{"id":3723,"date":"2012-06-28T03:30:40","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T10:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=3723"},"modified":"2012-06-27T22:30:44","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T05:30:44","slug":"1-thessalonians-313-blameless-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/1-thessalonians-313-blameless-saints\/","title":{"rendered":"1 Thessalonians 3:13 &#8211; Blameless Saints"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 128); \">so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong><u>Truth to Learn<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>God will declare all genuine Christians to be blameless.<\/p>\n<h3><strong><u>Behind the Words<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>&ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">Establish<\/span>&rdquo; is translated from <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>st\u0113ridz\u014d<\/em><\/span>, which is a derivative of <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>histemi<\/em><\/span>, meaning &ldquo;to stand.&rdquo; <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>St\u0113ridz\u014d<\/em> <\/span>means &ldquo;to set firmly in place.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The word translated &ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">blameless<\/span>&rdquo; is <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>amemptos<\/em><\/span>, which is composed of the privative <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>a<\/em><\/span>, meaning &ldquo;without&rdquo; and a form of the verb <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>memphomai<\/em><\/span>, meaning &ldquo;to find fault.&rdquo; Thus, <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>amemptos<\/em> <\/span>means &ldquo;without fault&rdquo; or &ldquo;blameless.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>Hagiosun\u0113<\/em> <\/span>is the Greek word translated &ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">holiness<\/span>.&rdquo; It is derived from the noun <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>hagios<\/em><\/span>, meaning &ldquo;set apart&rdquo; or &ldquo;holy.&rdquo; Holiness means to be completely set apart from sin and its consequence.<\/p>\n<p>Back in verse nine we learned that the word translated &ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">before<\/span>&rdquo; is <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>emprosthen<\/em><\/span>, which means &ldquo;in the presence of&rdquo; or &ldquo;before.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The word &ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">coming<\/span>&rdquo; is from <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>parousia<\/em><\/span>. This word is derived from <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>pareimi<\/em><\/span>, meaning &ldquo;to be present.&rdquo; <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>Parousia<\/em> <\/span>can refer either to the presence of something or it can refer to the coming of someone into our presence.<\/p>\n<h3><strong><u>Meaning Explained<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>We are in the midst of a prayer by the Apostle Paul in behalf of the Christians in Thessalonica. In yesterday&rsquo;s verse he prayed that God would increase the love that these Christians have for one another and for all people. The reason Paul gives for this growing and strengthening of their love for all is &ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">so that He may establish<\/span> (make firm)<span style=\"color:#000080;\"> your hearts<\/span> [as] <span style=\"color:#000080;\">without fault &hellip;<\/span>&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Some people have used this as an indication that some may lose their salvation if they don&rsquo;t properly show their love to others. This couldn&rsquo;t be further from the truth. In the Apostle John&rsquo;s first letter he said,<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000080;\">Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.<\/span> (<span style=\"color:#800000;\"><strong>1 John 4:7, 8<\/strong><\/span>)<\/p>\n<p>In other words, John tells us that showing love for others is the evidence of salvation, not a condition of salvation. If you are saved, you will love others. If you don&rsquo;t have a genuine love for others, you are not born of God.<\/p>\n<p>Now Paul tells us that God will establish us blameless &ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.<\/span>&rdquo; This coming of the Lord may be a reference to the rapture or to His coming at the end of the Tribulation. It is more likely, however, that it refers to both events. Either way, it is when all believers will be judicially declared to have the righteousness of Christ. In God&rsquo;s eyes (since He is not bound by time) this has already occurred, but for us (who are bound by time) it will occur at His coming.<\/p>\n<h3><strong><u>Application<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Periodically, each of us needs to calibrate our own salvation. One of the signs that we are genuinely a child of God is that we have love for the brethren and for all people. That doesn&rsquo;t mean that we have to approve of the sinful actions of others. We are supposed to hate the sin but love the sinner. Do you regularly show love to others?<\/p>\n<p><strong>In God&#39;s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/images\/Signature.gif\" style=\"width: 63px; height: 35px; \" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right; \">Copyright&nbsp;&copy;&nbsp;2012 Will Krause. All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. Truth to Learn God will declare all genuine Christians to be blameless. Behind the Words &ldquo;Establish&rdquo; is translated from st\u0113ridz\u014d, which is a derivative of histemi, meaning &ldquo;to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[2629,1657,386,2669,2668,190,2713,771,2714,1879],"class_list":["post-3723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amemptos","tag-before","tag-blameless","tag-coming","tag-emprosthen","tag-establish","tag-hagiosune","tag-holiness","tag-parousia","tag-steridzo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-Y3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3723"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3726,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3723\/revisions\/3726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}