⁶For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, ⁷and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, ⁸dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Believers’ endurance in persecution demonstrates the rightness of God’s dealings in the affairs of Christian living. That is the message of the verses preceding our passage today. God doesn’t at this time remove the difficulties but transforms them into a proving ground to demonstrate our worthiness for the Kingdom. That convolutes the intention of our persecutors, producing an “eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17).

But God’s justice will also come into play, for He can use and respond to single events in multiple ways. Remember Joseph, son of Jacob, who assessed the actions of his brothers in selling him into slavery—God was at work through the evil intentions of human agency:

“… you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” (Gen. 50:20)

God’s purposes in our persecution do not absolve our persecutors from their guilty intentions. They will be judged! Paul speaks with a certain gravity, for he was a former persecutor of Christians (Acts 8:3, 1 Tim. 1:12­–14). He could truly say, “But for the grace of God, there go I.”

The Lord Jesus will return; make no mistake about this. Jesus came the first time in “grace and truth” (John 1:14), but he will return “with His mighty angels in flaming fire.” He will bring retribution on those who do not embrace “the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”

Paul writes to Christians in this letter, not to unbelievers or persecutors of believers. He is not warning of judgment but encouraging us with the assurance of judgment. The gospel message to unbelievers is the message of grace and forgiveness and hope found in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are already under the judgment of God, and the good news is there is a way out. But the message to believers, using the same truth of God’s coming judgment, is that—praise God—He will set the record straight and will bring real justice in the end. To believers going through persecution and difficulties, there are two messages: first, your trials are proving you worthy of the kingdom, and second, in the end, God will set the record straight and bring judgment and retribution against your detractors.

Lord, thank You for the encouraging message to help me in my trials.