1Th 4:13

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren

Sorrow for the dead

Observe—

I.

That sorrow is a merciful relief to a soul bereaved. Sorrow is nowhere forbidden. It may be an infirmity; but it is at the same time a solace. The religion of the Bible does not destroy human passions. We do not part with our nature when we receive the grace of God. The mind that is capable of real sorrow is capable of good. A griefless nature can never be a joyous one.

II. That sorrow for the dead is aggravated by ignorance of their future destiny. The radius of hope is contracted or expanded in proportion to the character and extent of intelligence possessed. The heathen who have no satisfactory knowledge of the future life, give way to an excessive and hopeless grief. It was the dictum of an old Greek poet–a man once dead there is no revival; and these words indicated the dismal condition of unenlightened nature in all lands and ages. What an urgent argument for missions.

III. That sorrow for the dead in Christ is soothed and moderated by certain great truths concerning their blessedness.

1. That death is a sleep: i.e., to the body; as to the soul, it is the birth into a progressive life; a departure to be with Christ.

(1) Sleep is expressive of rest. When the toil of lifes long day is ended, the great and good Father draws the dark curtain of night and hushes his weary children to rest. They enter into rest.

(2) Sleep is expressive of refreshment. The body is laid in the grave, feeble, emaciated, worn out. Then a wonderful process goes on, perceptible only to the eye of God, by which the body acquires new strength and beauty, and becomes a fit instrument and suitable residence for the glorified soul.

(3) Sleep implies the expectation of awaking. We commit the bodies of the departed to the earth in sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection.

2. That the dead in Christ will be roused from their holy slumber and share in the glory of His second advent. Will God bring with Him. The resurrection of the dead is a Divine work. I will redeem them from the power of the grave. Christ will own His people in their persons, their services, and their sufferings. They shall receive His approval, be welcomed and crowned by Him.

3. That the resurrection of Christ from the dead is a pledge of the restoration and future blessedness of all who sleep in Him. For if we believe, etc. Christ Himself is the Resurrection, not only as revealing and exemplifying it, but as effecting it (Joh 5:25; Joh 6:39). The Word of God sheds a light across the darkness of the grave, and opens a vista radiant with hope and immortal blessedness. A vital knowledge of Christ silences every murmur, and prepares for every emergency.

Lessons:

1. An ignorant sorrow is a hopeless one.

2. To rise with Jesus we must live and die to Him.

3. Divine revelations regarding the future life greatly moderate the grief of the present. (G. Barlow.)

Ignorance concerning the dead

Having given his converts golden counsel respecting the treatment of the living, both Christian and heathen, St. Paul turns abruptly in thought to the holy dead, and informs the Thessalonians how they ought to think concerning them which are asleep. His design was to comfort the bereaved. He does not say to them, as Jesus said to the widow of Nain, Weep not; but he will limit their grief, and have their tears to fall in the sunshine, like the raindrops which fall when the thunderstorm is over. Moderate grief is lawful; immoderate grief is sinful. But there are reasons for it, which we now examine.

I. It is as if the mourners had no hope concerning the holy dead. It is to act too much like the Gentiles, who have no hope of a better life after this; whereas we Christians, who have a most sure hope–the hope of eternal life after this, which God, who cannot lie, hath promised us–should moderate all our joys on account of any worldly thing. This hope is more than enough to balance all our griefs over any of the crosses of the present time.

II. It is the effect of ignorance concerning the holy dead. There are some things which we cannot but be ignorant of concerning them that are asleep; for the land they are removed to is a land of darkness, which we know but little of, and have no correspondence with. To go among the dead is to go among we know not whom, and to live we know not how. Death is an unknown thing, and of the state of the dead, or the state after death, we are much in the dark; yet there are some things anent them especially that die in the Lord that we need not, and ought not, to be ignorant of; and if these things are rightly understood and duly considered, they will be sufficient to allay our sorrow concerning them; namely–

1. The dead sleep in Jesus. They are fallen asleep in Christ. Death, therefore, doth not annihilate them. It is their rest, undisturbed rest. They have retired from this troublesome world, and thereby put an end to their labours and sorrows. Being still in union with Jesus, they sleep in His arms, and are under His special care and protection. Their souls are in His presence, and their dust is guarded by His omnipotence; so that they cannot be lost; nor are they losers, but infinite gainers by death; and their removal out of this world is into a better, even a heavenly one.

2. They shall be awaked out of their sleep, and raised up from their grave, for God will bring them with Jesus. They, then, are now with God, and are ineffably better where they are than they could possibly be down here. Through virtue of that union betwixt believers and Christ, it cometh to pass that whatever hath befallen Christ, as He is the Head of all believers, shall in Gods own time be verified in believers themselves, due proportion and distance being alway kept which is between Head and members; for He inferreth that we shall be raised because He arose, and this because of our union with Him. Hence the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are fundamental articles of the Christian religion, and give us golden hope of a joyful resurrection; for Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of them that sleep, and therefore, they who are fallen asleep in Him are not perished (1Co 15:18-20). His resurrection is a fall confirmation of all that is said in the gospel by Him who hath brought life and immortality to light. (D. Mayo.)

The state of departed saints

I. Collect the information which the passage offers of the state of the departed.

1. As to the body. Sin entered into the world and death by sin. But what was originally intended for a punishment is transformed into a blessing. Death is now, through the mercy of God, only the unrobing of a Christian before he retires to rest, and the short repose he takes while the Redeemer is making ready the eternal mansions to receive him. The figure of our text involves the idea of–

(1) Repose. The body in its present state of deterioration is incapable of enduring many years of active existence. It grows weary of its necessary exertions, and requires its exhaustion to be repaired by rest. To die is to terminate the conflict, finish the race, reach the goal, and then, as a successful competitor, having gained the prize, to retire from the scene of competition.

(2) Security. It is to sleep in Jesus. His eye watches their bed, and His arm protects it. The bodies of the saints belong to Christ not less than their souls by redemption (Joh 6:39). Death consequently is not annihilation,

(3) Hope. Christ is rosen and become the first fruits of them that sleep. The sleep of death implies waking on the morning of the resurrection.

2. As to the soul. Reason asks many questions which revelation does not answer; but all that it is necessary or beneficial to know the Bible declares. Sleep does not apply to the soul, for the soul never sleeps, and there is not a text which lends a sanction to the doctrine that the soul shares the death of the body. When the body returns into the dust, the spirit returns to God who gave it. Death is rather the arousing of the soul from her drowsiness into heavenly vitality. Dives and Lazarus were both conscious immediately after death; and Paul desired death because it was to be with Christ. In what part of the universe the departed dwell we know not; but it is sufficient to know that they are with Christ.

3. As to the ultimate glory awaiting both. If we believe, etc. The period of Christs coming is that to which all Scripture points, all Providence tends, and all time conducts. The saints will be brought to judgment, but, unlike the wicked–

(1) For acceptance and reward.

(2) To be the crown of the ministers rejoicing.

(3) To swell and share the triumph of the Redeemer.

II. Enforce the topics of instruction and comfort the text suggests.

1. It ascertains what is the character in which we must die to be made partakers of this glory. Those only who fall asleep in Jesus, which implies being in Him before they fall asleep. Scripture carefully distinguishes between those who die in the Lord and the common dead.

2. It exhibits the death and resurrection of Christ as of infinite importance. All the hopes we entertain of a joyful resurrection are built upon them.

3. It suggests the only adequate source of consolation under bereavements (1Th 4:18). (E. Steane, D. D.)

Reasons for comfort concerning them that die in the Lord

Of whom does the apostle here speak? Of them that sleep in Jesus.

1. To term death sleep was usual with the inspired writers (Psa 76:5; Dan 12:2; 1Co 11:30; 1Co 15:51; 1Th 5:10). The figure is appropriate, for in sleep the senses are locked up, the members are motionless, we rest on our beds (Isa 57:2) from toil and pain, and awake (Dan 12:2); so in death.

2. It is not, however, of all who die that the apostle speaks (Rev 14:13). Those who die in the Lord are first in Him, not by being baptized and professing Christianity, not by merely attending ordinances, not by moral blamelessness, not by orthodox opinions, but by faith in Christ. This faith secures freedom from condemnation (Rom 8:1); a new creation (2Co 5:17; Gal 6:15); obedience (Joh 14:21), in which obedience we must persevere if we would sleep in Jesus.

II. What are the things concerning such of which we ought not to be ignorant?

1. That being in Him, they belong to Him, and are precious in His sight. He is their God; their Shepherd who knows, acknowledges, and takes care of them (Joh 10:14-15; Joh 10:27-29): they are His disciples, His family, His spouse, His members. Hence not only in life but in death they are precious to Him (Psa 116:15). For this, like all other things, is under the direction of His providence, and shall promote their good.

2. That as He is not the God, the Shepherd, etc., of the dead, but of the living, they shall not die, but only sleep, and shall certainly awake (Dan 12:2; Isa 26:19; Joh 5:25-29; Rom 8:10), and be most gloriously changed (Php 3:21). Of all this Christs resurrection is an assurance. This sleep is not insensibility: for the soul does not sleep even here, much less when disunited from the body.

3. That death is gain, having many advantages over life–freedom from labour, care, temptation, sin, sickness, death, and presence with Christ and saints and angels.

4. That we shall meet our departed friends again, and know them, and be with them and the Lord forever (1Th 4:14-18).

III. The end for which we ought not to be ignorant of these things.

1. That we sorrow not as those who have no hope. Sorrow we may and must. Grace was not meant to destroy but to regulate our affections. Nay, not to mourn would be sinful and lamentable (Isa 57:1; Jer 22:18-19). But we must not sorrow as heathen or unbelievers.

2. Moreover, sorrow is needless–

(1) On their account, for theirs is not loss, except of things which it is desirable to lose, but gain.

(2) On our own account, for the loss is but momentary (Heb 11:10). (J. Benson.)

Consolation for the bereaved

I. It has pleased God to subject the righteous as well as the wicked to the dominion of death. In their death we see–

1. The offensive character of sin in the sight of God.

2. The power and sufficiency of Divine grace.

3. Instruction for the righteous in the certainty of their death. They are admonished–

(1) To be diligent in doing good.

(2) To be patient in suffering.

(3) To improve their sacred privileges.

II. Sorrow for the death of the righteous is not inconsistent with piety. It is allowable–

1. As an expression of nature and friendship.

2. As a tribute due to excellency of heart.

3. As an acknowledgment of the loss sustained by their removal–

(1) To society;

(2) to the Church;

(3) to the world. (W. Naylor.)

The coming of the Lord

I. In relation to the dead in christ (1Th 4:13).

1. Intelligence concerning this relation important.

(1) Because of its bearing upon the resurrection of believers.

(2) Because ignorance on this subject cast the Thessalonians into deep sorrow in respect to their departed friends.

2. Intelligence concerning this relation an all-sufficient consolation (1Th 4:14).

(1) Because Christs resurrection ensures the resurrection of His saints.

(2) Because of the inseparable relation between Christ and all His followers in His glory (1Th 4:14; Col 3:4).

II. In relation to the living saints (1Th 4:15; 1Th 4:17).

1. The living saints will be glorified, together with the resurrected ones (1Th 4:17; 1Co 15:51-52).

2. The change of the living saints into their glorified state shall not precede the resurrection of the dead in Christ (1Th 4:15).

III. In its accompaniments (1Th 4:16; Act 1:11).

1. Christ will come in person.

2. Christ will come in person and in great glory (Mat 24:30; 2Th 1:7-12).

IV. In the encouragement it should afford believers (1Th 4:18).

1. In the case of the Thessalonians this was peculiarly necessary.

2. Is not this exhortation now timely?

V. Practical lessons.

1. The importance and glory of the coming of the Lord demand more earnest study than is now generally given (Col 3:4).

2. Christians should so live that they may be ready at any time to enter, into the presence of the Lord. (Preachers Monthly.)

The second coming

I. The coming of the Lord (1Th 4:13-18). What was that coming; when it would take place; the attending circumstances; why it was so earnestly looked for; and the comfort they found in it.

II. How we should live in view of this coming (1Th 4:1-8). Watch; be sober; be wakeful; be armed; be ready; be hopeful. (Christian Age.)

Concerning them which are asleep—

The Christian view of death

I. The transformation of death.

1. From all the ancient heathen, and even, in part, from the Jewish world, there was a loud wailing of the bodies of the departed as over an utter ruin of life. Christianity teaches us that the dead are only asleep, and therefore in Christian grief there is no excess or despair. There is in this a whole revolution of the faith and hope of the world. The ideas of destruction, loss, unconsciousness, King of Terrors, cruel mower, prison keeper are gone. There is an evening of life as well as a morning. Man goeth forth unto his labour until the evening, and so He giveth His beloved sleep.

2. There has been much perplexity through forgetfulness of what sleep is. Men do not cease to live in sleep. It is only the suspension of direct relations with the sensible; a temporary change from which much advantage is derived. Death is sleep–

(1) as it is a cessation of conditions and escape from circumstances which waste power and wear and tire faculty. The wicked cease from troubling, etc. They rest from their labours.

(2) As there is in it the gain of fresh power for future use. So far from suspending spiritual power, the change in our dependence upon the sensible and material increases and intensifies it. This is proved from dreams; and so is it in the thing signified.

(3) As its separations are to be followed by the resumption of holy fellowship–as its evening withdrawal is to be followed by a morning return.

II. Consequent on this transformation there is a change in the feeling of the believer regarding death. We sorrow not, etc. The wail of the heathen was a wail of despair; and the wail of the Hebrew saints, under the light of their imperfect economy, was often heart breaking. And there is much bitter grief in Christian homes arising partly from yielding to the susceptibilities, and partly from ignorance. But it is benumbing to faith, and dishonouring to the Lord of Life. But there is a natural human emotion tempered and directed by the light and grace of the Gospel. Sorrow is natures tribute to her own weakness and dependence. When Jesus wept He sanctified our griefs. Christianity puts no undue strain on our nature. We may weep for our selves, but it is not to be absorbing, and is not to be wasted upon those who are present with the Lord.

III. The glad anticipations which Christians are encouraged to cherish. Mark–

1. Its glorious and stable foundation of fact. What Jesus did and suffered is the ground of a new future for humanity. Despair died when He died, and hope was born when He rose. Because I live ye shall live also.

2. Complete resurrection glory and escape from helps power. It is impossible to fully explore the abundance of this revelation given by the Word of the Lord. It was given to meet the actual need of those who mourned that through death their friends would be excluded from the triumph of Christs second coming. The living will not take precedence, for the dead in Christ shall rise first.

3. The reunion of the dead and living with each other and the Lord (1Th 4:17).

Conclusion;

1. What an attraction the glad and certain future should have for Christian hearts.

2. How glad and calm should our hearts be in anticipation of that future. (W. H. Davison.)

The sleep of the faithful departed

One great miracle in the new creation of God is that death is changed to sleep; and therefore in the New Testament we do not read of the death of the saints (see Joh 11:11; Mat 27:52; 1Co 15:51; Act 7:60; Act 13:36). Christians were wont to call their burial grounds cemeteries, or sleeping places, where they laid up their beloved ones to sleep on and take their rest.

1. We know that they shall wake up again. What sleep is to waking, death is to the resurrection–a prelude, a transitory state, ushering in a mightier power of life.

2. They whom men call dead do really live unto God. They were dead while they lived this dying life on earth, and dead when they were in the last avenues of death. But after they had once died death had no more dominion: they escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler; the snare was broken and they were delivered. Once dead, once dissolved, the unclothed spirit is beyond the power of decay. There is no weakness, nor weariness, nor wasting away, nor wandering of the burdened spirit; it is disenthralled, and lives its own life, unmingled and buoyant.

3. Those whom the world calls dead are sleeping, because they are taking their rest (Rev 14:13). Not as the heretics of old vainly and coldly dreamed, as if they slept without thought or stir of consciousness from the hour of death to the morning of the resurrection. Their rest is not the rest of a stone, cold and lifeless; but of wearied humanity. They rest from their labours; they have no more persecution, nor stoning, nor scourging, nor crucifying; no more martyrdoms by fire, or the wheel, or barbed shafts; they have no more false witness nor cutting tongues; no more bitterness of heart, nor iron entering into the soul; no more burdens of wrong, nor amazement, nor perplexity. They rest, too, from the weight of the body of our humiliation–from its sufferings and pains. They rest also from their warfare against sin and Satan. Above all, they rest from the buffetings of evil in themselves. The sin that dwelt in them died when through death they began to live. The unimpeded soul puts forth its newborn life as a tree in a kindly soil invited by a gentle sky: all that checked it is passed away, all that draws it into ripeness bathes it with fostering power. The Refiner shall perfect His work upon them, cleansing them sevenfold, even as gold seven times tried; and all the taint and bias of their spiritual being shall be detached and corrected. Theirs is a bliss only less perfect than the glory of His kingdom when the new creation shall be accomplished.

Lessons:

1. We ought to mourn rather for the living than for the dead, for they have to die, and death is terrible.

2. It is life, rather than death, that we ought to fear. For life and all that it contains–thought, and speech, and deed, and will–is a deeper and more awful mystery. In life is the warfare of good and ill, the hour and power of darkness, the lures and assaults of the wicked one. Here is no rest, shelter, safety. Wherefore let us fear life, and we shall not be afraid to die. For in the new creation of God death walks harmless. (Archdeacon Manning.)

The sleep of the faithful departed

It seems a strange opinion, entertained by some, that the souls of the faithful during the interval between death and the resurrection are in a profound sleep and devoid of all power of perception. This opinion appears to be grounded upon such expressions as to fall asleep in Jesus, a phrase which probably represents nothing more than the well-known resemblance between the appearances of death and of its cousin sleep–the eyelids closed in darkness, the face in calm repose, the voice hushed in silence. How could St. Paul (Php 1:23) think it better for him–yea, far better–to depart from the body than to remain in it, if on his departure from the body he should sink into the lethargy of an unconscious sleep? Is it not better to have the use of our reasoning faculty than to he deprived of it? Is it not better to praise God in the land of the living than to be in a state in which we can have no knowledge of God at all, nor any capacity of praising Him? Besides, the apostle does not express a desire to die, merely that he may be at rest and freed from persecutions and the anxieties of his apostolic office, but chiefly or solely with this object–that he may be with Christ. Now, surely we are more with Christ while we abide in the flesh than when we depart from it, if, when we have departed this life, we have no perception of Christ at all. In 2Co 12:2-4 St. Paul speaks of visions and revelations of the Lord, which he had seen and heard in the third heaven and in Paradise; whether he was then in the body or out of the body, he professes ignorance: he could not tell: God knew. But the inference is obvious, that of the two alternatives he thought one quite as likely as the other; that neither of them was impossible or unreasonable, and therefore that the soul when it is out of the body is as capable of seeing and of hearing as when it is in the body. From what the same apostle says in 2Co 5:8, we may argue that as absence implies separation, so presence implies conjunction. But surely there is no need of this argument; the very phrase to be present with the Lord intimates a consciousness of that presence. In addition, is there not much weight in the consideration that in the state of separation from the body our souls have the same condition that the soul of Christ then had, because He took upon Him all our nature; and it is certain that His soul, during its separation, neither slumbered nor slept, but visited the souls of the fathers and preached the gospel to the prisoners of hope (1Pe 3:18-20). These several considerations all tend to one conclusion–that the death of the body is by no means the sleep of the soul. How, indeed, the spirits of departed saints are employed is not recorded. We are told that they rest from their labours; but the rest here specified means a refreshment, a delightful repose from earthly trials and troubles; it does not exclude a blissful activity in a new and heavenly sphere. St. Paul speaks of visions and revelations and angelic utterances transcending all human utterance. That departed saints in their new home are in the saving Presence seems certain; that they are therefore blessed is equally certain. But in what their blessedness consists is known to God and it is known to themselves. (Canon T. S. Evans, D. D.)

Christ died that saints might sleep in death

In Scripture, the book of life, the death of the saints is called a sleep. It is observable how the apostle varies the expression–Jesus died, and the saints sleep in Him; He sustained death with all its terrors, that it might be a calm sleep to His people. They enjoy so perfect a rest in the beds of dust as even in the softest down. (W. Bates, D. D.)

Death a sleep

I. For whom death is so mitigated and softened as to be represented as a state of sleep? Those who believe in and are thus spiritually united to Christ. To these death is softened because Christ has died, and thus deprived death of its sting by being pierced with it, and because Christ has risen, robbing death of its terrors by spoiling its principalities and powers. There is, therefore, nothing in it now to fear.

II. What illustration does this representation afford as to the condition of the departed? It is not designed to represent it as a state of unconsciousness, as some affirm. Apart from philosophical reflections this is refuted by the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, by the promise of Christ to the dying thief, and by Pauls confidence in and desire for the gain of dying and being with Christ. The figure illustrates–

1. The repose of the saints. We know that Tired natures sweet restorer, balmy sleep, is a season of quiet repose, when faculties which have been wearied and worn by exertion are at ease and at rest. Death to the believer is as the beginning of repose after the labour of the day (Joh 11:9-11).

(1) Life is a day of toil. We walk, run, plant, sow, reap, watch, wrestle, fight, etc. Ours is a hard, toilsome course. The task of resisting indwelling sin, of enduring affliction, bearing the obloquy of the ungodly, contending against the powers of darkness, of acquiring the attainment of Christian character, and of extending Christs kingdom–these constitute a work which we are to do with all our might.

(2) When we have finished, as hirelings, our day, the body rests in the grave, the soul in the paradise of God. Are we labourers? Then we leave the field and lay down our tools. Are we travellers? Then we terminate our long and wearisome journey and cross the threshold of our Fathers mansion. Are we soldiers? Then we take off our armour. Are we mariners? Then we heave over the last ocean billow and enter into the desired haven. The sleep of the labouring man is sweet, and how sweet is the slumber of those who rest in Jesus!

2. Their security. The season of slumber is assumed to be the season of security; and no man in ordinary cases would commit himself to the one unless he could calculate on the other. The Christian would not be at rest if he were not secure.

(1) When the time has come for his spirit to enter into immortality it is safe forever. They are with Christ, and you might as well talk about His insecurity as theirs.

(2) The body also is safe, for it also has been redeemed. The dust of every Christian is sacred; it may be scattered, but Christ watches it and protects it.

3. Their prospect of restoration. When men lie down to sleep it is with the prospect of waking again in recruited vigour. So the resurrection of the saints will–

(1) Invest their bodies with ineffable dignity and splendour.

(2) Communicate higher and more ecstatic pleasures to the soul.

III. What influence should these representations produce on the living?

1. We ought not to indulge excessive grief on account of those Christian friends whom it has been, or whom it may yet be, our lot to lose.

2. It becomes us as Christians not to dread the arrival of death for ourselves. Do you tremble when, at the hour of midnight, you go to the couch of repose?

3. It should impress upon us the propriety of desiring the same consolations for ourselves. (J. Parsons.)

Death a sleep

The death of the Christian may be so called because of–

I. Its peaceful nature.

1. He lies down to die calmly as the tired labourer to take his nightly rest: not like the man who dreads the hour of rest because of the recollection of sleepless nights.

2. The approach of death is often silent and soft as the approach of sleep. As the weary man sinks imperceptibly into a state of slumber, so the Christian sometimes without a struggle passes into Gods presence. It is like the sinking of day into night, or more properly the rising of the night into day.

II. Its attactiveness. How the labourer, toiling beneath a burning sun, will sometimes long for the shades of evening when he may stretch his tired limbs! So does the Christian, only with an intenser longing, look for his sleep. Not that earth is without its attractions; but it is the place of his exile, strife, pilgrimage. Ponder is his home radiant with immortal glory, and thronged with bright multitudes, and death is attractive because it is the vestibule to that.

III. It is to be followed by an awakening. The heathen might have no hope of a resurrection. Their poets might bewail the fleetingness of life and the unknown condition of the dead. Even the Jew might see but dimly the shadow of the resurrection. But to the Christian it is the object of sure and certain hope. We are apt to speak of the dead as lost; but that they cannot be, as they are under Christs care. They sleep only till He bids them wake.

IV. Its repose. It is that state of rest which remaineth for the people of God. Lifes fitful fever is over: they sleep well. Death is not a state of unconsciousness; the very figure of sleep forbids that. They rest from–

1. Their labours: all that makes work laborious will then be unknown. Work they will, but in congenial employment and with unweariable faculties.

2. From persecution, false witness, wrong, disappointment, etc.

3. From pain, mental and physical.

4. From warfare against sin. Satan and the world can tempt no more.

5. From the buffetings of evil in themselves.

V. Its refreshment. The difference between the labourer who rises in the morning refreshed by the nights repose but faintly shadows forth the difference between the wearied wasted body which sinks into the grave and the renovated body, blooming with immortal youth, exempt from infirmities, endowed with unknown strength which shall come forth on the morning of the resurrection. Conclusion: The subject should lead us–

1. To moderate our grief over the loss of those friends who sleep in Jesus. When they so sleep we have no mourning as regards them.

2. To contemplate death with much less fear and aversion.

3. To devote ourselves with increased earnestness to our present labour.

4. But there are some to whom death is a very different kind of sleep. The poet says, To die, to sleep. To sleep! perchance to dream! Ay, theres the rub. The sleep of the ungodly is disturbed by fearful dreams–nay, realities, from which there is no escape but by being in Christ now. (W. Landells, D. D.)

Sleeping in Jesus

Unbelief in immortality existed generally before the Christian era. About that time implicit belief in the after life became a conviction with multitudes. We ask any unbeliever to account for that. What produced this result? There is no effect without a cause. Was there not some grand event that gave the truth that we are immortal such vital power that even the lowly, the poor, the humblest–not the learned, not the philosophers only–became thoroughly convinced of it? Walk through the Roman catacombs; mark the difference there is between the epitaphs of the Epicureans on the one side, and the Christians on the other. One of the Roman tombs has this inscription, While I lived, I lived well–my play is now ended, soon yours will be;–farewell, and applaud me. Another says, Baths, wine, and love ruin the constitution, but they make life what it is–farewell. Then comes the tender stroke of a mothers grief–O relentless fortune, that delights in cruel death, why is Maximus so early snatched from me? Then turn and see the epitaphs of the early Christians–Zoticus laid here to sleep. The sleeping place in Christ of Elipis. Yaleria sleeps in peace. Is not that an echo of those wonderful words that were uttered at the tomb of Lazarus: He is not dead, but sleepeth, or, when He said of the rulers daughter, The maid is not dead, but sleepeth? Is not that an echo of that wonderful teaching of Christ that death is sleep–that the cemetery is what the word literally means, a sleeping place? What can have brought about such a change in the world? Intuition failed utterly to do more than faintly discern that such a thing as immortality might be. Philosophical reasoning produced nothing but Epicurean carelessness and Stoical contempt for death. But here we see a poor mother lay down her daughter, slain it may be by the arrows of persecution, but she says, She sleeps in Jesus. It is sleep that knows an awaking, a short night that breaks into a glorious morning. Immortality is not now a dubious opinion, it is positive conviction. Whence comes it? Only from Christ. His life, His death, and especially His resurrection unfold it with marvellous clearness.

Sleeping in Jesus

I. Those who sleep in Jesus die confining in his protection. We all know how pleasantly one goes to sleep when he enjoys the friendship, and can confide in the protection of those about him. In such circumstances the mind is unbent, the spirit soothed and tranquillized, and we give ourselves up to rest with peculiar confidence and satisfaction. We know that however profoundly we may slumber, however completely we may be wrapped in insensibility, our safety will be secured. As a familiar illustration, place a child in the arms of a stranger, and however inclined to sleep it may have been before, it becomes instantly aroused; discomposed and terrified, it cannot trust itself to sleep in such a situation. But transfer it to the arms of its mother; let it lay its head on the familiar bosom, and feel itself under the reassuring smile of maternal tenderness, and ere long its fears subside, and its eyes calmly close in the consciousness of safety. We are all children thus when we come to die. Every child of God has a long sleep to take. When the short wintry day of life is over, the night of death closes in and darkens around us. But the Christian knows with whom he is to take his rest: he falls asleep in Jesus. He is not in the hands of strangers, whose dubious character and unknown intentions might fill him with alarm, but in the sweet custody of a fast and faithful friend. He has long trusted his soul to Jesus, and now, in the hour of death, he is not afraid to trust his body to Him. He may not depart singing a song of victory; but as he has lived by faith, and not by sense, so now he dies in faith.

II. Those who sleep in Jesus enter into a state of perfect repose. There is something revolting to nature in the associations of the house appointed for all living; but the grave wears no aspect of gloom or horror to the believer in Christ Jesus. To him it is simply the tabernacle for a night of that flesh in which, at the latter day, he shall see God; a tabernacle, moreover, endeared and hallowed by the fact that his Redeemer occupied it before him:. There laid they Jesus; and though the sepulchre did not permanently retain Him, He was yet long enough its tenant to strip it of every gloomy association–to season it, if we may so speak, and render it a sweet and grateful resting place for the dust of his sleeping saints. When the Christian is laid in the grave he is consigned to consecrated ground; he occupies the place where the Lord lay; and the marshalled hosts of heaven are the guardians of his rest. But where is his soul while his body thus rests in sacred and dignified repose? Absent from the body, it is present with the Lord.

III. Those who sleep in Jesus rest in hope of a joyful resurrection. When a man of sound body and mind retires to rest with a good conscience, and with his heart full of a great event which on the morrow is to crown him with honour and happiness, how light and airy his slumbers are! how vivid and lifelike the pictures which his buoyant fancy paints for him of the joys which await his waking! Thus it is, so far as the illustration is apt and adequate, with the man who sleeps in Jesus. He commits himself to the grave full of glorious anticipations; and exulting in the assurance, that as certainly as morning succeeds night in the natural world, so the morning of resurrection shall succeed the night of the grave; and then this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality. It is this glorious prospect, set before the saint in the act of dying, and contemplated by his living spirit after death, that lights up the darkness of the narrow house, and reconciles immortal man to his present mortal destiny. He fixes his eye upon this, till his soul realizes it in all its interest and grandeur, and with his heart swelling with triumph and overflowing with joy, he exclaims–I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God! (J. Young, D. D.)

The sleep of death

Slept in the New Testament is a word sacred to the dying of the righteous; hence that sweet inscription found upon hundreds of slabs in the Christian catacombs of Rome, Dormit, he sleeps; while on Pagan monuments of the same age, spared as if on purpose to furnish a contrast, we read again and again the rebellious and plaintive inscription, Abreptas, snatched away. In the one case a violent disruption of the tenderest ties, in the other a slumber falling as softly as the evening dew. (R. D. Hitchcock, D. D.)

The soul does not steep in death

When a person is asleep what is it that rests? It is simply the muscles and the nerves and the wearied limbs; the heart goes on beating, the lungs respiring and expiring; and what is remarkable in sleep, the soul never sleeps at all. It seems that when one is asleep, the soul often travels to far distant lands, or sails upon the bosom of the deep, amid the blue hills and green glens of other parts of the land; exploring, thinking, searching, studying. The soul is never literally dead (though it may sometimes forget) to every thought and object, to all that enters by the avenues of the senses. If sleep be the metaphor of death, it does not prove that the soul is insensible, but only that the body, the outward garment only, having been worn and wasted in the wear and toil of this present life, is folded up and laid aside in that wardrobe–the grave–a grave as truly in the keeping of the Son of God as are the angels of the skies and the cherubim in glory. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

Pilgrims at rest

Our first thoughts have to do with the difference between the living and the dead.

1. In being. There is a natural body and a spiritual body. We shall never be without a vehicle, a covering. Paul speaks about being clothed upon.

2. In place. The place of the departed may not be far from us, if, as some have held, they are our guardian angels. The angel told John that he was his fellow servant. As to the size of the place, what circumscribed, narrow, cramped notions we have! Dont speak of it as if it were not larger than Rutland, and of our meeting with each other there as if we were neighbours in the same street. The region is measureless, and the inhabitants no man can number.

3. Those who have gone thither were once among the living here.

I. How described. Them which are asleep. This means more than is usually supposed. It means much about this life.

1. Not conscious of sin and sorrow, but wholly freed from them–asleep. There can be no sleep where there is great pain: if he sleep he shall do well. What consolation this for the bereaved! The last sigh breathed, groan uttered, pang felt.

2. Watched and protected by the heavenly Father as children asleep. How easily and comfortably children go to sleep knowing that they will be cared for! So with them that sleep in Jesus.

3. Without recurrence of pain and anxiety. Continuous sleep, undisturbed by roar of battle or tremor of earthquake.

4. But we cannot say of the lost that they are asleep. There is no peace to the wicked.

II. What our knowledge is about them. Concerning.

1. In engagements. Not continual feasting and hymn singing. Variety of work. Tastes and capabilities find suitable spheres here: and surely in the other world we shall be ourselves, and every want will be met.

2. In powers. Present powers improved, memory more accurate, judgment more sound, perception more vivid. And from altered conditions of being, new powers will be developed.

3. In intercourse. Sit down with Abraham; know as we are known. Similarity of view, thought answering to thought, feeling to feeling. Many here never seem to meet with their likes. Then face to face. The mentally great drawn together, and others grouping according to their kind. (J. S. Withington.)

Different ideas of immortality

Each hopes to find that which for him is the best thing, eternized in the future. The Indian looks for a boundless war path, with victories ever new over animals and men. The Mohammedan desires, as a good beyond all which earth can offer, the utmost reach of sensual pleasure; where wines shall be quaffed from diamond cups, and the beauty of houris be enjoyed without stint; where the soul shall be dissolved, yet forever rejuvenated, in the utmost attainable physical luxury. The philosopher craves a vision of truth. And the artist looks for terraces of beauty and majestical structures; where the pillars shall be worlds, and the pediments milky ways; where colours more brilliant, lines more light, and proportions more perfect than here have been imagined, shall forever surround and instruct the fine spirit. Each people, and each person, according to the different attainments of each, and their several characteristics, delights to anticipate the possession in the future of that special good which to each is supreme. And in nothing is the progress of refinement and virtue more evidently shown than in the higher ideas which are entertained, in successive epochs and by different nations, of what may be thus aspired to and expected. Men differ in their estimate of the goods of the present life. But when they transfer that estimate to the future, as it becomes colossal and transcendent, so the differences between them, which are indicated and gauged by it, become most conspicuous. (Dr. Storrs.)

That ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

Having no hope

We need hope to cheer us all along in life, and to sustain us at the end of it. A sustaining hope, in view of the inevitable, must look forward to a life, beyond the present, of permanent good and joy. It must be founded on sufficient reasons: such as

(a) the promise of God, and

(b) the earnest of the fulfilment of that promise in our experience.

They can have no such hope who have–

I. No God, whether they are atheists in belief, or are living atheistic lives in mere carelessness.

II. No Bible; who do not practically receive and rest on a revelation.

III. No Saviour; do not rest on Christ.

IV. No preparation for the future. Nothing but the gospel offers such a hope. Have you laid hold on this hope? Are you giving diligence to the full assurance of it? (C. W. Camp.)

Sorrow without hope

The mother of poor Tonda led me to the house where the body was laid. The narrow space of the room was crowded; about two hundred women were sitting and standing around, singing mourning songs to doleful and monotonous airs. As I stood looking, filled with solemn thoughts, the mother of Tonda approached. She threw herself at the foot of her dead son, and begged him to speak to her once more. And then, when the corpse did not answer, she uttered a shriek, so long, so piercing, such a wail of love and grief, that tears came into my eyes. Poor African mother! she was literally as one sorrowing without hope, for these poor people count on nothing beyond the present life. (Du Chaillu.)

Hopeless death

The dreary and cheerless aspect which the state of the dead presented to Homers mind, even in the case of Achilles, his prime hero, and Agamemnon, king of men, and Ajax, whose peculiarly unhappy fate and brilliant services on earth would have entitled him to consolation, if there had been any to be found, hardly needs a comment. The first of these bitterly contrasts his shadowy primacy with the lot of the meanest hireling on earth. The dead have no prospect; they only look back to the past, or seek to snatch a glimpse of the present. They dwell on the triumphs, or on the wrongs and sufferings, of this mortal life, and sympathize, after a forlorn and bereaved fashion, with those whom they have left behind. The picture is one of such blank desolation as came spontaneously to the poets mind, on whom neither faith nor philosophy had yet dawned, but who yet could not so far renounce mans birthright of immortality as to conceive of the utter extinction of personality in what had once been a human soul. The dead of Homer have pride, they cherish grudges and curiosity, affection and resentment, but they have, in a later poets phrase, left hope behind. The casual exceptions of the few favoured heroes who were by birth or marriage connected with Zeus himself, only prove more pointedly the dismal universality of the rule by which the rest are bound. (H. Hayman, D. D.)

Without hope

Mr. Robert Owen, the sceptic, once visited a gentleman who was an earnest Christian. In walking out they came to the gentlemans family grave. Mr. Owen, addressing him, said: There is one advantage I have over Christians–I am not afraid to die. Most Christians are afraid to die; but if some of my business were settled, I should be perfectly willing to die at any moment. Well, said his companion, you say you have no fear in death; have you any hope in death? After a solemn pause, he replied, No! Then, replied the gentleman, pointing to an ox standing near, you are on a level with that brute; he has fed till he is satisfied, and stands in the shade whisking off the flies, and has neither hope nor fear.

A suggestive contrast

Mirabeau, the infidel, who was the hero of the French nation, died as a Frenchman might be expected to die, with a great deal of show and talk about the grandeur of his own genius and the loss to his country, and his last words were, Crown me with flowers; I am about to sink into the last sleep! In the same month there died in London one upon whose lips thousands had hung, whose name was a household word in the towns and villages in this country; he had lived till his white hairs were the joy and reverence of all classes of society, and as John Wesley fell asleep in Jesus, among his last words were:–

Ill praise my Maker while Ive breath,

And when my voice is lost in death,

Praise shall employ my nobler powers.

Let any one trace the effects of those two lives; mark the progress of revolutionary principles in France, and notice the influence of that great revival of religion, of which John Wesley was the means, in the subsequent history of the English nation, and you will be constrained to say that it was the influence of that revival that maintained the principles of freedom and constitutional government among us, besides extending true religion among the masses of the community. (Handbook to Scripture Doctrines.)

Hope in death

The old custom of using rosemary at funerals is thus explained by Wheatley, on the Common Prayer: To express their hopes that their friend is not lost forever, each person in the company usually bears in his hand a sprig of rosemary; a custom which seems to have taken its rise from a practice among the heathens, of a quite different import. For they have no thought of a future resurrection, but believing that the bodies of those that were dead would forever lie in the grave, made use of cypress at their funerals, which is a tree that being once cut never revives, but dies away. But Christians, on the other hand, having better hopes, and knowing that this very body of their friend, which they are now going solemnly to commit to the grave, shall one day rise again, and be reunited to his soul, instead of cypress, distribute rosemary to the company, which being always green, and flourishing the more for being crops (and of which a sprig only being set in the ground, will sprout up immediately and branch into a tree), is more proper to express their confidence and trust.

Hope in death

Helen Founleson, one of six Scottish martyrs executed at Perth in 1543, being denied the privilege of dying with her husband, kissed him at the foot of the gallows on which he was to suffer, and took leave of him with these words, Husband, rejoice, for we have lived together many joyful days, but this day, in which we must die, ought to be the most joyful to us both, because we must have joy forever. Therefore I will not bid you good night, for we shall suddenly meet with joy in the kingdom of heaven. (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

Gone before

The Rev. J. Newton once said to a gentleman who had lately lost his daughter, Sir, if you were going to the East Indies I suppose you would like to send a remittance before you. This little girl is just like a remittance sent to heaven before you yourself. I suppose a merchant in charge is never heard expressing himself thus: Oh, my dear ship, I am sorry she has got into port so soon! I am sorry she has escaped the storms that are coming! Neither should we sorrow for children dying. (Whitecross.)

The victory of hope in sorrow

One of the lessons which our Master enforced was that there should be a marked contrast between His disciples and worldly men. If a Christian differs in no important respect from a man without Christian faith, wherein is he better? Christians were not to be saved from the casualties of men, but there was expected to be in them, under the influence of Gods Spirit, something that should enable them to endure the various experiences of life in a way that common men could not. They were to regard life and death with a marked difference from the world. It was in this spirit that Paul wrote these words. There is to be a difference between death in the Christian and death in the unchristian household. If you bow your head or are overborne as others, how are you any better? If in anything one might be left to his own way we should suppose it would be in the sorrows of bereavement. But no: even here we are to be Christians.

I. It is no part of Christian teaching that men should not sorrow; but it is a part of Christian teaching that men should not sorrow as others who have no hope. Christ suffered and shed tears; but both stood in the reflected light of the other world. The apostles suffered, but they gloried in the fact that if they suffered they would reign. Suffering is good if it arouses in men their divine rather than their lower human nature; it is to be such as does not exclude joy and is in the light of joy.

II. Neither is it the teaching of Christ that he affections and relationships of men are trivial and unworthy of regard. Indeed, we have no guides to go by except these. Who would know the love of God if we did not know the love of man? To say that human affections are nothing, and that to love one another is to love dust, is to destroy the potency and value and use of those very ordinances of the household and friendship by which God means to develop our spiritual nature. Some teach that we are to let all the relationships of life seem so little in comparison with Christ that it will make no difference to us whether they go or stay. I could not respect a religion which made love a mere currency for good in this world alone. The spirit of Christianity sanctifies the love of husband and wife, parent and child, etc.; so that we may be sure if we love right here we shall love forever.

III. Least of all does Christ teach that pain is unworthy of manhood and is to be strangled. Any such violence is to destroy what He elaborately created. The teachings of the Bible, and the example of Christ and of His apostles and saints has inculcated anything but the stoical doctrine. The Christian idea is the great power of victory over suffering, the bush burning but unconsumed.

IV. But Christ did require that we should look upon our sorrow as surrounded by considerations derivable from his life and truth.

1. A wanton and ungovernable sorrow is a violation of Christian duty. It acts as if there were no God or Christ. There is a great difference, of course, between the first burst of sorrows and a continuous state. When one has been worn out physically, the gracious God finds no fault with the uncontrollable sweep of anguish. Let the cloud burst, but do not let the waters become a deep flowing river. When the first rush of feeling is over there should be that in the believer which will bring him back to Christ.

2. It is not right sorrow that seeks every aggravation, employing memory as a dragnet to bring back refuse experiences, to create unhappiness, and recount miseries as if proud of them. Blessed are they who can shut the door on the past and not open it again unless to bring some fairer joy and better hope.

3. A true Christian bereavement ought not to narrow the disposition and take men away from active affairs. The same Christian instinct which seeks consecration to the Masters service should find in it an antidote to sorrow. If you suffer you will often find comfort in ministering to some ones affliction. Dr. Spurzheim used to say that no woman was fit to be wife and mother till she had been educated in suffering. I say that no man or woman is fit for the highest offices of friendship and life without it.

4. Every man that suffers bereavement ought to make it manifest that it is grace not nature that heals. It is true that grace employs nature, and that time is a good nurse; but a Christian ought to be ashamed if nothing can cure him but time. How many there are who wait until their griefs are worn out before they get over them. But the man who knows how to apply the promise and realize the presence at the right time, has not only comfort in himself, but is a living and powerful witness to the power of Christ such as refutes infidelity as nothing else can, and wins to the Gospel as no preaching can do. (H. W. Beecher.)

Christian mourning

I. The sorrow which Christians may lawfully indulge for departed friends. Feel your griefs, bereaved and desolate believers; you are permitted to sorrow. Away with the sentiments of those who teach that we should evidence an utter insensibility, a stupid unconcern, under affliction! Such is not the command of that God, who knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust: nor of that Redeemer who, in all the afflictions of His people was afflicted. Look at the Scriptures, ye who cruelly chide those tears that relieve the wounded heart, and say if Abraham violated his duty when he came to Kirjarth-arba to mourn for Sarah, and weep there. The lustre of Josephs character was not obscured when he grieved for his father at the threshing floor of Atad with great and sore lamentation. Jeremiah was not forgetful of his elevated office when his prophetical harp sounded such mournful tones over the corpse of the good Josiah. We do not feel less attached to the Christians of Asia because they wept sore on parting from Paul, most of all, because they should see his face no more. We sympathize with the pious widows who stood by the body of Dorcas weeping, and showing the coats and garments which she had made for the poor while she was yet with them. Those devout men were not less devout when they carried Stephen to the grave, and made great lamentation. There is nothing inconsistent with the high character of that Mary who sat delightedly at the feet of Jesus, and yet poured out big bitter tears at the door of her brothers sepulchre. But why mention inferior cases? Behold Jesus–our law giver and model, authorizing a submissive grief by His emotion and tears at the tomb of Lazarus. An unlamented death is divinely represented as a judgment and a curse (Jer 16:5-6; Jer 12:17). But we may mourn as Christians over our departed; and where can the soul that is bowed and overwhelmed better flee than to its Father? Where find more comfort than in the bosom of its God? Christianity does not destroy our nature; it only regulates it. In giving us a heart, God has permitted us to exercise its emotions, and sensibility, instead of being a weakness in the Christian, is one of his noblest prerogatives, since it is one great source of his virtues. No; it is not the soul of a Christian which can be callous and insensible while standing by the corpse or the grave of a departed friend.

II. The sorrow which Christians are forbidden to exercise.

1. When in their hearts, or by their lips, they murmur against the disposals of God, and blame Him for unkindness and cruelty to them. Jacob was faulty in this respect when, on the reported death of his favourite son, he exclaimed, All these things are against me! In our severest griefs we must be persuaded that God acts not only with infinite wisdom, but also with infinite goodness; and that not only are His general dispensations merciful, but the particular dispensation which has afflicted us is the fruit of covenant love.

2. When the grief of Christians unfits them for holy duties, and prevents the exercise of religious devotion. What, because one we loved is dead, shall our heart also become dead and lifeless in all spiritual employments, and as cold as is his inanimate body? What, shall our tears be ever flowing over a mouldering form, and our affections never be raised to a living God?

3. When sorrow does not lead Christians to inquire what was the design of God in afflicting them. As Christians, instead of being swallowed up in over much sorrow, we should study by each bereavement to feel more deeply the vanity of earth, the importance of eternity, and the preciousness of Christ.

4. When Christians follow not their departed friends beyond the grave. They are not in the grave, their bodies only are there; they, as emancipated spirits, are with the spirits of just men made perfect. Sorrow is criminal, therefore, if it relates only to the outer covering laid aside for a little while.

5. Sorrow is also criminal when Christians have no well-grounded hope of reunion and fellowship with their departed in heaven. Heaven is the glorious rendezvous of all saintly men (Joh 14:1-3). (H. Kollock, D. D.)

Consolations accompanying the death of saints

I. There are some who have no hope in their sorrow.

1. As far as we can, we should see that no relative passed away out of our home and left us in unmixed grief.

2. Are there any who would so treat a relative as to leave him in doubt as to their salvation?

II. There are those who have good hope mixed with their grief.

1. Even when there is the strongest hope of salvation, there will be sorrow.

2. Sorrow mixed with hope is full of comfort.

3. This comfort depends upon acquiescence in the will of God disposing us as His own.

4. This hope draws its consolations amidst sorrow mainly because it is full of immortality.

III. The grounds of this consolation as here laid down. Death is compared to a sleep as indicating–

1. The calm repose of a dying believer.

2. The security of the saints in Christs hand.

3. The certainty of the resurrection.

4. The beauty and glory of the redeemed Church.

5. Recognition of the saints in heaven. (J. Walker.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 13. I would not have you to be ignorant] Instead of , have, , wish, is the reading of ADEFG, many others, besides the Arabic, AEthiopic, Armenian, some of the Slavonian, the Vulgate, and Itala, with many of the Greek fathers. This is undoubtedly the true reading: Brethren, I would not wish you to be ignorant; or, I would not that you should be ignorant.

This was probably one of the points which were lacking in their faith, that he wished to go to Thessalonica to instruct them in.

Them which are asleep] That is, those who are dead. It is supposed that the apostle had heard that the Thessalonians continued to lament over their dead, as the heathens did in general who had no hope of the resurrection of the body; and that they had been puzzled concerning the doctrine of the resurrection. To set them right on this important subject, he delivers three important truths:

1. He asserts, as he had done before, that they who died in the Lord should have, in virtue of Christ’s resurrection, a resurrection unto eternal life and blessedness.

2. He makes a new discovery, that the last generation should not die at all, but be in a moment changed to immortals.

3. He adds another new discovery, that, though the living should not die, but be transformed, yet the dead should first be raised, and be made glorious and immortal; and so, in some measure, have the preference and advantage of such as shall then be found alive. See Dodd.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

The apostle now proceeds to a new discourse, about moderating of their sorrow for the dead, not for all, but the dead in Christ. He had either observed their sorrow in this kind excessive, while with them; or else by Timothy, or some other way, he had heard of it. Wherein observe in general, he doth not condemn their sorrow, but the excess of it. Grace destroys not nature, but regulates it; nor reason, but rectifies it; nor takes away the affections, but moderates them; doth not make us Stoics, or stocks. Affections are good when set upon right objects, and kept within due bounds, and this Christianity doth teach, and grace doth effect. And to mourn for the dead, especially the dead in the Lord, is a duty that both nature and grace teach, and God requireth; and the contrary is reproved by God himself, Isa 57:1, and to die unlamented is reckoned as a curse, Jer 22:18,19. It is only then immoderate sorrow the apostle here means; and to prevent it, or remove it, gives many instructions and arguments. And he supposeth their ignorance might be a great occasion of it, and so instructs them about the doctrine of the resurrection, and Christs personal coming again, which by the light of nature, while Gentiles, they knew nothing of, or were very uncertain in. And the apostle, because of his short stay among them, had not had opportunity to instruct them about these things, and therefore doth it here distinctly and fully; as he doth the Corinthians, hearing there were some among them, even of the church itself, that said there was no resurrection, 1Co 15:12. It is such a mystery to reason, that it is hard to believe it; and the most learned of the heathen doubted of it, and some exploded and scoffed at it, as we find, Act 17:18, even such as yet held the immortality of the soul. And hereupon in this verse the apostle doth assert two things in general to relieve them against immoderate sorrow.

1. He calls the death of the saints a sleep., {see Dan 12:2; Luk 8:52; Joh 11:11; 1Co 15:20,51} whether referring to those that are already dead, or do die, or that shall afterwards die; and why should they then excessively mourn? After sleep we know there is awaking, and by sleep nature is revived; and so it shall be with the saints in death. Hereupon the grave is called a bed, Isa 57:2; and the burying place, cemeterium, a place of sleep. And:

2. There is hope in their death, as Pro 14:32; there is hope concerning their happy state after death, and hope of their resurrection, and seeing them again at Christs coming; it is not an eternal farewell. This the apostle here intends. And they will be then seen in a more excellent state, and probably so seen then as that their Christian friends may know them; else the apostles argument would not have so much strength, and so well suit the present case. The heathen and infidels buried their dead without this hope, as they are said to be without hope, Eph 2:12; and so were excessive in their sorrows, which they expressed by cutting their flesh, making themselves bald, doleful songs, and mourning ejulations, expressed sometimes upon instruments: and which the Jews had learned from them, as appears by Gods often reproving it, and Christs putting out the minstrels, Mat 9:23,24; and as that which he forbade them, Lev 19:28; Deu 14:1. And the apostle may refer to this in the text, as that which is not only grievous to nature, but dishonourable to a Christians faith, hope, and profession. We are hereby the betrayers of our faith and hope, and the things we preach will seem false and feigned. Cypr. de Mortalitate. And though man is said to die without hope as to a return to his former state of life here, Job 14:7-10; yet not with respect to the life at the resurrection, in them that die in Jesus.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

13. The leading topic of Paul’spreaching at Thessalonica having been the coming kingdom (Ac17:7), some perverted it into a cause for fear in respect tofriends lately deceased, as if these would be excluded from the glorywhich those found alive alone should share. This error Paul herecorrects (compare 1Th 5:10).

I would notAll theoldest manuscripts and versions have “we would not.”My fellow labourers (Silas and Timothy) and myself desire that yeshould not be ignorant.

them which are asleepTheoldest manuscripts read present tense, “them which aresleeping“; the same as “the dead in Christ”(1Th 4:16), to whose bodies (Da12:2, not their souls; Ecc 12:7;2Co 5:8) death is a calm and holysleep, from which the resurrection shall waken them to glory. Theword “cemetery” means a sleeping-place. Observe, theglory and chief hope of the Church are not to be realized at death,but at the Lord’s coming; one is not to anticipate the other, but allare to be glorified together at Christ’s coming (Col 3:4;Heb 11:40). Death affects themere individual; but the coming of Jesus the whole Church; at deathour souls are invisibly and individually with the Lord; at Christ’scoming the whole Church, with all its members, in body and soul,shall be visibly and collectively with Him. As this is offered as aconsolation to mourning relatives, the mutual recognition of thesaints at Christ’s coming is hereby implied.

that ye sorrow not, even asothersGreek, “the rest”; all the rest of theworld besides Christians. Not all natural mourning for deadfriends is forbidden: for the Lord Jesus and Paul sinlessly gave wayto it (Joh 11:31; Joh 11:33;Joh 11:35; Phi 2:27);but sorrow as though there were “no hope,” which indeed theheathen had not (Eph 2:12): theChristian hope here meant is that of the resurrection.Psa 16:9; Psa 16:11;Psa 17:15; Psa 73:24;Pro 14:32, show that the OldTestament Church, though not having the hope so bright(Isa 38:18; Isa 38:19),yet had this hope. Contrast CATULLUS[Carmina 5.4], “When once our brief day has set, we mustsleep one everlasting night.” The sepulchral inscriptions ofheathen Thessalonica express the hopeless view taken as to those oncedead: as AESCHYLUS writes,”Of one once dead there is no resurrection.” Whateverglimpses some heathen philosophers, had of the existence of the soulafter death, they had none whatever of the body (Act 17:18;Act 17:20; Act 17:32).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren,…. As they seem to have been, about the state of the pious dead, the rule and measure of mourning for them, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, the second coming of Christ, and the future happiness of the saints; wherefore the apostle judged it necessary to write to them upon these subjects: the Alexandrian copy and others, the Complutensian edition, the Vulgate Latin, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions read, “we would not have you to be ignorant”, c.

concerning them which are asleep that is, dead: it was in common use among the Eastern nations, when they spoke of their dead, to say they were asleep. This way of speaking is used frequently both in the Old and the New Testament; see 1Ki 2:10

1Co 15:20 and very often with the Targumists; so the Targum on Ec 3:4 “a time to weep”, paraphrases it,

“a time to weep , “over them that are asleep”:”

and in Ec 4:2.

“I praised , “those that are asleep”,”

the dead: the reason of this way of speaking was, because there is a likeness between sleep and death; in both there is no exercise of the senses, and persons are at rest, and both rise again; and they are common to all men, and proper and peculiar to the body only. The apostle designs such persons among the Thessalonians, who either died a natural death, or were removed by violence, through the rage and fury of their persecutors, for whom their surviving friends were pressed with overmuch sorrow, which is here cautioned against:

that ye sorrow not, even as others that have no hope; the apostle’s view is not to encourage and establish a stoical apathy, a stupid indolence, and a brutal insensibility, which are contrary to the make of human nature, to the practice of the saints, and even of Christ and his apostles, and our apostle himself; but to forbid excessive and immoderate sorrow, and all the extravagant forms of it the Gentiles ran into; who having no notion of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, had no hope of ever seeing their friends more, but looked upon them as entirely lost, as no longer in being, and never more to be met with, seen, and enjoyed; this drove them to extravagant actions, furious transports, and downright madness; as to throw off their clothes, pluck off their hair, tear their flesh, cut themselves, and make baldness between their eyes for the dead; see

De 14:1 practices forbidden the Jews, and which very ill become Christians, that believe the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead: the words are to be understood not of other Christians, who have no hope of the eternal welfare of their deceased friends; not but that the sorrow of those who have a good hope of the future Well being of their dear relatives, must and ought to be greatly different from that of others, who have no hope at all: it is observed by the Jews b on those words in Ge 23:2 and “Abraham came to mourn for Sarah”, c. that

“it is not said to weep for Sarah, but to mourn for her “for such a woman as this, it is not fit to weep”, after her soul is joined in the bundle of life, but to mourn for her, and do her great honour at her funeral; though because it is not possible that a man should not weep for his dead, it is said at the end, “and to weep for her”:”

but here the words are to be understood of the other Gentiles that were in a state of nature and unregeneracy, who had no knowledge of the resurrection of the dead, or and hope of a future state, and of enjoying their friends in it: they are called , “the rest”; and the Syriac version renders it, “other men”.

b Tzeror Hamnaor, fol. 23. 4.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

      13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.   14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.   15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.   16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:   17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.   18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

      In these words the apostle comforts the Thessalonians who mourned for the death of their relations and friends that died in the Lord. His design is to dissuade them from excessive grief, or inordinate sorrow, on that account. All grief for the death of friends is far from being unlawful; we may weep at least for ourselves if we do not weep for them, weep for own loss, though it may be their fain. Yet we must not be immoderate in our sorrows, because,

      I. This looks as if we had no hope, v. 13. It is to act too much like the Gentiles, who had no hope of a better life after this; whereas we Christians, who have a most sure hope, the hope of eternal life after this, which God who cannot lie hath promised us, should moderate all our joys and our sorrows on account of any worldly thing. This hope is more than enough to balance all our griefs upon account of any of the crosses of the present time.

      II. This is an effect of ignorance concerning those who are dead, v. 13. There are some things which we cannot be ignorant of concerning those that are asleep; for the land they are removed to is a land of darkness, which we know but little of and have no correspondence with. To go among the dead is to go among we know not whom, and to live we know not how. Death is an unknown thing, and the state of the dead, or the state after death, we are much in the dark about; yet there are some things concerning those especially who die in the Lord that we need not, and ought not, to be ignorant of; and, if these things be really understood and duly considered, they will be sufficient to allay our sorrow concerning them.

      1. They sleep in Jesus. They are asleep, v. 13. They have fallen asleep in Christ, 1 Cor. xv. 18. Death does not annihilate them. It is but a sleep to them. It is their rest, and undisturbed rest. They have retired out of this troublesome world, to rest from all their labours and sorrows, and they sleep in Jesus, v. 14. Being still in union with him, they sleep in his arms and are under his special care and protection. Their souls are in his presence, and their dust is under his care and power; so that they are not lost, nor are they losers, but great gainers by death, and their removal out of this world is into a better.

      2. They shall be raised up from the dead, and awakened out of their sleep, for God will bring them with him, v. 14. They then are with God, and are better where they are than when they were here; and when God comes he will bring them with him. The doctrine of the resurrection and the second coming of Christ is a great antidote against the fear of death and inordinate sorrow for the death of our Christian friends; and this doctrine we have a full assurance of, because we believe that Jesus died and rose again, v. 14. It is taken for granted that as Christians they knew and believed this. The death and resurrection of Christ are fundamental articles of the Christian religion, and give us hope of a joyful resurrection; for Christ, having risen from the dead, has become the first fruits of those that slept; and therefore those who have fallen asleep in him have not perished nor are lost,1Co 15:18; 1Co 15:20. His resurrection is a full confirmation of all that is said in the gospel, or by the word of the Lord, which has brought life and immortality to light.

      3. Their state and condition shall be glorious and happy at the second coming of Christ. This the apostle informs the Thessalonians of by the word of the Lord (v. 15), by divine revelation from the Lord Jesus; for though the resurrection of the dead, and a future state of blessedness, were part of the creed of the Old-Testament saints, yet they are much more clearly revealed in and by the gospel. By this word of the Lord we know, (1.) That the Lord Jesus will come down from heaven in all the pomp and power of the upper world (v. 16): The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout. He ascended into heaven after his resurrection, and passed through these material heavens into the third heaven, which must retain him till the restitution of all things; and then he will come again, and appear in his glory. He will descend from heaven into this our air, v. 17. The appearance will be with pomp and power, with a shout–the shout of a king, and the power and authority of a mighty king and conqueror, with the voice of the archangel; an innumerable company of angels will attend him. Perhaps one, as general of those hosts of the Lord, will give notice of his approach, and the glorious appearance of this great Redeemer and Judge will be proclaimed and ushered in by the trump of God. For the trumpet shall sound, and this will awaken those that sleep in the dust of the earth, and will summon all the world to appear. For, (2.) The dead shall be raised: The dead in Christ shall rise first (v. 16), before those who are found alive at Christ’s coming shall be changed; and so it appears that those who shall then be found alive shall not prevent those that are asleep, v. 15. The first care of the Redeemer in that day will be about his dead saints; he will raise them before the great change passes on those that shall be found alive: so that those who did not sleep in death will have no greater privilege or joy at that day than those who fell asleep in Jesus. (3.) Those that shall be found alive will then be changed. They shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, v. 17. At, or immediately before, this rapture into the clouds, those who are alive will undergo a mighty change, which will be equivalent to dying. This change is so mysterious that we cannot comprehend it: we know little or nothing of it, 1 Cor. xv. 51. Only, in the general, this mortal must put on immortality, and these bodies will be made fit to inherit the kingdom of God, which flesh and blood in its present state are not capable of. This change will be in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor. xv. 52), in the very instant, or not long after the raising up of those that sleep in Jesus. And those who are raised, and thus changed, shall meet together in the clouds, and there meet with their Lord, to congratulate him on his coming, to receive the crown of glory he will then bestow upon them, and to be assessors with him in judgment, approving and applauding the sentence he will then pass upon the prince of the power of the air, and all the wicked, who shall be doomed to destruction with the devil and his angels. (4.) Here is the bliss of the saints at that day: they shall be ever with the Lord, v. 17. It will be some part of their felicity that all the saints shall meet together, and remain together for ever; but the principal happiness of heaven is this, to be with the Lord, to see him, live with him, and enjoy him, for ever. This should comfort the saints upon the death of their friends, that, although death has made a separation, yet their souls and bodies will meet again; we and they shall meet together again: we and they shall meet together again: we and they with all the saints shall meet our Lord, and be with him for ever, no more to be separated wither from him or from one another for ever. And the apostle would have us comfort one another with these words, v. 18. We should endeavour to support one another in times of sorrow, not deaden one another’s spirits, nor weaken one another’s hands, but should comfort one another; and this may be done by serious consideration and discourse on the many good lessons to be learned from the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, the second coming of Christ, and the glory of the saints in that day.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

We would not have ( ). We do not wish.

You ignorant ( ). Old word, not to know ( privative, –, root of ). No advantage in ignorance of itself.

Concerning them that fall asleep ( ). Present passive (or middle) participle (Aleph B) rather than the perfect passive of many later MSS. From old , to put to sleep. Present tense gives idea of repetition, from time to time fall asleep. Greeks and Romans used this figure of sleep for death as Jesus does (Joh 11:11) and N.T. generally (cf. our word cemetery). Somehow the Thessalonians had a false notion about the dead in relation to the second coming.

Even as the rest which have no hope ( ). This picture of the hopelessness of the pagan world about the future life is amply illustrated in ancient writings and particularly by inscriptions on tombs (Milligan). Some few pagans clung to this hope, but most had none.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

I would not have you to be ignorant [ ] . The Greek is, we would not, etc. A formula often used by Paul to call special attention to what he is about to say. See Rom 1:13; Rom 11:25; 1Co 2:1, etc. He employs several similar expressions for the same purpose, as qelw uJmav eiJudenai I wish you to know (1Co 11:3; Col 2:1) : ginwrizw uJmin I declare unto you (1Co 14:1; 2Co 8:1; Gal 1:11) : ginwskein uJmav boulomai I would have you know (Phi 1:12).

Them which are asleep [ ] . Or, who are sleeping. See on Act 7:60; 2Pe 3:4, and comp. 1Co 7:39; 1Co 11:30; 1Co 14:6, 18, 20, 51; Joh 11:11, etc. The dead members of the Thessalonian church. Ye sorrow [] . Opinions differ as to the possible ground of this sorrow. According to some, the Thessalonians supposed that eternal life belonged only to such as should be found alive at the parousia, and therefore that those already dead would not share the blessings of the second advent. Others, assuming an interval between the advent and the general resurrection, think that the Thessalonians were anxious lest their brethren who died before the advent would be raised only at the general resurrection, and therefore would not share the blessings of communion with the Lord during the millennial reign. It is impossible to decide the question from Paul ‘s words, since he does not argue, but only consoles. The value of his consolation does not depend upon the answer to the question whether the departed saints shall first be raised up at the general resurrection, or at a previons resurrection of believers only. The Thessalonians were plainly distressed at the thought of separation from their departed brethren, and had partially lost sight of the elements of the Christian hope – reunion with them and fellowship with the Lord. These elements Paul emphasises in his answer. The resurrection of Jesus involves the resurrection of believers. The living and the dead Christians shall alike be with the Lord.

Others [ ] . More correctly, the rest. Paul makes a sharp distinction between Christians, and all others.

Who have no hope. Only believers have hope of life after death. The speculations and surmisings of pagan philosophy do not amount to a hope.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “But I would not have you to be ignorant brethren” (ou thelomen de humas agnoein, adelphoi) now we do not wish you all to be ignorant, brothers”; men need not to be ignorant about salvation, service, or the life hereafter, Joh 5:30; 2Ti 3:16-17; to be ignorant of these is bad, but to remain willingly ignorant is worse, 2Pe 3:4; Joh 7:17.

2) “Concerning them which are asleep” (peri ton koimomenon) “concerning those sleeping”; This refers to the sleeping of the body, that which is in the grave, not the soul, Act 7:60; Act 13:36. As in Mat 27:52, note, it was the “bodies” of the saints that “slept”, and “bodies” that arose; 2Pe 3:4.

3) “That ye sorrow not” (hina me lepestje) “in order that you all grieve not”. Paul would not have Christians live pessimistic lives regarding their Christian brothers and sisters who had deceased. He wrote to assure them that whether living or deceased when the Lord came they would meet Him together.

4) “Even as others which have no hope” (kathos kai hoi loipo hoi me echotes elpida) “as indeed the rest–those not having or holding an hope”; Hope, second of the three remaining Spiritual gifts, is an anchor of the soul and life of the believer, as he awaits, in life or in death, the certain Royal return of Jesus Christ, 1Co 13:13; Heb 6:17-19. The unsaved is without the anchor of hope, lost, disturbed, tossed, like a boat in the storm without an anchor. He is without peace and hope, Isa 57:20-21; Eph 2:12.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

13 But I would not have you ignorant. It is not likely that the hope of a resurrection had been torn up among the Thessalonians by profane men, as had taken place at Corinth. For we see how he chastises the Corinthians with severity, but here he speaks of it as a thing that was not doubtful. It is possible, however, that this persuasion was not sufficiently fixed in their minds, and that they accordingly, in bewailing the dead, retained something of the old superstition. For the sum of the whole is this — that we must not bewail the dead beyond due bounds, inasmuch as we are all to be raised up again. For whence comes it, that the mourning of unbelievers has no end or measure, but because they have no hope of a resurrection? It becomes not us, therefore, who have been instructed as to a resurrection, to mourn otherwise than in moderation. He is to discourse afterwards as to the manner of the resurrection; and he is also on this account to say something as to times; but in this passage he meant simply to restrain excessive grief, which would never have had such an influence among them, if they had seriously considered the resurrection, and kept it in remembrance.

He does not, however, forbid us altogether to mourn, but requires moderation in our mourning, for he says, that ye may not sorrow, as others who have no hope. He forbids them to grieve in the manner of unbelievers, who give loose reins to their grief, because they look upon death as final destruction, and imagine that everything that is taken out of the world perishes. As, on the other hand, believers know that they quit the world, that they may be at last gathered into the kingdom of God, they have not the like occasion of grief. Hence the knowledge of a resurrection is the means of moderating grief. He speaks of the dead as asleep, agreeably to the common practice of Scripture — a term by which the bitterness of death is mitigated, for there is a great difference between sleep and destruction (574) It refers, however, not to the soul, but to the body, for the dead body lies in the tomb, as in a couch, until God raise up the man. Those, therefore, act a foolish part, who infer from this that souls sleep. (575)

We are now in possession of Paul’s meaning — that he lifts up the minds of believers to a consideration of the resurrection, lest they should indulge excessive grief on occasion of the death of their relatives, for it were unseemly that there should be no difference between them and unbelievers, who put no end or measure to their grief for this reason, that in death they recognize nothing but destruction. (576) Those that abuse this testimony, so as to establish among Christians Stoical indifference, that is, an iron hardness, (577) will find nothing of this nature in Paul’s words. As to their objecting that we must not indulge grief on occasion of the death of our relatives, lest we should resist God, this would apply in all adversities; but it is one thing to bridle our grief, that it may be made subject to God, and quite another thing to harden one’s self so as to be like stones, by casting away human feelings. Let, therefore, the grief of the pious be mixed with consolation, which may train them to patience. The hope of a blessed resurrection, which is the mother of patience, will effect this.

(574) “ Entre dormir, et estre du tout reduit a neant;” — “Between sleeping, and being altogether reduced to nothing.”

(575) See Calvin on the Corinthians, vol. 2, pp. 21, 22.

(576) “ Ruine et destruction;” — “Ruin and destruction.”

(577) “ Pour introduire et establir entre les Chrestiens ceste façon tant estrange, que les Stoiciens requeroyent en l’homme, ascauoir qu’il ne fust esmeu de douleur quelconque, mais qu’il fust comme de fer et stupide sans rien sentir;” — “For introducing and establishing among Christians that strange manner of acting, which the Stoics required on the part of an individual—that he should not be moved by any grief, but should be as it were of iron, and stupid, so as to be devoid of feeling.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE RETURN, THE RESURRECTION AND THE RAPTURE

1Th 4:13-17

THESE three great words deserve each a separate and extended discussion. The only reasons, therefore, for trying to bring them within the limits of a single chapter exist in two circumstances. First, the discussion of the Kingdom, through which we have just passed, has involved very many of the features of both the Return and the Resurrection; and secondly, Paul, by the pen of inspiration, links these all together in both logical and doctrinal order. With that marvelous brevity which is the soul of inspiration, he presents them in five short verses:

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.

For this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the Coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord (1Th 4:13-17).

This inspired statement is to the whole subject of the Return, the Resurrection, and the Rapture, what the architects preliminary sketch is to the finished structure. In each instance it remains for the workers to fill in and to fill up. A good student will, in a Spirit-led research of the Word, find material at hand for the completion of the great doctrines that Paul here briefly, yet boldly outlines. As the stones wrought into the temple of God were each ready for its place, requiring not the touch of the hammer, but rather a perfect knowledge of the plans and careful placing, so the man who works on these great doctrines, with Pauls plan, before him, will find no need to change, carve, or unnaturally constrain the sacred sentences of Scripture. When properly put together, they give perfect proof of the Divine plan, and provide an unanswerable argument for pre-millennialism. Men have sometimes sought to set Peter, or Paul, or John against Jesus; but on this subject it will be seen that inspired servants and Divine Lord speak together.

In the presentation of these great themes to the Thessalonians, Paul speaks of the Second Coming, the First Resurrection, and the Supreme Rapture.

THE SECOND COMING

It Is to Be Both Literal and Personal. To speak of the Lords Return as a mere figure of speech that is to know no literal fulfilment, is little less sacrilegious than the total denial of inspiration. To identify that Return with the coming of the Holy Spirit, or with the experience of death, is to despise the Masters own differentiations. He was extremely careful to distinguish between the office of the Son and that of the Spirit. The Son was manifested in the fleshThe Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (Joh 1:14); the Spirit was contrasted with the fleshThat which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (Joh 3:6). The Sons office was that of sacrifice and substitutionThe Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep (Joh 10:11); the Spirits office was that of illumination, instruction But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My Name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you (Joh 14:26), The Sons personal absence from the earth He declared to be a necessity to the Spirits appearance in the ChurchIt is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you (Joh 16:7).

If the plain references to the Return of the Lord do not involve a personal coming, language has lost its meaning. For the comfort of His disciples, sorrowing over His approaching departure, He said, If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, In the same discourse He said, I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. The men in white that stood by at the Ascension said to the anxious onlookers, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven (Act 1:11).

It is little wonder, then, that Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, employs the phrase, The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. There is not a hint in Scripture that the Lord is ever to be identified with deathwhich the Bible denominates an enemy to be eventually destroyed (1Co 15:26). This attempt is, as Ottman suggests, a shift, by which some have sought to blunt the keen edge of Scripture. That Christ is representatively present in the world by the Spirit, no man disputes; but that there is another coming for which we look, a revelation of His presence, which every eye shall see is the contention of the Book. Our hymnologythan which no truer theology has ever been writtensets that hope to sweetest harmony; and yet to tear the expectation of a personal Return out of your best hymn book would not leave it in such tatters as would be that more blessed Book-the Bible when you had torn the same from its sacred pages.

The Time Is Indefinite; the Event, Imminent. Of that day and hour knoweth no one, no, not even the angels of Heaven, but the Father only. But Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh. It is little wonder that Paul perfectly familiar with his Lords speechshould have written to Titus, concerning the grace of God, which had appeared, bringing salvation to all, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and Godly, in this present world; looking for that Blessed Hope, and the Glorious Appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ (Tit 2:12; Tit 2:15).

The wisdom of making this great event imminent, and the date of it indefinite, exists in the fact suggested by Baines, namely, that disciples were to be so living in the hope of it, that they would not be surprised if it occurred, while not so confidently dating it as to suffer disappointment in its delay. The argument that this event could not be at hand nearly two thousand years ago, and yet, so remote as time has proven it to have been, ignores alike the difference between mans and Gods computation of time, and the transcendency of the event. If with God a thousand years * * are * * as a watch in the night when it is passed, we see no difficulty in the Spirits expression, the time is at hand.

Again, the proportions of this event are such as to make that language not only permissible, but accurate. In the far West a carload of passengers were excited by the announcement, We are coming to Shasta. Look! Windows were pushed up, men and women put out their heads, to behold that snow-capped peak, full before them. And yet, as one put it, I rode on and on, from a little after break of day until high noon, and still we had not reached its base; and when the Western sun had dipped far toward the horizon, glancing backward, we beheld its bold, beautiful peak, glorious with the vesture of the sun. You could not have said that of a hill. A hill a mile away is not at hand; but one hundred and fifty miles away, and Shasta is at hand. The Second Appearance of Jesus, as compared with the most important of human events, is so splendidly transcendent that no wonder those seers, realizing something of its mighty significance, should have lost the sense of distance and time, and exclaimed, The Coming of the Lord draweth nigh! or else, speaking for that Spirit who does not measure time by minutes and hours, but rather as it relates itself to eternity, say, The Lord is at hand (Php 4:5).

His Coming Will Perfectly Accord with Prophecy. For some time there has been a discussion in the pre-millenarian ranks as to whether the any moment theory of the Second Appearance could be retained; one school contending that is a necessity of the interpretation of Scripture, and another that we can certainly recognize the fulfilment of prophecy, and that some portions of this, not having occurred already, must come to pass before we see in the heavens the sign of the Son of Man. This problem finds its solution in the very fact that the last letter of prophecy, named as preliminary to the Lords Appearance, may have its perfect fulfilment, and yet the most of professed Christian men fail so to mark the movements of time as to clearly recognize the perfecting of the Divine plan. When Jesus appeared the first time, how few there were that saw in the Babe of Bethlehem the completion of prophecy 1 The visit of the star-led men from the East and the inquiry of the song-surprised shepherds seem to have found an answer in the faith of Simeon and Anna and in the fears of the criminal Herod, but to have left unmoved multitudes of men that were supposed to be the great Scripture students of the day.

Again, the certainty of a lapse of time between the Coming of Christ for His people and His Coming to the earth with them, cannot be disposed of by dubbing it a theory to meet a difficulty of the pre-millenarian view. In a previous chapter we have already seen that there are two comings described in the twenty-fourth of Matthew that are so absolutely unlike as to demand an explanation. That explanation is found in the fact that Christ comes for His saints (1Th 4:16-17; 2Th 2:1); an appearance which is apart from the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints (1Th 3:13) to take His throne and judge the world in righteousness; and, to this period the Tribulation seems unquestionably assigned. The conversion of the Jew is at its close, and the wars and rumours of wars, * * earthquakes, convulsions of nature, and so forth, both naturally and scripturally belong to the same time!

The full proof of these assertions we postpone to the discussion of the Tribulation and the Translation. But for the present, let the Word of the Lord Jesus instruct us, For verily I say unto you, Till Heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled (Mat 5:18). Dr. Arthur Pierson tells us that in 1882, when the transit of Venus was occurring, some German scientists, at Aiken, S. C., had drawn an elliptical circle upon a great stone, from which they made their observations. Later, they presented a request to the city that this stone might remain undisturbed until one hundred and twenty years had passed and another transit of Venus had occurred, at which times the then-living scientists might make their observations and compare them with the work of 1884. Pierson reminds us that 120 years is a long time; every throne will have been emptied of occupant after occupant, and the map of the world will have been made over; for aught we know the march of the millennium may have begun, but prompt to the day, the hour, the minute, the transit of Venus will be on. Such is the accuracy of science. But again and again the even greater accuracy of prophecy has been put past dispute. Read Zechariahs description of the first appearance of Jesus in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass, and remember this, that over seven hundred years intervened between the declaration and the deed. Generation after generation had passed; almost countless kings had been born to the various thrones of the earth; the little sentence, for the most part, was forgotten by even Bible students; and yet, in perfect accord with the Word of God, it came to pass. So it will be again when His feet shall stand * * upon the Mount of Olives, and Out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and His scepter shall extend from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

THE FIRST RESURRECTION

It Will Be Concurrent with the Saviours Appearance. The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. The word first here simply assigns the resurrection of the righteous deadwhen this corruptible must put on incorruption to precedence over the marvelous change of the living saints when this mortal must put on immortality. The rest of the sentence, however, makes the Return of the Lord and the resurrection of the saints concurrent eventsthe latter the instant resultant of the former. At the last trump that resurrection will occur in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1Co 15:52), Then they that are Christs at His Coming (1Co 15:25), A. J. Gordon truthfully remarks, Any doctrine of the resurrection dissociated from the Advent, must be false; * * no atonement apart from the Cross; no resurrection apart from the Coming. It is at the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, that there is to be a gathering together unto Him (2Th 2:1), A writer tells of the old colored saint, father of a numerous family, who lived in Northern Georgia in 1833, when the notable meteoric display, known as the falling of the stars, occurred. Being wakened by the noise and confusion in the street, he looked out from the window of his humble home, and seeing, as he supposed, the stars of heaven falling like snow flakes, he thought the end had come, and quickly roused his wife and children, saying: De day ob de Lawd am at han! Hurrying them into the streets, where the scene was indescribable, the old man turned to his companion and said, Ol oman, de Lawd am a cornin; and jis you take de chil-un along up to de public squar and stop dar till I come. Ise gwine down in de guardin an see old Massa git up, and jist as soon as he do, him and me ill come along up to de squar and well all go up to meet de Lawd togedah! That man, incapable of reading the Word for himself, had not listened to the reading and explanation of the Scriptures in vain. He knew that the Saviours re-appearance would be the signal for the resurrection of every sleeping saint.

It Will Be Accomplished by the Saviours Voice.

The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. It is doubtful if there be a great event of the future that has not already been enacted upon a small scalean adumbration of that which is to come; it is equally to be questioned if there be a great truth that has not found its symbols in some circumstance of the past. The resurrection is no exception! The resuscitations of the New Testament recorded to the credit of Christare the shadows of the resurrection. They were accomplished, everyone, by the Saviours voice. To the widows son He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak (Luk 7:14-15). To Jairus daughter, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose, and walked (Mar 5:41-42), while to Lazarus, who had lain four days in the grave, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth (Joh 11:43-44) It is said that Calhoun was unwilling to die until they should bear him again to the Senate chamber that he might listen to Clays voice once morethe voice he regarded as the most eloquent known to the tongue of man. But the voice of Christ will be so much more eloquent that by it the dying shall be revived and the dead quickened into life again. The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.

The Resurrection Will Concern Only the Sleeping Saints. The dead in Christ are all that are mentioned as having any part in this resurrection (1Th 4:16). The explanation is at hand. The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the First Resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the First Resurrection (Rev 20:5-6). It will require a more ingenious man than has yet employed tongue or driven pen to disprove the two resurrections of Scripture. The number of instances in which the first and second resurrections are spoken of, the easy explanation of such passages as Dan 12:2 and Joh 5:28, together with the meaningful phrase the resurrection from the dead, as employed in Luk 20:35; Php 3:11; Act 4:2making the first resurrection clearly electiveform the chain of argument which such men as Baines, Blackstone, Gordon, Brooks, West and others too numerous to mention have forged on the anvil of the Word. The translation of Dan 12:2 by Tregelles, And many from among the sleepers of the dust of the earth shall awake. These (that awake) shall be unto everlasting life. But those (the rest of the sleepers who awake later) shall be unto shame and everlasting contempt, instead of being a theory created by a pre-millenarian to carry his point, and absolutely unknown to commentators, as one writer at least contends, is approved by such eminent rabbis as Saadia Haggion and Eben Ezra and employed by some of the best commentators, while the refusal to let the word hour, in Joh 5:28-29, refer to at least as long a period as has already been covered by its use in Joh 4:23 and Joh 5:25, reveals an indisposition to be convinced. However, the utter absurdity of straining, or spiritualizing! Scripture is only reached when one opponent of two resurrections comes to treat Rev 20:4-6, and contends that the first resurrection, there spoken of, is not that of persons at all but of principles, an interpretation which, as one has already suggested would present the spectacles of principles being beheaded for the witness of Jesus, principles refusing to worship the beast, principles with foreheads and hands on which they decline to receive a mark, and principles over such the second death hath no power, but which shall be priests of God and of Christ. Following this to its logical conclusion, the rest of the dead must also be principles, so that we could have no resurrection of persons at all.

It is no argument against two resurrections to remind us that for centuries reverent students of the Bible knew nothing of it, any more than it is against the Great Commission, which, for the same length of time, was overlooked, neglected, and, when brought to light, ardently disputed. But to accept this Biblical doctrine is to receive an inspiration to holy living such as that which characterized Paul, who cutting loose from all things that bound him to the world, affirmed his willingness to count them all but loss, if by any means (he) might attain unto the RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

THE SUPREME RAPTURE

Returning to our preliminary sketch again we find the Apostle describing it in these words: The dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Three features of the Rapture are here clearly suggested. It will be signalized by the re-wedding of body and spirit; it will be characterized by the change of the mortal and the corruptible, and it will consummate the communion of the saints and the Saviour.

It Will Be Signalized by the Re-Wedding of the Body and Spirit. The clear significance of the phrase even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him, is to the effect that the spirits of just men made perfect are now with God. But their bodies lie buried in sea and on land. Our coming Christ will bring the spirits down with Him, and at the sound of His voice the graves shall give up their dead. And when the body and the spirit, divorced by the last enemy, meet in the presence of our Master, He by His Word will so wed them together that neither man nor devil will ever again divide them asunder. If one could conceive the glory that shall clothe these bodies of ours, when redeemed from humiliation, they are conformed to the likeness of our Lord, and the splendor that shall mark our spiritsmade perfecthe would somewhat realize the meaning of the eternal marriage of the two.

This is the hour, and the event, of which the Apostle wrote to the RomansThe earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. * * For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. It is little wonder, therefore, that an Old Testament Prophet, who was speaking to quicken Israeldead in trespasses and sinsshould have expressed the very thought that will characterize that glad hour when the voice of the Son shall proclaim the approaching Rapture; and men shall know the more remote and more blessed meaning of Isaiahs words, Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead (Isa 26:19), We have read Ingrahams Prince of the House of David, and have tried to imagine the joy of that marriage occasion when Lazarus, whose recent decease had thrown every participant into pitiful sorrow, now resuscitated, lent by his living presence, such surpassing happiness as no wedding party had ever before experienced; but we confess frankly that the joy of the hour when all perfected spirits and all glorified bodies shall be joined by the word of the Lord Jesus cannot be compassed by the imagination! Rapture is the word.

It Will Be Characterized by the Change of the Mortal and the Corruptible. The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. What an hour? At that moment those that have come out of their graves, in the full realization of their eternal conquest, will almost tauntingly ask of their defeated foe, O death, where is thy sting? while those that have not slept, but, by the Coming of Christ the Master, have put on their immortality, will voice their conscious triumph in the speech, O grave, where is thy victory? and sing their joy in the sentence, Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Dr. Gordons comparisonthe charcoal and the diamond are the same substance, only that one is carbon in its humiliation and the other carbon in its glory. So is this tabernacle in which we now dwell, in comparison with our house which is from Heavenis not only full of beauty, but Biblically justified. When, however, one comes to speak of the saints perfected in spirit, soul and body, there are no objects of earth with which to liken them. Jesus said, They are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection (Luk 20:36).

It will Consummate the Communion of the Saints and the Saviour. The phrase shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord involves a twofold communionthe communion of one with another, and of all with their Lord. The closeness of that communion, and the sweetness of that fellowship finds no expression sufficient, short of the marriage relation. They that were ready went in with him to the marriage (Mat 25:10). It is little wonder that on the consummation of this event there should be heard the voice of a great multitude as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunder, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His Wife hath made herself ready (Rev 19:6-7), We confess frankly that when all of this imagery of prophetic promise passes before ones mind, he begins to understand the spirit and speech of Samuel Rutherford, who, while he languished in prison at Aberdeen, divided his time between singing Gods praises on the one side, and pleading for the re-appearance of His Son on the other, and we marvel not at his speech: O fairest among the sons of men; why stayest Thou so long away? Oh, heavens move fast! Oh, time, run, run, and hasten the marriage day, for love is tormented with delays!

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

HEAVEN AND OUR CELESTIAL FLIGHT

1Th 4:13-17

CERTAIN ministers disparage any preaching about Heaven! In the search for popularity, some have discovered that the thing to say is that they are not trying to fit men for Heaven but for earth; and since the first man is of the earth, earthy, he likes that statement of religion. Sometime ago one writing from London, and paying compliments as undeserved as extravagant to a Modernist minister, said, According to him this New Theology is the Gospel of the humanity of God and of the divinity of man, and he is fond of the phrase, I am trying to fit men for earth, rather than for Heaven.

It is doubtful if the ministry has any such vocation. Men have never been deficient in their interest in earthly things, nor particularly unfitted to follow its possibilities, find the solution of its problems, avail themselves of its commercial rewards.

We need a John Bunyan to come back and criticise us for the muck-rake business, and if possible, persuade us to take our eyes off the earth occasionally, and take a look at Heaven. It is related that King Henry II. once asked the Duke of Alva if he had observed a certain eclipse that had occurred that year. No, replied the Duke, I have found so much business to attend to upon the earth, that I have found no time even to look up to Heaven. That very expression is significant as applied to the century to which we belong. It voices the conduct of a great multitude, and it opposes the teaching of Gods Word. Other worldliness is the need of the hour, and upper worldliness the very heart of the Gospel of the Son of God. Why am I not justified in inviting your attention to this theme, Heaven and our Celestial Flight? The text not only teaches this doctrine, but lays the foundations of its belief, by telling us of the resurrection body; by hinting what are to be our supernatural abilities, and by describing our celestial flight.

THE RESURRECTION BODY

Permit three remarks about it.

It will not depend upon the heart-beat. There is a natural bodyit lives by the heart-beat. Out of the heart are the issues of life. The life of the flesh is in the blood. The body in which Jesus dwelt before His crucifixion was a natural body. Its life depended as much upon the heart-beat as does that of yours and mine. That was not at all true of His resurrection body; in it the heart was still speared and open. To Thomas, He said, Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing. No less an authority than Dr. Howard Kelley, the great Baltimore scientist and surgeon, said there was not a drop of blood left in the veins of Jesus body. The New Testament record makes it clear that His heart broke and emptied its contents into the pericardium, and that, in turn, poured it upon the ground, following the withdrawal of the sword point. So when risen it was no longer a natural body, dependent upon the action of a natural origin, the heart; but it was a body animated by the Spirit, and He has a spiritual body, and our resurrection bodies shall be like it, for when we shall see Him we shall be like Him.

Our resurrection, bodies will not be subject to sickness and death. Speaking of their state in the Millennial period, John, in the Revelation, says, God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed, away (Rev 21:3-4).

That is the description upon which Horace Stanton bases his remark of the resurrection body, It is immortal. It cannot be pierced, nor injured by accident or enemy. And is not Stanton confirmed in this statement by the words of the Apostle Paul, Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, than shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory (1Co 15:51-54).

Some years ago, when suffering with rheumatism, every joint racked with pain, Mrs. Riley hung on the door near the head of my bed, and where I could behold it constantly, Dr. A. B. Simpsons chart of the Four-Fold Gospel, and some of the passages taken from Gods Word and printed in great red letters gave promise of the time when pain should be no more. It was instructive and comforting. In the day of health we did not prize it, but, in the day of sickness and suffering, we gave it some proper esteem, also the provision of Gods grace that proposes eventually to put this away and make Christ Conqueror against the last enemy, and we shall be able to say of that supernal hour, what Frederick W. Faber said when he wrote:

Hark! hark, my soul! angelic songs are swellingOer earths green fields and oceans wave-beat shore;How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling Of that new life when sin shall be no more.

Onward we go; for still we hear them singing,Come, weary souls, for Jesus bids you come!And through the dark its echoes sweetly ringing,The music of the Gospel leads us Home.

Angels, sing on! Your faithful watches keeping;Sing us sweet fragments of the songs above,Till mornings joy shall end the night of weeping;And lifes long shadows break in cloudless love.

It will not know limitations and deficiencies. Paul, in his great fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, makes that fact clear. Every limitation and every defect is to be left in the grave. The body that was sown in corruption is to be raised in incorruption; the one that is sown in weakness is to be raised in strength; the one that is sown in dishonor is to be raised in glory; the one that is sown a natural body is to be raised a spiritual body. The great Dr. Guthrie, speaking of Heaven, described it after this manner, A city, never built with hands, nor hoary with the years of time; a city whose inhabitants no census has numbered; a city through whose streets rush no tides of business, nor nodding hearse creeps slowly with its burden to the tomb; a city without griefs or graves, without sins or sorrows, without births or burials, without marriages or mournings; a city which glories in having Jesus for its King, angels for its guards saints for its citizens; whose walls are salvation, and whose gates are praise.

There are some things about us that ought to make a man reflect upon the beauty of all this, and rejoice in the assurance of its coming. I looked at the old blind man grinding the organ on the street, and his blind wife, holding the cup and appealing to passers-by for help, and hoped that they were Christians and would one day walk the earth for a thousand years with vision perfect. I looked at the man, both of whose legs were cut off and great leather pads were used to protect them while he dragged a stump of a body about the world, to hope that one day, in a resurrection body, he would walk the ways of the millennial world, and finally the streets of the Celestial City in a perfect body, his feet pressing the paths of the one, and the golden pavements of the other. I looked the other morning at the poor soul dragging himself down the sidewalk, his limbs, there, but useless from the knees; but the bend of the knees themselves had been made the feet on which to do his painful dragging. But if he is a man of God, there is coming a day when that defect will be corrected and the limitations that hamper will be known no more. These vile bodies shall be changed into frames like unto Christs glorious body, perfected in every part.

Now the Word of God, regarding these resurrection bodies, involves a second remark:

THEIR SUPERNATURAL ABILITIES

These are to be expected in spiritual bodies, and the Word of God makes clear the answer to that expectation. Christs resurrection body had transcendent endowments, with abilities never possessed by animals or men, but perhaps always known to angels. We are told that the men of the resurrection shall be equal unto angels (Luk 20:36). Dr. F. B. Meyer, in one of his addresses delivered while traveling in the States, said, I visited Canterbury Cathedral. After I had wandered through the vast edifice, the verger asked me whether I would not like to see the crypt, and I readily assented. But I soon regretted that I had done so; for, as he opened the doorway that led to the dark recesses of the vaults, there met me a cold, chill atmosphere, heavily laden with the moldy smell of corruption and death. I was ashamed to show any reluctance, after having asked to see the burial place of the nations great men, and proceeded to descend a winding staircase. The darkness was so dense that I could not see a foot in front of me, but the verger called to me that I would find an iron railing at hand, and by following that I would be guided safely to the crypt. I descended then, into the darkness of the tombs. On reaching the bottom, I was surrounded on all sides by black vaults, but in the distance I could discern a light, on approaching which, I found that the crypt really opened upon the cloister gardens of the old cathedral. There the glorious Spring sunshines was bringing flowers into bloom, and in the midst of the garden there was a beautiful fountain playing, and I then realized how through darkness I had come to the bright glory of the Spring sunshine. He then applies it to the resurrection, likening our passing into the gloomy darkness of death, and our coming forth into the brightness of the Divine presence to take our place at the right hand of the everlasting Father, where there are praises forever more. But the illustration fails signally at one point as a fit illustration, namely, when Myers went down, he had the same body that he brought up from the crypt. He was unchanged in person and powers and passing out of the darkness into the light wrought no change. But it will not be so with us. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.

Charles H. Gabriel was thinking of more than regeneration; he must have had the thought of the resurrection before him when he wrote his hymn, Oh, What a Change, for it reads,

Oh, what a change! From the darkness of night,Into the noontide of Gods shining light,Out of my weakness to strength in His might,Oh, what a change! Oh, what a change!

Oh, what a change! From my hunger for bread,Into the place where His children are fed,Into the blessing of life from the dead,Oh, what a change! Oh, what a change!

Two or three respects in which this will be both marvelous and supernatural:

We will be indifferent to heat and cold alike. These changes in the seasons which seem to be essential to the life and vigor of the physical world are the basis of no little suffering in the world of man. Who can read the story of the mounted police of Canada, perishing in the cold of sixty degrees in the upper Northwestern Province, without a hurting of the heart? And who can think on the pitiless nights of mid-winter and the ten million little children scantily covered, with no fire on the hearth or coal in the stove, shivering the long night through, hoping for break of day when, by sheer physical action, they might start the blood to warmth; or who can think of those tropical regions where men swelter even at midwinter, without coming into some keen; appreciation of what it: will mean to the resurrection body, suffering neither heat nor cold?

Someone says, But does the Bible teach this? Yes, it does! The interplanetary space knows a cold of which we dream not. Think of 270 below zero, if your imagination can be stretched so far, and that is what the scientists say can be found in this great untraversed territory. Untraversed, did I say? Not so. Natural bodies do not live there, and could not; but spiritual bodies will pass through it without the least difficulty. Those ministering spirits, who are sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation, constantly so do. The angels who come from the far away Heaven to the earth wear no livid countenances. When Jesus ascended, He knew the places through which He was to pass, for He Himself had taught that His Fathers House was far away. He had no fear of this unthinkable cold. Down through it came Moses and Elijah, but no chill oppressed them when suddenly they stood on the Mount of Transfiguration, face to face with Jesus and in full view of Peter and the other two Apostles.

Nor can heat hurt! The Book of Daniel tells us that the fiery furnace was heated seven times hotter than its wont. So intense was the temperature that the men who took hold of the three Hebrew Children to fling them into the furnace, perished without the touch of the flames, the very heat itself leaping out to strike them dead; and yet the Hebrew Children, attended by the Son of God, walked in that flame unharmed. It was hot enough to burn away the bands with which they had been bound when cast into the midst of it; but their bodies had no hurt (Dan 3:25),

Again, you will remember that in Jdg 13:20 the angel of the Lord appeared unto Manoahs wife, to announce the coming of her child, and for him Manoah took a kid and offered it with meat offering upon the altar, and we are told, It came to pass, when the flame went up toward Heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. It was hot enough to consume the sacrifice, but it had no effect upon the angel. The chariot that bare Elijah to Heaven was a chariot of fire. John, in the nineteenth of the Revelation, the seventeenth verse, speaks of an angel standing in the sun, that molten center of our part of the universe. Marvelous bodies we will have, and since pain, sickness and death are impossible to them, they must of necessity be immune from both heat and cold.

They will be free from the law of gravitation. The risen body of Jesus could ascend into Heaven, as well as return to earth, without the slightest danger of a crushing fall, as did the body of every angel that ever came from Heaven on an errand of mercy, or to bring a Divine message, and as did the bodies of Moses and Elijah, and all them that rose at the time when Jesus came out of the grave. That is the meaning of our text, We which are alive and remain unto the Coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

This present body is held down by the laws of gravitation, which men tell us are fixed and inexorable. Our future bodies will know no such clog. I wonder if it could be that this is a symbol of the great spiritual fact that, in proportion as men are Christlike, the world does not attract them. Seven times, Horace Stanton says, Jesus has traversed the space between earth and Heaven. He came down previous to His birth. At His crucifixion He went up to Heaven, because He said to the thief at His right hand, To day shalt thou be with Me in paradise. Then His spirit returned to earth to inhabit the resurrection body again; then in the resurrection body He ascended from the Mount of Olives, and, as He swept through the azure, they watched Him ascend (Luk 24:51) even to the right hand of God. But He came back to visit and win Saul of Tarsus to Himself, and comes near enough to that mighty Jew to say, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? and make Himself heard. Not only so, but to be seen also, for Paul says, Last of all He was seen of me (1Co 15:8). Then He re-ascended to Heaven again. One other night He came back to visit Paul, saying to His Apostle, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome, then to re-ascend into Heaven. Twice, says Stanton, His human spirit made the journey without the body, and five times in the resurrection body He crossed that interstellar space. He had no wings; He moved through it at will. Hence, I reason,

Our course will be directed by our wills, not by wings. The angels painted on canvass and carved out of stone all have wings. Not many of the angels in the Bible are so described. The cherubim had wings, and they are supposed to be types of creatures who are interested with Christ in Heaven, and who, in a way, control with Him the entire Heavenly host. But the seraphim even, who flew so swiftly, is not described as having wings; and the angels who came to earth did not have wings, else they could not so easily have been mistaken for men, and Jesus in His resurrection body had no wings, and we will have no wings, for we are to be like Him. The Psalmist says, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest. But the will in the resurrection body will direct instead of wings.

One of my favorite dreams is that of flying. I say favorite; I mean most accustomed. Thousands of miles have I traveled through space simply willing it, always waking with surprise that it is not so. Dr. George C. Lorimer says, There are far North men who hold to an old opinion which has become a veritable belief with them, that if one take the raw hide of an otter and bind it about his feet, lift it to his knees, and bind them together, three times round his waist, passing it over the heart and twice about the neck, twice over the eyes, then tie a knot at the base of the brain, when the darkness falls, he can rise and go whither he will. It is a superstition, yet it may be a suggestion of the time when the men who are boundslaves of Jesus Christ, shall find that the very bands that held them have taken on transporting power and they cannot only pass from earth to Heaven, but from continent to continent, exploring in the eternity ahead, every sun and star and world of Gods great Universe, at will.

This is not only the plain hint of Scripture; it is equally the plain suggestion of science. The mind even now, with all of its physical limitations, has the ability to flit from continent to continent, fixing its thought where it pleases. I am now in Minneapolis, in a second in New York, a second more in London, a second more in Constantinople, a second more in Pekin, in Sendai, and San Franciscoaround the world. And, after all, the mind is a far more important part of a man than is his physical body. If the greater is subject to the will, the lesser can surely so become, and who can tell what journeys the future will know for the children of God? John Ruskin, the man known as a master of art, and yet whose mastery had more to do with an art of thought and language than with the art of canvass and marble, in his Stones of Venice, gives this beautiful description of the migratory storks and swallows coming from the North African coast, across the Mediterranean to the shores of Europe, and portrays what lies before them as they lean upon the Sirocco wind. Horace Stanton says, The language with which he pictures their steady course, and the panorama developing before them might with equal propriety be used to depict the experiences of these celestial intelligences of which we have been speaking. Let us for a moment try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun; here and there an angry spot of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light; Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange and plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards the North, until we see the Orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands; and then, farther North still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the North wind bites their beaks into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight.

A few words on

OUR CELESTIAL FLIGHT

and I shall finish.

The first journey will be into the heavens. The dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. It is perhaps the first Heaven, not the third. It is the Heaven of the temporary residence, not our Eternal Home. It is the Heaven where we shall celebrate with Jesus the nuptial ceremony; not the Celestial City in which we shall abide with Him forever. For you will remember that that Heavenly City into which Christ ascended is spoken of as being up far above all heavens (Eph 4:10). From it He will descend into the first Heaven and call us forth to meet Him there. It is the trysting place of the Divine Lover and His betrothed. Henry Alford must have been thinking of it when he wrote:

Ten thousand times ten thousand,In sparkling raiment bright,The armies of the ransomed saints Throng up the steeps of light;Tis finished, all is finished,Their fight with death and sin;Fling open wide the golden gates,And let the victors in.

What rush of hallelujahs Fills all the earth and sky!What ringing of a thousand harps Bespeaks the triumph nigh!O day, for which creation And all its tribes were made!O joy, for all its former woes A thousand-fold repaid!

O then, what raptured greetings On Canaans happy shore!What knitting severed friendships up,Where partings are no more!Then eyes with joy shall sparkle,That brimmed with tears of late,Orphans no longer fatherless,Nor widows desolate.

Our second journey will be back to the earth.

Christ is coming down from this celebration to occupy His throne in Jerusalem and rule from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth. And His saints are to reign with Him. A thousand years we shall spend upon the earth but not for one moment shall we be bound to it. In that day they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Or, as the great A. J. Gordon said, Celestial flight and terrestial travel shall be known at pleasure, and we shall weary in neither.

I am glad there is to be a thousand years upon the earth before we go Home to Heaven to abide for evermore. When one of the greatest souls England ever knew was approaching death, someone asked him if he were ready to go. He answered, Yes, so far as having made my peace with God is concerned; but I cannot bear to go from the world and leave so much sin in it. What a benediction to think that we shall be permitted to linger about it until sin shall be no more, until every scar on its beautiful face shall have been moved and every desert shall have been made to blossom as the rose. If a man takes pleasure in tearing out the deficient parts of his old home and putting in new, until it stands in completion, what joy Gods men and women ought to have in seeing a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, the physical beauty of which shall comport with its moral character; and such is not only the prospect but the sure prophecy of Gods Word; for did not Isaiah, the Evangel of long ago, tell us that we shall Go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off (Isa 55:12-13). Oh glorious Millennium when the meek shall inherit the earth!

There is a Land mine eye hath seenIn visions of enraptured thought,So bright, that all that spreads betweenIs with its radiant glory fraught.

A Land upon whose blissful shoreThere rests no shadow, falls no stain;There those who meet shall part no more,And those long parted meet again

Yet all of this is only a foretaste of that Heaven which shall be our eventual residence when Christ shall have turned over the key to God the Father, and God Himself, who is Love, shall become all in all.

Then the universe will be our inheritance, and the will of God our blessed work and unbroken joy, our eternal portion. Someone has said that sailors feel the influence of the fresh waters of the Amazon long before they enter that noble river, and we are told that when the nations, the Huns and Goths, had once tasted the delicious wines of Italy they could not rest satisfied till they were in that sunny land. Before Israel crossed the Jordan they had grapes of Eschol and the testimony of those who had viewed the land. Lo, too, the believer has a foretaste of Heaven and his soul is fired with a resolve to go up and possess the land in the strength of his God.

How are you living, man? Lift your eyes from the earth; cease from the muck-rake business; begin here to search and do the will of God, that you may go there to enjoy Him for ever!

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

1Th. 4:13. Them which are asleep.The R.V. reading changes the perfect participle (them who have fallen asleep and continue to sleep) unto the present, them that fall asleep, as they drop off one after another. See on the expression our Lords beautiful words, Luk. 8:52; Joh. 11:11 f.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.1Th. 4:13-14

Sorrow for the Dead.

The Thessalonians who cherished a vivid expectation of the near approach of the second advent of Christ appear to have fallen into a misconception as to the relation of their deceased friends to that glorious event. While believing that the pious dead would ultimately be raised again, they feared they would not be permitted to share in the joy of welcoming Him back to His inheritance of the redeemed earth and in the triumphant inauguration of His reign. It was just as if, on the very eve of the day of the expected return of some long absent father, a cruel fate should single out one fond expectant child, and hurry him to a far distant and inhospitable shore. But all their fears and perplexities were dissipated by the sublime disclosures contained in this epistle.
I. That sorrow is a merciful relief to a soul bereaved.Sorrow is nowhere forbidden. It may be an infirmity, but it is at the same time a solace. The soul oppressed and stricken by the weight of a great calamity finds relief in tears.

O ye tears! O ye tears! till I felt you on my cheek,
I was selfish in my sorrow, I was stubborn, I was weak;
Ye have given me strength to conquer, and I stand erect and free,
And know that I am human, by the light of sympathy.

The religion of the Bible does not destroy human passions. We do not part with our nature when we receive the grace of God. The mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good. A griefless nature can never be a joyous one.

II. That sorrow for the dead is aggravated by ignorance of their future destiny.I would not have you to be ignorant concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope (1Th. 4:13). The radius of hope is contracted or expanded in proportion to the character and extent of intelligence possessed. Ignorant sorrow is a kind of rust to the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion. The heathen, who have no satisfactory knowledge of the future life, give way to an excessive and hopeless grief. Du Chaillu describes a scene of wailing for the dead among the Africans. The mother of poor Tonda, he writes, led me to the house where the body was laid. The narrow space of the room was crowded; about two hundred women were sitting and standing around, singing mourning songs to doleful and monotonous airs. As I stood looking, filled with solemn thoughts, the mother of Tonda approached. She threw herself at the foot of her dead son, and begged him to speak to her once more. And then when the corpse did not answer she uttered a shriek, so long, so piercing, such a wail of love and grief that tears came into my eyes. Poor African mother! She was literally as one sorrowing without hope, for these people count on nothing beyond the present life. It was the dictum of an old Greek poeta man once dead there is no revival; and those words indicated the dismal condition of unenlightened nature in all lands and in all ages. What an urgent argument is here for increased missionary efforts among the heathen!

III. That sorrow for the dead in Christ is soothed and moderated by the revelation of certain great truths concerning their present and future blessedness.

1. That death is a sleep. Them also which sleep in Jesus (1Th. 4:14). The only part of man to which the figure of the text applies is the body. As to the soul, the day of death is the day of our birth into a progressive and eternal life. It is called a departure, a being with Christabsent from the body, present with the Lord. Sleep is expressive of rest. When the toil of lifes long day is ended, the great and good Father draws the dark curtain of night and hushes His weary children to rest They enter into rest. Sleep is expressive of refreshment. The body is laid in the grave, feeble, emaciated, worn out. Then a wonderful process goes on, perceptible only to the eye of God, by which the body acquires new strength and beauty, and becomes a fit instrument and suitable residence for the glorified soul. Sleep implies the expectation of awaking. We commit the bodies of the departed to the earth in sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection. They wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.

2. That the dead in Christ will be roused from their holy slumber and share in the glory of His second advent.Will God bring with Him (1Th. 4:14). The resurrection of the dead is a divine work. I will redeem them from the power of the grave. Christ will own His people in their persons, their services, and their sufferings. They shall receive His entire approval, be welcomed by Him into His everlasting kingdom, and crowned by Him with glory and the affluence of incorruptible bliss.

3. That the resurrection of Christ from the dead is a pledge of the restoration and future blessedness of all who sleep in Him.For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him (1Th. 4:14). Christ Himself is the resurrection, not only as revealed in His word and exemplified in His own person, but as specially appointed by the Father to effect it by His own power (Joh. 5:25; Joh. 6:39). The word of God sheds a light across the darkness of the grave, and opens a vista radiant with hope and immortal happiness. Let me penetrate into Thy heart, O God, said an afflicted saint, and read the love that is there. Let me penetrate into Thy mind, and read the wisdom that is there; then shall I be satisfiedthe storm shall be turned into calm. A vital knowledge of Christ silences every murmur and prepares for every emergency.

Lessons.

1. An ignorant sorrow is a hopeless one.

2. To rise with Jesus we must live and die to Him.

3. Divine revelations regarding the future life greatly moderate the grief of the present.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

1Th. 4:13-14. The Sleep of the Faithful Departed.

I. The dead are said to be asleep because we know they shall wake up again.

II. Because they whom men call dead do really live unto God.

III. Because they are taking their rest.

IV. Death is changed to sleep, so that it becomes a pledge of rest and a prophecy of the resurrection.

Lessons.

1. We ought to mourn rather for the living than for the dead.

2. In very truth it is life rather than death that we ought to fear.H. E. Manning.

1Th. 4:14. The Resurrection of the Body.

I. The heart seeks it.

II. The Bible declares it.

III. The redemption of Christ secures it.A. F. Forrest.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Text (1Th. 4:13)

13 But we would not have you ignorant, brethren concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, who have no hope.

Translation and Paraphrase

13.

But we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those (of our Christian brethren) who are sleeping (in death), so that you may not be burdened with sorrow as indeed the rest (of mankind) who have no hope (so often are).

Notes (1Th. 4:13)

1.

A Christian missionary to American Indians wrote in Dec. 1962: Tonight there is heard the sorrowing of our poor Indian people as they chant their sacred funeral songs, beat the seven sacred tom-toms, mingled with the weeping and wailing of those who have no hope. Oh, how the FEAR of DEATH seems to GRIP those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. (John Runyan, McKinley Indian Mission)

2.

The sorrow of the brethren at the time of death is aggravated by their ignorance of the future destiny. Upon the walls of the catacombs beneath Rome are found epitaphs for the dead who were buried there long ago. Some of the pagan epitaphs say things like these:

Live for the present hour, since we are sure of nothing else.
I lift my hands against the gods who took me away at the age of twenty though I had done no harm.
Traveller, curse me not as you pass, for I am in darkness and cannot answer.

But on the tombs of the early Christians in the catacombs are found epitaphs that sing with the bright cheer of immortality:

Here lies Marcia, put to rest in a dream of peace.
Lawrence, to his sweetest son, borne away of angels. (From Foxs Book of Martyrs)

3.

This verse (1Th. 4:13) opens a new section, having the topic The Dead in Christ, and the Lords Coming. The section covers 1Th. 4:13-18. Paul opens this section by saying, We would not have you to be ignorant, Paul used similar expressions in numerous places in his writings to introduce new topics. See Rom. 1:13; Rom. 11:25; 1Co. 10:1; 1Co. 11:3; 1Co. 12:1; 2Co. 1:8; Php. 1:12; Col. 2:1.

Christians have no excuse for being ignorant about their faith, and there certainly is no honor in being ignorant.

4.

Sleep is a common metaphor for death in the Scriptures, being used fifteen times in the N.T. See 1Co. 15:6; 1Co. 15:20. Sleep implies the possibility of an awakening. The grave become the couch in which the body rests until the awakening at the resurrection.

But those who say that the spirits of the dead also sleep, greatly pervert the meaning of sleeping in death. For the Scriptural descriptions of souls after death, see Rev. 6:9-11 and Luk. 16:22-24. See also Special Study VI page 253, Questions About Spirit and Soul.

5.

Does this verse teach that it is wrong to weep at the death of our loved ones? Of course not. Jesus himself wept at the tomb of Lazarus, Joh. 11:35, Devout men carried Stephen to his burial weeping. Act. 8:2. See also Act. 9:39.

The thing which we are not to do is to weep as those who have no hope weep, They often wail and carry on in uncontrollable sorrow. We who have a hope of reunion at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ should not weep as if death ended everything eternally.

6.

Aeschylus, the Greek tragic dramatist (525456 B.C.), said, Once dead, there is no resurrection more. The apostle Paul said, The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. The pagans had no hope in death. Eph. 2:12. Christians have great hope in death.

7.

This paragraph about sorrowing over the Christians who had died, indicates that the Thessalonians had a misunderstanding about the subject. What we know about the difficulty is only what we can infer from this paragraph (1Th. 4:13-18). But it appears that the Thessalonians, expecting a speedy return of the Lord, feared that in some way the Christians who had died would not share the glories and benefits of the Lords return.

8.

It has been well suggested that Christians should mourn for those who are living in sin, and not for the dead who are in the Lord.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(13) But.We pass to the third clearly marked point: the share of the Christian dead in the Coming of Christ. Possibly an association of ideas may have caused St. Paul to join these two subjects, of quietude and the Advent, so closely (see Note on 1Th. 4:11). You need have no distress about your dead: when Christ comes, they will be there too; they will come with Him, and we shall be caught up to meet them.

I would not have you to be ignorant.The right reading is we. St. Paul is still speaking in the name of his companions as well as his own. The phrase is very weighty, and marks how lamentable such a piece of ignorance would be. (See references in the margin.)

Which are asleep.The best reading is rather, which fall asleep; the grief renewed itself over each successive death-bed. The image of sleep is a mere metaphor, drawn from the outward phenomena of death, and is used as an euphemism for death; therefore no doctrine can be deduced with precision from it. It cannot be said (for instance; on the strength of such passages alone, that only the body sleeps, and not the soul; or, again, that the soul sleeps while the body remains in the grave. That the soul, or at any rate the spirit, still retains consciousness after dissolution is clear from other places; but when the metaphor of sleep is used, it is used of the whole man (e.g., Joh. 11:11, Lazarusnot Lazarus bodysleepeth), the explanation being either that stated abovei.e., that the word is simply picturesque, describing the peaceful appearance of the deador that the reference is to rest from labour (Rev. 14:13). At the same time, the metaphor suggests (otherwise it would be misleading, and St. Paul would not have used it) a continued (even if partly unconscious) existence, and the possibility of a reawakening: Again, for the same reasoni.e., because the word is metaphorical, not doctrinalit cannot be limited to the Christian dead: when the writers need to mark specially the departed Christians they annex qualifying words, as in 1Th. 4:14. Of course, on the mention of the dead, the Thessalonians will at once think of their own brethren departed, so that there is no ambiguity.

That ye sorrow not.The words express St. Pauls object in wishing them to know the truth. He wants them not to sorrow at all over the dead; sorrow is only fit for Gentiles who have no hope. He does not mean that they are not to sorrow to the same degree as those outside the Church, but that to Christians, who have a hope, and such a hope, death ought to have no sorrows. The Office of Burial in the Prayer-book is as joyous as the Eucharistic Office itself.

Others.The Greek word is the others, those who have no hope, and includes all who were not members of the Church: That ye mourn not like the rest, which have no hope. The having no hope does not mean that there is no hope for them, but that they are not cheered by hope.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

3. Exhortation to composure in regard to lately deceased brethren since they will not be overlooked at Christ’s coming, 1Th 4:13-18.

13. But This is the earliest written part of St. Paul’s apocalypse. See notes on 1 Corinthians 15. The commentator needs search for no occult connexion between this and the previous paragraph, for St. Paul here introduces an entirely new topic. It was suggested, we suppose, by information derived from Timothy, or some other comer from Thessalonica, of the state of feeling among some mourning Christians there who feared that their lately deceased Christian friends would lose their blessed share in the glorious advent of Christ.

One is tempted to ask in surprise, Could it he that the apostle preached there more than three weeks, and gave glowing descriptions of the coming of Christ, (Act 17:2-4, and notes,) and never described the resurrection? Were those Thessalonians really ignorant of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead? Olshausen vainly supposes that they understood the final resurrection of all mankind, but feared that none but living Christians would share the glorious first resurrection one thousand years earlier than the final. But, first, There is no mention ever made by St.

Paul of two bodily resurrections, or of any intervening thousand-year period, nor any indication that he ever held any such doctrine. Second, It is difficult to conceive how they could have imagined any such first resurrection without including, what is held to be its very purpose and essence, the glory of all believers therein.

But it is not so easy to fix in the mind and memory of a series of miscellaneous audiences of pagan hearers an entire new system of Christian doctrine in a brief time. Some will hear a particular doctrine explained, others not. Some will remember; others not. So that important blanks will remain. And St. Paul preached to the living; and many would forget that the dead were concerned. And it is remarkable that some of the most vivid and extended descriptions of the last day in the New Testament omit the resurrection. Such is the case in our Lord’s great discourse in Matthew 24, 25. Such in 2Th 1:7-10. The resurrection, as Auberlen remarks, was a difficult thought for the Greek mind to take in. It is possible, also, that these doubting mourners were but a small part of the Church, and many of them even new converts from heathendom who had never heard St. Paul. We can easily conceive, therefore, that there should be those who feared that a scene like 2Th 1:7-10, might concern the living only, and not the dead.

Have ignorant Paul’s habitual formula in negative or positive shape of starting a new topic. “I would that ye knew.” Col 2:1. “I would not that ye should be ignorant.” 1Co 10:1. So 1Co 11:3, and Php 1:12.

Are asleep More literally, “have fallen asleep,” as if alluding to the lately deceased. The idea of sleep is vividly impressed upon the imaginations of all persons who gaze upon the face and form of one lying in the stillness of death. This impression, however pertains properly only to the body, and the word in Scripture, authorizes no belief of “the sleep of the soul.” In fact, even in our natural sleep, the soul may be in one sense unsleeping. While the body is lying in perfect stillness, the mind may be roaming the world in dreams. And that striking fact has served to keep alive among barbarous tribes the belief in the separateness and immortality of spirit.

Sorrow not as He does not forbid sorrow, but would prevent that sorrow of despair rising from no hope of immortality.

No hope In the most primitive ages the Egyptians retained, probably from original tradition, a vivid belief in a resurrection of the body. It was this belief that largely inspired the practice of embalming the body, as if thereby the resurrection would be facilitated. The mission of Moses seemed to be to draw out the doctrine of God and reconciliation with him by atonement for sin, and even the doctrine of immortality was left in the background. The earlier classic ages believed in Elysium and Tartarus. But as speculation grew powerful, tradition grew dim, and faith declined and left no hope. See notes, 1 Corinthians 15. Nothing in all poetry is more pathetic than the lines of the Greek Moschus, ending with “we shall sleep the long, limitless, unawakable slumber.” Theocritus says, “There are hopes in the living, but hopeless are the dead.” AEschylus, “Of the once dead there is no resurrection.” And the pagan epitaphs are often sentences of everlasting extinction. Says Mr. Withrow in his work on the Catacombs:

“Domus aeterna, an eternal home, and Somno aeternali, in eternal sleep, are written on their tombs, frequently accompanied by an inverted torch, the emblem of despair.” So also “Infanti dulcissimo quem Dii irati aeterno somno dederunt To a very sweet child, whom the angry gods gave to eternal sleep.” And so, with a sad gayety, “While I lived, I lived well. My play is now ended, soon yours will be. Farewell and applaud me.” Catacombs, pp. 435, 438.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘But we would not have you ignorant, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are falling asleep, that you sorrow not, even as the rest who have no hope.’

It is clear that the Thessalonians had grasped the idea that Jesus Christ was imminently returning and were in expectation that it would be very soon. Thus when some died before that glorious event took place they were concerned lest that meant that those dying would lose out in some way. In view of the parallel they probably thought that death before Christ’s coming meant that such people had lost their hope. The majority of Gentiles saw no hope beyond the grave. They saw death as the end. The comparison with them as those who ‘have no hope’ suggests that was also how the Thessalonian Christians saw their fellow-Christians who had died.

‘Those who are falling asleep.’ The picture of death as sleep is constant in the New Testament and was here intended to stress that death was not the end, it was only a ‘sleep’. The picture comes originally from Dan 12:2 where it applied to both believers and the condemned and is directly connected with the fact of resurrection, compare also Psa 17:15 and Isa 26:19 where it is only of believers. But in each case it is connected with the resurrection. Other references to death as sleep such as Job 24:20; 1Ki 2:10 contain rather the idea of final sleep, such as was held by many Gentiles, from which, as far as they were aware, there was no waking up. We can understand why. A dead person often looks just like someone in the repose of sleep. The thought was that they had found final rest. But for the believer ‘sleep’ indicated a state from which one day they would awake.

This idea of death as sleep carries on into the New Testament. Jesus Himself described those whom He was about to bring back from the dead as ‘asleep’ (Mat 9:24; Mar 5:39; Luk 8:52; Joh 11:11-13. Matthew speaks of ‘the saints who had fallen asleep’ when describing their resurrection (Mat 27:52). Paul regularly speaks of death as sleep (1Th 5:10; 1Co 7:39; 1Co 11:30 ; 1Co 15:6; 1Co 15:18; 1Co 15:51, and only the last is directly connected with the resurrection, but with Paul we can be sure that the resurrection was always in mind, although 1Co 15:18 contains the theoretical idea that they have ‘perished’. See also Act 13:36 ; 2Pe 3:4.

Sleep is a time of restoration and a kind of awareness. It is not necessarily a time of total lack of consciousness. Thus Paul can look forward to sleep beyond death as being enjoyed in the conscious presence of Christ (Php 1:23) and Jesus could say to the dying thief, ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’ (Luk 23:43). Both Luk 16:19-31 and Rev 6:9-11, although highly pictorial and not to be taken literally, indicate the consciousness of ‘sleeping’ saints in the presence of God, and in the former case the awareness of sinners of the displeasure of God prior to the judgment.

‘That you sorrow not, even as the rest who have no hope.’ Paul sees them as sorrowing with the same sorrow as Gentiles who have no hope. Certainly the vast majority of the Gentile world saw no hope beyond death. The Platonists believed in the immortality of the soul and thus an afterlife of sorts in a disembodied state, but they were comparatively few and restricted mainly to the thinking classes. For the rest death was the end. Ancient literature and tomb inscriptions were full of the awareness of the hopelessness of death. Thus the fear of the Thessalonians appears to have been that those of them who died before the second coming died without hope. Paul answers this firstly by stressing the fact of the resurrection in order that they need not sorrow. This refers to sorrow over final death not sorrow over a temporary parting.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Coming of Christ for His Own ( 1Th 4:13-18 ).

Paul assures the Thessalonians that those who have died in Christ will not be disadvantaged as against those who will be alive at His coming, and describes what will happen when Christ comes for His own.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Rapture of the Church In 1Th 4:13-18 Paul encourages the Thessalonians by instilling a hope of seeing their loved ones again as he discusses one of the clearest passages in the Scriptures on the Rapture of the Church.

We find that Paul’s description of the rapture of the Church in 1Th 4:13-18 are strong words of comfort and hope for those who have to face the issue of death. In this passage of Scripture he refers to those saints who have already died. Paul describes them as being “asleep in the Lord.” We know that they are not actually asleep, but rather, living with the Saviour and the saints of old in Heaven. The word “asleep” simple describes what it looks like on this side of glory. This is how we see them in the natural.

Why God Raptures of the Church Why does God rapture the Church prior to the seven-year Tribulation? One reason is that He wants to deliver His people from the terrible judgment that is about to come upon the earth. Another reason is that the Church age has ended and nation of Israel is to take back the center stage in the history of mankind.

A Description of the Rapture – In her book A Divine Revelation of Heaven, Mary K. Baxter describes the rapture of the Church at Jesus’ Second Coming:

“Soon I (Jesus) will return and take back with Me to heaven the righteous dead first. Then after them, those who are alive and remain will be caught up to be with Me in the air. Following that, the Antichrist will reign upon the earth for an appointed time, and there will be tribulations such as have never been before, nor will ever be again. And then I will return with My saints, and Satan will be cast into the bottomless pit, where he will remain for a thousand years. During that thousand years, I will reign over the earth from Jerusalem. When the Millennium is past, Satan will be released for a season, and I will defeat him by the brightness of My coming. The old earth will pass away. Behold, there shall be a new earth and a New Jerusalem coming down upon it, and I will reign forever and ever.” [73]

[73] Mary K. Baxter, A Divine Revelation of Heaven (New Kensington, Pennsylvania: Whitaker House, 1998), 187.

“In another vision, I saw the coming of the Lord! I heard His call like the sound of a trumpet and the voice of an archangel (1Th 4:16). The whole earth shook, and out of the graves came the righteous dead to meet their Lord in the air. For what seemed like hours, I heard the trumpets blaring. The earth and the sea gave up their dead (Rev 20:13). The Lord Jesus Christ stood atop the clouds in vestments of fire and beheld the glorious scene. I heard the sound of trumpets again. As I watched, those who were alive and remained on the earth ascended to meet them.” [74]

[74] Mary K. Baxter, A Divine Revelation of Heaven (New Kensington, Pennsylvania: Whitaker House, 1998), 189-190.

1Th 4:13 Comments – One day in my Philosophy of Religion class in seminary, we were studying the problem of suffering and evil. We dealt with the question of why seemingly innocent people suffer. We saw a filmstrip entitled, “How Green Was My Valley” (1941). [75] It was a story about a little Welsh coal-mining village in the hills of Wales. One small coal mining family had a happy life. Through the years, one family member died, and others left for the United States to find work. The town was then torn apart by a worker’s strike. After almost all of the children had either died, or grown up and left, the father died in a mine accident, leaving the fragment of a once happy family. The film ended in gloom. After class, I asked the Lord what it is in our Christian life that makes sorrow bearable. He spoke, quickly and clearly to my heart the word, “Hope!” Christians have hope. It had been such a dry sounding, hollow or empty word without much meaning in this movie; but this one word explains the difference between how we and a lost world face death and other of life’s tragedies. We must have our hope anchored in Jesus Christ. (5 April 1983)

[75] How Green Was My Valley, director by John Ford, 1941, 20 th Century Fox.

1Th 4:14 Comments – God will bring those who are asleep in Christ with Him to Heaven, along with us who are alive at that time. It does not mean that God will bring them from heaven.

1Th 4:16 “and the dead in Christ shall rise first” – Comments – Job spoke of the resurrection.

Job 14:12-15, “So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.”

Job 19:25-27, “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.”

David prophesied of this resurrection.

Psa 17:15, “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.”

Paul taught on the resurrection:

1Co 15:42-44, “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.”

1Co 15:51-53, “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

Moses’ ascent upon Mount Sinai is a figure of the rapture, since it was preceded by the Lord’s descent and the sound of the trumpet. As the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai with the sound of the trumpet, so will Christ descend from heaven with the trump of God at the time of the Rapture.

Exo 19:19-20, “And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.”

1Th 4:16 Comments 1Th 4:16 tells us that when Jesus comes, there will be three sounds, or signals, given:

1. Jesus will shout the command

2. The archangel will speak

3. The trumpet will blow

1Th 4:17 “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds” – Comments – We often wonder where we will meet our loved ones when Jesus comes: at the pearly gate, in the city, or outside the city? The Bible here says that we will be “caught up together,” meaning that we will meet them on the ground and ascend up together.

“in the clouds” – The book of Daniel portrays the Messiah riding on a cloud (Dan 7:13). The eschatological passages of the New Testament tell us that Jesus Christ will come to earth a second time riding upon a cloud (Mat 24:30; Mat 26:64, Mar 13:26; Mar 14:62, Luk 21:27, 1Th 4:17, Rev 1:7). This cloud of heaven may be likened to a royal chariot, horse or palanquin upon which ancient kings often rode. These royal vehicles were often preceded by forerunners, men who ran before the king to announce his coming. We see such a scene when Elijah ran before Ahab’s chariot (1Ki 18:46). The Son 3:6-11 describes a wedding processional with the bride in a royal palanquin perfumed with spices (1Th 3:6; 1Th 3:9-10), accompanied by sixty valiant men armed with swords (1Th 3:7-8) approaching Jerusalem.

Dan 7:13, “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.”

Mat 24:30, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”

Mat 26:64, “Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”

Mar 13:26, “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.”

Mar 14:62, “And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”

Luk 21:27, “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”

1Th 4:17, “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Rev 1:7, “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.”

1Ki 18:46, “And the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.”

1Th 4:17 “to meet the Lord in the air” Word Study on “meet” Strong says the Greek word “meet” ( ) (G529) means, “to encounter.” According to Moulton and Milligan, this Greek word appears to carry a technical meaning for an official welcome of an arriving dignitary. [76] F. F. Bruce says that it was often used when an important person was approaching a town to pay an official visit. The leaders of the town would go out to meet him and escort him to his final destination. Bruce says that this Greek word was so distinct in its meaning that it was carried over into Latin, where it was used with the same meaning. He says Cicero used it when Julius Caesar went on diplomatic visits. Because of this was often used with its counterpart , which refers to the official visit of a king or other dignitary. [77]

[76] James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-literary Sources (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1914-1929), 53.

[77] F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1963), 68-70.

In each of the four uses of this word in the New Testament, the Greek word carries the same meaning. Note:

Mat 25:1, “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.”

Mat 25:6, “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.”

Act 28:15, “And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii forum, and The three taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage.”

1Th 4:17, “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Comments – We now know that the believers in Rome met Paul with a royal welcome in Act 28:15, although he arrived as a prisoner. We know now that this is the reason that we will meet Jesus in the air in 1Th 4:17, and not on the ground or in heaven. This is why the five virgins went out to meet the bridegroom in Mat 25:1; Mat 25:6.

It is interesting to note that I have seen this formal welcome given to important people in Uganda, East Africa on many occasions. The greater a man’s importance in this culture the larger the crowds that will welcome such dignitaries.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Sanctification of Man’s Mind: Patience of Hope in the Father’s Plan The third aspect of our sanctification will be man’s mind in which dwells our hope, which is the anchor of the soul. Paul places emphasis upon this aspect in 1Th 4:13 to 1Th 5:11. In 1Th 4:13-18 he encourages the Thessalonians by instilling a hope of seeing their loved ones again as he discusses one of the clearest passages in the Scriptures on the Rapture of the Church (1Th 4:13-18). In 1Th 5:1-11 he then teaches them that in order to be ready for the Rapture they must prepare themselves for Christ’s Second Coming (1Th 5:1-11). He explains how this event will be sudden for the world (1Th 5:1-3), but can be anticipated if they are alert by walking in the three-fold aspect of their sanctification in faith, love and hope that is emphasized in this epistle (1Th 5:4-8). God’s wrath is not designed for His children (1Th 5:9-10). Paul closes this passage in 1Th 4:13 to 1Th 5:11 by exhorting the believers to comfort one another with these words of hope (1Th 5:11).

It is important to note that Paul will refer back to this two-fold teaching of the Second Coming in his second epistle to them by saying “by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him.” (2Th 2:1)

While 1 Thessalonians places more emphasis upon the Rapture of the Church preceding the Tribulation Period, the second epistle places more on Christ’s Second Coming at the end of the Tribulation Period. But these events are placed before us in these two epistles as the goal of our sanctification.

Outline Here is a proposed outline:

1. The Rapture 1Th 4:13-18

2. The Second Coming of Christ 1Th 5:1-10

3. Closing Exhortation 1Th 5:11

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Information about the Resurrection of the Dead.

v. 13. But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

v. 14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.

v. 15. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

v. 16. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

v. 17. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

v. 18. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

It seems that the Thessalonian Christians, in their excessive eagerness concerning the second coming of the Lord, had stumbled into various misunderstandings. Their solicitude for their dead, for instance, caused them to fear that the latter would occupy a position secondary to that which they themselves, who would live till the second advent of the Lord, hoped to attain. This anxious concern incidentally tended to plunge them into a grief which came dangerously near being like that of the Gentiles. Therefore Paul combines admonition with instruction: But we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those that have fallen asleep, lest you grieve for them as do also the others that have no hope. It is true indeed that the faith of the Christians does not stifle and eradicate the natural affections. Christ Himself wept at the grave of His friend Lazarus. But even in this opening verse the apostle brings out two points that show the wide difference between the sorrow of the Christians and that of the unbelievers. In the first place, if Christians die, they fall asleep in the Lord Jesus, 1Co 11:30; 1Co 15:20. Their death is like a gentle sleep, from which there will be a glorious awakening. For that reason, in the second place, the sorrow of the Christians at the death of their loved ones is altogether unlike that of the rest, of the outsiders, of the unbelievers, whose condition is aptly described by the words: They have no hope. When their friends and relatives die, they are gone, they are taken from them definitely, never to be seen again. Such a memory of a happiness lost beyond recovery, of a parting without the hope of meeting again, produces a hopeless, a terrible state.

But the Christians are in an altogether different position: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so also those who fell asleep through Jesus will God bring with Him. That is the belief of all Christians, that Jesus truly died on the cross, but that just as truly He rose again on the third day. The believers in Christ, however, belong to Christ, they are partakers of all His work of redemption and of all the blessings which He earned through His vicarious suffering. Therefore the Christians, all those that have fallen asleep in Christ, trusting in His complete salvation, will pass through death into life. Just as surely as we believe in the crucified and resurrected Christ, just as surely as we are united with Christ in life and in death through faith, just so surely the Lord will lead us and all believers that have fallen asleep in Jesus with our Savior into the realms of eternal glory. That is the comfort of the Christians with regard to those friends and relatives whom they have laid to rest in the grave. They are at rest, they are asleep in the Lord; even in death they are the Lord’s. When Christ, therefore, who is our Life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory, and all believers with us, Col 3:4.

The apostle now adds a word of instruction regarding those that will be living on earth at the coming of the Lord: For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we, the living ones, that remain over for the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede those that fell asleep. This was a word, a saying, of the Lord which had been preserved by the disciples and is here recorded by the apostle. When the last day comes, there will still be some believers living on earth, having been left over by God unto the return of Christ. But these believers will have no advantage over those that fell asleep in the Lord, whose bodies are lying in the grave. Both they and those that fell asleep in the Lord will be made partakers of the glory of their Lord and Savior. The Thessalonian Christians were evidently worrying lest their sleeping relatives and friends would not be present to see and receive Christ, the Victor, when He returns in the clouds of heaven for the Day of Judgment. They themselves, in the fervor of their first love, were so intensely eager for His coming, were so sure of His speedy advent, that this thought filled them with great anxiety. Paul therefore showed them that their fears were groundless.

He now also explains the sequence of events on the last day: Because the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud summons, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will arise first; thereupon we, the living ones, that remain over, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we always be with the Lord. The events of the last day are here unfolded before our eyes as successive acts. The first is that the Lord Himself, the exalted Christ, will appear in the clouds of heaven, visible, as He ascended up on high. With great power and might He will come down from heaven, Act 1:11. With a loud summons, with a shout of command, as a victorious captain going forth to the destruction of His enemies, with the voice of an archangel summoning the great host of the heavenly spirits, with a trumpet of God, a majestic note that will strike terror into the hearts of His enemies and cause the hearts of the believers to beat higher with exultant joy, the great King will descend from His throne. It will be, as Luther writes, like the coming of a great and powerful king or emperor in full battle array, filling the air with the clamor of battle-cries and trumpets. The shouting of the victorious Conqueror of death and hell will reach the dead in their graves, the believers will hear the voice of their Savior, and they will come forth from their graves with glorified bodies, ready to join Him in His triumphal pageant, 1Co 15:42-44; Php_3:21 . That will be the first event of interest in this connection. But immediately afterwards the believers whom the Lord has left over till this day, who are still living in the flesh, will experience the power of Christ’s majesty in their own bodies. They will suddenly be caught up into the clouds to join the retinue of the King of kings. The mortality of their bodies will then also be left behind, this corruptible having put on incorruption, 1Co 15:52-53. In the company of their exalted Savior the believers will then appear in glory before the whole world, to be forever with the Lord, wherein the essence of eternal bliss consists, to be in His presence, to see Him face to face, world without end. With the certainty of such joy before us, the admonition of the apostle surely ought to find willing ears and ready obedience: So, then, encourage one another with these words. There is a world of consolation and comfort in this short passage, which can barely be indicated in a brief explanation.

Summary

The apostle issues a warning concerning sexual vice and covetousness, as sins of uncleanness, he urges brotherly love and industrious frugality, and gives information about the events of Resurrection Day, with a view of comforting the believers of all times.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

1Th 4:13. The Apostle had intimated, ch. 1Th 3:10 that he wanted to make them another visit at Thessalonica, in order to perfect that which was lacking in their faith. Perhaps what he says here was part of what he wanted to teach them, as not having seen it proper before to enter into these discoveries; namely, whether the last generation should die at all or no; and whether the dead saints should be raised before the living were transformed. But, having heard that they still lamented over their dead, like their heathen neighbours, and perhaps that they still hired mourners,were apt to repine at the Divine providence,to lament, and be excessively dejected; he here delivers two most important truths, to dry up their tears: 1. He briefly repeats what he had taught already, strongly asserting the resurrection of the pious dead to an eternal life of holiness and happiness, in consequence of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and according to his express and repeated promises. 2. He makes this new discovery,that the last generation of saints should not die at all, but be on a sudden changed into immortals. From which he concludes, that the Christians ought to leave off their excessive lamentations for their deceased friends, and no longer imitate their heathen neighbours, who, though they might have some obscure notions and expectations of the immortality of the soul, had no such hopes as the Christian of a resurrection from the dead, and of an eternal life of such holy and glorious enjoyments; in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the holy angels, and of all the wisest, worthiest, and best of men, who will be perfect and happy as well as they, 1Th 4:13-18.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

1Th 4:13 . ] but we wish not that ye be in ignorance . A recognised Pauline formula of transition to new and important communications; comp. Rom 1:13 ; Rom 11:25 ; 1Co 10:1 ; 1Co 12:1 ; 2Co 1:8 . In an analogous manner, Paul uses also positive turns of expression: , Col 2:1 , 1Co 11:3 , and , Phi 1:12 .

] concerning those that are asleep , that is, by means of euphemism, “concerning the dead;” comp. 1Co 11:30 ; 1Co 15:6 ; 1Co 15:18 ; 1Co 15:20 ; Joh 11:11 ; 2Pe 3:4 ; Sophocles, Electr. 509. The selection of the word is the more appropriate, as the discourse in what follows is concerning a revivification . But not the dead generally are meant, which Lipsius ( Theolog. Stud. u. Krit. 1854, p. 924), with an arbitrary appeal to 1Co 15:29 , considers possible, but the dead members of the Thessalonian Christian church. This is evident from all that follows, particularly from the confirmatory proposition in 1Th 4:14 , and from the expression , 1Th 4:16 .

After the example of Weizel ( Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 916 ff.), de Wette (though in a hesitating manner) finds in the idea indicated “of an intermediate state, i.e. of an imperfect and, as it were, a slumbering continuance of life of the departed soul;” whereas Zwingli, Calvin, Hemming, Zanchius, in express contradiction to the idea of the sleep of the soul, insist on referring this state of being asleep to the body exclusively. But neither, according to the one side, nor according to the other, are we justified in such a limitation, as only denotes those who are asleep as such, i.e. according to their whole personality.

The article in represents the question, to the solution of which the apostle now passes, as one well known to the readers, and discussed by them. The brevity and generality of the statement of the subject, combined with the solemn formula of transition , renders it not improbable that a request was directly made to Paul for explanation on the subject.

] sc. concerning those who are asleep.

] sc. . Woken (in Wolf) gives the directly opposite meaning to the words: Absit a vobis tristitia, quemadmodum etiam abest a reliquis illis, qui nempe non tristantur ob mortuos et tamen spem nullam certam habent de felicitate. Erroneously, because then , (instead of .) would require to have been written: not to mention that Paul would hardly propose unbelievers as an example to Christians.

Theodoret, Calvin, Hemming, Zanchius, Piscator, Cornelius a Lapide, Calovius, Nat. Alexander, Benson, Flatt, Pelt, Koch, Bisping, Bloomfield, Hofmann, Riggenbach find in . . . the thought that the Thessalonians should not mourn in the same degree , not so excessively as , because the apostle could not possibly forbid every mourning for the dead. Incorrectly; for then would require to have been written. is only a particle of comparison, but never a statement of gradation. The apostle forbids altogether. Naturally; for death has no more any sting for the Christian. He does not see in it annihilation, but only the transition to an eternal and blessed fellowship with the Lord. Comp. 1Co 15:54 ff.

] the others , that is, the Gentiles; comp. Eph 2:3 . It is, however, possible that Paul may also have thought on a portion of the Jews, namely, the sect of the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection.

] namely, of an eternal life of blessedness. Comp. Theocrit. Idyll. iv. 42: , . Aeschyl. Eumenid. 638: . Catull. v. 4 ff.: Soles occidere et redire possunt. | Nobis quum semel occidit brevet lux, | Nox est perpetua una dormienda. Lucret. iii. 942 f.: Nec quisquam expergitus exstat, | Frigida quem semel est vitae pausa secuta.

From this comparison with those who do not believe in a future life in general , it inevitably follows that also the Thessalonians feared for their deceased Christian friends, not merely a temporary deprivation of the eternal life of bliss to be revealed at the advent, but an entire exclusion from it. If the comparison is to have any meaning (which Hofmann with great arbitrariness denies), the blessing for whose loss the Gentiles mourn must be the same as the blessing for whose loss the Christians are not to mourn. The solution of the theme is therefore already indicated by the objective sentence, and what follows has only the purpose of further explaining this solution.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

1Th 4:13 to 1Th 5:11 . A comforting instruction concerning the advent. This is divided into three sections (1) 1Th 4:13-18 removes an objection or a doubt; (2) 1Th 5:1-3 reminds them of the sudden and unexpected entrance of the advent; and lastly, in consequence of this, 1Th 5:4-11 is an exhortation to be ready and prepared for the entrance of the advent.

(1) 1Th 4:13-18 . A removal of an objection. The painful uneasiness, which had seized on the Thessalonians concerning the fate of their deceased Christian friends, consisted not, as Zachariae, Olshausen, de Wette, Hofmann, Schriftbew . II. 2, 2d ed. p. 649 f., and in his H. Schr. N. T. ; Luthardt, die Lehre von den letzten Dingen , Leipz. 1861, p. 138 f., and others assume, in anxiety lest the deceased should only be raised at the general resurrection of the dead, and would thus forfeit the blessedness of communion with the Lord in the interval between the advent and this general resurrection (“the so-called reign of a thousand years,” Olshausen). There is no trace in our section of a distinction between a first and a second resurrection; and the idea of a long interval of time between the resurrection of believers and the resurrection of the rest of mankind (Rev 20 ) is, moreover, entirely strange to the Apostle Paul, as it is evident from 1Co 15:22 ff. correctly understood that the resurrection of unbelievers takes place in immediate connection with the resurrection of Christians. Rather it was feared that those already dead, as they would no more be found alive at the advent of Christ, would receive no share in the blessedness of the advent, [53] and accordingly would be placed in irreparable disadvantage to those who are then alive. See exposition of particulars.

[53] Calvin: Vitam aeternam ad eos solos pertinere imaginabantur, quos Christus ultimo adventu vivos adhuc in terris deprehenderet.

On 1Th 4:13-18 , see von Zezschwitz in the Zeitschr. f. Protestantismus und Kirche , new series, Erlangen 1863, p. 88 ff.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

III

1Th 4:13 to 1Th 5:11

Instruction and Exhortation in regard to the Coming of the Lord

1Th 4:13-18

1. They who have fallen asleep will rise again, and so at the Lords Advent will suffer no loss

13But I would [we would]43 not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep [those who are falling asleep],44 that ye sorrows45 not, even as others [the rest also]46 which [who] have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again [arose],47 even so them also which sleep in Jesus [so also those who fell asleep through Jesus]48 will God bring with Him. 15For this we say unto you by [in, ] the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain [who are living, who are being left over]49 unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep [shall in no wise precede those who fell 16asleep].50 For [Because, ] the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God [with voice of arch., and with trumpet of G.],51 and the dead in Christ shall rise [arise] first; 17then we which are alive and remain [who are living, who are being left over]52 shall be caught up together with them [shall together with them be caught away].53 in the clouds [in clouds],54 to meet the Lord55 in the air [into the air];56 and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 18Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. (1Th 4:13.) But we would not have you to be ignorant, &c.This or some kindred phrase is frequently used by Paul, when he would introduce coma new and important instruction (1Co 10:1; 1Co 12:1); Col 2:1; Php 1:12); occasionally also in communicating something personal, in which he feels a special interest (Rom 1:13). Here in particular he now begins to supply their deficiencies (1Th 3:10) in respect of knowledge; in a very kindly spirit, in a way not of rebuke but of encouragement, there being no occasion for him to censure any deliberate perverseness. With a lively transition (as in 1 Corinthians 5, 12 and frequently) he leads in medias res. The Thessalonians perhaps had asked a question, or Timothy may have given information respecting their uneasiness about some of their number who had died. Whether these were many or few, or even none at all, so that they were, troubled merely by the imminent peril of death, they had no clearness of view as to their fate. On the connection with what goes before, see on 1Th 4:9-12 the Exegetical Note 4. Formerly Hofmann likewise so understood the matter; now (since what follows is not instruction generally respecting Christs return, but merely a consolatory addition with regard to those asleep) he rather assumes as the connecting thought their brotherly love in its anxiety about the departed. That ye sorrow not, he says; not: that ye be not excited. Ch. 5, however, adds still another admonition to sobriety. In questions of this sort no decision of exclusive validity can be hit upon.Those who have fallen asleep (perfect), or those who are falling asleep (present; who are continually going to sleep;as afterwards: the living, who are being left over, continually); so he calls the dead, by a gentle euphemism, 1Co 11:30 (present); 1Co 15:20 (perfect). Comp. Soph. El. 509; then the Septuagint Isa 43:17 for ; Job 3:13, for ; Dan 12:2, Septuagint . But it is more than merely an expression to veil a terrible reality, nor does it denote merely the refreshment of rest, deliverance from earthly trouble; on the contrary, it is the promise of an awaking, now especially that there is an Awakener (Joh 11:11). We are not to think of a sleep of the soul, an entire unconsciousness. The figure is taken from the body, a dead man resembling one asleep. Zwingli, Calvin and others oppose with reason the Psychopannychians, whose dogma expressly contradicts other passagesthe parable, Luk 16:19 sqq.; the promise, Luk 23:43 (To-day!); the apostolic statements, 2Co 5:8; Php 1:23; Rev 14:13 (Blessed from henceforthwith the Lord). Even here the circumstance that Paul opposes to their sorrowfulness the resurrection, and only with this connects the being with Christ (1Th 4:17), by no means implies that those asleep in Christ are not yet blessed, or are not with Christ, as Philippians 1 expressly teaches. He looks beyond the intermediate state, because he would offer the entire fulness of consolation, and that with reference to the anxieties of the Thessalonians, of which Note 4 will speak.

2. That ye sorrow not, even as the rest (of men, those not Christians) also (in comparisons, see 1Th 4:5) &c., ; who have no hope. Here he speaks not exclusively of the heathen, as in 1Th 4:5 who know not God. In Eph 2:12, indeed, it is specially the heathen whom he describes as strangers to Israels promises, having no hope (in the widest sense, with reference to all Messianic promises), and without God in the world. Israel, on the contrary, had promises and therefore also hopes, and if the Sadducees rejected these, there is yet in that place no thought of them. There is indeed, however, still a difference between having the promises and the actual living holding fast of the hope, and it is not merely among the heathen that the latter is wanting. Even supposing that he has them especially in his eye, it is yet not without reason that the expression is kept general. But the Apostle does not require that Christians shall not sorrow at all (Lnemann: because the phrase is not, 57, but simply: their sorrow should not be of the same sort as, etc. (, as in Eph 4:17. Hofmann [Wordsworth, after Augustine; and so most.J. L.]).

3. (1Th 4:14.) For if we believe, &c.He thus gives the reason why they should not sorrow in a heathenish way; is not used in the sense of siquidem, but the hypothetical turn just so much the more challenges their assent: if, as we at least have no difficulty in believing (1Th 1:3; 1Th 1:10; 1Th 2:13); if we not merely hold it to be true, but build thereon with confidence (the meaning of ), making it the foundation of our life;from this he then draws the conclusion, from which we in our ready despondency hang back.That Jesus (he uses the human name) died (here not, fell asleep, but without any disguise he speaks of death). And did not every one believe that? Certainly we are not to assume here (with some Greek interpreters) a caution against a Docetic denial of the bodily death. Christs death and resurrection are really to him the two inseparable pillars of the faith: He died (for us, 1Th 5:10), and what more? did he remain in death? no! died and arose; as the Firstfruit (1Co 15:20), He brought to light a victorious life. But he arose out of death, was not glorified without passing through death; not even Christ.So also those who, &c. is not simply a sign of the apodosis (Olshausen), any more than it is so at 1Th 4:17, but: so, as the Crucified arose (Rev 11:5); or: so, as the consequence of that (Rom 5:12); still better: so, as made like Him in death and resurrection;God will bring them with Jesus; it is not said: He will awake them.58 The turn which the apodosis takes is concise and forcible, the clause, if we believe, being followed, not by another of the subjective kind: so we believe also, but objectively, by a matter of fact: so God will do thus and thus. If this faith of ours is the truth, if on this truth of God we firmly rely, then it follows, &c. Otherwise Koch and Hofmann; if we believe expresses, they think, a condition: then, in that case, so will Godthat is, bring with Jesus those who in this faith have fallen asleep. But this is a harsher incongruity than what Hofmann censures in the other explanation; it must then have been said: So will He, when we fall asleep, awaken us.It is still disputed, to what belongs. Almost all the moderns (De Wette, Lnemann, Hofmann, and others) refer it to , as being unsuited to , which would require , as at 1Th 4:16 , and so 1Co 15:18; and because to say that stands for [ for . So Jowett still.; also Webster and Wilkinson.J. L.], and both for , is obsolete. But has already its more precise specification in , and with it is desirable to find their Christian character, not merely indicated by the context, but expressly declared (opposed to the view of Koch and Hofmann). The meaning, moreover, may well be this: those who fell asleep through Jesus, whose falling asleep is through the mediation of Jesus [Webster and Wilkinson: the article referring emphatically to Jesus as presented in the first member, Jesus who died and rose again.J. L.]; so Chrysostom, Luther, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel, Hilgenfeld, and others.59 He will bring them with Him (Jesus)this many take as pregnant for (awaken and) bring. (Through Jesus as Mediator God effects the work of quickening, John 5, 6) But it is still simpler, if we understand as above explained: so He will bring them, when conformed to Jesus in death and resurrection, along with Him (as the Shepherd, whither He goes); Luther: thither, where Jesus abides; Roos: to glory, to rest, to the goal of their hope; Starke; with Him, when He shall come to judgment; Hofmann: when He brings Jesus into the world again (Heb 1:6), He will bring them, cause them to come, along with Jesus, will let them share in His heavenly manifestation. How he comes at this , is shown 1Th 4:16-17.

4. (1Th 4:15.) For (to explain) this we say unto you, etc.He thus illustrates what was said in 1Th 4:14, first negatively (1Th 4:15), then positively (1Th 4:16-17). This (what follows) we say unto you in a word of the Lord; , as in 1Co 2:7, marks the medium in which the discourse moves; not in my words do I speak; my statement confines itself within the sphere of a word of the Lord; comp. for the matter 1Co 7:10; 1Co 7:12; 1Co 7:25, and for the expression 1Ki 20:35, , 70. Pelt supposes him to refer to Mat 24:31; to which Ewald adds Luk 14:14; Hofmann, Mat 16:27 sq.; Zwingli and others, Mat 25:1 sqq., Joh 5:28 sq. Theophylact and Calvin think of a word orally utered by Christ, and so probably a , like Act 20:35. But such a one is in that place introduced differently; and not one of the texts cited makes the special disclosure that here follows, respecting the relation between the dead and those still living. It is therefore more correct to think (with Chrysostom and other Greeks, Bengel, Olshausen, De Wette, Lnemann) of a revelation from the exalted Lord, an (Chrysostom, it is true, adduces not only 2Co 13:3 on one side, but also Act 20:35 on the other). At 1Co 15:51 also Paul says something similar on a similar occasion; comp. Gal 1:12; Rom 11:25.That we who are living (here: in the earthly body), according to the more precise explanation: who remain over (are left over by God) unto the coming (return) of the Lord (that is: who live to see that coming), shall in no wise precede those who fell asleep: in the New Testament indifferently with the aorist subjunctive or the future indicative; Winer, 56, 3. This coming (1Co 15:23) is coincident with Mat 24:31; Rev 19:11 sqq.; Rev 20:5 (not Rev 20:11 sqq.). Here we learn to understand the trouble of the Thessalonians. They sorrowed on the supposition that whoever does not live to see the Advent suffers loss (in the Fourth [in the English Apocrypha, the Second] Book of Esdras, Ezr 6:13, we meet with such ideas; see Wieseler, Chronol. des apost. Zeitalters, p. 250). But how did they conceive of this loss? Evidently Lnemann goes too far, when from the words: Ye are not to sorrow as they who have no hope, he (as Calvin and others before him) draws the inference that they believed in no life at all after death, and supposed that the dying were absolutely excluded from the kingdom. That does not lie in the comparison, any more than 1Th 4:5 : Indulge not in lust, even as the Gentiles who know not God charges them with not knowing God; rather, Because ye know Him, be not like those who know Him not. And so here: Sorrow not as those who have no hope; ye do have a hope. He then reasons, as in 1 Corinthians 15, from the connection between Christ and believers, the Head and His members, as an indissoluble unity: The Head cannot forsake His members. He does not in this imply the existence of any deniers of the resurrection, as at Corinth; what we allow is simply that they suffered from dimness of apprehension. To the Greeks generally the resurrection was a difficult topic (Acts 17). The Thessalonians, indeed, expected with firm faith the coming of the Lord (1Th 1:10; and in 1 Thessalonians 4 also it is presupposed). But the significance and operation of that event they did not duly perceive. They seem with Grecian fancy to have taken up the idea of the outward splendor of the appearance, without considering with sufficient earnestness that the Crucified One, who arose from the dead, will come again; the Conqueror of sin and death. Paul therefore reminds them of this fundamental truth, and thence infers that we shall not precede those fallen asleep, shall not be admitted to the Lord earlier than they. It is only by ingenuity that Lnemann can here hold fast to his idea: Paul, he thinks, is engaged with the figure of a race, where those who are outstripped, and have to lay behind in mid course, do not reach the goal at all. But Paul does not intimate that he has here any thought of this figure; and besides, such a preoccupying of salvation, as would deprive others of it, is not within the compass of truth. This were a one-sided pressing of the figure of a race, that would turn it into an untruth. Rather, in saying: We shall not anticipate the dead, he lets us see that the Thessalonians cherished such an idea; but that this leaves open all the while an undefined prospect at least for the later comers. But what prospect? On this point their view is not clear to us, perhaps was not so even to themselves. Olshausen, De Wette, Hofmann and others suppose that they had no doubt about the resurrection at the final consummation, only they did not distinguish between the first and the second resurrections; that, in fact, they knew nothing of the first resurrection (of the just), of the hailing of the returning Lord by His risen ones, and of their fellowship with Him during the glorious period preceding the general judgment; that their idea was, that in the kingdom just at hand the dead would have no part; that, however, they really believed in the remote, final resurrection after the kingdom of glory, but found in that no living consolation. Still it is by no means clear how they should have mastered and believed in such a precise arrangement of all the stages of the last things (Advent, Kingdom of glory, Last Resurrection) with only the single exception of the First Resurrection at the Advent; nor yet how the Last Resurrection should have been of so little consequence in their estimation. Are we, then, to be driven back on Lnemann? Not that either; but we suppose that Paul had powerfully preached in Thessalonica the coming of Christ to set up His kingdom, but had not had time to enter into all questions of detail. Now the Thessalonians, with a lively impression of this message, had yet a rather dim, worldly understanding of it, from their conceiving of every miraculous occurrence as rather simply an exhibition of power, and not duly considering that the path lies through death to resurrection, through decease to the new life. To be gathered unto the Lord (as even in Mat 24:31 the resurrection is not expressly named)for them this desire absorbed everything. Whoever lives not to see that, he suffers losssuch was their thought. They did not, like the Corinthians, deny the resurrection of the dead, for the Apostle certainly does not reprove them as he does those; and quite as little perhaps can it be asserted so positively as Olshausen assumes, that they believed only in the last resurrection; but whether there was anything, and what, still to be expected for the dead, this was to them an obscure matter; their whole hope and aspiration was bent or the one point, to remain exempt from death;the thing that Paul likewise desired (2Co 5:4), but not so partially. This anxiety was such as could be felt only in the first period of instruction still imperfectly apprehended. (See the Introduction, p. 12. On we who are living, see Exeg. Note 7.)

5. (1Th 4:16.) For He Himself, the Lord60 [Because the Lord Himself], &c. For, not that (Koch);61 he shows how there is no such thing as . De Wette and Hofmann would here, as at 1Th 3:11, understand merely: He, the Lord; but here, as there, the Apostle makes an emphatic antithesis both of subjects and predicates; not: We shall first come to Him, but: He Himself will descend, otherwise no one at all would come to Him. signifies in, with, attended by, as 1Co 4:21; Rom 15:29. (another form, ) Luther translates Feldgeschrei [war-cry], and understands by it the joyful exclamation of the angelic host, the Van and guards; English Bible: with a shout; but more correctly the Vulgate: in jussu; for the word signifies a shout of command, proceeding from the leading huntsman, or from the pilot of a ship, requiring the rowers to keep time, or from a charioteer, or a general; Pro 30:27, Sept.; also Thucydides ii. 1Th 92: , where . does not denote the battle-cry of the combatants, but the meaning is that at a word of command they shouted. Christ is, therefore, described as a victorious Captain, whose order summons to battle, for the destruction of His enemies and the extermination of the antichristian power (2 Thessalonians 2; Rev 19:11 sqq.). To this is added: with the voice of an archangel, summoning the other angels, the great hosts of heavenly spirits, who sympathize in mans salvation, cooperating at the giving of the law (Act 7:53; Gal 3:19) and afterwards at the judgment (Mat 13:41; Mat 24:31; Mat 25:31); which last event brings a consummation also for themselves (Eph 1:10). In canonical Scripture the archangel Michael appears again only at Judges 9; Gabriel is not so called, nor the seven angels before God (Rev 8:2=Tob 12:15). Yet to the name archangel, prince of angels, corresponds the designation , Dan 10:13; Dan 10:20; and already Jos 5:14, , Sept. . By the archangel Ambrosiaster [Jeremy Taylor] and Olshausen would understand Christ, the Lord of angels; others still more unsuitably, the Holy Spirit; but he must be an angel, the highest amongst the angels, answering to the high priest as compared with the priests. Lastly, with a trumpet of God (the last, 1Co 15:52); this is not merely a nota superlativi, the very great, though it is indeed the Divine, and not a human, majesty that is antithetically described; but, besides that, we are to understand it thus: which is used by Gods command, in Gods service, which belongs to Him; De Wette compares , Rev 15:2. What should it be? How will it sound? is not to be searched out. The future reality is depicted in images of present reality. It will be heard, as the sign will be seen, Mat 24:27; Mat 24:30. As to its import, it is the conclusive echo of Sinai, the highest form of all the signals, whereby the people are called together before the Lord, that by which the enemys stronghold, mightier than Jericho, falls (Numbers 10; Isa 27:13; Zec 9:14; Rev 4:8. Seven trumpets). This is not a mere notion of Jewish Rabbis, but the prophetic word receives apostolic sanction. Lnemann and Hofmann would understand the archangels voice and the trumpet as in apposition to ,62 but without reason. [Witsius, after Grotius, identifies the archangels voice with the trumpet as blown by him.J. L.] We have rather to recognize three particulars, following each other in rapid succession: the Commanders call of the King Himself; the voice of the archangel summoning the other angels; the trumpet, which awakes the dead, and collects the believers. [Dr. John Dick: Three sounds are distinctly mentioned, but I do not pretend to know what they are.J. L.]

The descent from heaven presupposes the ascension thither (Act 1:11). And the dead in Christ shall arise first; , though without the article, belongs to (Winer;, 20, 2). He speaks here only of the resurrection of the just (Luk 14:14), at His coming (1Co 15:23), who have died in the Lord (Rev 14:13), qui in Christi corpore continentur (Calvin); not of all without distinction arising in Christ. The correction in Codd. F. G., is not at all necessary. The same Codd. together with D.1 road (instead of ) ; Itala and Vulgate, primi, which is altogether unsuitable, for the contrast here is not (as Theophylact and others suppose) between such as rise first and others who do not rise till afterwards; but between what will take place first (the resurrection of those who fell asleep in faith), and what next () occurs in the case of the living.

6. (1Th 4:17.) Then we &c. shall together with them be snatched away, caught away; hastily, swiftly, irresistibly, by the overpowering might of God; this lies in the expression (also 2Co 12:2, though in a different application); in (on)63 clouds, as one received the Lord (Acts 1); not into the clouds (), but in the clouds (inwrapped), or on them (throned, as on chariots of God; Chrysostom); comp. Mat 24:30; Mat 26:64; Rev 11:12; Rev 14:14; unto meeting of the Lord, ; instead of . others (weaker authorities) give . . Both words, or , govern the genitive (Mat 25:1) or (like the verb) the dative (Act 28:15). Chrysostom and other Greeks: to meet Christ, as persons of distinction meet a king to salute him, while others must wait for him, as criminals for the judge. For the matter, 2Th 2:1 is to be compared. It is a description, so to speak, of the Churchs Ascension, in which the Head brings His members to Himself. Possibly the clouds here, as in Acts 1, indicate a veiling of the transaction. But at any rate this rapture necessarily presupposes the previous sudden change (1Co 15:52; 2Co 5:2 sqq.), which is here only not expressly mentioned, but without which a soaring away into the air were not conceivable. Only by means of the glorified corporeity (Php 3:21) can such an event take place. Luther (appealing to Heb 9:27) insists that all men must once die, that is, leave this life and enter another. For those left over, therefore [die Ueberlinge, as if we should say, the overlings.J. L.], the change would be their death. These shall not sleep, but in a twinkling will die and live again.And, so (as those who have been caught away into the air, the risen and changed ones, or, still better: as those who have thus met Him) shall we ever be with the Lord; Hofmann: continually, not meeting with Him merely in transient or occasionally repeated salutation; expresses the intimate union, simply outward companionship. This is the main point of comfort which he had in view: to be with the Lord, inseparably united to Him. Thus we reach the (1Th 4:14), the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:7-9). But it is not in the air that this being over with Christ takes place (as Pelt, Usteri, Weitzel think, with a quite mistaken appeal to Eph 2:2 : the air as the region of spirits, but of evil spirits!). Only the meeting takes place in the air, not the abiding. Already Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xx. 20, 2) saw the truth: Venienti ibitur obviam, non manenti. The Lord is come from heaven, but not quite to the earth, so that a rapture into the air leads to His presence. He comes to fetch them (Joh 14:2-3) into the heavenly kingdom (2Ti 4:18), which is so called, not merely because it is of a heavenly quality, and even the earth receives a heavenly glory, but because at the coming it really transports the glorified into heaven; they shall be with Him, as Bengel says, non modo in are, sed in clo unde venit. Others think of a coming with Him to the earth to judgment. Hilgenfeld thinks that the meeting is followed by the coming with Him to the glorified earth. But that may even be reserved64 for a later date. In fact, the description is not one that exhausts all particulars; it is carried only so far as is necessary to make it clear, that the dead shall be in no way inferior to those who survive. (See the Doctrinal and Ethical Notes, 5.)

7. (1Th 4:15; 1Th 4:17.) We who are living, who are being left over.Here Paul evidently reckons himself among those of whom he considers it possible, and a thing to be desired and hoped for, that they may live to witness the Advent; just so 1Co 15:51 sqq. (according to the correct reading of the text. rec., and also of the Cod. Vat.).65 The strange evasions, by means of which the Fathers and others sought to make out, that Paul nevertheless is not speaking of himself, are justly set aside by Lnemann. (To this class belongs the explanation of cumenius, that the dead are the bodies, the living are the souls; &c.) Nor ought it to be imput to him, that he uses merely in the way of communicatio (Theophylact: representing in his own person all who shall then be living), though knowing that he will not be present; of this knowledge we see nothing, rather a hope inconsistent with it. But it were just as inconsiderate to say bluntly, that the Apostles expectation has been plainly convicted by the event as erroneous; as if thus the whole eschatological prediction collapsed. In that case, indeed, Paul would be a false prophet (Deu 18:20 sqq.), and his appeal to the Lords word an untruth. This word of the Lord, as even Lnemann allows, told him only generally in what relation the dead would stand to those surviving, not who belongs to each of the two classes; it was, therefore, not: Thou, Paul, shalt be of the number; otherwise he could not again have spoken doubtfully on the point at Php 1:21 sqq.; 1Th 2:17; 2Co 5:9, and in still a different tone at 2Ti 4:6. Altogether, just as here, in speaking of those who live to the Advent, he says by communicatio in the sense of hope (Grotius: putavit fieri posse), he elsewhere says as freely by communicatio on the opposite side: God will raise us up, 1Co 6:14 (this alongside of 1Co 15:51); 2Co 4:14; comp. 1Th 5:10; Act 20:29. He expressly reminds us at 1Th 5:1 sqq., that we know not the times and the seasons, and were not to know them; as the Lord declares even of Himself in his condition of self-denial (Mar 13:32), and as He represents to his Apostles (Act 1:7). Had he meant to set it down as certain: I shall not die, that would really have been at least a knowledge of the ; and not less so, had he asserted: I shall die before that, it will not happen in my time. Moreover, if expressed the definite expectation: I shall yet be there, it must equally follow that to all his readers of that age included with himself in he makes the promise, that they shall live till the Advent; which were indeed utterly absurd. Rather, he opposes the two classes to each other; here those asleep, and on the other side the living, those remaining over; he himself, of course, is among the living; but both classes are in a state of constant flux. What did not come to pass in the case of Paul and his cotemporaries, then holds good for those who follow after, and shall actually live till the Advent. Certainly the Apostles do all of them ex press often enough the expectation of the Coming as near; e.g., 1Pe 4:1; 1Jn 2:18; Jam 5:8; and Paul, 1Co 7:29 sqq.; Rom 13:11-12; Php 4:5; this, however, not as a dogma whereby the ignorance of the would be removed, but merely as a living hope and longing expectation. See Hlemann, Die Stellung St. Pauli zu der Frage um die Zeit der Wiederkunft Christi, Leipzig, 1858; and the Doctrinal and Ethical Notes, 6.

8. (1Th 4:18.) Wherefore comfort one another with these words; with a following imperative also at Php 4:1; and so , 1Th 5:11. The comfort should check the sorrowing (1Th 4:13); with these words, which rest on the word of the Lord, not rationibus, argumentis, but simply the words of the evangelical message.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. (1Th 4:13.) It is not sorrow altogether for the dying that Paul forbids; he rather takes it for granted that they will have to sorrow; only let it not be as the sorrow of the hopeless. Nowhere does Scripture overstrain unnaturally its demand, as if death should cause no pang. It merely rebukes despondency, as if God were not God, and home were not home. But strength of faith is not a thing to be commanded, nor can its triumph be enforced.66 Christ Himself shed tears, and Paul knew what it is to sorrow even for the dying (Php 2:27). On the whole (Starke): The believers of the Old Testament and of the New wept and sorrowed, but within such limits as the law already prescribed (Lev 19:28; Deu 14:1), and the light of faith illustrates. The Apostle requires no Stoic insensibility, no icy hardness. Calvin: aliud est frnare dolorem nostrum, ut subjiciatur Deo, aliud abjecto humano sensu instar lapidum obdurescere. And for this reason hope is an important element of the Christian life; 1Th 1:3; Rom 5:2-5; Rom 8:24 sqq.; 1 Corinthians 13.

2. The rest, who have no hope, are in the widest sense all who stand not in Christ, the only Source and Guarantee of true life. In the Old Testament is the sound of many lamentations over the life in the shadowy realm, as being no life, but as gloomy as in the Homeric songs (Isa 38:18 sq.; Psa 6:6 [Psa 6:5]; Psa 88:11-13 [Psa 88:10-12]; Psa 115:17; Job 10:21 [and Job 10:22]; &c.); not because the right conception is still wanting, but because the actual curse of death is not yet broken. The gleams of prophetic hope (Psa 16:9 sqq.; Psa 49:16 [Psa 49:15]; Pro 14:32; Pro 15:24; Pro 23:14; Isa 26:19; Hos 13:14; Dan 12:2) are first realized through Christ. But it is especially the heathen, of whom the Apostles judgment holds good. It might, indeed, be a question here, as at 1Th 4:5, whether he does not assert too much. For do we not find among all nations some hope of immortality? and among the philosophers, as Socrates, Plato, &c, elevated thoughts on that topic, and arguments in its favor? True; but, measured by the full resurrection-life, what a state of death is that which the heathen call the other life! And how isolated is the more cheerful hope, how slender its thread, how feeble its knowledge, for the very reason that it is founded, not on the actings of God, but on disputable, more or less problematical arguments, accessible only to the refined thinker. How weak are the Consolationes of a Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch! nothing but probabilities. Even now observation shows how those who do not rely on the written word, and, inquiring merely about the immortality of the soul, would thus simply recognize a permanent separation of soul and body (though this would be a permanent reign of death),how these persons with all their arguments never get the better of their doubts; nay, how more and more the most decided amongst them no longer have or allow any hope. It were easy to bring together a number of disconsolate sayings from the classics; for example, schylus, Eumen. 638 (648): . Theocritus, Idyll. 4, 1Th 42: , . Catullus, 5, 1 Thessalonians 4 : Soles occidere et redire possunt: Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux, Nox est perpetua una dormienda. Starke: In Plutarchs time people mocked at the . It was an affected witticism of the dying Vespasian: v, puto deus fio. And this is as it should be; it is proper that we should not get to be certain of our personality, until we are sure of our God and Saviour. On this true basis, however, Scripture regards as normal the undivided life, when the spirit and the body are together; being equally remote from materialism, which seeks in matter for the root and strength of all spiritual life, and from idealism, which sees the most perfect spirituality in being released from the body. The glorified body as the perfect organ of the ruling spiritthis is the restablishment and consummation of the condition originally designed by God (Php 3:21). Luther: We shall again receive enriched and improved that which we lost in Adam; for we should have had it in Paradise (Works, ed. Walch, xii. 2628).

3. Death a sleep; Starke: (1) Because in both the body rests, the soul remains alive; (2) because from both the body also awakes; (3) because both are a desirable release from trouble and toil; (4) because after both we again joyously salute and wish one another good morning.Still the likeness exists only for faith, not for sight. According to what is visible, the word of triumph: O death, where is thy sting? sounds frequently like a scoff. Diedrich: The death of those dear to us still confronts us often as a frightful mystery.Not only does the Old Testament call him the king of terrors [Job 18:14], his name in the New Testament also is still the last enemy. A natural horror in the presence of death is expressed by the Apostle himself in 2 Corinthians 5, and is seen in Gethsemane.67 Corruption wears a different aspect from sleep. So much the greater must the Awakener appear to us.

4. (1Th 4:15.) Paul appeals to a word of the Lord, like the old prophets (1Sa 3:21; Isa 1:10; Jer 1:2); not as one who steals and deceitfully gives out the Lords word (Jer 14:14; Jer 23:30); not as one who has merely adopted rabbinical opinions. (Whence, indeed, have the Rabbins the substance of their doctrine?) Nor does he speak in heaped-up images of a transcendental vision (when he really had such a one, with what modest reserve does he speak of it! 2 Corinthians 12); but his words have a clear and sober import. From the most intimate converse with the Lord he gives forth his explanations respecting the course of the kingdom of God, the crises of Divine providence, and its final issues: Eph 3:3; Eph 3:5 sqq.; Rom 11:25; 1Co 15:51 sqq.; and here. It is a weighty problem, and, God be praised! it is also a privilege vouchsafed in ever larger measure to our times, to bring ones self into living communion with the prophetic word. Our very reverence for it should, indeed, restrain us from precipitate conclusions.

5. (1Th 4:15-17.) Our passage furnishes no complete doctrine of the last things. In Scripture generally there remains over for curiosity a multitude of unanswered questions; and even the legitimate desire of knowledge must acquiesce. Whatever is necessary to salvation, and serves to further the process of sanctification, is nowhere wanting. In this spirit should the doctrine of the Christian hope be dealt with (Luthardt, die Lehre von den letzten Dingen, Leipzig, 1861). Our passage says nothing beforehand of the condition that immediately follows death; nothing beyond calling it a sleep. A preliminary judgment, an introductory stage of blessedness, is indicated by the passages cited in Exeg. Note 1. A being with Christ is there promised to such as die in Christ; yet must it be inferior in fulness and power to the life of the resurrection (comp. Rev 6:9-11), without our being able to define precisely the difference. Paul takes the less notice here of this topic, from his having to correct the anxiety of the Thessalonians in regard to the disadvantage which the dead might be under at the Advent. What is of use to this end he holds up to their view. Nor does he in our passage go further. But it easily admits of being combined with other passages into a general representation. Now what Paul says of the Coming was understood by the Reformers altogether of His Coming at the Last Judgment; as by Calvin, in express opposition to the Chiliasts, though under the supposition, to be sure, that they teach the wild doctrine of a resurrection for only a thousand years. But even in the Apocalypse there is no mention of any such thing. If we take into view the passage in the Rev 20:1-6, the question is, whether and in what way it may be reconciled with the doctrine of the Apostle Paul. An obvious expedient apparently is to identify the Advent here, 1Th 4:15, and 1Co 15:23, with the return at the setting up of the (millennial) kingdom, and in like manner the first resurrection of the Apocalypse with the resurrection of the just (Luk 14:14) or the gathering together of the elect (Mat 24:31), but positively to distinguish this from the final judgment on the whole world (Mat 25:31; Rev 20:11 sqq.);68 this last judgment, including the general resurrection, would then be comprehended in the end of which Paul, after making mention of the resurrection , says: (1Co 15:24). More closely examined, however, the passages do not quite so readily admit of mutual adjustment. In the first place, at the text last mentioned no one without the Apocalypse would think, that this embraces a thousand years.69 And for this reason, accordingly, the Reformers, disregarding the Apocalypse, conceived of the raising of the dead as occurring at one and the same time, and supposed that such passages as Joh 5:28-29; Act 24:15; 2Co 5:10 speak of a simultaneous resurrection of the just and the unjust, and that Matthew 24 likewise refers to no other coming of Christ than Matthew 25. In like manner, and this is the second point, Matthew 25 shows us the saved alongside of the lost, and says nothing of a first resurrection which had already, a thousand years before, brought the elect to glory. In our passage, indeed, and just so in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is entirely silent about those who are lost Calvin: The object here is, not to alarm the ungodly, but to heal the immoderate grief of the pious. The resurrection to judgment, therefore, might be thought of as contemporaneous with that of the pious, or on the other hand as following at a later date. Only it is to be noticed that 1 Corinthians 15 represents the raising of those who belong to Christ as something done once for all; then follows the end, when He shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father, after He has abolished all hostile rule. This does not sound as if still another host of those belonging to Christ would not share in the salvation till a later and final judgment, as must yet be the case, if Matthew 25 speaks of this final judgment. On the whole, as it is important to fulfil the condition on which alone we can be sure of salvation, so it is difficult, if not impossible, to set up unexceptionable tests, according to which some are made partakers of the first resurrection, others only of the second, who are nevertheless saved. After all, the relation might rather be this, that the Pauline statements, as well as the passages which speak briefly of the last day, the last hour (Joh 6:39-40; 1Jn 2:18; comp. 2Pe 3:10; 2Pe 3:12), comprehend the coming of the Lord in one view, which the Apocalypse then distributes into various stages. But as the day of the Lord divides itself in the later revelation into a series of steps, so also the resurrection of those belonging to Christ, since the first resurrection by no means merely passes by the raising of the lost to judgment, but shows likewise a later resurrection to life as still possible. To the end belongs the glorification also of the terrestrial world (Romans 8; Rev 21:22); and after that the saved have reigned together with Christ in the kingdom (2Ti 2:12), and have co-operated with Him in the judgment (1Co 6:2-3). That is to say, from their heavenly thrones (Rev 20:4) the kingdom will pass into its stage of highest fulfilment, when God shall be all in all (1Co 15:28). In many places, however, these stages are viewed together indiscriminately. Such a comprehension of details, which are only kept apart by later prediction, meets us also elsewhere in all prophecy.

6. The last remark affords us light also in regard to the hope of the nearness of the Advent (see Exeg. Note 7). From the patriarchs down through the entire line of the prophets every one contemplates the future salvation as one whole, with all its details, without any one being able to say: There is here a want of perspective, an optical illusion. Rather, the living fulness of the future is conjoined with the varying standpoint of the present in one bud. The certainty, that the Lord is coming with His salvation, is so stirring, bright, overpowering, that the man who is full of it says: Quickly! The Assyrian period is Isaiahs horizon, into which he sees Immanuel enter, bringing salvation (Isaiah 7; Isa 29:17). And again there was a delay of four hundred years, before the promise in Malachi (1 Thessalonians 3) began to be fulfilled. Prophecy is not the knowledge of the history of the future, but a contemplation of the essential steps of development. Instructive is such a passage as Eze 12:22 sqq.; especially even because it is there shown to us, how long-suffering delayed the judgment, and how contempt of the long-suffering accelerates it. Thus there came to pass finally what for so long a time the prophets had promised and threatened, and the scoffers had scoffed at; it came, according to human reckoning, later than had been supposed, yet not too late for any one, rather too soon for many. And as the New Testament time came, so will come the final term promised by Christ and the Apostles. Yea, they declared with truth that it had already arrived. With Christ began the worlds last hour, and there comes none later, to establish another and higher relation between God and humanity. If the period of waiting for the revelation of the Lord has reached much further than the Apostles supposed, and even than the words of Christ gave them reason to expect (Mat 10:23; Mat 16:28; Mat 24:29), it is to be considered, first, that in this very way scope was afforded for the development of the series of stages in His coming; and, secondly, that it behoves us to recognize long-suffering in the fact that, after the first step of the judgment (on Jerusalem), the second was deferred (2Pe 3:8-9; 2Pe 3:15). But, while acknowledging His sparing long-suffering, we acknowledge also that His government is so arranged as to admit of modification according to the faithfulness or unfaithfulness of men; that we are wrong, therefore, in taking, much more than we are aware of necessitarian views of prophecy. So much the more short sighted were it to say, that a disappointment respecting the date is proof that such last things are not to be expected at all. A denial of the worlds end would require us also to assert that humanity has never had a beginning; and this would imply that the life of humanity has no aim, and that the establishment of a perfect, holy reign of God is not to be looked for. But he alone is a Christian, who directs his life toward this mark. Of the time and the hour he knows nothing. The Lord delayeth His coming!that he leaves the wicked servant to say; that the Bridegroom may tarry, he is well aware. There are also things that must still precede; not the conversion of the nations, but the preaching of the gospel among all nations (Mat 24:14); along with this, the universal security of those who believe in no Advent, and by means of their unbelief are witnesses for the truth (1Th 5:3; Mat 24:37 sqq.; Luk 18:8); the apostasy of Christendom from the faith (2 Thessalonians 2). All these signs are perceptibly growing. The life of humanity, including the individual life, goes forward on the brink of eternity and to eternity. It is readily conceivable that the experience of a longer duration of the world, according to mans measurement, has modified in some degree our views of the last things, and turned the eye chiefly toward the death of individuals. But only too frequently does this way of thinking assume such a form, that the longing for the coming of the Lord and the glory of His holy kingdom, as well as sympathy in the fortunes of the Church at large, is too much impaired. At times, on the other hand, and amongst the pious, when the life of faith rules in due force, we again meet likewise with the apostolic hope and aspiration in living freshness. That watching and hoping are so unfamiliar to us, is a defect. The more we become heavenly in our character and thoughts, the more also does the stream of human history appear to us as a hasting towards the coming of the Lord.

7. (1Th 4:17.) The being caught away to meet the Lord is in the Irvingite70 interpretation erroneously explained in a manner that seems to bear the dignity of an inviolable dogma. Comp. the work, which otherwise contains many good practical exhortations, by E. L. Geering, Mahnung und Trost der Schrift in Betreff der Wiederkunft Christi, Basel, 1859. It is there taught (p. 55) that, previous to the coming tribulation, the company of disciples, who are witnessing for Jesus and waiting for Him, is brought into a condition of safety. Indeed, the saints will with Him judge the world (1Co 6:2); their deliverance, therefore, through being taken away, precedes the Lords return; and on p. 60 mention is made of servants of Christ who are not, it is true, recklessly profane nor yet hypocrites, but still are not looking out for the coming of the Lord, nor striving towards it, and, as their punishment for this, have no part in the rapture of the faithful servants, but must undergo the rule of Antichrists reign. They have forfeited their title to be kept from the hour of temptation, of the great tribulation, which comes on all (Rev 3:10). They might have been preserved and taken away from it.This whole interpretation has at least no sort of foundation in our text. The German word entrcken (to snatch from) might give the impression that it refers to the taking away from a threatening danger. But Paul speaks of a swift-coming to meet the Lord, without regard to the question whether this is before or after the endurance of tribulation. To the view of Christendom in general he holds up, as prior to the coming of the Lord, the coming of the apostasy, and the tyranny of the Man of Sin (2 Thessalonians 2). The keeping which the disciples need is not necessarily a being kept from the experience of this persecution, as if to be kept in the midst of it, to be kept while in the world from the evilthe thing which the Lord seeks in prayer for His disciples (Joh 17:15)were a penal condition. There are various ways in which the keeping may rather take place: 1. by a previous death (Isa 57:1-2; Rev 14:13); 2. by endurance of martyrdom without renouncing the faith (Mat 10:28 sqq.; Matthew 10 :2 Thessalonians 2; Rev 11:7; Rev 13:15; Rev 20:4); perhaps also, 3. by remaining hidden, in the case especially of the humble class, like the seven thousand in the time of Elias (Rom 11:4). There may be a participation in the judgment by those caught away to the Lord (as assessores judicii, Bengel), without the interpretation which we oppose. Altogether it is possible to love the coming of the Lord Jesus, without adopting the peculiar Irvingite exegesis. To represent the two things as inseparable, and to determine accordingly the reward of being caught away or the penalty of being leftthis Isaiah , 1. in itself a wrong, as in every case where a human dogma is set up, and salvation connected with the acceptance of it; 2. it misleads to a groundless confidence, and is a sort of illusory promise, that is not free from an effeminate fear of suffering. Comp. Luthardt, l. c. p. 37 sqq.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1Th 4:13. It is a heathenish ignorance of which a Christian must be ashamed, when he knows nothing of hope for the dead.He who does not believe is ignorant; faith is not opposed to knowledge.Zwingli: When we fear death, it is a sure sign that we have no love to God.In so far as there is still selfishness in our love, and for that reason discomposure at the death of our friends, to the same extent are we not yet duly taught of God.

Death a sleep, but only through Christ; and only for faith, which knows the Awakener.Roos: Death has an entrance, and also an outlet. We must and we desire to go the way that Christ went.

Scripture does not forbid us to mourn, but only to mourn as those without hope.Rieger: By the examples of others, that nearly concern us, the thoughts of our hearts are revealed to usour own dying agony.Luther: Holy Scripture not merely indulges, but commends and praises those who are sorrowful, and lament for the dead (Abraham, Joseph, the people at the death of Aaron and Moses). The Apostle simply distinguishes between the mourning of the heathen and that of Christians.The same: It is an artificial virtue and fictitious fortitude of heathens and schismatics, when they pretend that we must entirely extract what is creaturely in us, and hold no terms with nature. Such a hard heart has never truly loved, and would fain dissemble before people. He is a Christian, who, while experiencing sorrow, yet so restrains himself therein that the spirit rules over the flesh.We are allowed to weep for death. It is one thing, when Christ, who wept Himself, dries our tears, and another thing, when men would forbid them to flow. But we have no occasion to weep for the lot of those who have fallen asleep in the Lord. Whoever laments without measure or restraint, acts as a heathen acts.Bengel: The effect of the Christian faith is neither to abolish nor yet to aggravate grief for the dead, but gently to moderate it.Diedrich: We need not be in a state of fearful uncertainty about any Christian, whether living or dead.Heubner: Christianity teaches men to rise superior to natural sorrow, yea, to rejoice therein.The ancient Christians called the day of the believers death his birthday.

[Ignorance of the truth and purposes of God, so far as these have been revealed, injurious to our spiritual comfort and edification. I would not have you to be ignorant, brethrena common scriptural formula.Doddridge: Let us charge it upon our hearts, that we do honor to our holy profession in every circumstance, and particularly in our sorrows as well as our joys.M. Henry: All grief for the death of friends is far from being unlawful; we may weep at least for ourselves, if we do not weep for them; weep for our own loss, though that may be their gain. Yet we must not be immoderate or excessive in our sorrows.J. L.]

1Th 4:14. Luther: Our death Paul calls not a death, but a sleep; Christs death he calls a real death, which has swallowed up all other deaths. [So Burkitt: Jesus died, the saints sleep. … I do not find that Christs death is called a sleep; no, His death was death indeed, death with a curse in it.J. L.]Luther: If Christ is risen, that must surely not be in vain and without fruit.[The text of Archbishop Tillotsons Sermon on The certainty and the blessedness of the resurrection of true Christians.J. L.]

1Th 4:13-14. Rieger: The two main sources of all comfort, and of all resignation in dying, lie in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus (Rev 1:18) Whatever is trying and severe in death comes either from attachment to the visible from which we are separated, or from the uncertainty in which we stand in regard to the invisible. The former trouble is relieved by the death of Jesus, the second by his life.Sthelin: If thou thyself wouldest not, or if thy friends are not to sorrow, see that thou fall asleep through the Lord Jesus.Hast thou hope? 1. On what is it founded? on the belief that Jesus died and rose again; 2. To what does it impel thee? to a life in Christ, that we through Christ may fall asleep; 3. Of what does it assure thee? that God will bring us with Jesus.[Bishop Wilson has a Funeral Sermon on these verses.J. L.]

1Th 4:15. Luther: God has spoken the word, not Paul out of his own head.It is with the Apostle a great certainty: The Lord speaks through me. It is a folly that we find it so much harder to trust to the word of the Lord with our whole heart than to that of men, who are yet but dust, and liars to boot. As disciples of these men of God, we should endeavor, in what we say of Divine things, to say it as the word of God in the assurance of faith (2Co 4:13).Luther: The voice or word of all teachers, who preach the gospel pure and simple, is not their word or voice, but Gods (Luk 10:16).Starke: Mans words have little power, but Gods word penetrates the heart, is strong to comfort, and endures in sorrow and death (Rom 15:4).

The experience, that the coming of the Lord has been delayed longer than the Apostles hoped and desired, is indeed a severe discipline for us while waiting. It is nevertheless a weakness, when watching and longing are relaxed, and drowsiness seizes even the wise virgins.Rieger: In the unbelieving world the feeling of security is diffused from one generation to another, and comes to its height amongst the last scoffers; and so, on the other hand, in the communion of saints readiness for the coming of Jesus spreads from one generation to another.71Berlenburger Bibel: The word is prophetic, and goes through all times.Vietor (zwei Osterpredigten, Bremen, 1859, p. 24): In the world there is derision and laughter, when a man would say, that he knows not whether the Lord will not come during his lifetime. The world can conceive of nothing wilder or crazier. Passing on in unbelief, the world says: The Lord comes not at all. Passing on with a show of faith and a half-faith, the world says: My Lord comes not yet for a long time. Oh, see to it, that thy heart consent not to either speech.

1Th 4:16. The Lord comes to take us to Himself; only thus can we come to Him.Luther: What the trumpet is, I know not; we would not gloss Pauls words, but let them stand just as they are. In another place: These are merely verba allegorica. He would fain represent the matter, as one must represent it to children and simple people.72

[J. Lillie: No phantom, nor providential sub stitute, nor even the vicarious Spirit; but the Lord Himselfthe personal Lordthis same Jesus.Vaughan: Not a mere amelioration, gradual or sudden, of the condition of the Church or the world; not a mere displacement of evil and triumph of good; not a mere crisis of human affairs issuing in times of universal blessing and happiness: it shall be a personal coming. Mat 24:30; Act 1:11.J. L.]

They who are asleep in the Lord are still, even as dead persons, always in Christ (Luk 20:38).Starke: Whoever is found to the last in the holy life of Jesus, falls asleep through Jesus.Comp. Psa 116:15, and Luthers comment, Werke, ed. Walch, xii. 2652 sqq.

1Th 4:17. Starke: If we would one day be caught up to Christ, we must even now follow His gracious guidance, and lift up our heart to Him. If we would be, with body and soul, ever with the Lord, we must with our spirit be with Him even now (Col 3:1-2).The same: All believers shall one day be near and with Christ, because, 1. such is His promise to them (Joh 14:3); 2. He has asked this for Himself from the Father (Joh 17:24; Isa 53:10-12); 3. He, the Head, and they, His members, are inseparable (Eph 1:22-23; Rom 8:38-39).Rieger: To be forever with the Lord is a brief but comprehensive description of eternal life. When kept as seed-corn in the heart, not stowed away as knowledge in the head; when fruitful in love to Jesus and in patience under suffering, not directed to glorying over others, these truths will evidence their consolatory power, and may also be suitably applied in mutual exhortation. Oh, the preciousness of communion with Jesus, and of that boast of faith: Whether we live or die, we are the Lords!

[M. Henry: It will be some part of their felicity, that all the saints shall meet together, and remain together forever: but the principal happiness of heaven is this, to he with the Lord, to see Him, live with Him, and enjoy Him forever.Dr. Donne has a sermon on this verse.J. L.]

1Th 4:18.Zwingli: This is a quite different consolation from: Provide for so many soul-masses; Call in so many priests.But (Berlenburger Bibel): It is also a false consolation to suppose it to be a settled matter, that every one through death enters heaven.It is not death that saves us, but Christ through death, and at last from death. They who have died through Him unto sin, and have spiritually risen with Him, may be sure that they shall also live with Him in the body. So likewise the talk about meeting again, when we do not rely on Christ, and are not united in Christ with them that are His, is a very weak and delusive consolation. We should indeed maintain a union in heart with our dead, but in Christ the Lord; as those introduced into connection with the unimpaired Bible order of salvation and the kingdom, in which hope rests on a living faith in Christ, and holds out to every individual member the prospect of the higher stage of blessedness only in union with the entire body.Comfort one another with these words; with that, which will cause the kindreds of the earth to wail.Heubner: The gospel is the true book of consolation. Entering this sanctuary, we enter a quite different world. We learn that our own personal concerns are far from equalling in interest the holy concerns of the kingdom of God. We enter a circle of people, who, leaving all personal interests aside, only serve the Lord.The consolation of the gospel consists in teaching us to save our life by giving it up for the Lords sake. In Him we find again also our loved ones, who are become members of Christ. (Concerning those who had no opportunity of learning the knowledge of Christ, comp. Apologetische Beitrge by Gess and Riggenbach, Basel, 1863, p. 168 sqq.; p. 234 sqq.)Starke: Since in this vale of tears no one is wholly free from affliction, and we have frequent need of comfort and encouragement, every believer, even if not a teacher, should regard it as his Christian obligation to comfort others. One Christian ought to be the priest and comforter of another.It is not said merely: You teachers or preachers, comfort the common people.

On the whole section: 1Th 4:13-18 is the Epistle for the 25th Sunday after Trinity. Heubner: The Christian revelation on the future life: 1. It gives us, a. a consolatory hope, which lifts us far above the hopelessness of such as are not Christians, because, b. it rests on the sure foundation of Christs death and resurrection, and therefore, c. embraces those who through all time belong to Christ. 2. It gives us, moreover, special disclosures, c. respecting the visible Advent, and revelation of the glory of Christ; c. respecting the manner of our participation therein, and thus opens to us, c. the richest source of consolation.

The same: The ground of the Christians comfort in the death of those he loves. Jesus the bond between the living and the dead.Looking by faith toward the coming of the Lord helps us to look on our brethren with hallowed love.

The passages from Luther are taken from his sermons on this section, delivered by him on occasion of the death of the Electors Frederick and John, 1525 and 1532; see. Werke ed, Walch, xii. p. 2578 sqq.

Footnotes:

[43]1Th 4:13.All the uncials [and all the recent editors] give instead of the Recepta .

[44]1Th 4:13.A. B. Sin. give the rarer ; the other majuscules, the more frequent ; only one manuscript of a late date has the aorist, as in 1Th 4:14-15. [=are falling asleep from time to time, comp. of 1Th 4:15; 1Th 4:17;or simply, are sleeping; so Am. Bible Union, Alford, Ellicott. Alford quotes the epitaph: J. L.]

[45]1Th 4:13.The subjunctive is given by B. Sin. and others; but by A. and others. On with the present indicative, see Winer, p. 259. Formerly all such places were corrected; at present we begin to recognize a carelessness in the later speech, the only question being, whether it shows itself as early as the Apostles time, or is chargeable on the copyists.

[46]1Th 4:13.[ . The belongs to as one member of the comparison, not, as might be inferred from our Common Version, to .J. L.]

[47]1Th 4:14.[]. Only in a few instances out of a large number is . in our Version to raise up again to rise up again. Comp. 1Th 4:16; Rom 14:9; &c.J. L.]

[48]1Th 4:14.[ . Revision: The aorist here and at 1Th 4:15 implies a backward look from the time of the resurrection, when of each one of the departed it may be said, as of Stephen (Act 7:60): . Comp. also E. V. Act 13:36 and 2Pe 3:4.For the connection of , see the, Exegetical Notes.In this verse Sin.1 has , but this is corrected in Sin.2J. L.]

[49]1Th 4:15.[ comp. the temporal import of , 1Th 4:13, in Note 2 above. Here, in questionable, but convenient, modern English phrase: are being left over, as our brethren in Christ successively depart.; in the New Testament only here.J. L.]

[50]1Th 4:15.[ . For the double negative, see E. V. Mat 5:18, and often elsewhere. German: durchaus nicht.For the force of the aorist participle, see Note 6 above.J. L.]

[51]1Th 4:16.[These nouns are anarthrous in Greek; and the indefiniteness is just as allowable and as expressive in English.Worthy of note also is the Greek arrangement of the whole clause: Because the Lord Himself with a shout, with voice of archangel, and with trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven.J. L.]

[52]1Th 4:17.[The same phrase as in 1Th 4:15 (though Sin. has here ). See there Note 7.J. L.]

[53]1Th 4:17.[ . Revision: The direction is determined, not by the verb, but by . Comp. Mat 13:19; Act 8:39; &c.J. L.]

[54]1Th 4:17.[ , as in Mar 13:26.J. L.]

[55]1Th 4:17.[Literally: unto meeting of the Lord; German, zur Begegnung des Herrn.J. L.]

[56]1Th 4:17.[connected with . Riggenbach follows the modern German versions in changing Luthers in der Luft into in die Luft. And similarly Alford, Ellicott (the Commentaryto which, however, the Translation, as occasionally happens, is not conformed), Vaughan, &c.J. L.]

[57][Alford, Ellicott, Webster and Wilkinson, agree with Lnemann; of course, without denying the lawfulness of such sorrow as is spoken of in Joh 11:35, Php 2:27, &c. They understand the Apostle to be thinking solely of a sorrow occasioned by the apprehension that death is in some way a calamity to believers, and that sorrow he forbids absolutely.J. L.]

[58][Alford errs in making the bringing of departed saintstheir being raised when Jesus appears. Their resurrection is implied in their being brought.J. L.]

[59][Several, as Musculus, Aretius, Hammond, Tillotson, &c., unduly restrict the reference, as if martyrs only were meant: who fell asleep on account of Jesus, for Jesus1 sake. Others, as Michaelis, Scott, Barnes, Alford, Wordsworth, Ellicott, Vaughan, &c., make the idea to be that through Jesus the death of Christians is rightly accounted a sleep. Ellicott, however, allows that which of the two connections is the right one must remain to the last an open question. It is in favor of that with , that both in the Bible, and in profane literature, classical is well as modern, the figure of sleep is used for death in general; and that the other connection would rather have had: . See my note in the Revision.J. L.]

[60][Denn er selbst, der Herr;so Riggenbach and others after Luther; but erroneously.J. L.]

[61][Who connects with of 1Th 4:15.J. L.]

[62] [And so Bishop Hall, Olshausen, Jowett, Alford, Ellicott. I do not perceive why this view should be reckoned more plausible (Ellicott) than the other. It might much rather be said to be inferior in martial precision and grandeur. See the note of Webster and Wilkinson. In favor of ascribing the to the Lord Himself, they refer to the parallel of the delivery of the law, where, besides the ministry and voice of angels, the sound of the trumpet, and the fire, we have also the voice of God (Exo 19:16; Exo 19:18-19; Exo 20:18-19; Deu 4:12; Deu 4:15; Deu 4:33; Deu 5:4; Deu 5:22-26; &c.); likewise to Joh 5:28-29; Heb 12:19-20; Heb 12:25-27; Job 14:12-15; Psa 1:1-6; Mat 13:30; Mat 13:41; Mat 24:31. So Milton:

The Son gave signal high,
To the bright minister that watchd; he blew
His trumpet, heard in Oreb since perhaps
When God descended; and perhaps once more
To sound at general doom. Par. L., B. 11J. L.]

[63][aufa useless variation, not justified here by the , in a similar connection, of other texts.J. L.]

[64][Of course, this is quite compatible with the previous idea, of a coming with Christ to judgment, and that the latter is a scriptural representation there can be no doubt; comp. Isa 32:1; Dan 7:9-10; Zec 14:5; 1Co 6:2-3; Rev 2:26-27; Rev 3:21; Rev 20:4; &c. It is also worth noting that, as I remarked in the Lectures, there are only three other places in the New Testament where the phrase here translated to meet occurs; and in all of them (Mat 25:1; Mat 25:6; Act 28:15) the party met continues after the meeting to advance still in the direction in which he was moving previously.J. L.]

[65][Whereas Sin. agrees with A. C. F. G. , .J. L.]

[66][Whatever is matter of duty is properly matter of precept; Eph 6:10; 1Th 5:16. Faiths brightest triumph is amidst the tears and struggles of nature; Psa 23:4.J. L.]

[67][A statement strangely erroneous in both its members. The Apostle expresses no horror whatever of death. His groans are forced from him, not so much even by the pressure of present suffering, as by the earnestness of his longing for the heavenly state. And still more objectionable is the reference to Gethsemane, in so far as it overlooks the supernatural elements in our Lords passion.J. L.]

[68][It should not be hastily assumed that Mat 25:31-46 refers, at least exclusively, to the same process of judgment as Rev 20:11 sqq. See Bickersteths Practical Guide to the Prophecies, 17; Brooks Essays on the Advent and Kingdom of Christ, Part 2 Essay 4; Woods Last Things, 1 Thessalonians 3. Prop, 8J. L.]

[69][And yet there can he no doubt that the of 1Th 4:13 embraces the longer interval between Christs resurrection and that of his followers.J. L.]

[70][The reference is to that in many respects remarkable body of Christians, which chooses to call itself the Catholic Apostolic Church. The other name of Irvingites they expressly disclaim as a misrepresentation at once of the origin and the spirit of the movement.J. L.]

[71][The parallel would be more complete, if, as has sometimes been inferred from Mal 4:5-6 and Rev 19:7-8, as well as from the analogous work of John the Baptist before the first appearing of the Lord, the last generation of the Church is to witness a special work of preparation for the marriage-supper of the Lamb.J. L.]

[72][This, it must be confessed, is nothing more than a somewhat venturesome gloss. I prefer the caution of the previous remark. See my Lectures on the Thessalonians, pp. 264265.J. L.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 2202
THE RESURRECTION

1Th 4:13-18. I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you. by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

IT is justly said by the Apostle, that godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come. Certainly true religion doubles our joys, at the same time that it greatly diminishes our sorrows. Whatever temporal happiness a man of God enjoys, he has, by anticipation, the joys of eternity also added to it; whilst his griefs, whatever they may be, are also proportionably mitigated by the consideration of their transitory nature, their sanctifying efficacy, and their glorious issue. This St. Paul intimates in the passage before us. There were some of the Thessalonian Church who had given way to sorrow in an unbecoming manner; so that, in that respect, they could scarcely be discerned as differing from the unconverted heathen around them. To correct this, he tells them of the glorious prospects which they have in the eternal world, and begs them to look forward to their future destinies, as the means of tranquillizing their minds under all the painful circumstances which might at any time occur.
In the words which we have just read, he declares,

I.

The certainty of the resurrection

The heathen quite derided the idea of the resurrection [Note: Act 17:18; Act 17:32.], deeming it altogether incredible [Note: Act 26:8.]: and some who professed Christianity explained away the doctrine relating to it, and represented the resurrection as a merely spiritual change, which had passed already [Note: 2Ti 2:18.]. Even some of the Thessalonian Church did not appear to be well grounded in it: and therefore St. Paul assured them, that it was a doctrine on which they might fully depend.

They did believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
[On these two facts all Christianity was founded, namely, that Jesus had died for our sins, and had risen again for our justification [Note: Rom 4:25.]. If Jesus had not risen, all their faith in him, and all their hope from him, was altogether vain [Note: 1Co 15:13-18.] ]

These facts admitted, the resurrection of man would follow of course
[The resurrection of our blessed Lord was both an evidence that God can raise the dead, and a pledge that he will. The same power that could raise him, can raise us: nothing less than Omnipotence was necessary for the one; and to Omnipotence the other also must yield. Had Jesus risen merely as an individual, we might have supposed it possible that the power exerted in his behalf would not be exercised for us. But he rose as the federal Head of his people: and what has been done for him, the Head, shall also be done for all his members. He is the first-fruits of them that sleep. Now the first-fruits sanctified and assured the whole harvest. We may be sure therefore, that, as our Forerunner is gone before, we shall all follow him in due season [Note: 1Co 15:20; 1Co 15:23. with Joh 14:2-3 and Heb 6:20.]. The one gives us a full assurance of the other [Note: Act 17:31.].]

For their fuller instruction, he proceeds to state to them,

II.

The order in which it shall be effected

This perhaps is a matter of curiosity, rather than of any great practical importance: but Paul would not that the Thessalonian Christians should be ignorant of it; and therefore it is not undeserving of our attention. The resurrection then will take place in this order:

First, the dead will be raised from their graves
[All that have ever departed out of the world will be restored to life, each clothed in his own proper body. The sea and the grave will yield up those who have long since been entombed within them, and they shall all live again upon the earth [Note: Rev 20:13.]. The text indeed speaks of the righteous only, who had fallen asleep in Christ: but in other passages we are informed that the ungodly also will hear the voice of the Son of God, and, in obedience to it, come forth from their graves [Note: Joh 5:28-29. Dan 12:2.]. Irresistible will be the summons, when the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God, shall sound. When Jesus came in his state of humiliation, thousands withstood his voice: but none will, when he shall come in his own glory, and the glory of his Father, with his holy angels. The great and mighty, as well as the mean and insignificant, shall come forth alike, each re-united to his kindred body, and each appearing in his own proper character.]

Next, those who remain alive upon the earth will be changed
[Certainly those who are on the earth will not be changed first; and it appears, that they will remain unchanged, whilst all who have ever died are restored to life. What a surprising sight will it be, to behold such countless multitudes of the children of Adam bursting forth from their graves, and standing up, an innumerable host, in their incorruptible and glorified bodies! But, this once effected, the people who are then living upon earth will be changed in an instant, their mortal and corruptible bodies becoming at once, and without any dissolution preparatory to it, incorruptible and immortal. This is the order which St. Paul has specified also in another epistle: first the trumpet, then the rising of the dead, and then the change of the living [Note: 1Co 15:51-53.]. Well may the Apostle call it a mystery [Note: 1Co 15:51.]. But as all will then be in that form which they will bear to all eternity, what an amazing difference will then appear in those who once perfectly resembled each other! the godly how beautiful! the ungodly, how deformed! both having either heaven or hell depicted in their very countenances! Amazing sight! how infinitely surpassing all human conception!]

Then will they all together be caught up to meet the Lord in the air
[Yes, into the presence of their Judge must they go: and as the earth would not be a theatre sufficient for the occasion, they must meet the Lord in the air. Blessed, blessed summons to the godly! With what joy will they go forth to meet Him, whom unseen they loved, and out of. whose fulness they received all the grace that ever they possessed, their spirits being now made perfect, and their vile body fashioned like unto Christs glorious body! On the other hand, with what reluctance are the ungodly dragged into his presence! How gladly would they hide themselves from him, if it were possible. Thousands, who were once the great and noble of the earth, and who thought there was none above them to whom they owed allegiance, will now curse the day that they were born, and cry to the rocks and mountains to cover them from the face of their offended Lord [Note: Rev 6:14-17.].]

Having stated this, he declares,

III.

The blessed issue of it to the saints

They shall be ever with the Lord
[From him they will receive a sentence of acquittal, or rather of unqualified approbation, Well done, good and faithful servants. To his right hand will they be called, as a prelude to the honour he is about to confer upon them. The judgment finished, he ascends with all his bright attendants to the heaven of heavens, the immediate residence of the Deity; and these his redeemed people now ascend together with him, to behold his glory in all its unclouded splendour [Note: Joh 17:21.], and to participate his throne, even as he participates his Fathers throne [Note: Rev 3:21.]. O what fulness of joy do they now possess [Note: Psa 16:11.]! How bright their vision of his glory! how unbounded their fruition of his love! Nothing now could add to their felicity; nor can any thing now detract from if [Note: Rev 7:14-17; Rev 22:3-5.]. That too which constitutes its chief ingredient is, that it will be for ever. Were this happiness to be only for a fixed period, however long, it would not be complete: the idea of its ultimate termination would cob it of half its value. But it will be pure and endless as the Deity himself.]

But how different the condition of the ungodly!
[They will be bidden to depart from him; to depart accursed; to depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Alas! alas! what weeping, what wailing, what gnashing of teeth will they experience; and that also for ever and ever! Unhappy creatures! Good were it for them, that they had never been born.]

He further suggests,

IV.

The improvement that should be made of this subject

The word translated comfort, is in the margin rendered exhort. Either sense of the word is just; and therefore we will include both. This subject then should be improved by us,

1.

In a way of mutual consolation

[Have any of us been bereaved of dear and pious friends? Let us not sorrow, as those who have no hope. What though they shall not come again to us? it is but a little time, and we shall go to them: and most blessed shall be our meeting at the right hand of God Are we terrified at the thoughts of our own approaching dissolution? It is but a sleep, if we belong to Jesus; it is a falling asleep in the Saviours arms. What is there terrific in this? O put away your unbelieving fears; and learn to number death amongst your richest treasures [Note: 1Co 3:22-23.] ]

2.

In a way of mutual exhortation

[Certainly the thoughts of a resurrection and a future judgment ought to fill us with holy awe: for the consequences of that judgment are such as no words can adequately express, nor any finite intelligence fully comprehend. We then would exhort every one of you, and do ye also exhort one another, in the words of the prophet, Prepare to meet thy God. Remember the blessedness that is here spoken of, is to those only who die in the Lord: and, if you would die in the Lord, you must live in the Lord: you must be in him, as the branch in the vine, by a living faith; and you must abide in him to your dying hour. Seek then to be found in him, not having your own righteousness, but the righteousness which is of God by faith in him. Then may you look forward to death as to a transient sleep, from which you shall awake in the morning of the resurrection, to everlasting blessedness and glory.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

(13) But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. (14) For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. (15) For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. (16) For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: (17) Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (18) Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Perhaps there is not a more affectionate passage in the word of God, to soothe the sorrows of our nature, under the humbling prospect of the grave, in the death of our friends, and the sure departure of ourselves, than what God the Holy Ghost hath here given to the Church, by his servant the Apostle. I have often read it, with, I hope, profit and delight. And I do not conceive, that a child of God, under divine teaching, can ever read it, but at every renewed perusal, with increasing comfort.

It appears, that the Church of the Thessalonians had very imperfect apprehensions, on the interesting subject of the dead in Christ. And it was our mercy, that their ignorance gave occasion to God the Spirit, to teach the Church, what is here so blessedly explained, concerning it. The first thing I beg the Reader to remark with me, in the passage, is, the expression, of being asleep in Jesus. He doth not call it death, but sleep. It is remarkable, that in relation to the death of Lazarus, Jesus called it sleep. Our friend Lazarus, sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep! See Joh 11:11 . and Commentary. The blessed dead, which die in Christ, die in union with his Person. As such, they are part of Christ. The voice John heard from heaven, declared this, and bid the beloved Apostle write it down. Rev 14:13 . Hence, this is more properly called sleep, than death; for by virtue of this union, there is a principle, by which they are still part of Christ, and by which the Lord becomes to them at the last day, the resurrection and the life. Joh 11:5 . So that, in death, or life, Christ is the believer’s portion; and the believer is a member of Christ’s mystical body. And this oneness, union, and interest in Christ, so totally differs from the Christless dead, that the Holy Ghost is pleased to call it sleep, rather than death. They sleep in Jesus.

Secondly. The Holy Ghost by Paul, commands the Church concerning all such, that the sorrow which surviving believers feel, in their departure, is not to be as the grief of those who mourn over the hopeless dead. The Lord doth not forbid all sorrow; for the Lord allows nature’s feelings to have vent. And Jesus, himself wept at the grave of Lazarus. Joh 11:25 . But the tears of God’s people, shed over the remains of the dead which die in the Lord, are like the spiced wine of the Pomegranate. The tears of nature, are sweetened in Christ. There is a blessed hope, yea, an assured hope, they shall again live. See a beautiful account by Job, (Job 14:13-15 .)

Thirdly. The belief in Christ’s resurrection, brings up after it, a full assurance, of the resurrection of all his members. They who sleep in Jesus, must arise with Jesus. For Christ died, and arose, as the common head of his body the Church. Not as a private person; but in a public capacity. Hence, in his resurrection, the Church, in every individual member, is included; for Christ was declared to be the first fruits of them that sleep. For to this end, (saith the Holy Ghost by Paul,) Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. Rom 14:9 . See 1Co 15 and Commentary.

Fourthly. There is somewhat particularly striking, in the Apostle’s manner of expression on this subject, when he saith: For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord. It is not said when Paul received this message to deliver to the Church. Neither doth he make any other preface, by way of introduction. But, it should seem, from the words themselves, that though all the Apostle delivered to the Church, was in the Lord’s name, and by the Lord’s authority; yet he had now somewhat to deliver on this subject, of the resurrection of the bodies of saints sleeping in Jesus: and of the change to be wrought on the bodies of saints, which would be found alive at the last day; which he had not had either the knowledge of himself before, or direction to communicate to the Church. Hence, like the Prophets of old, who frequently, in the midst of their preaching, called up the attention of the Church yet more strikingly, with breaking off, and saying; Thus saith the Lord: so Paul here adopts a similar manner of expression, and saith: For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord. Reader! we have great cause to bless God the Spirit, for this special revelation, on a subject so very interesting, both to ourselves, and to all the Members of Christ’s mystical body, whereby we learn, under divine teaching, wherefore we ought not to sorrow, concerning the departed in Christ, as others that have no hope. And I pray the Reader, to be particularly attentive, to the very blessed manner, in which God the Holy Ghost hath taught the Church, on those most momentous points.

The Apostle begins with the state of those saints of God, which are found in the body at Christ’s Coming. We (saith he) which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. Now, let the Reader observe, that by the we, which are alive; Paul did not mean himself, or any of the Church of God then living. For, in his second Epistle to this same Church, he positively declared to them, that the day of Christ was not at hand. For (saith he) that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. 1Th 2:1-3 . But Paul speaks in the name of the Church, in that part of Christ’s members which shall be alive, when Christ comes to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe. 2Th 1:10 . Hence, by the way, we are taught, that there shall be a portion of Christ’s mystical body alive, at his second coming.

The Apostle next proceeds, in the name of the Lord, to show the Church, how they are to be disposed of, who pass not through the territories of death, and the grave, to the embraces of Christ. We shall not prevent them (saith Paul) which are asleep. The word prevent is an old English word, and means, to go before: we shall not be first changed, before the dead which sleep in Jesus shall be awakened to Christ’s arms. This is a sweet thought, on every account. For it shows the watchful care of Jesus over his sleeping members; and becomes a blessed comment of the Lord’s own, on that sweet Scripture: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Psa 116:15 . And it is blessed on another account. The living members of Christ’s mystical body, will find their spirits abundantly strengthened, in beholding the dead in Christ arise to the wonders of eternity. And what joy will burst forth, at the second voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God! Yea, what inexpressible emotions will be felt by all the living in Christ, at that time, when they shall see Jesus personally descending from heaven, in all the splendor, as here described, of glory?

Next, Paul describes the wonderful change, after the dead in Christ have first risen, which will instantly follow, on the bodies of the saints then living. Then we (saith he) which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord! The Apostle doth not say how the change of our vile bodies, which have not gone down to the grave, shall be accomplished. It is sufficient for the Church to know, that it shall be done: though the process we are not made acquainted with. But, as those bodies of the saints, which are sown in corruption, are promised to be raised in incorruption; and their natural bodies, raised spiritual bodies: 1Co 15:44 . we are led to conclude, the same change will be accomplished, though not in the same way: So that all the members of Christ’s mystical body, shall be alike prepared, and qualified, for the everlasting enjoyment of God in glory. Oh! what unknown felicity will the saints of God be brought into, when those bodies, which now interrupt the spiritual pleasures of the renewed soul, will interrupt them no more; yea, then will join in all their enjoyments. Well might the Apostle add: wherefore comfort, or exhort one another with these words. Let God’s people, under all bereaving providences, when at any time the Lord takes home any of his redeemed ones; let them call to remembrance, what God the Holy Ghost hath here so sweetly, and fully unfolded: they that live in Christ by regeneration, sleep in Jesus at death till the resurrection. They are part of Christ; and whether living or dying, in life or death, they are the Lord’s. And they whom the Lord appoints to be alive in the body, at his coming, shall be instantly changed into a glorified body in Christ, as those of Christ’s which arise at the voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God. Both shall be equally blessed in Christ; and be everlastingly happy with him, in glory. See Jud 1:9 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

Ver. 13. But I would not have, &c. ] Ignorance is the mother of mistake, and of causeless trouble, of error and terror; as the Roman soldiers were once much frightened at the sight of the moon’s eclipse, till the general had undeceived them by a discourse of the natural cause thereof.

That ye sorrow not ] Non est lugendus qui moritur, sed desiderandus, saith Tertullian. Abraham mourned moderately for his deceased wife, Gen 23:2 , as is imported by a small caph in the word libcothah, to weep. Hebrew Text Note So did David for the child born in adultery, though for Absalom he exceeded. It is one of the dues of the dead to be lamented at their funerals. a But Christians must know a measure, and so water their plants, as that they drown them not.

Even as others, which have no hope ] Lugeatur mortuus, sed ille quem Gehenna suscipit, quem Tartarus devorat, &c. Let that dead man be lamented whom hell harboureth, whom the devil devoureth, &c. But let us (whose departed souls angels accompany, Christ embosometh, and all the court of heaven comes forth to welcome) account mortality a mercy; and be grieved that we are so long detained here from the company of our Christ, saith Jerome.

a . Iusta defunctorum

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

13 18 .] instructions respecting the resurrection of the departed at the Lord’s coming . We can hardly help suspecting some connexion between what has just preceded, and this section. It would certainly seem as if the preaching of the kingdom of Jesus at Thessalonica had been partially misunderstood, and been perverted into a cause why they should not quietly follow active life, and why they should be uneasy about those who fell asleep before that kingdom was brought in, imagining that they would have no part in its glories. Cf. Act 17:7 .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

13 CH. 1Th 5:11 .] INSTRUCTIONS AND EXHORTATIONS CONCERNING THE TIME OF THE END: and herein

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

13 .] . . . . , is with our Apostle (see reff.) a common formula of transition to the imparting of weighty information.

. . ] those who are sleeping ; so the present is used in the well-known epitaph, | . Or we may understand it, ‘those who (from time to time) fall asleep (among you),’ as suggested in the Journal of Sacred Lit. for April, 1856, p. 15: but the other seems simpler. It was an expression (reff.) conveying definite meaning to the Thessalonians as importing the dead in Christ ( 1Th 4:16 ). No inference must therefore be drawn from the Apostle’s use of this word, as to the intermediate state (as De W. after Weizel, for the sleep of the soul, and Zwingle, Calvin, al., against it): for the word is a mere common term.

. ] object of my not wishing you to be ignorant.

. is absolute , that ye mourn not : not (as Thdrt., Calvin, al.) . , ‘that ye may not mourn (so much) as others &c.’ He forbids altogether. But we must remember, what sort of it was. Surely not absolutely the mourning for our loss in their absence , but for theirs (see above), and in so far , for ours also. See Chrysostom’s very beautiful appeal in loc.

] viz. the heathen, and those Jews who did not believe a resurrection.

] viz., in the resurrection . Ln. cites, Theocr. Idyll. iv. 42, , : sch. Eum. 638, : Catull. 1Th 5:4 ff., ‘Soles occidere et redire possunt; | nobis quum semel occidit brevis lux | nox est perpetua una dormienda:’ Lucret. iii. 942 f., ‘nec quisquam expergitus exstat | frigida quem semel est vitai pausa secuta.’ Jowett adds ‘the sad complaints of Cicero and Quintilian over the loss of their children, and the dreary hope of an immortality of feme in Tacitus and Thucydides.’ (But when he goes on to say that the language of the O. T., though more religious, is in many passages hardly more cheering, and substantiates this by Isa 38:18-19 , it is surely hardly fair to give the dark side, without balancing it with such passages as Psa 73:23-26 ; Pro 14:32 . In the great upward struggle of the ancient church under the dawn of the revelation of life and immortality, we find much indeed of the but the has its abundant testimonies also.) This shews of what kind their was: viz. a grief whose ground was unbelief in a resurrection: which regarded the dead as altogether cut off from Christ’s heavenly kingdom.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

1Th 4:13-18 . .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

1Th 4:13 . , after as a single expression. Affection for the living has another side, viz. , unselfish solicitude for the dead. Since Paul left, some of the Thessalonian Christians had died, and the survivors were distressed by the fear that these would have to occupy a position secondary to those who lived until the advent of the Lord, or even that they had passed beyond any such participation at all. At Corinth some of the local Christians felt this anguish so keenly, on behalf of friends and relatives who had died outside the church, that they were in the habit of being baptised as their representatives, to ensure their final bliss (1Co 15:29 ). The concern of the Thessalonians, however, was for their fellow-Christians, in the intermediate state of Hades. As the problem had not arisen during Paul’s stay at Thessalonica, he now offers the church a reasonable solution of the difficulty (13 18). , contrast the of 1Th 4:2 , 1Th 5:2 , and compare the ordinary epistolary phrases of the papyri ( Expos. , 1908, 55) such as (commonly at the beginning of a letter, cf. Col 2:1 ; Phi 1:12 ; 2Co 1:8 , and with , but here, as in 1Co 12:1 , with ). = the dead in Christ (16), a favourite Jewish euphemism (Kennedy, St. Paul’s Conc. of Last Things , 247 f., and cf. Fries in Zeitschrift fr neutest. Wiss . i. 306 f.), not unknown to Greek and Roman literature. , . . ., cf. Butcher’s Some Aspects of the Greek Genius , pp. 153 f., 159 f. Hope is the distinguishing note of Christians here as in Eph 2:12 ; Col 1:22 , etc.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 1Th 4:13-18

13But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18Therefore comfort one another with these words.

1Th 4:13 to 1Th 5:11 The context about the Second coming runs through 1Th 5:11. Remember its focus is pastoral (cf. 1Co 15:58). Doctrine is given, but only as it serves a godly lifestyle now!

1Th 4:13 “we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren” This is a common phrase in Paul’s writings (cf. Rom 1:13; Rom 11:25; 1Co 10:1; 1Co 12:1; 2Co 1:8). Usually it introduced an important statement, similar to Jesus’ use of “Amen, amen.” Knowledge of Christian truth (doctrine and world-view) gives believers a stability in a fallen world.

“about” Timothy might have communicated some questions from the Church concerning the Second Coming to Paul.

1. What about the believers who had already died? Would they participate in the end-time events?

2. Would believers be surprised by the Second Coming and thereby be unprepared for the end-time events?

Paul often uses this preposition “about” to introduce his answers to the Corinthian Church’s questions (cf. 1Co 7:1; 1Co 7:25; 1Co 8:1; 1Co 12:1; also 1Th 5:1).

NASB”those who are asleep”

NKJV”those who have fallen asleep”

NRSV, TEV,

NJB”those who have died”

Greek manuscripts vary here: (1) some uncial manuscripts have a present participle, , A, B, and (2) others have a Perfect participle, such as D, F, G, K, and L. Scribes probably changed the original present to a perfect following the usage in Mat 27:52 and 1Co 15:20 (i.e., Metzger, p. 632).

Jesus used the OT euphemism for death, “sleep” (cf. BDB 1011, i.e., 2Sa 7:12; 1Ki 22:40; references in NT: Mat 27:52; Joh 11:11-13; Act 7:60; 1Co 7:39; 1Co 11:30; 1Co 15:18; 2Pe 3:4). The English term “cemetery” is derived from this Greek word.

This does not refer to the doctrine of “soul sleep,” that believers wait unconsciously until Resurrection Day. The NT speaks of conscious, but limited fellowship (cf. Luk 16:19-31; Luk 23:43; 2Co 5:8; Php 1:23) until Resurrection Day, the Second Coming.

“that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope” The verb “grieve” is a present passive subjunctive (cf. Eph 2:12). Believers must not continue to be grieved by physical death because we know the truths of the gospel.

1. Jesus died for us

2. the Spirit who raised Him will raise us

3. He is coming back for us

4. those who have died are already with Him

The pagan world (i.e., “the rest,” cf. 1Th 5:16) was at a loss for comfort at death. Socrates said, “Oh, that there were some divine word upon which we could more securely and less perilously sail, upon a stronger vessel.” See Special Topic: Hope at Gal 5:5.

1Th 4:14 “if” This is a first class conditional sentence which is assumed true from the author’s perspective or for his literary purposes.

“we believe” This is the important theological verb (present active indicative) for human’s putting their faith in Christ. This is the Greek verb pisteu, which is translated into English by “faith,” “trust,” or “believe.” See Special Topic: Believe at Gal 3:6. This personal trust is characterized in the NT by using all the common Greek verb tenses:

1. Aorist (past simple act), Act 15:11; Rom 8:24; 2Ti 1:9; Tit 3:5

2. Present (ongoing process), 1Co 1:18; 1Co 15:2; 2Co 2:15; 1Th 4:14

3. Perfect (past action which has come to completion and abides as a state of being), Eph 2:5; Eph 2:8

4. Future (in verb tense or context), Rom 5:9-10; Rom 10:9; Rom 13:11; 1Co 3:15; Php 1:28; 1Th 5:8-9; Heb 1:14; Heb 9:28

It is an initial decision, followed by lifestyle discipleship that will one day be consummated in an eternal body and face-to-face fellowship with the Triune God (cf. 1Jn 3:2). The theological progression can be seen in Rom 8:29-30, from election, to justification, to sanctification, to glorification.

“that” This hoti clause gives doctrinal content to the gospel. See SPECIAL TOPIC: BELIEVE, TRUST, FAITH, AND FAITHFULNESS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT , E. #5.

“Jesus died and rose again” These are both aorist active indicatives which reflect historical facts. These gospel truths are the basis for the believer’s hope: (1) vicarious substitutionary atonement (cf. Isaiah 53; Mar 10:45; 2Co 5:21) and (2) bodily, physical, eternal resurrection (cf. 1Th 1:10; 1 Corinthians 15).

“God will bring with Him” This is a difficult phrase because the verb (ag) has such a wide semantic field (to bring, to lead, to lead away, to lead out, to go, to go away, etc.). Does it imply that the dead are with Jesus in heaven or that the dead will be raised at Jesus’ coming?

In context the pronoun refers to Jesus, at His coming. The Thessalonian believers did not understand Paul’s preaching about the Second Coming. They wanted to know if those of their church who had already died would participate in the end-time events. This is Paul’s positive response. Not only will they participate, they will receive their new bodies first and will accompany Jesus on the clouds of heaven.

The NT is not clear about the state of believers between death and Resurrection Day. When this passage is compared to 2Co 5:6; 2Co 5:8, postulating a disembodied period becomes a logical necessity. Believers are with the Lord, but as yet do not have their resurrection bodies.

1Th 4:15 “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord” Paul was not giving his personal opinion but was relating Jesus’ teachings (cf. 1Th 4:2), however, this particular saying of Jesus is unrecorded in the Gospels. It is uncertain if this refers to

1. oral Christian tradition (cf. Act 20:35)

2. Jesus’ sermons, like Matthew 24 or Mark 13 or Luke 21

3. if this was part of Jesus’ personal revelation to Paul while in Arabia, Gal 1:17

4. later, direct revelation like 2Co 12:1 ff

This phrase implies that Paul is stating something he had received, which means that his eschatological views were not uniquely his; he is passing on what he received. The problem is we moderns to not know the source of this revelation or how wide spread it was known.

NASB, NKJV”we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord”

NRSV”we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord”

TEV”we who are alive on the day the Lord comes”

NJB”left alive until the Lord’s coming”

The use of the pronoun “we” could mean (1) Paul expected the Lord back during his lifetime or (2) the editorial use of we. See Special Topic: Jesus’ Return at 1Th 2:19; 1Th 3:13. This expectation of an “any-moment” return of the Lord is the privilege of every generation of believers, but the experience of only one. This does not imply that Paul was inaccurate which would question inspiration.

This may also be just a literary technique because in 2 Thessalonians Paul asserts a delayed Second Coming as Jesus did in Matthew 24 (and parallels) and Peter in 2 Peter 3.

SPECIAL TOPIC: THE ANY-MOMENT RETURN OF JESUS VERSUS THE NOT YET

NASB”will not precede”

NKJV, NRSV”will by no means precede”

TEV”will not go ahead”

NJB”will not have any advantage”

This is a strong double negative, “neverno, never.” Those saints who have died will fully participate in all the end-time events as will the believers who are alive at the Second Coming. The KJV “prevent” is misleading. In 1611 English it meant “precede.” No human can prevent the Second Coming.

1Th 4:16 “the Lord Himself” The Greek text emphasizes Jesus’ personal returnnot a surrogate (cf. Joh 5:25-28).

“will descend from heaven” Jesus will leave the Father’s presence a second time to retrieve the family of faith (cf. Joh 14:2-3).

NASB, NKJV”with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God”

NRSV”with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet”

TEV”There will be the shout of command, the archangel’s voice, the sound of God’s trumpet”

NJB”at the trumpet of God, the voice of the archangel will call out the command”

The question remains how many heavenly persons are related to these three parallel events. There is a shout (this word is found only here in the NT), a voice and a trumpet blast. The JB assumes all three are done by the archangel and then Jesus descends. Other translations imply the first “cry,” “command” or “shout” is from Jesus and then the archangel calls for the trumpet blast.

Heaven is prepared for this eventit is on the calendar. The uncertainty of when and how the event will occur fades into insignificance with the knowledge of Who will be coming. Jesus is coming again to receive His own.

“the archangel” No article appears, thus, it should read “an archangel.” Although Dan 10:13 implies several, the Bible only mentions one: Michael (cf. Jud 1:9). He is the national angel of Israel.

“trumpet” The sounding of trumpets was a cultural way of announcing the approach of royalty in the East (cf. Heb 12:18-19). However, it also functions in other ways.

1. divine judgment, Rev 8:2; Rev 11:15-19

2. resurrection, 1Co 15:52

3. gathering of the elect by angels, Mat 24:31

This was a very important means of communication in the OT, used for religious and military events (cf. Exo 19:16; Isa 27:13; Joe 2:1; Zep 1:16; Zec 9:14; 1Co 15:52).

Two types of trumpets appear in the OT: (1) silver trumpets (cf. Num 10:2; Num 10:8-10; Num 31:6) and (2) the left horn of a ram called the shophar (cf. Exo 19:16; Exo 19:19; Exo 20:18; Lev 25:9; Joshua 6).

It is possible that all three sounds (shout, voice, trumpet) refer to the sounds of the angel because in Rev 4:1 the angel’s voice is called a trumpet (cf. Rev 1:10).

SPECIAL TOPIC: HORNS USED BY ISRAEL

“and the dead in Christ will rise first” This phrase causes confusion about where the dead go between their death and resurrection day. This verse implies that they will remain in the grave (cf. Mat 27:52-53). However, 2Co 5:6; 2Co 5:8 implies that they are with the Lord. The solution may be in postulating a disembodied state. The physical body remains in the grave, the life force goes to be with the Lord. There are many unanswered questions here. The Bible does not provide a clear teaching passage on this subject. See William Hendricksen, The Bible On the Life Hereafter.

Most translations translate it as if the saints are with God/Jesus and return with Him (cf. NASB). Another view is found in TEV, “Those who have died believing in Christ will rise to life first.”

1Th 4:17 “caught up” Our theological concept of “rapture” originates from this verb. “Rapture” is a Latin rendering of the Greek verb here (harpaz future passive indicative), which implies a forceful “snatching away” (cf. Joh 6:15; Joh 10:12; Joh 10:28-29). This event is also mentioned in 1Co 15:51-52.

Many have disagreed about this end-time event. Some expect a secret rapture of believers (cf. Mat 24:40-42) before a thousand-year reign of Christ upon the earth. Often a seven-year tribulation period (cf. Dan 7:25; Dan 9:27) is linked to this. Some theologians have the rapture before, in the middle, or after this seven year period. The order and nature of these end-time events are ambiguous at best. Dogmatism is surely inappropriate here.

Believers are going to meet the Lord in the air, because in the NT the air was seen as the realm of Satan (cf. Eph 2:2) and Greeks thought the lower air (atmosphere) was unclean and, therefore, the domain of unclean spirits. Believers will be reunited with their Lord in the midst of Satan’s kingdom to show its complete overthrow.

“together with them” This church had misunderstood Paul’s preaching about the Second Coming. Paul wrote both I and 2 Thessalonians to answer these questions. The church wanted to know: (1) Would the Christians who had died participate in these end-time events? and (2) When would dead and living believers be reunited? This subject is picked up in 2Th 2:1.

“in the clouds” Clouds are the traditional means of the transportation of deity (cf. Dan 7:13; Mat 24:30; Mat 26:64; Act 1:9-11; Rev 1:7). The image calls to remembrance the Shekinah cloud of the OT exodus experience (cf. Exo 13:21-22; Exo 14:19-20; Exo 14:24; Exo 16:10; Exo 19:9; Exo 19:16; Exo 24:15-16; Exo 24:18; Exo 34:5; Exo 40:34-38) which symbolizes God’s presence with His people.

SPECIAL TOPIC: COMING ON THE CLOUDS

“to meet” This is the Greek word apansis, which is used in the sense of meeting someone and then accompanying them (cf. Mat 25:6; Act 28:15). So believers meet the Lord and return to a recreated earth with Him!

“in the air” The air was the dominion of Satan and his followers (cf. Eph 2:2). We are going to meet the Lord there to show the complete victory. I think that while believers are united with Christ in the air, the in prophecy of cleansing and renewal in 2Pe 3:10, heaven is depicted as a restored Garden of Eden (cf. Genesis 1-2 compared with Revelation 21-22).

“we shall always be with the Lord” Nothing further can be said (cf. Psa 23:6). The Second Coming is referred to repeatedly in 1 Thessalonians (cf. 1Th 1:10; 1Th 2:19; 1Th 3:13; 1Th 4:13-18; 1Th 5:1-11). Notice that neither in this book nor 2 Thessalonians does Paul mention (some see 1Co 15:25 as a reference to an earthly reign) a thousand-year reign but an eternal reign, like Dan 7:13-14.

Paul’s terminology implies the eternal kingdom begins when Jesus returns. All of the other end-time events are simply not mentioned as in 1Co 15:50-58. Paul does not even imply that Jesus returns completely to the earth. In Robert G. Clouses’ The Meaning of the Millennium, all four major millennial positions are articulated by various authors. In the a-millennial response George E. Ladd makes this surprising statement, “I admit that the greatest difficulty to any pre-millennialism is the fact that most of the New Testament pictures the consummation as occurring at Jesus’ parousia” (pp. 189-190). This is exactly what Paul is asserting here without any further elaboration.

1Th 4:18 This, like 1Th 4:13, shows the purpose of Paul’s presentation of these end-time events. The believers had many concerns about their fellow believers who had died. Would they be involved in the wonderful events of the Lord’s return? Paul assured them that all believers, alive and dead, will be ultimately involved in the Second Coming. Remember this passage is primarily pastoral (as is 1Co 15:58), not didactic. How this fits into other eschatological passages is not clear.

“comfort” This is a present active imperative.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

I. Texts read “we”.

would. App-102.

have you, &c. See Rom 1:13.

concerning. App-104.

asleep = falling asleep. App-171.

others = the rest. App-124. Add “also”.

no = not, as 1Th 4:5.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

13-18.] instructions respecting the resurrection of the departed at the Lords coming. We can hardly help suspecting some connexion between what has just preceded, and this section. It would certainly seem as if the preaching of the kingdom of Jesus at Thessalonica had been partially misunderstood, and been perverted into a cause why they should not quietly follow active life, and why they should be uneasy about those who fell asleep before that kingdom was brought in, imagining that they would have no part in its glories. Cf. Act 17:7.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

1Th 4:13. But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

You cannot help sorrowing, for you miss your dear ones so much; but you do not sorrow like the heathen who believe their departed friends to be extinct and annihilated. You have a glorious hope concerning those who have fallen asleep in Christ, you believe that they are still live, and that, by-and-by, their bodies will rise again.

1Th 4:14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

There is such a union between Christ and his people that they never can be divided from him. In life, they live in him, in death, they sleep in him; and when he comes again, he will bring them with him. Christ cannot be without his people. A head without a body would be a ghastly thing, and Christ without his people would be incomplete and imperfect.

1Th 4:15. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

We shall have no preference over the saints who are sleeping in Jesus, we shall not go before them, we shall be on a blessed equality with them.

1Th 4:16-17. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Whatever ideas we have concerning the details of Christs coming, this summing up of the whole matter is unutterably precious to us: so shall we ever be with the Lord. There is no separating Christ and his people. If you are one with him, he will not be in heaven and leave you behind; nor will he be glorified in the presence of his Father without making you to be partakers of the glory. What joy there is for us in this blessed truth!

1Th 4:18. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

This exposition consisted of readings from 1Th 4:13-18; and 1 Thessalonians 5.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

1Th 4:13.[17] , that ye sorrow not) for those who have lately died, being in the faith; for hope in regard to them is well-grounded [is a valid hope]. The efficacy of the Christian religion is even in an especial degree evident from this circumstance, that it does not take away or embitter, but sweetly soothes (modifies), regret for the dead; the finest of the affections, whether their death has taken place recently or in former times.[18]

[17] , concerning those who have fallen asleep) This is consolation offered in a case of recent grief,-not for those who have been long dead.-Not. Crit.

[18] , hope) and joy.-V. g.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

1Th 4:13

But we would not have you ignorant, brethren,-[This impressive phrase Paul employs as in Rom 11:25 and elsewhere to call attention to a new topic concerning which he was especially anxious for his readers to have a clear understanding.]

concerning them that fall asleep;-Some of the members had died, and this aroused a painful fear lest such had lost their share in the Lords approaching advent. So vivid was the expectation of the Lords return that it seemed to those newborn children of God that those dying would miss the great hope that had been so precious to them of seeing Christ return to raise the dead. But the glorious revelation here as to the triumphant future of both the dead and living saints dispelled their gloom and comforted their hearts as it has the faithful Christians since. Death is sleep to Christians. The Lord Jesus Christ made it the standing name for death among believers. (Luk 8:52; Joh 11:11; Act 8:1.) The expression indicates the restful effect on the child of God and also its temporary nature. We sleep but a brief period and then rise to renewed activity. The expression indicates the restful effects of death to the child of God and its temporary nature. It will last no longer than Christ delays his coming. How the word sleep must have consoled the Thessalonian mourners!

that ye sorrow not,-[Not the natural sorrow over the departure of loved ones, but the sorrow of distress about their future. They who look for no resurrection sorrow for the dead, but Christians are not to do so. To bewail the condition of the faithful Christian is wholly out of place, though to utter our own grief and bewail our own loss is natural and fitting. Grief for the loss of friends is common to all, and is not inconsistent with acceptance of the will of God, neither does it deny the hope of the Christian. Jesus himself wept in sympathy at the grave of Lazarus. (Joh 11:33-35.) Paul was apprehensive of the sorrow into which he would have been plunged had the sickness of Epaphroditus resulted in death. (Php 2:27.) The brethren at Thessalonica grieved not merely for their loss, but they grieved also for the loss sustained, as the survivors supposed, by those of their number who had died. It was to save them from grief on this account that the apostle wrote, showing them that their fears were groundless.]

even as the rest,-The heathens, on the death of their relatives and friends, made a great show of excessive grief by cutting their flesh and by loud crying and lamentations.

who have no hope.-A broad characteristic of all who are not in Christ; they have no hope concerning the future life. Of the unbelieving Gentiles, Paul said they are: Strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. (Eph 2:12.)

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Asleep in Jesus

But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him.1Th 4:13-14.

St. Paul, in the early part of his ministry, with all the Christian disciples, was looking for the speedy return of Jesus. And the question was raised, If it be so, if Jesus is coming to establish His Church, and we shall be with Him in His glory, then what of our brethren who have passed out of the world before us? This was the absorbing question. Mothers had lost their children, brothers had lost their brothers. One by one these had passed out of their sight. And those who remained said, What is to become of those who are taken away from us out of this visible world before Christ comes back here? St. Pauls answer was that they who remained and were alive should not prevent (go before) those who had passed away. Jesus would bring with Him those who had already died. He would go through the regions of the dead and bring back the souls that had once belonged to this world, and establish their lives. Thus those who had died and those whom Christ should find at His coming would be united and would dwell for ever with God.

The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians are the epistles of immortality. They have vibrated with rich assurance in multitudes of sorrowing Christian hearts, as men have stood on the borders of life and wondered what is to be their destiny in that state of being towards which their thoughts are so constantly pressing. The idea of immortality has given rise to the greatest emotions which it is possible for men to feel. It has caused the highest hopes and the most terrible fears. The immortal soul has anticipated its own immortality, and refused to believe in any specious argument that tells it life will end here. Pictures of that future life come floating down into this present life. Men have lived in that other world years before they went there. Men have kept company with the souls there in closer association than with those who were beside them all the time. Multitudes who have doubted the immortality of the soul in their days of ease have, in days of distress and strain, by the bedside of dear friends, believed with a deep human belief that nothing could shake. The heart of man finds its only satisfaction in the expectation of another life. The reaching after immortality has been the hearts deepest underlying root in all the ages of mankind. This world is not enough. We put out our hand, and it falls on one little part of the great scenery; we listen, and hear but one note out of the great chorus. The Thessalonians believed in the other life because they found nothing in this life to satisfy them. We, too, lay hold on the great hope in order to forget how cruel, disappointing, and bewildering this life is which we are living here. And when that impulse rises in our hearts, and we look back amidst our cries and struggles and see the same impulse flickering or else blazing in lives gone before, we become stronger by the sight of their faith.1 [Note: Phillips Brooks, The Spiritual Man, 25.]

I

Sorrow for the Dead

1. There are two very different kinds of sorrow. There is, first, the sorrow which St. Paul here describes as the sorrow of the rest which have no hope, and elsewhere as the sorrow of the world that worketh death. We may hear it in the wail of paganism over the departed. It views life as a vast disorder, a chaos where all is blank, haphazard, meaningless, without a voice to comfort or a mind to explain. Its characteristic attitude is a surrender to the inevitable which treads with tight lips on to a silent grave. The first mark of this sorrow is that it is ignorant; and, as a natural result, its second mark is that it is hopeless, it cannot look forward. This is the sorrow of the rest, the sorrow of the world.

If we believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead. How much hinges on this! What step behind the Veil can we take without this? Is it annihilation, or is it metempsychosis, or is it absorption into the Divine Nature, if there be one? Ask all the ages, and you have just a dead silence of six thousand years. You may fancy a ghostly laugh at your perplexity, but it is all fancy. There is nothing so distinct as laughter. It is all blank and world-wide silence. There is a little dust before your eyes, and that is all you know of the matter.1 [Note: Letters of James Smetham, 171.]

2. In strong contrast, over against this sorrow of ignorance and despair, stands the sorrow that understands. It does not deny itself and affect an exaltation of spirit which it cannot feel. It is chastened and humble, accepting the strokes of affliction in patience, because it knows that they must be allowed by Almighty Love. It is a sorrow which develops sympathy, and sanctifies the affections, and breathes strength and nobility into character. It prepares the sufferer to minister comfort to others. It does not become cynical, but all the more tender for its grief, and more kindly in its judgment of others. Its first mark is that it believes and knows; and its secondand this is the result of its knowledgethat it is strong and joyful as it surveys the prospect of the glory that shall be revealed. This is the godly sorrow, the sorrow which is not as that of the rest, which have no hope.

In the catacombs of Rome, that wonderful city of the dead, where several millions have been laid to rest, there is no sign of mourning; everythingpicture, epitaph, emblemis bright and joyous. Although an almost countless number of these early followers of Christ were buried in the periods of bitter persecution, no hint of vengeance on their oppressors is engraved or painted; all breathes gentleness, forgiveness, immortal life. With calm, unwavering confidence these early Christians recorded in a few bright words their assurance that the soul of the departed brother or sister had been admitted to the happy lot reserved for the just who leave this world in peace, their certainty that the soul was united with the saints, their faith that it was with God, and in the enjoyment of good things. Intensely they realized that all the faithful, whether in the body or out of the body, were still living members of one great family, knit together in closest bonds of a love stronger than death. They believed with an intense faith in the communion of saints. And for the departed they knew of no break in existence, no long dreamless sleep, no time, long or short, of waiting for blessedness. The teaching of our Redeemer was remembered well: To-day, He said to the dying thief hanging by His side, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise! This was the steady, unwavering faith of the Christians whose bodies rest in the vast cemetery which lies all round old Rome.1 [Note: H. D. M. Spence-Jones.]

II

The New Aspect of Death

1. There is nothing more marvellous in the history of Christianity than the change which it wrought in mens views of death. The change is one stamped into the very life of humanity, however it may be explained. Whereas men had previously thought of death as only a great darkness, or a dreamless and perpetual sleep, they began to think of it as a change from darkness to light, and as a sleep with a glorious awakening. The brightness and joy were no longer here. This was not the true life from which men should shrink to part. All was brighter in the future; the higher life was above. Death was not only welcome, but joyfully welcome. To die was gain. It was to depart, and be with Christ; which is far better. This was not merely the experience of an enthusiastic Apostle; it became the overwhelming experience of hundreds and thousands. Death was swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? was the triumphant echo from Jerusalem to Rome, and from Antioch to Alexandria, in thousands of hearts, that had but lately known no hope and shared no enthusiasmnot even the enthusiasm of a common country or common citizenship.

2. What is the explanation of all this? What was it that sent such a thrill of hopeful anticipation through a world dying of philosophic despair and moral perplexity and indifference? Was it any higher speculation? any intellectual discovery? any eclectic accident or amalgam of Jewish inspiration with Hellenic thought? Men had everywherein Greece and Rome, in Alexandria and Jerusalembeen trying such modes of reviving a dead world, of reawakening spiritual hopefulness; but without success. No mere opinion or combination of opinions wrought this great change. Men did not learn anything more of the future than they had formerly known; no philosopher had discovered its possibilities or unveiled its secrets. But there had gone forth from a few simple men, and from one of more learning and power than the others, the faithful saying that Christ is risen indeed. Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. And it was this suddenly inspired faith that raised the world from its insensibility and corruption, and kindled it with a new hopeand the joy of a life not meted by mortal bounds, but incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.

3. It was on the strength of this assurance that St. Paul sought to comfort the Thessalonians. They had beenfrom what causes are not saidin anxiety as to the fate of their departed friends. They seem to have doubted whether these friends would share with them in the resurrection of the dead and the joy of the second coming of the Lord. The Apostle assured them that they had no need to be in trouble. The departed were safe with God, and the same great faith in the death and resurrection of Christ that sustained themselves was the ground of confidence for all.

Jesus Christ, who knew the universe, whose eye penetrated the unseen, who could not be mistaken, who knew the meaning of every word He spoke and of everything He did, dieddied, committing His person and spirit into the hands of a Personal God, that God being His Father. Here is comfort; I feel it, I praise God for it; I see light amidst darkness; simplicity amidst confusion, a path passing through the mysteries of the unseen and going straight up to the throne of God; midnight and great depths are as a wall on either side, but the path itself is beautiful and safe, for Jesus, the very truth and life, goes before as my forerunner. Give me grace only to have this mind which was in Jesusto be able amidst the agonies of death to see God as my Father, and to know nothing more than this, that I can commit myself into His hands, then, O Death, where is thy sting?O Grave, where is thy victory?1 [Note: Norman Macleod, Love the Fulfilling of the Law, 219.]

I agree entirely with what you have said of Death in your last letter; but at the same time I know well that the first touch of his hand is cold, and that he comes to us, as the rest of Gods angels do, in disguise. But we are enabled to see his face fully at last, and it is that of a seraph. So it is with all. Disease, poverty, death, sorrow, all come to us with unbenign countenances; but from one after another the mask falls off, and we behold faces which retain the glory and the calm of having looked in the face of God. I know that it will please you if I copy here a little poem which I wrote in April, 1841, and of which I was reminded by what you said of Death in your last letter. It is crude in as far as its artistic merits are considered, but there is a glimpse of good in it.

Sin hath told lies of thee, fair angel Death,

Hath hung a dark veil oer thy seraph face,

And scared us babes with tales of how, beneath,

Were features like her own. But I, through grace

Of the dear God by whom I live and move,

Have seen that gloomy shroud asunder rent,

And in thine eyes, lustrous with sweet intent,

Have read that thou none other wast but Love.

Thou art the beauteous keeper of that gate

Which leadeth to the souls desired home,

And I would live as one who seems to wait

Until thine eyes shall say, My brother, come!

And then haste forward with such gladsome pace

As one who sees a welcoming, sweet face;

For thou dost give us what the soul loves best

In the eternal soul a dwelling-place,

And thy still grave is the unpilfered nest

Of Truth, Love, Peace, and Dutys perfect rest.1 [Note: Letters of James Russell Lowell, i. 87.]

III

The Victory over Death

This is the victory that overcometh the world, says St. John, even our faith. And this is the victory, says St. Paul, that overcometh death. If we believe, he says. A weight of fact lies behind that if. St. Paul writes it in no doubtful mood, as indeed his Greek construction indicates. It is the if not of conjecture but of logic, as when we say that such and such results are certain if two straight lines cannot enclose a space. He brings the Thessalonians, anxious about their buried dear ones, back to a certainty of hope by appealing to this certainty of accomplished fact. They knew that Jesus had died and risen. Well then, granting that if so, with equal fulness of knowledge were they to say, Even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him. Was it a certainty to them that He had risen? Yes; and why? Because, on the one hand, adequate testimony attended the assertion, the testimony not only of the words of many witnesses, but of the moral miracle which those witnesses themselves were; they were transfigured men compared with what they had been before Jesus rose. On the other hand, the Thessalonians had themselves made proof of the transforming power of Him who was presented to them as risen again; they were themselves transfigured men, knowing God, loving God, at peace with Him now, and looking with indescribable assurance of hope for His glory hereafter.

1. It is plainly suggested in the text that in the fact that Jesus died there is a special consolation for those who sorrow for the dead. If Jesus had tasted of all that life brings to us except its close; if through the powers of His Divine nature He had in some way asserted and won for us eternal life apart from death, should we not feel that the darkest tract of human experience was untouched by His sympathy, even if it were transformed by His power? But now, is it not written, Jesus died? He is no stranger to the terrors of that mysterious land which one day we all must know. Death is not the undiscovered country to Him, for He has explored it for us that we should know no dread. He has stepped into the fast-running waters of that cold river which severs time and eternity, and lo! a way for the ransomed to pass over has marked the passage of His pierced feet. Christ died, and therefore Christianity is at home with grief for the dead; and the first condition of an ample comfort is satisfied in the assurance that there is nothing He does not know concerning death.

2. From the fact that Jesus died, the Apostle passes on to the triumphant sequel: and rose again. Here is the second fact which will illuminate sorrow and rob death of its sting. We believe that Jesus rose again. Think what Christ would have been to us, if our faith had been shut up to a bare knowledge that He died. If there had been no stone rolled away on the third morning would not His sepulchre in Josephs garden have been, in no small measure, the sepulchre of comfort too? Christian faith, which suns itself in the assurance that now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept, knows that it will lose all its brightness, its very vital breath even, if the certainty of that resurrection is broken, and the light and the warmth of that revelation are taken away. In the light of Christs resurrection alone does death assume or retain for us any higher meaning than for the ancient world. It is the light of the higher life in Christ which alone glorifies it. And unless this light has shone into our hearts, who can tell whence hope can reach us? We may be resigned or peaceful. We may accept the inevitable with a calm front. We may be even glad to be done with the struggle of existence, and leave our name to be forgotten and our work to be done by others. But in such a mood of mind there is no cheerfulness, no spring of hope. With such a thought St. Paul could comfort neither himself nor the Thessalonians. For himself, indeed, he felt that he would be intensely miserable if he had only such a thought. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. Hope in death can spring only from the principle of personal immortality; and this principle has no root save in Christ.

If we quit the living Christ, we quit all hold of the higher life. If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Heaven becomes a dumb picture; and deatheuphemize it as we maymerely blank annihilation. We may say of our dear ones, as we lay them in the dust, that they have fallen asleep; but the gentle words have no true meaning. The sleep is without an awakening. The higher and hopeful side of the image is cut away. The night becomes a perpetual slumber, on which no morning shall ever arise. It is only in the light of the resurrection of Christ that the phrase represents a reality, and the idea of death is transfigured into a nobler life. Let us believe that behind the veil of physical change there is a spiritual Power from which we have comeone who is the Resurrection and the Lifein whom, if we believe, we shall never die,and we may wait our change, not only with resignation, but with hope, and carry our personal affections and aspirations forward to another and a better state of being, in which they may be satisfied and made perfect.1 [Note: Principal Tulloch, Some Facts of Religion and of Life, 138.]

What do the words bring with him signify? Say, if you will, they are too high for us, we cannot attain to them,and you speak truly. But do not cast them aside because they are too high for you. The sun which shows you all that is at your feet is always too high for you to ascend to it, too bright for you to gaze upon it. These words may be full of illumination to us, in some of our dreariest and darkest hours, though they must be fulfilled to us, before the mists which rise from below to obscure them to us can be entirely scattered.2 [Note: F. D. Maurice, Christmas Day, 405.]

IV

The Name for Death

1. It is to Jesus primarily that the New Testament writers owe their use of sleep as the gracious emblem of death. The word was twice upon our Lords lips; once when over the twelve-year-old maid, from whom life had barely ebbed away, He said, She is not dead, but sleepeth; and once when in reference to the man Lazarus, from whom life had removed further, He said, Our friend sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. But Jesus was not the originator of the expression. We find it in the Old Testament, where the prophet Daniel, speaking of the end of the days and the bodily resurrection, designates those who share in it as them that sleep in the dust of the earth. And the Old Testament was not the sole origin of the phrase. For it is too natural, too much in accordance with the visibilities of death, not to have suggested itself to many hearts, and to have been shrined in many languages. Many an inscription of Greek and Roman date speaks of death under this figure; but almost always it is with the added, deepened note of despair, that it is a sleep which knows no waking, but lasts through eternal night.

2. The expression in the text them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus, suggests a very tender and wonderful thought of closeness and union between our Lord and the living dead, so close that He is, as it were, the atmosphere in which they move, or the house in which they dwell. But, tender and wonderful as the thought is, it is not exactly the Apostles idea here. For, accurately rendered, the words run, them which sleep through Jesus. They sleep through Him. It is by reason of Christ and His work, and by reason of that alone, that deaths darkness is made beautiful, and deaths grimness is softened down to this. What we call death is a complex thinga bodily phenomenon plus conscience, the sense of sin, the certainty of retribution in the dim beyond. The mere physical fact of death is a trifle. Look at it as you see it in the animals; look at it as you see it in men when they actually come to it. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is painless and easy, and men sink into slumber. Strange, is it not, that so small a reality should have power to cast over human life so immense and obscuring a shadow! Why is it? Because, as St. Paul says, the sting of death is sin, and if you can take the sting out of it then there is very little to fear, and it comes down to be an insignificant and transient element in our experience. Now, the death of Jesus Christ takes away the nimbus of apprehension and dread arising from conscience and sin, and the forecast of retribution. Jesus Christ has abolished death, leaving the mere shell, but taking all the substance out of it. It has become a different thing to men, because in that death of His He has exhausted the bitterness, and has made it possible that we should pass into the shadow, and not fear either conscience or sin or judgment.

We may tell the story of the Christians burial no longer in that brief hollow phrase which to the ancients seemed the tenderest allusion that could be made to the deceased, Non est, he is not; but in words like those of Bunyans, so fragrant of hearts-ease and immortelle,The pilgrim they laid in a chamber whose window opened towards the sunrising; the name of that chamber was Peace, where he slept till the break of day.1 [Note: A. J. Gordon, In Christ, 189.]

Notice with what a profound meaning the Apostle, in this very verse, uses the bare, naked word died in reference to Christ, and the softened one sleep in reference to us. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep. Ah! yes! He died indeed, bearing all that terror with which mens consciences have invested death. He died indeed, bearing on Himself the sins of the world. He died that no man henceforward need ever die in that same fashion. His death makes our death sleep, and His Resurrection makes our sleep calmly certain of a waking. It is profoundly significant that throughout the whole of the New Testament the plain, naked word death is usually applied, not to the physical fact which we ordinarily designate by the name, but to the grim thing of which that physical fact is only the emblem and the parable, viz. the true death which lies in the separation of the soul from God; whilst predominately the New Testament usage calls the physical fact by some other gentler form of expression.1 [Note: Alexander Maclaren.]

V

The Great Consummation

1. The one great assurance of the New Testament in regard to the eternal worldan assurance that ought to be satisfactory and sufficientis that those who have gone before are with God. Let that cheer us. Let us restrain our wondering and curiosity, or be willing that they should not be satisfied, so long as we know with certainty that every soul passing out of this mortal life into the immortal is with the great, true, loving, unforgetting Father. Such souls are in the hands of a mercy that never fails, in the hands of a power that can provide for all the wants of that unknown life. Is there not, in this teaching which St. Paul sent back by Timothy to the Thessalonians, a kind of answer to one of the deepest questions which we ask? We have here the assurance that there shall be no separation of those who have passed before from those who are left behind. God will gather together all souls, and they shall be together through all eternity.

Is it not true that the fact that our beloved are with the Lord is assuredly meant to develop a new gravitation of the soul towards that world? On earth if a dear friend leaves us for the other hemisphere, for a place perhaps of which we never heard before, there rises for us a new interest there, a new attraction. We busy ourselves to find out all we can about the locality and the life, and we supplement information with imagination for very love. Where the treasure is, there is the heart also. We live where our affections are. Even so, will not thought and aspiration be even unconsciously magnetized towards the Home which now holds our holy ones? Shall we not through them be drawn anew towards the Lord with whom they now converse face to face.1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, Concerning Them Which are Asleep, 18.]

2. There are inevitably some perplexities which result from the finiteness of our nature, and the impossibility of comprehending the infinite. We have looked in imagination into the other world, and seen it thronged and crowded with the millions in all the ages sweeping into it, and we have said, How shall we find the few scattered souls that we have known on earth? The doubt comes of finiteness. Those few souls are for us essentially the souls of the everlasting life. Next to the Saviour and the Father and the Holy Spirit, the souls through whose ministry our soul has been helped are to us the dwellers in the heavenly world. We shall go to them there as each soul goes to its own degree and place in the life of the New Jerusalem. We come back to the truthfulness of our first impulse, and know that we are to be not only for ever with the Lord, but for ever with all those we love. The question, Shall we know each other there? presses upon the souls of believers in all ages. The Thessalonians longed, as we long, for the everlasting company of those near and dear. And St. Pauls assurance was that God would bring them who had gone before, and fasten their lives to the lives of those whom Christ should find here at His coming. They who had gone before should come, with all the life opened to them in their immortality, and there should be no separation. We cannot think of ourselves apart from those whom we most intimately love. But that which has laid hold on the spirit is part of the spirit. We know it by the way in which we live continually a part of the life of those who have passed to the eternal world. We are not separated from them now. We live in memory of what we know they once were, and in thought of what they are now in the eternal world. We shall not merely be with those with whom we have had spiritual communion here; we shall be with them as we have never been with them here. The bodily differences will be taken away, the prisons will be broken open, our souls will meet in close union as they have never met here on earth.

If we think much of those whom we have loved on earth, and who have passed out of sight, we try to follow them, to be imitators of those who now inherit the promises. They are above us, but not too much above us. They are still branches of the same vine, members of the same Body. The branches of the tree are equally near to each other, whether the moonlight shine on all or only on one branch. The hand in the shadow and the hand in the light are not more near to each other, than we are to them. If one hand is in the light and one hand in the shadow, they are not really more separated than when both were in the light or both in the shadow. The union remains, the union with Christ, and with each other.1 [Note: G. H. Wilkinson, The Communion of Saints, 25.]

To our child as she approached eternity, there was given (I cannot use a weaker word than given) a convictionI may venture to call it an intuition, so calm and balanced was the certaintythat in that new life with the Lord she would still be near to us and know about us. Of course we do not treat her expectations as a revelation. But when we put them into context with the intimations of the written Word, we find in them a gentle light in which to read those intimations more clearly. That cloud of witnesses who are seen in the glass of Scripture (Heb 12:1), watching their successors as they run the earthly course, are assuredly permitted to be cognizant of us and of our path. And the same great Epistle informs us, on our side, in the same chapter (Heb 12:23), that we, in Christ, have come, not only (wonderful fact) to an innumerable company of angels, but also to the spirits of the just made perfect. In vain our fancy strives to paint the conditions of contact and cognizance. But it is enough to have even the most reserved intimation from the Divine Book that a contact there is. And the subordinate evidence of experience is not wanting. Instances may be few, but instances there are, as trustworthy as sound evidence can make them, of leave given to mourning Christians to know, mysteriously but directly, that their beloved have indeed been near them in full and conscious love.2 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, Concerning Them Which are Asleep, 14.]

Not mine the sad and freezing dreams

Of souls that, with their earthly mould,

Cast off the loves and joys of old.

No! I have Friends in Spirit-land,

Not shadows in a shadowy band,

Not others but themselves are they.

And still I think of them the same

As when the Masters summons came;

Their change, the holy morn-light breaking

Upon the dream-worn sleeper, waking

A change from twilight into day.1 [Note: J. G. Whittier.]

Asleep in Jesus

Literature

Bell (C. D.), The Name above Every Name, 220.

Brooks (P.), The Spiritual Man, 20.

Burrell (D. J.), The Morning Cometh, 277.

Cleife (H. H. T.), Mutual Recognition in the Life Beyond, 22.

Ellicott (C. J.), Sermons at Gloucester, 135.

Gordon (A. J.), In Christ, 185.

Hicks (E.), The Life Hereafter, 1.

Holland (C.), Gleanings from a Ministry of Fifty Years, 293.

Hood (P.), Dark Sayings on a Harp, 369.

Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., iii. 282.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Philippians, etc., 190.

Macnutt (F. B.), The Riches of Christ, 207.

Manning (H. E.), Sermons, i. 308.

Maurice (F. D.), Christmas Day, 392.

Moule (H. C. G.), Thoughts for the Sundays of the Year, 73.

Ogden (S.), Sermons, 126.

Paget (F. E.), The Living and the Dead, 307.

Purves (P. C.), The Divine Cure for Heart Trouble, 295.

Shettle (G. T.), Them Which Sleep in Jesus, 1.

Spencer (I. S.), Sermons, i. 144.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, liv. (1908), No. 3077.

Symonds (A. R.), Fifty Sermons Preached in Madras, 90.

Tulloch (J.), Some Facts of Religion and Life, 129.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), iii. (1862), No. 387.

Watson (F.), The Christian Life Here and Hereafter, 220.

Wray (J. J.), Honey in the Comb, 91.

Christian World Pulpit, xxxiii. 277 (F. Temple).

Church Pulpit Year Book, 1908, p. 217.

Church Times, Nov. 10, 1911 (J. G. Simpson).

Homiletic Review, lxiv. 61 (H. D. M. Spence-Jones).

Worlds Great Sermons, i. 25 (St. Chrysostom).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

I would: Rom 1:13, 1Co 10:1, 1Co 12:1, 2Co 1:8, 2Pe 3:8

which are: 1Th 4:15, 1Th 5:10, 1Ki 1:21, 1Ki 2:10, Dan 12:2, Mat 27:52, Luk 8:52, Luk 8:53, Joh 11:11-13, Act 7:60, Act 13:36, 1Co 15:6, 1Co 15:18, 2Pe 3:4

ye sorrow: Gen 37:35, Lev 19:28, Deu 14:1, Deu 14:2, 2Sa 12:19, 2Sa 12:20, 2Sa 18:33, Job 1:21, Eze 24:16-18, Joh 11:24, Act 8:2

which have: Eph 2:12, Job 19:25-27, Pro 14:32, Eze 37:11, 1Co 15:19

Reciprocal: Gen 24:67 – comforted Gen 44:31 – when he Gen 50:1 – wept Lev 21:2 – General Lev 25:28 – he shall Psa 4:8 – I will Psa 16:9 – my flesh Pro 3:24 – and Son 6:2 – and to Son 7:9 – those that are asleep Eze 44:25 – General Mar 5:39 – not dead Luk 7:13 – Weep not Luk 20:36 – can Act 4:2 – preached Act 9:39 – and all Act 27:20 – all 2Co 2:7 – overmuch Phi 1:21 – to die 1Th 4:14 – sleep 1Pe 1:3 – by

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS*

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

1Th 4:13

The way in which Saints days appeal to different individuals must depend upon individual disposition. But however we regard the ordinary Saints day, there is surely one festival that must appeal to any one who thinks at all, and that is the festival of All Saints.

I. The communion of Saints.All Saints Day is a day on which we show whether those words I believe in the communion of Saints have any meaning at all. There is probably not one of us who has not somebody beyond the veil, some one in Paradise, some one we strive, though but with a feeble longing, to get into closer communion with, some we have loved long since and lost a while.

II. Life after death.Where is the soul? Where shall I go when I die? I know I shall not merely sleep. I have heard the text where the tree falls there shall it lie, but God has spoken louder than that: He has said He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And my Lord and Master, when He came down to earth to reveal my Fathers mind to me, knew I should want to know something of the life after death. He did not tell me much, but He told that little very clearly. You remember the parable of Dives and Lazarus, you remember the conversation which Jesus represented as taking place between two men. There is not only a conversation, which of course means life, but there is an appeal to memory of the things in this world. And then we know that our Lord did not go to heaven on His death, but to preach to the spirits in prisonin a place of safe keeping. You do not preach to people who are incapable of hearingwho are asleep. So our Lord would have us clearly understand that those loved ones whom we think of individually and collectively on All Saints Day are alive in the full sense of the word.

III. In Gods safe keeping.How, then, shall we think of those who are dead? A family never gets smaller. It has some of its members behind the veil, but all are to be joined together again. Scripture does not reveal very much, but we have very sound ground to go on. Surely we may understand this: the very word life means progress, development in one direction or another. Those in Paradise gain a clearer knowledge, a closer communion with God. We do not know what the saints are doing, we know nothing about Paradise, but we know that God has them in safe keeping. And one day we hope to join them. What are you and I doing to prepare for the fuller life beyond the veil?

Rev. R. M. Carrick.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

1Th 4:13. Would not have you to be ignorant simply denotes that Paul did not wish the brethren to be uninformed on the subject he was about to discuss. Them which are asleep means the Christians who had died, the last word being a figure of speech based on the apparent condition of those who are dead. The term is used with reference to death in the following passages. Act 7:60 Act 13:36; 1Co 15:6 1Co 15:51; 2Pe 3:4. Sorrow over the death of loved ones is natural and right, which Jesus showed by his attitude toward the sisters of Lazarus (Joh 11:35). But there is a difference between the sorrow when it is for those who “sleep in Jesus,” for in that case there is a hope of a happy life after the resurrection.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

1Th 4:13. we would not have you to be ignorant. A phrase by which St. Paul frequently introduces a new and important topic. See references.

Them which are asleep. Death is called sleep by Pagan as well as by Christian writers, and it is therefore probable that the euphemism was first suggested by the stillness and repose, and cessation of intercourse with outward things, which characterize both conditions. What we know of sleep is, that it is a state in which there is no consciousness of the objects of sense; and this is a chief characteristic of death. But to the Christian the resemblance is fuller and more significant. No sleep lasts for ever, else it is not sleep; a waking follows every sleep. And so death is called a sleep, to remind us that it is not a final cessation of life, even in the case of the body, but only a transitory state out of which body and soul shall together arise. And secondly, what sleep is to our days work, death is to our lifes work. The frame that is worn by toil or wasted by disease lies back into the arms of death, and all its weariness is over, all its pain forgotten. Under shelter of that insensibility the man is rehabilitated and revived from all that has worn him out.

That ye sorrow not. These words do not merely forbid such sorrowing as the hopeless indulge in, but all sorrowing. They who look for no resurrection sorrow for the dead, but ye are not to do so. To bewail their condition is wholly out of place, though to utter our own grief and bewail our own loss is natural and fit.

No hope. Here and there an individual among the heathen speaks of death as the interruption, not the extinction of life (Seneca), or is driven by the death of a noble friend to hope for a life beyond (Horace, Odes, i. 24), but at the best that future life is shadowy, colourless, cold, and unattractive (Propertius, El. 1Th 4:7). The fact is, that without the knowledge of the resurrection of the body, the hope of immortality and the notions of a future life must be dim, perplexed, and vacillating.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Division 3. (1Th 4:13-18; 1Th 5:1-11.)

The resurrection of the saints at the coming of the Lord.

The Christian hope is prominent in this epistle from the first. The Thessalonians had been converted to wait for God’s Son from heaven, and this became the light for them upon a path which ended in the glory already revealed. Important it surely was that there should be no cloud upon the prospect thus before them in which the opened heavens claimed them constantly; while for the earth also was seen the end of Satan’s power and of the curse, and the regeneration of the earth itself. What power for sanctification this, which made of those possessing such a hope pilgrims indeed; encompassing them continually with the atmosphere and light of heaven and the world to come!

For the Thessalonians, however, there was in fact a cloud which shadowed this glorious expectation; and the apostle proceeds to dispel it by the announcement of a new “word of the Lord,” a new revelation, which declares the participation in it of the dead, for whom they were sorrowing as cut off from that which was the hope of the living. On the contrary he shows that the dead will be raised up to share with the living all that was before them. There would be no division of this sort between those alike the people of Christ. And he goes on to remind them that they were not to be (as Israel rightly will be) calculating times and seasons, which would have their place in connection with the day of the Lord, yet to come upon the world as a thief in the night. For the children of the day, suddenly as it might come, it could be no such unwelcome surprise. Let them not, therefore, sleep as others, but clothe themselves with the light as with an armor which would be their defence in a hostile place; assuring themselves that, whether living or dying, they were alike to live with their Saviour-Lord.

1. The apostle does not reprove them for the want of knowledge which they had; and which, if not inevitable, yet at least was not to be wondered at. There was, in fact, as his speaking by the word of the Lord implies, as yet no definite statement of Scripture with regard to that which troubled these young disciples. The, opposite has indeed been asserted; and the phrase itself even taken as a direct appeal to Scripture. But he does not produce any scripture; nor, had he done so, would it seem like Paul to affirm his speaking by it after this manner. The sufficient answer is, however, that no passage has been brought forward which could justify this view; and we may be confident none can be brought forward. The texts which have been referred to (Mat 16:27; Mat 24:31; Mat 25:1 sq.; Luk 14:14; Joh 5:28 sq.) are wholly incompetent; so that others have been obliged to imagine an unwritten word of the Lord which had come to Paul’s ears; but why not, then, a fresh communication from the Lord in glory, such as we know he received on other subjects, and others also beside himself received? True it is, indeed, that one might well believe, apart from any positive statement, that the Lord would not, in the way they feared, leave any Of His own in the day of His manifestation under the power of that death which He had Himself passed through, -deprived, not by any fault of their own, of the full participation in the glory which that death of His had entitled them to. The lack of assurance in this respect on the part of the Thessalonians may well show us our dullness in spiritual things. Yet for this the Lord has now made special provision. It is like Him, and we have all of us cause to be thankful for it. No! “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also those who have fallen asleep through Jesus will God bring with Him.”

Let us notice a little exactly the expressions here: for we may be assured that they are themselves exact, as always in Scripture. “Jesus died;” His saints but “fall asleep.” With Him indeed it was death, and in all its reality and severity as the judgment upon sin, -the sign and type of a deeper judgment. With them it is but “sleep,” -rest and refreshment, from which they rise to a day that knows no ending and suffers no decline, -a rest too, but in the full activity of life, where life is never dormant, but the joy of the Lord is strength indeed.

For, if Jesus died, He rose again; and this is what gives His death itself its full power in blessing for our souls. Thus the apostle puts the two together, as the full argument of faith as to its portion from God. It is God who raised up Jesus again. He has answered the cry, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” by putting the Sufferer where all the meaning of His death can now come out. Righteousness sorrowing gave Him up to die; but righteousness joyfully raises Him from the dead. Had He suffered on His own account, He could not have come out of it; His coming out is the testimony of personal righteousness in Himself, and thus of a work done for others, and of its acceptance also in their behalf. He rises their Representative, even as He died their Substitute; and the honors so acquired He, whose wealth could not be increased, acquired as treasure that He could pour out upon them. Thus His resurrection is full argument for their own; and if God bring Him again into the world, they too shall come with Him; God shall bring them with Him. In the day of His manifestation all must do Him honor: so He comes in the glory of His Father, with the holy angels; and how shall the dominion of death which He has broken keep from Him those who show the value of the work which has set it aside?

The apostle here announces only the truth concerning those on whose account they are bearing so needless a burden of sorrow. “God shall bring them with Him,” -His own, from whom He cannot needlessly be separated. Not, as some strangely imagine, bring them as spirits to rejoin the bodies left behind on earth: it is merely the simple and blessed fact, that they will not be wanting in the company that God brings with His Son. Then he goes on to explain how it shall be, and brings in here the assurance of their previous resurrection. “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord are in no way to anticipate those who have fallen asleep. Because the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught away together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we be ever with the Lord.”

Thus we can realize the tenderness of the expression, “those who have fallen asleep through Jesus,” or I think, better “those who have been laid asleep by Jesus,” -by Him who has the keys of death and hades, and their Saviour. Taken in the first way, the meaning would be that “through Jesus,” -through His work for them, -death had become to them merely a sleep; but it would seem a strange manner of expressing this. Taken in the second way, the Lord’s rule over death and His tender care of His people are both implied.

To us, for whom the great body of Christians are already among the dead, it cannot be a question that those remaining to the coming of the Lord will not precede the apostles and the multitude of the departed in their entrance into glory; yet, for all that, how little is the significance of this rising “first” of the dead in Christ realized by believers still. The common thought (thank God, less common than it was) of a single day of judgment in which saints and sinners rise together, necessarily destroys it entirely. Here a resurrection of the dead is shown to take place before the living saints are changed even; and then both are caught away together, to meet the Lord in the air. When He appears, therefore, they appear with Him (Col 3:4). Here is no promiscuous crowd, clearly: they that are ready go in with Him to the marriage and the door is shut.” There is no need for our present purpose to consider what or where this marriage is. This consideration belongs elsewhere, and is to be found where it belongs (Mat 25:1 sq., notes); but we see at once that here is the company from which the Thessalonians thought their dying brethren might be excluded. It is not the dead who wait and watch with their lamps trimmed and burning; and they are in fact left out of the picture that our Lord has given us there. The apostle, speaking by the word of the Lord, now adds them to the company of those who thus go forth. As with the living so with the dead, they are not the whole number of those dead, but, as the apostle elsewhere says, they that are Christ’s at His coming” (1Co 15:23). Those who compose this company are distinctly specified: they are, according to the language of the epistle to the Philippians, the “out-resurrection from among the dead” (Php 3:11).

Scripture is a perfectly consistent whole; and the faithfulness and love of God shine out in it. Christians may lose sight of what they are to Christ, but it is impossible for Him to deny Himself. They can mingle themselves with the world; but He who has redeemed them out of it can never mingle them. They will come with Him to the judgment of the world -not be judged with it by Him; and this is what the doctrine of the “resurrection from among the dead” decisively bears witness to. But all the details and manner of it are in full harmony with this. Even the prodigal, according to the Lord’s own picture, must be met outside the father’s house, with the father’s arms; and where it is the gathering of Christians finally to their Lord, the “Lord Himself” must come to claim them: “the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout of command,” as in supreme authority. This, although question has been made of it, is His own voice; and thus the “voice of the archangel” follows and is distinguished from it. The highest among angels -those “ministers of His that do His pleasure,” -in sympathetic obedience gives the word (as it would seem) to the angelic host, and the trump of God sounds. “The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we” (the living) “shall be changed” (1Co 15:52). Thus the trumpet here is no call to battle, as some have thought it, but answers to the call of the assembly, in Num 10:3-4. In Mat 24:31, the Son of man sends His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. This, as has been shown in the consideration of the passage, is the gathering of dispersed Israel. In our present epistle it is rather what would answer to the gathering of the princes (Num 10:4); for the company gathered is that of those who are to reign with Christ over the earth. The announcement here is exactly as in Corinthians: the dead in Christ rise first; then “we who are alive and remain” are “caught away together with them,” -which involves, of course, the change of which Corinthians speaks. We are “caught away in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we be ever with the Lord.”

It is not perhaps remarkable, and yet we may do well to notice, how throughout this word of comfort that title “Lord” comes in; “the word of the Lord,” “the coming of the Lord,” “the Lord Himself,” “to meet the Lord,” “be ever with the Lord.” It is, no doubt, the time when His lordship will be manifest to all; and that may seem sufficient reason for it. What a joy it will be beyond expression, to see all power put into the Hands alone competent to wield it! to have every knee bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father! But “so shall we be ever with the Lord” sounds somewhat in a different line of thought; and here we perhaps rather expect the sweet familiar “Jesus,” His name on earth, but far from excluding the thought of His divine personality. To fulfil the prophecy that He was to be called Emmanuel, He was called Jesus; and that, too, because He would save His people from their sins. It is a name wonderfully complete therefore in what it expresses. Yet in the thought of eternity, as the apostle realizes it in the passage before us, he does not say, we shall be ever with Jesus, nor even, the Lord Jesus, but simply, “for ever with the Lord.” Some even seem to deem it too cold and distant a title for heaven; but they can hardly have noticed how it is used by the inspired writers. While, of course, speaking of authority, it is an authority under which they delight to be putting themselves, as it were, continually. With him who, though most free, would ever be known as the “bondservant of Christ,” they are ever proclaiming and exulting in His Lordship. And for those who have realized the bitter bondage of sin, how blessed the deliverance which could only be achieved by the strong hand of this glorious Master. For them this is not the language of distance, but of joyous worship. Released from such authority, to what would they be released? Will eternity make any difference in this respect? Will they need deliverance from that which wrought deliverance for them? The apostle answers that there, when we reach the end which all before has been hastening on to, -“we shall be ever with the Lord.” It is the answer of heart to Him who has come forth “Himself” in joy of heart to meet them, to Him whose own words were, to those fearing soon to be made orphans by His absence, “I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am there ye may be also.”

2. This is, of course, but the coming of the Lord in one aspect: as it bears upon the condition of the sleeping saints. The apostle goes on now to what is most closely connected with it, but yet not synonymous, as many take it. The “day of the Lord” is, in fact, ushered in by the coming of the Lord: it cannot be before Christ has risen from where He is now seated, on the Father’s throne, to take that which is His as Son of man. In this character it is that all judgment is committed to Him (Joh 5:22; Joh 5:27); and thus it is that as the Son of man He comes in the clouds of heaven and sits upon the throne of His glory. But before He thus appears, He has first of all to gather His associates upon the throne of His Kingdom; and this it is which we have been just looking at. When He appears, we shall appear with Him in glory (Col 3:4); and when He reigns we shall reign with Him over the earth. But for this we must be either raised or changed; and more than this, we must “appear,” or better, “be manifested,” before the judgment-seat of Christ (2Co 5:10). As to acceptance of our persons, that is already accomplished; we are “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph 1:6). Thus, personally, as He Himself has told us, he that has heard His word, and believed on Him who sent slim shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life (Joh 5:24). But the appraisal of our works is another thing, and that there shall be this we are as definitely assured. “We shall be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ.” It is the triumph of divine grace that everything can be brought out thus, and we can “give account of ourselves to God,” without the least sullying of divine holiness; even under the scrutiny of the light of God, “made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col 1:12). Yet so “shall every one receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” The appraisal is for reward; and we receive reward or suffer loss accordingly. This therefore must be settled before His saints can come forth with their Lord, each in his apportioned place according to the judgment of divine holiness, as well as in manifestation of divine grace.

We are to meet the Lord in the air; and then, according to what the tenor of Scripture generally implies, that apportionment of reward takes place. With this also there will necessarily be another thing of incalculable value for the soul, -wisdom gathered for eternity as to sin and holiness, good and evil, and the perfect ways of God’s government as to each. What lessons for the judges of the new Kingdom, who have themselves passed under the searching of inflexible holiness before they come to fill that place! How suited that they should do this; and this accounts on the one side for that which perhaps no single text, but the combined force of many prophetic scriptures assures us will be the case, that between the taking away of the saints to meet their Lord and His coming with them in the clouds of heaven there will elapse a considerable time -in fact some years. This is a matter much in dispute even yet among those who have devoted themselves more than others to the study of prophecy. It would be impossible to take it up in any adequate way here; nor is this the place in which to consider it. The full unfolding is in the book of Revelation; while the Lord’s own prophecy upon the Mount of Olives, as Matthew has recorded it, is an important link between this and Daniel, the Old Testament revelation. The second epistle here, with its warning as to apostasy from Christianity threatening, and the coming of the man of sin, almost completes the scriptures relating to this subject.

But thus it is plain that the day of the Lord begins for the earth as it may be said, secretly, and is characterized in its beginning by judgment, more and more descending upon a world ripening more and more in its iniquity. The true saints in Christendom being removed to the presence of their Lord, it becomes a mere corrupt mass, lapsing into open and defiant infidelity. And now it is that, the Gentile branches being cat off, (because they abode not in the grace received) the natural branches are to be graffed again into their own olive-tree; this too for final and full blessing to the world at large (Rom 11:16-26). A remnant awakened by the Spirit of God to the sense of their national guilt in the rejection of Christ, and purified by the trials through which they pass, in the midst of the apostasy of the mass who receive Antichrist, are prepared for the coming of the Lord, not now into the air, as when He takes away the saints of the present and the past, but to the earth, to judge it. (See the notes on the book of Psalms, passim).

It is in connection with Israel that all the Old Testament prophecies find fulfilment; and its history moves in accord with prophecy. For with the blessing of the earthly people comes the blessing of the earth; and when Israel loses her position as a nation, the history of the earth is for the present closed.

The interval has indeed the most wonderful history of all; but it is that of a people called out from the earth -from Israel and from the nations both, and destined for heaven.

Thus it is plain why the apostle says to the Thessalonians here, that of the times and seasons they had no need that he should write to them. In fact, the Lord had at the beginning told His disciples that it was not for them to know the times and the seasons, which the Father had placed under His own authority (Act 1:7). Their question, to which this is an answer, shows that, as we know, the heavenly calling of the Church was yet unrevealed. Even now they might not know all that this involved in the way of separation from Jewish and earthly prophecy; but they knew perfectly well that the day of the Lord was to come as a thief in the night. This was evidently the common Christian knowledge, and made it plain that its coming could not be calculated from Daniel’s prophetic periods, for instance. In these, in fact, are found incalculable elements which, until the time comes when they will speak out, will necessarily defeat all attempts at a right estimate. Had it been possible in the apostle’s days to predict the centuries of delay that have, in fact, elapsed, disciples might indeed still have waited for their Lord, but watched they could not, and no “thief in the night” could have troubled their slumbers. But for the heart expectancy was needed; and they were to watch because they knew not. Thus for these watchers the times could not speak; and in fact when they do it will be for another people than the present Christian Church, and when this is already removed to be with the Lord in the manner which we have just had before us.

For mere formal and worldly Christendom, the coming of the thief will then in a sense have taken place. Shut out in the outside darkness, when others have entered the chambers of light, no place of repentance will be left for the despisers of God’s present grace. In a world which, having rejected the true King, will be left for that awful time to experience fully what Satan’s rule is, they will fall under the power of his deception. Not having received the love of the truth that they might be saved, they will believe a lie; and comforting themselves with the cry of “Peace and safety,” sudden destruction will come upon them as upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape!

They have chosen darkness, alas, with the light all round them; and for such the darkness is appointed. Impossible is it for the true Christian to be thus overtaken as a thief. A son of the day, the darkness has no title or claim with regard to him. The night is the period when darkness reigns; but the Christian is not of it, -not of the present “age” at all: it is characterized by a rejected Christ, gone from the earth -the Light of the world withdrawn. But the Holy Spirit is come, and the light is restored to faith: faith receives the light from heaven, though the night is unchanged by that; and the sons of light have to be armed against the darkness, which is all around them. Upon those who are in the light it can only come as a spirit of slumber, or as intoxication from the world’s siren cup. But in the light itself is the remedy for this; and Christ as apprehended in the soul is its armor of defence from both snare and open assault: faith and love cover the citadel of the heart, -are its breastplate, therefore, -while the hope of salvation (the full deliverance at hand) is as a helmet for the head against all stunning of discouragement. We must brace this armor to us, says the apostle, that we may find its full sufficiency; and the expectation speedily of the Lord’s return is cheer indeed, both as to the dead and in the daily conflict of the living: “God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ; who died for us that, whether we wake or sleep, we may live together with Him.” With this hope we may well encourage one another, as with a hope with which we ourselves are comforted of God. The apostle could, indeed, thank Him as to the Thessalonian Christians, that they were doing this.

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

Our apostle, from this verse to the end of the chapter, exhorts the Thessalonians to moderate their grief and sorrow for their friends who died in Christ, many of which, no doubt, were martyrs for the truth in those days of persecution: he lays down many consolatory arguments, as so many sovereign antidotes against immoderate sorrow for the death of pious relations; and, first, he acquaints them, that such sorrow as is excessive, would be more like Pagans than Christians, who mourn without hope of any life after this, that is, of a resurrection from the grave, and a future state of immortality. Our apostle doth not forbid sorrow for the dead absolutely, which Christ shewed for Lazarus, and the church for Stephen, but it is excessive sorrow only that is here condemned.

Learn hence, 1. That all sorrow for the death of friends is not unlawful, or forbidden to Christians; the Christian religion doth not destroy natural affections, but teaches us to moderate them.

Learn, 2. That there is a mighty difference between the Christian’s sorrow for the dead, and theirs who are strangers to Christianity: the sorrow of the heathen was extravagant and excessive in the measure, foolish, cruel, and impious in the manner; they tore their hair, beat their breasts, cut their flesh, and ran howling up and down in the most desperate manner: but the Christian’s sorrow is sober, moderate, silent, free from ostentation, under the government of reason and religion.

Learn, 3. That the belief of a future state, and the hope of a joyful resurrection, is the cause of this great difference: it is the ignorance of the happiness of glorified saints in heaven, which is the cause of our immoderate sorrow for their death here on earth.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

“I Do Not Want You To Be Ignorant”

It appears some at Thessalonica thought the blessings of Christ’s second coming would only be enjoyed by those who were living at the time of the Savior’s return. Such a misunderstanding of one of the most basic doctrines about Jesus Christ could have led to a terrible state of spiritual depression, especially when Christian loved ones died before the Lord’s return.

Paul wanted to be sure they had plenty of teaching on this important topic and were not left doubting because of ignorance ( Rom 1:13 ; Rom 11:25 ). It was critical that they understand that those who were already asleep, or those resting in the bosom of the earth in death, had not, and would not, miss the resurrection. The loss of those counted as dear loved ones is filled with shock and immediate sorrow. Unbelievers are burdened with an extra amount of sorrow when their loved ones die because they see no escape from the tomb. Paul did not want the brethren to suffer this additional sorrow ( 1Th 4:13 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

1Th 4:13. I would not have you ignorant, brethren The apostle had intimated, (1Th 3:10,) that he desired to make them another visit at Thessalonica, in order to perfect that which was lacking in their faith. Perhaps what he now proceeds to say was part of what he wanted to teach them, as not having seen it proper when he was with them to enter into such discoveries as are here made. But having been informed that they lamented over their dead with immoderate sorrow, and perhaps that they hired mourners on such occasions, and were even apt to repine at the divine providence for taking their pious friends and relatives from them, he here proceeds to give them information well calculated to support and comfort them in such circumstances. Concerning them who are asleep , who have slept; who have departed this life. The death of the body is termed its sleep, because it suspends the exercise of all the animal functions, closes all its senses, and is a cessation of all motion and feeling in it; and because it shall be followed by a reviviscence to a more vigorous and active life than it now enjoys. That ye sorrow not Immoderately: herein the efficacy of Christianity greatly appears, that it neither takes away nor imbitters, but sweetly tempers, that most refined of all affections, our desire of, or love to the dead. As others Who are unacquainted with the truths of the gospel. It was the custom of the heathen, on the death of their relations, to make a show of excessive grief, by shaving their heads, and cutting their flesh, (Lev 19:27-28,) and by loud howlings and lamentations. They even hired persons, who had it for a trade to make these howlings and cries. But this show of excessive grief, as well as the grief itself, being inconsistent with that knowledge of the state of the dead, and with that hope of their resurrection, which the gospel gives to mankind, the apostle forbade it, and comforted the Thessalonians by foretelling and proving Christs return to the earth, to raise the dead, and carry the righteous with him into heaven. Who have no hope Many of the heathen entertained a kind of belief of a future state, but that belief being derived from nothing but an obscure tradition, the origin of which they could not trace, or from their own wishes, unsupported by any demonstrative reasoning, could scarcely be called belief or hope, and had very little influence on their conduct. See note on Eph 2:12. Add to this, none of them had any knowledge or expectation that the righteous, or virtuous, would be raised from the dead with glorious, immortal, incorruptible bodies, and taken to heaven; neither had they any conception of the employments and enjoyments of that immortal state. St. Pauls discourse, therefore, concerning these grand events, must have given much consolation to the Thessalonians under the death of their relations, as it assured them that if they all died in Christ, they should all meet again, and spend an endless life in complete happiness, never more to part. In this light death is only a temporary separation of friends, which is neither to be dreaded nor regretted. Concerning our knowing one another after the resurrection, see on 1Th 2:20.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But we would not have you ignorant [This is Paul’s habitual formula, used either negatively or positively, with which to start a new topic (Rom 1:13; Rom 11:25; Col 2:1; 1Co 10:1; 1Co 11:3; 1Co 12:1; 2Co 1:8; Phi 1:12). It shows us that what he is now about to say has no connection with what precedes. It seems that Timothy brought Paul word that many Thessalonians entertained the crude notion that only the living would participate in the joys of Christ’s coming, and that all those who were so unfortunate as to die before that event, would thereby forfeit their share in it. It is not strange that such a doctrine should spring up among those who had been so hastily instructed as the Thessalonians, especially when we may safely surmise that many new converts had been added to their number since Paul’s departure], brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest [the pagans], who have no hope. [Paul speaks of the dead as sleeping, employing the beautiful New Testament metaphor (Joh 11:11; Act 7:16; 1Co 15:18; 1Co 15:51), in which the grave becomes a couch wherein the body rests until it is wakened at the resurrection. Those grossly pervert the metaphor who use it to prove that the soul also slumbers. The apostle does not forbid sorrow over our departed (Act 8:2; Joh 11:35), but that despairing grief which characterized the pagan of that day who had no hope of a resurrection. Alford gives such quotations as these from pagan writers. Theocritus: “Hope goes with life; all hopeless are the dead.” schylus: “Once dead there is no resurrection more.” Cetullus: “Suns may set and may return; we, when once our brief life wanes, have eternal night to sleep.” Lucretius: “None ever wake again whom the cold pause of life hath overtaken.” To these might be added the pathetic lines of Moschus: “We shall sleep the long, limitless, unawakable slumber,” and the citation of Jowett as to “the sad complaints of Cicero and Quintilian over the loss of their children, and the dreary hope of an immortality of fame in Tacitus and Thucydides.” The Christian should stand in contrast to all this, assuaging his sorrow by a blessed hope.]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

ARGUMENT 7

THE RAPTURE

This wonderful argument opens with the thirteenth verse of the fourth chapter, and closes with the eleventh verse of the fifth chapter, unfortunately severed in twain in the middle by the insertion of the fifth chapter. Of course, by this time you know that the divisions into chapters and verses, and insertion of italicized words, and the postscripts, are all postapostolic, and without authority.

13. But we do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as those having no hope. The sleep here is that of the body, as the immortal soul never sleeps. This is confirmed by the allusion to the heathen, who have no doctrine of the resurrection to comfort them, burying their dead with no hope of ever seeing them. It can not refer to the soul, because the heathen all teach the souls immortality, but not that of the body, which is alone peculiar to Christianity.

14. If we believe that Jesus died and is risen, so also God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. Of course, the souls of the saints will descend with Jesus in the rapture, and receive their risen bodies. But this same word sleep, here occurs as in preceding verse, referring to the body, as the souls of the saints do not sleep. This confirms the rapture, as he must come for them, in order to bring them with him when he descends on the throne of his glory.

15. For I say this to you in the Word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain till the coming of the Lord, may not go before them that are asleep; i.e., the buried saints will rise before we living saints shall be translated. This still confirms the reference to the body, as our bodies will be transfigured.

16. The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God. and the dead in Christ shall rise first. The adverb, first, here has been misconstrued, contrastively with the second resurrection, which is untrue. The simple fact revealed is, that the sainted dead will rise before the living are translated.

17. Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall be forever with the Lord. It does not state here that the Lord comes to the earth; but we, with all the risen of the bridehood, will be caught up to meet him in the air. Shout is keleusma, defined as the shout of a hunter to his dogs, a sea captain to his sailors, and a general to his soldiers. Remember, the saints are sleeping in the dust on all sides of the globe. Hence, it He were to come very near, the mass of the earth would intervene between him and the saints on to other side. Hence, the probability that he will call from a great distance in the firmaments, thus obliterating the earths diameter, as they will simultaneously rise from all parts of the earths surface. Every member of the bridehood, living and dead, will hear that call, the latter rising promptly and flying up into the firmament, and the former waiting a short time. The rapture is the first great miracle in the revealed catalogue of latter-day wonders. This must take place preparatory to the descension of our Lord on the throne of his millennial glory, and before the great Tribulation. The prophecies have already been so fulfilled, that we need not be surprised at any moment to hear the trumpet of our Savior roar from the skies, summoning his saints to meet him in the air. Then the first resurrection will take place, including the members of the bridehood; i.e., the sanctified. (Rom 10:6). Modern theologians have obscured these Scriptures by explaining the first resurrection as spiritual, and thus doing away with it altogether. In that case, they are forced, by their logic, to do away with the second resurrection, thus spiritualizing and utterly doing away with the resurrection of the body. and plunging headlong into Swedenborgianism. Nearly all of the heresies Originate either from spiritualizing the literal Scriptures or literalizing the spiritual. Do not tinker with Gods Word, but believe it as he gives it. The Bible teaches that the bodies of all will he raised. The New Testament declares a special resurrection, out from among the dead. (Php 3:11.) This was the beau ideal for which Paul and his comrades were running, disencumbered of every burden, that they might take no risk. The translation, which will be the glorious privilege of all the sanctified who are living on the earth when he comes and calls his Bride to meet him in the air, will simply consist in the elimination of all ponderous matter out of our bodies, so we will not weigh anything (as nothing but the weight of our bodies keeps us on the earth now). This done, our bodies will rise, responsive to the impulses of our spirits, and of course fly away to meet our Savior. When the trumpet sounds, the glorified bodies of the rising saints all round the world will flood the firmament; the splendor which eclipsed the mortal eyes of Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration will illuminate the entire firmament with a glory so bewildering, that we who are alive would be lost in contemplation. In the midst of the unearthly glory, before we are aware, we will find ourselves flying and commingling with the enraptured millions of risen saints. We should not only have constant faith in justification and sanctification, but for translation, as we know not what moment our Lord will call. If we are sanctified wholly, we re ready for translation, responsive to our faith like Enoch (Heb 11:5). The transfiguration of the Holy Ghost is the climax of mediatorial restitution. Glory to God I am looking for my Lord and the transfiguration.

18. So exhort one another in these words. The Church has lost power and glory unutterable by the delinquency of the pulpit on this commandment. O how she needs this inspiring truth this day to raise her out of worldliness and apostasy, to plunge beneath the cleansing fountain, wash, and be clean, put on her white robes and get on her watchtowers, waiting with glowing expectancy for the coming of her Lord!

1. Concerning the periods and epochs you have no need that I write unto you.

2. You know well that the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night. Time is a parenthesis in eternity, interjected for the accommodation of the mediatorial kingdom, and divided up into periods and epochs. We are living in the sixth dispensationi.e., that of the Holy Ghost; the Edenic, Antediluvian, Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Messianic have come and gone in their appointed times, each winding up with a signal revolutionary epoch. These times and seasonsi.e., epochs and periods of revolution and developmentare ordered and determined by the sovereign and discriminating wisdom of the Father only. Hence, since the inauguration of the Holy Ghost dispensation on the day of Pentecost, the Son has been sitting on the right hand of the Father, awaiting his time for his coronation King of the nations, having been crowned King of saints at his ascension. Meanwhile the Bride has been waiting in constant anticipation the return of the Bridegroom. A thief always comes suddenly and unexpectedly to the parties from whom he steals. As the coming of our Lord to the earth to steal away his Bride is unknown, both to the Church and her Divine Spouse, is known only to the Father, therefore it will be the greatest surprise that ever fell on a slumbering world and an apostate Church.

3. This describes the terrible anguish and awful pall that shall come to the godless millions of a fallen world and a slumbering Church, when awakened by the trump of the archangel and the shout of the descending Christ, calling all the members of his bridehood, living and dead, to meet him in the air. The institutions of the old dispensation all focalized in the first advent of Christ, like rivers flowing into the sea. That great and notable event was the exchange station, where all changed cars for the glorious new departure of the gospel dispensation. In a similar manner all the institutions of the new dispensations focalize and have their fulfillment in the second coming of Christ, when the gospel dispensation will wind up, and the glorious kingdom usher in, Satan, the present king of the nations, having been arrested, taken out of the world, and locked up in hell. (Revelation 20.)

4. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day may overtake you as a thief.

5. For all you are the sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night nor of darkness.

6. Therefore let us not sleep as the rest, but watch and be sober. Sin is the only thing that ever made the human soul drunk. Entire sanctification is absolutely necessary to the complete sobriety of the soul. The smallest amount of sin intoxicates you to the extent of its power. The two great commandments prominent in the Pauline battle-cry are, Watch, and be sober; i.e., be on the constant lookout for your coming King, and wholly sanctified as a qualification to receive him. His coming as a thief in the right is only applicable to the fallen world and slumbering Church, and not to his true people, who are watching and waiting his arrival.

7. Spiritual slumber and intoxication are peculiar to spiritual night. When the bright day of Eden passed under the eclipse of Satans black wing, the dismal night of sin supervened upon the whole world, and will continue till relieved by the glorious millennial day, whose auspicious dawn methinks I see in the present holiness movement, gilding every land with the fair- fingered Aurora of the coming kingdom.

8. But let us, being of the day, be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith an love, and the helmet, the hope of salvation. The apostle exhibits the powerful antithesis of a debauched world and a slumbering Church on the one hand, panic-stricken with the most terrible surprise in the worlds history, and the faithful few on the other, washed in the blood, filled with the Spirit, and on the tiptoe of thrilling anticipation, anxiously watching and waiting their Lords return, and consequently not taken in the surprise of the midnight cry, destined to come upon all the world as a thief in the night.

9,10. That whether we may watch or sleep, we shall live along with Him. Here is evidently an allusion to the bodies of the saints, in (ontradistinction to their souls, as the great multitude sleep in the dust, and only the present generation are living upon the earth, and watching with mortal eyes to see their coming King. Hence, the admonition of the apostle that, whether we live to behold his glorious coming or fall asleep with our predecessors, we shall enjoy spiritual and eternal life with him.

11. Therefore exhort one another and edify one another, as you also do. Paul had so faithfully preached to those people the Lords return to the earth, that he now affirms in their behalf that they are exhorting and edifying one another with these inspiring truths. How strange the contrast of the modern pulpit, silent on the Lords coming; with the apostle Paul so positive, explicit, and importunate, night and day, by speech and pen hammering this great truth into the minds of the people, so as to perfectly familiarize them with it, till they can all preach it to one another in their daily conversation. This verse closes that celebrated paragraph on the Lords second coming, which opens with the thirteenth verse of the preceding chapter, and so unfortunately interrupted by the division of the fifth chapter coming right in the middle. God help us all to be true to the commandments, winding up this memorable paragraph on the coming of the Lord and the rapture of the saints; i.e., exhort and edify one another by these inspiring truths. Let it be said of us, as of the Thessalonians, as ye do.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

1Th 4:13-18. The Condition of the Dead.This paragraph is written to allay a misgiving which had arisen among the Thessalonian Christians that certain of their friends who had died would be deprived of their share in the glory of the promised Parousia. Paul dispels the doubt by asserting that the dead would be raised at the Parousia, and so would be at no disadvantage compared with the living. Cf. 1Co 1:5*.

1Th 4:13. no hope: the hopelessness of the ancient world in the presence of death is indicated by the characteristic inscription on the graves in pagan cemeteries, Farewell.asleep in Jesus: the original reads, through Jesus, and we must either translate those who have been put to sleep by Jesus, or connect the phrase with the following clause: Those who have been put to sleep will God through Jesus bring with him.

1Th 4:15. by the word of the Lord: either (a) some statement made by Jesus which was familiar to Paul but has now been lost; or (b) some inward and spiritual teaching, which Paul claims to have received from the Risen Christ.we that are alive: Paul obviously at the time expected to live to see the Parousia. This expectation gradually diminished (cf. Php 1:23).in no wise precede: will have no precedence or advantage over.

1Th 4:17. with a shout: i.e. of command. The word is often used of the order issued by a boatswain to his crew.archangel: the word occurs in NT again only in Jud 1:9.trump: trumpet (cf. Mat 24:31, 1Co 15:52). The object of the shout and the trumpet is to raise the dead.

The conception of the resurrection in this passage is coloured throughout by Pauls belief in the nearness of the Parousia. Death is followed by a sleep till the return of Christ. Paul afterwards outgrew this position, for in 2Co 5:8 he says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We must remember, therefore, that this passage contains Pauls earlier and cruder view, and must not regard it as the final statement of his position.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 13

Them which are asleep; which are dead,–referring, perhaps, to some who had lost their lives in the persecutions.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

4:13 {9} But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, {10} concerning them {11} which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

(9) The third part of the epistle, which is mixed in among the former exhortations (which he returns to afterwards), in which he speaks of mourning for the dead, and the manner of the resurrection, and of the latter day.

(10) We must take heed that we do not immoderately mourn for the dead, that is, as those do who think that the dead are utterly perished.

(11) A confirmation: for death is but a sleep of the body (for he speaks of the faithful) until the Lord comes.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

B. The Rapture 4:13-18

Paul next turned to another subject on which his readers needed instruction in view of their newness in Christ (cf. 1Th 3:10). He outlined the immediate hope of his readers. He did this to explain that those of their number who had died, or would die in Christ, would share in His glory with those who were living when He returned. This pericope deals with the relation of their dead brethren to Christ’s return.

"It would seem that some, at least, of the Thessalonians had understood him to say that all who believed would see the Parousia; but now some believers had died and they had begun to wonder about them." [Note: Morris, The Epistles . . ., p. 83.]

The time of the Rapture has been a matter of disagreement among conservative interpreters. Some believe it will take place before the Tribulation (pretribulationists). Others believe that it will take place after the Tribulation (posttribulationists). Others conclude that it will take place during the Tribulation (midtribulationists). Still others hold that the Lord will catch away only some Christians, not all (partial rapturists). What does 1Th 4:13-18 reveal about the time of the Rapture? How do advocates of the various schools of interpretation cited interpret these verses? 1 Thessalonians 4, 5 are "probably the most important passages dealing with the Rapture." [Note: John F. Walvoord, The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation, p. 94.] Other key New Testament passages that deal with the Rapture are Joh 14:1-3 and 1Co 15:51-53.

I believe it is fair to say that more pretribulationists base their belief that the Rapture will occur before the Tribulation on 1 Thessalonians 4 than on any other one passage of Scripture. This passage also contains more detail about the Rapture than any other one. It has major significance. All conservative interpreters agree that the translation of living Christians and the resurrection of dead Christians will take place at the same time. On this issue there is agreement regardless of when the Rapture will occur in relation to the Tribulation.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Paul wrote that to be uninformed about the future as a Christian is not good, even though some in our day say that eschatology is unimportant. Those "asleep" are the dead in Christ (cf. Mar 5:39; Joh 11:11). "Cemetery" (koimeterion) comes from the word used here (koimao) and means "a place of sleep." The ancients commonly used "sleep" as a euphemism for "death" (e.g., 1Ki 2:10). [Note: Bruce, p. 95; Martin, p. 143; Wanamaker, p. 167.] Knowing the future of believers who have died gives hope in the midst of grief. Paul did not deny that the death of a believer brings grief to his or her loved ones (cf. Joh 11:35). Nevertheless he insisted that Christians need not grieve as those who have no hope grieve.

"Aeschylus wrote, ’Once a man dies there is no resurrection.’ Theocritus wrote, ’There is hope for those who are alive, but those who have died are without hope.’ Catullus wrote, ’When once our brief light sets, there is one perpetual night through which we must sleep.’" [Note: Barclay, p. 235.]

"The risen Lord robbed death of its sting and horror for the believer and has transformed it into sleep for those in Christ." [Note: Hiebert, p. 188. Cf. Philippians 1:23.]

Pretribulationists and posttribulationists agree that the Thessalonian believers were grieving for two reasons. They grieved because their loved ones had died and because they thought the resurrection of dead Christians would take place after the Rapture. Pretribulationists believe the Thessalonians erroneously thought this resurrection would follow the Tribulation. Some posttribulationists believe the Thessalonians incorrectly thought that this resurrection would take place at the end of the Millennium. [Note: E.g., Robert Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation, p. 101.] Both of these conclusions rest on the interpretation of other passages that indicate the time of the Rapture. It was not the resurrection as such that disturbed the Thessalonians but the fact that they might not see their departed brethren for a long time that did. Specifically it was the fact that their dead fellow Christians might not participate in the Rapture with them that upset them. They apparently thought that one had to be alive to participate in the Rapture. [Note: Wanamaker, pp. 169, 172. See also Joseph Plevnik, "The Taking Up of the Faithful and the Resurrection of the Dead in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 46 (1984):281.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 11

THE DEAD IN CHRIST

1Th 4:13-18 (R.V.)

THE restlessness of the Thessalonians, which caused some of them to neglect their daily work, was the result of strained expectations of Christs second coming. The Apostle had taught them that the Saviour and Judge of all might appear no one knew when; and they were consumed with a feverish anxiety to be found ready when He came. How terrible it would be to be found unready, and to lose ones place in the heavenly kingdom! The Thessalonians were dominated by such thoughts as these when death visited the church, and gave rise to new perplexities. What of the brethren who had been taken away so soon, and of their part in the glory to be revealed? Had they been robbed, by death, of the Christian hope? Had the inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and imperishable, passed forever beyond their grasp, because they had died before Christ came to take His people to Himself?

This was what some of the survivors feared; and it is to correct their mistaken ideas, and to comfort them in their sorrow, that the Apostle writes the words we are now to study. “We would not have you ignorant,” he says, “concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, which have no hope.” The last words refer to those who are away from Christ, and without God in the world. It is a frightful thing to say of any man, and still more of the mass of men, that they have no hope; yet it is not only the Apostle who says it; it is the confession, by a thousand voices, of the heathen world itself. To that world the future was a blank, or a place of unreality and shades. If there were great exceptions, men who, like Plato, could not give up faith in immortality and in the righteousness of God, even in the face of death, these were no more than exceptions; and even for them the future had no substance compared with the present. Life was here, and not there. Wherever we can hear the pagan soul speak of the future, it is in this blank, heartless tone. “Do not,” says Achilles in the Odyssey, “make light of death to me. Rather would I on earth be a serf to another, a man of little land and little substance, than be prince over all the dead that have come to nought.” “Suns,” says Catullus, “may set and rise again. When once our brief light has set, one unbroken night of sleep remains.” These are fair specimens of the pagan outlook; are they not fair enough specimens of the non-Christian outlook at the present day? The secular life is quite avowedly a life without hope. It resolutely fixes its attention on the present, and avoids the distraction of the future. But there are few whom death does not compel, at some time or other, to deal seriously with the questions the future involves. If we love the departed, our hearts cannot but go with them to the unseen; and there are few who can assure themselves that death ends all. For those who can, what a sorrow remains! Their loved ones have lost everything. All that makes life is here, and they have gone. How miserable is their lot, to have been deprived, by cruel and untimely death, of all the blessings man can ever enjoy! How hopelessly must those who are left behind lament them!

This is exactly the situation with which the Apostle deals. The Christians in Thessalonica feared that their brethren who had died would be shut out of the Messiahs kingdom; they mourned for them as those mourn who have no hope. The Apostle corrects their error, and comforts them. His words do not mean that the Christian may lawfully sorrow for his dead, provided he does not go to a pagan extreme; they mean that the hopeless pagan sorrow is not to be indulged by the Christian at all. We give their proper force if we imagine him saying: “Weep for yourselves, if you will; that is natural, and God does not wish us to be insensible to the losses and sorrows which are part of His providential government of our lives; but do not weep for them; the believer who has fallen asleep in Christ is not to be lamented; he has lost nothing; the hope of immortality is as sure for him as for those who may live to welcome the Lord at His coming; he has gone to be with Christ, which is far, far better.”

The 14th verse (1Th 4:14) gives the Christian proof of this consoling doctrine. “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” It is quite plain that something is wanting here to complete the argument. Jesus did die and rise again, there is no dispute about that; but how is the Apostle justified in inferring from this that God will bring the Christian dead again to meet the living? What is the missing link in this reasoning? Clearly it is the truth, so characteristic of the New Testament, that there is a union between Christ and those who trust Him so close that their destiny can be read in His. All that He has experienced will be experienced by them. They are united to Him as indissolubly as the members of the body to the head, and being planted together in the likeness of His death, they shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Death, the Apostle would have us understand, does not break the bond between the believing soul and the Saviour. Even human love is stronger than the grave; it goes beyond it with the departed; it follows them with strong yearnings, with wistful hopes, sometimes with earnest prayers. But there is an impotence, at which death mocks, in earthly love; the last enemy does put a great gulf between souls, which cannot be bridged over; and there is no such impotence in the love of Christ. He is never separated from those who love Him. He is one with them in death, and in the life to come, as in this life. Through Him God will bring the departed again to meet their friends. There is something very expressive in the word “bring.” “Sweet word,” says Bengel: “it is spoken of living persons.” The dead for whom we mourn are not dead; they all live to God; and when the great day comes, God will bring those who have gone before, and unite them to those who have been left behind. When we see Christ at His coming, we shall see also those that have fallen asleep in Him.

This argument, drawn from the relation of the Christian to the Saviour, is confirmed by an appeal to the authority of the Saviour Himself. “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord”: as if he said, “It is not merely a conclusion of our own; it is supported by the express word of Christ.” Many have tried to find in the Gospels the word of the Lord referred to, but, as I think, without success. The passage usually quoted: {Mat 24:31} “He shall send forth His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other,” though it covers generally the subject with which the Apostle is dealing, does not touch upon the essential point, the equality of those who die before the Second Advent with those who live to see it. We must suppose that the word of the Lord referred to was one which failed to find a place in the written Gospels, like that other which the Apostle preserved, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”: or that it was a word which Christ spoke to him in one of the many revelations which he received in his apostolic work. In any case, what the Apostle is going to say is not his own word, but the word of Christ, and as such its authority is final for all Christians. What, then, does Christ say on this great concern?

He says that “we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep.” The natural impression one takes from these words is that Paul expected himself to be alive when Christ came; but whether that impression is justifiable or not, it is no part of the truth which can claim the authority of the Lord. Christs word only assures.us that those who are alive at that day shall have no precedency over those that have fallen asleep; it does not tell us who shall be in the one class, and who in the other. Paul did not know when the day of the Lord would be; but as it was the duty of all Christians to look for and hasten it, he naturally included himself among those who would live to see it. Later in life, the hope of surviving till the Lord came alternated in his mind with the expectation of death. In one and the same epistle, the Epistle to the Philippians, we find him writing, {Php 4:5} “The Lord is at hand”; and only a little earlier, {Php 1:23} “I have the desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better.” Better, certainly, than a life of toil and suffering; but not better than the Lords coming. Paul could not but shrink with a natural horror from death and its nakedness; he would have preferred to escape that dread necessity, the putting off of the body; not to be unclothed, was his desire, but to be clothed upon, and to have mortality swallowed up of life. When he wrote this letter to the Thessalonians, I do not doubt that this was his hope; and it does not impugn his authority in the least that it was a hope destined not to be fulfilled. With the Lord, a thousand years are as one day; and even those who are partakers in the kingdom seldom partake to an eminent degree in the patience of Jesus Christ. Only in the teaching of the Lord Himself does the New Testament put strongly before us the duration of the Christian era, and the delays of the Second Advent. How many of His parables, e.g., represent the kingdom as subject to the law of growth-the Sower, the Wheat and the Tares which have both to ripen, the Mustard Seed, and the Seed Growing Gradually. All these imply a natural law and goal of progress, not to be interrupted at random. How many, again, like the parable of the Unjust Judge, or the Ten Virgins, imply that the delay will be so great as to beget utter disbelief or forgetfulness of His coming. Even the expression, “The times of the Gentiles,” suggests epochs which must intervene before men see Him again. But over against this deep insight and wondrous patience of Christ, we must not be surprised to find something of impatient ardour in the Apostles. The world was so cruel to them, their love to Christ was so fervent, their desire for reunion so strong, that they could not but hope and pray, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” Is it not better to recognise the obvious fact that Paul was mistaken as to the nearness of the Second Advent, than to torture his words to secure his infallibility? Two great commentators-the Roman Catholic Cornelius a Lapide, and the Protestant John Calvin-save Pauls infallibility at a greater cost than violating the rules of grammar. They admit that his words mean that he expected to survive till Christ came again; but, they say, an infallible apostle could not really have had such an expectation; and therefore we must believe that Paul practised a pious fraud in writing as he did, a fraud with the good intention of keeping the Thessalonians on the alert. But I hope, if we had the choice, we would all choose rather to tell the truth, and be mistaken, than to be infallible, and tell lies.

After the general statement, on Christs authority, that the living shall have no precedency of the departed, Paul goes on to explain the circumstances of the Advent by which it is justified. “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven.” In that emphatic Himself we have the argument of 1Th 4:14 practically repeated: the Lord, it signifies, who knows all that are His. Who can look at Christ as He comes again in glory, and not remember His words in the Gospel, “Because I live, ye shall live also”; “where I am, there shall also My servant be”? It is not another who comes, but He to whom all Christian souls have been united forever. “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.” The last two of these expressions are in all probability the explanation of the first; the voice of the archangel, or the trumpet of God, is the signal shout, or as the hymn expresses it, “the great commanding word,” with which the drama of the last things is ushered in. The archangel is the herald of the Messianic King. We cannot tell how much is figure in these expressions, which all rest on Old Testament associations, and on popular beliefs amongst the Jews of the time; neither can we tell what precisely underlies the figure. But this much is clearly meant, that a Divine summons, audible and effective everywhere, goes forth from Christs presence; that ancient utterance, of hope or of despair, is fulfilled: “Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee.” When the signal is given, the dead in Christ rise first. Paul says nothing here of the resurrection body, spiritual and incorruptible; but when Christ comes, the Christian dead are raised in that body, prepared for eternal blessedness, before anything else is done. That is the meaning of “the dead in Christ shall rise first.” It does not contrast the resurrection of the Christian dead with a second resurrection of all men, either immediately afterwards, or after a thousand years; it contrasts it as the first scene in this drama with the second, namely, the rapture of the living. The first thing will be that the dead rise; the next, that those that are alive, that are left, shall at the same time, and in company with them, be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. The Apostle does not look beyond this; so, he says, shall we-that is, we all, those that live and those that are fallen asleep-be ever with the Lord.

A thousand questions rise to our lips as we look at this wonderful picture; but the closer we look, the more plainly do we see the parsimony of the revelation, and the strictness with which it is measured out to meet the necessities of the case. There is nothing in it, for instance, about the non-Christian. It tells us the blessed destiny of those who have fallen asleep in Christ, and of those who wait for Christs appearing. Much of the curiosity about those who die without Christ is not disinterested. People would like to know what their destiny is, because they would like to know whether there is not a tolerable alternative to accepting the gospel. But the Bible does not encourage us to look for such an alternative. “Blessed,” it says, “are the dead who die in the Lord”; and blessed also are the living who live in the Lord; if there are those who reject this blessedness, and raise questions about what a life without Christ may lead to, they do it at their peril.

There is nothing, again, about the nature of the life beyond the Advent, except this, that it is a life in which the Christian is in close and unbroken union with Christ-ever with the Lord. Some have been very anxious to answer the question, Where? but the revelation gives us no help. It does not say that those who meet the Lord in the air ascend with Him to heaven, or descend, as some have supposed, to reign with Him on earth. There is absolutely nothing in it for curiosity, though everything that is necessary for comfort. For men who had conceived the terrible thought that the Christian dead had lost the Christian hope, the veil was withdrawn from the future, and living and dead alike revealed united, in eternal life, to Christ. That is all, but surely it is enough. That is the hope which the gospel puts before us, and no accident of time, like death, can rob us of it. Jesus died and rose again; He is Lord both of the dead and the living; and all will, at the great day, be gathered together to Him. Are they to be lamented, who have this future to look forward to? Are we to sorrow over those who pass into the world unseen, as if they had no hope, or as if we had none? No; in the sorrow of death itself we may comfort one another with these words.

Is it not a striking proof of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we have, on the express authority of His word, a special revelation, the exclusive aim of which is to comfort? Jesus knew the terrible sorrow of bereavement; He had stood by the bedside of Jairus daughter, by the young mans bier at Nain, by Lazarus tomb. He knew how inconsolable it was, how subtle, how passionate; He knew the dead weight at the heart which never passes away, and the sudden rush of feeling which overpowers the strongest. And that all this sorrow might not rest upon His Church unrelieved, He lifted the curtain that we might see with our eyes the strong consolation beyond. I have spoken of it as if it consisted simply in union to Christ; but it is as much a part of the revelation that Christians whom death has separated are reunited to each other. The Thessalonians feared they would never see their departed friends again; but the word of the Lord says, You will be caught up, in company with them, to meet Me; and you and they shall dwell with Me forever. What congregation is there in which there is not need of this consolation? Comfort one another, the Apostle says. One needs the comfort today, and another tomorrow; in proportion as we bear each others burdens, we all need it continually. The unseen world is perpetually opening to receive those whom we love; but though they pass out of sight and out of reach, it is not forever. They are still united to Christ; and when He comes in His glory He will bring them to us again. Is it not strange to balance the greatest sorrow of life against words? Words, we often feel, are vain and worthless; they do not lift the burden from the heart; they make no difference to the pressure of grief. Of our own words that is true; but what we have been considering are not our own words, but the word of the Lord. His words are alive and powerful: heaven and earth may pass away, but they cannot pass; let us comfort one another with that.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary