UNDERSTANDING 1ST THESSALONIANS CHAPTER FOUR! Need help with understanding 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 2 Thessalonians 2 is about how Paul refers the church to a time when he was with them in the past. He wants them to recall what he preached to them on and then they will know what and who is holding the time of the Wicked one off. This is about how a man will exalt himself, so it links back to Daniel 11:36. This part links back to the end of Daniel chapter 10 where Michael is noted as withholding. The rapture is not taking place in Rev. 19:11. This verse is when He returns with the saints /all of them /and they were changed back in verse 8, when the wife put on righteousness. The armies that leave heaven are the saints in their already put on immortality at the 7th trumpet bodies. The 5th seal shows that all of the martyred must rest till all come in killed as they were. God wont begin to judge the wicked people until this happens. At the first part of Rev. 19, God has judged the city of mystery, Babylon, and we find that the Lord reigns. He takes the kingdoms of the earth in the 7th trumpet time because He takes back the throneplace of Jerusalem. He will come back at Armageddon to actually defeat those other kings and their armies. This will be when the vials have been being poured out as Gods full measure wrath. John saw several sets of plagues that will be done by a set of seven angels; but the church is not here for the ones in vials. Rev. 15:8 ...and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues... This set is the one that the seven angels had in Rev. 15:6. This set will come as the trumpet plagues. Verse 1. We beseech you, brethren, and exhort - We give you proper instructions in heavenly things, and request you to attend to our advice. The apostle used the most pressing entreaties; for he had a strong and affectionate desire that this Church should excel in all righteousness and true holiness. Verse 2. Ye know what commandments we gave you - This refers to his instructions while he was among them; and to instructions on particular subjects, which he does not recapitulate, but only hints at. Verse 3. This is the will of God, even your sanctification - God has called you to holiness; he requires that you should be holy; for without holiness none can see the Lord. Verse 4. How to possess his vessel - Let every man use his wife for the purpose alone for which God created her, and instituted marriage. Verse 5. Not in the lust of concupiscence - Having no rational object, aim, nor end. Verse 6. That no man go beyond and defraud his brother - That no man should by any means endeavour to corrupt the wife of another, or to alienate her affections or fidelity from her husband. The Lord is the avenger of all such - He takes up the cause of the injured husband wherever the case has not been detected by man, and all such vices he will signally punish. Verse 7. God hath not called us unto uncleanness - He is the creator of male and female, and the institutor of marriage, and he has called men and women to this state. Verse 8. He therefore that despiseth - He who will not receive these teachings, and is led either to undervalue or despise them, despises not us but God, from whom we have received our commission, and by whose Spirit we give these directions. Hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit. Verse 9. Touching brotherly love - They were remarkable for this; and though the apostle appears to have had this as a topic on which he intended to write to them, yet, from the account which he received of their prosperous state by Timothy, he finds that it is unnecessary to spend any time in inculcating a doctrine which they fully understood and practised. Verse 10. Ye do it toward all the brethren - Ye not only love one another at Thessalonica, but ye love all the brethren in Macedonia; ye consider them all as children of the same Father; and that all the Churches which are in Christ make one great and glorious body, of which he is the head. Verse 11. That ye study to be quiet - Though in general the Church at Thessalonica was pure and exemplary, yet there seem to have been some idle, tattling people among them, who disturbed the peace of others; persons who, under the pretense of religion, gadded about from house to house; did not work, but were burdensome to others. Verse 12. That ye may walk honestly - euschmonwv? Becomingly, decently, respectably; as is consistent with the purity, holiness, gravity, and usefulness of your Christian calling. Them that are without - The unconverted Gentiles and Jews. Verse 12. That ye may walk honestly - euschmonwv? Becomingly, decently, respectably; as is consistent with the purity, holiness, gravity, and usefulness of your Christian calling. Them that are without - The unconverted Gentiles and Jews. That ye may have lack of nothing. - That ye may be able to get your bread by honest labour, which God will ever bless; and be chargeable to no man. Verse 13. I would not have you to be ignorant - This is undoubtedly the true reading: Brethren, I would not wish you to be ignorant; or, I would not that you should be ignorant. This was probably one of the points which were lacking in their faith, that he wished to go to Thessalonica to instruct them in. Them which are asleep - That is, those who are dead. 1. He asserts, as he had done before, that they who died in the Lord should have, in virtue of Christs resurrection, a resurrection unto eternal life and blessedness. 2. He makes a new discovery, that the last generation should not die at all, but be in a moment changed to immortals. 3. He adds another new discovery, that, though the living should not die, but be transformed, yet the dead should first be raised, and be made glorious and immortal; and so, in some measure, have the preference and advantage of such as shall then be found alive. Verse 14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again - Seeing that we believe; knowing that the resurrection of Christ is as fully authenticated as his death. Even so them - It necessarily follows that them who sleep - die, in him - in the faith of the Gospel, will God bring with him - he will raise them up as Jesus was raised from the dead, in the same manner, i.e. by his own eternal power and energy; and he will bring them with him - with Christ, for he is the head of the Church, which is his body. Verse 15. This we say unto you by the word of the Lord - This I have, by express revelation, from the Lord: what he now delivers, he gives as coming immediately from the Spirit of God. Indeed, human reason could not have found out the points which he immediately subjoins; no conjectures could lead to them. We which are alive, and remain - He is speaking of the genuine Christians which shall be found on earth when Christ comes to judgment. From not considering the manner in which the apostle uses this word, some have been led to suppose that he imagined that the day of judgment would take place in that generation, and while he and the then believers at Thessalonica were in life. Shall not prevent them which are asleep. - Those who shall be found living in that day, though they shall not pass through death, but be suddenly changed, shall not go to glory before them that are dead, for the dead in Christ shall rise first - they shall be raised, their bodies made glorious, and be caught up to meet the Lord, before the others shall be changed. And this appears to be the meaning of the apostles words, mh fqaswmen, which we translate shall not prevent; for, although this word prevent, from prae and venio, literally signifies to go before, yet we use it now in the sense of to hinder or obstruct. fqanein tina signifies the same, according to Hesychius, as prohkein, to go before, prolambanein, to anticipate, be before. Those who shall be found alive on that day shall not anticipate glory before the dead in Christ; for they shall rise first, and begin the enjoyment of it before the others shall be changed. This appears to be the apostles meaning. Verse 16. The Lord himself - That is: Jesus Christ shall descend from heaven; shall descend in like manner as he was seen by his disciples to ascend, i.e. in his human form, but now infinitely more glorious; for thousands of thousands shall minister unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand shall stand before him; for the Son of man shall come on the throne of his glory: but who may abide the day of his coming, or stand when he appeareth? Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment; which order shall be repeated by the archangel, who shall accompany it with the sound of the trump of God, whose great and terrible blasts, like those on mount Sinai, sounding louder and louder, shall shake both the heavens and the earth! Observe the order of this terribly glorious day: 1. Jesus, in all the dignity and splendour of his eternal majesty, shall descend from heaven to the mid region, what the apostle calls the air, somewhere within the earths atmosphere. 2. Then the keleusma, shout or order, shall be given for the dead to arise. 3. Next the archangel, as the herald of Christ, shall repeat the order, Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment! 4. When all the dead in Christ are raised, then the trumpet shall sound, as the signal for them all to flock together to the throne of Christ. It was by the sound of the trumpet that the solemn assemblies, under the law, were convoked; and to such convocations there appears to be here an allusion. 5. When the dead in Christ are raised, their vile bodies being made like unto his glorious body, then, 6. Those who are alive shall be changed, and made immortal. 7. These shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air. 8. We may suppose that the judgment will now be set, and the books opened, and the dead judged out of the things written in those books. 9. The eternal states of quick and dead being thus determined, then all who shall be found to have made a covenant with him by sacrifice, and to have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, shall be taken to his eternal glory, and be for ever with the Lord. What an inexpressibly terrific glory will then be exhibited! I forbear to call in here the descriptions which men of a poetic turn have made of this terrible scene, because I cannot trust to their correctness; and it is a subject which we should speak of and contemplate as nearly as possible in the words of Scripture. Verse 18. Comfort one another with these words. - Strange saying! comfort a man with the information that he is going to appear before the judgment-seat of God! Who can feel comfort from these words? That man alone with whose spirit the Spirit of God bears witness that his sins are blotted out, and the thoughts of whose heart are purified by the inspiration of Gods Holy Spirit, so that he can perfectly love him, and worthily magnify his name. Reader, thou art not in a safe state unless it be thus with thee, or thou art hungering and thirsting after righteousness. If so, thou shalt be filled; for it is impossible that thou shouldst be taken away in thy sins, while mourning after the salvation of God
Posted on: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 19:28:04 +0000
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