They labor for the ordering of Christ’s Kingdom on earth amid such troubles and dangers that elsewhere he calls himself and them men appointed to death (1 Cor 4:9).
For this reason the Apostle does not even admit the thought that great relief has not been laid up in heaven for him and for all the Apostles.
He is assured of this by the word of the Lord, Who says, “I appoint to you, who have continued with Me in My trials, a Kingdom, as My Father appointed to Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My Kingdom” (Lk 22:29-30).
If such a promise of the Lord was known also to the Thessalonians, then with what consolation this single phrase, “with us,” must have filled their hearts.
And what great persuasive force it gave to the Apostle’s proof of the truth of righteous recompense. “He comforts them by presenting them as sharers with the Apostles” (Damascene).
They are “sharers both of the labors and of the crowns of the Apostles” (Oecumenius). He is “thus making them equal in crowns with those who performed countless and far greater struggles” (Chrysostom).
The Apostle, comforting the Thessalonians in patience and inspiring them to firmness in it, assured them, as we have seen, of the certainty of recompense for those afflicted and those afflicting.
When will this recompense take place? “At the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power.”
With these words of verse 7 in the first chapter, St. Paul begins to describe the circumstances under which judgment and recompense will take place.
He does this because nothing is so powerful, on the one hand, to restrain from falling and apostasy, and on the other, to inspire good-hearted patience under every false accusation for a righteous cause.
Nothing has this force like the contemplation of the image of the future righteous judgment and recompense. St. Chrysostom writes: “The Apostle points here to the time of recompense.
Then, through the description of the event itself, he raises their thoughts on high. By his word he seems to open the heavens and present them to their sight.
He surrounds the Lord with the angelic army, sketching in this way a radiant image both of the place itself and of what is found there. Through this he gives the Thessalonians the ability to recover themselves somewhat” (2 Thess 1:7).
That is, he allows them to breathe amid their constraints, to be comforted, and to taste beforehand the relief they await.
“At the revelation.” What is hidden is revealed. The Lord is hidden now. He was also hidden during His earthly life. The Resurrection opened His glory for a moment, but the Ascension hid Him again.
Heaven had to receive Him “until the times of the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21). Although He sits at the right hand of the Father in glory, and as Head of the Church acts in all things within it and its members, all this is done invisibly.
It is grasped only by faith, or by the perception of a purified heart. Then, at the end of the ages, He will be openly revealed to all in glory.
He will be revealed as King and Master of all, by descending from heaven and being seen by everyone. “Now the Lord is hidden, but do not lose heart. He will be revealed” (Theophylact).
“With the angels of His power.” Everywhere in the Word of God, the second coming of Christ is depicted as being accompanied and surrounded by hosts of angels.
Here they are called the angels of His power as heralds of the Lord’s power, or as executors of His commands. In these commands His boundless power will be revealed.
For example, they will sound the trumpet, and the dead will rise, and the like. Some understand “angels of His power” as the same as “angels of His army.”
This is like our usual way of calling an army a “force.” The Lord will appear accompanied by angels who constitute His army.
Others interpret “angels of power” as strong and mighty angels (Oecumenius, Theophylact).
THEOSIS