[AI translation] The biblical translators have given the title of this passage as "Our hope of the passing away". The apostle Paul is speaking here of things that can only be spoken of in the world of God's own revelation. It is as if the curtain that otherwise hides the hereafter from our eyes were drawn back a little, and we can look with wonder and adoration into the mysteries of the world to come, which we are all about to enter. Thus the apostle begins. (v.13) And at the end he says, "Comfort one another with these words" (1 Thess 4:18) The apostle is not, therefore, trying to satisfy a pious curiosity, nor to make sensational revelations, nor to give an on-the-spot report of the afterlife, but only one thing: to comfort! And that is the hope to which our faith in Jesus Christ leads us. We have a hope that turns sorrow into joy, that encourages us in the fear of death, that shines through the night of the grave. It is with this hope that Paul encourages and comforts his brothers and sisters in Thessalonica. For the faith of those believers seems to be in a great crisis, as the letter shows. They were so confident of Christ's imminent return that they believed that none of them would die until they saw our Lord coming in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory. And yet now it has happened - apparently more than once - that someone from the church has died without having lived to see Jesus' return. Here and there, believing families were plunged into mourning, and with the mourning came the agonizing questions: what happened, what happened to our dead, where did they go, where are they now, are they now missing out on the glory and joy of the Lord's return?!What has happened to those who have died? This question is very familiar to us in this way. There is no man who is not dead. Death is always among us, the longer we live, the more we meet it. And one day it will most certainly come for us. It is the one thing we can know with absolute certainty about our future on earth. When it will come, how it will come, we do not know, but that it will come is certain! And yet we too shudder to ask: what will happen when I have to go myself? What will become of me? Where will my path lead me? And here the apostle says: I do not want you to be ignorant of those who have fallen asleep! So there is something we can know for sure in this terrifying question. We are not at the mercy of nebulous conjectures, fantastic speculations, invented theories. We do not have to dread in uncertainty and ignorance in this regard, for here we have facts that give us a sure basis for our hopes beyond death.
What are these facts? Two great events that have happened: one is that Christ died, and the other is that Christ is risen! Christ is dead: Christ, the only one innocent, sinless, holy - the only one who owed nothing to death, yet took death, the death of damnation, the death penalty for sin: thereby releasing us who were subject to it from the debt of death. A debt once paid cannot be demanded a second time. His death was a vicarious satisfaction, the very death that redeemed from death! He is our Head, and we are members of Him. He has become one with us who have sinned, that we might be one with Him who has made satisfaction for sin! And the same Christ, who thus died, rose again! He has broken through the dark wall of death that surrounds and closes off life on earth on all sides, He has pierced it, He has made a breach in it. With Christ's resurrection, a gap has been opened in death that will remain open. It will never close again! That is why the Apostle Paul exults Christ as the first of the dead, the tender one. For where there is first, there is second, and there is third, there is an invisible line which, in union with Christ, the first of the first, can pass through the gap, the place of the breakthrough! These two mighty divine facts, the death and resurrection of Christ, are the basis of all our hope in the face of death. That is why the apostle goes on to say: "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again..." (1 Thess 4,14a) Whoever believes that Jesus died and rose again must also suffer the physical process of dying, but he can die precisely in hope, in the hope that the real danger of dying: damnation, the punishment of his sins, has already been suffered for him and in his place by Jesus Christ. Jesus did not save us from the physical process of dying, but from the judgment of death, the poisonous sting of death, damnation!
Anyone who believes in Christ, dead and risen, already has the blessing of a redemptive death and resurrection - something like having died with Christ and risen with Christ! So it is as if he himself - just like Christ - is already beyond death, hell, and the grave. Beyond: in the world beyond death, there, in the world of eternal life, where Christ is, together with Christ. Yes, if we believe that Christ has died and risen, then it is not only "as if", but eternal life has really begun for us! If we believe that we are one with Christ who died and rose again, if we have our whole life in this union with Christ, then what the apostle goes on to say is true: "God also will bring forth those who have fallen asleep, through Jesus with him." (1 Thess 4,14b) Then that holy "with Him" is valid beyond the bounds of death! The fellowship with the living Christ, which we can already experience here on earth by faith, continues after death. He who believes in Christ is, according to His own word: even if he dies, he lives - so that even the physical process of dying does not mean death for him, but the completion of eternal life already begun by faith. For the believer, too, death is, in a certain sense, the end: the end of transience, the end of life in sin, but not the end of life! The very life found in Christ goes on, and is even fulfilled! Then death also means the end of faith, because what has been believed becomes a vision. It also marks the end of hope, because what you have been holding out in hope is now being fulfilled.
How right the apostle is, when he says that we who have such hope have indeed no more cause for sorrow than those who have no hope! So that the state of the man in Christ immediately after he falls asleep is already much happier and greater than it was before he fell asleep! For he is at home, with the Lord! But something is still missing: something is still to come, something has still to happen. Believers on earth live in the same expectation. So the believing church down here on earth and the saved on the other side of death up there - both are waiting. We wait in the flesh, they wait in the spirit. We are all waiting for what the apostle describes as, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with an alarm, with the voice of the archangel, and with a trumpet of God: and they that were dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds into the air before the Lord: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (verses 16-17) This last, visible appearance of Jesus is yet to come. The apostle hears an alarm, an archangel's voice and a divine trumpet. Not to be taken literally: what the apostle wants us to sense is what Jesus himself said, that Christ's return on earth is a real, physical reality. Man will see and hear something, live and experience something. The apostle hears the sound of battle and victory. These statements refer to the ultimate defeat and victory of the living and returning Christ. It is that Jesus Christ will emerge victorious in the light of His divine love and glory.
In connection with this mighty divine fact the apostle mentions three things:
1) Those who have fallen asleep in Christ will rise again.
2) Those who have fallen asleep in Christ, who have reached this glorious moment in the flesh, will be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Somewhat like Christ was changed on the mount of transfiguration. So, without dying, they pass from transience to glory, the transformation of the earthly body into a glorious heavenly body.
3) Both the resurrected and the redeemed host are caught up together through the clouds to meet the Lord, so that His church may be with Him forever. The emphasis here is not on the details, not on the succession, not on how it all happens, but on the glorious certainty of it all: that in this way we will always be with the Lord! So where there is a real relationship with the living Christ, there is no more separation, either in this world or in the next. Whoever is with the Lord here on earth will always be with the Lord, in death and after death!
This is our great blessed hope. A consoling hope, a sustaining hope, an empowering hope. The encouraging light of this hope illuminates the darkest passages of life, for the end of the journey is certain; it gives strength in every struggle, for victory is certain; it banishes fear, for it anchors us to life beyond death. It makes life on earth free and clear, for death is no longer a threat!
And everything depends on whether we believe that Christ died and rose again! Oh, how good it would be to really believe that! To believe as Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life; and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." (Jn 5,24) And if anyone here has now heard the word of the Lord, and believes the God who sent Jesus Christ for his salvation, he has now also passed from death to life! And this is quite certain. Verily, verily - in the original text it is: amen, amen. So Jesus himself anticipates the amen to our faith in him.
So sing unto the Lord and walk in the way,
He has just given you;
From heaven He will send you rich blessings
And Jesus will give you a brave new day.
Who trusts and hopes in Him,
He shall live in the Spirit forever.
(Canto 274, verse 4)
Amen
Date: 7 February 1954.
Lesson
1Thessz 4,13-18