Bible Commentaries
1 Thessalonians 4

Verses 1-18

VIII

A LESSON ON CHRISTIAN MORALS

1 Thessalonians 4:1-18.

This exposition commences at 1 Thessalonians 4, which brings us to the sixth item of the extended analysis, the title of which is, "A Lesson on Christian Morals," that is, it consists of an exhortation to purity/of life, to brotherly love, and to honest work.

Let us observe here, as in all of Paul’s letters, how the practical is deduced from the doctrinal. He had no conception of the practical apart from the doctrinal, otherwise this letter might have closed with the end of 1 Thessalonians 3, making good doctrinal sense, but it was ever Paul’s custom, after he had written the body of the discourse and of the theory, to transmute this further into the fruits of godliness.

Let us look at the first lesson on Christian morals: "Finally then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as ye received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, even as ye do walk, – that ye abound more and more. For ye know what charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification; that ye abstain from fornication; that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who know not God; that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in the matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified. For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. Therefore, he that rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you."

That is a remarkable lesson, and particularly let us observe the necessity, in the case of these Gentile converts, for this exhortation, owing to the past habits of their lives. I mean that their religious habits were associated with the most debasing crimes and uncleanness, and it was a difficulty in the way of gospel preachers then, as our missionaries in heathen lands find it today, after men are converted to keep them from relapsing into those vile, beastly sins of the body.

I witnessed our missionaries dealing with that problem in Mexico, where the peons, or low class of Mexicans, know not what decency of life means. They were converted or professed to be, but what a difficult thing it was for the missionary to impress upon their consciences the sanctity of the family, or the chastity of the marriage relation.

Note this reference: "God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification." It is as noticeable in the conversion of a sinner as it is in the call to the ministry. The call, made through the gospel and by the power of the Holy Spirit, singles out a man and brings him in touch with God, and wherever it is a true and effectual calling it always ends in justification, sanctification, and the glorification of the body. Paul says, "Whom he called them he also justified; and whom he justified them he also glorified." The glorification of the body is its complete sanctification and freedom from all dishonor, weakness, and immorality. Whoever then sins, sins against the call that he received that made him a Christian. On that account, notice the nature of the offense: "Therefore, he that rejecteth [that command], rejecteth not man, but God, [because it was God who called him], who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you." If he be a Christian, the Holy Spirit is dwelling in him. In many places in Paul’s letters the exhortation to purity of life is based on the doctrine that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, and that whosoever defileth or destroyeth the temple of God, him will God destroy.

The second exhortation is brotherly love: "But concerning the love of the brethren ye have no need that one write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another; for indeed ye do it toward all the brethren that are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound [in this love] more and more." There is a beautiful thought there, that the love which a Christian has for a fellow Christian is the result of going to school to God – that God himself teaches the lesson. Hence our old-time Baptist preachers, in preaching upon the evidence of conversion, dealt particularly on love: "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren."

I remember once in a great meeting a little girl timidly came forward and offered to join the church. She was very small, and one of the brethren moved that the case be deferred – that she seemed too young to understand. I said, "Let us be sure we are right before we defer this case. This child is old enough to trust and old enough to love, and we will hear what she says for herself." So I put this question: "Little daughter, how do you know that you love God’s people?" She said, "I have thought about that, and I have asked myself this question, ’If I should come to a place where the road of life forks, one way very pleasant and the other very unpleasant, and God’s people went the unpleasant way, which crowd would I prefer to follow?’ and I thought that I should prefer to go with God’s people over a bad road than with ungodly people over a good road, because I love God’s people more than the other people." Whereupon, the objectors began to distrust their wisdom, and when I examined her on faith she seemed to possess the sweetest trust in Jesus that I ever heard related. Where did she get it? She was God taught. Young as she was, she had been a pupil of the Almighty, and she had learned to love and trust Jehovah, and she had just as clear ideas about what is meant by loving the people of God by which we may know that we have passed from death unto life, as any grown person. There was not an objection in the house when we took the vote on receiving her for baptism. Young people are more apt to prove faithful than those who are converted when they are advanced in life.

He continues his exhortation: "And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you; that ye may walk becomingly toward them that are without, and may have need of nothing." What a sturdy Christianity Paul had! A loafer and a deadbeat got no respect from him at all. If able, anybody ought to work, not only that he may not lack anything, but in order that he may walk honestly before them that are without. Idleness leads to theft and dishonesty, and Paul elevates labor very high in dignity.

I read two things in the papers recently that pleased me very much. One was that the Ladies’ Aid Society of the Baptist Church at Mart, wanting to make a contribution, got in a wagon and went two miles in the country to a farm and picked a lot of cotton for which they received $12. That was no degradation to those women. The other thing was, that Deacon M. H. Standifer, of the First Church at Waco, took a wagon load of Baylor University boys out one Saturday and picked cotton, although it rained. Surely the Christian religion is in favor of good honest work. There is not a bit of shame in it.

Paul told these Thessalonians squarely that if anybody would not work, he must not ea – that he was not entitled even to his one meal a day, much less three meals, if he was an idler. If a man had a hundred million dollars, he would be both sinful and unhappy if he did not work. One of the kings of France had a carpenter’s shop fixed up for him, and he went out there and worked at that business. His wife had a dairy, and there she would take her maids of honor and teach them how to keep their milk vessels clean, and have sweeter cream and make better butter than anyone else in the whole kingdom.

We come now to the richest and sweetest things in all the Word of God, which brings us to the seventh item of the analysis. This extends from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11, and bears upon the great doctrine of the second advent, using certain facts to enable him to comfort all the people who were needlessly distressed concerning their dead.

I want to make perfectly clear the significance of this great passage of scripture. I will venture the assertion that almost every preacher who has conducted many funeral services has used this scripture. Let us see how rich it is in thought and meaning, and see if we can’t get some new light: "But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest who have no hope." Ignorance concerning the state of the dead necessarily brings great anxiety and sorrow. We may be ignorant about human history, or the sciences, about the commonest facts of the world, but it is awful for us to be ignorant concerning the state of the dead. Upon that subject God has flashed the light of the brightest knowledge, and because of that bright light the keenness of sorrow is taken out of our hearts when our Christian loved ones die.

The special point of their ignorance that caused them sorrow was their belief that to die before Christ came would be a calamity. If one could just live until Christ came it would be all right, but he would suffer loss to die before Christ came. Paul wants to show them that it does not make the snap of a finger’s difference about whether we die before Christ comes or not, and it is foolish to set our hearts upon being alive when Christ comes. That desire arises from ignorance of the state of the righteous dead. If we notice the state of the righteous dead, we would see no difference in dying before Christ comes or being alive when he comes.

The next thought is that when a good man dies his spirit goes to Jesus. In that respect he is ahead of us who are alive. Hence, Paul says, "Brethren, for me to die is gain, for when I am absent from the body I am present with the Lord." No loss there. As Jesus said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit." As the book of Ecclesiastes says, "Then shall the body return to the dust as it was, but the spirit unto God who gave it." Get that fixed, that when the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved we have a building with God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. The advantage, then, is with the one that dies. Paul says, "On my part it will be a gain to die; personally, I would be much better off, for when I am dead I shall be with the Lord."

Here are some doctrines: If the soul of a Christian lodges in some halfway house, and is under some disability while there, and has to stay there until the resurrection day, well may we weep over our dead; well may we desire to be alive till Jesus comes. If the soul is imprisoned somewhere and does not go directly to heaven, I can understand those Thessalonians weeping over their dead. If the Roman Catholic theory that when a soul dies it goes into some intermediate place and is in suffering and flames, be true, well may we weep and make gifts to the priests to pray our people out of that awful place. But if the soul, just as soon as the body dies, goes right to heaven, and right to the presence of God himself, we ought not to be ignorant of that. What a corrective of unnecessary sorrow I

Therefore, I have always combated the theory of any middle place where the soul lodges and stays till the judgment day. I am sure it is not a teaching of the New Testament. I am sure if it had been the teaching of the New Testament the Thessalonians would have had something to sorrow about, and Paul could not have comforted them. They are gone to God, the Judge. They are where God is, where the angels are, the new Jerusalem, the heavenly Zion, to the spirits of the just made perfect, to Jesus, the Mediator.

Jesus said to the thief on the cross, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." The poor, ignorant thief prayed, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Not "then," but "today, shalt thou be with me in paradise," says Jesus.

In the book of Revelation, we see that the tree of life is on the river of life that rises under the throne of God. Let us get that point deep in our hearts, and let us not preach any halfway house for the dead. "It came to pass that the rich man also died and in hell he lifted up his eyes." He did not lodge anywhere.

That idea of a middle life was derived in medieval Christianity, in the dark ages, coming from heathen origin. The heathen (and these were the heathen that had Just been converted, these very Greeks), believed that if one died and was unburied, for example if drowned and the body not recovered, then the soul or shade would wander around unblessed until the body was buried. In the book of Vergil, a shade meets the poet as he is descending into the lower world, a flitting, restless spirit, and says, "Oh bury me, bury me! And if you cannot put me under the ground, then it may serve to sprinkle a little sand on me, and count it for a burial." It was precisely that thought that led to the institution of sprinkling instead of immersion. Those poor Thessalonian people had all the terrors about those who died.

Notice, in the next place, that when Jesus comes he will bring with him those spirits of the Christians whose bodies died here upon the earth. They are up there, and when he starts back here, the spirits will be with him. It is only the body that sleeps. So the truth of the hymn, "Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep!" Charles Wesley, in his dying hymn, presented the change, or transfiguring, of the bodies of the living, so there is no advantage in living on the earth until the second coming of Christ, and the souls of the living people do not get to Christ first, because Christ brings those Christian souls who are dead with him.

There is an equal participation between those who live until he does come and those who died before he comes. The dead are raised, and the living are changed, so together they are caught up. Where is any advantage? We may ask where Paul gets all this. He says, "I received this gospel, and with it I received knowledge of the word of God, and I am taking away all this trouble concerning the dead. The Lord himself shall descend."

It will be a real coming. The coming of the Lord is a personal thing. He comes in death, he comes in the judgment, but I have always contended that the personal coming of the Lord is the hope of the world.

"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God."

In studying the Gospels we find what the shout is: "Behold the bridegroom cometh! Go ye out to meet him!" And we have found out who sounds the trumpet.

It was not Gabriel. That is Negro theology. The object of the blowing of that trumpet is not to wake the dead, but to summon the holy angels. All the angels will come down when he comes, and there will be that great trumpet sound that waxes louder and louder and louder until their hearts within them shall be stirred. Job says, "Hide me in the grave until thy wrath has passed; thou wilt call and I will answer thee."

Just as Jesus stood before the tomb of Lazarus and said, "Lazarus, come forth!" so he will speak and call our names, and our bodies will arise, and when he comes that second time there will be a mighty shout, "Behold the bridegroom!" All of the earth and heaven will ring with sonorous peals of that shout, the sealed doors of death will be opened, and the Spirit’s power will then throw off the cerements of the grave in response to the voice of Jesus Christ.

Notice the double voice: To the living: "Behold the bridegroom!" To the dead: "Come forth!" You see how the voice is adapted to each case. It also says the voice of the archangel.

There is a passage in the book of Revelation that has sometimes been interpreted to mean what the archangel says. That says, "I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven . . . and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth . . . and lifted up his hand to heaven and swear . . . that there should be time no longer," i.e., the end of time. That ’is beautiful, but I question the interpretation. I think that it means when that angel plants one foot upon the sea and the other foot upon the shore, it is an answer to the prayers of those Christians, "How long, 0 Lord, how long?" Then the angel says, "Time was, time is, but there shall be time no longer. You will get your answer now." I think that is the meaning. There are hierarchies in the angelic body, principalities and powers. Michael is called the prince, Gabriel is a prince, and in connection with him we have all the traditions about the trumpet.

It is that trumpet sound that brings the angels. They have double work to do. In the parable of the tares it is said that the tares and the wheat grow together until the harvest. The harvest is the end of the world. The good seed are the Christians; the bad seed are the devil’s children. They grow together until the harvest. At the end of the world the angels shall gather up the tares ready for burning, and that is one reason why another parable tells us that at the coming of the Lord the angels shall gather up the wicked out of every place on the earth, and that is the office of the angels. That is why in that great prophecy he tells about two women, one of whom is taken and the other left. The angel swoops down and that woman is taken – one gathered to the harvest for heaven, and the other gathered for the pit of hell.

Imagine the joy! It comforts me a great deal. As it is, my body is not a very satisfactory body. The head gets sick; the heart sore; the hand gets a finger nail mashed off; the muscles take the rheumatism; it looks like everything in it is a disappointment. But at that time the body is at rest. It is sown in the image of the first Adam, and raised in the image of the Second Adam. When that time comes and the disembodied spirit now being able to get back into the old house which has been regenerated, will rejoice, and it will be a time of great joy.

I noticed a bird last year, which seemed to come from afar. I knew the bird, for it had a broken wing. We had allowed it to build its nest in a certain place. When she saw the nest still there she commenced to rejoice and sing her glad song of home-coming. In like manner the soul, like a bird which flies into its old nest, leaps into the body glorified, and then, as Paul says, it is sanctified, body, soul, and spirit. What a happy time when the long separated parts are brought together!

QUESTIONS

1. What three moral virtues are inculcated in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12?

2. What is Paul’s conception of the relation between doctrine and morals? Illustrate from this letter.

3. What is the special application of 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 to the Thessalonians, and what illustration from modern missionary work?

4. What is the relation of the Gospel to a sinner and the life? What the nature of the offense when a Christian sins, and why?

5. What is the great lesson on Love in 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10?

6. What is the great lesson on honest work in 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12?

7. What illustration of this in modern history?

8. What great consolation is given in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18?

9. What is the relation of the ignorance of the future state to human sorrow?

10. What the special point of their ignorance which caused their sorrow, and how does Paul relieve their fears?

11. With whom is the advantage, those who live till Christ’s second advent, or those who die before, and why?

12. What great heresy suggested by this passage, and what the proof to the contrary?

13. What is the origin of this heresy, and what examples cited?

14. When the poet wrote, "Asleep in Jesus! blessed sleep!" what was his meaning?

15. How does Paul show that there is an equal participation between those who live till Christ comes and those who die before he comes?

16. What is the shout of 1 Thessalonians 4:16?

17. Who will sound the trumpet, and what its purpose?

18. What is the double voice? Illustrate.

19. What questionable interpretation here cited, and what the true interpretation?

20. Are there hierarchies among the angels, and what the proof?

21. What the double work of the angels at Christ’s second advent?

22. Illustrate the joy of the soul returning to its glorified body.