1 Thessalonians 4:13 - 5:11

Teacher: Rusty Kennedy
​Series: 1 Thessalonians (Acts)

Rusty's Notes

• We left off last week…
• In this passage, is primarily, as we’ve noted a number of times, not predicting but pastoring.

 
1 Thessalonians 4
THE COMFORT OF CHRIST’S COMING
13 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For we say this to you by a word from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming (parousia) will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

• Paul referred to the coming of the Lord as his parousia, a term that commonly meant the glorious “coming” of a deity or the official visit of a sovereign to a city, who himself was often honored as divine.
• An imperial visit was an event of great pomp and magnificent celebrations, with rich banquets, speeches that praised the imperial visitor, a visit to the local temple, rich donations, celebration of games, sacrifices, statues dedicated, and arches and other buildings constructed.
• Money was minted to commemorate the event, crowns of gold might be given, and at times a new era was inaugurated.[1]

16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

• So it could be, for instance, a general to his soldiers, saying “Charge!” or it might be a captain to the rowers.
• So the first command has, again, the idea that it is spoken by somebody who has power and authority [at] a time of great importance or excitement.[2]
• “Trumpet of God” – I can’t find any historical record, Josephus included, where this is mentioned.
• In funeral processions the trumpets were sounded, and so common was this custom that when the emperor Claudius died the sound of the trumpets was so deafening that it was thought that the dead could hear them.
• But the idea of this verse is not simply that the dead will hear the great sound of the trumpet call of God, but that they will respond to the command to rise[3]

17 Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together (harpazō) with them in the clouds to meet the Lord (apentesis) in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

• The key verb harpazō, and that’s found here in verses 16 and 17.
• This is where, again, we get the word and the idea of the rapture because harpazō in Greek was translated into rapio in Latin and the Vulgate, and from that we get the noun “rapture.”[4]
• There’s pretty strong evidence that the word, the verb harpazō, was used rather widely in the ancient world to refer, in the context of death, to how people were snatched who were taken away from the advantages of life to death.
• Paul is using “harpazo”, unlike what the common world expects, [being] snatched from life to death, but meaning we’re going to be snatched from life to not death but life to life or from one kind of life to an eternal form of life.[5]
• To meet (apatensis) was almost a technical term that described the custom of sending a delegation outside the city to receive a dignitary who was on the way to town.[6]
• Read: Polybius spoke of the great pomp of such occasions (5.26.8), and author after author described how not only certain officials but also all the population would file out of the city to meet the emperor in his parousia.
• Josephus, for example, tells how the citizens of Rome went out to meet Vespasian as their new emperor (who, by the way, had just come from leading the Roman troops in the battles to quell the Jewish rebellion that began in a.d. 66):
• “Amidst such feelings of universal goodwill, those of higher rank, impatient of awaiting him, hastened to a great distance from Rome to be the first to greet [apentesis] him. Nor, indeed, could any of the rest endure the delay of meeting, but all poured forth in such crowds—for to all it seems simpler and easier to go than to remain—that the very city then for the first time experienced with satisfaction the paucity of inhabitants; for those who went outnumbered those who remained. But when he was reported to be approaching and those who had gone ahead were telling of the affability of his reception of each party, the whole remaining population, with wives and children, were by now waiting at the road-sides to receive him; and each group as he passed, in their delight at the spectacle and moved by the blandness of his appearance, gave vent to all manner of cries, hailing him as “benefactor,” “savior,” and “only worthy emperor of Rome.” The whole city, moreover, was filled, like a temple, with garlands and incense.[7]
• Matthew 25:6
• So one of its other occurrences is in Matt 25:6, the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins.
• We read how the virgins, all of them, went out to apantēsis, to meet, the bridegroom; and then, once the bridegroom comes, what happens? Do they take off with him on the honeymoon? Well, of course not. The wedding hasn’t even happened yet. They escort him to the place he was always going—the wedding banquet, the wedding feast.
• Acts 28:15
• The second occurrence takes place in Acts 28:15, and the context is Paul has appealed to Caesar, and so he is on this perilous journey to appear before Nero himself. And there are Christians in Rome who hear that Paul is coming, and so they, somewhat naturally, say [that] Paul, an important person from their point of view, is coming. And so what they do? They send a delegation party out to—here comes that same word in our text from Thessalonians—to apantēsis, to meet the apostle.
• Well, what happens when they meet Paul? Do they escape with Paul and go into hiding? Well, the answer, of course, is no; they escort Paul to the place he was always going, Rome, the place from which they, the members of the delegation party, came.[8]

18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.[9]

• But the concern of the teachers was not to explain all the details of Christian eschatology but rather to console members of the church in their moment of agony, as the final verse once again clarifies.[10]

 

• I don’t believe the Bible, here or elsewhere, talks about the rapture in terms of a sudden disappearance of Christians—where they just vanish, they’re gone, and this happens for seven years;
• and then, while the bad stuff happens after seven years, these Christians who have enjoyed, well, perfection in heaven and fellowship with God and Christ, somehow come back, and [that] begins the thousand-year reign of Christ.
• That teaching, I’m afraid, is not supported in the clearest text anywhere, potentially, in the Bible, on the rapture—the one found in our passage, 1 Thess 4:17.[11]

 

• Now, we have these two passages which both deal with the second coming of Jesus, and both of them, we’ll see, are primarily speaking a word of comfort.
• But there is an important difference between the two of them; that is, 4:13–18 and 5:1–11.
• [Thessalonians] 4:13–18 speaks about comfort with regard to deceased Christians at Christ’s return, whereas 5:1–11 speaks about comfort with regard to Christians who are alive at Jesus’s return.[12]

 
1 Thessalonians 5
THE DAY OF THE LORD

• People are way more interested in the last days on earth than they are with the abundant life here on earth with Jesus.
• 1970- Hal Lindsey’s book – The Late Great Planet Earth. – Sold over 1 million copies!
• Edgar Whisenant - 88 Reasons Why the Rapture will Happen in 1988 – Sold 4.5 million copies!
• Left Behind Series by Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins – 16 novels (’95-’07) – Teenage Series – 3 movies with Kirk Cameron... 65 million copies
• Probably one of the few things I have in common with John Calvin… he wrote a commentary on every book of the Bible except Revelation.
• The real question is, “Are you ready for that day?”
• Similar to Y2K… are you ready?
• They worried whether they were worthy enough to avoid the judgment connected with that end-time day and whether they would indeed experience salvation and eternal life with Christ at His return.
• That this is the specific trouble—namely, not just a general concern about the timing of the event but, rather, their status at that event.[13]
• The problem doesn’t seem to be one of knowledge but, rather, one of anxiety and apprehension and fear about their status on the Day of the Lord.

5 About the times and the seasons: Brothers and sisters, you do not need anything to be written to you. 2 For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.

• So, up to this point in the letter, three times Paul has used that first term “coming,” the Greek word parousia. He used it in 2:19 [and] 3:13, and he used it in the immediately preceding paragraph as well.
• The Day of the Lord concept is different; it has its roots in the Old Testament, where it refers to a future time when God would come to do what? Well, on the one hand, He’s going to punish the wicked; and on the other hand, He’s going to vindicate the righteous, His people, although, when we look at the text, there’s almost a stronger emphasis on the notion of judgment associated with the Day of the Lord than there is with the vindication of God’s people.[14]
• Listen to a number of these selected verses from various Old Testament prophets, all of them describing the judgment connected with the Day of the Lord.
• Joel 2:31 says, “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”
• Zephaniah 3:8, where God says that He will “pour out my wrath on them—all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger.”
• Jeremiah 46:10 - “But that day belongs to the Lord, the Lord Almighty—a day of vengeance for vengeance on his foes. The sword will devour till it is satisfied, till it has quenched its thirst with blood.” Obadiah 15 - “The day of the Lord is near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head.”
• Amos 5:18–20 - “Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on a wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light—pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?”[15]

3 When they say, “Peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

• Paul is comforting them by saying that you have no reason to fear the Day of the Lord.
• Paul, in this reference, is making a clear allusion—not a very subtle one at all—to the propaganda and the sloganeering of the Roman state and its rather boastful claim of providing for its citizens these two benefits.
• But Paul has a stern warning for all who face the Day of the Lord by looking to Rome and its political power to save them on that day instead of God.
• As he says in the rest of the verse, he says all those who proclaim peace and security—what’s going to happen to them? Then “sudden destruction comes upon them … and they will certainly not escape.”[16]

4 But you, brothers and sisters, are not in the dark, for this day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or the darkness.

• Paul says the same thing twice for the purpose of emphasis but just says it in reverse/opposite.

6 So then, let us not sleep, like the rest, but let us stay awake and be self-controlled. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled and put on the armor of faith and love, and a helmet of the hope of salvation.

• Contrasting metaphors.

9 For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.

• They were worried [about] whether or not they would avoid the judgment connected with that end-time day and [would] instead experience salvation and eternal life with Christ.[17]

11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up as you are already doing.[18]

• Once again, Paul is being pastoral.
• Stay focused. You are good for the final day.

You have been made holy, righteous, redeemed and justified.

[1] Green, G. L. (2002). The letters to the Thessalonians (p. 223). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos.
[2] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[3] Green, G. L. (2002). The letters to the Thessalonians (p. 225). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos.
[4] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[5] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[6] Green, G. L. (2002). The letters to the Thessalonians (p. 226). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos.
[7] Green, G. L. (2002). The letters to the Thessalonians (p. 227). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos.
[8] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[9] Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (1 Th 4:13–18). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[10] Green, G. L. (2002). The letters to the Thessalonians (p. 228). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos.
[11] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[12] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[13] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[14] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[15] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[16] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[17] Weima, J. A. D. (2020). NT350 Book Study: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[18] Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (1 Th 5:1–11). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.