I Thessalonians 4:13-18 – “We Know”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹³But I am not wishing you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning the sleeping ones in order that you may not be grieving just as also the rest, the ones not having hope. ¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and rose up, thus also God will bring the sleeping ones through Jesus with Him. ¹⁵For we say this to you by [the] Word of the Lord, that we, the living ones, the ones left behind into the coming of the Lord, absolutely shall not preceded the sleeping ones, ¹⁶because the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven in a loud command, in the voice of an archangel, and in [the] trumpet of God, and the dead ones in Christ will rise first, ¹⁷then immediately we, the living ones, the ones  left behind, will be caught up together with them in [the] clouds into meeting of the Lord into [the] air and thus we will always be with [the] Lord. ¹⁸Therefore, comfort one another in these words.

This of course is one of the “glorious” passages of the New Testament. We call Jesus’ Return “the Blessed Hope.”

The truths presented in these verses are so familiar to believers they can be almost cliché. “Of course,” someone may say, “We all know all of that.” But that is precisely what I’d like to comment on. Before I do that, let me say that every single line of this passage has been studied and exegeted and commented on by hundreds, if not thousands of speakers and authors. I would also like to suggest that the truths presented, if they are taken at face value, are so clear there really is little room for any variety of honest interpretation. It just says what it says. So I have found little value in making any exegetical comments of my own.

But back to our idea of “cliché.” Today, even amongst unbelievers, everyone says at funerals, “He’s in a better place.” We fail to realize that throughout most of earth history and in most cultures of the world, death holds no such comfort. There have been the “Happy Hunting Grounds” and “Nirvana” and such, but too many people have held there is no resurrection at all, no afer-life, and when they did, it was either something less desirable (like being re-born as a cow), or something totally uncertain (the grand “hope-so” of human afterlife).

Again, here we are in 21^st century America and even unbelievers have this hope of a blissful after-life. Its likelihood is even promoted by the plethora of accounts of people who say they died and returned – the Near Death Experience people. But where did this certain, hopeful, blissful view of eternity come from? At least in our culture, I think I can say it is almost entirely Christian in origin, and may I add … much of that certainty and hope comes directly from the words before us in the little book of I Thessalonians. No other passage – even in the Bible itself – presents such an array of hopeful truths like this one.

Back to the problem of cliché – stop and think for a minute, what if this passage were not in the Bible? What if it simply wasn’t there for you and me to read and cling to? Would that not be an unthinkable loss?

For myself, my studies of the passage have been somewhat of a rebuke, for letting its truths settle into the quality of cliché, for letting myself take them for granted, for not pausing to thank God for such unspeakable kindness, that He should draw back the curtain of our future – specifically for that purpose that we ourselves might be comforted and that we might be properly prepared to comfort one another.

He didn’t have to do that.

But He did.

I love how Paul inserts (v.15) that he is saying these things, “by the Word of the Lord.” In this world of uncertainty, where no one really knows anything for sure, we Christians enjoy the unspeakable gift of God’s inerrant Word. We enjoy this Rock. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God shall stand forever” (Isa 40:8). And of all the subjects we might ponder, can I remind us that death is the one that absolutely defies our scientific observation. Science requires the analysis of observed data, but we have no eyes to see beyond the grave. I know someone will insist the Near Death Experiences are a form of scientific observation, and perhaps they are, but the whole matter depends completely on people’s anecdotal testimonies and as such they are subject to considerable and justifiable skepticism. I’m not saying they’re not true, I’m just saying they’re pretty thin science. My point is only that even those stories bear no such unassailable certainty as our “Word of the Lord.”

We too easily take for granted that, as believers, we get to spend all day every day in the calm assurance that we “know that we know that we know.” We know that our deceased loved ones in Christ are with Him in glory. We know He is coming again. We know they will be raised and come with Him. We know that we will meet Him together in the air with them, and all of us together with be with Him forever.

We know.

Thank you, Lord, for so kindly sharing with us these blessed truths and allowing us forlorned sinners to actually live in hope, to face death with hope, to live life with hope.