2 Thessalonians 3:3 - Exposition

But ; in contrast with the men just mentioned. The Lord is faithful; as if the apostle had said," Man may be faithless, but the Lord is faithful" (see Romans 3:4 ). "In contrast to the infidelity of man, he praises the fidelity of God" (Bengel). By the Lord, Christ is meant. In the former Epistle, faithfulness is attributed to God ( 1 Thessalonians 5:24 ), here to Christ. This faithfulness of Christ consisted in watching over his Church, and in effecting its diffusion in spite of all the opposition of these unreasonable and wicked men. Who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil; or, the evil. The word "evil" may be either masculine or neuter: if masculine, then it denotes "the evil one;" if neuter, then "evil" in general. There is nothing in the word itself to determine its meaning; this must be learned from the context. Most commentators (Calvin, Bengel, Olshausen, Hofmann, Macknight, Ellicott, Eadie, and Bishop Alexander) suppose that the evil one is meant; and it is so rendered in the R.V.: "Guard you from the evil one." But it is better to take the word abstractly "evil" in general, whether evil persons or evil things; as a contrast to "every good word and work" ( 2 Thessalonians 2:17 ). So Alford, Lunemann, De Wette, Jowett, Lillie. There is the same difference of opinion with regard to the words in the Lord's Prayer: "Deliver us from evil;" or "from the evil one" (R.V.). Here, also, notwithstanding the high authorities on the opposite side, we consider that our Lord's words are not limited to the evil one, but are to be taken generally—"evil" in the widest sense, as being much more forcible.