1 Thessalonians 5:1

In these words observe,

I. The apostle tells the Thessalonians it was needless or useless to enquire about the particular time of Christ's coming: Of the times and seasons you need not that I write unto you, Th1 5:1. The thing is certain that Christ will come, and there is a certain time appointed for his coming; but there was no need that the apostle should write about this, and therefore he had no revelation given him; nor should they or we enquire into this secret, which the Father has reserved in his own power. Of that day and hour knoweth no man. Christ himself did not reveal this while upon earth; it was not in his commission as the great prophet of the church: nor did he reveal this to his apostles; there was no need of this. There are times and seasons for us to do our work in: these it is our duty and interest to know and observe; but the time and season when we must give up our account we know not, nor is it needful that we should know them. Note, There are many things which our vain curiosity desires to know which there is no necessity at all of our knowing, nor would our knowledge of them do us good.

II. He tells them that the coming of Christ would be sudden, and a great surprise to most men, Th1 5:2. And this is what they knew perfectly, or might know, because our Lord himself had so said: In such an hour as you think not, the Son of man cometh, Mat 24:44. So Mar 13:35, Mar 13:36, Watch you therefore, for you know not when the master of the house cometh; lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And no doubt the apostle had told them, as of the coming of Christ, so also of his coming suddenly, which is the meaning of his coming as a thief in the night, Rev 16:15. As the thief usually cometh in the dead time of the night, when he is least expected, such a surprise will the day of the Lord be; so sudden and surprising will be his appearance. The knowledge of this will be more useful than to know the exact time, because this should awaken us to stand upon our watch, that we may be ready whenever he cometh.

III. He tells them how terrible Christ's coming would be to the ungodly, Th1 5:3. It will be to their destruction in that day of the Lord. The righteous God will bring ruin upon his and his people's enemies; and this their destruction, as it will be total and final, so, 1. It will be sudden. It will overtake them, and fall upon them, in the midst of their carnal security and jollity, when they say in their hearts, Peace and safety, when they dream of felicity and please themselves with vain amusements of their fancies or their senses, and think not of it, - as travail cometh upon a woman with child, at the set time indeed, but not perhaps just then expected, nor greatly feared. 2. It will be unavoidable destruction too: They shall not escape; they shall in no wise escape. There will be no means possible for them to avoid the terror nor the punishment of that day. There will be no place where the workers of iniquity shall be able to hide themselves, no shelter from the storm, nor shadow from the burning heat that shall consume the wicked.

IV. He tells them how comfortable this day will be to the righteous, Th1 5:4, Th1 5:5. Here observe, 1. Their character and privilege. They are not in darkness; they are the children of the light, etc. This was the happy condition of the Thessalonians as it is of all true Christians. They were not in a state of sin and ignorance as the heathen world. They were some time darkness, but were made light in the Lord. They were favoured with the divine revelation of things that are unseen and eternal, particularly concerning the coming of Christ, and the consequences thereof. They were the children of the day, for the day-star had risen upon them; yea, the Sun of righteousness had arisen on them with healing under his wings. They were no longer under the darkness of heathenism, nor under the shadows of the law, but under the gospel, which brings life and immortality to light. Ti2 1:10. 2. Their great advantage on this account: that that day should not overtake them as a thief, Th1 5:4. It was at least their own fault if they were surprised by that day. They had fair warning, and sufficient helps to provide against that day, and might hope to stand with comfort and confidence before the Son of man. This would be a time of refreshing to them from the presence of the Lord, who to those that look for him will appear without sin unto their salvation, and will come to them as a friend in the day, not as a thief in the night.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1. But of the times and the seasons] Better, concerning the times and the seasons. The Greek word for “times” denotes stretches of time, that for seasons particular times; the question as to the former was, “How long before the Lord comes? what periods will elapse before the final establishment of His kingdom?” as to the second, “What events will transpire meanwhile? how will the course of history shape itself?” These enquiries our Lord put aside. “It is not for you,” said He, “to know times or seasons, which the Father has put within His own province” (Act_1:7); and previously Jesus had declared respecting the end of the world, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son,—only the Father” (Mar_13:32). Such knowledge, it appears, is outside the province of human thought. Speculations of this nature have been repeatedly ventured on since the Apostle’s day; they have proved invariably worthless, and afford so many confirmations of the Lord’s warning. Chrysostom remarks on this passage somewhat severely: “Our nature is officious and greedy for the knowledge of things invisible and hidden from us. This comes of our conceit, and from having nothing to do. Often therefore is the mind in haste to learn and understand these things before the time.”

ye have no need that I write unto you] Lit., that aught he written to you (R. V.). The phrase is a repetition of that of ch. 1Th_4:9, except that there the emphasis lies on you as persons not needing this instruction, here upon the writing as a thing in itself needless. On the topic of the last paragraph, viz. the position of Christians dying before the Lord’s return, it was needful that something should be written; as to the “times and seasons” nothing need be written, for the readers already knew so much as could be known (1Th_5:2).

Section VI. (continued): 1Th_5:1-11

The first part of this Chapter stands in close connection with the last six verses of ch. 4. Together they form the most distinctive and the weightiest section of the Epistle. The two paragraphs of the section touch upon two different aspects of our Lord’s Coming, viewed first as it concerns departed Christians, and then in its relation to men living on the earth. The former passage supplies comfort respecting the dead in Christ, the latter enjoins watchfulness and preparedness upon the living. See note introductory to ch. 1Th_4:13.

From 1Th_5:1-2 it appears likely that the Thessalonians had been enquiring from St Paul “about the times and the seasons” of Christ’s return and the Day of Judgement.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th_5:1-11

But of the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you--Perhaps because the apostle had told them, or because the sudden coming of Christ was a universal belief.

So in modern times a preacher might say, There is no need for me to speak to you of the uncertainty of life. (Prof. Jowett.)

The attitude of the Church towards the Second Advent of Christ

As when we ascend a winding river some well-known landmark appears to alter its position seeming now distant, now near, so at different points on the circuitous stream of life the coming of Christ reveals itself as a near or remote event. It is plain, says Archer Butler, that that period which is distant in one scheme of things may be near in another, where events are on a vaster scale, and move in a mightier orbit. That which is a whole life to the ephemera, is but a day to a man; that which in the brief succession of human history is counted as remote, is but a single page in the volume of the heavenly records. The coming of Christ may be distant as measured on the scale of human life, but may be near when the interval of the two advents is compared, not merely with the four thousand years which were but its preparation, but with the line of infinite ages which it is itself preparing. The uncertainty of the time of the Second Advent and its stupendous issues define the attitude of the Church.

I. It is an attitude of expectancy.

1. The time of the Second Coming is uncertain (1Th_5:1)--a gentle hint that all questions on that subject were unnecessary, as there was nothing more to be revealed. The curiosity and daring of man tempt him to pry into secrets with which he has nothing to do, and to dogmatize on subjects of which he knows the least. Many have been fanatical enough to fix the day of the Lords coming (Mar_13:32). This uncertainty is a perpetual stimulant to the people of God to exercise the ennobling virtues of hope, watchfulness, fidelity, humility, inquiry, and reverence.

2. The Second Coming will be sudden (1Th_5:2-3). The thief not only gives no notice of his approach, but takes every possible care to conceal his designs: the discovery of the mischief takes place when it is too late. The prudent will take every precaution to avoid surprise, and to baffle the marauder.

3. The Second Coming will be terrible to the wicked. They shall not escape (1Th_5:3). Wicked men are never more secure than when destruction is nearest. The swearer may be seized with the oath on his tongue: the drunkard while the cup is trembling on his lips. The destruction of the wicked and all they prized most in life will be sudden, painful, inevitable. Now there is place for mercy, but not then (Rom_2:8-9).

II. It is an attitude of vigilance.

1. This vigilance is enforced on the ground of a moral transformation (1Th_5:4-5). Believers are translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. They are children of the day, when the sun shines the brightest when privileges are more abundant, when opportunities multiply and responsibility is therefore increased.

2. This vigilance must be constant (1Th_5:6-7). Let us not, like the drunkard steeped in sottish slumber, be immersed in the sleep of sin and unconcern, neglecting duty, and never thinking of judgment; but let us watch, and, to do so effectually, be sober. We are day people, not night people; therefore our work ought to be day work; our conduct such as will bear the eye of day, the veil of night. A strict sobriety is essential to a sleepless vigilance.

III. It is attitude of militant courage (1Th_5:8). The Christian has to fight the enemy, as well as to watch against him. He is a soldier on sentry. The Christian life is not one of luxurious ease. The graces of faith, love, and hope constitute the most complete armour of the soul. The breastplate and helmet protect the two most vital parts--the head and the heart. Let us keep the head from error, and the heart from sin, and we are safe. The best guards against both are--faith, hope, and charity; these are the virtues that inspire the most enterprising bravery.

IV. It is an attitude of confidence as to the future blessedness of the Church.

1. This blessedness is divinely provided.

2. This blessedness consists in a constant fellowship with Christ. That whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him (1Th_5:10). The happiest moments on earth are those spent in the company of the good; so will it be in heaven.

3. The confidence of inheriting this blessedness encourages edification (1Th_5:11).

Lessons:

1. The great event of the future will be the Second Coming of Christ.

2. That event should be looked for in a spirit of sobriety and vigilance.

3. That event will bring unspeakable felicity to the good, and dismay and misery to the wicked. (G. Barlow.)

Times and seasons

are often found together, but always in the plural in the New Testament (Act_1:7), and not unfrequently in the LXX, and the Apocrypha (Wis_7:18; Wis_8:8), both instructive passages, and Dan_2:21): and in the singular (Ecc_3:1; Dan_7:12). Grotius conceives the difference between them to consist merely in the greater length of the former. But this is insufficient, and fails to reach the heart of the matter. Chronos is time simply as such; the succession of moments (Mat_25:19; Rev_10:6; Heb_4:7). Keiros is time as it brings forth its several births; thus time of harvest (Mat_13:30); time of figs (Mar_11:13); due time (Rom_5:6); and, above all, compare, as constituting a miniature essay on the word (Ecc_3:1-8). Time, it will thus appear, embraces all possible seasons, and being the larger, more inclusive word, may be often used where season would have been equally suitable, though not the converse; thus full time (Luk_1:57), fulness of time (Gal_4:4), where we should rather have expected season, which phrase does actually occur in Eph_1:10. So we may confidently say that the times of restitution (Act_3:21) are identical with the seasons of refreshing (Act_3:19). Here, then, and in Act_1:6-7, times are spaces of time, and these contemplated under the aspect of their duration, over which the Churchs history should extend; but the seasons are the joints and articulations in this time, the critical epoch-making periods foreordained of God (Act_17:26); when all that has been slowly and without observation ripening through long ages is mature and comes to birth in grand decisive events, which constitute at once the close of one period and the commencement of another. Such, e.g., was the passing away with a great noise of the old Jewish dispensation; such again the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire; such the conversion of the Germanic tribes settled within the limits of the Empire; such the great revival which went along with the first institution of the mendicant orders; such, by better right, the Reformation; such, above all others, the Second Coming of the Lord in glory (Dan_7:22). (Abp. Trench.)

The uncertainty of the time of the Second Advent

Of this true advent season of eternity, though much is known, much too is hidden. There are secrets the Divine Bridegroom whispers not; that the Spirit and the Bride may still say, Come. Between the Church and the Churchs Head there still subsists, even in this intimate union, a mysterious separation; and on the period of that separation a holy reserve. It has already lasted for ages, and we cannot dare to predict at what epoch it is to close. The veil that hangs before the celestial sanctuary is still undrawn; and it is vain for us to marvel as of old the expectants of Zacharias, that the High Priest of our profession tarrieth so long in the temple. He has willed it that, certain of His eventual arrival, we should remain in uncertainty as to its destined moment. This mingling of ignorance and knowledge on the part of Christs people is best suited to keep alive in their breasts the hope whose breathed utterance is Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The Thessalonians knew that the time could not be known, hence there was no need for Paul to write about it. (J. Hutchison, D. D.)

The Second Advent and its issues

I. The apostle tells the Thessalonians it was useless to inquire about the particular time of Christs coming (1Th_5:1). The event is certain--Christ will come, and there is a certain time divinely appointed for Christs coming; but there was no need that St. Paul should write about that specially, and he had no revelation from heaven concerning it. Nor should we inquire into this secret which the Father hath reserved in His own power. Christ Himself did not reveal that day and hour while on earth; for it was not included in His commission as the great Prophet of the Church; nor is it in that of His apostles. A vain curiosity desireth to know many things which there is no need soever of our knowing, and which if we knew them thoroughly would do us no good, but perhaps harm.

II. The apostle tells them the coming of Christ would be a great surprise to most men (1Th_5:2). And this is what they knew perfectly, or might know, because the Lord Himself had so said (Mat_24:44). As the thief usually cometh in the dead time of the night, when he is least expected, such a surprise will the day of the Lord be--so sudden and surprising His appearance. And the knowledge of this fact will prove more useful than to know the exact time, because this will lead us to watch, that we may be ready whenever He cometh.

III. The apostle tells them how terrible will be the coming of Christ to the ungodly (1Th_5:3). It will be to their destruction. It will overtake and fall upon them in the midst of their carnal security and jollity; when they dream of felicity, and please themselves with vain amusements of their fancies or their senses, and think not of it. And it will be unavoidable destruction, too. They shall not escape: there will be no means possible for them to avoid the terror or the punishment of that day; no shelter from the storm, nor shadow from the burning heat that shall consume the wicked.

IV. The apostle tells them how comfortable the coming of Christ will be to the godly (1Th_5:4-5). And here he sketches their character and privilege. They are children of light. They were sometime darkness, but were made light in the Lord. They were the children of the day, for the Sun of Righteousness had risen upon them with healing in His beams. They were not under the dark shadows of the law, but under the bright sunshine of the gospel, which brings life and immortality to light. But this, great as it is, is not all: the day of Christ will not overtake them as a thief, but will be a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. They look for Him, and His appearance to them will be their full salvation. (R. Fergusson.)

The profanity of attempting to determine the time

Mark what Paul saith, Ye have no need that I write unto you of times and seasons; and that our Saviour saith, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons. What may we think then of them that write books and almanacks, and say, Such a year, and at such a time, Christ shall come; and with these speeches frighten and mock the world? Paul was the apostle of Christ, an elect vessel of the Holy Ghost: he said, I have no need to write of it; you cannot know it. What need is there now that such books and pamphlets should be written? Why should the world be troubled with such vanities? Spare me your patience, and give me leave a little to deal with these wizards. Tell me, thou that dost measure and behold the compass of heaven, and markest the conjunctions, and oppositions, and aspects of the stars; and by that wisdom canst foretell the things that shall be done hereafter: where learnest thou this skill? how comest thou by this deep knowledge? Paul was taken up into the third heaven, and heard words which cannot be spoken, which are not lawful for man to utter: yet he knew not this secret, nor might not know it. What art thou then? art thou greater than the apostle of Christ? hast thou been taken up into some place higher than the third heaven? has thou heard such words, as are not lawful to utter? If this be so, why dost thou utter them? Wilt thou take that upon thee, which the holy apostle dareth not? Art thou of Gods privy council? The angels and archangels know not hereof: and shall we think that thou knowest it? art thou wiser than an angel? Consider thyself: thou art a miserable man; thy breath fadeth as the smoke; thou art nothing but dust and ashes: thou canst not attain to the knowledge hereof. (Bp. Jewell.)

Under sealed orders

A Government vessel was about to leave the dock, to sail away for some port. No one knew her destination, whether it was to be near by or far away. Those who had loved ones on board felt sad and anxious; were they to be within reach of cheering words, of letters full of love and encouragement, or were they to be sent afar to some foreign port from which no word could come in weary weeks and months? They could ask the question many and many a time, but there was no echo to the words, no answer to be had. The ship was to sail under sealed orders; orders from the Navy Department that were sealed by Government zeal, which could not be opened until the ship was far out at sea, and away from all possible communication with land. The Captain of our salvation sends us away on sealed instructions. Whither? You do not need to know. You might not like your destination; you might object to the buffeting waves, the billows of trouble might threaten to wreck your soul; the harbour might be hard to reach and the rocks of danger might lie between you and it. Do you caret Does it matter to you if the passage is a stormy one when you know that safety is at the end? that there is a harbour that leads to the Eternal City? and (most comforting thought) when the Father is at the helm, and that He neither slumbers nor sleeps? Let go your moorings, spread the canvas, and in storm or sunshine, by day or by night, go forth with sealed orders.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th 5:1. The apostle having described the coming of Christ to raise the dead, judge the world, and carry the righteous with him to heaven, does not quit the awful subject, but proceeds in this chapter to foretel the terror which his appearance will occasion to the unrighteous, and the punishment which he will then inflict on them: a circumstance this which merits the reader’s attention, because it proves that, in describing Christ’s second coming, the apostle had some further end in view besides that of comforting the Thessalonians under the death of their relations. But of the times — As if he had said, I have been warning you that the solemn day of universal judgment will certainly come, and have been endeavouring to lead your minds to those views of it which must be consolatory to every true believer; but concerning the precise period of time when this grand event, which will close the economy of providence, shall take place; or of the seasons — Which God hath appointed for the accomplishment of his promises and predictions, preparatory thereto; you have no need that I write unto you — No occasion to know these things particularly, since the general knowledge thereof is sufficient to render you watchful, and to excite you to make preparation for them. It is probable that, when he was with them, he had repeated to them Christ’s injunction to watch, because at such an hour as men think not, the Son of man cometh, Mat 24:44. By making this observation, the apostle represses that vain curiosity which is natural to mankind, who, not content with the knowledge of things useful, indulge an immoderate desire of searching into things which, because the discovery of them would be hurtful, God hath determined to conceal.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. The second advent, though not at hand, will be a sudden surprise to those upon whom it does come, 1Th_5:1-11.

1. But—This very distinct outline of the event of Christ’s coming I can reveal, but the when is in the dark background.

Times and the seasons— Of the great closing events of the world. The plural is used, as in Dan_2:21, Act_1:7, to denote the general principle that prophecies of the mundane future, though indicated by mystic chronological measures, are essentially timeless. Times are the great time-flows of thousands of years; seasons, the special time-points, or epochs, that divide off the flow. It was on this very point that 2Pe_3:8 declares that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Prophetic time is measured by the arithmetic of God.

No need—For they had already been warned by St. Paul of the entire unrevealedness of times, and were in the Christian state of preparedness.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

1Th_5:1. Times and seasons.—The one is the even, continuous flow of the river, the other is the cataract. Seasons we may represent as epochs. Our Lord in the same words refused to gratify the curiosity of His followers (Act_1:7).

1Th_5:2. For yourselves know perfectly.—The adverb here is the same as in Eph_5:15 (A.V. “circumspectly,” R.V. “carefully”). It is used five times only in the New Testament. The translations are interesting—Mat_2:8 : A.V. “diligently,” R.V. “carefully.” Luk_1:3 : R.V. “accurately.” Act_18:25 (like Mat_2:8). Perhaps the Thessalonians had asked for precise information. “The apostle replies, with a touch of gentle irony, “You already know precisely that nothing precise on the subject can be known—that the great day will steal upon the world like a thief in the night” (Findlay).

1Th_5:3. For when they shall say.—R.V. “when they are saying.” No matter at what hour they say, “Peace and security,” like the voice of the watchman crying, “All’s well.” Then sudden destruction.—The word for “sudden” is only found again at Luk_21:34 in the New Testament. It is really unforeseen. As travail.—In the simile there is the suggestion that the day cannot be far off though not exactly known.

1Th_5:5. Children of light.—Quite an Oriental expression. The kings of Egypt called themselves “children of the sun.” So these of a better sun.

1Th_5:6. Let us watch and be sober.—Ever on the alert as men who live in hourly expectation of their Lord’s arrival. It is precisely they who maintain the preparedness of spirit who are calm when the midnight cry rings out, “The bridegroom cometh.”

1Th_5:7. They that be drunken are drunken in the night.—The explanation is given in our Lord’s words—“because their deeds are evil”: as though darkness could veil the loss of self-respect.

1Th_5:9. For God hath not appointed us to wrath.—The inevitable sequence of a life of sensual gratification. The very severest forms of expression for wrath fell from the gentlest lips concerning the servant who falls to gluttony and drunkenness because his lord does not appear at the expected hour (Luk_12:45-46).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Th_5:1-11

The Attitude of the Church towards the Second Coming of Christ.

The book that records the first advent of the Redeemer closes, anticipating, desiring, beseeching the second—“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” The revelation concerning that second coming is distinct and emphatic; but the exact period, when the event will happen, is wrapped in uncertainty. As when we ascend a winding river some well-known landmark appears to alter its position, seeming now distant, now near—so, at different points on the circuitous stream of life, the familiar subject of the second Advent reveals itself as a near or remote event. “It is plain,” says Archer Butler, “that that period which is distant in one scheme of things may be near in another, where events are on a vaster scale and move in a mightier orbit. That which is a whole life to the ephemera is but a day to the man; that which in the brief succession of authentic human history is counted as remote, is but a single page in the volume of the heavenly records. The coming of Christ may be distant as measured on the scale of human life, but may be ‘near,’ and ‘at hand,’ and ‘at the door,’ when the interval of the two advents is compared, not merely with the four thousand years which were but its preparation, but with the line of infinite ages which it is itself preparing.” The uncertainty of the time of the second Advent and its stupendous issues define the attitude of the Church.

I. It is an attitude of expectancy.—

1. The time of the second coming is uncertain. “But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you” (1Th_5:1). A gentle hint that all questions on that subject were unnecessary, as there was nothing more to be revealed. The untamable curiosity and reckless daring of man tempt him to pry into secrets with which he has nothing to do and to dogmatise on subjects of which he knows the least. Many have been fanatical enough to fix the day of the Lord’s coming. For a time there has been a local excitement; the day has come and gone; the world has moved on as before, and the prophetic enthusiasts have exposed themselves to scorn and ridicule. “Of that day and hour knoweth no man” (Mar_13:32). This uncertainty is a perpetual stimulant to the people of God to exercise the ennobling virtues of hope, of watchfulness, of fidelity, of humility, of earnest inquiry, and of reverential awe.

2. The second coming will be sudden.—“For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child” (1Th_5:2-3). The thief not only gives no notice of his approach, but takes every possible care to conceal his designs. The discovery of the mischief he has wrought takes place when it is too late. The prudent will take every precaution to avoid surprise and to baffle the subtlety and sharpness of the marauder. That which is sinful and unlawful in itself affords a resemblance to express an important truth and to admonish to duty. There is nothing more certain than that the Lord will come; nothing more uncertain when He will come; and both the one and the other should keep His people in an attitude of prayerful expectation and moral preparedness. Faith breeds fear; the more earnestly we believe, the more we tremble at the divine threatenings. Unbelief lulls the soul into false security. What a dreadful awakening will that be, when the thunder of God’s wrath shall suddenly burst from the hitherto tranquil heavens!

3. The second coming will be terrible to the wicked.—“And they shall not escape” (1Th_5:3). Wicked men are never more secure than when destruction is nearest, never nearer destruction than when they are most secure. The swearer may be seized while the oath is burning on his tongue, the drunkard engulfed in judgment while the cup is trembling between his lips. The other day a certain suspension bridge was crowded with pleasure seekers; the slender erection, yielding under the unwonted strain, broke in two, and in a moment precipitated numbers into the river rolling below and into a watery grave. Not less fragile is the confidence on which the unbelieving rest; and more terrible still will be the catastrophe that will suddenly overtake them. The destruction of the wicked—of all their joy, of all they most prized in this life—will be sudden, painful, inevitable. Now there is peace, for mercy reigns; but when the great day comes there will be nothing but indignation and wrath, tribulation, and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil (Rom_2:8-9).

II. It is an attitude of vigilance.—

1. This vigilance is enforced on the ground of a moral transformation. “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness” (1Th_5:4-5). Believers in Christ are delivered from the power of darkness, of spiritual ignorance, of godless profanity, of dark and dangerous security, and translated into the kingdom of light, of truth, of purity, and felicity. They are children of the day when the light shines the brightest, when privileges are more abundant, when opportunities multiply, and responsibility is correspondingly increased. The light of past ages was but the dawn of the effulgent day which now shines upon the world from the gospel sun. Every inquiring and believing soul passes from the dawn to the daylight of experimental truth.

2. This vigilance must be constant.—“Therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night” (1Th_5:6-7). Let us not, like the drunkards steeped in sottish slumber, be immersed in the deep sleep of sin and unconcern, neglecting duty, and never thinking of a judgment; but let us watch, and, in order to do so effectually, be sober. We are day-people, not night-people; therefore our work ought to be day-work, not night-work; our conduct such as will bear the eye of day, and has no need to hide itself under the veil of night. A strict sobriety is essential to a sleepless vigilance.

III. It is an attitude of militant courage.—“But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet the hope of salvation” (1Th_5:8). The Christian has to fight the enemy, as well as watch against him. He is a soldier, and a soldier on sentry. The Christian life is not one of soft, luxurious ease; it is a hard, fierce conflict. The graces of faith, love, and hope constitute the most complete armour of the soul. The breastplate and helmet protect the two most vital parts—the head and the heart. With head and heart right, the whole man is right. Let us keep the head from error and the heart from sinful lust, and we are safe. The best guards against error in religion and viciousness in life are—faith, hope, and charity; these are the virtues that inspire the most enterprising bravery. Drunkards and sluggards never make good soldiers.

IV. It is an attitude of confidence as to the future blessedness of the Church.—

1. This blessedness is divinely provided. “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us” (1Th_5:9-10). The whole scheme of salvation was divinely conceived and divinely carried out in all its essential details. And, without discussing other methods by which the salvation of the race could be effected, it is sufficient for us to know that the infallible wisdom of God provided that the death of His Son was the most effectual method. Our sins had exposed us to the wrath of God, who had declared death to be the penalty of sin. This death Christ underwent on our behalf, in our stead, and so saved us from it. In every extremity, at every new challenge of the enemy, on each successive field of effort and peril, this is the password and battle-cry of God’s people—Christ died for us.

2. This blessedness consists in a constant fellowship with Christ.—“That whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him” (1Th_5:10). The happiest moments on earth are those spent in the company of the good, reciprocating the noblest ideas and emotions. Christ, by dying for us, has begotten us into a life of ineffable and endless felicity; and “the hope of salvation” enables us to look forward to the period when, released from the sorrows and uncertainties of this changeful life, we shall enjoy the bliss of uninterrupted communion with Jesus.

“The soul to be where Jesus is

Must be for ever blest.”

3. The confidence of inheriting this blessedness encourages mutual edification.—“Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do” (1Th_5:11). “All Christians indiscriminately are to use these doctrines for mutual exhortation and mutual edification. And so the spirit of the verse will be this: Comfort one another as to this matter, and then, free from the distracting and paralysing influence of vain misgivings, go on edifying one another in all the relations, and by all the means and appliances of your Church fellowship; even as also ye do. Ye do it now, in the midst of your own secret, personal sorrows and depressing fears. But you will be able to do it more effectively, with the clearer views I have now given you of what awaits us all—those sleeping in Jesus, and us who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord” (Lillie).

Lessons.—

1. The great event of the future will be the second coming of Christ.

2. That event should be looked for in a spirit of sobriety and vigilance.

3. That event will bring unspeakable felicity to the good and dismay and misery to the wicked.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

1Th_5:2. The Day of the Lord—

I. A day which will be in some unique and pre-eminent sense His day.

II. It is the day of judgment.

III. The coming of His day is suggestive of fear.—“As a thief in the night.”

IV. It will come suddenly.

V. Cannot be prevented by any efforts of our own.

VI. We may prepare for the day of judgment by judging ourselves in self-examination.—H. P. Liddon.

1Th_5:6. The Pilgrims on the Enchanted Ground.

I. Hopeful keeps awake by goodly counsel and discourse.

II. Ignorance comes up again.—

1. Ignorance explains the ground of his hope.

2. Christian explains what good thoughts are.

3. Ignorance speaks reproachfully about things he knows not.

4. He again falls behind.

III. Christian and Hopeful renew their conversation.—

1. Reflections over the conduct of Ignorance.

2. Why ignorant people stifle conviction.

3. Reasons why some backslide.

IV. Some lessons from this stage.—

1. In times of danger it is wise to recall former experiences.

2. Human philosophy may seem very wise, but the Bible is an unfailing touchstone.—Homiletic Monthly.

Moral Sleep.

I. The season devoted to sleep is one of darkness.—He is in darkness as to God, himself, and the gospel.

II. Sleep is often sought for and obtained by the use of opiates.—These are:

1. The falsehoods of Satan.

2. The pleasures of sense.

3. The fellowship of the world.

III. During sleep the mind is usually occupied with dreams.—The life of the ungodly is one continued dream.

IV. He who is asleep is in a great measure insensible to pain.—

1. The sting of sin is in man’s nature.

2. Through this sleep he feels it not.—Stewart.

1Th_5:9-10. Salvation is of God.

I. The choice of God.—

1. It was early.

2. It was free.

3. Efficacious.

4. Appropriating.

II. The work of Christ.—He died as our Substitute.

1. This fact explains His death.

2. Vindicates the justice of God in His death.

3. Displays the love of Christ.

III. The privilege and duty of Christians.—

1. Life in Christ.

2. Life with Christ.

3. In Him and with Him here and hereafter.—G. Brooks.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th_5:1-11

2. But when He will come, we know not; let your walk, therefore, be at all times watchful and sober.

1But of [concerning, περί] the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write [it be written]1unto you: 2for yourselves know perfectly that 3the2 day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when [When]3 they shall say [are saying] 4: Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon4 them, as [even as, ὥσπερ] travail upon a woman [her that is, τῇ] with child, and they shall not [in no wise]5 escape. 4But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that [the, ἡ] day should overtake you as a thief.6 [For]7 5ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day [all ye are sons of light, and sons of day]:8 we are not of the night [of night, νυκτός], nor of darkness. 6Therefore [So then]9 let us not sleep, as do others [as do also the rest];10 but let us watch and be sober. 7For they that sleep sleep in the night [by night, νυκτός]; and they that be [are] drunken are drunken in the night [by night, νυκτός], 8But let us, who are of the day [being of day],11 be sober, putting on [having put on]12 the breastplate of faith and love, and, for an helmet, the hope 9of salvation. For [Because, ὅτι] God hath not appointed [did not appoint, οὐκ ἔθετο] us to wrath, but to obtain [to the obtaining of, εἰς περιποίησιν] salvation by 10[through, διά] our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for13 us, that, whether we wake or sleep [are watching or sleeping],14 we should live together with Him. 11Wherefore comfort yourselves together [comfort one another, παρακαλεῖτε ἀλλήλους], and edify one another [one the other, εἷς τὸν ἕνα], even as also ye do.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. (1Th_5:1-2.) But concerning the times and the seasons, &c.—Here Paul treats of the Advent from the other side, and exhorts us to be at all times composed and ready for the day of the Lord—equally remote from anxious calculation or impatient expectancy: Now He comes! and from the drowsy security which says: Not for a long time yet! How much of erroneous opinion, if any, existed in Thessalonica (but see 1Th_5:2); whether they had caused a question to be put to him, and so forth—on these points we know nothing very precisely. The Second Epistle gives evidence of greater excitement in the church, not as if the First Epistle were responsible for that, but at most the misunderstanding of it, and, in particular, the want of attention to our present section. As here, the two expressions χρόνοι and καιροί stand together at Act_1:7, and there too the Lord says: οὐχ ὑμῶν ἐστὶν γνῶναι. In like manner Act_3:19; Act_3:21 puts the καιροί ἀναψύξεως by the side of the χρόνοι ἀποκαταστάσεως, &c. (Whereas Mat_24:36 and Mar_13:32 connect ἡμέρα and ὥρα). According to the old lexicographers and general usage (see Wetstein), the difference is that χρόνοι denotes duration, spaces of time, periods; καιροί, points of time, crises, the times appropriate to a decision, the epochs of a catastrophe. The plural is especially worthy of notice, as pointing to the possibility of a repeated alternation of periods of development and crises of decision, and so to a possibly longer duration. On this subject ye have no need that it be written unto you (see on 1Th_4:9); at 1Th_4:13 the Apostle found it necessary to remedy an ἀγνοεῖν; here is a recurrence merely of the need of confirmation, as at 1Th_4:9. They have no need, not because there is no instruction to be given, not because they are already watchful (Bengel), but because, of what was sufficient for them to know, they themselves had already an exact, positive certainty; to wit, not of the when, that being altogether uncertain, but of something quite different, namely, the quality of the Coming, the suddenness of its arrival—the οὕτως, instead of the πότε. The ἀκριβῶς would lead us rather to expect a fixing of the time; there is something surprising in this turn: ye know precisely—that the time cannot be known! Indeed, that lies in the nature of the case; the day is to be a surprise to the whole world. There is no determination of the time—only of the signs of the time. This is implied in the distinction: as a thief in the night; at a time, therefore, when the secure are asleep, resting without care. If, instead of wishing to calculate dates, regard is had (and inquiry directed, 1Pe_1:11) to the consideration of the signs (Mat_16:3), this is not forbidden, but required, by the uncertainty of the crisis. The day of the Lord is a synonym of the Advent, 1Th_4:15; but the former expression makes more prominent the idea of the judgment-day, and stands opposed to the time preceding, as of prevailing night. Then too it may be of longer duration than a day of earth, so that one can perceive that the Advent brings the dawn of that day. Already the prophets speak of the day of Jehovah, in which He manifests Himself in His Divine glory; Joe_1:15; Joe_2:11; Joe_3:19 [of the Hebrew arrangement; in the English Bible, 14]; Isa_2:12; Zep_1:15 (Vulg.: Dies iræ, dies illa); Eze_13:5; Mal. 3:2, 19, 23 [English Bible: Mal_4:1; Mal_4:5]. The reference is, indeed, partly to particular, preliminary judgments; but more and more to the conclusive final judgment. In the New Testament Christ is the Lord, who will appear in the day of the Lord, 1Co_1:8, and often. This day comes—oxymoron: as a thief in the night; so it is said of the day in 2Pe_3:10; of the Lord Himself, Mat_24:43 and the parallel passages; Rev_3:3; Rev_16:15; ὡς κλέπτης is quite strongly resumed by οὕτως:15 in such a manner it comes; Hofmann: such is the manner of its coming (not, as Bengel would have it: so as the following verse declares). It comes; the suddenness is not implied in the, present (Bengel); that might mean: surely and in the near future; it is better taken as a doctrinal present: such is the manner of it, without regard to the time, as 1Co_15:35. [Alford: “It is its attribute, to come.” Ellicott: “Its fixed nature and prophetic certainty.”—J. L.] The figure of the thief seems to be an ignoble one; but the Lord is not so nice. The comparison is striking, and describes the coming not merely as something sudden and unexpected, but also as unwelcome, terrifying for the worldly-minded, plundering them of that to which their heart clings, stripping them of their possessions (Hofmann). In the ancient Church there was connected with this comparison the notion, that the Advent would take place in the night, and still more precisely on Easter-night, like the Passover in Egypt; hence the Vigils (Lactantius and Jerome, in Lünemann). It deserves to be noted, how closely the Apostle in his preaching at Thessalonica must have conformed to the eschatological discourses of Christ in Matthew 24 and the parallel passages; though there is no evidence for Ewald’s opinion, that Paul had given the church a written document.

2. (1Th_5:3.) When they are saying: Peace and safety, amp;c.—“Ὅταν γάρ would explain the κλέπτης; ὅταν δέ would be a transition from κλέπτης to the description of a false peace: But this will happen precisely then. It is best to regard the description as going forward by asyndeton, and as in its very form representing the swiftness of the occurrence. When they are saying—these for whom it comes as a thief, the ungodly-minded, the people who have no everlasting hope (1 Thessalonians 4); Christians are people of no such drowsy slumberings (1Th_5:4). The human heart longs for peace; but, where it is unreconciled to God, there it lulls itself in treacher ous hopes and semblances of peace, Jer_6:14; Eze_13:10. Peace, and a safety without danger,16 scil. ἐστίν. In the passages just cited from the prophets וָבֶטַח is not added, but in the Sept. Deu_12:10, and frequently, this word is well translated by ἀσφάλεια. At that very time they are on the point of destruction, which comes on them as a sudden thing (comp. Luk_21:34); as travail (ὠδίν for ὠδίς, Winer, § 9. 2. note 1); οὐ μή, as in 1Th_4:15. Very suitable is the comparison to a woman with child, and in the prophets it recurs repeatedly, Isa_13:8; Isa_21:3; Isa_26:4; Jer_6:24, and often. The point of comparison is the sudden, inevitable occurrence of the rending pain, the mortal anguish; also perhaps (Calvin, Rieger): that they bear within themselves the cause of their sorrow; but not (as De Wette would have it) the imminence of the Advent, on the ground that a pregnant woman knows, not indeed the day and hour, but yet the nearness of the period. That is not what Paul would here emphasize, but, on the contrary, worldly men are to be represented as taken altogether at unawares; they might know that it is unavoidable, a little sooner or later; but they do not even think of the matter, it falls on them suddenly; moreover, the signs of warning are for them as if they were not, till of a sudden it becomes manifest that they were pregnant with their own ruin. (The view of the Greek interpreters also does not differ from this.) The figure is applied in another direction, when used to depict the pangs of the new birth with their favorable issue, Joh_16:21; Luk_17:33.17

3. (1Th_5:4-5.) But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, &c.—Ye, in opposition to those who are saying Peace; brethren, blessed society! ἐστέ with οὐκ, not μή, is necessarily indicative. He does not enjoin, but asserts. It is a comforting encouragement: Ye are in such a position, and that by a Divine right, that ye do not have to fear the day as a thief; ye are not in darkness, held fast, abiding. De Wette and others correctly: It is wrong to understand by darkness merely a want of intellectual insight, or simply moral corruption in practice ; both sides cohere throughout in the case of light and darkness. Ye are not therein, ἵνα—this is not equivalent to ὥστε [Jowett, Webster and Wilkinson], not even in Gal_5:17; though in the Greek of the New Testament the idea of finality appears to be somewhat weakened (Winer, § 53. 6), it is yet everywhere present in some degree. Here it does not, as Lünemann supposes, indicate the purpose of the Divine punishment,18 but, as Hofmann expresses it, that the being in darkness would be required in order to such a surprise;—De Wette: in order to have you overtaken;—it would be the unintentional purpose of being in darkness; comp. εἰς τό, 1Th_2:16. Therefore, even if the day does come suddenly, still it brings to you no terror or loss (there is somewhat of greater emphasis in ὑμᾶς, over against the secure ones of 1Th_5:3, when, as in a series of uncials, it appears prefixed;19 yet the Vatican and Sinai manuscripts are for the common position after ἡμέρα). Only on such as are in darkness does the day come as a thief; it is no longer said: the day of the Lord; nor yet: as a thief in the night; because now the day (the day of the Lord, it is true) is put simply as the time of light breaking in on the darkness (Hofmann). The various reading ὡς κλέπταΣ (not confirmed by the Sinait.) goes farther. Grotius, Lachmann, De Wette, Ewald, favor it as the more difficult reading, the sense being (De Wette), that the time of light, triumphant truth and righteousness, overtakes thieves, who ply their trade in the night; Ewald: On you the day need not come, as on those who creep in the dark, as if ye yourselves were night-loving thieves, robbing God of His gifts and His glory. The variation, however, is too generally neglected by the other manuscripts, versions, and Fathers, and the change of the thought, likewise, is too abrupt, it being only at 1Th_5:5; 1Th_5:8 that we find the transition from the narrower to the wider conception of ἡμέρα. The reading is, therefore, properly rejected also by Lünemann and Hofmann.—for (nearly all the uncials give γάρ), confirmatory of the previous negative by the opposite positive declaration: all ye are sons of light. He thus expresses his cheering confidence to a church converted with such wonderful quickness: Ye are so indeed on the assumed premises; saints, entered into a condition of salvation; though still deficient, and therefore not without need of fresh incitement (1Th_5:6 sqq.). Sons, בני, is a Hebraism, signifying not merely the fact of belonging to, but descent, a specific nature: who from light have their life, Luk_16:8; Joh_12:36 (comp. Mat_8:12, sons of the kingdom, there indeed degenerate). Light is spoken of in another application in the parables of the virgins, and of the servants with their lamps (Matthew 25; Luk_12:35).—And sons of day; a strengthening synonym, connected with φῶς also at Joh_11:9-10; over against night and darkness (chiasmus). It is not generally asked how these synonyms differ. It will be correct to say that day is the time of prevailing light, night the hour of darkness; thus light and darkness denote the nature of the disposition, day and night the corresponding outward circumstances, the ruling power, and so either the kingdom of light (of spiritual discipline) or the dominion of darkness (of ungodliness). Accordingly, where the inner man is in the light, there also is a wakefulness suitable to the dominion of light in bright day; but where in darkness, there he seeks also the night, a dark environment. Here we have the transition from the day of the Lord (1Th_5:2) to day in general. Moreover, the day of the Lord is essentially light, before which no darkness endures (Lünemann); it puts an end, at last, to the darkness. The continuous state of day (χρόνος) is by the day of the Lord (as καιρός) brought to its crowning consummation. Only the man, who is a son of day generally, can expect with comfort also the day of the Lord, which is helpful to that, in which consists the nature of the sons of day, in obtaining the victory.—We are not of night, &c.; we Christians generally; the Apostle includes himself with them (ἐστέ, C.1 F. G., is a conformation [to the ἐστέ of the first clause]); the genitive now expresses, according to the Greek idiom, belonging to night (the ruling darkness) or to darkness (in our inner nature); comp. Winer, § 30. 5; 1Co_6:19; Heb_10:39.

4. (1Th_5:6-8.) So then let us not sleep, &c.—On his good confidence: God has wrought His work in you, he now rests the powerful exhortation: Let us also, then, not sleep (Ewald: fall asleep). There is cordiality, and encouragement for the readers, in his including himself with them in this. Of the sleep of sin he speaks also in Eph_5:14; thereby denoting the sluggish, dull, confused nature, unsusceptible of what is Divine, indifferent to salvation; as it is found in the rest (1Th_4:13), those not Christians, the children of darkness.—But let us watch; γρηγορεῖν, a later word, formed from ἐγρήγορα, as (στήκειν from ἕστηκα. What is meant is clearness of spirit, the freshness of the sharpened sense, vigilant waiting for the Lord, circumspection over against the enemy.—And he sober, is frequently joined with watchfulness, 1Pe_5:8, and often. As intoxication in the literal sense disposes to sleep, so is it here understood in a comprehensive signification. The innate weakness and sluggishness of the flesh of itself inclines to drowsiness (Mat_26:41); therefore should we avoid what would involve us in the guilt of self-stupefaction, and of thus aggravating this tendency. Already Chrysostom remarks on the other side: Sobriety is the augmentation of watchfulness.—For—extends over 1Th_5:7-8, and confirms the summons of 1Th_5:6 : truly it becomes us not, to do as the children of night. In the night they sleep and are drunken; the latter referring to the custom of nocturnal symposia. It is too far-fetched, when Koch and Hofmann would from the first understand the night only figuratively: With those who sleep, and get drunk, it is night; no; when it is night, they do so; Bengel: a die abhorrent. But, of course, what is said in the first instance literally is meant as a simile: Where night surrounds them, there they haunt, and indulge their dull, sluggish tendency; nay more, they make the case still worse, by practices which subject them more and more to the power of darkness.—But let us, as belonging to the day, where light rules, walking in day toward the great day, be sober; here on the tide of the positive exhortation, this only is repeated, which it is incumbent on us to do, lest we deprive ourselves of watchfulness.—Having put on; they who watch are also clothed; they who are called to the conflict are equipped with armor. The inward, courageous preparation is the main thing; but that impels to the use of the right means. As those who have put on, &c., we should shun intoxication, which disables the combatant. The Christian, called to the fight of faith (1Ti_6:12), must be ready for assaults, and watch as a soldier at his post. To put on the new man (Eph_4:24)—the vesture which comes from above, and, remaining not on the outside, swallows up the old nature (1Co_15:54)—is the same thing as to put on Christ (Rom_13:14). That is his adornment, the covering of his nakedness, the robe of righteousness (Isa_61:3; Isa_61:10). But, with reference to the conflict, it is his armor (Isa_59:17; Rom_13:12; 2Co_10:4; and especially, for details, Eph_6:13 sqq.). In the last passage mention is made of the breastplate of righteousness, and, along with that, of the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation. In our passage the figure has a somewhat different turn, such figures being developed freely and variously, while the fundamental thought is the same. Here the breastplate is called the breastplate of faith (on which, indeed, rests our righteousness) and love; the genitives are genitives of apposition: consisting in. And, for a helmet (this strictly in apposition), the hope of deliverance, salvation; genitive of the object, as in 1Th_1:3; Rom_5:2. Salvation is to be taken comprehensively, a complete redemption from sin and death. The equipment is here carried out only on the defensive side. Sobriety is of no avail, unless we are armed with faith, love, hope. Sobriety keeps us circumspect—shows us what we have to do; but it is only with faith, &c., that we can accomplish it.

5. (1Th_5:9-10.) Because God did not appoint us to wrath.—He confirms the ἐλπίδα σωτηρίας: we have such a hope; that was the highest point of what was said before. Let us be stoutly prepared, for indeed God wills our salvation. This being God’s will, we may have hope. It is certainly, therefore, a confirmation of 1Th_5:8 (against Hofmann, who translates ὅτι by that, and finds in it the substance of the hope, as in Rom_8:21; but there ἐλπίς has not its substance, as here (σωτηρίας), already defined). God did not appoint us, the Hebrew שׂוּם לְ (Jdg_1:28, Sept.), ordained, appointed to (Joh_15:16; 1Ti_1:12; 1Pe_2:8). (Hofmann: brought into being, in order to perish—an unimportant distinction.)—To wrath, that is, to the endurance of it (1Th_1:10; 1Th_2:16; 1Th_4:6). God wills not our destruction, but our salvation. In His entire purpose there is nothing to harm us, and so neither will there be at the appearing of His day.—But to the obtaining of salvation; περιποιεῖν, to make to remain over; in the middle: to save for one’s self (1Ti_3:13); hence the substantive: gain, acquisition (2Th_2:14; Heb_10:39). In a peculiar sense, 1Pe_2:9 : people of the Divine possession [comp. Eph_1:14], Here too Theophylact would understand it thus: that He should keep us as a possession for Himself. But this does not suit the addition of σωηρίας.—Through Jesus Christ, might be connected with ἔθετο, but more obviously with περιποίησιν σωτηρίας; Luther: to possess [besitzen] salvation through Jesus Christ. Hence no anxiety in the expectation of the last things.—Who died for us; that is the foundation of our περιποί. σωτ. as in 1Th_4:14 of our hope; He died for us, for our benefit (ὑπέρ), or on our account (περί). Neither one nor the other is precisely equivalent to ἀντί, in our stead. But there may be cases where the ὑπέρ cannot otherwise be accomplished than by a doing ἀντί, e. g. Phm_1:13; and it is really ἀντί that stands in the discourse, Mat_20:28 (comp. 1Ti_2:6). As the object of Christ’s dying, the final aim of the redemptive work, Paul names a powerful consolation in death (thus closing the discussion begun at 1Th_4:13).—That, whether we are watching or sleeping, we should live together with Him. That ἵνα, though after a preterite, governs the subjunctive, is explained by Winer, § 41. b. 1. This reacts on εἴτε—εἴτε, so that here also, as with ἐάν τε—ἐάν τε (Rom_14:8), the subjunctive is used (see Winer, p. 263). It is impossible that the watching and sleeping can here be taken in the previous ethical sense, for in the case of sleeping the ἵςα ζήσωμεν would be forfeited. To understand it literally [Whitby, and others] would yield a poor result: whether at the Advent we are watching in the day-time or lying asleep in the night. It must therefore be equivalent to the ζῶντες περιλείπεσθαι and κοιμᾶσθαι, 1 Thessalonians 4; in meaning, the same as Rom_14:8; γρηγορεῖν is in this sense without authority; for καθεύδειν, comp. Mat_9:24; Dan_12:2, Sept. De Wette finds in this change of senses a violation of the rule of perspicuity. But what the Apostle means has always been evident. Von Gerlach, in deed, remarks, not without reason, that the sleep of death, under which we still suffer, is itself a part of the curse of the sleep of sin. But provided only that we do not καθεύδομεν in the sense of 1Th_5:6, let us securely καθεύδειν=κοιμᾶσθαι (1Th_4:13). There is in this a certain joyous, triumphant pleasantry: Whether at that time we have our eyes still open, or must previously close them, we are (as the result of Christ’s death) to live together with Him. By ἅμα Bengel would understand: Simul, ut fit adventus; but the necessary supplement would be, not: together, when He comes, but: together, when He lives, and that does not suit. Others (Lünemann) take ἅμα by itself,=יַחַד, all together, one with another (Rom_3:12);20 and separate from it σὺν αὐτῷ; but Hofmann is right in connecting ἅμα σὺν αὐτῷ, as in 1Th_4:17; together with Him, united with Him. It may still be asked, whether the statement means: We are now already living in fellowship with Him, and they likewise who are asleep are joined to Him; or: In that day, when His life shall appear, we shall appear as living with Him, whether His coming finds us watching in life, or sleeping in death. But the latter view, it is obvious, brings the thought to a more completely satisfactory termination. Again, as compared with ἐσόμεθα (1Th_4:17), the expression ζήσωμεν shows a fine, truly Pauline, advance: To be with Him will be the true life out of death.

6. (1Th_5:11.) Wherefore encourage [comfort] one another; as in 1Th_4:18; only here, it would seem, the moral incitement to watchfulness is more prominent.21 Lünemann finds the idea of consolation, after 1Th_5:9-10, preponderant here also. In the Greek there is no such sundering of the two ideas.—And (as the consequence of the παρακαλεῖν) edify one the other, promote one another’s establishment on the foundation laid. Grotius: Monete verbis, ædificate exemplo; but Judges 20 comprehends instruction and example. One another; he does not in the first instance urge official obligation, as if everything was to be turned over on that; rather, that follows first at 1Th_5:12. Εἷς τὸν ἕνα, along with ἀλλὴλους, is good Greek. To read εἰς τὸν ἕνα22 is unnecessary, and indeed improper (see, against it, Lünemann).—Even as also ye do, comp. 1Th_4:10. Noble young church, where such things can be said! Calvin: With this addition he avoids the appearance of reproving them for negligence; and yet he has exhorted them, because human nature at all times needs the spur. Go on so! A pithy energy, a morning freshness, a joyous hopefulness, are observable throughout the entire section.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. (1Th_5:1-3.) In exact accordance with Christ’s teaching, the Apostle declines all close definition or calculation of the times, and points instead to the signs, which the disciples of Christ are required to consider. For those secure in their ungodliness there are no signs; on them the thief comes suddenly, the pangs seize them all at once. But they themselves are for a sign to believers who watch and observe. It is the triumph of the cause of God, that even the despisers must render it the service of their testimony. Stupidity in Divine things, security and self-confidence, increase more and more; as it was, says Christ, in the days of Noah and Lot (Luk_17:26 sqq.). They ate, they drank, they married and were given in marriage; thus Jesus does not once upbraid them with the scandalous crimes which they committed, but with that very thing in their way of life which was commendable, but which becomes hideous, when nothing higher can be told of an age; when its whole life is a worldly life, in which God is no longer taken into the account. A great increase of outward power and culture, reliance on science, industry, the conquest of the external world, lead to an arrogance that no longer admits its dependence on God. Les questions de disette ne sont que des questions de transport, they sometimes say. And because the threatened judgment so long delays, people regard it as a fable; mundum statuent æternum (Bengel). But this is just a fulfilment of the prophecy, which gives previous indication of this very disposition.—Vietor: We will therefore carefully avoid saying: The Lord will come within such and such a time; He will come during our life on earth. But we will just as carefully avoid saying: He will not come during our life on earth.—How great is the injury done to the Christian hope by the first of these errors, in consequence of the rebuffs to which it is inevitably exposed, was made plain to many in the year 1836. It is, moreover, quite conceivable, that the course of historical revelation has somewhat changed the form of faith’s expectation, and accustomed many to think more of the day of the individual’s death than of the day of general judgment. The former, as well as the latter, comes on unavoidable, indeed, but unannounced. In this there is certainly a narrowing of the horizon, when regard to the universal consummation is too much lost. It were improper at each text to distinguish: Here the destruction of Jerusalem is meant; here the day of the individual’s death; &c. The prophetic view rather comprehends all judgment under the figure of one day, and yet itself shows us that the fulfilment is distributed over a series of acts. Thus at one time (Rom_2:16), the prospect of the day of judgment is (without discrimination) held out also to the heathen, who yet, according to the complete scheme in the Apocalypse, do not appear before the judgment-seat till the last resurrection; at another time, on the contrary (Joh_6:39-40; Joh_6:44; Joh_6:54), the ἐσχάτη ἡμέρα (without the distinction of a first resurrection) is described as the day of resurrection for believers also. We say therefore, that with the Advent the last day appears; but how long and how far it shall reach, on that point there is nothing prejudged; and instead of unprofitable, if not pernicious, calculations, it is the observation of the signs that is helpful in the practical life.

2. (1Th_5:4-5.) The Scriptural ideas of light and darkness are quite different from those of the world. According to the latter, the thoughts become clear through enlightenment of the understanding, the life serene through art and culture; and very many revile the witnesses of the gospel dullards who binder the light, and the faith as a dark view of life. Now a truly evangelical sense will not shut itself in against any kind of knowledge. But (Heubner). The illumination, of which unbelief makes its boast, is darkness. The light of knowledge in Divine things is inseparably connected in reciprocal influence with the earnestness of sanctification; just as, vice versa, the corruption of the will and the blinding of the perception act reciprocally on each other.—Rieger: To be in darkness is to stick fast in ignorance, security, earthly-mindedness, indifference to the Lord Jesus, enmity against the light, repugnance to having one’s hidden things come to the light, and in this condition to be willing to remain (Joh_3:19 sqq.). But God is light, and begets us by the word of truth to be children of light, exciting in the hidden man a delight in the truth, which allows the evil there to be reproved by the light, and that which is wrought in God to be made manifest, thus withdrawing itself from the evil, and establishing itself on the good; and in this way is acquired a pure heart, and a single eye, to which the light is pleasant as its element, and so to a believer as a child of light, even the day, which makes all clear, becomes supportable and desirable (1Jn_1:5; Jam_1:17; Joh_1:4; Joh_8:12; Rom_13:11 sqq.; 1Co_3:13; 1Co_4:5; in the Old Testament, Isa_9:1 sqq.; Isa_60:1 sqq.).—For Christians the day has already dawned inwardly, though it does not yet prevail without. As children of light, they are now already doing that which shall be their everlasting employment, in the day which will make all things manifest. But there is implied an earnest work of renewing, if a man is to rejoice, and not be alarmed, at such a manifestation (Mat_10:26).—It is also too little thought of, how great is the dignity of our calling, that is expressed in the fact, that the highest splendor of earthly glory, even of that of the earthly intelligence, is described as dark night, when contrasted with the brightness that shall be revealed in us; ov’ è silenzio e tenebre la gloria che paasò (Manzoni).

3. (1Th_5:6-8.) The exhortation: Ye are so and so by a Divine right, and know that ye are so; let us, then, also act accordingly! is peculiarly powerful. Just so Rom_6:11-12; Col_3:3; Col_3:5. First: Reckon yourselves to be what the operation of God has made of you; the righteousness of faith, which He imputes to you, do ye also impute to yourselves; then: Walk also accordingly. By this resting on the work of God’s grace the Sisyphus-toil of self-righteousness is abolished, and man is cheered, while at the same time his zeal also is stimulated. Here the exhortation is directed towards watchfulness and sobriety. From the tendency of the new nature, which has come into being through the Divine operation, proceeds watchfulness; and the task proposed is, that we cherish it by vigilance over ourselves, and so strive after a symmetrical and stable character. Intoxication, on the other hand, is an aggravation of the bias of the old nature, for which we ourselves are responsible. It arises from giving one’s self up to worldly glory, to the honors and possessions, the enjoyments and cares, the doctrines and tendencies of those who ask not after God. In 1Co_15:34 the denial of the resurrection is described as a debauch.23 It is a judgment, when God pours out to a people the cup of trembling.24 We should seek for holy, Divine reality, not ideal mist and foam of words. Whoever gives himself up to sleep and stupefaction, seeks for the night; that is, he screens and hides himself in the ruling power of the ungodly nature, attaching himself to companions of his own dark character. Where circumstances are suitable, and it is the hour of darkness, he gives his disposition the reins. An apostolic description of sobriety, on the other hand, we read in 1Co_7:29 sqq.

4. (1Th_5:8.) Under the figure of armor, we have here a recommendation of faith, love, and hope, these three, as in 1 Corinthians 13; faith and love, as having a peculiar intimacy of mutual connection, as in 1Th_1:3; 1Th_3:6. Theophylact refers the love to Christ and our fellow-men; Theodoret only to our neighbors, and in such a relation this might be more in accordance with Paul’s usage (Gal_5:6; Gal_5:14; over against 1Jn_4:10; 1Jn_4:19 sqq.). Faith lays hold of the forgiveness of sins, and the strength of Him who is stronger than the world (1Jn_4:4); love overcomes the evil with good (Rom_12:21), and precludes the rise of selfishness, bitterness, wrath, and hatred. The one cannot be without the other. Genuine faith is not a harsh dogmatism; it dwells only in a heart touched by the love of God, so that of necessity love grows out of it. A faith that does not justify itself in the way of love is not the genuine; it is a reliance on notions, instead of a personal trust in the God of grace; and through the inflation of knowledge it lays itself open to the enemy. A love, moreover, that loves not the life that is born of God (1Jn_5:1-2), but spares the ungodly nature, is not genuine love. Only where faith and love are really and intimately one, is the Christian heart (the centre of all inward and outward life) secured within the shelter of this breastplate against all condemnation, against all thrusts of the accuser, against all devilish assaults. And that the blows shall not reach the head, that the Christian is able without fainting to carry it aloft in suffering and affliction, that he should have the power, in steadfast endurance and with clear thought, of looking the enemy boldly in the eye—this comes to pass only when he is helmeted with the hope of an eternal consummation of salvation and deliverance. Deliverance from perdition—such is the Christian’s salvation. Without the hope of it, faith and love also would be maimed. For a God that gave man no eternal hope were at the same time a God, that did not make Him the object of His eternal love, and would be no such God as man could personally trust in.

5. (1Th_5:9-11.) Here again the work of God and man’s doing are intimately conjoined, the former with the latter (see Note 3). By God’s appointment Christ died for us, that we might live with Him. Through Jesus Christ we may and ought to make salvation our own. He has accomplished it, and on this foundation alone can there be any mention of our obtaining it. We do not, however, realize its benefits as a matter of course, ex opere operato Jesu Christi, but only when we allow what he has done for us to work in us. To this end is mutual exhortation directed.

6. (1Th_5:11.) The Scriptural idea of edification is something different from the sickly, effeminate excitement of the feelings, that is spoken of here and there as edifying. The thing to be done is to build the temple of God, to establish it on the right foundation, to fashion and fit stone upon stone (1Co_3:16; 1Co_8:10;25 Eph_2:20 sqq.; 1Pe_2:4 sqq.; Judges 20). Comp. Zahn, Etwas über den biblischen Begriff der Erbauung, Bremen, 1864. The question concerns the dwelling of God in humanity, and the mutual adjustment, therefore, of living stones for a habitation of the Spirit. This is, on the one side, a work of God, which becomes ever more inward; on the other side, it is man’s labor, with an ever-growing fulness of earnestness, and with spiritual means throughout; both directed to the end that it may some day be said: Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men! (Rev_21:3). By word and by walk should we further one another herein. But it is certain that many an occasion, when without being obtrusive we might exhort, comfort, edify our neighbors, is lost by us through shyness and sluggishness, for want of faith and love.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1Th_5:1. Zwingli: The Lord hides from us His day, that we may continually watch, and never relax through ease and the immoderate desire of pleasure; Calvin: that we may stand ever on the watch; [Burkitt: upon our watch every hour.... No hour when we can promise ourselves that He will not come.—J. L.]—Roos: Men frequently indulge a prying spirit in regard to truth submitted to them, and would know more than is needful for them.—Heubner: An unreasonable curiosity about that, which God has concealed, always betrays a heart not yet occupied with the man’s concern.—Von Gerlach: Nowhere do the Apostles declare that the time is long.—Diedrich: There is here no use in fancies of all sorts, but much harm is easily done.

1Th_5:2. Te know perfectly, What? That the time cannot be known.—Quesnel: All knowledge respecting the day of judgment consists in believing, that we cannot know it. With this we must learn to be satisfied; it is really sufficient.—Stockmeyer: That the Lord cometh, let us hold all the more firmly in those very times, when there is the least appearance of such a thing ever happening.—To the careless it might be agreeable to know the hour when the thief comes, that they might sleep quietly till then, and have themselves wakened at the time. For such as love the Lord there is no need of knowing it; for He comes, indeed, unawares to them also, but not as a thief, but as a Friend and Saviour.—[If the approach of this day of the Lord is fitly compared to that of a thief in the night, stealing upon us we know not when, “at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning” (Mar_13:35), this seems to preclude the idea of a thousand years of millennial glory before its arrival.—J. L.]

1Th_5:3. Calvin: We regard as fabulous what does not at once meet our eyes.—Their thought is: It will not fare so ill with me; I shall be sure to look out for myself; am sharp enough.—Heubner: The treacherous peace of the unbeliever is founded on an absolute denial of the Divine judgment, or on the hope of its great remoteness. In this peace is involved the shocking consideration, that God is looked upon as an Enemy to be dreaded, with whom one is never happy but when let alone by Him.—Chrysostom: Seest thou how the devil has succeeded in making us our own enemies?—Livingstone found negro tribes who cried: Give us sleep! when they meant peace; and the explanation of it is their dread of nocturnal assaults. But the Christian’s peace must be a wakeful one.—Berlenburger Bibel: There is no surer snare of Satan, than when he is able to suggest mere thoughts of security. Of these is also that: God will not take matters so strictly; He is truly merciful.—Roos: The world would not be helped at all by an exact definition of the seasons and times; it would not believe them, and would sleep on in its darkness.—Stähelin: if, then, thou dost feel no disquiet, and dost perceive no danger, thy misery is so much the greater.—Disquiet the way to true quiet. [Barnes: One of the most remarkable facts about the history of man is, that he takes no warning from his Maker.—J. L.]

Starke: Here in the world the ungodly escape many a deserved punishment, since God looks on, and they who should have punished the wrong often fail to do so; but in that great judgment-day there will be no longer any forbearance.—Heubner: Here man has still the power of withdrawing himself from God, to wit, from God calling, warning, arousing; but whoever thus withdraws himself from Him, will fall into His hands as a Judge and an Avenger.—To flee from God, or to flee to Christ; such is the distinction between a wicked, worldly fear and the salutary fear of God.—Already the precursory judgments are frequently characterized by a sudden precipitation; so the flood, Sodom, Belshazzar.—Rieger: How much better and more advisable is it, to yield one’s self to the salutary pangs of travail, in which a man is born again to a living hope!

[A spirit of indifference to this subject of the Lord’s coming, no proof of piety or Christian wisdom. The topic was full of interest for the children of God in the apostolic age; and the grounds of that interest cannot have been impaired by the lapse of eighteen centuries.—J. L.]

1Th_5:4. It is a strong consolation, when one can truly be reminded of the standing of a believer, wherein by the grace of God he is set.—Calvin: Nulla densior caligo quam Dei ignorantia.—Stockmeyer: The Lord’s return breaks in on the horror of the darkness of sin, whether of a more refined or grosser form, like the clear, all-revealing day, when everything appears in the true light just as it is.—Christians, who can claim the Saviour as their own, are able to say: For us, He may come when He will; we are looking for Him all the time.—It is indeed a great thing to be in such a state of readiness, as is independent of all knowledge about the time and the hour.

1Th_5:5-6. Stockmeyer: Happy the church, to which it can be said: Ye are all of you children of light and children of day! Am I so likewise? How do we come to be so? no otherwise than by a judgment, when we allow ourselves to be judged by the light of God.—Zwingli: We are ashamed to act badly before men, and are not ashamed to sin before God. Such is our wickedness and folly. Where faith exists in force, we shall be more ashamed before the all-seeing God, who is the Eternal light, than if a man saw us.—He who seeks the darkness involuntarily betrays his inward feeling, that he is not yet hidden (Psa_139:11-12).—A special characteristic of the darkness is, that sins are no longer called by their own names.—Berlenburger Bibel: Wickedness must no longer be called wicked, but merely an infirmity.—Starke: The man who has not Christ, the Sun of righteousness, walketh in darkness.—But whoever inwardly walks in the light, for him the coming of the Lord serves to perfect his blessed condition with regard also to what is outward.—Stockmeyer: Blessed thought, that the perfect day is coining, when all darkness disappears, and we shall be altogether light.—[W. Jay: Three distinctions may be here made. Heathens are the children of night.… The Jews were all children of the dawn.… Christians are the children of the day.—Leighton: Base night-ways, such as cannot endure the light, do not become you.… O that comeliness which the saints should study, that decorum which they should keep in all their ways, εὐσχημόνως, one action like another, and all like Christ, living in the light... in the company of angels, of God, and Jesus Christ.—J. L.]

1Th_5:6. [Watchfulness and sobriety; frequently thus joined together, and commonly also introduced in immediate reference to the coming of the Lord; comp. Mat_24:42 sqq.; Luk_21:34-36; Rom_13:11-13; Php_4:5; Tit_2:11-13; 1Pe_1:13.—Christian sobriety, not torpor or inactivity.—See John Howe’s sermon on this verse.—J. L.]

1Th_5:7. Eph. 1Th_5:11 : Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.—Luk_21:34; 1Co_5:11; 1Co_6:10; Rom_13:13 : Drunkenness too belongs there; not merely the figurative, but also the literal.—Zwingli: Wine in excess stirs up many a commotion and passion in the body; it is oil in the fire. Similar to it is the deliberate fostering of the passions generally.—Heubner: Drowsiness is contagious.—It drags down like a leaden weight; so likewise in what is spiritual. Criminal outbreaks are not the worst; insensibility for the things of God, forgetfulness of God, proud self-sufficiency are more wicked.

1Th_5:8. Roos: Art thou watching? Art thou sober? Is it day or night with thee? What is most required is, that we regard ourselves and all outward things with a spiritual eye, and avoid filling and loading body and soul with eating and drinking, impotent science, proud conceits, cares, &c.

The Christian’s position that of a soldier.—Rieger: With a warrior much depends on the inward courage and the confident self-possession; but, besides that, much also on the equipment assumed, and the use made of it.—Calvin: Against our powerful foe weapons are needed.—The same: Semivictus est qui timide ac dubitanter pugnat.—Chrysostom: Not even for one brief moment are we permitted to sleep; for at that very moment the enemy might come.—Stockmeyer: We are not at liberty to take our ease, to unclasp the breastplate, and lay aside the helmet; otherwise the enemy spies out the unguarded moment,—Zwingli: Munimentum pectoris adeoque vitæ fides est.—Roos: Art thou clothed with the armor of faith, if a trial or a doubt will disconcert thee? and with the armor of love, if an offence will exasperate thee?

Art thou impatient, when thou findest not thy satisfaction in the world? or hast thou put on the helmet of the hope of salvation?

[Faith and love:—An unloving faith, or a love that springs not from faith, no protection.—J. L.]

1Th_5:9. Roos: God has not made us Christians, servants of His, partners of His kingdom, that we should still after all experience His wrath.—Stock-meyer: The day of the Lord is one of two things, a day of wrath or a day of salvation. [Burkitt: It is the greatest piece of folly imaginable, from the appointment of the end to infer the refusal or neglect of the means.—W. Jay: He has not appointed us to wrath. He might have done it. We deserved it, &c. But to obtain salvation. Four things with regard to this appointment: the earliness of it—the freeness of it—its efficiency—its appropriation.—J.L.]

1Th_5:10. Chrysostom: The mention of Christ’s death shows us whence come our weapons, faith, love, hope.—[W. Jay: How well does the Apostle call the Redeemer “our life”! Three modes of expression: we are said to live by Him—to Him—with Him.—The same: Proof of Christ’s omnipresence and divinity;—the happiness of Christians.… Voltaire more than once says, in his letters to Madame du Deffand, “I hate life, and yet I am afraid to die.” A Christian fears neither of these. He is willing to abide; and he is ready to go. Life is his. Death is his. Whether we wake or sleep, we shall live together with Him.—J. L.]

1Th_5:11. Heubner: It is a rare thing to hear aught about people reminding one another of the last day. The warning voices are regarded as importunate disturbers and enthusiasts.—Theophylact: Dost thou object: “I am no teacher”? Teachers alone are not sufficient for the admonition of all.—Stähelin: Blessed therefore are the congregations, which in Christian order devoutly observe this rule. Blessed also the teacher, who is able on this point to commend his hearers.—That contempt for the teacher’s office is not the right thing is shown presently, 1Th_5:12.

1Th_5:9-11. [The source, the method, and the nature of the gospel salvation.—J. L.]

1Th_5:1-11. This section is one of the pericopes for the so rarely occurring 27th Sunday after Trinity.—Heubner: Christian deportment in view of the last day: 1Th_5:1-6, its nature; 1Th_5:7-8, grounds of obligation; 1Th_5:9-11, blessed results.—Kolb: Most men are pleased with themselves. He whose eyes are opened knows that by reason of the fall we are by nature children of darkness, and only through regeneration are to become children of the light. Our high destination is, to go forth from the darkness, and press forward into light. God already looks on that as in existence, which is only in process of growth.

Footnotes:

[1]1Th_5:1.—[ὑμῖν γράφεσθαι. Ellicott, Webster and Wilkinson: ye have no need to be written unto. Vaughan better: that anything be written to you. The impersonal form of the Greek is preserved by most of the Latin, and by several German, versions. Comp. 1Th_4:9, Critical Note 1.—Sin.1 Thessalonians 1 : τοῦ γράφεσθαι ὑμῖν; but a correction omits τοῦ.—J. L.]

[2]1Th_5:2.—[Sin. and] most of the old authorities omit [and so Lachmann, Tischendof, Wordsworth, Ellicott. Alford brackets] the article ἡ, without change of the sense; comp. Winer, § 19, 1, 2; Php_1:6; Php_1:10; Php_2:16. (Hofmann correctly against Lünemann.)

[3]1Th_5:3.—The ὅταν γάρ of the Recepta has in its favor only a few of the older authorities; B. D. E. Sin.2 give ὅταν δέ but the preference is due to ὅταν, A. F. G., Vv., also Sin.1, as the simplest reading, which afterwards received various glosses, [ὅταν is the reading of Griesbach and the critical editors generally, except that Lachmann adds δέ in brackets.—J. L.]

[4]1Th_5:3.—[λέγωσιν. Comp. E. V., Mat_6:2; Mat_6:5-6; Mat_6:16; Mat_10:19; Mat_10:23; &c.—ἐφίσταται; Sin.: ἐπίσταται.—J. L.]

[5]1Th_5:3.—[οὐ μὴ. Comp. 1Th_4:15, Critical Note 8.—J. L.]

[6]1Th_5:4.—Lachmann has only A. B. and the Coptic for his reading, κλέπτας, which gives no good sense, and has a too one-sided (Alex.) support.

[7]1Th_5:5.—[Sin. and] almost all the uncials [and critical editors] give γάρ.

[8]1Th_5:5.—[πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς υἱοὶ φωτός ἐστε καὶ υἱοὶ ἡμέπας. The ὑηεῖς is emphatic. For sons, see E. V., 2Th_2:3, and generally.—J. L.]

[9]1Th_5:6.—[ἄρα οὖν. Revision: “Paul’s favorite, though unclassical, ἄρα οὖν—(no one else uses it; and he, I think, 12 times)—serves for the vivid introduction of an immediate (ἄρα. See Hartung, p. 422, &c., and Passow, s. v.) inference (oὖν) from what he has been saying; very much as our Why then! is sometimes employed.”—J. L.]

[10]1Th_5:6.—καὶ [cancelled by Lachmann, and bracketed by Riggenbach] is wanting in A. B. Sin.1; most of the authorities have it. [Comp. 1Th_4:13, Critical Note 4.]

[11]1Th_5:8.—[ἡμέρας ὄντες. Revision: “Ὄντες, without the article, is not used to specify a class; it rather assumes, as the ground of the exhortation, what had just been asserted, 1Th_5:5.”—The same: “Throughout this context the distinction is maintained between ἡμέρα, day, that element of light, and of free, joyous activity, to which Christians now belong, and ἡ ἡμέρα, [ἡ] ἡμέρα Κυρίου, the perfect day, the day of the Lord, for which they are still waiting.”—J. L.]

[12]1Th_5:8.—[ἐνδυσάμενοι;—Christian sobriety being the result of this gracious endowment. Vaughan: “A single act, never to be undone.”—The words καὶ ἀγάπης are wanting in Sin.1, but supplied by correction.—In 1Th_5:9, for ἀλλὰ εἰς, the latest editors generally give ἀλλ’ εἰς, with Sin. B. D.3 E. &c.—J. L.]

[13]1Th_5:10.—Instead of ὑπέρ (for, in Javor of) B. and Sin. give περί (on account of, with reference to). [Sin.1 Thessalonians 2 : ὑπέρ.—J. L.]

[14]1Th_5:10.—[εἴτε γρηλορῶμεν, εἴτε καθεύδωμεν—at the Lord’s coming. The former verb occurs 23 times in the New Testament, and, excepting in this instance, the idea of watchfulness, vigilance, is always expressed in our English version. Here, where the word is used of the believers who shall be living when the Lord returns, it is assumed that they will also be watching for that event.—J. L.]

[15][The order of the Greek being=The day of the Lord as a thief in the night so cometh.—J. L.]

[16][Ellicott: “Εἰρήνη betokens an inward repose and security; ἀσφάλεια, a sureness and safety that is not interfered with or compromised by outward obstacles.”—J. L.]

[17][Luke’s word, indeed, is ζωογονήσει; but in neither of the above texts is there, I conceive, any reference, strictly speaking, to the new birth, but rather to the experience of the regenerate—to the blessed result of Christian sorrow and self-sacrifice.—J. L.]

[18][Alford: “The purpose in the Divine arrangement: for with God all results are purposed.” Ellicott: “The purpose contemplated by God in His merciful dispensation implied in οὐκ ἐστε ἐν σκότει.... It may be doubted, however, whether we have not here some trace of a secondary force of ἵνα (see on Eph_1:17), the eventual conclusion being in some degree mixed up with and observing the idea of finality; comp. notes on Gal_5:17.”—J. L.]

[19][ὑμᾶς ἡ ἡμέρα. So A. D. E. F. G. Vulg., &c. Lachmann, Ellicott.—J. L.]

[20][So Jowett, Alford, Ellicott, with others named in Revision; which see.—J. L.]

[21](German: sprechet einander zu; whereas at 1Th_4:18 the phrase is, tröstel einander. See Revision.—J. L.]

[22][Revision: “No edition has εἰς τὸν ἔνα, the construction adopted by Faber (ad unum usque, to a man), Whitby (into one body), Rückert (who understands by τὸν ἔνα, Christ).”—J. L.]

[23][Greek: ἐκνήψατε—“Awake” as from a fit of drunkenness.—J. L.]

[24][Taumelbecher—Luther’s word at Zec_12:2.—J. L.]

[25][The word which our English Version here renders emboldened is οἰκοδομηθήσεται.—J. L.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

V. THE DAY OF THE LORD AND EXHORTATIONS

CHAPTER 5

1. The day of the Lord 1Th 5:1-11)

2. Exhortations 1Th 5:12-22)

3. Conclusions 1Th 5:23-28)

1Th 5:1-11

“But concerning the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.” The apostle next mentions the day of the Lord. This is the day when the Lord is revealed from heaven, the day of His visible manifestation. It is the day when judgment will be executed upon the world. While the coming of the Lord for His saints, as made known in the previous chapter, is unrevealed in the Old Testament, the day of the Lord of which the apostle now writes, is fully revealed by the prophets. (See Isa 2:12-22; Joe 2:1-32; Joe 3:1-21; Zep 1:14-18; Zec 14:1-9, etc.)

Our Lord spoke often of that day as the day “when the Son of Man cometh,” that is His own visible glorious manifestation. What precedes this day is also made known in the Old Testament prophetic Word; and our Lord gives us likewise the same information. “And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luk 21:25-27). See Mat 24:21-31. judgment is in store for the world when that day comes, as judgments and tribulation are the forerunners which usher in that day. The world does not believe in such a day, but dreams of peace and safety, in a continuance of prosperity, of expansion, universal peace and a constant improvement of earthly conditions.

“There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2Pe 3:3-4). But while the world saith, Peace and safety, their hearts are failing them for fear and they tremble in anticipation of the future. Much of all this we see clearly in our times, so ominous and so solemn. There is a false hope, a false optimism; we hear of what this world war will accomplish, how peace and safety will come to the whole world; yet underneath it all there are hearts failing for fear. And when that day has come, when He has been “revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,” the Lord Jesus Christ will reign over the earth with His saints for a thousand years (Rev 20:1-15). That will be the day of the Lord, as the present age is “man’s day.”

Before that day comes with its preceding judgments and the great tribulation, the coming of the Lord, for His saints, the fulfilment of chapter 4:16-18 must take place. Of this we shall find much more in the second Epistle. When the Lord comes for His saints, the world and those who were Christians only in name, will face that coming day. It is the beginning of it. After God’s true children, the praying people of God, have been removed, the age will take its final plunge into apostasy and iniquity; judgment upon judgment from above will then be poured out, as we learn from the book of Revelation.

Because these judgments, the forerunners of the day of His visible manifestation, the times and seasons connected with these events, do not concern those who are the Lord’s, the apostle states that there was no need to write them about it. The Lord had told His disciples before He ascended into heaven that it was not for them to know the times and the seasons. It shows that we are not to be occupied with the times and seasons, when the times of the Gentiles end, etc., but to wait and watch for Him, who will surely come suddenly for His own as a thief in the night.

“Had it been possible in the apostle’s day to predict the centuries of delay that have, in fact, elapsed, disciples might indeed still have waited for their Lord, but watched they could not, and no ‘thief in the night’ could have troubled their slumbers. But for the heart, expectancy was needed; and they were to watch because they knew not. Thus for these watchers the times could not speak, and in fact when they do it will be for another people than the present Christian Church, and when this is already removed to be with the Lord in the manner which we have just had before us.

“For mere formal and worldly Christendom, the coming of the thief will then in a sense have taken place. Shut out in the outside darkness, when others have entered the chambers of light, no place of repentance will be left for the despisers of God’s present grace. In a world which, having rejected the true King, will be left for that awful time to experience fully what Satan’s rule is, they will fall under the power of his deception. Not having received the love of the truth that they might be saved, they will believe a lie; and comforting themselves with the cry of ‘peace and safety,’ sudden destruction will come upon them as upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape!” (Numerical Bible)

The words “they” and “you” make it still more clear that the day of the Lord is for the world. He does not say “When you shall say, Peace and safety” but when “they shall say.” The apostle excludes the believer completely from that day when sudden destruction falls, for he says, “Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day overtake you as a thief” And why? Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For that they sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. This is the character of true Christians, no longer in darkness, but children of light and of the day, and therefore belonging to that coming day to be with the Lord when He comes to judge, it cannot overtake them as a thief.

Being the children of the day we must watch and be sober; it is that which distinguishes true Christians from the mass of professing church-members and the world. The world and those who have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof, do not watch, nor are they sober; and being sober, walking in separation from the world, its lusts and pleasures, the believer, having on the breastplate of faith and love, can advance against the enemy. He has also for an helmet, to protect him, this promised glorious salvation. Thus we can look always up, without fear, in the midst of danger when the judgment clouds are gathering over this present evil age. “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Blessed knowledge and twice blessed assurance! that we might be delivered from the wrath to come and share with Him eternal glory. He died for us. “Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep (as to the body) we should live together with Him.”

1Th 5:12-22

Exhortations follow. He wishes that those who labored among them should be acknowledged by them and very highly esteemed in love for their work’s sake. If the apostle and his co-laborers looked upon them as their crown of rejoicing, their glory and joy (1Th 2:19-20), they should very highly esteem them as the instruments of the Spirit of God for their edification. Be in peace among yourselves. All self-will is put aside when the heart looks forward to that coming day, when laborers and the fruits of their labors are in His presence. Then peace among His own will not be disturbed. The disorderly are to be admonished; the faint-hearted comforted; the weak sustained, and patience to be manifested towards all. Then we have joy, prayer and thanksgiving as the characteristics of those who wait for His Son from heaven and look for that blessed hope. “Rejoice evermore”--our joy is in Him. The joy of the Lord is our strength. And what joy will indeed be ours when we remember that we shall see Him as He is!

“Pray without ceasing.” Prayer is constantly needed, including the forgotten prayer, “Even so, Come, Lord Jesus.” If this petition is never wanting, His coming for us will never lack reality. “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” As we pray and ever take afresh from His own fulness grace upon grace, and remember all the abundant provision made for us in Him, and that the glorious future which awaits His own may burst at any moment upon us, then shall we give thanks in everything. “Quench not the Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is not to be hindered in His action in the midst of His people. What sad consequences when He is quenched and how great the responsibility! Do not despise prophesyings--the forthtelling of the truth of God, speaking out of the fulness of the Spirit. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil,” or, as it is better rendered, “Keep aloof from every form of wickedness.”

1Th 5:23-28

The conclusion of the Epistle begins with a prayer. “Now the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is faithful that calls you, who will also do it.” God is for all who have believed in Christ the God of peace. Peace was made in the blood of the cross; believers are both reconciled and sanctified through the peace that God has made for us in the work of His Son. We stand therefore in a blessed relationship with the God of peace, have communion with Him, and from this flows practical devotedness of life and walk to God. Believers are sanctified by the three persons of the Godhead; by God the Father, by the blood of Jesus Christ, the offering of His body, and by the Holy Spirit.

We are in Christ completely set apart for God, bought with a price and no longer our own. We possess a new nature and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This demands of us that we be wholly set apart to God in every faculty, whether of mind or body. This is our practical sanctification, which springs from our increasing knowledge of God. This practical sanctification is wrought in the believer by the power of the Holy Spirit, who attaches the heart to God, revealing God more and more, as well as unfolding the glory of Christ. This devotedness to God in spirit, soul and body, depends upon the believer’s apprehension of his relationship to the God of peace and his communion with Him. And this is progressive. Entire sanctification will be the blessed and eternal portion of all who are Christ’s, when He comes, and we shall be like Him, “conformed to the image of His Son.” The perfection comes with the coming of the Lord; in the power of this blessed hope shall we be preserved blameless even down here in this evil age. He is faithful who calls you, who will also perform it. Blessed assurance! He has called us to this life of blessed separation with Himself. He is faithful and will accomplish it. May we trust Him daily and stay close to Him.

“Observe again here, how the coming of Christ is introduced, and the expectation of this coming, as an integral part of Christian life. “Blameless,” it says, “at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The life which had developed itself in obedience and holiness meets the Lord at His coming. Death is not in question. The life which we have found is to be such when He appears. The man, in every part of his being, moved by this life, is found there blameless when He comes. This life, and the man living this life, are found, with their Head and Source, in the glory. Then will the weakness disappear which is connected with his present condition. That which is mortal shall be swallowed up of life: that is all. We are Christ’s: He is our life. We wait for Him, that we may be with Him, and that He may perfect all things in the glory” (Synopsis of the Bible).

The apostle closes this First Epistle by requesting the brethren to pray for him and his co-laborers. With all the deep knowledge of the truth and the great revelations from the Lord, he felt his dependence and knew the blessing which comes from the prayers of fellow saints. He asks for the expression of affection among themselves and adjures them to have this letter read to all the holy brethren. And the final word “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th 5:1-8

I. The Apostle having disclosed much in the foregoing verses about the Lord’s second coming, and the respective shares in its glory which are to fall to those of His people who are then asleep, and those of them who are then alive, and remain, and having shown that the one class will not be more highly favoured than the other, proceeds now to declare to his readers that, having such assured knowledge, they have enough. It is not for them in a spirit of mere curiosity to pry into the times and seasons when these things shall be. Christ has willed it that, certain of His eventual arrival, we should remain in uncertainty as to its destined moment.

II. The path of God’s people is as the shining light. It cannot, then, be that that day should overtake them as a thief; the day of the Lord, loved and longed for, can never actually come upon them as something unwelcome—disliked, dreaded. The very statement of their character and privilege is thus, on the part of the Apostle, an earnest appeal addressed to them. To those who are watchful, sober, armed, the Saviour’s own promise will at length be fulfilled, when He comes in His glory: "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you."

J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 189.

References: 1Th 5:2.—R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 1st series, p. 159; H. P. Liddon, Advent Sermons, vol. i., p. 368. 1Th 5:4.—F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 1; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xxvi., p. 27; R. H. Newton, Ibid., vol. xxviii., p. 378. 1Th 5:5.—A. Macleod, Talking to the Children, p. 93. 1Th 5:6.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii., No. 64; vol. iii., No. 163; vol. xvii., No. 1022; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 65; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 137. 1Th 5:7, 1Th 5:8.—T. H. Pattison, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 380.

1Th 5:8

The Work and Armour of the Children of the Day.

I. First, this central injunction, into which all the moral teaching drawn from the second coming of Christ is gathered—"Let us be sober." Now, I do not suppose we are altogether to omit any reference to the literal meaning of this word. The context seems to show that by its reference to night as the season for drunken orgies. But, passing from that, let us turn to the higher subject with which the Apostle is here evidently mainly concerned. What is the meaning of the exhortation "Be sober"? Well, first let me tell you what I think is not the meaning of it. It does not mean an unemotional absence of fervour in your Christian character. Paul, the very man that is exhorting here to sobriety, was the very type of an enthusiast all his life. So Festus thought him mad, and even in the Church at Corinth there were some to whom, in his fervour, he seemed to be "beside himself." The exhortation means, as I take it, mainly this: the prime Christian duty of self-restraint in the use and the love of all earthly treasures and pleasures.

II. There is, secondly, a motive which backs up and buttresses this exhortation. "Let us, who are of the day"—or, as the Revised Version has it a little more emphatically and correctly, "Let us, since we are of the day, be sober." "Ye are the children of the day." There is one direction especially in which the Apostle thinks that that consideration ought to tell, and that is the direction of its self-restraint. Noblesse oblige! The aristocracy are bound to do nothing low or dishonourable. The children of the light are not to stain their hands with anything foul. Chambering and wantonness, slumber and drunkenness, the indulgence in the appetites of the flesh,—all that may be fitting for the night, it is clean incongruous with the day.

III. Last of all, my text points out for us a method by which this great precept may be fulfilled:—"Putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation." And in like manner the cultivation of faith, charity, and hope is the best means for securing the exercise of sober self-control.

A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 1st series, p. 29.

The Duty of Seriousness.

To attain to a true Christian gladness, we must learn to be serious, to be sober.

I. The two great elements indispensable to the existence of a really grand character are elasticity and steadfastness: elasticity, without which a man gets crushed by every slight failure; and steadfastness, without which he will be turned aside from his purpose by unworthy motives, and be tempted to forget the end of his efforts in the contemplation of the means by which they could be attained. For keeping alive this elasticity, a man must know how to be wisely gay; for keeping up this steadfastness, he must know how to be sober.

II. And so Christian sobriety must be based upon a reasonable estimate of the importance of life and the seriousness of all things here below. The trifler, who has no higher ambition than to amuse himself, mistakes the meaning of all things on earth. But as a man lays hold on the fact that God loves him and all men, and that, with all his weakness and inconstancy, he is yet not left unsupported by the Spirit’s grace,—though he may be serious he will not be sad. Christian sobriety and Christian gaiety have their sources lying closely side by side in the devout and earnest soul; and, like the Danube and the Rhine, which start out from different sides of the same glacier, and then diverge as far as the east is from the west, so these two, however much they seem to be at variance when they take a separate course, yet have their true founts in a living faith in God, and are then most fresh, and real, and inexhaustible, when they spring from a source of trusting love, in a heart that rests upon the Rock of Ages, and which, while it has its hold upon the earth, is yet aspiring upwards.

A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 236.

Reference: 1Th 5:8.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 148.

1Th 5:9-10

God’s Appointment concerning Man.

I. Note, first, the persons in whose favour God’s appointment is made. They are believers in Jesus. Salvation is limited to faith in Christianity; and therefore the appointment of God that is unto salvation, must be subject to the same limitation.

II. The appointment. There is a twofold aspect—a negative and a positive view. He has not appointed us to wrath, but He has appointed us to obtain salvation through Jesus Christ. (1) Has He appointed any to wrath? The contrast is not between us and others. The object of the passage is to give unspeakable comfort and assurance to the child of God, that he is not appointed to wrath, but to salvation. Those who live in sin, those who refuse to accept God’s mercy, will, no doubt, suffer eternal punishment. That is a scriptural truth. But to say that God appointed men and women, who are now living in unbelief and sin, before they appeared upon this earth, to eternal punishment, by virtue of His arbitrary will and purpose, is as different as one thing can be from another, and is altogether inconsistent with our ideas of the righteousness, integrity, and holiness of God. (2) There is one exception. Was not Jesus appointed to wrath? On Him was laid the iniquity of us all. He became responsible for it. He volunteered to take our sins upon Himself. He suffered to teach us that sin and the curse are inseparable, that where sin is there is, and must be, a curse. Our substitute is Christ; He was sacrificed, and died on the cross for us; He bore the brunt of God’s wrath, and it is only through Him that we can see the Father.

C. Molyneux, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 134.

1Th 5:9-15

I. This passage, 1Th 5:9-15, has its interest and value as showing us that the earliest and the latest of the Pauline Epistles are all at one in regard to the central doctrines of salvation through Christ. In this passage, we have, wrapped up in few words, indeed, but none the less really contained in them, his one uniform declaration of salvation through Christ, and His atoning death.

II. "Wherefore,"—seeing that such a future, such an inheritance of bliss is in store—"comfort yourselves together" by lovingly meditating upon it, by reminding one another of it, by helping one another in preparing for it, and so "edify one another." The clause is added "even as also ye do." Lest the exhortation might appear to his friends to have some slight tinge of reproof in it, the Apostle closes it with words of praise, and this praise, this grateful, hearty recognition of their Christian conduct, is a further appeal to them yet more to abound in this good work.

III. And now, in accordance with his usual practice, the Apostle draws his epistle to a close with a series of general, but not miscellaneous directions—exhortations as to details of conduct, suggested probably by the knowledge he had of certain defects in the Thessalonian community—"ever follow that which is good." The aim set before the Christian is that which is good; good in the full compass of the word—the spiritual and also the temporal good of others—everything that in reality can be beneficial to them. Our following must be not only eager, it must be regular, persistent, ceaseless. The discharge of this duty is the Christian’s highest privilege.

J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 201.

References: 1Th 5:10.—J. Angus, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 289; Homilist, vol. iv., p. 117. 1Th 5:12.—T. L. Cuyler, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 49. 1Th 5:13.—E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion, p. 142. 1Th 5:14.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ix., p. 222.

1Th 5:16

The Duty of Gladness.

I. It is of the very nature of a duty that it is in our power to perform it; and so with this one, the very fact of its being laid upon us proves that we may, if we will, obey it. And therefore this at once disposes of those who would be inclined to say that gladness does not depend on ourselves, that it is the privilege of the few only to be gay, and of those few only under peculiar circumstances; and that it is as vain to tell people to be merry and joyful as to tell them to be tall or short, or strong or handsome. There is always a disposition to make every thing in our Christian life dependent on circumstances, and to make excuses for this or that sin or shortcoming, by blaming circumstances and not ourselves. Once begin with the perilous doctrine that men are what they are made, and that we cannot help our lapses because of the taint and defects in our nature, and we open the door to excuses for every kind of enormity.

II. Just as we get nearer to our true selves, the fresher and purer, and wiser and truer our souls become, the more food shall we find for joy; and because, as the pure soul finds life glad, and so gladness reacts upon the soul and tends to make it pure, so this is the reason why the Apostle tells us to rejoice; for joy tends to cleanse the heart and banish thought of sin and misery, and wars against the useless recollection of sorrows that are gone, and of errors that cannot now be retrieved, and of troubles that may be temptations to murmur, but which by all the murmurs in the world can never be as though they were not. Sin slays gladness, and sin alone; and this is the awful part of the curse on sin, that it robs us of our inheritance of delight, and is a bar to our hearty joy. But to those who are trying to realise that they are Christ’s redeemed ones, and who live in the habitual remembrance that God is their Father, joy need not be and ought not to be hard.

A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 226.

Reference: 1Th 5:16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii., No. 1900.

1Th 5:16-18

I. "Rejoice evermore." The Thessalonian converts were living in the sphere of sorrow. The Apostle exhorts them to be "girded with gladness." This rejoicing, being in the Lord, is opposed to the spurious joy which is the possession of sinners. The rejoicing before God is the deep, calm delight of the soul in communion with the Saviour. It springs out of the three Christian graces which this epistle so strongly emphasises—faith, hope, and love.

II. "Pray without ceasing." Prayerfulness is the atmosphere in which all things appear bright and joyous. The Apostle takes it for granted that none of his readers will call in question the duty of prayer. What he enjoins is constancy in prayer. The only conceivable way in which, on our part, this communion may be maintained, is the lifting up of the heart in conscious dependence and petition. The Church militant must ever be the Church suppliant. Prayer is the very beating of the pulse of the Christian’s inner life. Without it life would cease to be.

III. "In everything give thanks." The clause seems to suggest not merely that the heart is at all times, and for all things to be grateful, but that the gratitude is to overflow into every action of the life—thanks giving and thanks living. Here is a sense in which we are evermore to pay back, as it were, in active service, what we receive from God. That debt ever due, never cancelled, we have ceaselessly to pay, and in paying it to find our highest joy.

J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 216.

Reference: 1Th 5:16-18.—A. Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, p. 242.

1Th 5:17

I. The nature of prayer. Prayer is not a rite, not a ceremony, not a cold, outward observance, but an actual intercourse between two parties—one who prays and One who hears. It is a communion between man and God, as real and actual as what passes between two men, when they speak face to face with each other. If the inward desire is absent, then prayer is absent; and though a man shall have breathed all his life long the words of prayer, he will never have prayed if he has never asked. We cannot ask unless we desire, and we cannot desire, unless we feel our want. Thus, therefore, the word expresses much more than this. See how great is the dignity of prayer. When the soul prays it is as if the distance between itself and the throne of God were annihilated. This is the idea conveyed in the expression of St. Paul. "Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace." To pray is to come to the throne of grace, its exercise bringing us into the very presence of God, as really and truly as if in the body we stepped upon the gleaming pavement of heaven, and stood at God’s footstool, and gazed upon the majesty of His appearance. To the dignity of prayer, add likewise the thought of its power. There are mysteries in it as regards the free knowledge and the free sovereignty of God, which we cannot pierce nor try to pierce; but it is most certain from the word that believing prayer has, humanly speaking, in virtue of His own promise, the power to change and modify the Divine intentions.

II. Consider the universality of the duty. "Pray without ceasing." When the true nature of prayer is rightly comprehended, this, too, will follow from the mere instincts of the soul’s desire. The words express (1) constancy and perseverance. The single petition does not make prayer. Supplication must be constant, as well as persevering. Not more truly is the body dependent for its life, and health, and food, upon a constant providence, than the soul is on the constant gift of grace. To think that the child of God will ever in this world be so free from enemies without and from fightings within as not to need fresh supplies of strength and peace, is but the device of the arch-enemy who lies in wait to lead us into ruin. Never, never can prayer cease on this side the grave; never, till the earthly strife is past, and the earthly temptation ended, and the earthly tempest has sunk to rest over the deep waters that roll between us and our Canaan above. Then, indeed, prayer will cease, but it will cease only to swell praise into a more divine energy and lift its voice amid the rapturous hallelujahs of the redeemed.

E. Garbett, The Soul’s Life, p. 271.

Religious exercises are, to many, very dull and uninteresting. Prayer is to many a tiresome thing. They will bow their heads or kneel and endure the uncongenial form, but they feel no interest in it, and they are secretly glad when it is over. To them religion appears to cloud the face, darken the sky, and make life gloomy. But if Christians are gloomy, it is not in obedience to Divine orders. "Rejoice evermore," says the inspiring Spirit, and, perhaps as a means towards the constant joy, he adds: "Pray without ceasing."

I. Does this mean that we are, night and day, to keep praying, never ceasing, as some of the ascetics of the Middle Ages claimed to do? No. Paul the Apostle laboured "night and day." Does that mean that he never slept at night? No, it is the expression, in common speech, of the idea that he was bent on his work all the time, just as you may sometimes say truly of a thing that you are thinking about it, or working at it, night and day. It means that you give to it all the time available. Now in the same sense are we to pray without ceasing.

II. Note, in the next place, that desire is a condition of real prayer. When our desire is according to the Divine will, and endorsed, so to speak, by the Saviour, it is granted. It goes in His name. So we have to study the Scriptures to know what is God’s will, and look for the help of the Spirit to make us prayerful, hopeful, patient, persevering under that gracious influence. "This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us."

J. Hall, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 15.

References: 1Th 5:17.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1039; S. A. Tipple, Sunday Mornings at Norwood, p. 109; Plain Sermons, vol. v., p. 131; J. Kelly, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 374; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 270. 1Th 5:18.—H. Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxvi., p. 341;, E. L. Hull, Sermons, 1st series, p. 14. 1Th 5:19.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ix., p. 285; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 273; E. Garbett, The Soul’s Life, p. 180; Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons, vol. i., p. 46; C. G. Finney, Gospel Themes, p. 245.

1Th 5:19-22

I. The Holy Spirit is here spoken of not strictly in respect of His Person, but in respect of His energising power in and on the heart. His workings, the Apostle would say, may be so counteracted as to become ineffectual. They may be quenched as the flame that is kindled for a time, but being neglected, sooner or later expires. Rain, dew, wind, fire, those mysterious agencies of nature, are in Scripture the fitting and effective emblems of the Holy Spirit’s power in the hearts and lives of men. Those who are already believers are, in regard to their advancing sanctification, to cherish His manifestations. By relapse into sinful indulgences, the follower of Jesus quenches the spirit of grace within his heart.

II. "Despise not prophesyings." The Spirit is the Divine power, prophesyings are the human instrumentality. If men would be kept from quenching the one, they must be kept from thinking meanly of the other. The Spirit is the Divine light: if they would retain it, they must be careful to preserve prophesyings, the lamp in which it is placed.

III. The next clause links itself on to that which precedes it. So far from Undervaluing or spurning prophecies, believers are urged to test them. As there are counterfeits of the truth in circulation, it is wise on the part of all who would buy the truth to test it, to submit it to careful examination, so that they may not be deceived, but may become possessors of that priceless treasure, gold tried in the fire, that finest gold which alone can make truly rich.

IV. The holding fast of the good exists only where there is an abhorring of that which is evil. Hence follows the closing exhortation: "Abstain from every form of evil." While the first reference is to evil elements, which might appear in the prophesyings, it purposely expands so as to embrace every kind of evil into contact with which the follower of Christ may be brought. In regard to all moral evil, he is enjoined to keep himself unspotted from the world.

J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 226.

Reference: 1Th 5:20.—Good Words, vol. iii., p. 698.

1Th 5:21

Something Worth Holding.

Our religion is—

I. Faith as opposed to infidelity.

II. Holiness as opposed to sin. By holiness I mean all possible human virtues and graces, purity of heart, truthfulness, temperance, uprightness, downrightness, love, generosity, magnanimity—all things good, true, and beautiful. To be holy is to be equal to the angels. To be holy is to be in the image of God. Note two things here. (1) The religion of Christ demands holiness. In this demand for holiness I see the wonderful possibilities of the soul of man. (2) Our religion not only demands holiness, but it gives us a sure promise of attaining to it. It is said that the Church of Christ shall be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

III. Our religion is love, practical goodness, self-denial, as opposed to selfishness. Selfishness is hateful everywhere. Self-denial—the incarnation of it in our Divine Master, this is our religion, and a man without any self-denial cannot be a Christian. It is faith; it is holiness; it is self-denial.

IV. Our religion is hope and joy as opposed to despair. In the past, ignorance; in the future, knowledge. In the past, sin; in the future, holiness. In the past, sorrow; in the future, joy. In the past, weakness and pain; in the future, eternal youth and health. In the past, the delirium of a fevered life; in the future, the saint’s everlasting rest. In the past, the earth; in the future, heaven. This is our religion; is it not worth holding?

T. Jones, Penny Pulpit, new series, Nos. 804, 805.

References: 1Th 5:21.—J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 360; S. Martin, Westminster Sermons, vol. xvii.; T. Jones, Ibid., vol. vii., p. 321; F. Wagstaff, Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 353; R. S. Candlish, Scripture Characters, p. 377; Church of England Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 313; vol. v., p. 19; vol. xx., p. 209; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 337.

1Th 5:22

Evil Superficially Attractive.

I. This is so important a precept (1) because men’s faculties are so frail. We cannot penetrate below the surface; therefore let that which is superficial express that which is below, and be an outward sign of an inward reality. If you are seeking good, do not let appearances be against you, but let the good which is your object shine out and show. But its importance arises (2) from the influence which men have over each other. If we conceal our good, we are supposed, even by any who give us credit for it, to be ashamed of it. Our witness in its favour is curtailed and weakened if not destroyed; and (3) the corruption of our moral nature is such, and such our latent affinity for evil by reason of it that appearances, if allowed to be in favour of evil, are specially seductive to some, and generally dangerous to all.

II. The love of applause is a powerful motive in this aspect. Men love the praise of men more than the praise of God, and when the former becomes their idol, they gradually stifle their regrets, and purchase outward, perishable favour at the cost of inward peace. There can be few motives less worthy of a reasonable being exercising a choice of prudence than the mere passing breeze of approbation from the thoughtless. Yet how powerful a sway does this motive exercise to the larger number, leading them to tolerate in themselves, and therefore in society around them, or even to affect, the appearance of evil.

III. Lastly, the appearance of evil mostly draws on the reality. The love of applause forfeits real independence; even as the love of false independence forfeits obedience, forfeits holiness, and estranges us from Christ, its Model and its Author. We are members of Him, but barren boughs, whose end is to be burned, unless we walk in the spirit put within us.

H. Hayman, Rugby Sermons, p. 134.

1Th 5:23

St. Paul implies in the text that all three branches of our complicated nature are to undergo sanctification—that this leavening process is to go through the entire mass, until the whole is leavened. As the entire man is to be sanctified, so the entire man is to be educated, to be taken early, before the character has crystallised, and to be developed in all his faculties, corporeal, mental, and spiritual.

I. It is not on the mind, in the ordinary sense of the term, that the eternal destiny of man is suspended. The wayfaring man, though a fool, may be a jewel in his Redeemer’s crown. On the other hand, "not many wise men after the flesh" were among the first converts to the Gospel. Does it not follow necessarily that to cultivate the mind, while you neglect the development of the spirit and the heart, is one of the most melancholy absurdities that a world which is full of absurdities can present? How can any sane person, being a believer in Revelation, profess to educate at all, without educating for heaven in the first instance, and holding that object foremost before his mind. The cultivation of the mind ranks next in importance. And its importance is immense. But even the cultivation of the mind is chiefly valuable, as it enables us to apprehend God more clearly, and so qualifies us for communion with Him through His dear Son.

II. The education of the soul or affections is also part of the province of education.

III. The body also demands its share in the education of the whole man. For the body, though it is a garment laid aside at death, yet it is to be resumed again on the morn of the Resurrection, and worn throughout eternity—the same as to its substance, only changed in form, and adapted to a glorified state of existence. There must be machinery, if effects are to be produced; for God works by means. But grace, the Holy Spirit, the Power from on High, except He put life and vigour into the means, they are all, even the highest of them, dead letters.

E. M. Goulburn, Sermons at Holywell, p. 456.

1Th 5:23

Spirit, Soul, and Body.

When this threefold division of our nature is mentioned, the term Body expresses those appetites which we have in common with the brutes; the term Soul denotes our moral and intellectual faculties, directed only towards objects of this world, and not exalted by the hope of immortality; and the term Spirit takes these same faculties when directed towards God and heavenly things, and from the purity, the greatness, and the perfect goodness of Him who is their object transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Let us see, then, what is that blamelessness, or that degree of perfection, in which we should desire all these parts of our nature to be found when we stand before Christ’s judgment seat.

I. First, the body. Bodily pleasures are the first which we ever enjoy, and our earliest lessons in virtue are learnt in struggling not to give way to them. What is wanted is not to lower or weaken the body, but to raise and strengthen the soul and spirit, that the body may be ready and able to do their work, which it cannot do unless it be itself sound and vigorous.

II. The soul is that part which is most commonly strengthened by the growth and cultivation of the powers of the understanding, and by the various objects which attract the mind as we come forth into actual life. And the general tendency of civilised society is to call forth our minds into action rather than our bodies; so that as we advance in life the soul naturally takes the lead. This is the life, assuredly, of a reasonable creature; of one, looking only to this visible world, noble and admirable. And here, without the Gospel, our progress must stop.

III. But the Gospel which has brought life and immortality to light, has also pointed out to us that part of our nature by which we can be fitted for it—that is, our spirit, our spiritual hopes, and our feelings of love and charity. The true object of man’s life is to perfect our spirits, our desires after perfect happiness, our love to God and to men as the children of God; to perfect in us that part of our being, which alone is remote from selfishness.

T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. i., p. 227.

References: 1Th 5:23.—Bishop Barry, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 88; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. vi., p. 94; G. Bonney, Church of England Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 169; F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 43; E. L. Hull, Sermons, 1st series, p. 225.

1Th 5:23-28

I. There is much of instruction and comfort in this Apostolic prayer. The blessing prayed for is that the Thessalonian converts may be sanctified wholly, that their spirit and soul and body may be preserved. The Apostle adopts the trichotomy which in some form or other may be said to belong to almost all systems of philosophy—"body, soul, spirit" It is the combination of these three which makes up our nature; it is the due relations between these three which constitute our sole possible happiness; it is the right training of these three that is the object of that lifelong education which should begin in our earliest years, and end only with the grave. In the case of Christ’s people, the Apostle’s prayer is that body, soul, and spirit be preserved entire, without blame, being sanctified wholly—each in its complete measure and perfect proportions. Delivered from the dominion of sin and Satan, they are in God’s keeping unto holiness. The whole man is to become wholly man and God.

II. St. Paul next turns aside, very characteristically, to ask the pleadings of his Thessalonian friends with the God of peace on behalf of himself and his fellow-labourers. He who was giving thanks always for them all, making mention of them in his prayers, in the yearning love of his heart now asks them to make mention of himself in their prayers. Such is Christian fellowship. The Apostolic teacher turns from instruction and exhortation and warning to supplication for help—not man’s help, indeed, but God’s—yet God’s help brought near to him through the intercessory prayer of God’s own people.

III. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." In all the variations with which it appears in the Pauline epistles, this benediction never has the word "grace" a-wanting. Thus, his first epistle begins and closes with that word, which, above all others, reveals the summed sweetness of the whole Gospel. Those who have the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ with them on earth, cannot fail to have glory with Him hereafter in heaven.

J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 238.

1Th 5:24

I. The faith of man and the faithfulness of God. The highest object of man’s existence is undoubtedly to hold communion with his God. For this his nature was originally framed, and in this alone will his nature ever find contentment or repose. The remedy for his present condition must be a restoration of the communion of man with God. And this is the most general character of the Christian religion—the simplest definition of its nature and object. Man is separated from God as a criminal: the communion is restored, by free pardon on God’s part, of the acceptance of that pardon upon man’s. And thus it is that Christianity restores the race of man, by restoring the communion with God.

II. The instance of God’s inflexible fidelity, which the Apostle notes in the text, is gloriously characteristic of the spiritual system to which we belong. The kingdom of God was to Paul an inward and spiritual kingdom, even at the time that he looked forward to the presence of the Lord, and the glory of His power, when He shall come to be "glorified in His saints." It was not relief from temporal ends that the Apostle promised, no security from adversity, that was to manifest the omnipotence of God exerted on behalf of His people. No: the mercy of God might send them to the stake or the lions; it was still His mercy, if it "but kept them unspotted from the world." The faithfulness of God is represented by the Apostle as extending to the whole man, to body, soul, and spirit, which are all said to be preserved blameless. The entire of our feeble humanity is sheltered under this canopy of Divine protection.

III. It is also said of this faithfulness, that it is the faithfulness of Him that calleth you. This is not the least wondrous circumstance in the unalterable faithfulness of God, that it is a fidelity to His own gracious engagement. He calls, and He is faithful to His own merciful calling; He summons the heart to Himself, and He adheres to His own voluntary summons; He, without destroying human freedom or human responsibility, of His free grace, commences, continues, and ends, the whole Christian work. Yea, so faithful is this His profound compassion, that He represents Himself as bound to the impulses of His own unconstrained mercy. There is no bond but His own love, yet that bond is stronger than iron; and He, whom the universe cannot compel, commands Himself.

W. Archer Butler, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical, 1st series, p. 207.

References: 1Th 5:24.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 346; Church of England Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 49. 1Th 5:25.—J. Aldis, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 289; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 189.

1Th 5:27

The Witness to Christ of the Oldest Christian Writing.

If the books of the New Testament were arranged according to the dates of their composition, this epistle would stand first. It was written somewhere about twenty years after the Crucifixion, and long before any of the existing Gospels. It is, therefore, of peculiar interest, as being the most venerable extant Christian document, and as being a witness to Christian truth quite independent of the Gospel narratives.

I. Let us hear its witness to the Divine Christ. There is nothing in any part of Scripture more emphatic and more lofty in its unfaltering proclamation of the truth of Christ’s Divinity than this altogether undoctrinal epistle. It takes it for granted that so deeply was that truth embedded in the consciousness of the converts that an allusion to it was all that was needed for their understanding and faith.

II. Let us ask what this witness has to say about the dying Christ. (1) As to the fact. The Jews killed the Lord Jesus. The historical fact, is here set forth distinctly. And then, beyond the fact, there is as distinctly, though in the same incidental fashion, set forth the meaning of the fact. "God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us."

III. Notice what the witness has to say about the risen and ascended Christ. The risen Christ is in the heavens. And Paul assumes that these people, just brought out of heathenism, have received that truth into their hearts, in the love of it, and know it so thoroughly that we can take for granted their entire acquiescence in and acceptance of it. Remember, we have nothing to do with the four gospels here; remember, not a line of them had yet been written—we are dealing here with an entirely independent witness—and then tell us what importance is to be attached to this evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Twenty years after His death, here is this man speaking about that Resurrection as being not only something that he had to proclaim, and believed, but as being the recognised and notorious fact which all the Churches accepted, and which underlay all their faith.

IV. Let us hear what this witness has to say about the returning Christ. These are the points of his testimony: (1) a personal coming, (2) a re-union of all believers in Him, in order to eternal felicity and mutual gladness, (3) the destruction that shall fall by His coming on those that turn away from Him. I remember once walking in the long galleries of the Vatican, on the one side of which there are Christian inscriptions from the catacombs, and on the other heathen inscriptions from the tombs. One side is all dreary and hopeless, one long sigh echoing along the line of white marbles, "Vale, vale, in aeternum vale!" on the other side, "In Christo, in Pace, in Spe." That is the witness that we have to lay to our hearts. And so death becomes a passage, and we let go the dear hands, believing that we shall clasp them again.

A. Maclaren, The God of the Amen, p. 41.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 12

THE DAY OF THE LORD

1Th_5:1-11 (R.V.)

THE last verses of the fourth chapter perfect that which is lacking, on one side, in the faith of the Thessalonians. The Apostle addresses himself to the ignorance of his readers: he instructs them more fully on the circumstances of Christs second coming; and he bids them comfort one another with the sure hope that they and their departed friends shall meet, never to part, in the kingdom of the Saviour. In the passage before us he perfects what is lacking to their faith on another side. He addresses himself, not to their ignorance, but to their knowledge; and he instructs them how to improve, instead of abusing, both what they knew and what they were ignorant of, in regard to the last Advent. It had led, in some, to curious inquiries; in others, to a moral restlessness which could not bind itself patiently to duty; yet its true fruit, the Apostle tells them, ought to be hope, watchfulness, and sobriety.

"The day of the Lord" is a famous expression in the Old Testament; it runs through all prophecy, and is one of its most characteristic ideas. It means a day which belongs in a peculiar sense to God: a day which He has chosen for the perfect manifestation of Himself, for the thorough working out of His work among men. It is impossible to combine in one picture all the traits which prophets of different ages, from Amos downward, embody in their representations of this great day. It is heralded, as a rule, by terrific phenomena in nature: the sun is turned into darkness and the moon into blood, and the stars withdraw their light; we read of earthquake and tempest, of blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The great day ushers in the deliverance of Gods people from all their enemies; and it is accompanied by a terrible sifting process, which separates the sinners and hypocrites among the holy people from those who are truly the Lords. Wherever it appears, the day of the Lord has the character of finality. It is a supreme manifestation of judgment, in which the wicked perish forever; it is a supreme manifestation of grace, in which a new and unchangeable life of blessedness is opened to the righteous. Sometimes it seemed near to the prophet, and sometimes far off; but near or far, it bounded his horizon; he saw nothing beyond. It was the end of one era, and the beginning of another which should have no end.

This great conception is carried over by the Apostle from the Old Testament to the New. The day of the Lord is identified with the Return of Christ. All the contents of that old conception are carried over along with it. Christs return bounds the Apostles horizon; it is the final revelation of the mercy and judgment of God. There is sudden destruction in it for some, a darkness in which there is no light at all; and for others, eternal salvation, a light in which there is no darkness at all. It is the end of the present order of things, and the beginning of a new and eternal order. All this the Thessalonians knew; they had been carefully taught it by the Apostle. He did not need to write such elementary truths, nor did he need to say anything about the times and seasons which the Father had kept in His own power. They knew perfectly all that had been revealed on this matter, viz., that the day of the Lord comes exactly as a thief in the night. Suddenly, unexpectedly, giving a shock of alarm and terror to those whom it finds unprepared, -in such wise it breaks upon the world. The telling image, so frequent with the Apostles, was derived from the Master Himself; we can imagine the solemnity with which Christ said, "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." The New Testament tells us everywhere that men will be taken at unawares by the final revelation of Christ as Judge and Saviour; and in so doing, it enforces with all possible earnestness the duty of watching. False security is so easy, so natural, -looking to the general attitude, even of Christian men, to this truth, one is tempted to say, so inevitable, -that it may well seem. vain to urge the duty of watchfulness more. As it was in the days of Noah, as it was in the days of Lot, as it was-when Jerusalem fell, as it is at this moment, so shall it be at the day of the Lord. Men will say, Peace and safety, though every sign of the times says, Judgment. They will eat and drink, plant and build, marry and be given in marriage, with their whole heart concentrated and absorbed in these transient interests, till in a moment suddenly, like the lightning which flashes from east to west, the sign of the Son of Man is seen in heaven. Instead of peace and safety, sudden destruction surprises them; all that they have lived for passes away; they awake, as from deep sleep, to discover that their soul has no part with God. It is too late then to think of preparing for the end: the end has come; and it is with solemn emphasis the Apostle adds, "They shall in no wise escape."

A doom so awful, a life so evil, cannot be the destiny or the duty of any Christian man. "Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief." Darkness, in that saying of the Apostle, has a double weight of meaning. The Christian is not in ignorance of what is impending, and forewarned is forearmed. Neither is he any longer in moral darkness, plunged in vice, living a life the first necessity of which is to keep out of Gods sight. Once the Thessalonians had been in such darkness; their souls had had their part in a world sunk in sin, on which the day spring from on high had not risen; but now that time was past. God had shined into their hearts; He who is Himself light had poured the radiance of His own love and truth into them till ignorance, vice, and wickedness had passed away, and they had become light in the Lord. How intimate is the relation between the Christian and God, how complete the regeneration, expressed in the words, "Ye are all sons of light, and sons of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness"! There are shady things in the world, and shady persons, but they are not in Christianity, or among Christians. The true Christian takes his nature, all that characterises and distinguishes him, from light. There is no darkness in him, nothing to hide, no guilty secret, no corner of his being into which the light of God has not penetrated, nothing that makes him dread exposure. His whole nature is full of light, transparently luminous, so that it is impossible to surprise him or take him at a disadvantage. This, at least, is his ideal character; to this he is called, and this he makes his aim. There are those, the Apostle implies, who take their character from night and darkness, -men with souls that hide from God, that love secrecy, that have much to remember they dare not speak of, that turn with instinctive aversion from the light which the gospel brings, and the sincerity and openness which it claims; men, in short, who have come to love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. The day of the Lord will certainly be a surprise to them; it will smite them with sudden terror, as the midnight thief, breaking unseen through door or window, terrifies the defenceless householder; it will overwhelm them with despair, because it will come as a great and searching light, -a day on which God will bring every hidden thing to view, and judge the secrets of mens hearts by Christ Jesus. For those who have lived in darkness the surprise will be inevitable; but what surprise can there be for the children of the light? They are partakers of the Divine nature; there is nothing in their souls which they would not have God know; the light that shines from the great white throne will discover nothing in them to which its searching brightness is unwelcome; Christs coming is so far from. disconcerting them that it is really the crowning of their hopes.

The Apostle demands of his disciples conduct answering to this ideal. Walk worthy, he says, of your privileges and of your calling. "Let us not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober." "Sleep" is certainly a strange word to describe the life of the worldly man. He probably thinks himself very wide awake, and as far as a certain circle of interests is concerned, probably is so. The children of this world, Jesus tells us, are wonderfully wise for their generation. They are more shrewd and more enterprising than the children of light. But what a stupor falls upon them, what a lethargy, what a deep unconscious slumber, when the interests in view are spiritual. The claims of God, the future of the soul, the coming of Christ, our manifestation at His judgment seat, they are not awake to any concern in these. They live on as if these were not realities at all; if they pass through their minds on occasion, as they look at the Bible or listen to a sermon, it is as dreams pass through the mind of one asleep; they go out and shake themselves, and all is over; earth has recovered its solidity, and the airy unrealities have passed away. Philosophers have amused themselves with the difficulty of finding a scientific criterion between the experiences of the sleeping and the waking state, i.e., a means of distinguishing between the kind of reality which belongs to each; it is at least one element of sanity to be able to make the distinction. If we may enlarge the ideas of sleep and waking, as they are enlarged by the Apostle in this passage, it is a distinction which many fail to make. When they have the ideas which make up the staple of revelation presented to them, they feel as if they were in dreamland; there is no substance to them in a page of St. Paul; they cannot grasp the realities that underlie his words, any more than they can grasp the forms which swept before their minds in last nights sleep. But when they go out to their work in the world, to deal in commodities, to handle money, then they are in the sphere of real things, and wide awake enough. Yet the sound mind will reverse their decisions. It is the visible things that are unreal and that ultimately pass away; the spiritual things-God, Christ, the human soul, faith, love, hope-that abide. Let us not face our life in that sleepy mood to which the spiritual is but a dream; on the contrary, as we are of the day, let us be wide awake and sober. The world is full of illusions, of shadows which impose themselves as substances upon the heedless, of gilded trifles which the man whose eyes are heavy with sleep accepts as gold; but the Christian ought not to be thus deceived. Look to the coming of the Lord, Paul says, and do not sleep through your days, like the heathen, making your life one long delusion; taking the transitory for the eternal, and regarding the eternal as a dream; that is the way to be surprised with sudden destruction at the last; watch and be sober; and you will not be ashamed before Him at His coming.

It may not be out of place to insist on the fact that "sober" in this passage means sober as opposed to drunk. No one would wish to be overtaken drunk by any great occasion; yet the day of the Lord is associated in at least three passages of Scripture with a warning against this gross sin. "Take heed to yourselves," the Master says, "lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare." "The night is far spent," says the Apostle, "the day is at hand Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in revelling and drunkenness." And in this passage: "Let us, since we are of the day, be sober; they that be drunken are drunken in the night." The conscience of men is awakening to the sin of excess, but it has much to do before it comes to the New Testament standard. Does it not help us to see it in its true light when it is thus confronted with the day of the Lord? What horror could be more awful than to be overtaken in this state? What death is more terrible to contemplate than one which is not so very rare-death in drink?

Wakefulness and sobriety do not exhaust the demands made upon the Christian. He is also to be on his guard. "Put on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation." While waiting for the Lords coming, the Christian waits in a hostile world. He is exposed to assault from spiritual enemies who aim at nothing less than his life, and he needs to be protected against them. In the very beginning of this letter we came upon the three Christian graces; the Thessalonians were commended for their work of faith, labour of love, and patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. There they were represented as active powers in the Christian life, each manifesting its presence by some appropriate work, or some notable fruit of character; here they constitute a defensive armour by which the Christian is shielded against any mortal assault. We cannot press the figure further than this. If we keep our faith in Jesus Christ, if we love one another, if our hearts are set with confident hope on that salvation which is to be brought to us at Christs appearing, we need fear no evil; no foe can touch our life. It is remarkable, I think, that both here and in the famous passage in Ephesians, as well as in the original of both in Isa_59:17, salvation, or, to be more precise, the hope of salvation, is made the helmet. The Apostle is very free in his comparisons; faith is now a shield, and now a breastplate; the breastplate in one passage is faith and love, and in another righteousness; but the helmet is always the same. Without hope, he would say to us, no man can hold up his head in the battle; and the Christian hope is always Christs second coming. If He is not to come again, the very word hope may be blotted out of the New Testament. This assured grasp on the coming salvation-a salvation ready to be revealed in the last times-is what gives the spirit of victory to the Christian even in the darkest hour.

The mention of salvation brings the Apostle back to his principal subject. It is as if he wrote, "for a helmet the hope of salvation; salvation, I say; for God did not appoint us to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." The day of the Lord is indeed a day of wrath, -a day when men will cry to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath is come. The Apostle cannot remember it for any purpose without getting a glimpse of those terrors; but it is not for these he recalls it at this time. God did not appoint Christians to the wrath of that day, but to its salvation, -a salvation the hope of which is to cover their heads in the day of battle.

The next verse-the tenth-has the peculiar interest of containing the only hint to be found in this early Epistle of Pauls teaching as to the mode of salvation. We obtain it through Jesus Christ, who died for us. It is not who died instead of us, nor even on our behalf (υπερ), but, according to the true reading, who died a death in which we are concerned. It is the most vague expression that could have been used to signify that Christs death had something to do with our salvation. Of course it does not follow that Paul had said no more to the Thessalonians than he indicates here; judging from the account he gives in 1st Corinthians of his preaching immediately after he left Thessalonica, one would suppose he had been much more explicit; certainly no church ever existed that was not based on the Atonement and the Resurrection. In point of fact, however, what is here made prominent is not the mode of salvation, but one special result of salvation as accomplished by Christs death, a result contemplated by Christ, and pertinent to the purpose of this letter; He died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should together live with Him. The same conception precisely is found in Rom_14:9 : "To this end Christ died, and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living." This was His aim in redeeming us by passing through all modes of human existence, seen and unseen. It made Him Lord of all. He filled all things. He claims all modes of existence as His own. Nothing separates from Him. Whether we sleep or wake, whether we live or die, we shall alike live with Him. The strong consolation, to impart which was the Apostles original motive in approaching this subject, has thus come uppermost again; in the circumstances of the church, it is this which lies nearest to his heart.

He ends, therefore, with the old exhortation: "Comfort one another, and build each other up, as also ye do." The knowledge of the truth is one thing; the Christian use of it is another: if we cannot help one another very much with the first, there is more in our power with regard to the last. We are not ignorant of Christs second coming; of its awful and consoling circumstances; of its final judgment and final mercy; of its final separations and final unions. Why have these things been revealed to us? What influence are they meant to have in our lives? They ought to be consoling and strengthening. They ought to banish hopeless sorrow. They ought to generate and sustain an earnest, sober, watchful spirit; strong patience; a complete independence of this world. It is left to us as Christian men to assist each other in the appropriation and application of these great truths. Let us fix our minds upon them. Our salvation is nearer than when we believed. Christ is coming. There will be a gathering together of all His people unto Him. The living and the dead shall be forever with the Lord. Of the times and the seasons we can say no more than could be said at the beginning; the Father has kept them in His own power; it remains with us to watch and be sober; to arm ourselves with faith, love, and hope; to set our mind on the things that are above, where our true country is, whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

5:1 Questions such as how and when all this will happen occupied the thoughts of both Jewish and Christian people (Dan 12:6; Matt 24:3; Luke 17:20; Acts 1:6; 1 Pet 1:10-11).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Th 5:1. Περὶ τῶν χρόνων, of the times) When these things shall happen, which I have mentioned. Καιροί, seasons, are parts χρόνων, of the times.[24]—Οὐ ΧΡΕΊΑΝ ἜΧΕΤΕ, ye have no need) Those who watch do not require to be told when the hour will come; for they are always ready.

[24] Χρόνος gives the notion of indefinite time; Καιρός, the time, the opportune point of time, when a thing should be done. Ammonius says well, ὁ καιρός indicates quality (ποιότητα) of time; and χρόνος, quantity (ποσότητα).—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th_5:1. Περὶ δὲ τῶν χρόνων καὶ τῶν καιρῶν] but concerning the times and periods, i.e. concerning the time and hour, sc. of the advent. The conjunction of these two words frequently occurs; comp. e.g. Act_1:7; Dan_2:21; Ecc_3:1. χρόνος denotes time in general; καίρος, the definite point of time (therefore usually the favourable moment for a transaction). See Tittmann, de synonym. I. p. 39 ff. Paul puts the plural, because he thinks on a plurality of acts or incidents, in which partly preparation is made for the advent (2Th_2:3 ff.), and partly it is accomplished. That, moreover, the apostle, although he has not treated of the advent in itself, but only of an entirely special objection regarding it, feels necessitated also to make the commencement of the advent a subject of explanation, is an evident intimation that this point also formed the subject of frequent discussion among the Thessalonians. Yet on account of the relation of the second Epistle to the first, the opinion that the return of Christ was immediately to be expected was not yet diffused.

οὐ χρείαν ἔχετε] a praeteritio, as in 1Th_4:9. The reason why the readers did not require instruction on the time and hour of the advent, is neither because instruction concerning it would not be useful to them (Oecumenius: ὡς ἀσύμφορον· ὁ δέ γε Παῦλος ἴσως ᾔδει αὐτό, ἐκ τῶν ἀῤῥήτων καὶ τοῦτο καθών, Theophylact, and others), nor also because no instruction can be given concerning it (Zwingli, Hunnius, Estius, Fromond., Flatt, Pelt, Baumgarten-Crusius, Koch, and others), but because the Thessalonians were already sufficiently acquainted with it from the oral instruction of the apostle. Accordingly the apostle adds

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th 5:1-11 . περὶ τῶν χρόνων καὶ τῶν καιρῶν .

1Th 5:1 . The times and periods are not “simply the broad course of time, of which the ἡμέρα Κυρίου constitutes the closing scene” (Baur); καιρός denotes a section of time more definitely than χρόνος , in Greek usage. “No nation has distinguished so subtly the different forms under which time can be logically conceived. χρόνος is time viewed in its extension, as a succession of moments, the external framework of action.… Καιρός , a word, which has, I believe, no single or precise eqivalent in any other language … is that immediate present which is what we make it; time charged with opportunity” (Butcher, Harvard Lect. on Gk. Subjects , pp. 117 119). In the plural, especially in this eschatological outlook, the phrase is little more, however, than a periphrasis for “when exactly things are to happen”. Paul thought he needed to do no more than reiterate the suddenness of the Last Day. But, not long afterwards, he found that the Thessalonians did require to have the χρόνοι καὶ καιροί explained to them in outline (II., 2Th 2:2 f.).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 9. 1Th 5:1-11. The Coming of the Day

The second misgiving of the Thessalonians respecting the παρουσία (see Introd. to § 8, and general Introd. p. xxxvi.) was closely connected with the first (1Th 4:13 ff.). If only “the living, οἱ περιλειπόμενοι,” might count on witnessing the παρουσία, then any uncertainty about its date throws a cloud upon the prospects of all believers; if the season was delayed, any of those living might be cut off before the time and no one could count on seeing the wished-for day! This apprehension made the desire of the Church to know περὶ τῶν χρόνων κ.τ.λ. painfully keen; no mere curiosity prompted the question, but a practical motive, a natural fear arising from the very loyalty of the Thessalonians to Christ and the “love” of “His appearing” which the Gospel awakened in them. The Epistle has allayed the main cause of disquiet by showing that there will be no essential difference in the lot of those found “sleeping” and those “waking” at the Lord’s return (cf. 1Th 5:10 below); it goes on to remind the readers of what they had been taught already, viz., that “the day of the Lord” is to come by way of surprise to the wicked, for which reason its date must be hidden (1Th 5:2 f.). The “sons of light and of day” will be ready for “the day” whenever it dawns (1Th 5:4 f.). Their duty and safety is to be wakeful and sober, arming themselves with faith and hope (1Th 5:6-8)—a hope grounded on God’s purpose of salvation revealed in the Gospel, which assures to them through Christ’s death a life of union with Him remaining unchanged in life and death (1Th 5:9 f.), and secure whether His coming be earlier or later.

1. For εχετε, εχομεν in Augep 199. “non opus habemus vobis scribere, vel sicut alii codices habent, non opus habetis vobis scribi.” The same variation in 1Th 4:9 (see note above); other latt non est necesse vobis scribere (Tert non est necessitas scribendi vobis), vg non indigetis ut scribamus vobis. The Greek idiom makes ungrammatical Latin.

1. Περὶ δὲ τῶν χρόνων καὶ τῶν καιρῶν, ἀδελφοί. But about the times and the seasons, brothers.

Χρόνος signifies time as duration, καιρός as a specific point, occasion: asking περὶ τῶν χρόνων, one wants to know the length of the periods that may elapse before the Advent; asking περὶ τῶν καιρῶν, the number and nature of the critical events that must intervene and lead up to it; de temporibus et momentis (Vulg.). Ὁ μὲν καιρὸς δηλοῖ ποιότητα, χρόνος δὲ ποσότητα (Ammonius). For the association of these terms, cf. Tit 1:2 f.; Act 1:7; Act 3:20 f.; also Dan 2:21; Dan 7:12; Ecc 3:1; Wis 8:8: for καιρός further, 1Th 2:17 above; 2Th 2:6; Rom 3:26; Gal 6:9 f.; Luk 21:8, &c. Ἀδελφοί is repeated in 1Th 5:4, as though the Apostles instinctively drew their friends near to themselves under the shadow of the solemn future; cf. ἡμῶν ἐπισυναγωγῆς, 2Th 2:1. Chrysostom attributes the inquisitiveness περὶ τῶν χρόνων κ.τ.λ. to an idle, restless disposition (cf. 1Th 4:11; 2Th 3:11): πολλὰ ἐπείγεται μανθάνειν ἥδη καὶ καταλαμβάνειν ἡμῶν ἡ διάνοια ὡς περίεργος καὶ λίχνος πρὸς τὴν τῶν ἀφανῶν καὶ κεκαλυμμένων μάθησιν· τοῦτο δὲ σημαίνει ἀπὸ τοῦ θρύπτεσθαι καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ μηδὲν ἔχειν ποιεῖν.

On οὐ χρείαν κ.τ.λ., see note to 1Th 4:9.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ch.

5:1-11.] Exhortation to watch for the day of the Lord’s coming, and to be ready for it.

1-3.] the suddenness and unexpectedness of that day’s coming.

1.] On χρόν. and καιρ., see Act 1:7, note. They had no need, for the reason stated below: that St. Paul had already by word of mouth taught them as much as could be known.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(6) Times and Seasons (5:1-11)

The written request for information “concerning times and seasons” (cf. 4:9, 13) appears to have been made at the suggestion of the faint-hearted who were concerned not only about their friends who had died (4:13-18; cf. 5:10) but also about their own salvation. In doubt about Paul’s teaching in reference to the nearness of the advent and in fear that the day might catch them morally unprepared, they ask him, in their discouragement, for further instruction about the times and seasons. Paul, however, is convinced that they require not further instruction but encouragement (5:11). Accordingly, while reminding them that the day is to come suddenly and is to be a day of judgment on unbelievers (vv. 1-3), he is careful to assure them that the day will not take them by surprise, for they, one and all of them, are sons of light and sons of day, that is, believers (vv. 4-5a). Furthermore, recognising that they need to be exhorted to moral alertness, an exhortation which not only they but all Christians require (hence the tactful change from “you” to “we” in v. 5), he urges that since they are sons of light and sons of day, they must be morally alert and sober, arming themselves with that faith and love, and especially that hope for future salvation, without which they cannot realise their destiny (vv. 5b-8). There is, however, no cause for anxiety, he assures the faint-hearted, for God has appointed them unto salvation, the indwelling Christ enables them to acquire it, and Christ died for their sins in order that all believers, whether surviving until the Parousia, or dying before it, might at the same time have life with Christ (vv. 9-10). Hence they are to encourage and build up one another, as in fact they are doing (v. 11).

1Now as to the times and seasons, brothers, you have no need that anything be written you; 2for you yourselves know accurately that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief at night. 3When people are saying: “All is well and safe,” then sudden destruction comes on them as travail on her that is with child, and they shall in no wise escape.

4But you, brothers, are not in darkness that the day should surprise you as thieves are surprised; 5for you are all sons of light and sons of day.

We Christians do not belong to night or to darkness. 6So then let us not sleep as do the unbelievers, but let us watch and be sober. 7For it is at night that sleepers sleep and at night that drunkards are drunk. 8But we, since we belong to day—let us be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. 9For God has not appointed us to wrath but to the winning of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10who died for us, that whether we are watching or whether we are sleeping, we might together have life with him.

11So then encourage one another and build up one the other, as in fact you are doing.

1. περὶ δέ τῶν χρόνων κτλ. With δε, the second (cf. 4:13) eschatological question about which the Thessalonians had written (cf. 4:9, 13) for information is stated: “Concerning the times and seasons.” Perceiving, however, that they really need not instruction but encouragement, he tells them, following the precedent of 4:9 (contrast 4:13-18) but varying the language: “you have no need that anything (sc. τ) be written you.”

The plural (cf. καιροὺς χαὶ χρόνου Dan 2:21, Dan 4:34 (Lxx); contrast the singular ἕως χρόνου χαὶ χαιρου Dan 7:12) does not here refer to a future cycle of times and seasons, or to a past cycle now ending (cf. 1Co 10:11), but indicates in traditional language the time of the Parousia. The question put to Paul was an old one (cf. Jer 25:11, Jer 36:10, Dan 9:25 ff.) and was prevalent not only in Christian but in Jewish circles of the time (see Charles, Eschat. 168-175; Volz, Eschat 162 ff.). Notwithstanding the warning of the Lord: οὐχ ὑμῶν γνῶναι χρόνους ἢ χαιρού (Act 1:7; cf. Mar 13:32, Mat 24:36), it was impossible to quell curiosity as to the exact day and hour. Doubtless the converts particularly in mind in 5:1-11 were wondering what Paul’s teaching meant, especially since they feared lest the day might find them morally unprepared. Though as Ammonius (apud Ell.) says: ὁ μὲν χαιπὸς δηλοῖ ποιότητα χρόνος δὲ ποσότητ, yet in Jewish usage the terms are interchangeable (cf. Dan 7:12 Sap. 7:18). א inserts του before γράφεσθα; GF smooth χρείαν ἔχετ to χρεία ἐστί

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See Acts 1:7.

The day that God hath appointed for his judgment, we know not. But this is sure that it shall come upon men when they look for nothing less.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

CHAPTER V.

The apostle continues to speak of Christ's coming to judgment,

and the uncertainty of the time in which it shall take place,

and the careless state of sinners, 1-3.

Shows the Thessalonians that they are children of the light;

that they should watch and pray, and put on the armour of God,

being called to obtain salvation by Christ, who died for them;

that whether dead or alive, when the day of judgment comes,

they may live for ever with him; and that they should comfort

and edify each other with these considerations, 4-11.

He exhorts them to remember those who labour among them, and are

over them in the Lord; and to esteem such highly for their

work's sake, 12, 13.

He charges them to warn, comfort, and support those who stood in

need of such assistance, and to be patient and beneficent

towards all, 14, 15.

He points out their high spiritual privileges; warns them

against neglecting or misimproving the gifts of the Spirit, and

the means of grace, 16-20.

They are also exhorted to prove all things; to abstain from all

evil; and to expect to be sanctified, through spirit, soul, and

body, by him who has promised this, and who is faithful to his

promises, 21-24.

Recommends himself and brethren to their prayers; shows them how

they are to greet each other; charges them to read this epistle

to all the brethren; and concludes with the usual apostolical

benediction, 25-28.

NOTES ON CHAP. V.

Verse 1. But of the times and the seasons] It is natural to suppose, after what he had said in the conclusion of the preceding chapter concerning the coming of Christ, the raising of the dead, and rendering those immortal who should then be found alive, without obliging them to pass through the empire of death, that the Thessalonians would feel an innocent curiosity to know, as the disciples did concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, when those things should take place, and what should be the signs of those times, and of the coming of the Son of man. And it is remarkable that the apostle answers, here, to these anticipated questions as our Lord did, in the above case, to the direct question of his disciples; and he seems to refer in these words, Of the times and the seasons ye have no need that I write unto you, for yourselves know that the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night, to what our Lord said, Mat 24:44; Mat 25:13; and the apostle takes it for granted that they were acquainted with our Lord's prediction on the subject: For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. It is very likely therefore, that the apostle, like our Lord, couples these two grand events-the destruction of Jerusalem and the final judgment. And it appears most probable that it is of the former event chiefly that he speaks here, as it was certainly of the latter that he treated in the conclusion of the preceding chapter. In the notes on Ac 1:6; Ac 1:7, it has already been shown that the χρονους η καιρους, times or seasons, (the very same terms which are used here,) refer to the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth; and we may fairly presume that they have the same meaning in this place.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1 But as to times. He now, in the third place, calls them back from a curious and unprofitable inquiry as to times, but in the mean time admonishes them to be constantly in a state of preparation for receiving Christ. He speaks, however, by way of anticipation, saying, that they have no need that he should write as to those things which the curious desire to know. For it is an evidence of excessive incredulity not to believe what the Lord foretells, unless he marks out the day by certain circumstances, and as it were points it out with the finger. As, therefore, those waver between doubtful opinions who require that moments of time should be marked out for them, as if they would draw a conjecture from some plausible demonstration, he accordingly says that discussions of this nature are not necessary for the pious. There is also another reason — that believers do not desire to know more than they are permitted to learn in God’s school. Now Christ designed that the day of his coming should be hid from us, that, being in suspense, we might be as it were upon watch.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

V.

(1) But of the times.—The fourth subject of instruction; the bearing of the doctrine of the Advent upon the Christian’s own life. “Times and seasons” is a Hebraism, and in the original, the second word, not the first, is the more explicit: we should say, “About day and hour.” The plural seems to mean the different periods at which men might conceive the Advent likely to come.

Ye have no need.—The next verse shows that this paragraph is not so much intended for an answer to a false theory about the time of the Advent, as practically to cure the restlessness common at Thessalonica.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But of the times and the seasons, brethren,.... Of the coming of Christ, his "appointed time" and "his day", as the Ethiopic version renders it; of the resurrection of the dead in Christ first, and of the rapture of all the saints in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, things treated of in the preceding chapter: and which might excite a curiosity to know the times and seasons of them; as in what year they would come to pass; in what season of the year, whether winter or summer; in what month, and on what day of the month; and whether in the night season, or in the daytime; and in what hour, whether at midnight, cockcrowing, morning, or noonday: to repress which the apostle observes,

ye have no need that I write unto you; to write to them concerning the things themselves was necessary and useful, to stir up and encourage their faith, hope, and expectation of them; to allay their grief for departed friends, and to comfort one another under the various trials and exercises of life; but to write to them about the time of these things would be trifling and unnecessary, would be an idle speculation, and an indulging a vain curiosity; and, besides, was impracticable: for of that day and hour knows no man; the times and seasons the Father hath put in his own power; for these things are equally true of Christ's second coming, as of the kingdom of Christ coming with power and glory, and of the destruction of Jerusalem, Mat 24:36. The Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions read, "ye have no need that we write unto you"; the reason follows;

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

Ver. 1. But of the times and the seasons] When Christ shall come to judgment, this is to be reckoned inter arcana imperii. {See Trapp on "Mat 24:36"} The times and the seasons God hath put in his own power, Act 1:7. This is a key that he keepeth under his own girdle. Let it suffice us to know that "this is the last hour," that "the ends of the world are come upon us, and that the Lord is at hand." "The time is short" (saith our apostle, 1Co 7:29), or rolled up, as a piece of cloth, only a little left at the end. Moses brake the tables 1582 years before the birth of Christ. Nou existimo, &c., I do not think (saith holy Melancthon) that the time since the end of the Jewish polity shall be much longer than that was before the end thereof. Watch, therefore, and "be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless," 2Pe 3:14.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But of the times and the seasons - See the notes, Act 1:7. The reference here is to the coming of the Lord Jesus, and to the various events connected with his advent; see the close of 1 Thes. 4.

Ye have no need that I write unto you - That is, they had received all the information on the particular point to which he refers, which it was necessary they should have. He seems to refer particularly to the suddenness of his coming. It is evident from this, as well as from other parts of this Epistle, that this had been, from some cause, a prominent topic which he had dwelt on when he was with them; see the notes on 1Th 1:10.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Of the times and moments. That is, of the day of judgment, of the end of the world, of the destruction of Jerusalem. It is enough to know the time is uncertain, and that death cometh as a thief in the night. (Witham) --- When the judgment shall take place the Angels themselves do not know. Perhaps St. Paul, when wrapt up to the third heaven, may have learnt something on this subject; for he was told many things which he could not announce to man; therefore, he says, I need not write to you: it is unnecessary for us to know it. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

But when shall these things be? Might some say, as the disciples asked Christ, Mat 24:3,36; Ac 1:6. He tells them:

It is not for you to know the times or the seasons; not that they knew them in particular already, but there was no need they should know them. It may be some among them were too curious to inquire. He doth not say they could not be known, as being put into God’s own power, as Act 1:7; but,

ye have no need that I write of them. The apostle, as in his preaching, so in his writing, had respect to what was most needful and profitable for the people: as when the disciples asked: Are there few that be saved? Christ answered them in that which was most needful to them, Luk 13:24; and so doth the apostle here; instead of acquainting them with the times and seasons, he puts them upon watchfulness, that they might not be surprised, as in the following verses; and to improve the knowledge they had already, which was this, that Christ’s coming would be sudden.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Need of Watchfulness. Final Injunctions

1. Times and seasons] St. Paul always lays stress on the uncertainty as to the time of the Advent (2Th_2:2 cp. 2Pe_3:3-4).

3. When they shall say] i.e. when people are saying.

4, 5. Thief] better, 'as thieves.' Thieves work in darkness. You are all children of light. Live up to your birthright.

6. Let us not sleep] i.e. in carelessness and sin. Others] better, 'the others.'

8-10. Mason paraphrases, 'Let us arm ourselves with a brave hope of our salvation, for it will be against God's will if we perish. He means us to save ourselves by union with Him who put an end to death for us by dying, and made all who wait for His coming to live, whether they be in the world's sense dead or alive.'

8. A new metaphor (cp. Eph_6:13-17; Isa_59:17), but suggested by the idea of watchfulness.

9. To obtain salvation] (Php_2:12-13) or, perhaps, 'for the adoption which consists in salvation': cp. 2Th_2:14.

10. Whether we wake or sleep] i.e. whether we are alive or dead at the Advent.

11. Edify] better, 'build up.' As also ye do] St. Paul always praises and encourages where he can.

12-28. Exhortations to respect for their clergy, orderly living, prayer and other spiritual duties, and conclusion.

12. Know] better, 'value.' The probable reference is to the presbyters sometimes called (in allusion to their duties) 'overseers' (1Ti_5:17).

14. Feebleminded] better, 'fainthearted.'

The weak] i.e. in faith, Rom_15:1.

15. Cp. Mat_5:39; 1Pe_3:8, 1Pe_3:9.

16. Evermore] better, 'always.' Joy is a necessary part of the Christian character (Rom_14:17; Php_2:18; Php_3:1; Php_4:4), and a Christian duty.

18. Cp. Eph_5:20. Prayer is put between joy and thanksgiving, because it is only by constant prayer that we are enabled to feel true joy or gratitude. God's will towards us is that we should be always joyful, prayerful, grateful, and (1Th_3:3) pure in life.

20. The Christian prophets were an order of men specially inspired to reveal the will of God to others ('mission-preachers'), who might sometimes (Act_11:27-28; Act_21:10-11) be charged to foretell the future: see 1Co_11:4-5; 1Co_14:5; Eph_4:11; Eph_3:5; 1Ti_1:18; 1Ti_4:14. 'Prophets' are also mentioned in the early Christian tract known as the 'Didache,' or 'Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.' The Thessalonians seem to have been disposed to check enthusiasm.

21. Prove] better, 'test.' You must test all these thoughts by spiritual standards, since there is an inspiration which is false (1Jn_4:1).

22. All appearance] better, 'every form.' Good is one; evil is manifold.

23. May your spirit (by which man maintains communion with God) and soul (the feelings and emotions) and body (which is to rise again) be preserved entire and without blame, and be so found at the Advent.

24. Will do it] i.e. will preserve your spirit, soul, and body.

25, 26. The duty of intercessory prayer (? especially at the Eucharist, where the holy kiss was a part of the rites from very early times).

27. I charge] better, 'I adjure.' The reading was probably to be at the Eucharist (Justin Martyr, 'Apol.'

1. 65-67). St. Paul wishes his earliest letter to be read to all without any suppression or omissions, otherwise a wrong use might be made of his authority.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CONTENTS. With regard to the time of that glorious advent when believers, whether dead or living, will be gathered together to Christ, the Thessalonians had already been fully instructed. They knew well that the day of the Lord would come suddenly and unexpectedly, and surprise an ungodly world. But they were not in darkness so as to be taken by surprise. Still, however, they must exercise constant watchfulness and sobriety, and be armed with the Christian graces of faith, love, and hope, being comforted with the assurance that God had not appointed them to wrath, but to the acquisition of salvation through Jesus Christ, who died for their benefit, in order that, whether living or dead, they might share in the blessings of his advent.

Now follows a series of short admonitions. The Thessalonians were to love and honor their ministers, to live in peace among themselves, to admonish the disorderly, to encourage the faint-hearted, to support the weak, and to exercise forbearance toward all men. They were to be on their guard against revenge, to preserve Christian joyfulness, to be constant in prayer, and to maintain a thankful disposition. They were not to quench the Spirit, nor despise prophesyings, but were to test all things, retaining the good and rejecting the evil. And it was his earnest prayer for them that God would so completely sanctify them that they might be blameless at the advent of the Lord Jesus. After requesting an interest in their prayers, and solemnly charging them to read this Epistle to the assembled Church, the apostle concludes with his apostolic benediction.

This verse is connected with what precedes. The apostle was comforting the Thessalonians under the loss of their deceased friends by the assurance that both the living and the dead would be gathered together at the advent. The question would naturally arise, "When shall these things; (Luk_21:7) and it would appear that the Thessalonians expected an immediate advent. The apostle represses their curiosity on this point by reminding them of the uncertainty of the time of the Lord"s coming. But of the times and the seasons, brethren; that is, of the time and the precise period of the Lord"s advent. "Times" and "seasons" are elsewhere united together. (Ec 3; Dan_2:21; Act_1:7) The word translated "times" denotes time absolutely without regard to circumstances; and the word rendered "seasons" denotes a definite point of time; not merely the day, but the hour. (Mar_13:32) Ye have no need that I write unto you; literally, that ought be written unto you (R.V); comp. 1Th_4:9. The reason why it was not needful for the apostle to write unto them was, not because he regarded the information unprofitable or superfluous, or because he knew it to be impossible, but because he had already informed them when at Thessalonica that the time of the advent was beyond the sphere of his teaching. The apostle mentions this to repress that vain curiosity which is natural to man, and which was the occasion of so much disorder among the Thessalonians. Our duty is, not to pry into the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own, (Act_1:7) but to exercise constant watchfulness.

HOMILIES BY T. CROSKERY. Vers. 1-5.

Certainty of the time of the second advent.

There is a natural curiosity to know "the times and the seasons" connected with an event so transcendently important to the human race. "But of the times and the seasons ye have no need that I write unto you.

I GOD HAS TIMES AND SEASONS IN HIS OWN POWER. It is solemnly true that "to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun". (Ecc_3:1) God has determined the times before appointed". (Act_17:26) His Son came in the fullness of Gal_4:4. There is often a curious periodicity in the great time-intervals marked in sacred history.

II GOD HAS HID FROM MAN THE PRECISE DATE OF THE SECOND COMING. "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father"; (Mar_13:32) "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons the Father hath put in his own power". (Act_1:7)

III THE DAY OF THE LORD WILL BE PERFECTLY UNEXPECTED. "The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

1. It is the day of the Lord, as it is "the day of the Son of man. " "The day of God;" "the day of redemption," involving that of the body as well as the soul; "the last day," the day which winds up the destinies of the universe.

2. It will be sudden and unexpected. It will be "as a thief in the night," who comes without previous warning at such an hour as we are not looking for him. This is true, even though there may be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and distress of nations, and men"s hearts failing them for fear. (Lu 21) These will be the first signs to break up the calm, but the wicked will not see them in their true light. There is nothing in the simile of the thief to justify the opinion that Jesus will come in the night.

IV THE SECURITY OF THE WICKED. "For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

1. Their condition is one of peace," inner quiet, and safety," external tranquility.

2. Their fate. "They shall not escape." It will be with them as with the men in the days of Noah and Lot. (Mat_24:36-39) The catastrophe will be as inevitable and as full of fear as in the case of a "woman in travail.

V THE PREPAREDNESS OF THE RIGHTEOUS. This lies in their character. "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

1. They were not in darkness. " They were "sons of light, sons of the day." Darkness is the characteristic of the wicked.

(1) There is darkness in their understanding.

(2) There is darkness in their hearts. "Their foolish hearts are darkened.

(3) They walk in darkness, and therefore stumble and go astray.

(4) They live in darkness, (Psa_107:10) they belong to "the kingdom of darkness"; (Col_1:13) they are under "the world-rulers of this darkness". (Eph_6:12)

(5) But the darkness does not hide them from God"s vengeance.

2. Believers are sons of light. " "Sons of the day.

(1) They walk in the light; (1Jn_1:7) for "he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life". (Joh_8:12)

(2) They are in fellowship with God, for they cannot have it and walk in darkness. (1Jn_1:6, 1Jn_1:7)

(3) They "have cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light". (Rom_13:12)

(4) They are in fellowship with all believers; for "he that walketh in darkness hateth his brother". 1Jn_2:9) T.C.

HOMILIES BY B.C. CAFFIN Vers. 1-11.

The day of the Lord.

I THE TIME OF ITS COMING.

1. There was no real need to write to them about this. St. Paul had spoken of it; it had been a principal subject of his teaching. They knew all that could be known, all that they needed to know for their souls" health. But there was a restless curiosity, an eager longing "to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power." Such knowledge was not for the apostles; it is not for the Church. "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man." But, in spite of these words of Christ, human thought

2. has ever busied itself, it busies itself still, to pry into this awful secret. St. Paul had told the Thessalonians all he knew; there was no need to write it again. But he deals gently with them. He tries to quiet their restless anxiety.

3. They knew that it could not be known. It cometh suddenly, when men are least expecting it; when they say, "Peace and safety." It cometh as a thief in the night. They knew the Lord"s illustration. St. Paul had told them. It was enough for them to know. Suddenly, as the lightning that cometh out of the east and shineth even to the west, the Son of man shall come. That we know; nothing more can be known. It is a thought full of awfulness, full of deep lessons and solemn warnings.

II READINESS FOR ITS COMING.

1. Christians are not in the darkness. Darkness is the element, the sphere of the unconverted life. Darkness is ignorance of God, ignorance of the atoning work of Christ, ignorance of the blessed influences of God the Holy Ghost. Such darkness is either intellectual, darkness of the understanding; or spiritual, darkness of the heart and will. The two act and react upon one another. Darkness of the understanding produces in some cases and in some measure darkness of the heart. Darkness of the heart often results in darkness of the understanding. There are cases of darkness which seem to us the most perplexing of problems; men and women who have from the very beginning of life been enveloped in an atmosphere of ignorance, brutality, and sin, from which there seems to be no escape who seem to us, as people say, to "have no chance," no possibility, humanly speaking, of attaining to enlightenment and the knowledge of God. What can be done in such cases? We must, each one of us, do all that lies in our power to help the helpless and to teach the ignorant; and then, when we have "done what we could," we can only leave them, in the trustfulness of faith, to his mercy who, we know, will require little of those to whom little has been given. But the darkness which we have to face in our daily walk is, more commonly, not like this, but willful darkness. "He that hateth his brother" (St. John says) "is in darkness even until now." Any willful sin deliberately indulged darkens the heart. "If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness." The soul that cherishes a secret sin cannot believe, cannot see God, cannot be in readiness for the coming of the Lord. If such are not awakened to a sense of guilt and danger, the great day must overtake them as a thief, coming upon them in all its sudden awfulness.

2. They are sons of light. "God hath shined in their hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The true light now shineth. We are in the light, the light of the knowledge of God, the light of the presence of God. We belong to the light; it is all around us; it is in us. Indeed, the true light "lighteth every man." The Lord is loving unto every man. "The Lamb of God taketh away beareth the sin of the world." We must believe, in spite of sad and dark appearances, that there is no child of man on whom the heavenly Father hath not shined; none who are left to perish without a hope of salvation. The light shineth upon all; but they are sons of light whose souls within are lighted with that heavenly glow, who come to the light and rejoice in the light, and in the brightness of that light see what others cannot see because their eyes are holden the fair beauty of the Lord, the exceeding loveliness of the blessed Savior"s life, the aureole of golden light that bathes the cross of Christ in a glory of unearthly radiance.

3. Therefore they must walk in the light. They must live in the consciousness of that light, feeling its warmth and glory; as they move hither and thither in their daily life, they must walk in the sense of that light which is all around them. It shows things in their true colors. Sin is hateful, loathsome; you see its utter hideousness when the light shines upon it. Holiness is fair and bright; you see its attractive beauty when the heavenly light shines on it in its glory. The light shines into our hearts; it shows us our guilt, our misery, our danger. But, blessed be God, it does more than that. It hath a purifying power; it cleanses what was unclean; it brightens what was dark. "If we walk in the light... the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.

1. They are sons of day, therefore they must watch. The light shows the danger of sloth; it rests upon those awful words, "Thou wicked and slothful servant," and brings them out into full distinctness. They must not sleep, as do others. Indifference and apathy are deadly enemies of the soul. The unbelieving multitude sleep; they are thoughtless about their souls, careless of the awful destinies which lie before us. The believer will watch; for he will remember the reiterated commandment of his Lord, "Watch, therefore.... What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch." Watch. fullness is thoughtfulness; it is a vivid interest in everything that belongs to the spiritual life, an earnest desire to quicken it into ever new energies, a freshness of spirit, an active vigilance in guarding against all the dangers and temptations that surround us. "They that sleep, sleep in the night," but we are sons of day. We must watch as men that wait for their Lord. We

2. know not when he cometh; we must be watchful always lest that day overtake us as a thief. It cometh as a thief. This warning of our Lord is not only recorded in the Gospels, but St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, re-echo the solemn words, it made a deep impression on the minds of the early Christians; witness the name Gregory ("watchful") so common in the ancient Church. Would that that impression remained, that we too might be stirred to ever-deepening watchfulness. "The Lord is at hand.

3. They must be sober. "They that be drunken are drunken in the night." The Christian must he sober. Intoxication causes drowsiness; it is inconsistent with watchfulness. The intemperate cannot watch. The Christian must be temperate in all things; strictly temperate as regards food and drink, for temperance is the fruit of the Spirit, and drunkenness is one of those works of the flesh of which it is written that "they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." He must be temperate in all his enjoyments; for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, all these things intoxicate their votaries, and make them slothful and drowsy in the concerns of the soul. But we must be sober, for we are of the day; we walk in the light of day and are looking for the coming of the day of the Lord.

1. They must be prepared for the assaults of temptation. They must be clothed with the armor of light.

(1) The breastplate of faith and love. The hosts of darkness will gather round the Christian warrior as he stands watchful at his post. They cannot harm him if he continue faithful; the fiery darts of the wicked one cannot pierce the breastplate of faith and love. Faith is trustfulness. The soul that trusts in Christ is fixed and steadfast. Trust not in earthly things; they will fail you at the last. But trust in Christ; he abideth faithful; he is able to save even to the uttermost; his love is stronger than death. Faith protects the Christian"s heart. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved." Faith overcomes the world. Love springs out of faith, and quickens faith. Believe in Christ, and love him you must, for faith realizes his presence in all his grace and tenderness. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us;" We love him, because he first loved us." Love reacts on faith; for God, who is Love, can be known only of those who have learned of him the great lesson of love. "Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." Like is known by like. He who knows not in his own heart what it is to love, cannot know God, who is the eternal Lure. Love grows out of faith, and love fills faith with life and joy and holy enthusiasm. Love and faith protect the Christian as he watches; they sustain his energies. Faith preserves him from anxious doubts; the holy love of God keeps out all carnal loves.

(2) The helmet of the Christian warrior. The hope of salvation guards his head. Other hopes may fall in shattered ruins on him; they will not crush him; they may vex and bruise, but they will not reach a mortal part; they may strike him as he stands erect and fearless; they will glance off from the polished surface of the helmet of salvation. The blessed hope of Bib eternal living in the heart supports the Christian in toil, in sorrow, in sickness, and in death. "Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three." He will watch who hath these blessed graces; he will persevere, faithful unto death, looking always for the coming of the great and awful day.

1. God is their Strength. Without him they can do nothing, He did not appoint us to wrath, He is our Father; he is not willing that any should perish. He willeth that all men should be saved. Salvation, great and blessed word, is what God willeth for us all.

2. The work of the Lord Jesus. Our salvation is his work. He died for us, on our behalf and in our stead; his precious death is the high example of entire self-sacrifice for the sake of others; it is the atonement for our sins. For us. " Those great words stimulate us to love and serve him; they should be constantly in our thoughts; they should fill us with wonder, awe, and adoring love. "For us," though we were sinners; "for us," though he is God; "for us we can never reach the depths of mysterious, blessed meaning which He hid in those two simple words. He died that we, whether we watch or sleep, while we remain among the living, watching for his coming, and while we sleep with those who are laid to sleep through Jesus, should ever live together with him. His death is cur life; by his death he took away the power of sin, which is the death of the soul. He died that we might live in that holy life which is in fellowship with him. That life begins now. "Ye have eternal life," St. John says. Christ"s saints live with him and in him, for he is their Life. They live with him during their earthly pilgrimage; they live with him in Paradise, where the holy departed are with Christ; they shall live with him in that glory which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man.

3. Practical conclusion.

(1) They must comfort one another. The word wavers in its meaning between comfort and exhortation. The two ideas, indeed, run very near together, as the etymology of the English word "comfort" suggests. To comfort, according to its derivation, is to strengthen. Comfort, consolation, is a source of strength. The despondent, those who brood over their sufferings and fret themselves in their troubles, are timid, devoid of energy and strength. Comfort helps them to "lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees," and stimulates them to look forward to the future with hope and courage. The Thessalonian Christians needed both comfort and exhortation. They had a great trial of affliction; they suffered much persecution from the beginning. No earthly comfort is so great as the sympathy of loving Christian friends. And. those who sympathize with us stir us up by their example, by their loving words; their sympathy implies exhortation; it issues in exhortation, it makes exhortation real and effective.

(2) They must edify one another. To edify is to build up. The wise builder builds his house on the rock, which is Christ. He is the Foundation; Christians are "built up in him." In the deepest sense he is the Builder. "On this rock I will build my Church." "But," St. Paul says, "we are laborers together with God." Such grace he gives to his servants that they are privileged to help on the great work, to build upon the one Foundation. There is no higher, holier work than this, to prepare the living stones, to build them up into the one holy temple, the Church of the living God. The Thessalonians were doing it. St. Patti recognizes their loving labors, and urges them to persevere. Be it ours to follow them.

LESSONS.

1. It is not for us to know the times and seasons; be not too curious; but:

2. Prepare in quiet faith: "the Lord is at hand.

3. Live as sons of light; pray for grace to realize the presence of God, to see the cross by faith, to watch in hope and love.

4. Each Christian, however humble, has his place in building up the Church of Christ; let each do his part. B.C.C.

HOMILIES BY R. FINLAYSON Vers. 1-11.

Exhortation in view of the Lord"s coming.

I HOW THE DAY OF THE LORD IS SUDDEN AND UNEXPECTED IN ITS COMING. "But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that aught be written unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." By the same method which is followed in 1Th_4:9, the apostle seeks to impress on the Thessalonians a certain point relating to the times and. the seasons which make up the period of the Lord"s dealing with men. This related more particularly to the day of the Lord, the day when the Lord is to descend to earth, which is to be thought of as the completing point of the times and the seasons. It is practically to each of us the day of our death. When with them he had taken care that they should accurately understand the sudden and unexpected nature of the advent. There were decisive words of the Lord on which to proceed. But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only;" "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power." There was even the same image employed by our Lord which is employed here. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not have left his house to be broken through." As a thief, without notice given and under cover of the night, approaches the dwelling which its occupant thinks secure, so stealthily approaches the day of the Lord. To all alike the uncertainty exists, and will exist. All fixings of the time, such as are sometimes attempted, are wholly unwarranted. God does not mean that either the Church or the world should know the time, any more than he means that any of us should know the time of our death.

II HOW TO THE CARNALLY SECURE THE DAY OF THE LORD IS TO COME AS A TERRIBLE SURPRISE. "When they are saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall in no wise escape." The image is carried forward, and we are to think of those who confine their interest to the earthly sphere, and do not dream of their possession as ever to be disturbed. But, having sown carnal security, they are to reap destruction, and not only in their earthly but also in their higher interest. It is a strong word which is employed, and corresponds to "wrath," which is afterwards employed. This feeling of carnal security grows upon men. At first they chide themselves that they neglect Christ and their everlasting salvation. But, carried forward by the desire or" earthly gratification and in confidence in their own strength, they find excuses for the course which they are following. A state of moral darkness is produced in them. They become blinded to the character of God, and the opposition which is ever widening between their life and the will of God. The result is, that qualms of conscience leave them, and they say, "I have a feeling of peace within, and there is no trouble from without." But just when they crone to this height of carnal security, then sudden destruction comes upon them, from which there shall be no escape. Thus, it would seem, wilt it be at last. All men wilt not be ready for the descending Lord. As were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall be the coming of the Son of man." So it would seem is it, anticipatively, now. Men go on in their sinful courses, until they are suddenly overtaken by death and destruction.

III HOW TO SONS OF LIGHT AND SONS OF THE DAY THE DAY OF THE LORD SHOULD NOT BE A SURPRISE. "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief: fur ye are all sons of light, and sons of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness." The Thessalonian brethren are excluded from the darkness which is implied in the state of carnal security; it was not, therefore, designed that that day should overtake them as a thief. The class to which they, as Christians, properly belonged, was that of sons of light and sons of the day. They are those to whom the Lord has been revealed, especially to whom it has been revealed that he will come, and who thus have light in them. They are those upon whom the Sun of righteousness has risen, making day aroused them. Welcoming the light, even in its reproving power, they come to be made of light and enveloped with light, so that they are sons of light (which is the Divine nature) and sons of the day (which is the Divine encompassment). When it is always light, the thief has not opportunity of approaching without being seen. So those who have abundance of light in them and around them should not be surprised by the day of the Lord. The class from which we as Christians are excluded is that of those who are of the night and of darkness. They are those who have moral night drawn around them. They are those into whose nature the light of God"s mercy and truth has not penetrated. Loving the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil, they come to have darkness as their surrounding and their nature, so that they are of the night and of darkness. It was open to the apostle, from the use of similar expressions by our Lord ("sons of this world," "sons of the devil"), to have said sons of the night and sons of darkness. He seems to have chosen his language purposely to avoid the idea of freedom, to bring out the idea of servitude. They are not like the free sons of light and free sons of the day. They are rather those who are hemmed in by the night, who are enslaved to darkness. When there is darkness in and around a dwelling there may be said to be an invitation to the thief to approach. So those who have darkness in and around their being may be said to invite a surprise from the day of the Lord.

IV HOW WE ARE BOUND, AS ENLIGHTENED CHRISTIANS, TO WATCH AND BE SOBER. "So then let us not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night." There is put forward what we are not to do. Let us not sleep, as do the rest of mankind. Sleeping implies obliviousness and inactivity. The rest of mankind are in an oblivious, inactive state, especially with regard to the solemn issues of life. Let us who have light not be like them. What we are to do is to watch. We are to have the wakeful activity of the sentinel at his post. He knows not from what side or what hour the enemy may approach, so he has altogether and always to be vigilant. In like manner, let us take full account of the fact that death is coming. And, seeing we know not how or what hour it may come, let our vigilance all round never sleep. What we are to do is also to be sober. A subject should be in a fit state when ushered into the presence of his sovereign. It will be a solemn thing for us to be ushered into the presence of the Lord at death; and we should be in a fit state for the occasion. We should especially have our appetites in proper restraint. We should have the full command of our powers. We should be so employed from moment to moment that, when the last moment comes, we can fitly leave our employments and pass into the presence of our Judge. Not to be doing this, is to be conforming to unenlightened practices. "They that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night." The literal fact is stated as the basis for thought. Night is the congenial time for sleep. So those who are in the night of sin are in a drowsy, unalarmed state with regard to their spiritual concerns. They do not take into account that they have to meet death, and yet, however deep their sleep, they have to meet it and the realities to which they will be wakened up after death. Night is also the congenial time for drunkenness. How much of the drinking that is to be deplored goes on after darkness has set in! So those who are in the night of sin are in a state of spiritual intoxication. And that is the worst thing that can be said of the literal drunkard. His spiritual nature is in a bad state. In not restraining his appetites he is rebelling against God. In continuing in sin he is hardening his heart. And he is not fit for passing into the presence of his Judge. And so is it, too, with those who are drunken with the world"s engagements and cares. They become incapacitated for spiritual exercise, and for the enjoyment of the Lord"s presence. But take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare.

V HOW WE ARE TO GIVE PROOF THAT WE ARE SOBER BY BEING ARMED WITH FAITH, LOVE, AND HOPE. "But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation." Having the light of day, and knowing what is coming, let us, as sober men, take all due precautions. For us to be forewarned should be to be forearmed. It is only defensive armor that is thought of here as brought into requisition. The idea seems to be, that we are to be armed against all that would unfit us for our Lord"s coming.

1. The breastplate. This is a double piece of armor. It is faith and love combined. Faith apprehends the Lord"s coming, in opposition to blind unbelief which says, "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fall asleep, all things continue as they were." Faith defends by encircling us with the Divine strength, which is as though every part of our defenseless hearts were covered with armor. But faith only rightly defends when, at the same time, love gives Christ the possession of our hearts. It is the world that tempts us to forget the Lord"s coming, to make no preparation for death. When our hearts are filled with love to the Savior, we are enabled to keep out the world. The breastplate of our defense being completed by love, brings it into agreement with what, in Eph_6:14, and also in Isa_59:17, is called "the breastplate of righteousness.

2. The helmet. This is a single piece of armor. In Eph_6:17, and also in Isa_59:17, it is simply called "the helmet of salvation." But what is meant is what is here called "the hope of salvation." We have a certain experience of salvation already in the working of faith and love. Hope reaches beyond this experience forward to the salvation which is to be completed at the Lord"s coming. This hope is a defense to us, as the helmet used to be to the warrior. Wearing this provided armor, we can hold our head high and scathless above present troubles. Let us, then, as sober men, not unclasp our breastplate, not lay aside our helmet.

VI HOW THE SALVATION HOPED FOR HAS BEEN MADE A DIVINE CERTAINTY TO US. "For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." For those who are sunk in spiritual slumber and intoxication there is an appointment unto wrath! The Divine displeasure must be manifested against the rebellious course which they have been following. But for us who are acting as sober men there is an appointment unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, i.e. at his coming. And what God has appointed will be carried out. A soldier endures in the hope of victory. But the victory is to him an uncertainty; it may not be realized, or he may not live to share in it. But the Christian soldier has a Divine appointment on which to proceed. If even now we take Christ as our Savior, and from this point wait for his coming, then God intends that we shall conquer. Let us seize the advantage of our position. While we have our faith and. love in vigorous exercise, let us know also the sustaining power of a lively hope.

VII HOW THE OBTAINING OF SALVATION HAS BECOME ASSURED TO US. died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

1. Our life has its source in Christs death. Christ died for our benefit, and, by implication, in our stead. He died in the way of making satisfaction for our sin. In him, as our Representative or Head, we obtain the benefits of his work. It is as though we had died, as though we had made satisfaction for sin. Thus in condescending love, in accordance with eternal principles, are we introduced into salvation.

2. The final end of Christs death is that we should live together with him. Christ died with this view, that we should ultimately live along with him, and have fellowship with him; we entering into his thoughts and delighting in his love, while he enters into our thoughts and delights in our love.

3. This end is independent of our waking or sleeting at Christs coming. Our waking or sleeping is accidental; the essential thing is that we shall have fellowship with Christ, and fellowship, as it then shall be, in the body. Both classes, those who wake and those who sleep, have the same reason for assuring themselves that they shall live together with him, viz. in the fact that he has died to merit it for them, as he lives to secure it for them. Those who wake shall be changed without the union between soul and body being broken; and, changed, they shall live together with him. Those who sleep have the union between the soul and body broken, without any break in the union between the soul and Christ and in fellowship with him; and, raised from their graves, they shall live together with him. Thus the ultimate state of both classes is to be the same, the apostle returning here to the conclusion reached in 1Th_4:17, where it is said of the same two classes united that they shall be for ever with the Lord.

VIII HOW IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES THEY ARE TO ACT TOWARD EACH OTHER. "Wherefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as also ye do." There is an unhappy change from "comfort" to "exhort" in the translation. It ought to be "comfort," as in the parallel verse at the close of the previous paragraph. They were to comfort one another with what was blessed in the Lord"s coming. They were also to edify each other, in preparation for the Lord"s coming communicating knowledge to each other, praying for each other, pressing duty on each other, stimulating each other by example. This they were doing, and in that way were admirably answering the ends of their being in a Christian society. But let them go on, and not, while only a little away from the starting-point, suppose that they have reached finality. Let us, to, o, make the end of our being in a Christian society comfort and, especially, edification to all the members. R.F.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But of the precise times when this shall be.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Christian Watchfulness with Reference to the Last Day.

The unexpected coming of the last day:

v. 1. But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

v. 2. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

v. 3. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

The same enthusiasm which looked forward to the coming of the Lord with eager impatience was apt to lead into an unhealthy state of mind, to a morbid anxiety which tried to penetrate into the secrets which the Lord had hidden from the eyes of men. The apostle, therefore, reminds the Christians of Thessalonica of the doctrine which they had learned: Concerning the times and periods, brethren, you are not in need that we should write to you. Paul here corrects both impatient expectancy and drowsy security, choosing such words as may convey the idea of length and repeated alternation of periods as well as of crises which might be expected very soon. It was a most effective way of urging them to maintain a well-balanced judgment and Christian sanity. They should never forget the words of the Lord which they had been taught, Mat 24:44; Mat 25:13: For yourselves know exactly that the day of the Lord, as a thief in the night, so it comes. This saying of the Lord had been given them, they had received instruction concerning the last things, they had exact knowledge to that extent to which the Lord had revealed the truth for all times. The day of the Lord, the last day of this present world, the Day of Judgment, is coming, as a day of terrible doom to the unbelievers, as a day of inexpressible joy to the believers. That is a precise, a definite knowledge. At the same time, however, the date is not known; the day will be a surprise to the whole world. The signs of the times will, in general, indicate when it is due, but the exact date cannot be determined by men, and every attempt to do so must result in disgraceful failure. Unexpectedly, as a thief in the night, this day will come upon the world. See 2Pe 3:10. Such is the manner of its coming, without any definite regard to the time.

This unexpectedness of the last day’s coming is aptly illustrated by the apostle: For when they are saying, Peace and security, then suddenly will come upon them destruction, just as travail to her with child, and they will not escape. This is the attitude taken by the unbelievers, by the scoffers, whom Peter also pictures, 2Pe 3:3-4. Their constant cry is: All’s well; Everything is all right; All is safe; The world was never so secure as today. But at the very moment when they will sometime be crying so loudly, and with great suddenness, the destruction which they considered impossible will be upon them, will lay hold of them. Even as a woman with child knows the approximate time when her delivery may be expected, but cannot tell the day and the hour when labor will set in, being therefore often taken quite unawares, so the destruction of the last Judgment will strike the scoffers, and all escape will then be shut off: it will be too late to repent. There is a solemn warning in these words which needs to be heeded most seriously in our day.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As if our apostle had said, "Although I have told you that there will be a general resurrection and future judgment, when Christ will certainly come in the clouds, and every eye shall see him, yet I suppose you do not expect that I should write to you of the particular time of his coming; for you have been told, that his coming will be like the coming of a thief, without warning and without noise, when persons are most secure, least suspecting, and wholly unprovided for it: yea, as the pains of a woman in travail, which are unavoidable; the thief may perhaps not come, but the pains of child-birth must come, and also be painful when they come."

Learn hence, 1. That the wisdom of God has thought fit to conceal and keep secret the determinate time of Christ’s coming to judgment, and yet there is an itching curiosity in man’s nature to search and pry into that profound secret, though the knowlege of it is not only impossible, but would prove unprofitable and hurtful to mankind, making the world secure and careless; wheras, not knowing the hour when our Lord cometh, should oblige us to be upon our watch every hour.

Note then, that our Lord will certainly come at one hour or other, but at what hour he will come cannot certainly be known, yet there is no hour when we can promise ourselves that he will not come.

Note, lastly, that the pain and sorrow, the trouble and horror which the day of the Lord will bring upon such as are unready and unprepared for it, no tongue can utter, no heart can conceive; the greatest of earthly and bodily torments and sorrows, such as the pangs of a woman in travail, being but weak shadows and slender representations of it, the day of the Lord cometh as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that aught be written unto you . [When Christian hopes are thus vividly pictured forth, our human nature naturally asks, "When?" ( Luk_21:7 ). The Thessalonians had been fully taught by Paul that the time of the Lord's coming was unrevealed ( Mat_24:36 ; Act_1:7 ), and that therefore Paul could not enlighten them on this point. The term "times" indicates long eras, and "seasons" the briefer epochs into which they are divided.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1 Thessalonians Chapter 5

The Lord’s coming again into this world assumes therefore a very different character from that of a vague object of hope to a believer as a period of glory. In chapter 5 the apostle speaks of it, but in order to distinguish between the position of Christians and that of the careless and unbelieving inhabitants of the earth. The Christian, alive and taught of the Lord, ever expects the Master. There are times and seasons; it is not needful to speak to him concerning them. But (and he knows it) the day of the Lord will come and like a thief in the night, but not for him: he is of the day; he has part in the glory which will appear in order to execute judgment on the unbelieving world. Believers are the children of light; and this light which is the judgment of unbelievers, is the expression of the glory of God-a glory which cannot endure evil, and which, when it shall appear, will banish it from the earth. The Christian is of the day that will judge and destroy the wicked and wickedness itself from off the face of the earth. Christ is the Sun of righteousness, and the faithful will shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

The world will say, “Peace and safety,” and in all security will believe in the continuance of its prosperity and the success of its designs, and the day will come suddenly upon them. (Compare 2Pe 3:3.) The Lord Himself has often declared it. (Mat 14:36-36, Luk 12:40, Luk 17:26, Luk 21:35)

It is a very solemn thing to see that the professing church (Rev 3:3) which says that it lives and is in the truth, which has not Thyatira’s character of corruption, is yet to be treated as the world-at least, unless it repents.

We may perhaps wonder to find the Lord saying of a time like this, that men’s hearts will be failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth. (Luk 21:26) But we see the two principles-both security and fear-already existing. Progress, success, the long continuance of a new development of human nature-this is the language of those who mock at the Lord’s coming; and yet beneath it all, what fears for the future are at the same time possessing and weighing down the heart! I use the word “principles,” because I do not believe that the moment of which the Lord speaks is yet come. But the shadow of coming events falls upon the heart. Blessed are they that belong to another world!

The apostle applies this difference of position- namely, that we belong to the day, and that it cannot therefore come upon us as a thief-to the character and walk of the Christian. Being a child of the light he is to walk as such. He lives in the clay, though all is night and darkness around him. One does not sleep in the day. They that sleep sleep in the night: they that are drunken are drunken in the night; these are the works of darkness. A Christian, the child of the day, must watch and be sober, clothing himself with all that constitutes the perfection of that mode of being which belongs to his position-namely, with faith and love and hope-principles which impart courage and give him confidence for pressing onwards. He has the breastplate of faith and love; he goes straight forward therefore against the enemy. He has the hope of this glorious salvation, which will bring him entire deliverance, as his helmet; so that he can lift up his head without fear in the midst of danger. We see that the apostle here brings to mind the three great principles of 1Co 13:1-13 to characterise the courage and steadfastness of the Christian, as at the beginning he shewed that they were the mainspring of daily walk.

Faith and love naturally connect us with God, revealed as He is in Jesus as the principle of communion; so that we walk with confidence in Him: His presence gives us strength. By faith He is the glorious object before our eyes. By love He dwells in us, and we realise what He is. Hope fixes our eyes especially on Christ, who is coming to bring us into the enjoyment of glory with Himself.

Consequently the apostle speaks thus: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath “(love is understood by faith, that which God wills-His mind respecting us) “but to obtain salvation.” It is this which we hope for; and he speaks of salvation as the final deliverance “by our Lord Jesus Christ” and he naturally adds, “who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep” (have died before His coming or be then alive), “we should live together with Him.” Death does not deprive us of this deliverance and glory; for Jesus died. Death became the means of obtaining them for us; and if we die, we shall equally live with Him. He died for us, in our stead, in order that, happen what may, we should live with Him. Everything that hindered it is put out of our way and has lost its power; and, more than lost its power, has become a guarantee of our unhindered enjoyment of the full life of Christ in glory; so that we may comfort ourselves -and more than that, we may build ourselves up- with these glorious truths, through which God meets all our wants and all our necessities. This (1Th 5:10) is the end of the special revelation with regard to those who sleep before the coming of the Lord Jesus, beginning with 1Th 4:13.

I would here call the reader’s attention to the way in which the apostle speaks of the Lord’s coming in the different chapters of this epistle. It will be noticed that the Spirit does not present the church here as a body. Life is the subject-that of each Christian therefore individually: a very important point assuredly.

In chapter 1 the expectation of the Lord is presented in a general way as characterising the Christian. They are converted to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven. Here it is the object itself that is presented, the Person of the Lord. God’s own Son shall come, and shall satisfy all the heart’s desire. This is neither His kingdom, nor the judgment, nor even rest; it is the Son of God; and this Son of God is Jesus, risen from among the dead, and who has delivered us from the wrath to come; for wrath is coming. Each believer therefore expects for himself the Son of God-expects Him from heaven.

In chapter 2 it is association with the saints, joy in the saints at the coming of Christ.

In chapter 3 responsibility is more the subject- responsibility in liberty and in joy; but still a position before God in connection with the Christian’s walk and life here below. The Lord’s appearing is the measure and test time of holiness. The testimony rendered by God to this life, by giving it its natural place, takes place when Christ is manifested with all His saints. It is not here His coming for us, but His coming with us. This distinction between the two events always exists. For Christians even and for the church, that which refers to responsibility is always found in connection with the appearing of the Lord; our joy, with His coming to take us to Himself.

Thus far then, we have the general expectation of the Lord in Person, His Son from heaven; love satisfied at His coming as regards others; holiness in its full value and full development. In chapter 4 it is not the connection of life with its full development in our being actually with Christ, but victory over death (which is no barrier to this); and, at the same time, the strengthening and establishment of hope in our common departure hence, similarly to that of Jesus, to be for ever with Him.

The exhortations that conclude the epistle are brief; the mighty action of the life of God in these dear disciples made them comparatively little needed. Exhortation is always good. There was nothing among them to blame. Happy condition! They were perhaps not sufficiently instructed for a large development of doctrine (the apostle hoped to see them for that purpose); but there was enough of life, a personal relationship with God sufficiently true and real, to build them up on that ground. To him that hath shall more be given. The apostle could rejoice with them and confirm their hope and add to it some details as a revelation from God. The assembly in all ages is profited by it.

In the Epistle to the Philippians we see life in the Spirit rising above all circumstances, as the fruit of long experience of the goodness and faithfulness of God; and thus shewing its remarkable power when the help of the saints had failed, and the apostle was in distress, his life in danger, after four years’ imprisonment, by a merciless tyrant. It is then that he decides his case by the interests of the assembly. It is then that he can proclaim, that we ought always to rejoice in the Lord, and that Christ is all things to him, to live is Christ, death a gain to him. It is then that he can do all things through Him who strengthens him. This he has learnt. In Thessalonians we have the freshness of the fountain near to its source; the energy of the first spring of life in the believer’s soul, presenting all the beauty and purity and vigour of its first verdure under the influence of the sun that had risen upon them and made the sap of life rise, the first manifestations of which had not been deteriorated by contact with the world or by an enfeebled view of invisible things.

The apostle desired that the disciples should acknowledge those who laboured among them and guided them in grace and admonished them, and esteem them greatly for their work’s sake. The operation of God always attracts a soul that is moved by the Holy Ghost, and commands its attention and its respect: on this foundation the apostle builds his exhortation. It is not office which is in question here (if such existed), but the work which attracted and attached the heart. They ought to be known: spirituality acknowledged this operation of God. Love, devotedness, the answer to the need of souls, patience in dealing with them on the part of God -all this commended itself to the believer’s heart: and it blessed God for the care He bestowed upon His children. God acted in the labourer and in the hearts of the faithful. Blessed be God, it is an ever existing principle, and one that never grows weaker!

The same Spirit produced peace among themselves. This grace was of great value. If love appreciated the work of God in the labourer, it would esteem the bother as in the presence of God: self-will would not act.

Now this renunciation of self-will, and this practical sense of the operation and presence of God, gives power to warn the unruly, to comfort the fearful, to help the weak, and to be patient towards all. The apostle exhorts them to it. Communion with God is the power and His word the guide in so doing. In no case were they to render evil for evil, but to follow that which was good among themselves and towards all. All this conduct depends on communion with God, on His presence with us, which makes us superior to evil. He is this in love; and we can be so by walking with Him.

Such were the apostle’s exhortations to guide their walk with others. As regards their personal state, joy, prayer, thanksgiving in all things, these should be their characteristics. With respect to the public actings of the Spirit in their midst, the apostle’s exhortations to these simple and happy Christians were equally brief. They were not to hinder the action of the Spirit in their midst (for this is the meaning of quenching the Spirit); nor to despise that which He might say to them, even by the mouth of the most simple, if He were pleased to use it. Being spiritual they could judge all things. They were therefore not to receive everything that presented itself, even in the name of the Spirit, but to prove all things. They were to hold fast that which was good; those who by faith have received the truth of the word do not waver. One is not ever learning the truth of that which one has learnt from God. As to evil, they were to abstain from it in all its forms. Such were the apostle’s brief exhortations to these Christians who indeed rejoiced his heart. And in truth it is a fine picture of Christian walk, which we find here so livingly portrayed in the apostle’s communications.

He concludes his epistle by commending them to the God of peace, that they might be preserved blameless until the coming of the Lord Jesus.

After an epistle like this his heart turned readily to the God of peace; for we enjoy peace in the presence of God-not only peace of conscience but peace of heart.

In the previous part we found the activity of love in the heart; that is to say, God present and acting in us, who are viewed as partaking, at the same time, of the divine nature, which is the spring of that holiness which will be manifested in all its perfection before God at the coming of Jesus with all His saints. Here it is the God of peace, to whom the apostle looks for the accomplishment of this work. There it was the activity of a divine principle in us-a principle connected with the presence of God and our communion with Him. Here it is the perfect rest of heart in which holiness develops itself. The absence of peace in the heart arises from the activity of the passions and the will, increased by the sense of powerlessness to satisfy or even to gratify them.

But in God all is peace. He can be active in love; He can glorify Himself by creating what He will; He can act in judgment to cast out the evil that is before His eyes. But He rests ever in Himself, and both in good and in evil He knows the end from the beginning and is undisturbed. When He fills the heart, He imparts this rest to us: we cannot rest in ourselves; we cannot find rest of heart in the actings of our passions, either without an object or upon an object, nor in the rending and destructive energy of our own will. We find our rest in God-not the rest that implies weariness, but rest of heart in the possession of all that we desire, and of that which even forms our desires and fully satisfies them, in the possession of an object in which conscience has nothing to reproach us and has but to be silent, in the certainty that it is the Supreme Good which the heart is enjoying, the supreme and only authority to whose will it responds-and that will is love towards us. God bestows rest, peace. He is never called the God of joy. He gives us joy truly, and we ought to rejoice; but joy implies something surprising, unexpected, exceptional, at least in contrast with, and in consequence of, evil. The peace that we possess, that which satisfies us, has no element of this kind, nothing which is in contrast, nothing which disturbs. It is more deep, more perfect, than joy. It is more the satisfaction of a nature in that which perfectly answers to it, and in which it develops itself, without any contrast being necessary to enhance the satisfaction of a heart that has not all which it desires, or of which it is capable.

God, as we have said, rests thus in Himself-is this rest for Himself. He gives us, and is for us, this entire peace. The conscience being perfect through the work of Christ who has made peace and reconciled us to God, the new nature-and consequently the heart-finds its perfect satisfaction in God, and the will is silent; moreover, it has nothing further to desire. It is not only that God meets the desires that we have: He is the source of new desires to the new man by the revelation of Himself in love. [10] He is both the source of the nature and its infinite object; and that, in love. It is His part to be so. It is more than creation; it is reconciliation, which is more than creation, because there is in it more development of love, that is to say, of God: and it is thus that we know God. It is that which He is essentially in Christ.

In the angels He glorifies Himself in creation: they excel us in strength. In Christians He glorifies Himself in reconciliation, to make them the first fruits of His new creation, when He shall have reconciled all things in heaven and on earth by Christ. Therefore it is written “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children sons of God” They have His nature and His character.

It is in these relationships with God-or rather it is God in these relationships with us in peace, in His communion, who develops sanctification, our inward conformity of affection and intelligence (and consequently of outward conduct) with Him and His will. “The God of peace himself sanctify you wholly.” May there be nothing in us that does not yield to this benignant influence of peace which we enjoy in communion with God! May no power or force in us own anything but Himself! In all things may He be our all, so that He only may rule in our hearts! He has brought us perfectly into this place of blessedness in Christ and by His work. There is nothing between us and God but the exercise

f His love, the enjoyment of our happiness, and the worship of our hearts. We are the proof before Him, the testimony, the fruit, of the accomplishment of all that He holds most precious, of that which has perfectly glorified Him, of that in which He delights, and of the glory of the One who has accomplished it, namely, of Christ, and of His work. We are the fruit of the redemption that Christ has accomplished, and the objects of the satisfaction which God must feel in the exercise of His love.

God in grace is the God of peace for us; for here divine righteousness finds its satisfaction, and love its perfect exercise.

The apostle now prays that, in this character, God may work in us to make everything respond to Himself thus revealed. Here only is this development of humanity given-”body, soul, and spirit.” The object is assuredly not metaphysical, but to express man in all the parts of his being; the vessel by which he expresses that which he is, the natural affections of his soul, the elevated workings of his mind, through which he is above the animals and in intelligent relationship with God. May God be found in each, as the mover, spring, and guide!

In general the words “soul and spirit” are used without making any distinction between them, for the soul of man was formed very differently from that of animals in that God breathed into his nostrils the breath (spirit) of life, and it was thus that man became a living soul. Therefore it suffices to say soul as to man, and the other is supposed. Or, in saying spirit, in this sense the elevated character of his soul is expressed. The animal has also its natural affections, has a living soul, attaches itself, knows the persons who do it good, devotes itself to its master, loves him, will even give its life for him; but it has not that which can be in relationship with God (alas! which can set itself at enmity against Him), which can occupy itself with things outside its own nature as the master of others.

The Spirit then wills that man, reconciled with God, should be consecrated, in every part of his being to the God who has brought him into relationship with Himself by the revelation of His love, and by the work of His grace, and that nothing in the man should admit an object beneath the divine nature of which he is partaker; so that he should thus be preserved blameless unto the coming of Christ.

Let us observe here, that it is in no wise beneath the new nature in us to perform our duties faithfully in all the various relationships in which God has placed us; but quite the contrary. That which is required is to bring God into them, His authority, and the intelligence which that imparts. Therefore it is said to husbands to live with their wives according to knowledge,” or intelligence; that is to say, not only with human and natural affections (which, as things are, do not by themselves even maintain their place), but as before God and conscious of His will. It may be that God may call us, in connection with the extraordinary work of His grace, to consecrate ourselves entirely to it; but otherwise the will of God is accomplished in the relationships in which He has placed us, and divi ne intelligence and obedience to God are developed in them. Finally God has called us to this life of holiness with Himself; He is faithful, and He will accomplish it. May He enable us to cleave to Him, that we may realise it! Observe again here, how the coming of Christ is introduced, and the expectation of this coming, as an integral part of Christian life. “Blameless,” it says, “at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The life which had developed itself in obedience and holiness meets the Lord at His coming. Death is not in question. The life which we have found is to be such when He appears. The man, in every part of his being, moved by this life, is found there blameless when Jesus comes. Death was overcome (not yet destroyed): a new life is ours. This life, and the man living of this life, are found, with their Head and Source, in the glory. Then will the weakness disappear which is connected with his present condition. That which is mortal shall be swallowed up of life: that is all. We are Christ’s: He is our life. We wait for Him, that we may be with Him, and that He may perfect all things in the glory.

Let us also here examine a little into that which this passage teaches us with regard to sanctification. It is connected indeed with a nature, but it is linked with an object; and it depends for its realisation on the operation of another, namely, of God Himself; and it is founded on a perfect work of reconciliation with God already accomplished. Inasmuch as it is founded on an accomplished reconciliation, into which we enter by the reception of a new nature, the scriptures consider Christians as already perfectly sanctified in Christ. It is practically carried out by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who, in imparting this nature, separates us-as thus born again-entirely from the world. It is important to maintain this truth, and to stand very clearly and distinctly on this ground: otherwise practical sanctification soon becomes detached from a new nature received, and is but the amelioration of the natural man and then it is quite legal, a return-after reconciliation-into doubt and uncertainty, because, though justified, the man is not accounted meet for heaven-this depends on progress so that justification does not give peace with God. Scripture says, “Giving thanks to the Father, who hath made us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.” Progress there is, but it is not in scripture connected with meetness. The thief was meet for Paradise and went there. Such views are an enfeebling, not to say destructive, of the work of redemption, that is, of its appreciation in our hearts by faith.

We are then sanctified (it is thus the scripture most frequently speaks) by God the Father, by the blood and the offering of Christ, and by the Spirit-that is to say, we are set apart for God personally and for ever. In this point of view justification is presented in the word as consequent upon sanctification, a thing into which we enter through it. Taken up as sinners in the world, we are set apart by the Holy Ghost to enjoy all the efficacy of the work of Christ according to the counsels of the Father: set apart by the communication of a new life, no doubt, but placed by this setting apart in the enjoyment of all that Christ has gained for us. I say again, It is very important to hold fast this truth both for the glory of God and for our own peace: but the Spirit of God in this epistle does not speak of it in this point of view, but of the practical realisation of the development of this life of separation from the world and from evil. He speaks of this divine development in the inner man, which makes sanctification a real and intelligent condition of soul, a state of practical communion with God, according to that nature and to the revelation of God with which it is connected.

In this respect we find indeed a principle of life which works in us-that which is called a subjective state: but it is impossible to separate this operation in us from an object (man would be God if it were so), nor consequently from a continual work of God in us that holds us in communion with that object, which is God Himself. Accordingly it is through the truth by the word, whether at first in the communication of life, or in detail all along our path. “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.”

Man, we know, has degraded himself. He has enslaved himself to the lusts of the animal part of his being. But how? By departing from God. God does not sanctify man apart from the knowledge of Himself, leaving man still at a distance from Him; but, while giving him a new nature which is capable of it, by giving to this nature (which cannot even exist without it) an object-Himself, He does not make man independent, as he wished to be: the new man is the dependent man; it is his perfection-Jesus Christ exemplified this in His life. The new man is a man dependent in his affections, who desires to be so, who delights in, and cannot be happy without being so, and whose dependence is on love, while still obedient as a dependent being ought to be.

Thus they who are sanctified possess a nature that is holy in its desires and its tastes. It is the divine nature in them, the life of Christ. But they do not cease to be men. They have God revealed in Christ for their object. Sanctification is developed in communion with God, and in affections which go back to Christ, and which wait for Him. But the new nature cannot reveal an object to itself; and still less, could it have its object by setting God aside at its will. It is dependent on God for the revelation of Himself. His love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost whom He has given us; and the same Spirit takes of the things of Christ and communicates them to us. Thus we grow in the knowledge of God, being strengthened mightily by His Spirit in the inner man, that we may “comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,” and be filled unto the fullness of God. Thus, “we all with open face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.” “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth.”

We see by these passages, which might be multiplied, that we are dependent on an object, and that we are dependent on the strength of another. Love acts in order to work in us according to this need.

Our setting apart for God, which is complete (for it is by means of a nature that is purely of Himself, and in absolute responsibility to Him, for we are no longer our own, but are bought with a price, and sanctified by the blood of Christ according to the will of God who will have us for His own), places us in a relationship, the development of which (by an increasing knowledge of God, who is the object of our new nature) is practical sanctification, wrought in us by the power of the Holy Ghost, the witness in us of the love of God. He attaches the heart to God, ever revealing Him more and more, and at the same time unfolding the glory of Christ and all the divine qualities that were displayed in Him in human nature, thus forming ours as born of God.

Therefore it is, as we have seen in this epistle, that love, working in us, is the means of sanctification. (Chap. 3:12,13) It is the activity of the new nature, of the divine nature in us; and that connected with the presence of God; for he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God. And in this chapter 5 the saints are commended to God Himself, that He may work it in them; while we are always set in view of the glorious objects of our faith in order to accomplish it.

We may here more particularly call the reader’s attention to these objects. They are, God Himself, and the coming of Christ: on the one hand, communion with God; on the other, waiting for Christ. It is most evident that communion with God is the practical position of the highest sanctification. He who knows that we shall see Jesus as He now is, and be like Him, purifies himself even as He is pure. By our communion with the God of peace we are wholly sanctified. If God is practically our all, we are altogether holy. (We are not speaking of any change in the flesh, which can neither be subjected to God nor please Him.) The thought of Christ and His coming preserves us practically, and in detail, and intelligently, blameless. It is God Himself who thus preserves us, and who works in us to occupy our hearts and cause us continually to grow.

But this point deserves yet a few more words. The freshness of Christian life in the Thessalonians made it, as it were, more objective; so that these objects are prominent, and very distinctly recognised by the heart. We have already said that they are God the Father, and the Lord Jesus. With reference to the communion of love with the saints as his crown and glory, he speaks only of the Lord Jesus. This has a special character of reward, although a reward in which love reigns. Jesus Himself had the joy that was set before Him as sustainment in His sufferings, a joy which thus was personal to Himself. The apostle also, as regarded his work and labour, waited with Christ for its fruit. Besides this case of the apostle (chap. 2), we find God Himself and Jesus as the object before us, and the joy of communion with God-and this, in the relationship of Father-and with Christ, whose glory and position we share through grace.

Thus it is only in the two epistles to the Thessalonians that we find the expression “to the church which is in God the Father.” [11] The sphere of their communion is thus shewn, founded on the relationship in which they found themselves with God Himself in the character of Father. (1Th 1:3, and here 1Th 5:23.) It is important to remark, that the more vigorous and living Christianity is, the more objective it is. It is but saying that God and the Lord Jesus have a greater place in our thoughts; and that we rest more really upon them. This Epistle to the Thessalonians is the part of scripture which instructs on this point; and it is a means of judging many a fallacy in the heart, and of giving a great simplicity to our Christianity.

The apostle closes his epistle by asking for the prayers of the brethren, saluting them with the confidence of affection, and conjuring them to have his epistle read to all the holy brethren. His heart forgot none of them. He would be in relationship with all according to this spiritual affection and personal bond. Apostle towards all of them, he would have them recognize those who laboured among them, but he maintained withal his own relationship. His was a heart which embraced all the revealed counsels of God on the one hand, and did not lose sight of the least of His saints on the other.

It remains to take notice of one interesting circumstance as to the manner in which the apostle instructs them. He takes, in the first chapter, the truths which were precious to their heart, but were still somewhat vaguely seized by their intelligence, and as to which they were indeed fallen into mistakes, and employs them (in the clearness in which he possessed them himself) in his practical instructions, and applies them to known and experienced relationships, that their souls might be well established on positive truth, and clear as to its use, before he touched on their error and the mistakes they had made. They waited for His Son from heaven. This they already possessed clearly in their hearts; but they would be in the presence of God when Jesus comes with all His saints. This was clearing up a very important point without directly touching the error. Their heart got straight as to the truth in its practical application to what the heart possessed. They understood what it was to be before God the Father. It was much more intimate and real than a manifestation of terrestrial and finite glory. Further they would be before God when Jesus came with all His saints: a simple truth which demonstrated itself to the heart by the simple fact that Jesus could not have some only of His assembly. The heart seized this truth without an effort; yet in doing so it was established, as was the understanding also, in what made the whole truth clear, and that in way of the relationship of the Thessalonians to Christ and those that were His. The joy even of the apostle in meeting them all (those who had died consequently, as well as the living) at the coming of Jesus, placed the soul on an entirely different ground from that of being found here, and blessed by the arrival of Jesus when they were here below.

Thus enlightened, confirmed, established, in the real bearing of the truth which they possessed already by a development of it which connected itself with their best affections and with their most intimate spiritual knowledge, founded on their communion with God they were ready with certain fixed basis of truth to enter on and set aside without difficulty an error which was not in accord with what they now knew how to appreciate at its just value, as forming park of their moral possessions. Special revelation made all clear as to details. This manner of proceeding is very Instructive.

Footnotes for 1 Thessalonians Chapter 5

10: Hence there is the opposite to weariness in the heavenly enjoyment of God; because He who is the infinite object of enjoyment is the infinite source and strength of capacity to enjoy, though we enjoy as recipient creatures.

11: Perhaps too in connection with their recent deliverance from idols to the one true God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1–3. But of the times and the seasons. Especially the time of the Lord's coming, which is the subject in the conclusion of chapter 4. They had been instructed on this subject.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Paul continues talking about the day Jesus will come back.

General Information:

In this chapter the words "we" and "us" refer to Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, unless otherwise noted. Also, the word "you" is plural and refers to the believers at the church of Thessalonica. (See: Exclusive and Inclusive "We" and Forms of You)

the times and seasons

This refers to the events preceding the Lord Jesus' return.

brothers

Here "brothers" means fellow Christians.

perfectly well

"very well" or "accurately"

like a thief in the night

Just as one does not know which night a thief may come, we do not know when the day of the Lord will come. AT: "unexpectedly" (See: Simile)

When they say

"When the people say"

then sudden destruction

"then unexpected destruction"

like birth pains in a pregnant woman

Just as a pregnant woman's birth pains come suddenly and do not stop until the birth is complete, the destruction will come, and people will not escape. (See: Simile)

translationWords

brother

day of the Lord

peace

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Times - seasons [χρονων - καιρων] . See on Act 1:7. With special reference to the Lord 's coming. The plural is used because Paul is thinking of a number of incidents attending the preparation and accomplishment of the second advent, and occurring at different times. The collocation times and seasons only here and Act 1:7. Kairov is the suitable time, cronov the time measured by duration. Hence kairov a juncture, an occasion, as Mt 16:3. The distinction is so well marked that have the phrases cronou kairov the right moment of the time, and eukairov cronov the opportune moment. See Soph. Elec. 1292.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.