(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.
A fresh revelation, not a restatement
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.
Why they needed it
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.
"Prevent" — a word that changed meaning
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.
No disadvantage — if anything, the reverse
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.
Why Paul says "we"
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.
Summary
- 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.