B. God’s Judgment on the World

B5

1) The idea of Jesus’s appearance from heaven “with His mighty angels” is reiterated; 2) The answer to the question posed earlier: “the wrath to come” is God’s final judgment on the entire world and “vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel,” the destruction of “the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” At the same time, believers in Christ (“vessels of mercy”) will be saved; 3) A parallel with the story of Daniel’s rescue from the pit and the three young men from the furnace. Those who accused Daniel were subsequently thrown into the pit and torn to pieces by lions.

Second Epistle to the Thessalonians

Chapter 1

⁴ so that we ourselves boast about you in the assemblies of God for your perseverance and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions which you endure. ⁵ This is an obvious sign of the righteous judgment of God, to the end that you may be counted worthy of God’s Kingdom, for which you also suffer. ⁶ For it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you, ⁷ and to give relief to you who are afflicted with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, ⁸ punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus, ⁹  who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, ¹⁰ when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who have believed , because our testimony to you was believed.

Epistle to the Romans

Chapter 2

⁵ But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God, ⁶ who “will pay back to everyone according to their works:” … ¹⁶ in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.

Chapter 9

²² What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³ and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory— ²⁴ us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?