Friday, September 16, 2016

Patristic Wisdom: Looking to Sunday

Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.  (2 Thess 1:11-12)

He said that they are glorified, so that they might even boast.  He said, what was much more, that they also glorify God.  He said that they will receive that glory.  But here too he means: For the Master being glorified, the servants also are glorified.  For those who glorify their Master, are much more glorified themselves, both by that very thing, and apart from it.  For tribulation for the sake of Christ is glory, and that thing he everywhere calls glory.  And by how much the more we suffer anything dishonorable, so much the more illustrious we become.  Then again showing that this also itself is of God, he says, “according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ”; that is, this grace He Himself has given us, that He may be glorified in us, and that He may glorify us in Him.  How is He glorified in us?  Because we prefer nothing before Him.  How are we glorified in Him?  Because we have received power from Him, so that we do not at all yield to the evils that are brought upon us.  For when temptation happens, at the same time God is glorified, and we too.  For they glorify Him, because He has so nerved us; they admire us, because we have rendered ourselves worthy.  And all these things are done by the grace of God.

John Chrysostom, Homilies on 2 Thessalonians

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