_THE DEAD IN CHRIST._
"But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that
fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, which have no
hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them
also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For
this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive,
that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede
them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from
heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the
trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we that
are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up 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."--1 THESS.
iv. 13-18 (R.V.).
The restlessness of the Thessalonians, which caused some of them to
neglect their daily work, was the result of strained expectations of
Christ's second coming. The Apostle had taught them that the Saviour
and Judge of all might appear no one knew when; and they were consumed
with a feverish anxiety to be found ready when He came. How terrible
it would be to be found unready, and to lose one's place in the
heavenly kingdom! The Thessalonians were dominated by such thoughts as
these when death visited the church, and gave rise to new
perplexities. What of the brethren who had been taken away so soon,
and of their part in the glory to be revealed? Had they been robbed,
by death, of the Christian hope? Had the inheritance which is
incorruptible, undefiled, and imperishable, passed for ever beyond
their grasp, because they had died before Christ came to take His
people to Himself?
This was what some of the survivors feared; and it is to correct
their mistaken ideas, and to comfort them in their sorrow, that the
Apostle writes the words we are now to study. "We would not have you
ignorant," he says, "concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow
not, even as the rest, which have no hope." The last words refer to
those who are away from Christ, and without God in the world. It is a
frightful thing to say of any man, and still more of the mass of men,
that they have no hope; yet it is not only the Apostle who says it; it
is the confession, by a thousand voices, of the heathen world itself.
To that world the future was a blank, or a place of unreality and
shades. If there were great exceptions, men who, like Plato, could not
give up faith in immortality and in the righteousness of God, even in
the face of death, these were no more than exceptions; and even for
them the future had no substance compared with the present. Life was
here, and not there. Wherever we can hear the pagan soul speak of the
future, it is in this blank, heartless tone. "Do not," says Achilles
in the Odyssey, "make light of death to me. Rather would I on earth be
a serf to another, a man of little land and little substance, than be
prince over all the dead that have come to nought." "Suns," says
Catullus, "may set and rise again. When once our brief light has set,
one unbroken night of sleep remains." These are fair specimens of the
pagan outlook; are they not fair enough specimens of the non-Christian
outlook at the present day? The secular life is quite avowedly a life
without hope. It resolutely fixes its attention on the present, and
avoids the distraction of the future. But there are few whom death
does not compel, at some time or other, to deal seriously with the
questions the future involves. If we love the departed, our hearts
cannot but go with them to the unseen; and there are few who can
assure themselves that death ends all. For those who can, what a
sorrow remains! Their loved ones have lost everything. All that makes
life is here, and _they_ have gone. How miserable is their lot, to
have been deprived, by cruel and untimely death, of all the blessings
man can ever enjoy! How hopelessly must those who are left behind
lament them!
This is exactly the situation with which the Apostle deals. The
Christians in Thessalonica feared that their brethren who had died
would be shut out of the Messiah's kingdom; they mourned for them as
those mourn who have no hope. The Apostle corrects their error, and
comforts them. His words do not mean that the Christian may lawfully
sorrow for his dead, provided he does not go to a pagan extreme; they
mean that the hopeless pagan sorrow is not to be indulged by the
Christian at all. We give their proper force if we imagine him saying:
"Weep for yourselves, if you will; that is natural, and God does not
wish us to be insensible to the losses and sorrows which are part of
His providential government of our lives; but do not weep for _them_;
the believer who has fallen asleep in Christ is not to be lamented; he
has lost nothing; the hope of immortality is as sure for him as for
those who may live to welcome the Lord at His coming; _he_ has gone to
be with Christ, which is _far_, far better."
The 14th verse gives the Christian proof of this consoling doctrine.
"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also
that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."[15] It is
quite plain that something is wanting here to complete the argument.
Jesus did die and rise again, there is no dispute about that; but how
is the Apostle justified in inferring from this that God will bring
the Christian dead again to meet the living? What is the missing link
in this reasoning? Clearly it is the truth, so characteristic of the
New Testament, that there is a union between Christ and those who
trust Him so close that their destiny can be read in His. All that He
has experienced will be experienced by them. They are united to Him as
indissolubly as the members of the body to the head; and being
planted together in the likeness of His death, they shall be also in
the likeness of His resurrection. Death, the Apostle would have us
understand, does not break the bond between the believing soul and the
Saviour. Even human love is stronger than the grave; it goes beyond it
with the departed; it follows them with strong yearnings, with wistful
hopes, sometimes with earnest prayers. But there _is_ an impotence, at
which death mocks, in earthly love; the last enemy does put a great
gulf between souls, which cannot be bridged over; and there is no such
impotence in the love of Christ. He is never separated from those who
love Him. He is one with them in death, and in the life to come, as in
this life. Through Him God will bring the departed again to meet their
friends. There is something very expressive in the word "bring."
"Sweet word," says Bengel: "it is spoken of living persons." The dead
for whom we mourn are not dead; they all live to God; and when the
great day comes, God will bring those who have gone before, and unite
them to those who have been left behind. When we see Christ at His
coming, we shall see also those that have fallen asleep in Him.
This argument, drawn from the relation of the Christian to the
Saviour, is confirmed by an appeal to the authority of the Saviour
Himself. "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord:" as if he
said, "It is not merely a conclusion of our own; it is supported by
the express word of Christ." Many have tried to find in the Gospels
the word of the Lord referred to, but, as I think, without success.
The passage usually quoted (Matt. xxiv. 31: "He shall send forth His
angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together
His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other"),
though it covers generally the subject with which the Apostle is
dealing, does not touch upon the essential point, the equality of
those who die before the Second Advent with those who live to see it.
We must suppose that the word of the Lord referred to was one which
failed to find a place in the written Gospels, like that other which
the Apostle preserved, "It is more blessed to give than to receive";
or that it was a word which Christ spoke to him in one of the many
revelations which he received in his apostolic work. In any case, what
the Apostle is going to say is not his own word, but the word of
Christ, and as such its authority is final for all Christians. What,
then, does Christ say on this great concern?
He says that "we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the
Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep." The
natural impression one takes from these words is that Paul expected
himself to be alive when Christ came; but whether that impression is
justifiable or not,[16] it is no part of the truth which can claim the
authority of the Lord. Christ's word only assures us that those who
are alive at that day shall have no precedency over those that have
fallen asleep; it does not tell us who shall be in the one class, and
who in the other. Paul did not know when the day of the Lord would be;
but as it was the duty of all Christians to look for and hasten it, he
naturally included himself among those who would live to see it. Later
in life, the hope of surviving till the Lord came alternated in his
mind with the expectation of death. In one and the same epistle, the
Epistle to the Philippians, we find him writing (iv. 5), "The Lord is
at hand"; and only a little earlier (i. 23), "I have the desire to
depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better." Better,
certainly, than a life of toil and suffering; but not better than the
Lord's coming. Paul could not but shrink with a natural horror from
death and its nakedness; he would have preferred to escape that dread
necessity, the putting off of the body; not to be unclothed, was his
desire, but to be clothed upon, and to have mortality swallowed up of
life. When he wrote this letter to the Thessalonians, I do not doubt
that this was his hope; and it does not impugn his authority in the
least that it was a hope destined not to be fulfilled. With the Lord,
a thousand years are as one day; and even those who are partakers in
the kingdom seldom partake to an eminent degree in the patience of
Jesus Christ. Only in the teaching of the Lord Himself does the New
Testament put strongly before us the duration of the Christian era,
and the delays of the Second Advent. How many of His parables, _e.g._,
represent the kingdom as subject to the law of growth--the Sower, the
Wheat and the Tares which have both to ripen, the Mustard Seed, and
the Seed Growing Gradually. All these imply a natural law and goal of
progress, not to be interrupted at random. How many, again, like the
parable of the Unjust Judge, or the Ten Virgins, imply that the delay
will be so great as to beget utter disbelief or forgetfulness of His
coming. Even the expression, "The times of the Gentiles," suggests
epochs which must intervene before men see Him again.[17] But over
against this deep insight and wondrous patience of Christ, we must not
be surprised to find something of impatient ardour in the Apostles.
The world was so cruel to them, their love to Christ was so fervent,
their desire for re-union so strong, that they could not but hope and
pray, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus." Is it not better to recognise the
obvious fact that Paul was mistaken as to the nearness of the Second
Advent, than to torture his words to secure his infallibility? Two
great commentators--the Roman Catholic Cornelius à Lapide, and the
Protestant John Calvin--save Paul's infallibility at a greater cost
than violating the rules of grammar. They admit that his words mean
that he expected to survive till Christ came again; but, they say, an
infallible apostle could not really have had such an expectation; and
therefore we must believe that Paul practised a pious fraud in writing
as he did, a fraud with the good intention of keeping the
Thessalonians on the alert. But I hope, if we had the choice, we would
all choose rather to tell the truth, and be mistaken, than to be
infallible, and tell lies.
After the general statement, on Christ's authority, that the living
shall have no precedency of the departed, Paul goes on to explain the
circumstances of the Advent by which it is justified. "The Lord
Himself shall descend from heaven." In that emphatic _Himself_ we
have the argument of ver. 14 practically repeated: the Lord, it
signifies, who knows _all_ that are His. Who can look at Christ
as He comes again in glory, and not remember His words in the Gospel,
"Because I live, ye shall live also;" "where I am, there shall also
My servant be"? It is not another who comes, but He to whom all
Christian souls have been united for ever. "The Lord Himself shall
descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel,
and with the trump of God." The last two of these expressions are in
all probability the explanation of the first; the voice of the
archangel, or the trumpet of God, is the signal-shout, or as the hymn
expresses it, "the great commanding word," with which the drama of the
last things is ushered in. The archangel is the herald of the
Messianic King. We cannot tell how much is figure in these
expressions, which all rest on Old Testament associations, and on
popular beliefs amongst the Jews of the time; neither can we tell what
precisely underlies the figure. But this much is clearly meant, that a
Divine summons, audible and effective everywhere, goes forth from
Christ's presence; that ancient utterance, of hope or of despair, is
fulfilled: "Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee." When the signal
is given, the dead in Christ rise first. Paul says nothing here of the
resurrection body, spiritual and incorruptible; but when Christ comes,
the Christian dead are raised in that body, prepared for eternal
blessedness, before anything else is done. That is the meaning of "the
dead in Christ shall rise _first_." It does not contrast the
resurrection of the Christian dead with a second resurrection of all
men, either immediately afterwards, or after a thousand years; it
contrasts it as the first scene in this drama with the second, namely,
the rapture of the living. The first thing will be that the dead rise;
the next, that those that are alive, that are left, shall at the same
time, and in company with them, be caught up together in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air. The Apostle does not look beyond this; so,
he says, shall we--that is, we all, those that live and those that are
fallen asleep--be ever with the Lord.
A thousand questions rise to our lips as we look at this wonderful
picture; but the closer we look, the more plainly do we see the
parsimony of the revelation, and the strictness with which it is
measured out to meet the necessities of the case. There is nothing in
it, for instance, about the non-Christian. It tells us the blessed
destiny of those who have fallen asleep in Christ, and of those who
wait for Christ's appearing. Much of the curiosity about those who die
without Christ is not disinterested. People would like to know what
_their_ destiny is, because they would like to know whether there
is not a tolerable alternative to accepting the gospel. But the Bible
does not encourage us to look for such an alternative. "Blessed," it
says, "are the dead who die in the Lord"; and blessed also are the
living who live in the Lord; if there are those who reject this
blessedness, and raise questions about what a life without Christ may
lead to, they do it at their peril.
There is nothing, again, about the nature of the life beyond the
Advent, except this, that it is a life in which the Christian is in
close and unbroken union with Christ--ever with the Lord. Some have
been very anxious to answer the question, Where? but the revelation
gives us no help. It does not say that those who meet the Lord in the
air ascend with Him to heaven, or descend, as some have supposed, to
reign with Him on earth. There is absolutely nothing in it for
curiosity, though everything that is necessary for comfort. For men
who had conceived the terrible thought that the Christian dead had
lost the Christian hope, the veil was withdrawn from the future, and
living and dead alike revealed united, in eternal life, to Christ.
That is all, but surely it is enough. That is the hope which the
gospel puts before us, and no accident of time, like death, can rob us
of it. Jesus died and rose again; He is Lord both of the dead and the
living; and all will, at the great day, be gathered together to Him.
Are _they_ to be lamented, who have this future to look forward
to? Are we to sorrow over those who pass into the world unseen, as if
they had no hope, or as if we had none? No; in the sorrow of death
itself, we may comfort one another with these words.
Is it not a striking proof of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
we have, on the express authority of His word, a special revelation,
the exclusive aim of which is to comfort? Jesus knew the terrible
sorrow of bereavement; He had stood by the bedside of Jairus'
daughter, by the young man's bier at Nain, by Lazarus' tomb. He knew
how inconsolable it was, how subtle, how passionate; He knew the dead
weight at the heart which never passes away, and the sudden rush of
feeling which overpowers the strongest. And that all this sorrow might
not rest upon His Church unrelieved, He lifted the curtain that we
might see with our eyes the strong consolation beyond. I have spoken
of it as if it consisted simply in union to Christ; but it is as much
a part of the revelation that Christians whom death has separated are
re-united to each other. The Thessalonians feared they would never see
their departed friends again; but the word of the Lord says, You will
be caught up, in company with them, to meet Me; and you and they shall
dwell with Me for ever. What congregation is there in which there is
not need of this consolation? Comfort one another, the Apostle says.
One needs the comfort to-day, and another to-morrow; in proportion as
we bear each other's burdens, we all need it continually. The unseen
world is perpetually opening to receive those whom we love; but though
they pass out of sight and out of reach, it is not for ever. They are
still united to Christ; and when He comes in His glory He will bring
them to us again. Is it not strange to balance the greatest sorrow of
life against words? Words, we often feel, are vain and worthless; they
do not lift the burden from the heart; they make no difference to the
pressure of grief. Of our own words that is true; but what we have
been considering are not our own words, but the word of the Lord. His
words are alive and powerful: heaven and earth may pass away, but they
cannot pass; let us comfort one another with that.
[15] There is a certain difficulty about the connection of the words
in the last clause; it would probably be more correct to render them:
Even so them also that are fallen asleep will God through Jesus bring
with Him.
[16] It is easy to state the inference too strongly. Paul tell us
expressly that he did not know when Christ would come; he could not
therefore know that he himself would have died long before the Advent;
and it was inevitable, therefore, that he should include himself here
in the category of such as might live to see it.
[17] On this subject see Bruce's _Kingdom of God_, chap. xii.