1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

This being the first New Testament letter, the church had not yet enjoyed extensive teaching concerning last things. The ancient world had a fairly hopeless expectation of what happened after death. At best the Greek expectation was to go to the underworld of Hades or the grave. Not so much damnation but rather a hopeless, dull, shadowy world, completely devoid of vitality, joy, or hope. It was barely a real existence at all. The other most likely opinion the Greeks held was extermination and non-existence. The Thessalonian Christians came out of that understanding, and it was their default setting. At times of sorrow or distress, it might be easy to return to that view of life after death.

Paul comforts and urges them to comfort each other with the realization that the Resurrection Life of Jesus, which had already begun, will come to fruition when Christ returns. Some have used this passage to attempt to outline in great detail the order and timeline of the second coming. In doing this, we miss the main point of the text: being comforted by the fact of the Resurrection. Those who die before the return of Christ are not going to miss out. They are not in the dull gloom of Hades or annihilated but are currently with the Lord and are doing quite wonderfully. But their disembodied state is not the end state; they too await the resurrection. Those alive at the occasion of the Return of Christ will enjoy the transformation from the current life and body into resurrected life and body without their intermediate state of bodily decay.

Consider this wonder. The Christian who died long ago and whose body has completely decayed so that it is nothing but earth, perhaps consumed by the roots of a tree, and then consumed by a caterpillar, and in turn consumed by a bird, etc. This cycle goes on, but when Christ returns, their body will come back together and be translated or transfigured. Don't forget the Resurrection Life, or Heaven is not some spiritually disembodied existence but is a vivid reality. That life is more vivid than the life we now live, just as the gray life of Hades, imagined by the Greeks, is less than this life. This inspires two reactions: first, to hope and be comforted for those who are now with the Lord. And second, to live now preparing for that Resurrection Life. That means learning now the customs, culture, language, and interactions of the Life to Come.

“Lord Jesus come. AMEN”