¹ tn Grk “ignorant.”

² tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:4.

³ tn The verb κοιμάω (koimaw) literally means “sleep,” but it is often used in the Bible as a euphemism for death when speaking of believers. This metaphorical usage by its very nature emphasizes the hope of resurrection: Believers will one day “wake up” out of death. Here the term refers to death, but “sleep” was used in the translation to emphasize the metaphorical, rhetorical usage of the term. This word also occurs in vv. 14 and 15.

^{( 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.

1 He exhorts them to go forward in all manner of godliness;

6 to live holily and justly;

9 to love one another;

11 and quietly to follow their own business;

13 and last of all, to sorrow moderately for the dead.

17 And unto this last exhortation is annexed a brief description of the resurrection, and second coming of Christ to judgment.

Small Duties And The Great Hope

But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. 10. And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more; 11. And that ye study to be quiet, and to do you r own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; 12. That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. 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.'--1 Thess. 4:9-18.

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. 2. For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.'--1 Thess. 5:1-2.

THIS letter was written immediately on the arrival of Silas and Timothy in Corinth (1 Thess. 3:6, ' even now'), and is all flushed with the gladness of relieved anxiety, and throbs with love. It gains in pathetic interest when we remember that, while writing it, the Apostle was in the thick of his conflict with the Corinthian synagogue. The thought of his Thessalonian converts came to him like a waft of pure, cool air to a heated brow.

The apparent want of connection in the counsels of the two last chapters is probably accounted for by supposing that he takes up, as they occurred to him, the points reported by the two messengers, But we may note that the plain, prosaic duties enjoined in 1 Thess. 4:7-12 lead on to the lofty revelations of the rest of the context without any sense of a gap, just because to Paul the greatest truths had a bearing on the smallest duties, and the vision of future glory was meant to shape the homely details of present work.

I. We Need To Make An Effort To Realise The Startling Novelty Of Love Of The Brethren' When This Letter Was Written.

The ancient world was honeycombed with rents and schisms, scarcely masked by political union. In the midst of a world of selfishness this new faith started up, and by some magic knit warring nationalities and hostile classes and wide diversities of culture and position into a strange whole, transcending all limits of race and language. The conception of brotherhood was new, and the realisation of it in Christian love was still more astonishing. The world wondered; but to the Christians the new affection was, we might almost say, instinctive, so naturally and spontaneously did it fill their hearts.

Paul's graceful way of enjoining it here is no mere pretty compliment. The Thessalonians did not need to be bidden to love the brethren, for such love was a part of their new life, and breathed into their hearts by God Himself. They were drawn together by common relation to Jesus, and driven together by common alienation from the world. Occasions of divergence had not yet risen. The world had not yet taken on a varnish of Christianity. The new bond was still strong in its newness: So, short as had been the time since Paul landed at Neapolis, the golden chain of love bound all the Macedonian Christians together, and all that Paul had to exhort was the strengthening of its links and their tightening.

That fair picture faded soon, but it still remains true that the deeper our love to Jesus, the warmer will be our love to all His lovers. The morning glow may not come back to the prosaic noonday, but love to the brethren remains as an indispensable token of the Christian life. Let us try ourselves thereby.

II. What Have Exhortations To Steady Work To Do With Exhortations To Increasing Love?

Not much, apparently; but may not the link be, Do not suppose that your Christianity is to show itself only in emotions, however sweet; the plain humdrum tasks of a working man's life are quite as noble a field as the exalted heights of brotherly love.' A loving heart is good, but a pair of diligent hands are as good. The juxtaposition of these two commands preaches a lesson which we need quite as much as the Thessalonians did. Possibly, too, as we see more fully in the second Epistle, the new truths, which had cut them from their old anchorage, had set some of them afloat on a sea of unquiet expectation. So much of their old selves had been swept away, that it would be hard for some to settle down to the old routine. That is a common enough experience in all' revivals,' and at Thessalonica it was intensified by speculations about Christ's coming.

The quiet' which Paul would have us cultivate is not only external, but the inward tranquillity of a spirit calm because fixed on God and filled with love. The secret place of the Most High is ever still, and, if we dwell there, our hearts will not be disturbed by any tumults without. To do our own business' is quite a different thing from selfish looking on our own things,' for a great part of our business is to care for others, and nothing dries up sympathy and practical help more surely than a gossiping temper, which is perpetually buzzing about other people's concerns, and knows everybody's circumstances and duties better than its own. This restless generation, whose mental food is so largely the newspaper, with its floods of small-talk about people, be they politicians, ministers, or murderers, sorely needs these precepts. We are all so busy that we have no time for quiet meditation, and so much occupied with trivialities about others that we are strangers to ourselves. Therefore religious life is low in many hearts.

The dignity of manual labour was a new doctrine to preach to Greeks, but Paul lays stress on it repeatedly in his letters to Thessalonica. Apparently most of the converts there were of the labouring class, and some of them needed the lesson of Paul's example as well as his precept. A Christian workman wielding chisel or trowel for Christ's sake will impress them that are without.' Dignity depends, not on the nature, but on the motive, of our work. A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine.' It is permissible to take the opinion of those who are not Christians into account, and to try to show them what good workmen Christ can turn out. It is right, too, to cultivate a spirit of independence, and to prefer a little earned to abundance given as a gift or alms. Perhaps some of the Thessalonians were trying to turn brotherly love to profit, and to live on their richer brethren. Such people infest the Church at all times.

III. With What Ease, Like A Soaring Song-Bird,

The letter rises to the lofty height of the next verses, and how the note becomes more musical, and the style richer, more sonorous and majestic, with the changed subject! From the workshop to the descending Lord and the voice of the trumpet and the rising saints, what a leap, and yet how easily it is made I Happy we if we keep the future glory and the present duty thus side by side, and pass without jar from the one to the other!

The special point which Paul has in view must be kept well in mind. Some of the Thessalonians seem to have been troubled, not by questions about the Resurrection, as the Corinthians afterwards were, but by a curious difficulty, namely, whether the dead saints would not be worse off at Christ's coming than the living, and to that one point Paul addresses himself. These verses are not a general revelation of the course of events at that coming, or of the final condition of the glorified saints, but an answer to the question, What is the relation between the two halves of the Church, the dead and the living, in regard to their participation in Christ's glory when He comes again? The question is answered negatively in 1 Thess. 4:15, positively in 1 Thess. 4:16-17.

But, before considering them, note some other precious lessons taught here. That sweet and consoling designation for the dead, them who sleep in Jesus,' is Christ's gift to sorrowing hearts. No doubt, the idea is found in pagan thinkers, but always with the sad addition, an eternal sleep.' Men called death by that name in despair. The Christian calls it so because he knows that sleep implies continuous existence, repose, consciousness, and awaking. The sleepers are not dead, they will be roused to refreshed activity one day.

We note how emphatically 1 Thess. 4:14. brings out the thought that Jesus died, since He suffered all the bitterness of death, not only in physical torments, but in that awful sense of separation from God which is the true death in death, and that, because He did, the ugly thing wears a softened aspect to believers, and is but sleep. He died that we might never know what the worst sting of death is.

We note further that, in order to bring out the truth of the gracious change which has passed on death physical for His servants, the remarkable expression is used, in 1 Thess. 4:14, fallen asleep through Jesus'; His mediatorial work being the reason for their death becoming sleep. Similarly, it is only in 1 Thess. 4:16 that the bare word dead' is used about them, and there it is needed for emphasis and clearness. When we are thinking of Resurrection we can afford to look death in the face.

We note that Paul here claims to be giving a new revelation made to him directly by Christ. By (or, "in") the word of the Lord' cannot mean less than that. The question arises, in regard to 1 Thess. 4:15, whether Paul expected that the advent would come in his lifetime. It need not startle any if he were proved to have cherished such a mistaken expectation; for Christ Himself taught the disciples that the time of His second coming was a truth reserved, and not included in His gifts to them. But two things may be noted. First, that in the second Epistle, written very soon after this, Paul sets himself to damp down the expectation of the nearness of the advent, and points to a long course of historical development of incipient tendencies which must precede it; and, second, that his language here does not compel the conclusion that he expected to be alive at the second coming. For he is distinguishing between the two classes of the living and the dead, and he naturally puts himself in the class to which, at that time, he and his hearers belonged, without thereby necessarily deciding, or even thinking about, the question whether he and they would or would not belong to that class at the actual time of the advent.

The revelation here reveals much, and leaves much unrevealed. It is perfectly clear on the main point. Negatively, it declares that the sleeping saints lose nothing, and are not anticipated or hindered in any blessedness by the living. Positively, it declares that they precede the living, inasmuch as they rise first'; that is, before the living saints, who do not sleep, but are changed (1 Cor. 15:51), are thus transfigured. Then the two great companies shall unitedly rise to meet the descending Lord; and their unity in Him, and, therefore, their fellowship with one another, shall be eternal

That great hope helps us to bridge the dark gorge of present separation. It leaves unanswered a host of questions which our lonely hearts would fain have cleared up; but it is enough for hope to hold by, and for sorrow to be changed into submission and anticipation. As to the many obscurities that still cling to the future, the meaning and the nature of the accompaniments, the shout, the trumpet, and the like, the way of harmonising the thought that the departed saints attend the descending Lord, with whom they dwell now, with the declaration here that they rise from the earth to meet Him, the question whether these who are thus caught up from earth to meet the Lord in the air come back again with Him to earth,--all these points of curious speculation we may leave. We know enough for comfort, for assurance of the perfect reunion of the saints who sleep in Jesus and of the, living, and of the perfect blessedness of both wings of the great army. We may be content with what is clearly revealed, and be sure that, if what is unrevealed would have been helpful to us, He would have told us. We are to use the revelation for comfort and for stimulus, and we are to remember that times and seasons' are not told us, nor would the knowledge of them profit us.

Paul took for granted that the Thessalonians remembered the Lord's word, which he had, no doubt, told them, that He would come as a thief in the night.' So he discourages a profitless curiosity, and exhorts to a continual vigilance. When He comes, it will be suddenly, and will wake some who live from a sinful sleep with a shock of terror, and the dead from a sweet sleep in Him with a rush of gladness, as in body and spirit they are filled with His life, and raised to share in His triumph.

Sleeping Through Jesus

Them also which sleep in Jesus.'--1 Thess. 4:14.

THAT expression is not unusual, in various forms, in the Apostle's writings. It suggests a very tender and wonderful thought of closeness and union between our Lord and the living dead, so close as 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 Apostle's idea here. For, accurately rendered--and accuracy in regard to Scripture language is not pedantry--the words run, Them which sleep through Jesus.'

Now, that is a strange phrase, and, I suppose, its strangeness is the reason why our translators have softened it down to the more familiar and obvious in Jesus,' We can understand living through Christ, on being sacred through Christ, but what can sleeping through Christ mean? I shall hope to answer the question presently, but, in the meantime, I only wish to point out what the Apostle does say, and to plead for letting him say it, strange though it sounds. For the strange and the difficult phrases of Scripture are like the hard quartz reefs in which gold is, and if we slur them over we are likely to loose the treasure. Let us try if we can find what the gold here may be.

Now, there are only two thoughts that I wish to dwell upon as suggested by these words. One is the softened aspect of death, and of the state of the Christian dead; and the other is the ground or cause of that softened aspect.

I. First, Then, The Softened Aspect Of Death, And Of The State Of The Christian Dead.

It is to Jesus primarily that the New Testament writers owe their use of this gracious emblem of sleep. For, as you remember, the word was twice upon our Lord's lips; once when, over the twelve-years-old maid from whom life had barely ebbed away, He said, She is not dead, but sleepeth'; and once when in regard of 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. You 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 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.

Now, the Christian thought associated with this emblem is the precise opposite of the pagan one. The pagan heart shrank from naming the ugly thing because it was so ugly. So dark and deep a dread coiled round the man, as he contemplated it, that he sought to drape the dreadfulness in some kind of thin, transparent veil, and to put the buffer of a word between him and its hideousness. But the Christian's motive for the use of the word is the precise opposite. He uses the gentler expression because the thing has become gentler.

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, because, as I say, the gentleness has enfolded the thing to be designated.

For instance, you find one class of representations which speak of death as being a departing and a being with Christ; or which call it, as one of the apostles does, an exodus,' where it is softened down to be merely a change of environment, a change of locality. Then another class of representations speak of it as putting off this my tabernacle,' or, the dissolution of the earthly house'--where there is a broad, firm line of demarcation drawn between the inhabitant and the habitation, and the thing is softened down to be a mere change of dwelling. Again, another class of expressions speak of it as being an offering,' where the main idea is that of a voluntary surrender, a sacrifice or libation of myself, and my life poured out upon the altar of God. But sweetest, deepest, most appealing to all our hearts, is that emblem of my text, them that sleep.' It is used, if I count rightly, some fourteen times in the Now Testament, and it carries with it large and plain lessons, on which I touch but for a moment. What, then, does this metaphor say to us?

Well, it speaks first of rest. That is not altogether an attractive conception to some of us. If it be taken exclusively it is by no means wholesome. I suppose that the young, and the strong, and the eager, and the ambitious, and the prosperous rather shrink from the notion of their activities being stiffened into slumber. But, dear friends, there are some of us like tired children in a fair, who would fain have done with the weariness, who have made experience of the distractions and bewildering changes, whose backs are stiffened with toil, whose hearts are heavy with loss. And to all of us, in some moods, the prospect of shuffling off this weary coil of responsibilities and duties and tasks and sorrows, and of passing into indisturbance and repose, appeals. I believe, for my part, that, after all, the deepest longing of men--though they search for it through toil and effort--is for repose. As the poet has taught us, there is no joy but calm.' Every heart is weary enough, and heavy laden, and labouring enough, to feel the sweetness of a promise of rest:

Sleep, full of rest from head to foot,Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.'

Yes I but the rest of which our emblem speaks is, as I believe, only applicable to the bodily frame. The word sleep' is a transcript of what sense enlightened by faith sees in that still form, with the folded hands and the quiet face and the closed eyes. But let us remember that this repose, deep and blessed as it is, is not, as some would say, the repose of unconsciousness. I do not believe, and I would have you not believe, that this emblem refers to the vigorous, spiritual life, or that the passage from out of the toil and moil of earth into the calm of the darkness beyond has any power in limiting or suspending the vital force of the man.

Why, the very metaphor itself tells us that the sleeper is not unconscious. He is parted from the outer world, he is unaware of externals. When Stephen knelt below the old wall, and was surrounded by howling fanatics that slew him, one moment he was gashed with stones and tortured, and the next' he fell on sleep.' They might howl, and the stones fly as they would, and he was all unaware of it. Like Jonah sleeping in the hold, what mattered the roaring of the storm to him? But separation from externals does not mean suspense of life or of consciousness, and the slumberer often dreams, and is aware of himself persistently throughout his slumber. Nay! some of his faculties are set at liberty to work more energetically, because his connection with the outer world is for the time suspended.

And so I say that what on the hither side is sleep, on the further side is awaking, and that the complex whole of the condition of the sainted dead may be described with equal truth by either metaphor; they sleep in Jesus'; or, when I awake I shall be satisfied with Thy likeness.'

Scripture, as it seems to me, distinctly carries this limitation of the emblem. For what does it mean when the Apostle says that to depart and to be with Christ is far better? Surely he who thus spoke conceived that these two things were contemporaneous, the departing and the being with Him. And surely he who thus spoke could not have conceived that a millennium-long parenthesis of slumberous unconsciousness was to intervene between the moment of his decease and the moment of his fellowship with Jesus. How could a man prefer that dormant state to the state here, of working for and living with the Lord? Surely, being with Him must mean that we know where we are, and who is our companion.

And what does that text mean: Ye are come unto the spirits of just men made perfect,' unless it means that of these two classes of persons who are thus regarded as brought into living fellowship, each is aware of the other? Does perfecting of the spirit mean the smiting of the spirit into Unconsciousness? Surely not, and surely in view of such words as these, we must recognise the fact that, however limited and imperfect may be the present connection of the disembodied dead, who sleep in Christ, with external things, they know themselves, they know their home and their companion, and they know the blessedness in which they are lapped.

But another thought which is suggested by this emblem is, as I have already said, most certainly the idea of awaking. The pagans said, as indeed one of their poets has it, Suns can sink and return, but for us, when our brief light sinks, there is but one perpetual night of slumber.' The Christian idea of death is, that it is transitory as a sleep in the morning, and sure to end. As St. Augustine says somewhere, Wherefore are they called sleepers, but because in the day of the Lord they will be reawakened?'

And so these are the thoughts, very imperfectly spoken, I know, which spring like flowers from this gracious metaphor them that sleep '-- rest and awaking; rest and consciousness.

II. Note The Ground Of This Softened Aspect.

They sleep through Him.' It is by reason of Christ and His work, and by reason of that alone, that death's darkness is made beautiful, and death's grimness is softened down to this. Now, in order to grasp the full-meaning of such words as these of the Apostle, we must draw a broad distinction between the physical fact of the ending of corporeal life and the mental condition which is associated with it by us. What we call death, if I may so say, is a complex thing--a bodily phenomenon plus conscience, the sense of sin, the certainty of retribution in the dim beyond. And you have to take these elements apart. The former remains, but if the others are removed, the whole has changed its character and is become another thing, and a very little thing.

The mere physical fact 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? Because, as the Apostle 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, if I may so say, the nimbus of apprehension and dread arising from conscience and sin, and the forecast of retribution. There is nothing left for us to face except the physical fact, and any rough soldier, with a coarse, red coat upon him, will face that for eighteenpence a day, and think himself well paid. 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.

In this connection I cannot but notice with what a profound meaning the Apostle, in this very verse, uses the bare, naked word in reference to Him, and the softened one in reference to us. If we believe that Jesus Christ died and rose again, even so them also which sleep.' Ah! yes! He died indeed, bearing all that terror with which men's 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 deaths sleep, and His Resurrection makes our sleep calmly certain of a waking.

So, dear brethren, I would not have you ignorant concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope.' And I would have you to remember that, whilst Christ by His work has made it possible that the terror may pass away, and death may be softened and minimised into slumber, it will not be so with you--unless you are joined to Him, and by trust in the power of His death and the overflowing might of His Resurrection, have made sure that what He has passed through, you will pass through, and where He is, and what He is, you will be also.

Two men die by one railway accident, sitting side by side upon one seat, smashed in one collision. But though the outward fact is the same about each, the reality of their deaths is infinitely different. The one falls asleep through Jesus, in Jesus; the other dies indeed, and the death of his body is only a feeble shadow of the death of his spirit. Do you knit yourself to the Life, which is Christ, and then he that believeth on Me shall never die.'

Here is comfort for the relations and friends of those who die in the Lord. Grief for the death of friends is lawful; we may weep for our own loss, though it may be their gain. Christianity does not forbid, and grace does not do away, our natural affections. Yet we must not be excessive in our sorrows; this is too much like those who have no hope of a better life. Death is an unknown thing, and we know little about the state after death; yet the doctrines of the resurrection and the second coming of Christ, are a remedy against the fear of death, and undue sorrow for the death of our Christian friends; and of these doctrines we have full assurance. It will be some happiness that all the saints shall meet, and remain together for ever; but the principal happiness of heaven is to be with the Lord, to see him, live with him, and enjoy him for ever. We should support one another in times of sorrow; not deaden one another's spirits, or weaken one another's hands. And this may be done by the many lessons to be learned from the resurrection of the dead, and the second coming of Christ. What! comfort a man by telling him he is going to appear before the judgment-seat of God! Who can feel comfort from those words? That man alone with whose spirit the Spirit of God bears witness that his sins are blotted out, and the thoughts of whose heart are purified by the Holy Spirit, so that he can love God, and worthily magnify his name. We are not in a safe state unless it is thus with us, or we are desiring to be so.

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, 1Th 4:13. 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, 1Th 4:13. 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, 1Th 4:13. They have fallen asleep in Christ, 1Co 15:18. 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, 1Th 4:14. 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, 1Th 4:14. 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, 1Th 4:14. 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 (1Th 4:15), 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 (1Th 4:16): 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, 1Th 4:17. 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 (1Th 4:16), 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, 1Th 4:15. 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, 1Th 4:17. 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, 1Co 15:51. 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 (1Co 15:52), 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, 1Th 4:17. 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, 1Th 4:18. 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.

The idea of the Second Coming had brought another problem to the people of Thessalonica. They were expecting it very soon; they fully expected to be themselves alive when it came but they were worried about those Christians who had died. They could not be sure that those who had already died would share the glory of that day which was so soon to come. Paul's answer is that there will be one glory for those who have died and those who survive.

He tells them that they must not sorrow as those who have no hope. In face of death the pagan world stood in despair. They met it with grim resignation and bleak hopelessness. 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." On their tombstones grim epitaphs were carved. "I was not; I became; I am not; I care not." One of the most pathetic papyrus letters that has come down to us is a letter of sympathy which runs like this. "Irene to Taonnophris and Philo, good comfort. I was as sorry and wept over the departed one as I wept for Didymas. And all things whatsoever were fitting, I did, and all mine, Epaphroditus and Thermouthion and Philion and Apollonius and Plantas. But nevertheless against such things one can do nothing. Therefore comfort ye one another."

Paul lays down a great principle. The man who has lived and died in Christ is still in Christ even in death and will rise in him. Between Christ and the man who loves him there is a relationship which nothing can break, a relationship which overpasses death. Because Christ died and rose again, so the man who is one with Christ will rise again.

The picture Paul draws of the day when Christ will come is poetry, an attempt to describe what is indescribable. At the Second Coming Christ will descend from heaven to earth. He will utter the word of command and thereupon the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God will waken the dead, then the dead and the living alike will be caught up in the chariots of the clouds to meet Christ; and thereafter they will be forever with their Lord. We are not meant to take with crude and insensitive literalism what is a seer's vision. It is not the details which are important. What is important is that in life and in death the Christian is in Christ and that is a union which nothing can break.

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. 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.

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 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 reveal about the time of the Rapture? How do advocates of the various schools of interpretation cited interpret these verses? Because 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5 are "probably the most important passages dealing with the Rapture"⁷³ I want to examine them carefully.

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.

4:13 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. Mark 5:39; John 11:11). The ancients commonly used "sleep" as a euphemism for "death" (e.g., 1 Kings 2:10).⁷⁴ 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. John 11:35). Nevertheless he insisted that Christians need not grieve as those who have no hope grieve.

"The risen Lord robbed death of its sting and horror for the believer and has transformed it into sleep for those in Christ."⁷⁵

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.⁷⁶ 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.⁷⁷

4:14 We could translate "If," "Since." This word introduces a first class condition in the Greek text, which in this case is a condition true to reality. The death and resurrection of Christ are among the best attested facts of history.⁷⁸ Furthermore the Scriptures predicted these events before they occurred. Therefore we can be equally certain that the events of the Rapture, which Paul predicted here, will also happen. Paul told his readers that God would bring the spirits of Christians who had died back with Jesus when He returned for the saints still living on earth. Notice that it is only those who have died "in Jesus" (saints "in Christ," i.e., Christians as contrasted with all the saved of all ages) who will accompany our Lord.⁷⁹

Pretribulationists identify this return of Christ with the Rapture that, we say, will occur before the Tribulation. Posttribulationists contend that this return of Christ (the Rapture) will occur at the end of the Tribulation just before the second coming of Christ.

4:15 Paul further stressed the truth of his teaching (cf. v. 14a) by explaining that it was a revelation from the Lord, not just his opinion. Paul expected to be in the company of the living when Christ returned. He believed in an imminent Rapture. The "coming" (Gr. parousia, lit. "appearing") of Christ is his appearing in the clouds (cf. Acts 1:11). It is not His second coming, the coming at which time He will remain on the earth, set up His earthly kingdom, and reign for 1, 000 years (cf. Rev. 19:11-21). The differences in the descriptions of these comings present them as separate events (cf. Matt. 24:30-31 and 1 Thess. 4:15-17).

Some posttribulationists have asserted that the "word of the Lord" referred to in this verse is what Jesus taught in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:30-31; Luke 17:34-35). That was His revelation concerning His second coming that they believe will follow the Rapture immediately.⁸⁰ Pretribulationists, on the other hand, believe "the word of the Lord" is not a reference to what Jesus taught in the Olivet Discourse. Most pretribulationists see no reference to the Rapture in the Olivet Discourse. We take "the word of the Lord" as referring to revelation Jesus gave Paul that the Gospels do not record, as did Ladd⁸¹ and Gundry,⁸² both posttribulationists. In short, we cannot identify "the word of the Lord" certainly with Jesus' teaching concerning His second coming recorded in the Gospels.

This leads to another question. Are there any prophesied events that must take place before the Rapture occurs? Posttribulationists say there are, namely the events of the Tribulation and preparations for the second coming of Christ (Matt. 24; Rev. 4-18). Pretribulationists say there are no events that God predicted would take place before the translation of the saints in the passages that speak of that translation (i.e., the Rapture).

The fact that the living will have no advantage over the dead when Christ returns makes excessive sorrow for dead Christians, beyond the sorrow connected with their dying, unjustified.

4:16 A supernatural announcement will precede the Lord Jesus' return for His own. People will hear a shout, an angelic voice, and a trumpet blast. Probably believers will hear them if not all people living on the earth. These may be three descriptions of one event or three separate events. It appears that these three events will take place literally (cf. Acts 1:9; 1 Cor. 15:52). In any case, God will herald the return of Christ from heaven. Note that only the dead "in Christ" experience resurrection. That is, God will reunite their resurrected, glorified bodies with their spirits (1 Cor. 15:35-58).

Many posttribulationists identify this trumpet blast with the one that will announce Christ's second coming (Matt. 24:31) or with one of the trumpet blasts that heralds judgments coming on the world in the Tribulation (Rev. 8:2, 7, 8, 10, 12; 9:1, 13; 11:15). Pretribulationists believe this must be a different trumpet blast since the Rapture will precede the Tribulation.⁸³ One's interpretation of this event will rest on when he or she believes the Rapture will take place relative to the Tribulation.⁸⁴

4:17 Then God will catch up the saints alive on the earth into the air and unite us forever with Christ. The word in the Latin Vulgate translated "caught up" is rapturo from which the term "Rapture" comes.⁸⁵ Living saints will experience translation (their bodies will become immortal), and saints who have died will experience resurrection with immortal bodies. Both kinds of Christians will meet (Gr. apantesis, cf. Matt. 25:6; Acts 28:15) in the air with Christ with whom we will remain never to experience separation from Him.⁸⁶ Old Testament believers will evidently experience resurrection at the end of the Tribulation (Dan. 12:1-13; Isa. 26:13-19).⁸⁷ Probably Paul included himself in the living group because he believed that the Lord's return was imminent. He set an example of expectancy for the church of all ages.⁸⁸

Why will God snatch Christians up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air? Pretribulationists answer that we will go with Christ to heaven where we will abide with Him in the place He has prepared for us there (John 14:1-3). We will receive our rewards at the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10) and await our return with Him at His second coming (Rev. 19:14). Posttribulationists respond that Christ never actually returns to the earth in such a view. He has to change direction and return to heaven immediately. This seems unnatural to them. Pretribulationists say this is not unusual in view of what Jesus said about His coming to take His bride, the church, to His Father's house (John 14:3).

Posttribulationists say God will snatch Christians up to meet Christ in the air to join Him as He proceeds to the earth to set up His kingdom.⁸⁹ Pretribulationists point out that it is even more unnatural for Christians to change direction and return to earth immediately than it is for Christ to change direction and return to heaven (cf. John 14:1-3).

"A meeting in the air is pointless unless the saints continue on to heaven with the Lord who has come out to meet them."⁹⁰

Most amillennialists affirm that this catching up will result in Christians going to heaven, not returning to the earth, as the following quotation shows.

"Those who meet the Lord in the air (the space between the earth and the heavens in Jewish cosmology) are caught up in a heavenly ascent by the clouds without any indication that they then return to earth."⁹¹

Posttribulationists reply that since the Scriptures elsewhere present the Rapture as taking place at the end of the Tribulation it must be Christians who change direction in mid-air rather than Christ.

Are there any other passages of Scripture that clarify when this translation of living saints will occur? Both pretribulationists and posttribulationists agree that this event will happen at the same time as a resurrection of believers from the dead (vv. 14-17; cf. 1 Cor. 15:51-52). However we disagree about what resurrection is in view. Some posttribulationists identify this resurrection with one that will take place at Christ's second coming.⁹² Some of them hold that this resurrection is "the first resurrection" (Rev. 20:5) and that no resurrection will precede this one, specifically one before the Tribulation.⁹³ However, pretribulationists point out that there has already been at least one resurrection, namely Christ's. Consequently "first" must not mean the first ever but first in relation to others, probably the first of the two mentioned in Revelation 20:5-14. This "first resurrection" evidently refers to a resurrection of believers that will take place at the end of the Tribulation. The second resurrection, the resurrection of unbelievers, will occur at the end of the Millennium. This interpretation opens the possibility for another resurrection of believers before the Tribulation.

Marvin Rosenthal offered a unique interpretation that he called the "pre-wrath Rapture."⁹⁴ He believed that the only time when God will pour out His wrath on the world will be the last quarter, rather than the last half, of Daniel's seventieth week (Dan. 9:24-27). He equated this 21-month long period with the day of the Lord (Joel 2:1-2).⁹⁵

Most premillennialists have understood the day of the Lord to describe the whole seventieth week (seven years) plus the messianic (millennial) kingdom.⁹⁶ We view the whole seven-year Tribulation as a period of the outpouring of divine wrath (Jer. 30:7; Dan. 12:1).⁹⁷

"Just as each day of creation and the Jewish day consisted of two phases--a time of darkness (evening') followed by a time of light (day') [Gen. 1:4-6]--so the future Day of the Lord will consist of two phases, a period of darkness (judgment) followed by a period of light (divine rule and blessing)."⁹⁸

A representative amillennial explanation of this passage is as follows.

"Although an attempt has been made here [in his commentary] to organize the details of vv. 16f. into a reasonably coherent picture of the events of the end, it must be acknowledged that Paul was probably not interested in giving us a literal description. His goal was to reassure the Thessalonians that their fellow Christians who had died would participate on equal terms with them in the salvation experience accompanying the parousia of the Lord."⁹⁹

4:18 The hope of being reunited with saints who have died and, what is more important, with Christ gives believers a hope that we can and should use to comfort one another when loved ones die.

"Paul's central point [in vv. 13-18] is that Christians who have died are in no way behind those who are alive at the Lord's coming, since the dead will actually rise first; then, we will all go together to meet the Lord in the air."¹⁰⁰

Both pretribulationists and posttribulationists agree that the revelation Paul just gave is a comfort to believers. The hope of translation before death that Paul revealed is greater than the hope of resurrection after death that the Thessalonians had held. Will this translation occur before the Tribulation or after it? Pretribulationists say it will occur before. Consequently we have a very comforting hope. Not only may our translation precede our death, but it will also precede the Tribulation. Furthermore it may take place at any moment. Posttribulationists say our hope consists only in the possibility of our being translated before we die. We may have to go through the Tribulation. Therefore the Rapture is not imminent.

"The hope of a rapture occurring after a literal great tribulation would be small comfort to those in this situation [i.e., in mourning for loved ones who have died]."¹⁰¹

". . . although the church has gone through periods of great persecution in the past and undoubtedly may go through greater and even more intense persecutions before Christ returns, nevertheless, the view of a posttribulational rapture is impossible for the simple reason that it makes meaningless the very argument that Paul was presenting in the Thessalonian letters. Paul was arguing for the imminence of Christ's return. This is to be the major source of comfort for suffering believers. If Christ will not come until after the great tribulation (that is, a special period of unusual and intense suffering still in the future), then the return of the Lord is not imminent and tribulation rather than deliverance is what we must anticipate."¹⁰²

I prefer the pretribulational explanation of verses 13-18 for the following reasons. The passage pictures the Rapture as an imminent event, but it is not if the Tribulation must come first. Second, Christians are not destined to experience the outpouring of God's wrath (1:10; 5:9-10). Third, the prospect of an imminent Rapture is a much greater comfort than the prospect of a posttribulational Rapture, and Paul revealed this information to provide comfort. Fourth, there is no mention of the Tribulation in the passage, but that would be appropriate and reasonable if it will precede the Rapture.¹⁰³

A comparison of verses 13-18 with John 14:1-3 shows that they refer to the same event.

A similar comparison of 1 Thessalonians 4 and Revelation 19, which describes the second coming of Christ, reveals that these two chapters must describe different events.¹⁰⁴

1 THESSALONIANS 4

IV. EXHORTATION (4:1-5:22)

A. EXHORTATION CONCERNING CHRISTIAN LIVING (4:1-12)

1. To Continue in Current Behavior (4:1-2)

¹ Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. ² For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

Paul's explanation of his absence and the visit of Silas and Timothy, woven together as it was with many deliberate words of reminder and example, reaches its climax with the thanksgiving of 3:11-13. The subject matter then shifts to what might be seen as the more explicitly instructional or hortatory section of the letter. Up to this point the demands of Paul's message have been largely indirect: reminders of who the readers are and what they have received as Christians, explanations of Paul's behavior emphasizing his faithfulness as a Christian messenger and implying that his example be followed, interpretation of the readers' persecution in light of the gospel and God's judgment, and so forth. From here, though, Paul will address the readers directly, urging them to think and behave according to the gospel which they have already received.

In a very real sense, every point which Paul makes in this section is a reiteration or elaboration of some aspect of Christian teaching which the Thessalonians already know. And so Paul begins the section by making this very point. His words of exhortation are a reminder to live according to the instruction which they have already received, to grow according to the pattern of life that is already theirs. Such growth is exactly what he has prayed for in 3:11-13.

The need for such reminders is clear to anyone who has tried to live as a Christian, but it seems to be especially acute for the Thessalonian believers. Much of what Paul offers in this section counters directly the influences of the Thessalonians' pagan neighbors and habits of their own former lifestyle. Paul's concern apparently stems from the very real possibility that, few in number and subject to persecution, these believers would succumb to the pressure to return to their old way of life. Combined with this danger is the threat of despair or complacency that can come through a failure to appreciate the promise of the Lord's return.

The fact that Paul's letter was written after Timothy had delivered a firsthand report about the Thessalonians' positive progress in the gospel (3:6) may suggest that while the church as a whole had remained faithful, some specific problems in these areas had arisen. That impression is reinforced by the language of 4:13 and more particularly by the fact that in 2 Thessalonians Paul will repeat in much stronger terms the earlier warnings about idleness (4:11-12; 2 Thess 3:6-15). Whatever the situation as he writes, however, Paul provides a vital admonition: in thinking and behavior the readers must resist the pressure of their culture in order to flourish in the truth that they have embraced in the gospel.

4:1 Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.

As in Phil 3:1, "finally" (loipovn, loipon ) signals not so much the end of the letter as a shift in discussion. Here Paul announces the basic subject matter to follow: faithfulness and growth according to Christian teaching under divine authority. To this end he will both "ask" (ejrwtavw, erôtaô) and "urge" (parakalevw, parakaleô, cf. 2:3, 12; 3:2, 7). The two verbs are found together in other Greek literature and may represent a commonly used phrase; together they suggest an earnest, vigorous exhortation.

Several terms come together here to emphasize this concept. The Greek text joins v. 1 to the preceding discussion with the particle ou ( oun ), normally translated as "therefore" but omitted by the NIV. The particle suggests that the instruction to follow is a consequence of the preceding discussion, a concept that is underlined in the verse by the repetition of several key phrases and concepts from ch. 1-3.

One of the most obvious of these is the address "brothers," occurring for the seventh time in 1 Thessalonians (1:4; 2:1, 9, 14, 17; 3:7; cf. 3:2), which stresses the relationship which the Thessalonians have to each other (cf. 4:9-10) and to Paul and the other missionaries through Christ. The foundation of that relationship and its implications are emphasized with the phrase "in the Lord Jesus." Though this could be taken in an instrumental sense ("we ask and urge you by [the authority of] the Lord Jesus"), it is more consistent with Paul's use of similar phrases elsewhere to understand it as referring to the union between Christ and his people. Because Christians are in solidarity with Christ as those who have died and been raised with him (Rom 6:1-14), living according to that union is their natural obligation. In particular Paul offers the exhortation "in the Lord Jesus," stressing the divine authority to which those united with him must submit.

Likewise, the goal of their lives is "to please God," a concept which Paul has introduced previously (2:4, 15). Understanding their new, harmonious relationship with God (cf. 1:4, 9-10), the Thessalonians now seek to fulfill his will in their behavior, just as Paul has set the example for them. "To live in order to please God" is therefore not merely the performance of an occasional duty but a transformation of lifestyle: both the infinitives "to live" and "to please" are in the Greek present tense, indicating a continuing action. And both depend on the verb dei' ( dei ), which expresses obligation, literally, "how it is necessary for you to live in order to please God."

For the readers this lifestyle has already taken root. Paul has already written that they have turned "to serve the living and true God" (1:9) and have "received the word of God" (2:13). The NIV's "we instructed you" is literally "you received from us" (the verb paralambavnw [paralambanô] is the same one found in 2:13; see comments there), indicating particularly their hearing and taking to heart the oral teaching about Christian behavior which Paul and his associates had delivered when the church was first established in Thessalonica. Such teaching was probably based largely on the teaching of Jesus (see comments on v. 2 below), so the fact that Paul exhorts "in the Lord Jesus" may be doubly fitting here. Consistent with that teaching, the readers already live in a way that pleases God as the word of God is "at work" in them (2:13). What remains is for their lives to come into closer conformity with what they have received, literally that they would "abound more" (perisseuvw, perisseuô; cf. 3:12) in the way that they live in the Lord.

4:2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

For emphasis Paul now reiterates the passing remark of v. 1 that the Thessalonians had already received these instructions when Paul was with them. The repetition will serve to encourage them in their struggle and, particularly in 4:13-5:11, to clarify previous teaching. Also repeated for emphasis are the concepts of obligation and authority. "Instructions" translates paraggeliva ( parangelia ), a word which indicates more specifically commands or orders. "By the authority of the Lord Jesus" is literally "through the Lord Jesus," probably referring to teachings delivered by Jesus to the apostles, material which probably constituted the core of instruction for new converts in the early church even before the gospels were written. The teaching of this section can largely be paralleled with material in the gospels, suggesting that here, as in some other contexts (e.g., Rom 12:14; 13:8-10; 14:14; 15:3; 1 Cor 7:10; 9:14; 11:23-24; 1 Cor 13:2; Phil 2:6-11), Paul consciously alluded to the life and teaching of Jesus in such a way that presumed his readers' familiarity with it. The name "Jesus" here and in v. 1 may well point in this direction also, since it belongs to the Lord in his incarnation as a person of history. The NIV's rendering, "by the authority of the Lord Jesus," takes some liberties which may obscure the connection to Jesus' ministry, but it legitimately stresses another aspect of Paul's expression: as in v. 1, "Lord" is an appropriate title, indicating Jesus' divine sovereignty from which these obligations come.

This repeated emphasis on Christ's authority brings an important focus to Paul's exhortation. In v. 1 Paul uses terms for his own actions which suggest the urgent persuasion of people free to make a choice: he "ask[s] and urge[s]." Such language recognizes the responsibility of the readers to exercise their own will as they respond to Paul's words. But the ultimate source of Paul's instruction is the sovereign Lord; he has supreme authority and so commands obedience from all. In effect Paul offers an urgent appeal for the readers to continue to do what is finally an absolute moral obligation.

2. To Remain Sexually Pure (4:3-8)

³ It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; ⁴ that each of you should learn to control his own body ^a in a way that is holy and honorable, ⁵ not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; ⁶ and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. ⁷ For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. ⁸ Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

^a 4 Or learn to live with his own wife ; or learn to acquire a wife

Sexual morality in the Greco-Roman world was markedly lax. While marriage was widely upheld as a cultural ideal, sexual fidelity within marriage was not necessarily expected. Husbands might with impunity seek the company of a mistress, concubine or prostitute; the role of the wife was to manage the household and provide legitimate children. The situation was intensified by the presence in various places of religious cults which encouraged the engaging of temple prostitutes as an act of worship. The cults of Dionysus and the Cabirus, both well established in Thessalonica, made use of phallic images and often involved drunken sexual carousing. Judaism, on the other hand, unequivocally regarded sexual activity as belonging only in the context of faithful marriage. While in practice the ideal was undoubtedly violated, among Jews strong social strictures stood against premarital or extramarital sex.

Paul's discussion of this issue reflects the Gentile cultural setting assumed from 1:9-10. He bases his discussion of sexuality directly on the concept of knowing God truly. Discipline in sexual matters is not for Paul merely a matter of doing what is best for oneself but of recognizing God's will and his power to enforce it. Immorality therefore represents deliberate ignorance of God and the nature of his call, leaving one subject to God's judgment. As a secondary but still vital point, Paul also stresses that sexual immorality amounts to a deception of one's brothers and sisters in Christ and so violates the bond which unites the church. Altogether, Paul's words are a powerful warning against a powerful temptation.

Paul's teaching in this section has a remarkably foreign accent for modern or postmodern civilization. The individualistic and relativistic worldviews which permeate our time argue that sexual behavior is private and cannot be restricted by any standard other than the individual's desires and those of the "partner." But Paul begins with the idea that Christians belong to the God who created and redeemed them with a particular purpose and who will judge them accordingly, and that through that relationship they also are bound to one another for mutual love and self-sacrificial service. Paul puts this basis for his specific behavioral instructions at the forefront of this entire section, for it was just as foreign to the Greco-Roman culture as it is to our own.

4:3 It is God's will that you should be sanctified:

This verse is the beginning of a long sentence, ending in v. 6, in which Paul sets forth both the boundaries for the Christian's sexual behavior and the reasons for those boundaries. The sentence begins by stressing that these instructions are God's will. The syntax highlights this idea: literally the sentence begins, "This is the will of God: your sanctification." Simply stated, the concept of sanctification (aJgiasmov", hagiasmos ) is to be made holy or treated as holy. In the biblical setting the concept of holiness begins with the holiness of God. God is holy because he is "other," transcendent and distinct from his creation (Isa 6:3). But in the Old Testament the people of God are also referred to as "holy" (Deut 7:6; 14:2, 21; Ps 31:23; 37:28; 50:5).

This implies first that they belong to God and so are distinct and separate from others who are not his. But it also carries with it an obligation that they live in a way that is distinct from their surroundings and expresses their status as God's distinct and beloved possession (Lev 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7). It is here that the specific concept of sanctification, being made holy, belongs. With this term Paul reminds the readers that because they belong to God, their lives are to reflect that fact as they resist the sexual temptations of the pagan culture that surrounds them, expressing by their discipline and faithfulness the purpose which God had for human sexuality (cf. Gen 2:24).

that you should avoid sexual immorality;

Paul expresses that purpose with two infinitive phrases in vv. 3-4. The first expresses in negative terms what sanctified sexual behavior is, namely avoiding sexual immorality entirely. Paul uses here the broadest and most common term in the New Testament for sexual sin, porneiva ( porneia ). In contexts like this one which imply no specific focus, this term refers to any sexual activity before or outside of marriage, including premarital or extramarital sex and homosexual activity. "Avoid" translates ajpevcomai ( apechomai ), which when used in this sense in the New Testament indicates abstaining entirely from something one used to engage in (1 Thess 5:22; Acts 15:20, 29; 1 Tim 4:3; 1 Pet 2:11).

4:4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable,

The second infinitive of purpose appears here, expressing the positive aspect of Christian teaching on sexuality. This Paul sums up with the two descriptive terms at the end of the verse.

"Holy" translates hagiasmos , rendered "sanctification" in v. 3. Paul's implication is that Christian sexual behavior should express that the Christian belongs to God. His concept is probably stated most clearly in 1 Cor 6:15-20, where he asserts that in sexual intercourse one is joined to one's partner in a way that transcends the physical. Sexual contact outside marriage, therefore, violates the union that the Christian has with the Lord (1 Cor 6:17). Consequently, chastity and fidelity are vivid and necessary expressions of the reality that believers are "in Christ," that the Holy Spirit lives in them, and that they are God's distinct and eternal possession, his "holy" people.

The second term, "honorable," indicates that in the context of marriage sexual relations are to be treated as something profoundly valuable, as one's spouse is treated with the deepest respect and sensitivity. Both terms express Paul's reverence for the foundational concept of Gen 2:24 that marriage, including its sexual component, is an integral part of God's intention for humanity in creation (cf. 1 Cor 6:16). Hence, to behave in any other way is a denial of true knowledge of God, as Paul will state explicitly in the next verse.

Because of the central importance of the two modifiers at the end of the verse, the difficulty in determining the specific sense of the first part of the verse has less impact than it might otherwise. But one interpretation does appear to be more likely, clarifying Paul's point further. As reflected in the NIV's marginal translations, the difficulty comes in understanding what Paul means by toÉ eJautou' skeu'o" ktavsqai ( to heautou skeuos ktasthai ), literally, "to possess his own vessel."

One possibility is that "vessel" here is used as a figure of speech for a wife. It appears that in some Jewish literature wives were sometimes referred to figuratively as vessels, particularly in their roles as sexual partners. 1 Pet 3:7 may reflect this usage. In this case "to possess" may mean "to acquire," a specific sense in which this verb is commonly used, so that Paul would refer to the taking of a wife in marriage. This specific sense appears unlikely in the context, however, since sanctification and honor in marrying a wife would address only one aspect of the broader issue of sexual morality that Paul discusses.

Another alternative is to take "to possess" as a figurative expression for sexual relations in marriage or more broadly for married life generally. This interpretation has the advantage of fitting the context's comprehensive discussion of sexual morality. But both of these possibilities necessitate taking "vessel" in a sense which is clearly attested only in Jewish documents, while this text appears specifically to address Gentile Christians, who are not likely to be familiar with a distinctly Jewish expression.

It is more likely, therefore, that "vessel" should be taken in another sense, as a euphemism for the male sexual organ. This use of skeu'o" ( skeuos ) is attested in both Jewish and pagan Greek literature. "To possess" in this case would have the specific sense of "to have power over," a meaning attested elsewhere for this verb. This interpretation yields a sense that is consistent with the larger context: it states in concrete terms that Christians should govern all their sexual behavior in keeping with their standing as God's people. Furthermore, as Karl Donfried has pointed out, this sense would directly counter the Dionysian cult's use of phallic images, familiar to the Thessalonians. The effect is to express vividly the replacement of the culturally established behavior based on selfish indulgence and power with a new kind of behavior based on holiness and honor. Because this last interpretation is most consistent with the language, culture and context, it appears to be most likely. The NIV text follows this interpretation, using "body" as a euphemism in English dynamically equivalent to "vessel."

4:5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;

Further defining the holiness and honor that characterize Christian sexual behavior and driving home the sharp distinction between the old life and the new, Paul here contrasts the pagan attitude toward sexuality with the Christian approach just described. "Passionate lust" translates a Greek expression which literally reads "passion of lust." The combination of expressions suggests a powerful desire focused on the gratification of the self. Such a mindset, Paul says, is contrary to the true knowledge of God characteristic of his people. "Heathen" here translates the Greek e[qnh (ethnç), more commonly translated "nations" or "Gentiles." But here the term is used not to signal any national or ethnic status but to indicate those who do not know God because they have not entered into a relationship with him through his covenant. It appears, as has been noted above, that Paul addresses mostly Gentile Christians in this section. So the implicit contrast is important. As Christians, these Gentiles have ceased to be "Gentiles" in the sense of being outside of God's covenant (cf. Gal 3:26-29; Eph 2:11-13). They are now members of his covenant people, the Israel of fulfillment, those "in Christ," namely, the church.

"Passionate lust" is symptomatic of ignorance of God in at least two important ways. As discussed above, it first of all betrays ignorance of God's intention for human sexuality as expressed in creation. Paul makes clear elsewhere that sexual immorality, like idolatry, reflects the repression of divine revelation available through creation even apart from the Scriptures (Rom 1:18-32, especially vv. 26-27). Secondly, and more broadly, merely to seek self-gratification in sex is to deny the imperative of self-sacrificial service for others which lies at the very core of the gospel. As the one who did not come to be served but to serve to the point of giving his life for others, Jesus reveals God as seeking always to benefit his people, not himself (Phil 2:5-11; Mark 10:45). Pursuing "holiness and honor" and avoiding "passionate lust" are therefore expressed not only by confining sexual relations to marriage but also by acting within marriage for the service of one's spouse rather than oneself.

Notably, Jesus himself indicated that the desire to gratify the self by exercising power over others in any sphere is characteristic of "Gentiles" (Mark 10:42). The mention of "Gentiles" here may, therefore, indicate a deliberate echo of Jesus' teaching as the Thessalonians had learned it from Paul (cf. vv. 1-2, 6).

4:6 and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him.

Though some commentators have concluded that Paul shifts subjects from sexual to business ethics or general behavior in this verse, there is little to indicate such a shift. The NIV's translation, which indicates a continuation of the previous discussion, is almost certainly correct; tw/' pravgmati (tô pragmati) most naturally signifies the "matter" under discussion, not "business" or "any matter" (AV). As the previous verse views the basis for Christian sexual ethics from a vertical perspective, so here Paul addresses the horizontal aspect. Sexual immorality not only violates the Christian's bond with the Lord but also with fellow believers.

Paul uses two verbs with similar meanings to emphasize this point. "Wrong" translates uJperbaivnw ( hyperbainô), which specifically indicates going beyond the prescribed boundaries and, as used here, causing injury to another. "Take advantage" represents pleonektevw (pleonekteô), suggesting the attempt to gain something for oneself at the expense of another, "to cheat," in other words. Both verbs are in the Greek present tense, indicating continuing action; they therefore point to a continual doing of harm through sexual immorality.

"Brother" here almost certainly points to other Christians, reflecting Paul's particular concern for the effect of immorality on the unity and integrity of the church. But it is probably used generically to refer to either men or women (hence the NRSV's "brother or sister"). In light of the statement of v. 5, Paul's point probably includes the idea that by engaging in sexual immorality, motivated by the self-centered desire for gratification, one violates the sacred boundaries of the partner's integrity and wrongfully takes from the partner something for selfish gain. Also cheated are the present or future spouses of both persons engaged in immorality because by the immoral act the exclusive bond of marriage is violated.

The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you.

If immorality indeed involves the offenses noted in vv. 5-6a, then its wrong must be declared in divine judgment. To that subject Paul now turns. Literally he writes here, "because God is the one who brings justice concerning all these things." Though immorality committed in secret may escape the notice of all but its participants, God brings to light that which is secret (Eph 5:8-14) in a judgment that is sure and final. The idea that sexual behavior is entirely a private matter, that it can be treated casually or that immorality has no victims or consequences is entirely incompatible with the existence of a just and almighty God who both establishes the standards of morality and brings retribution when the standards are disobeyed.

Again Paul draws attention to the fact that the Thessalonians had already received this moral teaching as a part of their initial instruction as Christian converts. Two verbs are used together to emphasize this point: proei'pon ( proeipon ), meaning simply "to say beforehand," and diamartuvromai ( diamartyromai ), emphasizing a solemn, serious warning. The fact that Paul has repeated this already-received injunction at the length and with the firm rhetoric found here is indicative of the seriousness of the issue.

4:7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.

The reality of God's judgment set forth in v. 6 should not be taken so much as a threat to the readers as a reminder of how they are to live as God's people. God has "call[ed]" them, a concept which in Paul's use indicates not only that God has brought to them the message of salvation but also that they have responded to it with faith (cf. 1:4-6, 9-10). Holiness is therefore one part of that faithful response. But the great significance of their call is in the one who issues it, namely God himself. To have been called by God obliges the readers to live "worthy" of the call (cf. 2:12), to put into practice the will of the one who issued the call.

The call was not for ajkaqarsiva ( akatharsia ), "impurity," a term commonly used in the New Testament for sexual sin, suggesting especially that it defiles its participants, making them unusable for sacred purposes. "A holy life" is again hagiasmos , "sanctification," repeated from vv. 3-4. Here is the objective of God's call: that his people would reflect his own holiness and so be fitting and suitable as his servants and people. They are ultimately motivated, then, not so much by a fear of judgment as by the implications of judgment. The reality that God judges sexual sin reminds them that their identity as God's possession compels an entirely different kind of behavior. Having been saved from sin and judgment by God's grace, they no longer want to have anything to do with anything associated with God's wrath (cf. 1:10).

4:8 Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God,

A strong inferential particle, toigarou'n, ( toigaroun , "therefore") introduces this verse, firmly indicating that this conclusion follows necessarily and inevitably from the preceding discussion. The standards of sexual purity are not merely matters of individual interpretation, coming from Paul's human judgment (ajnqrwpon [anthrôpon, "man"] indicates "human" generically here rather than males specifically), or of cultural differences, coming from Jewish culture in contrast to Greek. These instructions are indeed delivered by a human agent, but he is an agent of God, and apostle who represents the one who sends him and speaks with the sender's authority. The nature of God himself, his intention expressed in creation and special revelation, and his relationship to his people demand the sexual purity that Paul has described. Rejection of this teaching therefore cannot be taken lightly; there is no room for opinion in such matters. Paul uses the present tense for the verbs translated "reject," indicating the continuing rejection of the teaching through a sinful lifestyle and the consequent continuing rejection of God. In essence, then, the one who lives immorally lives in a state of hostility to God.

who gives you his Holy Spirit.

To drive home this point further, Paul again appeals to one of the blessings received by the Thessalonians. The Spirit of God given them in their conversion is the Holy Spirit, the one who sets them apart from others and enables them to grow in holiness of life. To continue in immorality is therefore to treat God's inestimable gift with contempt, denying the very purpose for which God gives the gift. Again, the verb "gives" is in the Greek present tense, probably pointing to the fact that God gives the Holy Spirit continually to abide in the lives of believers and so continually to produce holy living.

The language of this statement is similar to several statements of Jesus in the Gospels (Mark 9:37 and parallels; Matt 10:40; Luke 10:16; John 12:44; 13:20). This similarity may indicate that Paul is deliberately echoing these statements to remind the Thessalonians of the teaching which they had already received (see comments on v. 2 above).

This warning about rejecting the teaching on sexual morality may indicate that some in the Thessalonian church had done just that. On the other hand, in addressing the Corinthian church on the same subject, Paul left no doubt that he was aware of specific instances of immorality, denouncing them precisely and unequivocally (1 Cor 5:1-13, especially vv. 1-2). This warning, then, may be prompted not by immoral behavior already in the church but by the strong potential for it in the environment of Thessalonica.

3. To Exercise Brotherly Love (4:9-10)

⁹ Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. ¹⁰ And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.

The tone of this exhortation is markedly different from that of the preceding section. Here Paul's confidence in the readers is unmistakable. Again noting that this responsibility stems from God himself and has already been received by the Thessalonians, Paul offers a brief reminder, encouraging the readers to grow in the behavior that they have already shown.

Paul alluded to the Thessalonians' love as one of their three cardinal virtues in the initial thanksgiving section (1:3). The centrality of such love in the Christian life is expressed, of course, in all parts of the New Testament. The supreme importance of love, rather than any specific issue or problem related to the Thessalonians' behavior, is the likely reason for Paul's including this discussion.

4:9 Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.

"Now about," translating the Greek periÉ dev ( peri de ), because it is paralleled in 1 Cor 7:1, has been taken by some as an indication that Paul is now replying to a letter delivered by Timothy from the Thessalonians. The rather general tone of the instructions which follow suggest, however, that there was no such letter. The expression is most likely an ordinary transition to a new subject.

That subject is named with the term filadelfiva ( philadelphia , "brotherly love"), which prior to the New Testament was used almost exclusively of love between blood relatives. Its use here emphasizes the relationship among Christians created by their kinship in Christ. It implies first of all that Christians recognize the common bond of their shared relationship with God, which in turn motivates them to care for one another as the closest of family members. Paul's habitual use of "brothers" to address the readers (1:4; 2:1, 9, 14, 17; 3:2, 7; 4:1, 13; 5:1, 4, 12, 14, 25; cf. 4:6, 10; 5:26, 27) and his previous discussion of his own affection for them (2:6b-12; 2:17-3:10) are aspects of his expression of this reality. This love is based on a common relationship and is mutually shared among the believers, but it goes beyond merely reciprocal affection. The familiar term ajgapavw (agapaô), used in the New Testament for self-sacrificial love regardless of the unworthiness of the object, is also used here to refer to the love between Christians.

Such love has been "taught by God" (a term found only here in the New Testament) specifically in the gospel itself, which is above all the demonstration of the true nature of God's self-giving love. Reconciled to God through his love and so drawn into a relationship with brothers and sisters in Christ, Christians must exercise the same kind of love to one another as an indispensable consequence. No wonder, then, that Paul reminds readers of this central imperative in all of his letters (e.g., Rom 13:9-10; 1 Cor 13:1-14:1; 2 Cor 2:8; Gal 5:22; Eph 5:2; Phil 2:2; Col 3:14; 2 Thess 3:5; 1 Tim 1:5; 2 Tim 2:22; Titus 2:2; Phlm 9). No wonder also that the divine teaching of love through the gospel is paralleled by God's Spirit distributing it to the hearts of believers (Rom 5:5; cf. Gal 5:22). And no wonder that Paul says here that he has no need to write on this subject: this supreme obligation was at the heart of Paul's face-to-face instruction and has been at the heart of the readers' Christian experience ever since. In line with all of these considerations is the tense of the verb "to love" in this verse: it is present, emphasizing continuing, constant love.

4:10 And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia.

What Paul has just described as an obligation is here expressed as a reality. The readers put God's love into practice: the verb poievw (poieô, "do") used here suggests that their love is expressed in action, and the tense is again present, indicating a continuing action. Their love is not confined to those in their immediate circle but includes fellow Christians outside Thessalonica. These observations indicate that the Thessalonian Christians were already actively communicating and sharing with other churches in Philippi, Berea, and perhaps elsewhere, exercising the universal love of God beyond the boundaries of convenience (cf. Acts 11:27-30).

Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.

Paul's exhortation is to grow in this practice of love. "To do so more and more" translates the Greek phrase periseuvein ma'llon ( perisseuein mallon ), literally "to abound more." The implication is that already their love abounds, but grounded in the love of God, it must continue to grow without limits. Such growth would include practicing love more consistently, more widely, at greater cost, and through the specific behaviors described in vv. 11-12.

4. To Lead a Quiet, Honest Life (4:11-12)

¹¹ Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, ¹² so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

The division of the text at this point, reflected in the verse numbering and in the NIV's paragraph break as well as in the outline of this commentary, is somewhat misleading. A distinct element of Paul's exhortation appears here, dealing with Christian behavior in society, especially economic society. But the sentence structure of the Greek text indicates that Paul conceives of this subject as a continuation of the preceding instructions. Verses 11-12 are grammatically dependent on v. 10, presenting additional objects of the verb translated "urge." In essence, then, Paul presents the responsibilities of tranquil citizenship and honest labor as expressions of genuine Christian love, specifically because they remove burdens from others and remove obstacles that might prevent nonbelievers from coming to faith. Such behavior was a part of his own expression of love when he ministered in Thessalonica (2:6b-12).

Diligent labor was held in high esteem by Greco-Roman society. Philosophers of various schools counseled their students to adopt behavior similar to what Paul describes here. Some have argued, in fact, that Paul offers these instructions merely because they represented the respected morality of the time. However, this conclusion can be maintained only if 2 Thessalonians is not an authentic letter of Paul reflecting the situation in the Thessalonian church (cf. the introduction to 2 Thessalonians below), for there a similar exhortation is given but with much greater intensity (2 Thess 3:6-15). But if 2 Thessalonians is authentic, the most reasonable conclusion is that Paul was already aware of an incipient problem with idleness and troublemaking in the church.

Why such a problem arose is difficult to say. In light of the eschatological emphasis of these letters, some interpreters have proposed that certain Thessalonian Christians may have stopped working because they expected that Christ would return very soon. This exhortation does immediately precede the eschatological discussion (4:13-5:11), which is in turn followed by another about idleness (5:14). However, because Paul directly connects to the eschatological teaching of both letters to other issues, we can have no certainty that the idleness stemmed from eschatological misunderstanding. Another alternative is that some may have taken unnecessary advantage of other Christians' generous sharing of material things by quitting their work. Though this reconstruction has the strength of a connection to the immediate context (vv. 9-10), it also can be regarded as no more than a possibility. Human nature is such that some in the Thessalonian church may have abandoned responsible labor without any specifically identifiable cause.

4:11 Make it your ambition

"Make it your ambition" translates filotimevomai ( philotimeomai ), used only by Paul in the New Testament (Rom 15:20; 2 Cor 5:9). Originally the verb meant to consider something an honor or to aspire to something, but in the first century it was commonly used in a less specific sense of striving after something. At the same time, the term was used commonly in honorary decrees to mean "to act with public spirit." Though Paul may mean no more imply no more than earnest pursuit here, the emphasis of the rest of the statement on what might be called public virtues might indicate that he uses the verb in this last sense.

to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands,

As the NIV clearly indicates, this ambition has three objects. "To lead a quiet life" translates hJsucavzw (hçsychazô), implying behavior that does not cause disturbance or conflict. Perhaps mindful of the conflict naturally engendered by the preaching of the gospel, no less in Thessalonica than elsewhere (cf. Acts 17:5-9), Paul enjoins quietness in part as a means of showing that Christianity is not the socially subversive teaching which some perceived it to be (cf. v. 12). As his own behavior had shown the truth of the gospel (2:1-12), so the readers' must also.

But more than the public image of Christianity is at stake, since the practice of Christian love has peace, not conflict, as its objective (cf. 1:1; 5:23). "To mind your own business" translates a Greek expression which implies both negatively that one would not interfere in the affairs of others and positively that one would be responsible for his or her own material support. Idleness is the opposite of what Paul instructs here, since it gives ample opportunity for interference in others' lives (cf. 2 Thess 3:11; 1 Tim 1:13) and refuses self-support. While the responsibility of Christian love includes sharing with those who have need, it also demands that those who can care for themselves should do so.

Again, Paul's own example is paramount here, for he supported himself in Thessalonica even though he could have lived by his converts' gifts (cf. 2:9; 2 Thess 3:7-10; 1 Cor 9:1-18). The exhortation for the readers to work with their hands elaborates the positive aspect of the previous instruction, reflecting the fact that most employment in the ancient world involved manual labor or skilled handcrafts.

just as we told you,

None of these instructions were new to the Thessalonians. "We told" represents paraggevllw (parangellô), which implies not merely instruction but command (cf. 4:2). The lifestyle that Paul commands here is the same that he had commanded before (2:12) and the same that he lived among them.

4:12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

Paul here indicates a twofold purpose for his threefold exhortation in v. 11. While the NIV's translation here does not follow the Greek text literally, it nevertheless represents an accurate interpretive rendering of the Paul's sense. More literally the text may be rendered, "so that you may walk respectably for outsiders and may have need of nothing." The first purpose focuses on the impact of the church's behavior on the larger world, implying a style of life that will earn the respect even of those who do not share the Christians' moral outlook (cf. Rom 13:13). It is, of course, impossible for Christians not to find themselves in conflict with the unbelieving world at some points (cf. 2:13-16). But at the least they should not provide any unnecessary basis for accusation or scorn (cf. 1 Pet 2:12, 15, 20; 3:13-17; 4:12-16). And more than that, their exemplary public behavior should provide the occasion to share the gospel with unbelievers (1 Pet 3:15). Their labor should likewise provide sufficient means to meet their own needs, freeing their fellow Christians from unnecessary burdens. Both verbs in this verse, appearing in the present tense, stress continuing action.

B. EXHORTATION CONCERNING THE LORD'S RETURN (4:13-5:11)

Eschatology, or the doctrine of the last things, has been a constant, underlying refrain to this point in 1 Thessalonians (1:10; 2:12, 16, 19; 3:13). In this section it becomes explicit. Apparently some misunderstanding had arisen in the Thessalonian church about Paul's eschatological teaching. Specifically it appears that some did not yet understand the implications of Christ's resurrection and coming for believers who had died. More generally it seems that the church had not thoroughly grasped the implications of Christ's coming for day-to-day Christian behavior and attitudes.

This section focuses on these specific problems, clarifying and reiterating the core of teaching which Paul had already given orally to the Thessalonian Christians. Throughout the discussion, Paul's emphasis is not merely on eschatology as a fascinating aspect of Christian teaching but on its implications for the practice of Christianity. In this respect this section is a part of the direct exhortation which began in 4:1 rather than a distinct unit of its own. Paul's purpose is not to satisfy curiosity about the exact events which accompany Christ's return or the exact nature of life in eternity but to remind the readers that their promised future life in Christ has a radical effect on their already-realized present life in Christ. Proper interpretation of this section must therefore focus on the impact of Paul's words on the Christian experience, not on speculation about issues which the apostle does not address.

1. The Dead in Christ and the Lord's Return (4:13-18)

¹³ Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. ¹⁴ We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵ According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage each other with these words.

The Thessalonian Christians appear to have particularly misunderstood what the coming of Christ meant for those believers who had already died. Possible sources for this misunderstanding are not hard to imagine. One contributing factor could be the distinctive Christian teaching on the resurrection. In Jewish teaching prior to Jesus the resurrection is something that takes place at the end of history. But in the Christian gospel, and especially in Paul's letters, Jesus' resurrection shifts the temporal orientation of the resurrection. Jesus is raised not when history ends but as it continues. That resurrection means that those who are united with Christ are raised with him, experiencing from their baptism onward the new life of eternity even while they live in the present world (cf. Rom 6:3-4). It also guarantees that at the end of this present world, which occurs when Christ returns, they will be raised to live in the new world of the age to come (1 Cor 15:20, 23-26). Thus, the resurrection is for believers both an experience already accomplished at their conversion and something yet to be experienced when Christ returns.

For the readers, many of whom were Gentiles (cf. 1:9) unfamiliar with the concept of the resurrection (cf. Acts 17:18, 31-32), the details and implications of this teaching must have been difficult to grasp. But even Jewish Christians probably had trouble making the shift to thinking of the resurrection as something both present and future. It may well be that the Thessalonians understood that they had already been raised with Christ but did not comprehend the concept of a future resurrection with its implications. Or they may have simply thought that Christ's resurrection is the only resurrection in God's plan. Such belief could easily have caused discouragement and despair if a brother or sister in Christ had died since Paul left. As that death ruptured the fellowship of the church, misunderstanding about the resurrection would have left those who were alive with no hope of being restored to the one who was dead. Furthermore, if Paul had taught that all believers would greet the Lord at his return, a death in the church without a resurrection to come would throw the truth of Paul's teaching into question.

Other reconstructions are also possible. Some argue that the Thessalonians believed merely that the dead would not participate in the parousia or would not have the same blessed experience as those who will be alive. However, it is difficult to believe that this alone would cause them to grieve like those without hope (v. 13). Joseph Plevnik has argued that the Thessalonians believed, with many Jews, that for a person to be taken up from earth to heaven (v. 17), that person must be alive. They understood that at Christ's return the living would be taken up but had mistakenly concluded that the dead could have no part in this. Though this reconstruction does justice to much of the language of this section, it neglects the indications, noted below, that Paul also implies that the dead are present with Christ prior to his return. The best hypothesis remains a more essential misunderstanding of the resurrection stemming from the shift in thinking demanded by this doctrine.

This passage, then, emphasizes that at the coming of Christ those who have died in Christ will suffer no disadvantage. Theirs is no second-class experience: they will be present with the Lord at his coming and experience all of eternity with him. Furthermore, those who grieve the death of a fellow Christian have the assurance that God's people will all be reunited in his presence at Christ's return. The purpose of God to unite all those who belong to him in eternal fellowship with him and each other will in no way be frustrated by death!

The question is often raised as to whether the teaching of this passage and of 1 Cor 15 on the future resurrection can be reconciled with Paul's teaching on life after death in 2 Cor 5:1-10 or Phil 1:20-23. In those latter passages he speaks of what appears to be a conscious life in the Lord's presence immediately after the death of the individual.

A variety of approaches have been taken to reconciling these passages. Some have argued that Paul's thinking changed between the writing of 1 and 2 Corinthians from belief in a resurrection at the end of history to belief in life immediately after death, perhaps because he sought to explain the death of some believers or the delay in Christ's return. This view, aside from its theologically problematic assertion that Paul's apostolic teaching evolved to the point of contradiction, understands these passages rigidly and simplistically, not according to the characteristic complexity of the rest of Paul's doctrine.

Another approach argues that the soul or spirit of the dead believer "sleeps" in an unconscious state until the resurrection. But this conclusion is based on a misunderstanding of biblical language for death (see comments on v. 13 below), undervalues Paul's confidence that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8), and cannot explain specific expressions in Paul's discussion here (see comments on vv. 14-15 below).

More traditionally it has been understood that between death and the resurrection the Christian exists in a "disembodied state," a conscious but incomplete state of blessedness which ends when the believer receives the resurrection body when Christ returns. The traditional view has the virtue of explaining coherently all of Paul's statements about life after death. But whether Paul or any other New Testament writer implies that in the intermediate state Christians exist as disembodied spirits is at best questionable.

Whatever the specifics at this point, the relevant passages in fact offer a different emphasis in context. This text stresses the resurrection at the end of history as the reuniting of believers who have died with those who are still alive. Here the dead, who are already in the Lord's presence, are raised in relation to those from whom they have been separated, namely those alive on the earth, so that all share together in the return of Christ and the eternal fellowship that follows. In 2 Cor 5:1-10 and Phil 1:20-23 Paul stresses the individual's confidence that nothing, death included, can sever his relationship with Christ-that in fact death makes that fellowship even more direct (cf. Rom 14:8). So whatever else a future resurrection may mean for those who die before the Lord returns, these texts assure those united with Christ in his death and resurrection that death for them is in every respect a defeated enemy (cf. 1 Cor 15:54-57).

4:13 Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep,

Paul begins the discussion with an assertion of the subject he will address and the purpose for addressing it. The subject is "those who fall asleep," or more literally "those who are sleeping" (tw'n koimwmevnwn [ tôn koimômenôn] is a present participle, indicating continuing action). "To sleep" is a common euphemism for death in both Greek and Jewish literature. To infer from the expression that those who are dead have no consciousness is a patent over-interpretation, since death is referred to as sleep in a wide variety of ancient texts where no such implication is in view. For Christians, however, the term may have been especially useful since it provided the reminder that Christ would awaken those who have fallen asleep in death (cf. Luke 8:52). "We do not want you to be ignorant" represents a kind of emphatic, double-negative expression which is common in Greek rhetoric; it is the equivalent of "we want to inform you" (cf. Rom 1:13; 11:25; 1 Cor 10:1; 12:1; 2 Cor 1:8).

or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.

Paul's purpose for this teaching is to address and change the grief which they will naturally experience, or may have already experienced, when a brother or sister dies. His point is not that Christians who understand this teaching will not grieve at all. That idea is belied by Paul's own experience: in Phil 2:27 he indicates that had his associate Epaphroditus died from a serious illness, Paul would have experienced "sorrow upon sorrow." Rather his point is that grief with hope is fundamentally different from grief without hope; the statement might be paraphrased, "so that you will not have the same kind of grief as those without hope." "The rest of men" are those without that hope which springs from the gospel; theirs is the condition of sinful humanity left to itself (cf. Eph 2:12). "Hope" (ejlpiv", elpis ) is, of course, more than optimism or positive thinking. In the context of the Christian gospel it signifies a confidence about the future which is based on God's faithful promises, already in the process of fulfillment through Christ (cf. comments on 1:3). Christians will therefore still grieve at the death of a fellow Christian because their fellowship with that brother or sister has been interrupted. But as Paul will stress, their hope alleviates and transforms that grief because when Christ comes their fellowship will be restored. Death's "sting" (1 Cor 15:55) is removed from grief because the temporary separation of death will yield to the eternal fellowship of the Lord's people (cf. 2 Cor 4:17-18).

4:14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

Belief in the final resurrection of the dead in Christ, Paul asserts here, is a necessary consequence of the fundamental Christian belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In fact, it has been argued that Paul here quotes a common early Christian creed, or statement of belief: the introductory "we believe," the use of "Jesus" instead of Paul's more common "Christ," and the use of ajnivsthmi (anistçmi) for "rose," not the ordinary term for Paul, have been taken as evidence of a pre-Pauline origin for this statement.

But whatever its origin, the force of the statement is unmistakable. The first portion of this verse, "We believe that Jesus died and rose again," is presented as a condition in the Greek text, literally "If we believe . . . ." But the "if" in no way implies any doubt that the Thessalonians have faith in Christ's death and resurrection; rather, the sentence structure allows Paul to declare the destiny of the dead in Christ as something which follows as a matter of course from the gospel itself. The work of God begun in Christ's death and resurrection has as its objective the uniting of all of God's people in eternal fellowship with him.

As long as those people are separated, some in his presence in heaven and others on earth, and as long as those on earth do not experience the fullness of his presence, God's purpose remains unfinished. Christ's return to earth for those who are alive will address the second part of this unfinished business, as the Thessalonians already realize. Paul here stresses the solution to the first aspect by asserting that when Jesus comes, he will bring his people who have died "with him" to be reunited in fellowship with those who are still alive.

A couple of expressions in this verse deserve particular attention. The Greek term in this verse translated "fallen asleep" (koimhqevnta", koimçthentas), is in the aorist tense, different from the present-tense expression in v. 13. It more naturally refers to the point of death rather than the state of being dead indicated in the previous verse, appropriately so since Paul refers to those who were Christian believers when they died. Bruce calls attention to the contrast between the figurative use of "sleep" for the death of believers here and the literal expression "died" for Christ. He notes that Paul nowhere uses "sleep" for the death of Christ, perhaps "to stress the reality of his death, as something not to be alleviated by any euphemism." It is probably also significant that Christ will bring the dead "with him." Though it is possible that this expression refers to their being brought to heaven after their resurrection, expressions in vv. 15, 17 (see comments below) suggest another idea: that those who have died did not simply "sleep" in their graves but have since death been with Jesus in God's presence awaiting his return.

4:15 According to the Lord's own word, we tell you

Paul indicates here that the teaching he offers is based on the authority of Jesus himself. "According to the Lord's own word" probably refers to the teaching of Jesus about his return, particularly his assurance that at his coming he will gather together all of his people (Matt 24:30-31) to be "with him" (25:10). Of course, Paul does not repeat this teaching verbatim but elaborates on it and applies it to the Thessalonians' circumstances, all under the guidance of the Spirit's inspiration of the apostle; hence he writes "according to the Lord's own word, we tell you . . ." (cf. a similar elaboration, expressed in greater detail, in 1 Cor 7:10-15). It is less likely that this "word of the Lord" is some other teaching of Jesus not recorded in the gospels, and much less likely that it is a later Christian prophet's utterance, unrelated to Jesus' own teaching.

that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

The certain assurance that those who have died are at no disadvantage comes into clear focus with this statement. The living will not "precede" the dead at the Lord's "coming" (parousiva, parousia , see comments on 2:19). This observation is not merely a matter of establishing a chronology of end-time events. Rather, it makes clear that the dead will experience every bit as much of the blessing of the Lord's return as the living. If, as Paul will elaborate, the dead are raised "first" and "then" those who are alive will join them to meet the Lord (vv. 16-17), the dead will participate in every part of the Lord's triumphant return and its rewards. Thus, the "chronology" really serves a larger issue relevant to the concerns of the Thessalonians: God will fulfill his promises to all his people, even those who have died.

The additional description of the living reinforces this point. "Those who are left" translates oiJ perileipovmenoi ( hoi perileipomenoi ), commonly used for persons left "behind." Especially in light of "with him" in v. 14, this can imply nothing less than that the dead in Christ have been with him in a way that the living have not. That state ends for them with the Lord's return. By implication then, if there is any advantage, it lies not with the living, as the Thessalonians had feared, but with the dead, who have been in the Lord's presence already. This concept appears to be the opposite of what was offered in some Jewish literature of this period, in which those alive at the end of history have the greater blessing.

Some have argued that Paul's use of "we" here (hJmei'", hçmeis, "we," is emphatic) indicates that he expected to be alive when the Lord would return. To draw this conclusion from this point of grammar is at best unwarranted, however. Though Paul's language here certainly holds out the possibility of Christ's return in the near future, as does the entire thrust of his discussion in 5:1-11, we have no direct indication that he believed that the Lord's return would certainly occur in his generation. Paul regarded the time of the Lord's coming as indefinite and so requiring alertness (cf. 5:2-6), just as Jesus' teaching counseled patient faithfulness in light of possible delay in his return (Matt 25:1-30). Later in this context, as Marshall points out, Paul acknowledges the very real possibility that "we," as in this verse, might be either alive or dead at the Lord's return (5:10). The concept of 2 Pet 3:1-10 is hardly foreign to Paul's thinking!

4:16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God,

The language that Paul uses here would have been familiar to anyone who knew the traditions of Jewish apocalyptic literature. Its roots are in the Old Testament prophets, especially Dan 7:13-14, where a vision of a series of political empires comes to an end with the coming of "one like a Son of Man" on the clouds of heaven. In his interrogation from the high priest Jesus himself used this language to refer to his triumphal return after his crucifixion (Matt 26:64; Mark 14:62; Luke 22:69), but the most significant parallel is in Matt 24:30-31, where the coming from heaven is also accompanied by the trumpet and, as noted above, the gathering of God's chosen people. Taken as a whole, the statement points to the climax and completion of God's saving work in history.

The images found here underline that in this event the final, universal purposes of God are completed. "The Lord himself" is an emphatic expression referring to the Lord Jesus. His descent from heaven is accompanied by a variety of "sound effects." He issues a "loud command," probably the summoning of the dead as pictured in John 5:25-29. The "archangel" does not appear in the Old Testament (but cf. Dan 10:13; 12:1) and only in one other text in the New (Jude 9). The term suggests a chief angel; its use here stresses that the voice which announces Christ's return comes from the most authoritative of the heavenly creatures.

Trumpets in the Old Testament are used in warfare (e.g., Num 10:9; 2 Cor 20:28) and during festivals and sacrifices, especially the Day of Atonement (Num 10:10; Lev 25:9). Perhaps more significant for this text is the use of the trumpet to call Israel to assembly (Num 10:7) or regather Israel from exile (Isa 27:13), for here the people of God are called to eternal assembly with the trumpet. Also significant is the trumpet sound which accompanies God's manifestation at Mount Sinai (Exod 19:16), as Christ's coming brings the ultimate theophany. Likewise the trumpet is associated with God's judgment on the wicked and his deliverance of his people (cf. Isa 27:13; Zech 9:14); Christ's coming again brings the final judgment and deliverance. The combination of these factors suggests a sudden, dramatic, unmistakable, universal and final event. As Morris notes, this imagery is very difficult to square with the concept of a "secret rapture" in which believers disappear from the world but ordinary life continues otherwise.

and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Paul notes two immediate consequences of the Lord's return. The first is the resurrection of the dead in Christ. That their resurrection is "first" ensures that they are full participants in all that follows. The context does not allow "first" to imply that a resurrection of the wicked will follow after an intervening period of tribulation; rather, it indicates a sequence with the gathering of the living saints in v. 17. The fate of the wicked is not Paul's concern here. It is worth noting that for Paul the statement that the Lord will bring "with him" those who have died (v. 14) and that they will "rise first" when he comes were entirely compatible. The expression "the dead in Christ" first of all should probably be understood as having a meaning distinct from "those who have fallen asleep in him" (v. 14): that phrase emphasized the point of death, whereas this one suggests that these remain in fellowship with Christ even though they have died.

So what does it mean for these who are in conscious fellowship with the Lord to be raised? As Paul states elsewhere, the nature of the resurrected body, suited to a new order of existence, is beyond our present experience and so impossible for us to comprehend (1 Cor 15:35-53). These different statements are contradictory only if understood in the most rigidly literal and materialistic way; they clearly employ figures to convey concepts beyond present human experience. But to say that they are figures in no way denies that they refer to actual events of the future. It is simply to say that the point of all such biblical descriptions is to convey the significance of God's promised future, not to offer a journalist's description of the events.

4:17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

The second consequence is here described. "After that" translates e[peita ( epeita ), literally "then" or "next"; because it follows immediately after "first" in v. 16, this term indicates that Paul describes two events in sequence. The point, however, is not to stress the sequence but its consequence: the dead in Christ will participate fully the Lord's return. Though the reader of the NIV might infer from "still alive" that Christians alive at the Lord's coming are survivors of a violent persecution, Paul's Greek expression makes no such implication. These are simply "the living" as in v. 15. Also as in that verse these have been "left," that is "left behind" because those who have died have gone to be with the Lord. But their separation from the Lord's immediate presence now comes to an end.

What happens to the living is now exactly what happens to the dead; Paul emphasizes this with a repetitive expression, a{ma suÉn aujtoi'" ( hama syn autois ), "together with them." Both the living and the resurrected dead are "caught up": aJrpavzw (harpazô; the Latin translation rapere is the origin of the modern term "rapture") implies a sudden, even violent action and is used elsewhere by Paul of his own experience being "caught up" to heaven (2 Cor 12:2-3). Its use in the passive voice here implies that God does the action, even if it is accomplished through angelic intermediaries (Matt 13:41). As a result the Lord's people join him "in the clouds." Clouds are an important element in the description of the coming of the Son of Man in Dan 7:13-14 and Matt 24:30, undoubtedly because of their prior biblical association with God's visible manifestation (Exod 16:10; 19:16; 1 Kgs 8:10-11; Isa 19:1; Ezek 1:4, 28; cf. Acts 1:9).

There they "meet" the Lord; ajpavnthsi" (apantçsis, "meeting") appears here and in Matt 25:9, perhaps because Paul has based this statement in part on that saying as well. While it has been argued that this was a technical term for an official meeting of a visiting dignitary, the evidence cited to support such a specific meaning of the word is not conclusive. But the context of the expression certainly bears out that implication here, whether the word carries a technical sense or not. Those who meet the Lord welcome him as the king who has come to reign. That the meeting occurs "in the air" is consistent with the image of the Lord descending with the clouds and further underlines that this event occurs by the power of God himself.

Speculation is rife as to whether the Lord leads his people to heaven or back to earth after this meeting. It must suffice to make two observations at this point: (1) nothing in this text expresses or implies anything on the subject; (2) the point which Paul does stress here is not where these events will conclude but with whom , as the next sentence indicates.

And so we will be with the Lord forever.

This statement concludes the description of the Lord's coming by making explicit its result. For both the living and the dead in Christ, his return means the completion of all that has been incomplete. The separation of living and dead will be ended as both are united in Christ's presence; the real but not-yet-fully realized relationship between believers on the earth and the Lord in heaven will be fulfilled (cf. 1 Cor 13:12). In every respect God will have been faithful to his promises.

4:18 Therefore encourage each other with these words.

As Paul began the eschatological discussion by expressing the value that this teaching had for the Thessalonian Christians (v. 13), so now he ends this section with a similar statement. In light of the context, the encouragement that this teaching offers first of all goes to the grieving that their separation from the dead will indeed be overcome. But as Paul has begun the larger section as an encouragement to live in order to please God (4:1), that note may be sounded here secondarily. As Marshall rightly points out, the text emphasizes not the reunion of the living with the dead in Christ but the reunion of all the Lord's people with the Lord himself. That emphasis carries with it the imperative to live as one who spends eternity in the Lord's presence. Thus, the discussion of 5:1-11 will focus more specifically on the relevance of the Lord's coming to the day-to-day life of the Christian.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

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." Æschylus: "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.]

1 THESSALONIANS 4:13—Did Paul teach the doctrine of soul-sleep?

PROBLEM: Several times the Bible refers to the dead as being asleep. Does this mean that the soul is not conscious between death and resurrection?

SOLUTION: The souls of both believers and unbelievers are conscious between death and the resurrection. Unbelievers are in conscious woe (see Luke 16:23 ; Mark 9:48 ; Matt. 25:41 ) and believers are in conscious bliss. “Sleep” is a reference to the body, not the soul. Sleep is an appropriate figure of speech for death of the body, since death is temporary until the resurrection when the body will “awake” from it.

The evidence that the soul (spirit) is conscious between death and resurrection is very strong:   

1. Enoch was taken to be with God ( Gen. 5:24 ; Heb. 11:5 ).   

2. David spoke of bliss in God’s presence after death ( Ps. 16:10-11 ).   

3. Elijah was taken up into heaven ( 2 Kings 2:1 ).   

4. Moses and Elijah were conscious on the Mount of Transfiguration ( Matt. 17:3 )    long after their time on earth.   

5. Jesus said He went to the Father the day He died ( Luke 23:46 ).   

6. Jesus promised the repentant thief that he would be with Him in paradise the    very day he died ( Luke 23:43 ).   

7. Paul said it was far better to die and be with Christ ( Phil. 1:23 ).   

8. Paul affirmed that when we are “absent from the body” then “we are present    with the Lord” ( 2 Cor. 5:8 ).   

9. The writer of Hebrews refers to heaven as a place where “the spirits of just men    [are] made perfect” ( Heb. 12:23 ).   

10. The “souls” of those martyred during the tribulation were conscious in heaven,    singing and praying to God ( Rev. 6:9 ).