Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Thessalonians 5:10
Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
10. (through our Lord Jesus Christ,) who died for us ] It has been said that the gospel which Paul preached at Thessalonica was “not the gospel of the Cross of Christ, but of the Coming of Christ.” But these two are not exclusive or conflicting doctrines; they are complementary parts of one and the same Gospel. This clause is enough to show how far the apostles were from ignoring the Cross of Christ in their ministry at Thessalonica. When St Paul writes, “Christ died for us that we should live together with Him,” his words involve the entire doctrine of Redemption by the death and resurrection of Jesus, as it is set forth at length in the next group of Epistles in Rom 3:21-26; Rom 4:25 to Rom 5:2; Rom 6:1-11; Rom 8:1-4; Gal 2:10-21; Gal 3:9-14; 2Co 5:14 to 2Co 6:2; &c. They imply the Atonement and Salvation by Faith, the receiving of Christ’s Spirit of sonship, and abiding union with Him in His risen and heavenly life. The whole theology of the Cross is in this sentence, which indeed could only be interpreted and understood by the Thessalonians in the light of such teaching as we find in the later Epistles. The message of salvation through the death of Christ had been the staple and centre of the Apostle’s testimony all along. In writing to the Corinthians, and referring to his preaching in Corinth at the very time when he wrote the letters before us, he calls his message simply “the word of the cross” (1Co 1:17-18; 1Co 1:23; 1Co 2:2); comp., for an earlier period, Act 13:38-39; Gal 3:1, also Gal 6:14. See Introd. pp. 16, 17.
that, whether we wake or sleep ] More exactly, whether we be awake or asleep, i.e. living or dead with allusion to the use of the same terms to denote spiritual wakefulness or slumber in 1Th 5:6-7 (see notes).
At the same time these words carry us back, with a sudden change of metaphor, to ch. 1Th 4:13-18. There it was shewn that believers living at the Lord’s return, and those who “fall asleep” before He comes, alike belong to Him, and will share alike in the glory of His advent. And now it appears that this deep and sure relationship of the saints to Christ, unbroken by the sleep of bodily death, is grounded upon His death for them. That death He underwent for the very purpose of giving them a deathless life: in order that together with Him we should live (comp. Rom 14:8-9: “Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Christ died and came to life, that He might be Lord of both dead and living”). The stress lies upon the last word: Christ died for us, that we might live with Him a life consisting in spiritual union with Him, and continuing undestroyed whether the man wakes or sleeps to this world. “I came,” said Jesus, “that men might have life I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If any one eat of this bread, he shall live for ever. Yea, and the bread which I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world” (Joh 10:10; Joh 6:51). Risen from the grave, our Saviour “lives” evermore “to God; death no longer lords it over Him” (Rom 6:9-10). And those who are Christ’s, “joined to the Lord” as “one spirit” with Him (1Co 6:17), share His life, which flows from the heavenly Head to all the earthly members of His Body. This is the life “that is life indeed” (1Ti 6:19); it is superior to the accidents of time, since in its spring and essence “hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:1-4). Such is St Paul’s conception of the nature of the Christian’s life.
The “with Him” of ch. 1Th 4:14; 1Th 4:17 is echoed and unfolded in the “together with Him” of this verse, as it formed the basis of the “together with them ” of ch. 1Th 4:17. All joy and strength for the present life and hope for that to come, for ourselves and for those dear to us, are centred in the words “together with Him.” So the Apostle resumes the strain of consolation, from which he had turned aside in 1Th 5:1 to utter words of caution; and he concludes, almost in the language of ch. 1Th 4:18
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Who died for us – That is, to redeem us. He designed by his death that we should ultimately live with him; and this effect of his death could be secured only as it was an atoning sacrifice.
Whether we wake or sleep – Whether we are found among the living or the dead when he comes. The object here is to show that the one class would have no advantage over the other. This was designed to calm their minds in their trials, and to correct an error which seems to have prevailed in the belief that those who were found alive when he should return would have some priority over those who were dead; see the notes on 1Th 4:13-18.
Should live together with him – See the notes at Joh 14:3. The word rendered together ( hama) is not to be regarded as connected with the phrase with him – as meaning that he and they would be together, but it refers to those who wake and those who sleep – those who are alive and those who are dead – meaning that they would be together or would be with the Lord at the same time; there would be no priority or precedence. Rosenmuller.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 10. Who died for us] His death was an atoning sacrifice for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews.
Whether we wake or sleep] Whether we live or die, whether we are in this state or in the other world, we shall live together with him-shall enjoy his life, and the consolations of his Spirit, while here; and shall be glorified together with him in the eternal world. The words show that every where and in all circumstances genuine believers, who walk after God, have life and communion with him, and are continually happy, and constantly safe. The apostle, however, may refer to the doctrine he has delivered, 1Th 4:15, concerning the dead in Christ rising first; and the last generation of men not dying, but undergoing such a change as shall render them immortal. On that great day, all the followers of God, both those who had long slept in the dust of the earth, and all those who shall be found living, shall be acknowledged by Christ as his own, and live together for ever with him.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Some refer these words to the latter end of the foregoing chapter, where the apostle had spoken of the saints death and resurrection, which is their sleeping and waking, as they are here called. And their being for ever with the Lord, is here called their living together with him. And lest it might be thought that none should be with Christ until they awaked at the resurrection, he therefore speaks of living with Christ even when we sleep. He had spoken of sleep in another sense, 1Th 5:6, as meant of security; but here meant of death, as it is taken 1Th 4:14. And as watching is set opposite to the former sleep, so here waking to the latter, which is a resurrection from death. And we hence gather that the soul doth not sleep with the body, but lives with the Lord when that sleeps in the grave; as the apostle expected to be with the Lord upon the dissolution of his body, Phi 1:23, and he mentions it as the privilege of other saints as well as his own, 2Co 5:1. When we sleep we are with him only in our souls; when we wake we shall be with him both in body and soul. And both these we have from Christs death. If he had not died, heaven had been shut against our souls, for our entrance into the holiest of all is by his blood, and the veil of his flesh rent for us, Heb 10:19,20; and the grave would have shut up our bodies, and there would have been no resurrection; so that our living with Christ, both when we sleep and when we wake, springs out of his death. Others carry these words no further than the foregoing verse, showing how we are saved by Christ; saith the apostle, he died for us. As God appointed persons to be saved, and Christ to be the person to be saved by, so also to be saved by his death; with respect to his Father he is said to be put to death, 1Pe 3:18; with respect to his own freedom and willingness, he is said here to die for us. And his dying for us implieth the greatness of our guilt, and expresseth the greatness of his own love, Joh 15:13. He loved us, and thereupon would have us live with him; and he died that we and he may live together. And so he may be said to die for our salvation, the substance whereof consisteth in our living with him. To live with so glorious a Person, and a Person that is full of love to us, and shall then be perfectly beloved of us, and that stands in many near relations to us, and whose presence will have such a blessed influence upon us, and in such a place as heaven is, and that for ever, surely carries the substance of our salvation in it. And if this was the end of his death, surely it was more than to be an example of faith, patience, and submission to God, or to confirm to us the doctrine he preached; it was to satisfy Divine justice, and obtain the pardon of our sin, and merit for us the privilege of living with him.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. died for usGreek,“in our behalf.”
whether we wake orsleepwhether we be found at Christ’s coming awake, that is,alive, or asleep, that is, in our graves.
togetherall ofus together; the living not preceding the dead in theirglorification “with Him” at His coming (1Th4:13).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Who died for us,…. The elect of God, who are not appointed to wrath, but to salvation by Christ, on which account he died for them; not merely as a martyr to confirm his doctrine, or only by way of example, but as a surety, in the room and stead of his people; as a sacrifice for their sins, to make atonement for them, and save them from them; so that his death lays a solid foundation for hope of salvation by him:
that whether we wake or sleep: which phrases are to be understood, not in the same sense in which they are used in the context; as if the sense was, whether a man indulges himself in sin, and gives way to sleep and sloth, and carnal security, or whether he is awake and on his watch and guard, he shall through the death of Christ have eternal life secured to him; not but that there is a truth in this, that eternal life and salvation by Christ, as it does not depend on our watchfulness, so it shall not be hindered by the sleepy, drowsy frame of spirit, the children of God sometimes fall into: but rather natural sleep and waking are intended; and the meaning is, that those for whom Christ died are always safe, sleeping or waking, whatever they are about and employed in, and in whatsoever situation and condition they are in this world; though it may be best of all to interpret the words, of life and death; and they may have a particular regard to the state of the saints at Christ’s second coming, when some will be awake, or alive, and others will be asleep in Christ, or dead; and it matters not which they are, whether living or dead; see Ro 14:7 for the end of Christ’s dying for them, and which will be answered in one as well as in another, is, that
we should live together with him: Christ died for his people, who were dead in trespasses and sins, that they might live spiritually a life of sanctification from him, and a life of justification on him, and by him; and that they might live a life of communion with him; and that they might live eternally with him, in soul and body, in heaven, and reign with him there, and partake of his glory; and this all the saints will, whether they be found dead or alive at his coming; for the dead will immediately arise, those that sleep in the dust will awake at once, and they that are alive will be changed, and both will be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and be for ever with him: now the consideration of the death of Christ, and this end of it, which will certainly be answered, serves greatly to encourage hope of salvation by him, and faith in him, and an earnest expectation of his second coming.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
For us ( ).
Around us . So Westcott and Hort, but (over, in behalf of) as in many MSS. These prepositions often interchanged in N.T. MSS.
Whether we wake or sleep ( ). Alternative condition of third class with present subjunctive, though — more usual conjunction (Robertson, Grammar, P. 1017). Used here of life and death, not as metaphor.
That we should live together with him ( ). First aorist active subjunctive constative aorist covering all life (now and hereafter) together with ( as in 5:17) Jesus.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Who died. Frequently the resurrection is coupled with the death of Christ by Paul, as ch. 4 14; Phi 3:10; Col 2:12; Col 3:1 – 4. Not so here; but the thought of resurrection is supplied in live together with him.
Wake or sleep. Whether we are alive or dead at Christ ‘s appearing. Comp. Rom 14:9. Kaqeudein in N. T. always literally of sleep, except here, and possibly Eph 5:14. In Mr 5:39; Luk 8:52, it is contrasted with death. In LXX in the sense of death, Psa 87:5; Dan 12:2; 2Sa 7:12.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Who died for us” (thou apothanontos peri hemon) who died concerning us”; regarding our needs. Love motivated His death on our behalf; though we were ungodly, without strength, yet sinners, Rom 5:6-10.
2) “That, whether we wake or sleep” (hina eite gregoromen eite katheudomen) “in order that, whether we wake or whether we sleep”; we are yet living or asleep in death at His coming, we may hear a “well done” from Him, Luk 19:17; Mat 25:21; Mat 25:23; Rev 22:12.
3) “We should live together with him”, (hama sun auto zesomen) “we should live together (in close association or affinity) with him”; as members of His Bride, His church, 2Co 11:2; Rev 19:7-9; He who went into heaven with outstretched hands praying for an blessing His church, brethren from Galilee who had followed Him to the Mount of Olives in Judea, shall also be His closest affinity people when He returns, Act 1:10-11; Eph 3:21. Until then we should live, not merely with him”, but even “together with him”, as He still walks and fellowships in and among His churches, with them always, and in a particular way that He is not together with” or in affinity with the saved who are not in His church, Rev 1:12-13; Rev 1:16; Rev 1:20; Mat 28:20; Mat 18:20.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
10 Who died. From the design of Christ’s death he confirms what he has said, for if he died with this view — that he might make us partakers of his life, there is no reason why we should be in doubt as to our salvation. It is doubtful, however, what he means now by sleeping and waking, for it might seem as if he meant life and death, and this meaning would be more complete. At the same time, we might not unsuitably interpret it as meaning ordinary sleep. The sum is this — that Christ died with this view, that he might bestow upon us his life, which is perpetual and has no end. It is not to be wondered, however, that he affirms that we now live with Christ, inasmuch as we have, by entering through faith into the kingdom of Christ, passed from death into life. (Joh 5:24) Christ himself, into whose body we are ingrafted, quickens us by his power, and the Spirit that dwelleth in us is life, because of justification (601)
(601) “ Comme il est dit en l’Epistre aux Rom 8:0. b. 10;” — “As is stated in the Epistle to the Romans Rom 8:10.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(10) Who died for us.Not a mere pious recollection of a fact which has nothing to do with the context, but an account of the way by which Christ made it possible for us to set about earning salvation. What a blessed privilege a Christians life of labour must be, if it aloneto say nothing of the salvation at the endcost such a price!
Whether we wake or sleep.The mention of Christs death at once brings back the recollection of the Advent and the questions concerning the dead in their relation to it. The words wake or sleep seem distinctly suggested by the metaphor used from 1Th. 5:2 to 1Th. 5:8, being different in the Greek from the terms used in 1 Thessalonians 4, but abruptly take a much altered meaning. They here, no doubt, signify life and death:Let us arm ourselves with a brave hope of our salvation, for it will be against Gods will if we should perish: He means us to save ourselves by union with Him who put an end to death for us by dying, and made all who wait for His coming to live, whether they be in the worlds sense dead or alive.
We should live.In sharp contrast with who died for us. Christs dying destroyed the power of death (Heb. 2:14); henceforth it is only a matter of being awake or asleep; those who sleep quite as truly live, and live with Him, as we who wake (see Luk. 20:38; and compare the more developed passage in Rom. 14:8). The word together (as the Greek clearly shows) must be separated from the with; rather, we should live with Him together, i.e., we quick, and our brethren the dead; for St. Paul has entirely reverted from the effect of the Advent-doctrine upon Christian life to the subject of the last chapterthe equality of the two classes at Christs coming. Bengel, thinking that St. Paul is still applying himself to the discussion of the date of the Advent (which in fact was scarcely raised), tries to make out the meaning, That we should there and then live with Him.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
10. Wake or sleep live The question is raised whether wake or sleep is to be taken in a physical or spiritual sense. Sleep at the advent is the spiritual emblem of unbelief, and, therefore, excludes the life with Christ. Whitby’s sense, “whether the advent be by day or night,” is weak. As the live with him must be the glorious life at the advent, the true meaning must be, whether we are living or dead at the advent.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him.’
Having stated the fact of salvation Paul now declares the basis. It is because our Lord Jesus Christ died for us that salvation is possible. The very fact of his mentioning the death of Christ here demonstrates that he knew of no other way by which a man could be saved. And the result of that death is that when we believe in Him we are put into a position where it does not matter whether we ‘fall asleep in Christ’ or are found still ‘awake’. In either case, at His coming, we begin to live together with Him, we begin to experience His life as the spiritual life-giver (Joh 5:21; Joh 5:25; Joh 5:29).
Interestingly the verbs are the same as in 1Th 5:6 but the meaning is totally different. There sleeping and being awake were referring to a moral state. Here it refers to having died or being alive. It answers the question posed in 1Th 4:13. It is true that the word for the sleep of Christians in 1Th 4:13 is different from here but there is no suggestion elsewhere in Thessalonians that some Christians will be sleeping morally in relation to His coming, and 1Th 5:5 contrasts the ‘sons of light’ with those ‘of darkness’, while 1Th 5:6 parallels those who are ‘awake’ with those who ‘sleep’. The clear implication is that the sons of light are those who are awake, and those who sleep are sons of darkness. He is hardly likely here therefore to have been changing that picture when a simpler explanation is at hand.
While Paul no doubt knew that some Christians were not as watchful as they should be, it was not something he would mildly have accepted. The question is, can a person be a Christian and not at all watchful? The answer must be no.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
1Th 5:10. Who died for us, The Apostles lay a great stress upon this,that Christ not onlywas incarnate, but died also to save the penitent, believing, and obedient; and therefore he has a just claim to our love and obedience. See Rom 5:6-12; Rom 14:8-9. 1Co 6:20. Whether we wake or sleep, means, Whether we live or die; “Whether we be of the number of those who depart this life before the coming of Christ; or of those who survive till that time.” The Apostle refers to what he had said, ch. 1Th 4:13, &c.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Th 5:10 . That by which the acquisition of salvation is rendered objectively possible is the death of Christ for our redemption. However, this objective reason of appears, according to the verbal expression, here not in causal connection with the preceding; for otherwise 1Th 5:10 would have been attached with the simple participle without the article. Rather Paul adds in 1Th 5:10 simply the fact of the death of Christ for our redemption as an independent expression, in order, by the addition of the final end of His death, to return to the chief reason which led him to this whole explanation concerning the advent, namely, to the comforting assurance that Christians who have already fallen asleep at the entrance of the advent will, as well as those who are alive, be partakers in Christ’s glory.
] for our benefit , not in our stead (Baumgarten-Crusius). See Meyer on Rom 5:6 .
and cannot here, as formerly, be taken in an ethical sense; for in what precedes was represented as a mark of the unbelieving, of the children of this world, something incompatible with Christians in their character as children of the light. But to understand the words in their literal sense, with Musculus, Aretius, and Whitby, that is, to interpret them of day and night: “whether the advent happens in the day-time or at night,” would be feeble and trifling. It only remains that waking and sleeping here is to be regarded as a figurative designation of life and death , whether we are yet alive at the advent, or whether we are already dead. Accordingly the same thought is expressed in the sentence with , generally considered, which is contained in the concluding words of Rom 14:8 ( , ). [63]
On of death, comp. LXX. Dan 12:2 ; 2Sa 7:12 ; Psa 88:5 .
On , with the conjunctive, see Winer, p. 263 [E. T. 368].
] does not belong to (Hofmann, Riggenbach), but to . It here corresponds to the Hebrew , altogether (Rom 3:12 ), so that it emphatically brings forward the similar share in the for all Christians, whether living or dead.
] more specific than , 1Th 4:17 ; for being united with the Lord is a partaking of His glory. According to Hofmann (comp. also Mller on de Wette), is designed to denote only a state of life-fellowship with Christ, so that there is indicated by it not something future, but the present condition of Christians. But this weakening of the verbal idea militates against the context of our passage, as it has for its contents questions respecting the advent, and we are reminded of the period of the advent by and directly preceding. Besides, Paul, if he would have expressed nothing more than “a fellowship of life with Christ, for which the distinction of corporeal life and death is indifferent,” would much more naturally have written (comp. Rom 14:8 ) instead of .
[63] By this parallel with Rom 14:8-9 , the objections of Schrader against our passage are settled, who thinks that “the manner in which the death of Christ and His coming again are spoken of, is not similar to what is found elsewhere in Paul, but rather to what Mark and Luke say concerning it. We do not find here the words taught by the Holy Spirit as we are accustomed to hear from Paul, but the words from tradition, such as were at a later period prevalent among Christians!”
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
Ver. 10. Whether we wake or sleep ] That is, live or die, our souls cannot miscarry; because God will have out the full price of his Son’s death. See Rom 14:8 . See Trapp on “ Rom 14:8 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
10 .] who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep (in what sense? surely not in an ethical sense, as above: for they who sleep will be overtaken by Him as a thief, and His day will be to them darkness, not light. If not in an ethical sense, it must be in that of living or dying , and the sense as Rom 14:8 . (For we cannot adopt the trifling sense given by Whitby, al., ‘whether He come in the night, and so find us taking our natural rest, or in the day when we are waking.’) Thus understood however, it will be at the sacrifice of perspicuity, seeing that and have been used ethically throughout the passage. If we wish to preserve the uniformity of metaphor, we may (though I am not satisfied with this) interpret in this sense: that our Lord died for us, that whether we watch (are of the number of the watchful, i.e. already Christians) or sleep (are of the number of the sleeping, i.e. unconverted) we should live, &c. Thus it would = ‘who died that all men might be saved:’ who came, not to call the righteous only, but sinners to life. There is to this interpretation the great objection that it confounds with the , the who are definitely spoken of as set by God not to wrath but to . So that the sense live or die , must, I think, be accepted, and the want of perspicuity with it. The construction of a subjunctive with is not classical: an optative is found in such cases, e.g. Xen. Anab. ii. 1. 14, . See Winer, edn. 6, 41, p. 263, Moulton’s Engl. transl. 368, note 2.
] all together: not to be taken with , see reff.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Th 5:10 . Life or death makes no difference to the Christian’s union and fellowship with Jesus Christ, whose death was in our eternal interests ( cf. Rom 14:7-9 ). For this metaphorical use of . . (different from that in 6), Wohl. cites Plato, Symp. , 203a: (i.e. Eros) , , as a possible basis.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
1 Thessalonians
WAKING AND SLEEPING
1Th 5:10 .
In these words the Apostle concludes a section of this, his earliest letter, in which he has been dealing with the aspect of death in reference to the Christian. There are two very significant usages of language in the context which serve to elucidate the meaning of the words of our text, and to which I refer for a moment by way of introduction.
The one is that throughout this portion of his letter the Apostle emphatically reserves the word ‘died’ for Jesus Christ, and applies to Christ’s followers only the word ‘sleep.’ Christ’s death makes the deaths of those who trust Him a quiet slumber. The other is that the antithesis of waking and sleep is employed in two different directions in this section, being first used to express, by the one term, simply physical life, and by the other, physical death; and secondly, to designate respectively the moral attitude of Christian watchfulness and that of worldly apathy to things unseen and drowsy engrossment with the present.
So in the words immediately preceding my text, we read, ‘let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober.’ The use of the antithesis in our text is chiefly the former, but there cannot be discharged from one of the expressions, ‘wake,’ the ideas which have just been associated with it, especially as the word which is translated ‘wake’ is the same as that just translated in the sixth verse, ‘let us watch.’ So that here there is meant by it, not merely the condition of life but that of Christian life–sober-minded vigilance and wide-awakeness to the realities of being. With this explanation of the meanings of the words before us, we may now proceed to consider them a little more minutely.
I. Note the death which is the foundation of life.
Recalling what I have said as to the precision and carefulness with which the Apostle varies his expressions in this context; speaking of Christ’s death only by that grim name, and of the death of His servants as being merely a slumber, we have for the first thought suggested in reference to Christ’s death, that it exhausted all the bitterness of death. Physically, the sufferings of our Lord were not greater, they were even less, than that of many a man. His voluntary acceptance of them was peculiar to Himself. But His death stands alone in this, that on His head was concentrated the whole awfulness of the thing. So far as the mere external facts go, there is nothing special about it. But I know not how the shrinking of Jesus Christ from the Cross can be explained without impugning His character, unless we see in His death something far more terrible than is the common lot of men. To me Gethsemane is altogether mysterious, and that scene beneath the olives shatters to pieces the perfectness of His character, unless we recognise that there it was the burden of the world’s sin, beneath which, though His will never faltered, His human power tottered. Except we understand that, it seems to me that many who derived from Jesus Christ all their courage, bore their martyrdom better than He did; and that the servant has many a time been greater than his Lord. But if we take the Scripture point of view, and say, ‘The Lord has made to meet upon Him the iniquity of us all,’ then we can understand the agony beneath the olives, and the cry from the Cross, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’
Further, I would notice that this death is by the Apostle set forth as being the main factor in man’s redemption. This is the first of Paul’s letters, dating long before the others with which we are familiar. Whatever may have been the spiritual development of St. Paul in certain directions after his conversion–and I do not for a moment deny that there was such–it is very important to notice that the fundamentals of his Christology and doctrine of salvation were the same from the beginning to the end, and that in this, his first utterance, he lays down, as emphatically and clearly as ever afterwards he did, the great truth that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died on the Cross, thereby secured man’s redemption. Here he isolates the death from the rest of the history of Christ, and concentrates the whole light of his thought upon the Cross, and says, There! that is the power by which men have been redeemed. I beseech you to ask yourselves whether these representations of Christian truth adhere to the perspective of Scripture, which do not in like manner set forth in the foreground of the whole the atoning death of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Then note, further, that this death, the fountain of life, is a death for us. Now I know, of course, that the language here does not necessarily involve the idea of one dying instead of, but only of one dying on behalf of, another. But then I come to this question, In what conceivable sense, except the sense of bearing the world’s sins, and, therefore, mine, is the death of Jesus Christ of advantage to me? Take the Scripture narratives. He died by the condemnation of the Jewish courts as a blasphemer; by the condemnation of the supercilious Roman court–cowardly in the midst of its superciliousness–as a possible rebel, though the sentencer did not believe in the reality of the charges. I want to know what good that is to me? He died, say some people, as the victim of a clearer insight and a more loving heart than the men around Him could understand. What advantage is that to me?
Oh, brethren! there is no meaning in the words ‘He died for us’ unless we understand that the benefit of His death lies in the fact that it was the sacrifice and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; and that, therefore, He died for us.
But then remember, too, that in this expression is set forth, not only the objective fact of Christ’s death for us, but much in reference to the subjective emotions and purposes of Him who died. Paul was writing to these Thessalonians, of whom none, I suppose, except possibly a few Jews who might be amongst them, had ever seen Jesus Christ in the flesh, or known anything about Him. And yet he says to them, ‘Away across the ocean there, Jesus Christ died for you men, not one of whom had ever appealed to His heart through His eyes.’
The principle involved is capable of the widest possible expansion. When Christ went to the Cross there was in His heart, in His purposes, in His desires, a separate place for every soul of man whom He embraced, not with the dim vision of some philanthropist, who looks upon the masses of unborn generations as possibly beneficially affected by some of his far-reaching plans, but with the individualising and separating knowledge of a divine eye, and the love of a divine heart. Jesus Christ bore the sins of the world because He bore in His sympathies and His purposes the sins of each single soul. Yours and mine and all our fellows’ were there. Guilt and fear and loneliness, and all the other evils that beset men because they have departed from the living God, are floated away
‘By the water and the blood From Thy wounded side which flowed’;
and as the context teaches us, it is because He died for us that He is our Lord, and because He died for every man that He is every man’s Master and King.
II. Note, secondly, the transformation of our lives and deaths affected thereby.
You may remember that, in my introductory remarks, I pointed out the double application of that antithesis of waking or sleeping in the context as referring in one case to the fact of physical life or death, and in the other to the fact of moral engrossment with the slumbering influences of the present, or of Christian vigilance. I carry some allusion to both of these ideas in the remarks that I have to make.
Through Jesus Christ life may be quickened into watchfulness. It is not enough to take waking as meaning living, for you may turn the metaphor round and say about a great many men that living means dreamy sleeping. Paul speaks in the preceding verses of ‘others’ than Christians as being asleep, and their lives as one long debauch and slumber in the night. Whilst, in contrast with physical death, physical life may be called ‘waking’; the condition of thousands of men, in regard to all the higher faculties, activities, and realities of being, is that of somnambulists–they are walking indeed, but they are walking in their sleep. Just as a man fast asleep knows nothing of the realities round him; just as he is swallowed up in his own dreams, so many walk in a vain show. Their highest faculties are dormant; the only real things do not touch them, and their eyes are closed to these. They live in a region of illusions which will pass away at cock-crowing, and leave them desolate. For some of us here living is only a distempered sleep, troubled by dreams which, whether they be pleasant or bitter, equally lack roots in the permanent realities to which we shall wake some day. But if we hold by Jesus Christ, who died for us, and let His love constrain us, His Cross quicken us, and the might of His great sacrifice touch us, and the blood of sprinkling be applied to our eyeballs as an eye-salve, that we may see, we shall wake from our opiate sleep–though it may be as deep as if the sky rained soporifics upon us–and be conscious of the things that are, and have our dormant faculties roused, and be quickened into intense vigilance against our enemies, and brace ourselves for our tasks, and be ever looking forward to that joyful hope, to that coming which shall bring the fulness of waking and of life. So, you professing Christians, do you take the lessons of this text? A sleeping Christian is on the high road to cease to be a Christian at all. If there be one thing more comprehensively imperative upon us than another, it is this, that, belonging, as we do by our very profession, to the day, and being the children of the light, we shall neither sleep nor be drunken, but be sober, watching as they who expect their Lord. You walk amidst realities that will hide themselves unless you gaze for them; therefore, watch. You walk amidst enemies that will steal subtly upon you, like some gliding serpent through the grass, or some painted savage in the forest; therefore, watch. You expect a Lord to come from heaven with a relieving army that is to raise the siege and free the hard-beset garrison from its fears and its toilsome work; therefore, watch. ‘They that sleep, sleep in the night.’ They who are Christ’s should be like the living creatures in the Revelation, all eyes round about, and every eye gazing on things unseen and looking for the Master when He comes.
On the other hand, the death of Christ will soften our deaths into slumber. The Apostle will not call what the senses call death, by that dread name, which was warranted when applied to the facts of Christ’s death. The physical fact remaining the same, all that is included under the complex whole called death which makes its terrors, goes, for a man who keeps fast hold of Christ who died and lives. For what makes the sting of death? Two or three things. It is like some poisonous insect’s sting, it is a complex weapon. One side of it is the fear of retribution. Another side of it is the shrinking from loneliness. Another side of it is the dread of the dim darkness of an unknown future. And all these are taken clean away. Is it guilt, dread of retribution? ‘Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.’ Is it loneliness? In the valley of darkness ‘I will be with thee. My rod and My staff will comfort thee.’ Is it a shrinking from the dim unknown and all the familiar habitudes and occupations of the warm corner where we have lived? ‘Jesus Christ has brought immortality to light by the Gospel.’ We do not , according to the sad words of one of the victims of modern advanced thought, pass by the common road into the great darkness, but by the Christ-made living Way into the everlasting light. And so it is a misnomer to apply the same term to the physical fact plus the accompaniment of dread and shrinking and fear of retribution and solitude and darkness, and to the physical fact invested with the direct and bright opposites of all these.
Sleep is rest; sleep is consciousness; sleep is the prophecy of waking. We know not what the condition of those who sleep in Jesus may be, but we know that the child on its mother’s breast, and conscious somehow, in its slumber, of the warm place where its head rests, is full of repose. And they that sleep in Jesus will be so . Then, whether we wake or sleep does not seem to matter so very much.
III. The united life of all who live with Christ.
Christ’s gift to men is the gift of life in all senses of that word, from the lowest to the highest. That life, as our text tells us, is altogether unaffected by death. We cannot see round the sharp angle where the valley turns, but we know that the path runs straight on through the gorge up to the throat of the pass–and so on to the ‘shining table-lands whereof our God Himself is Sun and Moon.’ There are some rivers that run through stagnant lakes, keeping the tinge of their waters, and holding together the body of their stream undiverted from its course, and issuing undiminished and untarnished from the lower end of the lake. And so the stream of our lives may run through the Dead Sea, and come out below none the worse for the black waters through which it has forced its way. The life that Christ gives is unaffected by death. Our creed is a risen Saviour, and the corollary of that creed is, that death touches the circumference, but never gets near the man. It is hard to believe, in the face of the foolish senses; it is hard to believe, in the face of aching sorrow. It is hard to-day to believe, in the face of passionate and ingenious denial, but it is true all the same. Death is sleep, and sleep is life.
And so, further, my text tells us that this life is life with Christ. We know not details, we need not know them. Here we have the presence of Jesus Christ, if we love Him, as really as when He walked the earth. Ay! more really, for Jesus Christ is nearer to us who, having not seen Him, love Him, and somewhat know His divinity and His sacrifice, than He was to the men who companied with Him all the time that He went in and out amongst them, whilst they were ignorant of who dwelt with them, and entertained the Lord of angels and men unawares. He is with us, and it is the power and the privilege and the joy of our lives to realise His presence. That Lord who, whilst He was on earth, was the Son of Man which is in heaven, now that He is in heaven in His corporeal humanity is the Son of God who dwells with us. And as He dwells with us, if we love Him and trust Him, so, but in fashion incapable of being revealed to us, now does He dwell with those of whose condition this is the only and all-sufficing positive knowledge which we have, that they are ‘absent from the body; present with the Lord.’
Further, that united life is a social life. The whole force of my text is often missed by English readers, who run into one idea the two words ‘together with.’ But if you would put a comma after ‘together,’ you would understand better what Paul meant. He refers to two forms of union. Whether we wake or sleep we shall live all aggregated together, and all aggregated ‘together’ because each is ‘with Him.’ That is to say, union with Jesus Christ makes all who partake of that union, whether they belong to the one side of the river or the other, into a mighty whole. They are together because they are with the Lord.
Suppose a great city, and a stream flowing through its centre. The palace and all pertaining to the court are on one side of the water; there is an outlying suburb on the other, of meaner houses, inhabited by poor and humble people. But yet it is one city. ‘Ye are come unto the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.’ We are knit together by one life, one love, one thought; and the more we fix our hearts on the things which those above live among and by, the more truly are we knit to them. As a quaint old English writer says, ‘They are gone but into another pew in the same church.’
We are one in Him, and so there will be a perfecting of union in reunion; and the inference so craved for by our hearts seems to be warranted to our understandings, that that society above, which is the perfection of society, shall not be lacking in the elements of mutual recognition and companionship, without which we cannot conceive of society at all. ‘And so we shall ever be with the Lord.’
Dear friends, I beseech you to trust your sinful souls to that dear Lord who bore you in His heart and mind when He bore His cross to Calvary and completed the work of your redemption. If you will accept Him as your sacrifice and Saviour, when He cried ‘It is finished,’ united to Him your lives will be quickened into intense activity and joyful vigilance and expectation, and death will be smoothed into a quiet falling asleep. ‘The shadow feared of man,’ that strikes threateningly across every path, will change as we approach it, if our hearts are anchored on Him who died for us, into the Angel of Light to whom God has given charge concerning us to bear up our feet upon His hands, and land us in the presence of the Lord and in the perfect society of those who love Him. And so shall we live together, and all together, with Him.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
wake = watch. together. Greek. hama, as in 1Th 4:17.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
10.] who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep (in what sense? surely not in an ethical sense, as above: for they who sleep will be overtaken by Him as a thief, and His day will be to them darkness, not light. If not in an ethical sense, it must be in that of living or dying, and the sense as Rom 14:8. (For we cannot adopt the trifling sense given by Whitby, al.,-whether He come in the night, and so find us taking our natural rest, or in the day when we are waking.) Thus understood however, it will be at the sacrifice of perspicuity, seeing that and have been used ethically throughout the passage. If we wish to preserve the uniformity of metaphor, we may (though I am not satisfied with this) interpret in this sense: that our Lord died for us, that whether we watch (are of the number of the watchful, i.e. already Christians) or sleep (are of the number of the sleeping, i.e. unconverted) we should live, &c. Thus it would = who died that all men might be saved: who came, not to call the righteous only, but sinners to life. There is to this interpretation the great objection that it confounds with the , the who are definitely spoken of as set by God not to wrath but to . So that the sense live or die, must, I think, be accepted, and the want of perspicuity with it. The construction of a subjunctive with is not classical: an optative is found in such cases, e.g. Xen. Anab. ii. 1. 14, . See Winer, edn. 6, 41, p. 263, Moultons Engl. transl. 368, note 2.
] all together: not to be taken with , see reff.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Th 5:10. , who hath died) That appointment for a peculiar preservation ( ), consisted in the death of Christ itself.- , whether we sleep) as to the body, in natural sleep or in death.-) at the same time as the coming takes place. Or are we rather to take it, together with Him, in the same place where, and in the same manner as, He lives? I cannot think so. The whole subject is concerning the times (1Th 5:1), and at the end of the discussion the discourse returns to those things with which it began. They had always set before themselves the coming of Christ as a thing near at hand. So also does Lubinus explain it.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Th 5:10
who died for us,-No language expresses the office of the death of Jesus Christ so well as that used by the Holy Spirit: All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God sent forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season: that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus. (Rom 3:23-26.) That is, the blood of Christ was provided for the salvation of all; but only those who, led by faith in God, accept the salvation provided can appropriate that salvation, or God is, by the shedding of that blood, enabled to be just while justifying him who believes in Jesus. This justification and the benefits through it are conveyed to the sinner through the exercise of faith in Christ Jesus, or through walking in the way and complying with the conditions sealed by the blood of Jesus Christ, into which he is led by faith in him. It follows then if ones life is saved through the blood of Christ, then Christ is entitled to that life, and man can approach God only through and by virtue of the blood with which he was purchased. He must come to God as the servant of Christ who has redeemed him.
that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.-[This refers to the anxieties of the Thessalonian Christians regarding their deceased brethren. He assures them that the very object of Christ in dying was to secure to his people a life which no death could interrupt or destroy. Those who have died before his second coming suffer no disadvantage, for he has secured that whether we wake or sleep-live or die-we should live with him. If we live in the flesh, we are to live by faith in the Son of God; we are to live by his grace, under his protection, in his body-the church. If we die, we die unto him, and in some way he reveals himself as nearer to us than when we live here on earth. Thus Paul says: But I am in a strait betwixt the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better. (Php 1:23.)]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
died: Mat 20:28, Joh 10:11, Joh 10:15, Joh 10:17, Joh 15:13, Rom 5:6-8, Rom 8:34, Rom 14:8, Rom 14:9, 1Co 15:3, 2Co 5:15, 2Co 5:21, Eph 5:2, 1Ti 2:6, Tit 2:14, 1Pe 2:24, 1Pe 3:18
whether: 1Th 4:13, 1Th 4:17
Reciprocal: Psa 4:8 – I will Psa 139:18 – when I awake Mat 27:52 – slept Mar 5:39 – not dead Joh 11:11 – sleepeth Act 7:60 – he fell Rom 14:7 – General 1Co 4:9 – as Gal 2:19 – that Gal 2:20 – but Gal 5:22 – love 2Ti 2:11 – we shall Rev 14:13 – die
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Th 5:10. Christ showed his interest in the salvation of man in that He was willing to die for him. Wake or sleep means alive or dead when Jesus comes. (See 1Co 15:51; 1 Thessalonians 4:1547.) Live together with him will take place after the second coming of Christ and the resurrection. referred to in the last-named passage.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Th 5:10. Who died for us. How salvation is obtained through Jesus Christ, Paul here explains. Christ died for our sake, and especially to secure for us this grand advantage, viz. that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Recurring to the anxieties of the Thessalonians regarding their deceased friends, he reminds them that the very object of Christ in dying was to secure to His people a life which no death could interrupt or destroy. Those who have died before His return suffer no disadvantage, for He has secured that whether we wake or sleep, whether, i.e., we live or die, we should live with Him. It should be remarked that Paul does not here throw any light on the present state of the Christian dead, unless by inference; what he thinks and speaks of is their blessedness when Christ returns.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep [live or die before his coming], we should live together with him. [This verse is suggested by the word “salvation” which precedes it. The hope of salvation may well defend us in the hour of temptation, and it should be strong enough to do so, for God has not appointed us to be lost, but to be saved, and has given his Son to die that we might be saved; and so, whether we remain alive unto his coming, or pass to our rest before that day, we may be assured that we shall live in one company with him.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
5:10 {5} Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
(5) The death of Christ is a pledge of our victory, for he died so that we might be partakers of his life of power, indeed even while we live here.