The
arguments for hagioi = angels are as follows: (1) Paul is clearly
alluding to Zech 14:5, “Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones
with him” (NRWV), which seems to refer to angels. . . .
1.
Paul is indeed using the language of Zech 14:5, in which the hagioi are probably
the holy angels (but cf. Dan 7:18, 22). But Paul’s hermeneutic is Christocentric,
not oriented to the historical meaning of the text. He does not ask what
Zechariah meant in his situation, but how the text should be heard by those who
believe that Christ has come, will soon return in glory, and are concerned
about the status of their loved ones who have died (see on 4:13-18). By kyrios
(LXX: Lord), Zechariah had meant Yahweh (LORD), as the Hebrew clearly
states. As often elsewhere, here Paul finds a reference to the Lord Jesus, so
that the eschatological coming of God to his people becomes the coming of the
Lord Jesus. So also, for Paul, hagioi always elsewhere refers to the
saints, the holy people of God, into which Gentile Christians have now been incorporated.
He reads Zech 14:5 as picturing the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with his
saints. “With his saints” is included not merely incidentally, with no contextual
meaning, as though Paul includes the phrase only because it happens to be included
in the traditional imagery of Zechariah, but because it is important for Paul’s
own context. (M. Eugene Boring, I & II Thessalonians: A Commentary [The
New Testament Library; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015], 127)