Filling Up Sin

Paul uses a striking image to describe the tribulation the church of the Thessalonians was experiencing. He says the Jews were “fill(ing) up their sins” so that God’s wrath could come on them. This imagery validates inmillennialism’s¹ view of a two-phased tribulation: the preliminary tribulations and the final “great tribulation”/“wrath” that would follow.²

After saying God was calling the Thessalonians into his “kingdom and glory,” Paul says,

Ye … became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath (Gk. hē orgē) is come upon them to the uttermost. (1 Thess 2:14–16)

The Jewish persecution of the disciples was part of the first phase of tribulation; the wrath of God on them would comprise the second phase.

Robert L. Thomas, a premillennialist,³ makes some keen observations about this wrath against the Jews. He says,

“The wrath of God” is none other than the eschatological wrath … just before Messiah’s kingdom (cf. 1 Thess 1:10). A more general definition, such as the present outpouring of wrath (Rom 1:18), cannot satisfy the wrath’s definiteness (hē orgē, “the wrath”) in a letter so eschatologically oriented as this. In bringing Paul’s excursus regarding the Jews to its logical climax, the meaning required is the future day of wrath.⁴

In his Olivet Discourse, given in AD 30, Jesus had foretold this future day of wrath against the Jews: “There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath (Gk. orgē) upon this people.” It would occur in his generation (Luke 21:23, 32). 

Paul, writing twenty years later, can now say this wrath “is come upon them.” Thomas says, “The unique force of this verb connotes ‘arrival upon the threshold of fulfillment.’”⁵ The Jews were filling up their cup of sins by persecuting the disciples of Christ, and their opposition to the gospel of the kingdom (cf. Acts 17:7) had brought them to the threshold of God’s wrath. We now know this “great distress” began in AD 66, lasted three and one-half years, and culminated with the temple’s fall in AD 70.

I want to make four further observations about the “filling up” imagery in this passage: (1) it occurs in the Old Testament; (2) Jesus used it during Passion Week;⁶ (3) it explains an enigmatic passage Paul wrote elsewhere; and (4) it illuminates a key passage in Revelation.

Old Testament Background

Paul’s statement about the wrath coming on the Jews assumes that nations have a measure of iniquity that, when filled, will bring God’s judgment on them. An interesting example of this occurs when God told Abram (later Abraham) the future of his progeny:

When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. (Gen 15:12–16)

Regarding this passage, John Gill says,

Wicked people have a measure of iniquity to fill up, which is known of God; some are longer, some are quicker in filling it up, during which time God waits patiently and bears with them; but, when it is completed, he stays no longer, but takes vengeance on them.⁷

Here, Israel could not enter the Promised Land until the Amorites had filled up the cup of their iniquity.

Daniel also used this imagery. God gave him a vision in which four kingdoms would arise, the third of which would be the Grecian Empire under Alexander the Great. After his death, Alexander’s generals would divide the kingdom into four parts. Daniel says,

And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. (Dan 8:23–24)

Most commentators say the “king of fierce countenance” is Antiochus Epiphanes, who oppressed Israel and caused the temple sacrifices to cease for a time. He could not appear until “the rebels have reached the full measure of their sin” (Dan 8:23 HCSB).

In like manner, Paul is telling the Thessalonians that the Jews were filling up the measure of their sins. God’s wrath against them could not come until their cup of sin was full.

Jesus’ Pattern

Paul has another source for this imagery—Jesus had taught his disciples to apply it to the Jews of his generation. On Tuesday of Passion Week,⁸ a few hours (at most) before he gave the Olivet Discourse, Jesus said:

Ye [Jews] are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.… Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. (Matt 23:31–38)

This passage sheds much light on Paul’s statements to the Thessalonians. The apostate Jews would fill up the measure of their iniquity in a specific manner: they would persecute Jesus’ messengers who preached the gospel of the kingdom. When their measure was full, God would pour out his wrath, destroying Jerusalem and the temple.

The Olivet Discourse sheds more light on this “filling up” process. In his answers to the disciples’ questions about the temple’s destruction, Jesus says they would preach the gospel in all the world. The Jews would persecute them as they did so (Mark 13:9–10). This would precede the “great tribulation” and the temple’s fall in that generation (Matt 24:21, 34).

This is what Paul is describing in AD 50 as he writes to the Thessalonians. He has preached the gospel of the kingdom in their city. Some Jews there believed his message, but the unbelieving Jews persecuted him and the other disciples (cp. Acts 17:5–9). Paul knew that this persecution was a contribution to the “full measure” of Jewish iniquity and that their cup was almost full.

Paul’s message—about the full measure of iniquity, tribulation, wrath, and utter destruction of the Jews—is the same as Jesus’ message. And he associated these things with the coming of the Son of Man in that generation just as the Lord had done (cp. 1 Thess 1:10; Matt 24:27, 34).

Paul Filling Up Christ’s Afflictions

This understanding explains an enigmatic statement Paul makes in his letter to the Colossians:

The gospel … was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister. I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God. (Col 1:23–25 NKJV)

Paul sees the universal preaching of the gospel that Jesus said would precede the temple’s fall (Matt 24:14) as an accomplished fact; it had been “preached to every creature under heaven.” His sufferings as a minister of that gospel were fulfilling the prophecy about the “prophets, and wise men, and scribes” Jesus would send to the Jews. The Apostle does not mean Christ’s atonement lacked sufficient redemptive value; he means that Israel had poured iniquity into her cup by persecuting the prophets, and especially Christ. The apostate nation would finish filling it by persecuting Paul and the other disciples, then God would destroy the temple, ending the Mosaic age and allowing the church to enter the “kingdom and glory” of the messianic age (1 Thess 1:12).

“Pouring Out” the Cup in Revelation

Inmillennialism says Revelation describes the same events Jesus foretold in the Olivet Discourse—the “great tribulation” and God’s wrath against Jerusalem and the temple—the events Paul is discussing in 1 Thessalonians.⁹ In the “Vision of the Seven Vials” (Rev 15:1–16:21), John sees “seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God” (Rev 15:1).

John hears a heavenly choir sing the Song of Moses (Rev 15:3).¹⁰ This Song would witness against Israel in her latter days when God would “judge his people” and “avenge the blood of his servants” (Rev 15:3; cp. Deut 31:21, 29; 32:29, 43). That John now hears this Song shows the Jews have filled up their sins by persecuting gospel ministers. The “filling up” process Paul is describing in 1 Thessalonians has reached its conclusion. John says:

I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the [land¹¹].… And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. (Rev 16:1, 5–6)

The Jews’ persecution of God’s messengers “came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath” (Rev 16:19).

From a covenant standpoint, Israel alone was the persecutor of Christ’s “prophets, and wise men, and scribes” (Matt 23:34). Jesus said,

It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. (Luke 13:33–35)

The following syllogism shows that Revelation’s seven-vials vision is about God pouring out a full cup of wrath on the Jews:

Major premise: A prophet cannot perish outside of Jerusalem (Luke 13:33).
Minor premise: Prophets perish in the seven-vials vision (Rev 16:6).
Conclusion: The seven-vials vision is about prophets perishing in Jerusalem.

In John’s vision, the Jews have filled the cup of God’s wrath against themselves and the Lord is pouring it out in judgment.

These elements—the Jews filling up their sins and God pouring out his wrath—match what Paul is telling the Thessalonians. The timeframes also match: Paul says the wrath “is come upon them” and Revelation says these things “must shortly come to pass” (Rev 1:1; cp. Rev1:3, 9; 22:6, 7, 10, 12, 20).

Conclusion

 The inmillennial prophetic model accounts for Paul’s perspective on the elements he has mentioned to this point in 1 Thessalonians: the church (1 Thess 1:1); the elect (1 Thess 1:4); the tribulation (1 Thess 1:6 NASB); the return of the Son of Man in that generation (1 Thess 1:10; cp. Matt 16:27–28); the church’s entrance into the kingdom and glory (1 Thess 2:12); the filling up of Israel’s sins; and the pouring out of God’s wrath (1 Thess 1:10; 2:16). Here is an updated version of the inmillennial diagram I am using to track Paul’s statements:

1. I document this model in my book Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days, available here. A summary is here.
2. See Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020), 53.
3. I suspect Thomas adheres to dispensational premillennialism, which I describe here. For a comparison of this view to the other popular prophetic models, see here.
4. Robert L. Thomas, “1 Thessalonians,” in Ephesians–Philemon, vol. 11 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 259–60.
5. Thomas, “1 Thessalonians,” 260 (emphasis added). Thomas is quoting K. W. Clark, “Realized Eschatology,” JBL, [Sept 1940], 59:379. Thomas and other premillennial writers find ways to avoid the implications of this “is come” perspective. Their prophetic model requires that the “great tribulation” occur in our future, not in Paul’s generation, even though both Jesus and Paul state that it would.
6. The week between Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and his resurrection.
7. John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 9 vols. (1809–10; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 113–14.
8. Archibald Thomas Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels for Students of the Life of Christ (New York: Harper, 1922), 169.
9. See the series of posts on Revelation listed here.
10. For important background, see The Seven Vials—Part 1: The Song of Moses.
11. The Greek word gē often means the land of Israel, especially in contexts where God is punishing that nation for their unfaithfulness. The Olivet Discourse provides an example in Luke 21:23. See Land or Earth.