Who are those who have fallen asleep (1 Thessalonians 4:13)?

The first statement is in verse 14. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus." Let us first notice that blessed statement that "Jesus died." Of the saints it is said that they have fallen asleep; but never is it said that Jesus slept. He tasted death, the death in all its unfathomable meaning as the judgment upon sin. For the saints the physical death is but sleep. (Some have perverted the meaning of "sleep," and, instead of applying it, as Scripture does, to the body, they apply it to the soul. Soul-sleep is nowhere taught in the Bible and is therefore an invention by those who handle the Word deceitfully.) And He who died also rose again; as certainly as He died and rose again, so surely shall all believers rise. God will bring all those who have fallen asleep through Jesus with Him, that is with the Lord when He comes in the day of His glorious manifestation. It does not mean the receiving of them by the Lord, nor does it mean that He brings their disembodied spirits with Him to be united to their bodies from the graves, but it means that those who have fallen asleep will God bring with His Son when He comes with all His saints; they will all be in that glorified company. When the Lord comes back from glory all the departed saints will be with Him. This is what the Thessalonians needed to know first of all. Before we follow this blessed revelation in its unfolding we call attention to the phrase "fallen asleep through (not in) Jesus"; it may also be rendered by "those who were put to sleep by Jesus." His saints in life and death are in His hands. When saints put their bodies aside, it is because their Lord has willed it so. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" (Ps. 116:15). When our loved ones leave us, may we think of their departure as being "put to sleep by Jesus."

But blessed as this answer to their question is, it produced another difficulty. Hearing that the saints who had fallen asleep would come with the Lord on the day of His glorious manifestation, they would ask, "How is it possible that they can come with Him?" Are they coming as disembodied spirits? What about their bodies in the graves? How shall they come with Him? To answer these questions the special revelation "by the Word of the Lord" is given, by which they learned, and we also, how they would all be with Him so as to come with Him at His appearing. "For this we say to you by the Word of the Lord, that we, the living, who remain unto the coming of the Lord, are in no wise to anticipate those who have fallen asleep." He tells them that when the Lord comes for His saints, those who have fallen asleep will not have an inferior place and that, we, the living, who remain to the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. When Paul wrote these words and said, "We, the living, who remain," he certainly considered himself as included in that class. The two companies who will meet the Lord when He comes, those who have fallen asleep and those who are living, are mentioned here for the first time. How the living saints will not precede those who have departed and the order in which the coming of the Lord for His saints will be executed is next made known in this wonderful revelation.

Thus we can realize the tenderness of the expression, "those who have fallen asleep through Jesus," or I think, better "those who have been laid asleep by Jesus," — by Him who has the keys of death and hades, and their Saviour. Taken in the first way, the meaning would be that "through Jesus," — through His work for them, — death had become to them merely a sleep; but it would seem a strange manner of expressing this. Taken in the second way, the Lord's rule over death and His tender care of His people are both implied.

To us, for whom the great body of Christians are already among the dead, it cannot be a question that those remaining to the coming of the Lord will not precede the apostles and the multitude of the departed in their entrance into glory; yet, for all that, how little is the significance of this rising "first" of the dead in Christ realized by believers still. The common thought (thank God, less common than it was) of a single day of judgment in which saints and sinners rise together, necessarily destroys it entirely. Here a resurrection of the dead is shown to take place before the living saints are changed even; and then both are caught away together, to meet the Lord in the air. When He appears, therefore, they appear with Him (Col. 3:4). Here is no promiscuous crowd, clearly: they that are ready go in with Him to the marriage and the door is shut." There is no need for our present purpose to consider what or where this marriage is. This consideration belongs elsewhere, and is to be found where it belongs (Matt. 25:1 sq., notes); but we see at once that here is the company from which the Thessalonians thought their dying brethren might be excluded. It is not the dead who wait and watch with their lamps trimmed and burning; and they are in fact left out of the picture that our Lord has given us there. The apostle, speaking by the word of the Lord, now adds them to the company of those who thus go forth. As with the living so with the dead, they are not the whole number of those dead, but, as the apostle elsewhere says, they that are Christ's at His coming" (1 Cor. 15:23). Those who compose this company are distinctly specified: they are, according to the language of the epistle to the Philippians, the "out-resurrection from among the dead" (Phil. 3:11).

The terms of the last clause of 1 Thess. 4:14 would apply, I apprehend, to the saints who have slept from Stephen and onward. Only such are before the apostle’s mind, though not of course excluding any: Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming.” Because the Son of God had first to take a personal name — “Jesus.” He did so when He became a man. “Jesus” is His personal name. Then He had to die and rise again, and disarm the enemy, taking death into His own hands. It does not say, Laid to sleep by Christ, but “through Jesus.” It is His action now. He has hushed the saint to sleep, as the mother has hushed her child! The spirit of the departed one is with Him; his body in the dust. When Jesus comes they will be re-united. The power God in resurrection will glorify the saint who has been fitted for the glory by His blood.

In the New Testament there are two main words that are used for sleep. Where the word is used in connection with the death of the believer it is clearly an involuntary sleep, a sleep which is induced, as sleep which is caused to come upon one by the power and activity of another. The same Greek word occurs in verse 6, “but some are fallen asleep”, in verse 18, “Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ … ”, in verse 20, “now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept”, as well as here in verse 51, “We shall not all sleep … ” It is used in 1 Thessalonians 4 too: “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep” (verse 13), “them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him” (verse 14), and “we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep” (verse 15). The phrase in 1 Thessalonians 4, “asleep through Jesus”, tells us that the death of the believer is no accident (verse 14, J.N.D. translation). The death of the believer occurs as, how and when the Lordship of Christ permits.

The Spirit of God soon made all plain by means of the Apostle. "I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." Do not misunderstand these words. Saints are not forbidden to sorrow. By no means. God would not have His children stoical. He would have us feel the circumstances of the way, but would not have us swallowed up by them, as others. "The Hope" comes into the Christian's sorrow. It sweetens the most bitter cup and brightens the darkest hour. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep through Jesus will God bring with Him." This is wonderful! The sleeping saint, instead of being a loser, is only the more like his Lord. And what God did for Christ He will do for all who are His. He raised Him out of the cold tomb and placed Him in glory; He will do the very same at the appointed hour for all His beloved sleeping ones. "Through Jesus" is more correct in 1 Thess. 4:14. "In Jesus" has no real meaning, not being a Scriptural phrase at all. "In Christ" expresses our standing before God in Him risen, as Rom. 8 shows; "in Jesus" is nowhere found that I am aware of. "Through Jesus" is very sweet here, and stills every rising murmur. When a loved one is called hence it is no mere accident or circumstance; it is the act of Jesus. "He does all things well."

Their grief was excessive like the rest of men, Jews, or rather heathen, that have no hope. Why such extravagant sorrow about those who, if called hence, knew God's love and salvation in the Lord Jesus? Is life eternal a vain thing? Is remission of sins, or the possession of the Holy Spirit? Surely it must be only ignorance on their part, and not that any called of God to His kingdom and glory (not to speak of the church, Christ's body) could forfeit by dying, as they imagined, their blessedness when the Lord Jesus comes. And so it was for want of knowing better that they had yielded to thoughts which had plunged them in Christ-dishonouring sorrow.

Even here, however it is remarkable that the apostle does not unveil the state of the separate spirits, as we see done in Luke 23:43, Acts 7:59, 2 Cor. 5:8, and Phil. 1:23. He meets fully the error that death in any way destroys or detracts from the blessed hope of the Christian. He would have the saints no longer ignorant concerning those who may most truly be said to fall asleep; if they do, it is but more evidently to have the portion of Him Who died and rose, as we assuredly believe; for they will rise if they meanwhile die. And is such a resurrection a loss? "Even so those also put to sleep through Jesus," as it is here beautifully described, "will God bring with Him." They were laid to sleep by Jesus; and, far from forgetting or even postponing their joy and blessedness, God will bring them with Jesus in that day.

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" and here he fortifies this assurance. The "all" includes those who "sleep in Jesus" for it is as certain that such will be brought with Christ as that Jesus Himself died and rose again. The death and resurrection of Christ are to faith the standard of absolute truth and reality and certainty. All parts of the truth are equally certain and the Apostle desired them to realize this.

Turn now, my brethren, to 1 Thessalonians 4. The apostle is giving express instructions to those who had been bereft of Christian friends by the hand of death. "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as other which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord" — such is the authority by which he writes; no expression of opinion, of spiritual judgment, on the part of the apostle, weighty as that might have been: but express revelation, 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." The Thessalonian believers had the hope of the Lord's return very fully and distinctly before them. They had been "turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven." Some of their brethren, however, had fallen asleep — had departed; and the survivors seem to have been filled with sorrow on their account, lest they, the departed ones, should by reason of their departure, be hindered from sharing the joy of the living saints at the coming of the Lord. The apostle assures them that "we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent" — that is, shall not anticipate, or go before — "them which are asleep." The living saints shall not enter into their full joy at the Lord's coming a moment sooner than those who have departed in the faith. "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." So far from the full joy of the departed being postponed — so far from our entrance into our full blessedness and glory being before theirs; "the dead in Christ shall rise first. 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." Their resurrection precedes our ascent with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. "Wherefore comfort one another with these words." These are the words, my brethren, supplied by the pen of inspiration, wherewith to comfort one another when we stand around the graves of our departed friends who have been put to sleep by Jesus; for so the words literally mean. But what is the comfort usually administered on these occasions? With all kindliness of spirit, it may be, and every desire to bind up the broken heart, Christians generally on these occasions say just the reverse of what we are exhorted here to address to one another. They say of the departed, "Ah, they will not return to you, but you shall certainly go to them." My brethren, the Word of God here before us declares, they shall return! God's Word no where affirms that you shall go to them. You may do so: for we may, any of us, fall asleep, as those who have gone before us have done already. To be "absent from the body," is to be "present with the Lord;" and the apostle speaks of "having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better." We may pass into this disembodied state, and be in paradise with the Lord. It may be so; but it is not certain, as to any of us, that it will. "We who are alive and remain," was the language held by the apostle in his day; and shall we, after the lapse of eighteen hundred years, presume to say with certainty that we shall not be alive and remain? God forbid! The Saviour had said, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself," leaving the moment of his return in entire uncertainty. The apostle, taking up that word in faith, reckons himself among those who are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord. If it was the joy of his heart thus to reckon, where are our hearts, my brethren, if we feel it a relief to think (as alas! so many of us think) rather of remaining here till death, than of being among those who are alive and remain till our Lord return?

It is impossible for any proof to be more simple, direct, and conclusive than this. The Thessalonian Christians, as we have already remarked, were converted to the hope of the Lord's return. They were taught to look out for it daily. It was as much a part of their Christianity to believe that He would come, as to believe that He had come and gone. Hence it came to pass that when some of their number were called to pass through death, they were taken aback; they had not anticipated this; and they feared lest the departed should miss the joy of that blissful and longed-for moment of the Lord's return. The apostle therefore writes to correct their mistake; and, in so doing, he pours a fresh flood of light upon the whole subject, and assures them that the dead in Christ — which includes all who had or shall have fallen asleep; in short, those of Old Testament times as well as those of the New — should rise first, that is, before the living are changed, and all shall ascend together to meet their descending Lord.

The expression, "the dead in Christ," can only be applied to Christians. It is abundantly shown in other scriptures that the saints of previous dispensations will participate in the first resurrection (see, for example, 1 Cor. 15:23; Matt. 8:11); but, in writing to the saints at Thessalonica, the apostle has only Christians in view. This will account for the form of the expression, "dead in Christ," a term, we apprehend, impossible to use of any believers who had died, except those who lived after the death and resurrection of Christ. In Hebrews 12:23 departed Old Testament saints are described as "the spirits of just men made perfect." It is important to understand and to insist upon the distinction, connected as it is both with the truth, and with the ways of God in the revelations of His grace. E. D.