What we have seen is that the “day of judgment,” or “day of wrath,” will be the day of Jesus’s judgment and Jesus’s wrath, acting by the appointment of God the Father. Therefore, when Paul says that Jesus “delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10), we are not to think of the Son rescuing us from the wrath of the Father, but of Jesus rescuing us from his own wrath, which is also the Father’s. He and the Father are one (John 10:30). The coming wrath is “their wrath” (Rev. 6:17). And Jesus, acting on behalf of the Father, is the deliverer at his second coming.

He Will Deliver Us from the Wrath to Come

Against the backdrop of coming judgment, the second coming of Christ is pictured as a rescue of his people. He is coming to save us from God’s wrath. “[We] wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). The predictions of the day of judgment foresee a peril looming. Paul says it is divine wrath and that Christ is coming to rescue us from that peril. Peter says that God’s people “are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5). Hebrews 9:28 says, “Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” Romans 5:9–10 portrays the death of Christ not only as the accomplishment of our past justification, but also as the guarantee of this future rescue from the wrath of God:

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

Paul makes plain in 1 Thessalonians 5 that this peril of God’s wrath comes at “the day of the Lord”—the appearing of Christ:

You yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light. . . . For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. (1 Thess. 5:2–5, 9–10)

Jesus Delivers from the Wrath of Jesus

But if we are not careful, we may conceive of our deliverance from wrath at the second coming in a way that badly distorts the reality. It would be a distortion if we thought of God pouring out wrath and his Son mercifully keeping us from the Father’s wrath. It would be a serious mistake to pit the mercy of the Son against the wrath of the Father in this way—as if God were the just punisher and Christ the merciful rescuer. It is quite otherwise.

It is not as though divine judgment gets underway and Jesus shows up to intervene. Jesus himself sets the judgment in motion and carries it out. Jesus is the judge. Jesus brings the judgment. The surprising implication is that when Paul says, “Jesus . . . delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10), he means, “Jesus delivers us from the wrath of Jesus.” This will become obvious as we look at several biblical passages.

Their Wrath

In the book of Revelation, John speaks not only of the wrath of God at the coming of Christ, but also the wrath of the Lamb:

The kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev. 6:15–17)

There is no sense of God being wrathful and the Lamb being weak. To be sure, this Lamb had been slain. But now he has “seven horns” (Rev. 5:6). He is not to be trifled with. His coming will be terrifying to all who have not embraced his first lamb-like work of sacrificial suffering (Rev. 5:9–10). The wrath is “their wrath” (Rev. 6:17).

The Father Has Given Judgment to the Son

It is “their wrath” and their judgment because the incarnate Son—the Son of Man—is acting in the authority of the Father:

The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. . . . For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. (John 5:22–23, 26–27)

There is a special fitness in Jesus being the judge of the world. He is the one who came into the world, loved the world, and gave himself for the salvation of the world. There is a special fitness that the one who was judged by the world, and executed by the world, will judge the world.

The World Will Be Judged by a Man

Paul seems to have this same fitness in mind when he says that a man has been appointed as the judge of the world by being raised from the dead:

Now [God] commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:30–31)

Peter, in preaching to the household of Cornelius, says the same: “[Christ] commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). Paul echoes the same conviction in 2 Timothy 4:1–2

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