What does it mean that Jesus will return like a thief in the night?

But now comes an important parenthesis. As was shown under the sixth seal and the sixth trumpet, so here we find an interruption also. "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame" (verse 15). It is the Lord coming, but then He is coming in judgment to surprise the earth; and this is the reason why the figure is used. The thief comes unexpected and unwelcome: still more unpalatable will be the Lord's coming to the earth. But there will be saints to whom it will be welcome, to whom His appearing will bring deliverance by the judgment of their enemies. And they are enjoined to watch closely the daily life. "Behold, I come as a thief." Not so the Lord presents Himself to us, save as telling us how He will appear to the world or the professing mass cast into it. When speaking to us He says, "Behold, I come quickly: hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." Need one say how much more blessed is this word? The idea of coming as a thief involves surprise. To us He will come as a gracious One, who loves that we should have the rest of our affections and our glory in and with Himself: this is our own proper portion and hope. Here it is not rapture to heaven, but Jewish deliverance by judgment.

The words that follow are solemn. "If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come [on thee] as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee." (v. 3.) This coming "as a thief" is not the Lord's coming for His saints. Paul writes, "Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day." (1 Thess. 5:2-5.) The event therefore which overtakes the world as a thief in the night is not the coming of the Lord for His saints, but the coming of "the day of the Lord," which is always spoken of, not as a "blessed hope," but as a time of fearful retribution and judgment. Believers of this dispensation will not be in the night which then broods over the world, but, as "the children of the day," will be with Christ; and will afterwards, when He comes to execute judgment, appear with Him in His own glory, as promised to the overcomer in Thyatira. This "sudden destruction" therefore falls upon no true member of the body of Christ, but only upon the world, including those false professors who are left behind when the Lord comes for His saints. The bulk of Sardis was in this state; and the bulk of those belonging to that condition of the Church which Sardis represents will be found in this state also. Real believers will be taken out of it to meet the Lord, but on the whole it will continue slumbering in fancied security until Christ comes upon it as a thief in the night, and it is overwhelmed with sudden destruction.

All this, however, leaves the great world untouched, save as the sudden disappearance of multitudes of saints may affect it. But the hour of retribution follows on. Hence 1 Thessalonians 5 opens by drawing a distinction between the coming of the Lord for His saints with which chapter 4 has dealt, and "the day of the Lord." That comes, not as a bridegroom for his bride, but "as a thief in the night."

333 "If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come on thee." If there is not this watchfulness in the professing church, how solemn is the result! "I will come on thee as a thief." What a fearful thing when the professing church, with its great name, is reduced, in God's estimation and judgment, to the level of the world, when it does not come up in its works to the expectation of God! He had not found their works perfect before God, because not according to the privileges given by God. God here says to them, If there be not the answer to what I have given, if there is not watchfulness, I must treat you as the world will be treated. In 1 Thessalonians 5:2, with regard to the world it is said, "the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." But to the saints it is said, "but ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief; ye are all the children of light and the children of the day." And when He comes who brings in the day, the children of the day will come with Him. They will be, in fact, as the rays of the Sun of Righteousness. "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory"; "when he shall come to be glorified in his saints and to be admired in all them that believe." And, again, "The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that the world may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me."

A note of urgent warning is interjected here: no need of declaring the Speaker! "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." It is to the world Christ's coming will be that of a thief; for "in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh." "Blessed is he that watcheth" is, as we see by the closing words, a solemn warning to the heedless. Who will be ready at this time to hear? In any case, wisdom will utter its voice; and none shall go out to meet unwarned the doom of the rebellious. Good it is to find just in this place, whether heeded or not, the pleading of mercy. Not the less terrible on that account the doom that comes.

It is remarkable that, as we noticed between the sixth and seventh seals, and the sixth and seventh trumpets, so between the sixth and seventh vials a parenthesis occurs. In this last, the Lord is announced as coming as a thief in judgment — introducing the day of the Lord — when we shall come out of heaven with Him. (See chap. 19:11-14.) He says, "Behold, I come as a thief." Christ will suddenly come upon this world as a thief. "The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." But we know that He will not come to us as a thief. "Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief." (1 Thess. 5:2, 4.) But while judgment is threatened, there seems also to be a gleam of mercy rejoicing against judgment. (v. 15.) It intimates that a remnant will be watching for the Messiah (and we gather from other Scriptures that such will be the case), and others are spoken of as having the shame of their nakedness made manifest. "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame."

That this is the event indicated is seen from verse 15. After the description of the action of the three spirits of demons there is a solemn pause, and the Lord Himself speaks: "Behold, I come as a thief." This is the known way in Scripture of His coming to the world; that is, of His appearing. (See 1 Thess. 5:1-4; 2 Peter 3:10; Rev. 3:3, etc.) This makes it very clear that the battle of that great day of Almighty God is that consequent upon the sudden appearing of Christ in His glory as described in the scriptures above given. It is because He will come thus as a thief that He adds, "Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." (v. 15, compare Matt. 24:36-37.) This instruction, as well as warning, applies above all to the elect remnant of that day.

But now we must retrace our steps somewhat. It will be observed that verse 16 naturally follows, and indeed completes the subject of verse 14, hence the passage between (v. 15) forms a parenthesis of great moral value. “Behold I come as a thief.” The kings and peoples gathered by satanic agency shall in the moment of apparent success and victory be suddenly surprised by the Advent of the Lord in glory (1 Thess. 5:2-3). The whole world will be asleep in midnight moral darkness, and congratulating itself on “peace and safety,” when suddenly the Lord Himself bursts in upon the scene, unexpectedly, as a thief in the night. That aspect of the Coming neither forms our hope not causes fear (v. 4). We are not of the night, nor of darkness, and hence can never be so overtaken. To us, ere the day breaks, He appears as the bright and morning star. Then the parenthesis closes with a serious word of much-needed instruction at all times, but especially at the moment and occasion of this latter-day prophecy. The believer who in that day “watches and keeps his garments” is pronounced “blessed.” It is not here a question of life or salvation, but of walk. How needful then, as at all times, to look carefully to one’s ways, lest there be exposure in sight of the enemy, and they see our shame and moral nakedness.

The Lord has a word on the other side, where the servant has somehow become "the master of the house," and the coming of the Son of man like the unwelcome visit of a thief. It would be needful for such to remember that the thief does not come at an hour expected, or perhaps the house would not have been dug through. "If he had known" only presses the fact that he does not know.

If He does tarry, and the heart that loves Him finds it long and has need of patience, it is well worth waiting for Him, whatever the delay. "And if he come in the second watch, and come in the third watch, and find [them] thus, blessed are those [bondmen]." At the same time, it is important to add the aspect of His coming for the conscience. The return from the wedding does not present this. "But this know, that if the master of the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be digged through." Present ease and unwatchfulness in such a world as this always make the return of the Lord to be more or less unwelcome. The only right attitude for love or conscience is the attitude of watching for Him. "And ye, therefore, be ye ready, for in the hour in which ye do not think [it] the Son of man comes."342