1 Thessalonians 1:10

“and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivereth us from the wrath to come”

“And to wait for His Son from heaven”: 1 John 3:1; 1 Peter 3:20; Titus 2:13. “Wait”: “Present infinitive--to keep on waiting for” (Robertson p. 14). “His Son: Notice that all three members of the Godhead are found in this chapter (1 Thessalonians 1:1). “Whom He raised from the dead”: Therefore the guarantee or proof that He is coming again (Acts 17:31; Acts 1:11). “On the one hand, however hard we work and serve, there are limits to what we can accomplish. We can only improve society; we cannot perfect it. We shall never build. utopia on earth. On the other hand, although we must look expectantly for the coming of Christ, we have no liberty to wait in idleness, with arms folded and eyes closed. Thus working and waiting belong together. In combination they will deliver us both from the presumption which thinks we can do everything and from the pessimism which thinks we can do nothing” (Stott p. 42).

“Even Jesus”: The resurrected Jesus is the same as the crucified Jesus. “It is the historic, crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus Christ, God's Son, who delivers from the coming wrath” (Robertson p. 14). “Who delivereth us”: Deliverance is only found in Jesus (Acts 4:12; John 14:6; Ephesians 5:23). “From the wrath to come”: God's day of judgment will clearly come (Romans 2:5; Romans 2:16; 2 Corinthians 5:10; 2 Peter 3:10). Stott notes, “God's wrath is neither an impersonal process of cause and effect nor. passionate, arbitrary or vindictive outburst of temper, but His holy and uncompromising antagonism to evil, with which He refuses to negotiate” (p. 42).

. like that last comment. God refuses to negotiate with evil. Herein lies. great incentive for repentance (Acts 17:30). All sin will be punished, and culture, time, or majority opinion, do not change evil into good (Ephesians 5:6). God will not compromise with sin--so we had better give it up. “This wrath is not to be conceived as angry resentment but as the divine displeasure with sin which is inseparable from the holiness and love of God” (Erdman p. 37). And when we honestly look at sin-any sin, we can see that God has every right to be disgusted with it.