1 Thessalonians 2:15, commentary and pictures

The opponents named are the Jews, specifically the Jewish religious leaders, described as wicked and unprincipled men and enemies of God. They are charged with killing the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, persecuting Paul and his companions and the other apostles, mocking Jesus and murdering his witnesses, pleasing not God and fearing him not, being contrary to all men, and forbidding the gospel to go to the Gentiles so they might be saved. In its setting, the church at Thessalonica was founded by Paul and Silas, who were driven from the city by violent Jewish opposition, and the suffering of the Thessalonians is linked to the same hostility suffered by the churches in Judea. This Jewish opposition is identified as the source of the apostles' sufferings, without which Paul could have preached peacefully.

Israel's killing of Jesus and persecuting of God's messengers was its rejection of the Messiah that completed its transgression, leading God to cut Israel off as his people and forsake the sanctuary and leave their house desolate. Their accumulated sins brought the wrath to the uttermost spoken of in the following verse, in calamities that dispossessed them of their land and destroyed them as a nation, fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem when hundreds of thousands perished by famine, sword, and fire. The verse illustrates the rule that God in long-suffering mercy does not overthrow nations or peoples until their iniquity is full and there is no more hope of good from them, the same rule that governed the latter time of the Grecian kingdom when the king of fierce countenance would stand up. Those who killed the Lord remain accountable beyond the destruction of Jerusalem and will still meet their Lord and their sins at the judgment, when even they must rise to see Christ in the royal glory of his return to judge the world and reign forever.

The verse shows that religious orthodoxy does not prevent persecution when false principles are adopted, and a church that moves its members to persecute others has departed from genuine Christianity. The verse belongs to Paul's caution not to look for Christ's return before the prophesied events have taken place, and because those events have transpired that caution no longer prevents expectation of his coming.