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The Thessalonian Church had been commended by the Apostle for their `patience of
hope'. Their conversion, service and hope had been summed up in the first chapter as:
"Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His
Son from heaven" (I Thess. 1: 9, 10).
The problem that confronted these believers, and concerning which the Apostle wrote
in the fourth chapter was not so much the fact of the Lord's return, but what would be the
fate of those who fell asleep in death before that hope was realized.
The section does not open with the words:
"I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning the nature of the Second
Coming, whether it will be before or after the tribulation, or whether it will be secret or
open."
The concern of the Thessalonians is indicated by what Paul actually said:
"I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep"
(I Thess. 4: 13).
And even so, if we stop here, we shall still be `ignorant' of the one thing Paul sought
to make known. The Thessalonians were evidently NOT in need of teaching concerning
the state of the dead. In this chapter Paul refers to such, as those that are `asleep', as
those that `sleep in Jesus' and `the dead in Christ' (I Thess. 4: 13, 14, 15, 16). These
erstwhile idolators were apparently better instructed than many a child of God today. No,
it was neither the character of the Lord's return nor the Scriptural doctrine of death that
was uppermost in the mind of the Church and the Apostle, it was something more
specific and personal:
"I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that
ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope" (I Thess. 4: 13).
"That ye sorrow not", opens the section. "Comfort one another with these words"
closes it. Yet I Thess. 4: is usually taken as the key passage which teaches a secret
rapture and a new phase of the Second Coming; an idea quite foreign to the Apostle's
mind or the Thessalonian necessity.
So the teaching proceed:
"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain
. . . . . shall not prevent them which are asleep . . . . . 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. Wherefore comfort
one another with these words" (I Thess. 4: 15-18).
It will be helpful if we pass over the intervening contrasts, (2), (3), and (4) and deal
with the fifth, for by so doing we shall follow the line of argument used by the Apostle
and demonstrate the essential difference that is made between those that `sleep in Jesus'
(I Thess. 4: 14), and `those that sleep in the night' (I Thess. 5: 7).