Free Bible Commentary
“1 Thessalonians 4:13-18”
Categories: 1 Thessalonians“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
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We do not need to “grieve” over our loved ones who fall “asleep” (die) if they are faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus (verse 13). Now, naturally we WILL grieve over losing them from our earthly lives, and we may even grieve over the way that they die if it is particularly disturbing and painful. But there is no reason to grieve in the WAY that the rest of the world “who have no hope” do, when their loved ones die. The reason is that faithful Christians DO have hope that carries on past the earthly grave. If we live and die in faith and obedience to Christ, we know we will be reunited with the faithful departed when the Lord returns to claim His own (verse 14).
What will happen on that final day when time and earth and death will be no more?
“The Lord himself will descend from heaven” (verse 16). Jesus will return personally to raise the dead who died in the Lord, and to “change” the living who remain at His coming (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). He came to this earth personally to live for us, die for us and arise from the grave in order to save us from our sins. And on the last, promised day, He will personally “descend from heaven” (verse 16), not to alight upon the earth, but to receive His own to Himself “in the air” (verse 17).
Jesus will descend from heaven “with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God” (verse 16). I’m not sure what all of that is going to sound like, but I guarantee you that it is going to be as LOUD as all get out! Some religious groups maintain that the Lord has already returned to the earth, but He has done so secretly and silently. If their story is true, then the Bible is not! The return of Jesus will be audible and visible and every eye will see Him (Revelation 1:7)!
The resurrected dead and the living faithful will all be changed (given spiritual bodies suitable for an eternity in heaven – 1 Corinthians 15:42-49), and all “will be caught up together…in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (verse 17). After Jesus was resurrected from the dead, he ascended into heaven through a cloud (Acts 1:9). Two angels told the Apostles who were looking on that He would return “in just the same way” (Acts 1:11). Paul tells us here that when the Lord comes back, we will meet Him in the clouds, “and so we shall always be with the Lord” (verse 17).
When Jesus takes His faithful home to heaven, there will be no coming back to earth to set up a kingdom or to fight bloody wars or anything else! And honestly, who in their right mind would ever want to leave the glories of heaven and return to this earth of sin, pain and death? The Lord would never be so cruel as to play a dirty trick like that on us. No, when Jesus returns on the last day, it will be to destroy the earth, and to judge the living and the dead (John 6:39, 40, 44, 54; 1 Corinthians 15:23, 24; 2 Peter 3:10). But, most importantly for faithful Christians, we can “comfort one another” with the fact that, at the Lord’s Second Coming, He will return to take us all home to heaven to be with Him forever (verse 18)!
Please read 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5 for tomorrow.
Have a great day!
- Louie Taylor
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