Appendix, Note II: 1 Thess. iv. 13-17

“Words are the index of thoughts, and where an unusual construction is found, it points to some reason in the mind of the writer for using it, which reason is lost in the ordinary shallow method of accounting for it by saying that it is ’ put for ’ some other word.” This sentence, quoted from Dean Alford’s Commentary (Greek Testament, John i. 18), may fitly preface the present note upon 1 Thess. iv. 14; for our translators have given us, not what the Apostle wrote, but what they suppose he ought to have written. But the authorised rendering is popular, because the expression “sleeping in Jesus” fosters the sort of sentiment in which religion” delights. No one, however, who has made a study of the use of the Lord’s names in the New Testament can fail to recognise that it is foreign to Scripture. “The dead in Christ,” and “the dead which die in the Lord” — these are Scriptural expressions; but “sleeping (or dying) in Jesus” is a phrase the Apostle would never have written. And a kindred objection applies to the alternative rendering, “that God will through Jesus bring with Him the sleeping ones.” “A clause which I am persuaded the Apostle could never have written,” is Dean Alford’s comment upon it. And it is certain that no English writer would pen such a sentence.

I venture to think that commentators have erred in taking “the sleeping ones” of verse 13 as identical with “the dead in Christ” of verse 16. Verse 16 deals with the righteous dead in general; verses 13 and 14 with the particular individuals whose death they were mourning.

And the first eight verses of chapter iii. indicate that those deaths affected them so deeply that the Apostle feared lest their faith in Christ should give way, and “his labour be in vain.” Will the reader, then, carefully peruse the first chapter of the Epistle, and ask himself the question, Is it credible, is it possible, that Christians such as are there described could have been in danger of apostatising because some of their number had died in the ordinary course of nature? It is absolutely certain that what tried their faith was not the fact that deaths had occurred, but the circumstances in ic/tich they had occurred.

And what were the circumstances? The reference to martyrdom in chapters ii. 14, 15, and iii. 3, supplies the obvious clue. For obvious that clue seems to me now; and yet I acknowledge humbly and gratefully that it is to my friend the Rev. C. H. Waller, D.D., that I am indebted for this solution of a difficulty which perplexed me for forty years.

To recapitulate. As already noticed (see pp. 117-120 ante), the words of 1 Thess. iv. 15 are not Apostolic teaching about “the dead in Christ “in general, but a definite Divine message to the Thessalonians with reference to the death of certain definitely known persons — “the sleeping ones” of verse 13. Of course, the words Trepl rwv KOL^wfjievwv may bear the meaning given them by the Revisers. But Dean Alford’s translation, “them which are sleeping” (or, as we should say in colloquial English, “the sleeping ones “) is the simple and natural rendering, and the context makes it clear that this is what is intended. If the Revisers’ gloss were correct, we should expect the repetition of the present participle in verse 15.

Now a general statement that, at the Lord’s coming, the righteous dead shall not be at a disadvantage relatively to people then living upon earth, is very different from a specific statement to the Thessalonians about certain individuals whose death they were mourning. If by a Divine decree the Coming were a far-distant event, that would not affect the truth of the one statement, whereas it would render the other at least disingenuous.

Certain it is, therefore, that when these words were written, there was nothing to preclude their fulfilment at the time. And that being so, it is certain there can be nothing in prophecy to necessitate delay in these days of ours. For the question is not whether any foretold events may intervene — that may be conceded — but whether they must intervene; in other words, not whether the Coming may be further delayed, but whether delay is inevitable.

The fact that the promise, “Surely I am coming quickly” remains unfulfilled, does not clash with the truth that “God is not slack concerning His promise.” And the explanation of the seeming paradox is to be sought in the history of Christendom and not in the prophetic Scriptures.

“The Apostolic age maintained that which ought to be the attitude of all ages, constant expectation of the Lord’s return” (Alford: 1 Tim. vi. 14).