But we do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are fallen asleep, to the end that ye be not grieved even as also the rest who have no hope.
The believers at Thessalonica were waiting for the Lord to return, and then some of their number died. Their grief exposed something they had never been taught. Paul answers it, and his answer shows what death now is for a Christian, and what sorrow belongs to those who know it.
Their fear was not that their friends were unsafe. It was that they had missed out.
This hope will not be disappointed. But as time went on and Christ still did not come, some of them "fell asleep." This troubled them. They thought the believers who had died might miss all the blessings and glories of the reign of Christ — blessings that those still alive on earth when Christ appeared would enjoy. They had little doubt about their eternal blessing, or about enjoying the heavenly blessings of the Father's house. But they feared they would miss the glories of the kingdom.
One writer traces the gap to how new they were in the faith:
No one had yet taught these Christians — warm and earnest-hearted, but young in the faith — how believers who had died could be with the Lord when He comes and share His glory. They were so full of the expectation of the Saviour's return that they had never thought of any of them dying before He came.
Their grief looked like the grief of people who have no hope. One writer asks how that could be:
Their grief was as excessive as the grief of everyone else — Jews, or rather people who do not know God — who have no hope. Why such extreme sorrow over people who, when they were called away, knew God's love and salvation in the Lord Jesus? Is eternal life worth nothing? Is the forgiveness of sins, or having the Holy Spirit? It can only have been ignorance on their part... So it was for lack of knowing better that they had given in to thoughts which plunged them into Christ-dishonouring sorrow.
Paul does not forbid grief itself.
Do not misunderstand these words. Believers are not forbidden to grieve. Not at all. God does not want His children to be unfeeling. He wants us to feel what we meet along the way, but He does not want us swallowed up by it, as others are. "The Hope" comes into the Christian's sorrow. It sweetens the most bitter cup and brightens the darkest hour.
Scripture uses one word for Christ's death and another for the believer's. The difference is deliberate.
Look closely at the words used here. We can be sure they are exact, as the words of Scripture always are. "Jesus died;" His people only "fall asleep." For Him it was truly death, in all its reality and severity, as the judgment on sin — the sign and picture of a deeper judgment. For them it is only "sleep" — rest and refreshment, and from it they rise to a day that never ends and never fades.
Some have taken this picture to mean the soul itself is unconscious until the resurrection. Darby rejects that, and he answers by asking who it is that falls asleep:
These passages show every Christian with spiritual understanding how absurd this idea is. And more than that: Scripture never speaks of the soul sleeping. It is a beautiful expression. It means that death was only falling asleep, to wake again. But it is always the person who falls asleep, never the soul... Scripture always says the person falls asleep, never the soul. It always means the Christian has died. It is a beautiful way of saying that he is not, as we put it, "dead and gone."
There is an obvious comfort to offer someone who is grieving. Paul passes it by.
Does he blame them for hoping too eagerly for the return of Jesus? Does he say they were too taken up with it, or that they were excited and lacked sober sense?... Not one such word falls from the apostle's pen... Nor does he comfort those who mourn in the usual way, by reminding them that they will soon follow — that they will soon be with their loved ones again in heaven. No indeed. True as that may be, he does not offer it as a ground of comfort.
- Ignorance. Their distress came from a gap in their teaching, not from weak faith. They feared their dead friends had lost their share in the coming glory.
- Excess. Sorrow goes wrong when it copies the sorrow of people who have no hope. These believers knew God's love, forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Kelly calls grief like theirs "Christ-dishonouring."
- Permission. Tears are allowed. Being swallowed up by them is not.
- Sleep. Christ's death bore the full severity of judgment. The believer's death is sleep — rest that ends in waking. And it is the person who sleeps, never the soul.
- Direction. Paul does not point mourners to where their friends have gone. He does not promise they will soon follow. He points them to the hope that comes into a Christian's sorrow.
For if we believe that Jesus has died and has risen again, so also God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.
Believers in Thessalonica were grieving over fellow Christians who had died. Paul's answer does not start with the grave. It starts with two facts about Jesus, and from them draws a conclusion about everyone who has fallen asleep.
The verse before this one tells the Thessalonians not to grieve like people who have no hope. That is not a command to feel nothing.
Do not misunderstand these words. Saints are not forbidden to sorrow. By no means. God would not have His children unfeeling. He would have us feel the circumstances of the way, but would not have us swallowed up by them, as others are. "The Hope" comes into the Christian's sorrow. It sweetens the most bitter cup and brightens the darkest hour.
The verse uses two different words for what happened, and the difference is deliberate.
Let us look closely at the words used here, for we may be sure they are exact, as always in Scripture. "Jesus died"; His saints only "fall asleep." With Him it was death itself, in all its reality and severity as the judgment upon sin. It was the sign and type of a deeper judgment. With them it is only "sleep" — rest and refreshment, from which they rise to a day that never ends and never fades.
Some take that word "sleep" to mean the soul itself goes unconscious until the resurrection.
Some say that at death the soul goes to sleep, and does not wake until the resurrection. But Scripture connects the thought of "sleep" with the body. The thought of "sleep in Jesus" only refers to the believer. Death is now robbed of its terrors for the Christian, so that it can be described as "sleep."
Older translations read "asleep in Jesus." Here the wording is "through Jesus," which can be taken in more than one way.
So we can appreciate the tenderness of the expression, "those who have fallen asleep through Jesus." Better still, I think: "those who have been laid asleep by Jesus" — by Him who holds the keys of death and hades, and who is their Saviour. Take it the first way, and the meaning is that "through Jesus" — through His work for them — death had become to them only a sleep. But that seems a strange way of saying it. Taken the second way, the words imply both the Lord's rule over death and His tender care of His people.
Paul rests the future of the dead on something already settled in the past.
The first thing he assures them is that God will bring these departed saints with Jesus when He comes again. In the last verse of chapter 3 he had spoken of "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with ALL His saints." Here he strengthens that assurance. The "all" includes those who "sleep in Jesus." God will bring them with Christ as surely as Jesus Himself died and rose again. For faith, the death and resurrection of Christ are the standard of absolute truth, reality and certainty.
Paul cures their ignorance by pointing them to a Person, not to a theory.
These saints were in ignorance, and sorrow was the result of their ignorance. The Apostle wants to dispel their darkness and wipe away their tears. And the way he takes is the only effective way of clearing the clouds and ending the sorrow. He presents Christ. He reminds us that Jesus has died and is risen again. His death and resurrection are the great pattern of those who sleep. Christ rose in secret, and His sleeping saints will rise the same way.
The promise is about the people themselves, not only their spirits.
It does not mean the Lord receiving them. Nor does He bring their spirits with Him to rejoin their bodies from the graves. It means that God will bring those who have fallen asleep with His Son, when He comes with all His saints. They will all be in that glorified company.
But how can people who are in their graves come with Him?
It is clear from Scripture that He does not find His church on earth when He appears in glory, but that it comes with Him. He first catches it up to Himself, and then it comes forth with Him in His glory.
- Ground. Everything rests on two facts already true: Jesus died and rose. What God did for Him settles what He will do for His own.
- Sleep. Jesus tasted death as judgment; for His people it is sleep — a word tied to the body, not to an unconscious soul.
- Through Jesus. He who holds the keys of death and hades lays His own to sleep. His rule over death and His care for His people meet in that word.
- Brought. God will bring them with His Son when Christ appears in glory. To do that, He first catches them up to Himself.
- Comfort. Grief is allowed; hopeless grief is not. The hope does not remove the tears; it sweetens them.
(For this we say to you in [the] word of [the] Lord, that *we*, the living, who remain to the coming of the Lord, are in no way to anticipate those who have fallen asleep;
Believers in Thessalonica had died, and their friends feared the dead had missed the Lord's return. Paul answers not with advice but with a word from the Lord Himself: the dead lose nothing.
The opening phrase tells us where this teaching came from.
Paul introduces this explanation with the words "this we declare to you by a word from the Lord." That shows what follows is not something already made known, but something freshly revealed. His authority for saying it is not Old Testament scripture, and not anything said before, but the direct revelation of the Lord.
The Old Testament already said much about the future. This was not part of it.
This was a new revelation, as he hints when he opens the subject in verse 15. The day of the Lord was not a new revelation. Hardly any great subject comes up more often in the Old Testament, from Isaiah to Malachi. Even where that phrase is missing, the idea is usually there. But the Old Testament never made known what the apostle teaches the Thessalonian believers here. They are distinct truths.
The Thessalonians had no New Testament to consult and no comfort from the culture around them.
This is a special and unique revelation, which he gives to the grieving Thessalonians. It was prompted by the mistake they had made when some of their fellow believers died. They feared that these dead friends had lost their share in the coming glorious meeting between the Lord and His saints... (Their pagan neighbours had no hope of meeting loved ones again after death. The classic Greek and Roman writers are full of bleak words about the hopelessness of death.) We must remember that the New Testament did not yet exist.
Their distress came from strong faith, not weak faith.
Some people today are quite surprised that anyone found this hard. But the sorrow of the Thessalonians came from the simplicity of their faith, and people feel no difficulty now partly because they have no real faith in it. If they had more faith, they might have their puzzles too — not at the end, but, as usual, at the start.
Older English Bibles say the living "shall not prevent" those who have died. Today that reads as the opposite of what Paul meant.
The meaning of a word is decided not by where it came from but by how it is used. Take the word prevent. Going by its origin, it would mean to come before, or to get there first. When the Authorized Version was made in 1604 A.D., that was still how people used it, so the translators put it in Matthew 17:25 and 1 Thessalonians 4:15. Today it is never used in that original sense, but always to mean hinder.
The promise removes the fear of being left behind, and then goes further.
So it is clear that if there is any moment of difference, it favours those who sleep, not those who remain alive. Those who are asleep are woken first. Remember, sleep is for the body. Scripture never says or assumes that the soul is asleep.
Paul counts himself among the living rather than the sleeping. Some have used that against him.
See how the apostle kept on expecting the coming of the Lord. Some people have dared to say that Paul made a mistake in expecting the Lord to come in his own day. They are the ones making an awful mistake. God never revealed when Christ would come, and Paul did not pretend to know it. But he knew the time had come when we should always be expecting Him... That is why Paul put himself in this group: "we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord." He lived like a man who expected Christ every day.
Commentators differ on how firmly Paul ties himself to that group. Kelly reads the wording more loosely:
The flexible use of the Greek present participles here does not force us to take the Apostle as saying that he would be one of those alive at the time; nor does the English wording of the common translation... The form of words may certainly mean "those of us who," and so on. ... It was from God, for the good of believers all through this age, that he left the "blessed hope" of that event in such general terms.
- Authority. The words "by a word from the Lord" mark a fresh revelation, not old ground restated.
- Occasion. Their grief came from simple faith: they feared their dead friends had lost their share in that hope.
- Correction. "Prevent" in older Bibles means go before, not hinder; the living will not get there first.
- Reversal. The sleepers are not left behind. They are raised first, and it is the body that sleeps, never the soul.
- Posture. Paul puts himself among "we who are alive." He expected Christ daily, and readers ever since are meant to wait the same way.
for the Lord himself, with an assembling shout, with archangel's voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first;
Believers in Thessalonica had died, and their friends feared they had missed the Lord's return. Paul answers with three sounds — a shout, a voice, a trumpet — and with an order: the dead rise first.
The first phrase carries the weight of the whole verse. Angels, voices and trumpets all take second place to it.
That statement is emphatic: "The Lord Himself will descend." In that supreme hour He will not act through a deputy. He will come Himself! He will descend with an assembling shout. Countless angels will serve, for the archangel's voice will ring out. The hosts of God will be on the move, for the trumpets of God will sound. Yet all these are secondary to the mighty action of the Lord Himself. Verse 16 gives us His sudden descent from heaven into the air, and the exertion of His power — the voice that wakes the dead.
The ESV translates this shout as "a cry of command." Its background shows who the call is for.
The word used here is the technical word for an admiral's call to his seamen, or a general's to his soldiers. More widely, it is any special call of command to those in a special relationship with the one commanding them. It is not a call to the world — it is not a call to everybody. The gospel is that, and thank God for it; but this shout is only for those who know His voice, who have heard Him already... The word "shout" has nothing to do with loudness, and just as little to do with being for everyone — the very reverse.
The archangel has a name, and his links point beyond the church.
The archangel is Michael (Jude 9). He is Israel's prince (Daniel 10:21), the great spiritual power that stands for Israel. Every time Scripture names him, it is about events in the history of that nation... If this is the interpretation, we have here three widening circles. (1) The Church, (2) Israel, (3) All men... As I have said, the church will respond at once. The work will be slower for Israel, but from that moment the nation will begin to move...
Commentators differ on how far to press this.
Some have suggested that the archangel's voice may have some connection with the raising of Old Testament saints at the coming of the Lord. Without more solid grounds it would be unwise to decide whether this is so. But at least we can see that the occasion will be one of great angelic rejoicing.
Trumpets sound elsewhere in Scripture as warnings of judgment. This one is different.
We also hear "the trumpet of God," and this is a divine, declared testimony. For the church on earth it will be "the last trumpet" (1 Cor. 15:52). The seven trumpets of Revelation are of a different order. They are trumpets of judgment, sounding a clear testimony to a world in rebellion against God. Saints, however, will hear this "trumpet of God," and it gathers them together to the Lord. As others have pointed out, this seems to connect with Numbers 10:4. There the blowing of one trumpet was the signal for the princes of Israel to gather to Moses.
The word "first" was the point the grieving Thessalonians needed.
He assures their hearts about the order of events connected with His coming. The first thing that happens is the resurrection of those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. They lose nothing by having departed. They will be the first ready to go up and meet the Lord... This is grace, the grace of the Lord Jesus. At the same time we know that God will accomplish every event connected with His coming in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. No one can measure the interval.
The phrase "dead in Christ" marks out one particular group.
Old Testament saints will certainly share in the first resurrection. But Paul is writing here only about Christians, so Old Testament saints are not in his mind. Those who "sleep in Jesus" in verse 14 are the same group as "the dead in Christ" in verse 16. At His coming the Lord will wake them and call them out of their graves, and that is why Scripture describes them as sleeping. He has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Tim. 1). So death for the believer is only a passing sleep... As far as this world is concerned, saints are dead just like sinners. But the added words — "in Christ" — mark them out as the Christian dead.
- Himself. No messenger, no deputy: every other sound in the verse serves the Lord's own descent.
- Shout. The word is a commander's call to his own troops — not loudness, not the world, but those who already know His voice.
- Voice. The archangel's voice widens the circle toward Israel. Writers caution against pressing the link too far.
- Trumpet. This trumpet gathers; it does not judge. It stands apart from the trumpets of judgment in Revelation.
- First. The order settles the grief. The Christian dead rise before the living move, so no one who has fallen asleep loses anything.
then *we*, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in [the] clouds, to meet the Lord in [the] air; and thus we shall be always with [the] Lord.
Paul wrote this to believers grieving over friends who had died. Four questions shape the verse: who is caught up, by what power, where the meeting happens, and what it is all for.
The verb is passive. Nobody climbs; everyone is taken. One writer ties the moment to the Lord's own resurrection power:
"Caught up." He is coming clothed in the glory of resurrection, in the way most fitted to display His own power. The bodies dead in the grave are all gathered up in a moment — an expression of the strength He applies. There is no power in us to rise. We are caught up in a moment, to meet the Lord in the air. He fills us up with life.
The objection that such a thing breaks the laws of nature has been raised, and answered:
The law of gravity did not prevent Enoch being taken; it did not hold Elijah when the time came for God to take him up; it did not prevent the ascension of our own blessed Lord. How could it? He is the Creator of every law, and the power by which He went up is the power that will catch us up when He descends from heaven with that wonderful shout of triumph and pent-up love for His church.
Some believers described here never die at all:
This event has nothing at all to do with death, though people have often confused the two. Far from it: when the Lord Jesus Christ appears, a believer who is alive will never see death. See 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:15, 17. It has so little to do with death that the apostle says plainly, "We shall not all sleep." Here it is contrasted with death.
The word "together" speaks straight to people who have buried a friend:
In verse 17 notice the word "together." The Thessalonians were grieving, and so often do we. Taught by God to love one another, their hearts were torn when death snatched some away from them. We too know what these wrenches are. We do not grieve as those who have no hope, and neither did they. The life-giving voice of the Son of God is going to reunite us. We shall meet Him, but not in ones or twos or in scattered groups. We shall be caught up TOGETHER.
The same word settles a common question about the next life:
People often ask, "Will we meet our loved ones and also recognise them?" Here is the answer: "together with them" implies both reunion and recognition. These words would mean nothing if they did not mean recognition.
"To meet" is a specific word, and its use elsewhere in the New Testament fixes its sense:
The word used here occurs only three times elsewhere in the New Testament, in Matthew 25:1 and 6, and Acts 28:15. In each case it means "going out and returning with." That is exactly what happened when the believers from Rome "met" Paul. They went out as far as the Forum of Appius, and having met him they joined his company and returned with him to Rome. So shall we all meet our Lord in the air. We join His company, never to part from Him. Later we shall return with Him, when He is revealed to the world in His glory.
The location is not incidental, since Scripture calls Satan the prince of the power of the air:
Suppose a great king at war with another sent a message to his army in a distant battlefield, saying he would meet them in the capital of the enemy's country. We would say he will need to crush the enemy's power before he can do that, and if he does it, it will be the clearest possible proof of his complete victory. It is just so here.
Going up to meet Him and His public appearing in judgment are two different things:
The saints were not to wait for the day of the Lord to come on the earth, but to go up to meet Him in the air, and be for ever with Him. If He appeared, we know they would appear with Him... The church's connection with the return of the Lord was to go up to meet Him in the air, to be gathered to Him. The day was an entirely different thing; it was vengeance from His presence.
Paul does not end with glory or rule, but with a Person:
Notice here that the apostle, when speaking of the Lord's coming, does not enter at all, as regards our portion, into the consequences in glory and rule. That has its place. God had revealed to him how He would call up the saints to their enjoyment. And for his own joy and delight, what satisfies and fills the apostle's heart is all contained in this: "and so we will always be with the Lord."
Being with Christ at death is already precious, yet this is more:
When a believer departs, the deepest joy of that state is to be with Christ... Yet that state was intermediate and imperfect, however blessed. The body was not glorified; nor were all the saints gathered. At His coming all will be complete and perfect for the heavenly family, "and so we will always be with the Lord."
- Caught — the power is all His. Nobody climbs. He gathers the bodies in the grave in a moment and fills us with life.
- Together — nobody goes up alone. "Together with them" promises both reunion and recognition of those we buried.
- To meet — the word means going out to greet someone and coming back with Him. The meeting in the air starts the journey; it does not end it.
- In the air — He claims His own in the seat of Satan's power. That proves the enemy is already beaten.
- Always with the Lord — Paul stops there. The prize is not the glory but the Person, and it never ends.
So encourage one another with these words.)
Paul has just told a grieving church how the Lord will return, raise the dead, and gather every believer to Himself. Now he tells them what to do with that news: say it to each other.
The word that opens the verse points backwards. The Thessalonians feared their dead friends would lose out. The answer came as a fresh message that sorted out the sequence.
But how so, since they sleep in death, and He comes from heaven in power and glory? What follows is a most enlightening and fresh message, "in the word of the Lord." It clears up the difficulty by unfolding the order of events, and so the way by which the sleeping saints are to come with Jesus. The Thessalonian believers had imagined the departed would miss the joyful reunion. They thought the dead would at least come behind the living who remain. But it is not so... Here we learn how it can be: He first descends for them, and afterwards brings them with Him.
Notice what Paul does not say to the grieving. He never tells them they will soon join their friends in heaven.
The Lord's coming was not a strange doctrine to them. Paul could not think of a Christian dying without his going to heaven. Yet the comfort he gives is not that, but their return with Jesus. Death did not deprive them of this; God would have them with Him... Christ's first coming so finished redemption and the putting away of sin that His second coming means glory and being with Him, for dead and living saints alike... If I were to comfort the friends of a departed saint by saying that God would bring him with Jesus when He came again, what would they think of me? That I was mad or wild. Yet such is the comfort Paul gives to the Thessalonians, and no other. Elsewhere he teaches plainly that the soul of the saint goes to be with Christ when he dies.
The comfort is tied to these words. That rules out some familiar sayings — even one David himself used.
The coming of the Lord is the one bright guiding star on faith's horizon... The one who is dying has no right to say, "You will meet me where I am going," for that may never happen. Instead, we shall meet in the clouds, and the Lord Himself will welcome us together in the air. The one left behind has no right to draw his comfort, as David rightly did in his day, from the thought, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." His comfort should be this instead: "since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep."
One clause holds the greatest comfort of all. Paul places it last, just before the command.
But there is another privilege marked out here, and in itself it is far more precious. "So we will always be with Him." This is the deepest joy of the state a saint enters at death — to be with Christ... Only that state was intermediate and imperfect, however blessed. For the body was not glorified; nor were all the saints gathered. At His coming all will be complete and perfect for the heavenly family, "and so we will always be with the Lord." What could be missing from such words of infinite and everlasting joy? What could be added?
The word can also be read as "encourage." This work belongs to every believer, not to teachers only, and it is needed in a world growing darker. The Rapture is the catching up of believers to meet the Lord in the air.
In that chapter the apostle had been expanding on the details of the Rapture. The very thought of that wonderful moment thrills the hearts of all who love the Lord. He ends by saying, "Therefore encourage one another with these words." What a ministry of comfort is open to each of us, as we take up this call. This world is moving faster and faster towards the day of judgment. The spirit of anti-Christ is already at work. Persecution is the lot of "all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus"... but the end for the believer is sure and glorious.
The same letter sets comfort beside other duties believers owe each other.
The Apostle also urges us to build one another up in our most holy faith. So the Christian company according to God consists of believers who love one another, comfort one another, and build one another up (1 Thess. 3:12; 4:9, 18; 5:11).
- Grief — the Thessalonians feared their dead friends would lose out at the Lord's return. Paul writes to answer that fear.
- Words — the comfort rests on words given "in the word of the Lord," not on guesswork about the unseen world.
- Order — those words settle the sequence: the Lord first descends for His sleeping people, and afterwards brings them with Him.
- Reunion — no one is left behind. The Lord welcomes the living and the dead together in the clouds.
- Ministry — "one another" makes every believer a comforter, called to love, comfort and build up the rest.