2 Thessalonians 1:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

See how earlier the Apostle praised them, and now again he speaks of their glorification. Earlier he said that they were so glorified that he himself boasted in them. He said something still greater: that by their deeds they glorified God. He said that they would become partakers of this glory, and here he declares the same thing. For when a master is glorified, his servants are also glorified. Therefore servants who glorify their master are themselves much more glorified, both because of that and also in themselves. Glory consists in suffering for Christ, and everywhere the Apostle calls this kind of struggle glory. The greater the dishonor we endure, the greater the glory of which we are counted worthy.

May the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified in you, and you in Him. If all that has been said is in you, the Apostle says, then even in this life the name of the Lord will be glorified in you. For when they see you enduring every temptation out of love for your Master, this will be to His glory. It shows that He is so good that His servants are ready to die for Him. It also shows that He is so mighty that He strengthens you in endurance. But you too will be glorified in Him, because you prove yourselves so faithful that you endure all things. For the glory of a servant is to be faithful to his Master. Again, in another sense, suffering for Christ is glory, because it makes men purer. It makes them always ready to give themselves over to death and shows them to be above death.

So that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you there, as it is here. And may we also be glorified through your preservation, according to the grace of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, which called us and strengthened us for the preaching to the Gentiles.

For this reason we entreat the God of all that He would fill you, who have been counted worthy of the calling, with every good thing, and that you may bring forth the fruits of faith. By the "work" of "faith" here the Apostle means patience in sufferings. For through this, he says, the Lord will be glorified in you, and you will share with Him in the glory to come. Having thus comforted them with hope in the future, he turns his discourse to teaching about the end.

"That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified." Earlier the Apostle said that God will come to be glorified in His faithful. Now he prays God to accomplish this in the Thessalonians. For the Thessalonians, the best motive was to glorify the Heavenly Father by their works (Mt 5:16).

The Apostle prays precisely for that glorification of the Thessalonians of which he had just spoken. In particular, he asks that they receive the full dignity of the honor prepared for them and the perfect good pleasure of God. This is according to the measure of the great grace revealed through Jesus Christ, in the power of faith of those who confess Him and do His works. The good pleasure of God's goodness and the works of faith in men embrace everything required for us to be counted worthy of the calling. They also mean that we should appear as the calling requires us to be, or, what is the same, walk worthily of the calling (Eph 4:1). The first indicates what comes from God. The second indicates what comes from men. There is the whole ordering of salvation and the powers of grace.

Having this judgment of God in view (eis ho), the Apostle asks God to declare them worthy (axiosē) of the inheritance to which they have been called (klēseōs). For this purpose, he asks that God bring to perfection in us our inclination toward the good (pasan eudokian agathōsynēs), and establish us in the field of activity founded on faith (ergon pisteōs, vv. 11-12).

This is why the Apostle desires for the Thessalonians that everything of Christ be realized in them. He desires full perfection for them in the Christian calling.

He desires this for the glorification of the Lord in them and of them in Him. This glorification is either here already or there in the age to come.

If there, then the Apostle’s thought is this: we pray for the fullness of your perfection in the Christian calling, so that when the Lord comes to be glorified and made wondrous in His saints and believers, He may appear glorious and wondrous also in you.

He will glorify you and make His mercy wondrous upon you. Thus Oecumenius says: “If it will be so, that is, as we pray, then as God will be glorified in the saints, as was said above, so also in you.