1 Thessalonians 1:10 – Out of the Coming Indignation

10 …and to be waiting for His Son out of the heavens, Whom He rouses from among the dead, Jesus, our Rescuer out of the coming indignation.

Paul speaks of “the coming indignation.” It therefore concerns a specific indignation that, at that time, was still future. Later in this letter he returns to it when he writes about the day of the Lord (5:2) and concludes: “God did not appoint us to indignation” (5:9). The Ecclesia has a different destination. The announced indignation is God’s judgment that is coming upon this world.

But notice how precisely Paul formulates it. Jesus does not rescue us in the indignation, and it does not even say that He rescues us before the indignation. He rescues us “out of” (ek) the coming indignation. Colossians 1:13 uses exactly the same combination: God “rescues us out of the jurisdiction of Darkness” and then transports us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. To rescue out of means: to remove from its reach and bring to safety.

That depicts a rescue at the decisive moment. The danger approaches, but before it strikes, the Ecclesia is taken away. Later Paul describes how: we shall be “snatched away” (harpazō) to meet the Lord (4:17). What Paul here at the end of chapter 1 calls rescue, he describes there as a sudden snatching away. The indignation is coming, but the Ecclesia is not appointed to indignation.

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