1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Commentary

Paul begins this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson by claiming he does not want his brothers and sisters in Christ to be “uninformed [agnoein*] about those who sleep in death [koimomenon]” (13). He then goes on to conclude 1 Thessalonians 4 with verse 18’s call to “encourage [parakaleite] one another with” what he has just written. 

In other words, while ignorance may be in some cases “bliss,” it does little to help us comfort those who grieve. So Jesus’ friends who want to parakaleite (“encourage”) mourners learn all we can about the Bible’s description of dead Christians’ current state, Christ’s return and our eternal well-being.

In 1 Corinthians 15:26, Paul insists “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson suggests an enemy of Christian hope is ignorance about the current situation of God’s dearly beloved people who have passed from life to Life. Perhaps that’s why the apostle wishes to destroy ignorance about those who have died in a faithful relationship with Jesus Christ.

In verse 13b Paul describe the “grief” [lypesthe] of the “rest of mankind” as characterized by the absence of “hope” [elpida].” Biblically uninformed opinions about death are, in other words, largely hopeless. 

That characterization may, however, at first glance, seem ignorant. After all, some of our contemporaries do “hope” some part of us survives our death. But that hope is a bit like longing for a white Christmas. We’re not completely confident it will happen.

The kind of hope about which Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 is radically different. God’s adopted children don’t simply think there’s a chance some part of us will survive our death. We’re not just hopeful that some part of dead Christians somehow outlasts our bodies.

Because “Jesus died and rose again [apethanen kai aneste]” (14a), Paul insists, Christians are completely confident our souls go immediately to be with the Lord when we die and await the resurrection and restoration of our bodies. Death for God’s adopted children is no “crapshoot” or calculated risk. It is, instead, a guaranteed gateway into God’s glorious presence.

Of course, Paul’s description of the current state of Christians who have died is somewhat mysterious. In verse 13 he describes them as literally “having fallen asleep” [koimomenon]. The NIV calls Christians who have died “those who sleep in death.” The NRSV simply refers to them as “those who have died” – though it also footnotes an alternate translation that reads “those who are asleep.”

The Message characterizes Christians’ hope-filled reactions to the death of Christian loved ones as not carrying “on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to.” Jesus’ followers do not react to our Christians’ loved ones’ death or the prospect of our own death “as if the grave were the last word.”

After all, all who have fallen asleep in Christ will not remain eternally asleep. Sleep is always temporary, both for people who are living and for Christians who have died. Because God’s adopted children believe Jesus died and rose again (14), we also “believe God will bring [axei] with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him [koimethentes dia tou Jesus].”

This presumes, of course, God will “awaken” Christians who currently or will eventually sleep in death. But Paul doesn’t identify here when God will wake up those who have died in a faithful relationship with Christ. The apostle doesn’t describe when God will axei (“bring”) with Jesus God’s adopted children who have died.

Professions of faith such as 1 Corinthians 15 and Revelation 21 insist God will bring with Christ those who now sleep in death at the return of Jesus Christ. When the Son of God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, he left the heavenly realm to come to earth all by himself. When Christ returns to the earth at the end of measured time, all “who have fallen asleep in him” will accompany him (14b).

Yet verse 15 suggests some Thessalonian Christians assumed God will somehow privilege those who are still alive at Christ’s return over those who have died in Christ. Paul rejects that notion. After all, he tells Thessalonica’s Christians, “We tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede [phthasomen] those who have fallen asleep.”

Paul almost certainly has in mind here a chronological preceding. As The Message paraphrases the apostle’s profession in verse 15, “When the Master comes again to get us, those of us who are still alive will not get a jump on the dead and leave them behind. In actual fact, they’ll be ahead of us.” What’s more, in verse 16 Paul goes on to insist that at God’s descent, “the dead in Christ will rise first [anastesontai proton].”

But is there a hint of not just chronological but also status precedence? Does Paul at least imply that those who have died in Christ are just as important to Christ as those God leaves here on earth until Christ returns?

No matter what he has in mind about this precedence, he insists it will unfold in what he describes in verse 16. There the apostle promises, “The Lord himself will come down from heaven [katabesetai ap’ ouranou], with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet call of God.”

Since ouranou (“heaven”) refers to a realm rather than a spatial location, Paul implies Christ’s return from there defies human imagination. It will certainly be almost indescribably noisy. The Lord will, after all, come with a “loud command” [keleusmati], “the trumpet call of God” [selpingi Theou] and “the voice of the archangel [phone archangelou].”

At least some North Americans link that trumpet call to an angelic or ceremonial trumpeter. However, the Jewish Annotated New Testament also links this “trumpet call” to the sounding of the shofar that proclaimed God’s Judean people’s redemption. So we might imagine the trumpet call will include both trumpets and shofars. In any case, Paul stretches our minds and imaginations by referring to the sound of Christ’s second coming as being cacophonous.

But the sight of Christ’s return will be little less startling than its sound. After all, the Lord whom no one could live to tell about seeing will visibly “come down” from the heavenly realm. The descending Lord will, in turn, be met by the resurrected bodies of God’s ascending adopted children who have died in Christ. “The dead in Christ will” rise (15).

Yet Paul insists it won’t just be those who have already died in Christ who will “arise.” In verse 17 he adds, “After [the bodies of the dead in Christ have arisen], we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together [harpagesometha] with them in the clouds to meet [apantesin] the Lord in the air.”

The language Paul uses is resistant to neat and orderly proclamation. The apostle is trying to communicate a profound truth with language that is poetic and artistic. So preachers want to listen for the Spirit’s promptings as we try to communicate Christ’s return’s truth with vivid, descriptive and perhaps even imaginative language.

One way to do that may be to explore this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson with an image. Family reunions might offer one such possibility. Of course, reunions are not always completely joyous. But preachers might want to recall memories of joyous family reunions. 

After all, at Christ’s return his adopted siblings won’t just be reunited with family members and friends who have died in a faithful relationship with Jesus Christ. By God’s amazing grace we will also get to meet in the air our adopted Father, the living God, as well as our adopted big brother, Jesus Christ.

Yet this “reunion” won’t just last a day or week. At Christ’s return, Paul insists in verse 17b, “we will be with the Lord forever [pantote].” When Jesus comes again, we will be forever with not just our brothers and sisters in Christ, but also with the God who was with us always, in life and in death, in times of both the deepest waters and brightest sunshine.

“Therefore,” Paul concludes in verse 18, “encourage [parakaleite] one another with these words.” Courage in the face of death comes from who God is and what God is doing. So we don’t encourage any Christian who is dying or grieving with messages of “Cheer up!” or “Eat healthier and exercise more.” Jesus’ friends, rather, reassure each other with God’s promises that whether we’re still alive or have already died in Christ, when Christ returns, we will, by God’s amazing grace, be with the Lord forever.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

In his Fall, 2018 article “The Lost Art of Dying” in the Hedgehog Review, Thomas Pfau reflects on hopelessness in the face of death. He rhetorically asks, ‘Is there a better portrayal of the modern individual’s horrified perplexity in the face of death than Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich?’

“Ivan’s doctors reduce his terminal condition to a mere ‘weighing of probabilities—a floating kidney, chronic catarrh, or appendicitis.’ An unbridgeable emotional chasm separates the dying Ivan from friends and family members: ‘You see, he’s dead, and I am not,’ each of them thought or felt.’ 

“As soon as [Ilych] has grasped the terminal nature of his condition, he finds himself ensnared ‘in continual despair … “It cannot be that I should die. It would be too terrible”.’ What leaves Ivan reeling is less his physical deterioration than his utter inability to sum up his life as having served any purpose beyond the usual quotidian successes that identify him as the quintessential petit bourgeois. Having judged others throughout his career as a magistrate, Ivan is stunned by what the last judgment reveals about himself: ‘More terrible than his physical sufferings were his moral sufferings.’ 

“Ivan weeps ‘over…his terrible loneliness, over the cruelty of people, over the cruelty of God, over the absence of God.’ Dying belatedly exposes the essential hollowness of the life that has preceded it, ‘easy, pleasant, merry, and always decent and approved by society.’ Now, at the threshold of death, ‘it occurred to [Ivan] that what had formerly appeared completely impossible to him, that he had not lived his life as he should have, might be true.’ 

“Death for Ivan is the very distillation of meaninglessness, an enigmatic termination of the pointless agony that precedes it: ‘Three days of suffering, and then death.’ All Ivan can summon is ‘a three-day ceaseless howling of rage and despair, a continual scream of incomprehension’.”