Today in our journey along Route 66 we come to Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians...
Author
Paul is the undisputed author of 1 Thessalonians. Bible commentators ancient and modern are agreed upon that.
Date
Another thing that all Bible commentators are agreed upon is that 1 Thessalonians is one of the earliest letters in the New Testament. In fact, it may be the oldest book in the New Testament. This letter may have been written as early as AD 48.
The Church at Thessalonica was founded by the Apostle Paul and was born amidst persecution. You can read the whole story in Acts 17. Pauls’ fellow Jews in Thessalonica, who had rejected his message, drove Paul out of town. Apparently, they continued to persecute those in Thessalonica who had become followers of Jesus as their Messiah. Paul wrote his first letter to the Thessalonian Church a short time after his first visit there.
Themes
Paul wrote this letter to encourage this fledgling church amidst their suffering. So, it should come as no surprise that Paul should focus much of his teaching in both his letters to this church on the Second Coming of Christ. Nothing is more encouraging when you are going through a time of suffering than to know that it will someday come to an end. This applies to us today just as much as it did in the first century. To “get through the going through” stages of life we need a vision of the glorious future that the Lord has planned for those who believe in him. We need a vision of the future that is powerful enough to pull us through our present suffering, whether that suffering be large or small.
Structure
The structure of 1 Thessalonians works out like this…
- Paul’s Thanksgiving for the Thessalonians (1)
- Paul’s Defense of his Apostolic Actions and his Absence (2-3)
- Paul’s Encouragements to the Thessalonians (4-5:22)
- Paul’s Concluding Prayer, Greetings and Benediction (5:23-28)
Key Concept—Hope in the Face of Death
Hal Lindsey once wrote, “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope.”
Jesus offers us hope, even in the face of death. Listen to what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18…
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
In this passage, Paul tells us precisely how we can have hope in the face of death. First, he says, we do not want you to be uninformed. Paul wants his readers to understand what happens to believers who die and what will happen with them at Christ’s second coming.
Paul refers to the Christian dead as “those who have fallen asleep” in Jesus. Sleep was a common euphemism for death in Paul’s day. But Paul does not mean that believers remain unconscious. In 2 Corinthians 5:6-8 Paul writes,
Therefore, we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
At death, the soul is separated from the body and the soul of the believer goes to be with the Lord. The soul does not sleep until the time of Christ’s second coming. It is the body that appears to be sleeping. The soul is consciously in the presence of the Lord. Jesus said to the thief on the cross who put his faith in him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
One of my favorite preachers of all time was Peter Marshall, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, and Chaplain of the United States Senate in the 1940s. In a sermon entitled “Go Down Death” he told the story of a little boy named Kenneth whom he knew and who had suffered from an incurable illness. The boy knew about death, and as he grew weaker, he began to worry about what it would be like. Finally, he asked his mother, “What is it like to die? Does it hurt?”
Caught off guard by the question, Kenneth’s mother was overcome by emotion. To gain composure, she left the room on a pretext and prayed that the Lord would give her an answer for her son. Then she returned to the room and said,
Kenneth, you remember when you were a tiny boy how you used to play so hard all day that when night came you would be too tired even to undress, and you would tumble into mother’s bed and fall asleep? That was not your bed… it was not where you belonged. And you would only stay there a little while. In the morning, much to your surprise, you would wake up and find yourself in your own bed in your own room. You were there because someone had loved you and taken care of you. Your father had come—with big strong arms—and carried you away. Kenneth, death is just like that. We just wake up some morning to find ourselves in the other room—our own room where we belong—because the Lord Jesus loved us.[1]
So, Paul does not want us to be uninformed about what happens to believers at death. The second thing Paul tells us is that we do not have to grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.
Paul does not say we shouldn’t grieve. It hurts to be separated from those we love. Hurt is understandable. Grief is understandable. We need to grieve. We need to weep. Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus. But, Paul says, Christians don’t have to grieve like the rest of humankind who have no hope.
Paul was right on the money when he described the non-Christians of his time as being without hope. The hopelessness of the ancient world was summed up by the Greek poet, Theocritus, who said, “Hopes are for the living; the dead are without hope.”
A movie came out recently entitled Freud’s Last Session. It’s an imaginary supposal of what Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis might have said to each other if they had met. The film is based upon a book by Armand Nicholi entitled The Question of God. Nicholi taught psychology at Harvard for many years. Nicholi says this about Freud,
In 1920, when Freud was 64, he lost through death a young and beautiful daughter. He wrote that he wondered when his time would come, and he wished it would be soon. “I do not know what more there is today,” he writes. “It is such a paralyzing event, which can stir no afterthoughts when one is not a believer…”
Nicholi contrasts Freud with Lewis who, in one of his last letters, wrote this:
Thanks for your note. Yes, Autumn is really the best part of the seasons; and I’m not sure that old age isn’t the best part of life. But, of course, like Autumn it doesn’t last.
Then Nicholi concludes, “Hopelessness and despair? No. Fulfillment, peace, excitement, and even anticipation of what comes next. Definitely hope. As Paul says, we do not have to grieve like the rest of humanity who have no hope.
And Paul relates the reason why in the next few verses. He rehearses some basic Christian doctrine to bolster our hope. And the first basic is that Jesus died and rose again. Jesus’ resurrection guarantees the resurrection of all those who believe in him. Ours will not be a bodiless, shadowy existence after death, at least, not forever.
The second basic we need to understand is that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. In other words, when Jesus returns to earth, those believers who have died before the second coming will return with him to the earth.
The third basic is that those Christians who are still alive when Christ returns will not receive their resurrection bodies before those who have already died. Paul belabors this point because, apparently, the Thessalonians were concerned that their Christian loved ones who had died might miss out on the second coming of Christ and the resurrection. I believe that understanding these basics of the faith helps us to face death with hope.
Many years ago, there was a church that was having an Easter pageant. There was a five-year-old boy in the audience who was absolutely enthralled. When the crucifixion scene took place, he got very quiet. But when Jesus came out of the grave and there was a song of celebration, his eyes lit up. He looked at his mother and said, “He’s alive, Mom. He’s alive!” The boy began to clap and hugged his mother. Maybe we all need to see Easter through the eyes of a five-year-old again.
Paul goes on to give some of the details of end-time events. Again, I believe that understanding this stuff gives us hope. We are reminded that death is not the end of the story.
First, there is the RETURN of the Lord. Scripture tells us that Christ’s return will be personal, visible, and physical. Revelation 1:7 says, “…every eye will see him…” How is the Lord going to accomplish this? I don’t know. But the Lord will return, and we will all see him.
Along with this there will be the RESURRECTION of the dead in Christ. The souls of believers will be reunited with their bodies. The Lord is going to take our old bodies, what is left of them, whether bones in a grave or ashes scattered, and the Lord is going to fashion out of that substance new bodies that will never grow old, never get sick, never die.
One day an assistant of the famous chemist Michael Faraday accidentally knocked a little silver cup into a beaker of very strong acid. In almost no time the silver object disappeared. The great chemist was summoned. He quickly put a certain chemical into the jar, and in a moment every particle of silver came together at the bottom. Removing the shapeless mass, he sent it to a silversmith, who recreated a cup that shone as bright as ever. What Michael Faraday and that silversmith did is but a small analogy to what our mighty God can and will do for all who trust in Christ.
In this regard, I am reminded of the epitaph of Ben Franklin. Did you know that Ben Franklin wrote his own epitaph? Here is what it says,
The Body of
B. Franklin, Printer.
Like the Cover of an old Book.
Its Contents torn out.
And Stript of its Lettering & Gilding
Lies here. Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be lost.
For it will as he believ’d
Appear once more
In a new and more elegant Edition
Corrected and improved
By the Author.
I love that! I think it is a great description of what the Lord will do at the final resurrection.
So, we have two steps so far in God’s end-times program: the Return and the Resurrection. The third step is what many people call the RAPTURE. Those Christians who are still alive on earth when the Lord returns will be caught up together with those believers who have died to meet the Lord in the air.
But some people wonder: will believers really be caught up into the physical atmosphere surrounding the earth? I don’t know. Did Christ physically ascend into the sky after his resurrection? Or is that how it appeared to his disciples to indicate to them that he was moving from the earthly to the heavenly realm? I don’t know.
One thing is certain. In Scripture, the air is conceived of as the abode of Satan and his demons. Satan is called the prince of the power of the air. (Ephesians 2:2) Christ’s return in the air, just as his ascension in the air, shows, either literally or metaphorically, his triumph over Satan and all his cohorts in crime.
The word Paul uses for meeting the Lord in the air is an interesting one. It is apantesis. When a dignitary paid an official visit (Parousia) to a city in ancient times, the leading citizens would go out to meet the dignitary and escort him back to the city. This was called the apantesis. So, the picture Paul paints is of believers in Christ going out to meet him, like a conquering king, and then accompanying him back to the earth to set up his eternal kingdom.
The important thing is not how this Rapture will be accomplished but what follows it, namely, the REUNION of all believers with the Lord and with each other. Paul says, “And so we will be with the Lord forever.” Imagine what a reunion that will be!
Someone once said,
As a boy, I thought of heaven as a city with domes, spires, and beautiful streets, inhabited by angels. By and by my little brother died, and I thought of heaven much as before, but with one inhabitant that I knew. Then another died, and then some of my acquaintances, so in time I began to think of heaven as containing several people that I knew. But it was not until one of my own little children died that I began to think I had treasure in heaven myself. Afterward another went, and yet another. By that time, I had so many acquaintances and children in heaven that I no more thought of it as a city merely with streets of gold but as a place full of inhabitants. Now there are so many loved ones there I sometimes think I know more people in heaven than I do on earth.
Here is the ultimate question: do you want to be part of the grand reunion? I imagine you do. We all do. But here’s the deal… if we want to take part in the grand reunion, then we need to trust Christ for our salvation. Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) It is Jesus’ death and resurrection that guarantees our resurrection. Jesus is the one who gives us hope as we walk through the valley of the shadow.
Many years ago, an unknown saint wrote the following lines:
In the days before passenger trains were equipped with lights, I was traveling by rail to a distant city. Our route was through several tunnels; consequently, at times the cars would be enveloped in deep darkness. Beside me sat a sympathetic Englishman. We were enjoying a pleasant conversation when we started into a long, underground mountain pass, and it became pitch black in our coach. My companion, a Christian, had traveled that way many times before. Reassuringly he said, “Cheer up, my friend, we’re not in a sack—there’s a ’ole at the other end!” I never forgot his words. They cheered me later in many of the dark passages of life.[2]
Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we can be sure of our resurrection. We’re not in a sack, there’s a hole at the other end!
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