the context immediately adds, “And He shall threaten the contumacious,” or, as another translator has it, “the unbelieving.” He shall not actually threaten then, but the threats which are now uttered shall then be fulfilled in effect. “For behold,” he says, “the Lord shall come as a fire, and as a whirlwind His chariots, to execute vengeance with indignation, and wasting with a flame of fire. For with fire of the Lord shall all the earth be judged, and all flesh with His sword: many shall be wounded by the Lord.” By fire, whirlwind, sword, he means the judicial punishment of God. For he says that the Lord Himself shall come as a fire, to those, that is to say, to whom His coming shall be penal. By His chariots (for the word is plural) we suitably understand the ministration of angels. And when he says that all flesh and all the earth shall be judged with His fire and sword, we do not understand the spiritual and holy to be included, but the earthly and carnal, of whom it is said that they “mind earthly things,” and “to be carnally minded is death,” and whom the Lord calls simply flesh when He says, “My Spirit shall not always remain in these men, for they are flesh.” As to the words, “Many shall be wounded by the Lord,” this wounding shall produce the second death. It is possible, indeed, to understand fire, sword, and wound in a good sense. For the Lord said that He wished to send fire on the earth. And the cloven tongues appeared to them as fire when the Holy Spirit came. And our Lord says, “I am not come to send peace on earth, but a sword.” And Scripture says that the word of God is a doubly sharp sword, on account of the two edges, the two Testaments. And in the Song of Songs the holy Church says that she is wounded with love,
–pierced, as it were, with the arrow of love. But here, where we read or hear that the Lord shall come to execute vengeance, it is obvious in what sense we are to understand these expressions.
After briefly mentioning those who shall be consumed in this judgment, speaking of the wicked and sinners under the figure of the meats forbidden by the old law, from which they had not abstained, he summarily recounts the grace of the new testament, from the first coming of the Saviour to the last judgment, of which we now speak; and herewith he concludes his prophecy. For he relates that the Lord declares that He is coming to gather all nations, that they may come and witness His glory. For, as the apostle says, “All have sinned and are in want of the glory of God.” And he says that He will do wonders among them, at which they shall marvel and believe in Him; and that from them He will send forth those that are saved into various nations, and distant islands which have not heard His name nor seen His glory, and that they shall declare His glory among the nations, and shall bring the brethren of those to whom the prophet was speaking, i.e., shall bring to the faith under God the Father the brethren of the elect Israelites; and that they shall bring from all nations an offering to the Lord on beasts of burden and waggons (which are understood to mean the aids furnished by God in the shape of angelic or