm, fearless manifestation in oneself, in everything and everywhere, of the face of a believing Christian. It corresponds to the manifestation of the work of the law written in hearts (Rom 2:15).
Close to this is the third meaning of the work of faith, to which St. Chrysostom points. It is firmness and constancy in faith despite constraints. "What is the work of faith? That nothing shook your constancy. If you believe, stand firm. If you do not stand firm, you do not believe. Faith is justified by constancy and zeal."
In this sense, the work of faith is believing energetically begun and continually maintained despite sorrows, attacks, persecutions, and oppression. It is an occupation, profession, and work of one's whole life, giving life its character.
But this is not the same as the patience of hope. The latter is wholly directed toward the future, while the former is occupied with the present, resting on what has already happened.
In what sense, then, should the work of faith be understood here? In all senses, for in all these forms the work of faith was truly manifested by the Thessalonians. One may point to a similar expression in the struggle of faith (1 Tim 6:12).
The labor of love means the Thessalonians' cares and sacrifices in easing the lot of Christians, and in helping them in every way. It is what the Thessalonians did toward all the brethren throughout Macedonia (1 Thess 4:10).
St. Paul rejoices that even in this difficult time, when they themselves were exposed to attacks from every side, the Thessalonians not only preserved love among themselves, but everywhere spread its sacrifices, embracing all the saints with it.
Labor presupposes action with weariness, burden, and painful effort. But the labor of love does not notice this and seems not to feel it. There is patience in it, but the patience of love, absorbed by love. One may call this labor without labor, or labor that does not toil.
The patience of hope is unwavering standing beneath the cross. It is steadfastness in sufferings, shown by the Thessalonians in the persecution that befell them (Acts 17:5, 9). It is the fruit of hope.
In present sorrow, this hope knows how to point out the surest path to receiving eternal glorification in the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 8:18). "In these events," namely the persecutions of the Thessalonians, says St. Chrysostom, "there was expressed not only their courage, but also that they believed the promised rewards with full conviction."
Patience is the constant companion of hope. Even self-hope, insofar as it is hope, patiently waits (Rom 8:25). It is not only the bearer of hope, like a body animated by it. It also gives birth to hope (Rom 4:5).
Therefore, in other places of Scripture, patience visibly stands in the place of hope (Tit 2:2). The work of faith embraces one's relation to God. The labor of love defines one's relation to the brethren, the Christians.
The patience of hope outlines the personal lot of each believer in this present life, with insight into the life to come. The work of faith fills life with strength and readiness to act. The labor of love opens the field for living and fruitful action.
The patience of hope completes and crowns the labors. It is something higher and more detached. Patience pleasing to God is harder than action pleasing to God. Yet through final testing it brings one after the Lord into final perfection and glorification.
In these three are manifested the root, stem, and ear of new life in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith receives grace and is the sowing of Christian life. It is transplantation through Christ the Savior into God, and growing into Him.
From this comes love, as the reflection of God's love in the human heart, or as the human heart's response to God's love felt toward it. Love is the soul of each Christian and of the whole body of Christ's Church.
Hope knows that the future belongs to Christ the Lord and to the Holy Church of Christ. It already seems to move there and to live there, not only by sight, but also by feeling.
It is certain that the spiritual life is most glorious. It proceeds from the glorified Lord and now characterizes His members only inwardly. In due time, however, it will be gloriously revealed outwardly as well, and will penetrate all things with itself.
The things now opposed to it, the flesh, the world, and the devil, will be removed from the stage of life by the new appearing of the Lord. Then all that exists will also be cleansed by fire.
Such are the agents of the inner life in Christ. St. Paul rejoices, and in joy thanks God, because He was pleased to manifest in the Thessalonians this fullness of living powers that characterize the Christian.
St. Chrysostom explains all these three distinctions of the foundational Christian virtues, namely work, labor, and patience, from the oppressive circumstances in which the Thessalonians then found themselves. He sees in this the seal of the divine character of the faith they received.
"God," he says, "permitted persecutions to come upon them immediately, so that no one would say that the preaching of Christ was established among them by chance. Rather, it should be plain that not human persuasion, but the power of God, gave such firmness to the souls of believers."
The words of our Lord Jesus Christ may be referred to all three virtues, pointing to the Lord as their object and source. They may also be referred to hope alone. The latter seems more fitting.
Christ the Lord is directly called our hope (1 Tim 1:1; Col 1:27). He is the essential object of hope, not only because all our hopes rest and are established on Him. He Himself is also awaited.
Through His second coming, and through the revelation of the glory of Christ's Kingdom joined to it, the hope of glory will be fulfilled, and hope itself, as it were, will be glorified (Tit 2:13).
It is not hard to notice that, by this application, St. Paul from the beginning brings hope to the front before its other companions. He does this because afterward he had to speak about its chief object, the second coming of Christ.
Before our God and Father may be referred to remembering, or to the three Christian virtues. St. Chrysostom, blessed Theodoret, and Oecumenius say that it may be referred to both. Yet they incline more toward the latter, which should be preferred.
If the first is accepted, namely that St. Paul unceasingly remembered the Christian virtues of the Thessalonians before God and the Father, then the thought is the same as in the preceding verse. There he said that he thanks God, making remembrance of them in his prayers.
Yet from the flow of thought, it is clear that he had to say not the same thing more plainly, or in other words. He had to indicate what moved him to thank God for the Thessalonians.
This will be clear of itself when the words before God and the Father are joined with the virtues just mentioned. What moved him? The perfection of their Christian virtues before God and the Father.
It is worthy of praise and thanksgiving that the Thessalonians manifested the work of faith, the labor of love, and the patience of hope before God and the Father. They dedicated them to Him, mindful of Him.
They performed them in His presence, and therefore with all diligence and zeal, and with complete sincerity and purity of motives. The Thessalonians remembered that "the God of all watches over all this" (blessed Theodoret).
They remembered that "He sees everything, and that with Him nothing they do is given over to forgetfulness" (Oecumenius). Therefore they strove to manifest the indicated virtues in themselves with such strength.
Here St. Paul sees in the Thessalonians the same perfection in which he later desires them to advance more and more, at the end of the first part of the epistle. He prays that the Lord may establish their hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father (1 Thess 3:13).
THEOSIS