1 Thessalonians 5:10

1 Thessalonians

WAKING AND SLEEPING

1Th 5:10.

In these words the Apostle concludes a section of this, his earliest letter, in which he has been dealing with the aspect of death in reference to the Christian. There are two very significant usages of language in the context which serve to elucidate the meaning of the words of our text, and to which I refer for a moment by way of introduction.

The one is that throughout this portion of his letter the Apostle emphatically reserves the word ‘died’ for Jesus Christ, and applies to Christ’s followers only the word ‘sleep.’ Christ’s death makes the deaths of those who trust Him a quiet slumber. The other is that the antithesis of waking and sleep is employed in two different directions in this section, being first used to express, by the one term, simply physical life, and by the other, physical death; and secondly, to designate respectively the moral attitude of Christian watchfulness and that of worldly apathy to things unseen and drowsy engrossment with the present.

So in the words immediately preceding my text, we read, ‘let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober.’ The use of the antithesis in our text is chiefly the former, but there cannot be discharged from one of the expressions, ‘wake,’ the ideas which have just been associated with it, especially as the word which is translated ‘wake’ is the same as that just translated in the sixth verse, ‘let us watch.’ So that here there is meant by it, not merely the condition of life but that of Christian life--sober-minded vigilance and wide-awakeness to the realities of being. With this explanation of the meanings of the words before us, we may now proceed to consider them a little more minutely.

I. Note the death which is the foundation of life.

Recalling what I have said as to the precision and carefulness with which the Apostle varies his expressions in this context; speaking of Christ’s death only by that grim name, and of the death of His servants as being merely a slumber, we have for the first thought suggested in reference to Christ’s death, that it exhausted all the bitterness of death. Physically, the sufferings of our Lord were not greater, they were even less, than that of many a man. His voluntary acceptance of them was peculiar to Himself. But His death stands alone in this, that on His head was concentrated the whole awfulness of the thing. So far as the mere external facts go, there is nothing special about it. But I know not how the shrinking of Jesus Christ from the Cross can be explained without impugning His character, unless we see in His death something far more terrible than is the common lot of men. To me Gethsemane is altogether mysterious, and that scene beneath the olives shatters to pieces the perfectness of His character, unless we recognise that there it was the burden of the world’s sin, beneath which, though His will never faltered, His human power tottered. Except we understand that, it seems to me that many who derived from Jesus Christ all their courage, bore their martyrdom better than He did; and that the servant has many a time been greater than his Lord. But if we take the Scripture point of view, and say, ‘The Lord has made to meet upon Him the iniquity of us all,’ then we can understand the agony beneath the olives, and the cry from the Cross, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’

Further, I would notice that this death is by the Apostle set forth as being the main factor in man’s redemption. This is the first of Paul’s letters, dating long before the others with which we are familiar. Whatever may have been the spiritual development of St. Paul in certain directions after his conversion--and I do not for a moment deny that there was such--it is very important to notice that the fundamentals of his Christology and doctrine of salvation were the same from the beginning to the end, and that in this, his first utterance, he lays down, as emphatically and clearly as ever afterwards he did, the great truth that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died on the Cross, thereby secured man’s redemption. Here he isolates the death from the rest of the history of Christ, and concentrates the whole light of his thought upon the Cross, and says, There! that is the power by which men have been redeemed. I beseech you to ask yourselves whether these representations of Christian truth adhere to the perspective of Scripture, which do not in like manner set forth in the foreground of the whole the atoning death of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Then note, further, that this death, the fountain of life, is a death for us. Now I know, of course, that the language here does not necessarily involve the idea of one dying instead of, but only of one dying on behalf of, another. But then I come to this question, In what conceivable sense, except the sense of bearing the world’s sins, and, therefore, mine, is the death of Jesus Christ of advantage to me? Take the Scripture narratives. He died by the condemnation of the Jewish courts as a blasphemer; by the condemnation of the supercilious Roman court--cowardly in the midst of its superciliousness--as a possible rebel, though the sentencer did not believe in the reality of the charges. I want to know what good that is to me? He died, say some people, as the victim of a clearer insight and a more loving heart than the men around Him could understand. What advantage is that to me?

Oh, brethren! there is no meaning in the words ‘He died for us’ unless we understand that the benefit of His death lies in the fact that it was the sacrifice and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; and that, therefore, He died for us.

But then remember, too, that in this expression is set forth, not only the objective fact of Christ’s death for us, but much in reference to the subjective emotions and purposes of Him who died. Paul was writing to these Thessalonians, of whom none, I suppose, except possibly a few Jews who might be amongst them, had ever seen Jesus Christ in the flesh, or known anything about Him. And yet he says to them, ‘Away across the ocean there, Jesus Christ died for you men, not one of whom had ever appealed to His heart through His eyes.’

The principle involved is capable of the widest possible expansion. When Christ went to the Cross there was in His heart, in His purposes, in His desires, a separate place for every soul of man whom He embraced, not with the dim vision of some philanthropist, who looks upon the masses of unborn generations as possibly beneficially affected by some of his far-reaching plans, but with the individualising and separating knowledge of a divine eye, and the love of a divine heart. Jesus Christ bore the sins of the world because He bore in His sympathies and His purposes the sins of each single soul. Yours and mine and all our fellows’ were there. Guilt and fear and loneliness, and all the other evils that beset men because they have departed from the living God, are floated away

‘By the water and the blood From Thy wounded side which flowed’;

and as the context teaches us, it is because He died for us that He is our Lord, and because He died for every man that He is every man’s Master and King.

II. Note, secondly, the transformation of our lives and deaths affected thereby.

You may remember that, in my introductory remarks, I pointed out the double application of that antithesis of waking or sleeping in the context as referring in one case to the fact of physical life or death, and in the other to the fact of moral engrossment with the slumbering influences of the present, or of Christian vigilance. I carry some allusion to both of these ideas in the remarks that I have to make.

Through Jesus Christ life may be quickened into watchfulness. It is not enough to take waking as meaning living, for you may turn the metaphor round and say about a great many men that living means dreamy sleeping. Paul speaks in the preceding verses of ‘others’ than Christians as being asleep, and their lives as one long debauch and slumber in the night. Whilst, in contrast with physical death, physical life may be called ‘waking’; the condition of thousands of men, in regard to all the higher faculties, activities, and realities of being, is that of somnambulists--they are walking indeed, but they are walking in their sleep. Just as a man fast asleep knows nothing of the realities round him; just as he is swallowed up in his own dreams, so many walk in a vain show. Their highest faculties are dormant; the only real things do not touch them, and their eyes are closed to these. They live in a region of illusions which will pass away at cock-crowing, and leave them desolate. For some of us here living is only a distempered sleep, troubled by dreams which, whether they be pleasant or bitter, equally lack roots in the permanent realities to which we shall wake some day. But if we hold by Jesus Christ, who died for us, and let His love constrain us, His Cross quicken us, and the might of His great sacrifice touch us, and the blood of sprinkling be applied to our eyeballs as an eye-salve, that we may see, we shall wake from our opiate sleep--though it may be as deep as if the sky rained soporifics upon us--and be conscious of the things that are, and have our dormant faculties roused, and be quickened into intense vigilance against our enemies, and brace ourselves for our tasks, and be ever looking forward to that joyful hope, to that coming which shall bring the fulness of waking and of life. So, you professing Christians, do you take the lessons of this text? A sleeping Christian is on the high road to cease to be a Christian at all. If there be one thing more comprehensively imperative upon us than another, it is this, that, belonging, as we do by our very profession, to the day, and being the children of the light, we shall neither sleep nor be drunken, but be sober, watching as they who expect their Lord. You walk amidst realities that will hide themselves unless you gaze for them; therefore, watch. You walk amidst enemies that will steal subtly upon you, like some gliding serpent through the grass, or some painted savage in the forest; therefore, watch. You expect a Lord to come from heaven with a relieving army that is to raise the siege and free the hard-beset garrison from its fears and its toilsome work; therefore, watch. ‘They that sleep, sleep in the night.’ They who are Christ’s should be like the living creatures in the Revelation, all eyes round about, and every eye gazing on things unseen and looking for the Master when He comes.

On the other hand, the death of Christ will soften our deaths into slumber. The Apostle will not call what the senses call death, by that dread name, which was warranted when applied to the facts of Christ’s death. The physical fact remaining the same, all that is included under the complex whole called death which makes its terrors, goes, for a man who keeps fast hold of Christ who died and lives. For what makes the sting of death? Two or three things. It is like some poisonous insect’s sting, it is a complex weapon. One side of it is the fear of retribution. Another side of it is the shrinking from loneliness. Another side of it is the dread of the dim darkness of an unknown future. And all these are taken clean away. Is it guilt, dread of retribution? ‘Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.’ Is it loneliness? In the valley of darkness ‘I will be with thee. My rod and My staff will comfort thee.’ Is it a shrinking from the dim unknown and all the familiar habitudes and occupations of the warm corner where we have lived? ‘Jesus Christ has brought immortality to light by the Gospel.’ We do not , according to the sad words of one of the victims of modern advanced thought, pass by the common road into the great darkness, but by the Christ-made living Way into the everlasting light. And so it is a misnomer to apply the same term to the physical fact plus the accompaniment of dread and shrinking and fear of retribution and solitude and darkness, and to the physical fact invested with the direct and bright opposites of all these.

Sleep is rest; sleep is consciousness; sleep is the prophecy of waking. We know not what the condition of those who sleep in Jesus may be, but we know that the child on its mother’s breast, and conscious somehow, in its slumber, of the warm place where its head rests, is full of repose. And they that sleep in Jesus will be so . Then, whether we wake or sleep does not seem to matter so very much.

III. The united life of all who live with Christ.

Christ’s gift to men is the gift of life in all senses of that word, from the lowest to the highest. That life, as our text tells us, is altogether unaffected by death. We cannot see round the sharp angle where the valley turns, but we know that the path runs straight on through the gorge up to the throat of the pass--and so on to the ‘shining table-lands whereof our God Himself is Sun and Moon.’ There are some rivers that run through stagnant lakes, keeping the tinge of their waters, and holding together the body of their stream undiverted from its course, and issuing undiminished and untarnished from the lower end of the lake. And so the stream of our lives may run through the Dead Sea, and come out below none the worse for the black waters through which it has forced its way. The life that Christ gives is unaffected by death. Our creed is a risen Saviour, and the corollary of that creed is, that death touches the circumference, but never gets near the man. It is hard to believe, in the face of the foolish senses; it is hard to believe, in the face of aching sorrow. It is hard to-day to believe, in the face of passionate and ingenious denial, but it is true all the same. Death is sleep, and sleep is life.

And so, further, my text tells us that this life is life with Christ. We know not details, we need not know them. Here we have the presence of Jesus Christ, if we love Him, as really as when He walked the earth. Ay! more really, for Jesus Christ is nearer to us who, having not seen Him, love Him, and somewhat know His divinity and His sacrifice, than He was to the men who companied with Him all the time that He went in and out amongst them, whilst they were ignorant of who dwelt with them, and entertained the Lord of angels and men unawares. He is with us, and it is the power and the privilege and the joy of our lives to realise His presence. That Lord who, whilst He was on earth, was the Son of Man which is in heaven, now that He is in heaven in His corporeal humanity is the Son of God who dwells with us. And as He dwells with us, if we love Him and trust Him, so, but in fashion incapable of being revealed to us, now does He dwell with those of whose condition this is the only and all-sufficing positive knowledge which we have, that they are ‘absent from the body; present with the Lord.’

Further, that united life is a social life. The whole force of my text is often missed by English readers, who run into one idea the two words ‘together with.’ But if you would put a comma after ‘together,’ you would understand better what Paul meant. He refers to two forms of union. Whether we wake or sleep we shall live all aggregated together, and all aggregated ‘together’ because each is ‘with Him.’ That is to say, union with Jesus Christ makes all who partake of that union, whether they belong to the one side of the river or the other, into a mighty whole. They are together because they are with the Lord.

Suppose a great city, and a stream flowing through its centre. The palace and all pertaining to the court are on one side of the water; there is an outlying suburb on the other, of meaner houses, inhabited by poor and humble people. But yet it is one city. ‘Ye are come unto the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.’ We are knit together by one life, one love, one thought; and the more we fix our hearts on the things which those above live among and by, the more truly are we knit to them. As a quaint old English writer says, ‘They are gone but into another pew in the same church.’

We are one in Him, and so there will be a perfecting of union in reunion; and the inference so craved for by our hearts seems to be warranted to our understandings, that that society above, which is the perfection of society, shall not be lacking in the elements of mutual recognition and companionship, without which we cannot conceive of society at all. ‘And so we shall ever be with the Lord.’

Dear friends, I beseech you to trust your sinful souls to that dear Lord who bore you in His heart and mind when He bore His cross to Calvary and completed the work of your redemption. If you will accept Him as your sacrifice and Saviour, when He cried ‘It is finished,’ united to Him your lives will be quickened into intense activity and joyful vigilance and expectation, and death will be smoothed into a quiet falling asleep. ‘The shadow feared of man,’ that strikes threateningly across every path, will change as we approach it, if our hearts are anchored on Him who died for us, into the Angel of Light to whom God has given charge concerning us to bear up our feet upon His hands, and land us in the presence of the Lord and in the perfect society of those who love Him. And so shall we live together, and all together, with Him.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5:10 The promise that believers will live with him forever is based on Christ’s resurrection (4:14). • dead or alive: A reference to living and deceased believers (4:13-15) rather than people’s moral condition (as in 5:6-7).

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

1Th 5:10. Ἀποθανόντος, who hath died) That appointment for a peculiar preservation (περιποίησιν σωτηρίας), consisted in the death of Christ itself.—εἴτε καθεύδωμεν, whether we sleep) as to the body, in natural sleep or in death.—ἅμα) at the same time as the coming takes place. Or are we rather to take it, together with Him, in the same place where, and in the same manner as, He lives? I cannot think so. The whole subject is “concerning the times” (1Th 5:1), and at the end of the discussion the discourse returns to those things with which it began. They had always set before themselves the coming of Christ as a thing near at hand. So also does Lubinus explain it.

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

1Th_5:10. That by which the acquisition of salvation is rendered objectively possible is the death of Christ for our redemption. However, this objective reason of περιποίησις σωτηρίας appears, according to the verbal expression, here not in causal connection with the preceding; for otherwise 1Th_5:10 would have been attached with the simple participle ἀποθανόντος without the article. Rather Paul adds in 1Th_5:10 simply the fact of the death of Christ for our redemption as an independent expression, in order, by the addition of the final end of His death, to return to the chief reason which led him to this whole explanation concerning the advent, namely, to the comforting assurance that Christians who have already fallen asleep at the entrance of the advent will, as well as those who are alive, be partakers in Christs glory.

ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν] for our benefit, not in our stead (Baumgarten-Crusius). See Meyer on Rom_5:6.

γρηγορεῖν and καθεύδειν cannot here, as formerly, be taken in an ethical sense; for in what precedes καθεύδειν was represented as a mark of the unbelieving, of the children of this world, something incompatible with Christians in their character as children of the light. But to understand the words in their literal sense, with Musculus, Aretius, and Whitby, that is, to interpret them of day and night: whether the advent happens in the day-time or at night, would be feeble and trifling. It only remains that waking and sleeping here is to be regarded as a figurative designation of life and death, whether we are yet alive at the advent, or whether we are already dead. Accordingly the same thought is expressed in the sentence with ἵνα, generally considered, which is contained in the concluding words of Rom_14:8 (ἐάν τε οὖν ζῶμεν ἐάν τε ἀποθνήσκωμεν, τοῦ κυρίου ἐσμέν).[63]

On καθεύδειν of death, comp. LXX. Dan_12:2; 2Sa_7:12; Psa_88:5.

On εἴτε … εἴτε, with the conjunctive, see Winer, p. 263 [E. T. 368].

ἅμα] does not belong to σὺν αὐτῷ (Hofmann, Riggenbach), but to ζήσωμεν. It here corresponds to the Hebrew יַהַד, altogether (Rom_3:12), so that it emphatically brings forward the similar share in the ζῆν σὺν Χριστῷ for all Christians, whether living or dead.

ΖΉΣΩΜΕΝ] more specific than ἘΣΌΜΕΘΑ, 1Th_4:17; for being united with the Lord is a partaking of His glory. According to Hofmann (comp. also Möller on de Wette), ΖΉΣΩΜΕΝ is designed to denote only a state of life-fellowship with Christ, so that there is indicated by it not something future, but the present condition of Christians. But this weakening of the verbal idea militates against the context of our passage, as it has for its contents questions respecting the advent, and we are reminded of the period of the advent by ΕἸς ὈΡΓΉΝ and ΕἸς ΠΕΡΙΠΟΊΗΣΙΝ ΣΩΤΗΡΊΑς directly preceding. Besides, Paul, if he would have expressed nothing more than a fellowship of life with Christ, for which the distinction of corporeal life and death is indifferent, would much more naturally have written ΑὐΤΟῦ ὮΜΕΝ (comp. Rom_14:8) instead of ΣῪΝ ΑὐΤῷ ΖΉΣΩΜΕΝ.

[63] By this parallel with Rom_14:8-9, the objections of Schrader against our passage are settled, who thinks that the manner in which the death of Christ and His coming again are spoken of, is not similar to what is found elsewhere in Paul, but rather to what Mark and Luke say concerning it. We do not find here the words taught by the Holy Spirit as we are accustomed to hear from Paul, but the words from tradition, such as were at a later period prevalent among Christians!

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 5:10 . Life or death makes no difference to the Christian’s union and fellowship with Jesus Christ, whose death was in our eternal interests ( cf. Rom 14:7-9 ). For this metaphorical use of γρηγ . εἴτε καθ . (different from that in 6), Wohl. cites Plato, Symp. , 203a: διὰ τούτου (i.e. Eros) πᾶσα ἐστιν ἡ ὁμιλία καὶ ἡ διάλεκτος θεοῖς πρὸς ἀνθρώπους , καὶ ἐγρηγορόσι καὶ καθεύδουσιν , as a possible basis.

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

10. περι in א*B 17, against all other codd., which have υπερ: cf. the variants in 1Co 1:13, Gal 1:4; and see Expository Note.

10. τοῦ ἀποθανόντος περὶ ἡμῶν, ἵνα … ἅμα σὺν αὐτῷ ζήσωμεν, who died for us, that … together with Him we might live. Περὶ ἡμῶν specifies “us” as the objects of the Saviour’s death, those “about” whom He was concerned in dying; the reading ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, as those “for the good of” whom He died—but “this distinction is growing dull” in the κοινή (J. H. Moulton); ἀντί would have been required to signalize the vicarious nature of the death, as in 1Ti 2:6, Mat 20:28.

The main point is that His death secures our life; thus it gives a sure warrant for the cherished ἐλπὶς σωτηρίας (1Th 5:8) Further, the “life” which Christ’s death secures for those resolved to “win” it (1Th 5:9), is a life associated, indeed identified, with His (ἄμα σὺν αὐτῷ: cf. for the phrase, 1Th 4:17); He died for the very and that we might partake of His deathless life: cf. Joh 6:51; Joh 10:10 f., 18; also Rom 5:10; Rom 6:4 ff.; 2Co 4:10 ff; 2Co 5:14 ff.; Rev 1:5 f., 18, &c. In His “dying that we might live along with Him,” Christ’s own resurrection is taken for granted (cf. 1Th 4:14). The principle which connects the Saviour’s death with the life, present and ultimate, of His people is assumed, but not drawn out, in this passage; it was present to the mind of the readers, or these words would have been meaningless. The propitiatory atonement which Christ made upon the cross for the sins of mankind, constitutes the indispensable link; this clause involves the teaching about redemption by the death and resurrection of Jesus, which is distinctive of the second group of the Pauline Epp.: see Rom 3:21-26; Rom 4:25 to Rom 5:11; Rom 6:1-11, Rom 8:1-4; Gal 2:10-21; Gal 3:9-14; 2Co 5:14 to 2Co 6:2. The whole theology of the Cross is latent here. In writing to the Corinthians and referring to his preaching at the very time when the Thessalonian letters were penned, St Paul calls his doctrine simply “the word of the cross” (1Co 1:17 f., 1Co 1:23; 1Co 2:2); cf., for an earlier period, Act 13:38 f., Gal 3:1; Gal 6:14. “In his earliest writings this doctrine was present to St Paul’s mind, though he has busied himself generally in these Epistles with other matters. It was not, therefore, as has been maintained, an aftergrowth of his maturer reflexions” (Lightfoot). See further the Introd. pp. xxv. ff.

In ἅμα σὺν αὐτῷ lies St Paul’s other fundamental doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ in His heavenly life, which is the complement of his doctrine of union with Christ in His sacrificial death for sin: see, on this correspondence, 2Co 5:15; 2Co 5:21; Rom 6:5-11; Gal 2:19 f.; Rom 14:8 f. Risen from the grave, our Saviour “lives” evermore “to God”; “death no longer lords it over Him.” And those who are Christ’s, being “cemented to the Lord in one Spirit” (1Co 6:17), share the life which flows from the Head through all His earthly members. This “life hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3), is, in St Paul’s view, “life indeed” (1Ti 6:19); ζήσωμεν is emphatic: “that … together with Him we might live,”—not dying even though we “sleep”; cf. Joh 6:50 f., Joh 11:25 f.

The parenthetical clause, εἴτε γρηγορῶμεν εἴτε καθευδωμεν, takes up into this sentence the comfort the Apostles had given their readers in § 8. The life of union with Christ which He died to procure for men, is untouched by mortality: He “died for us, in order that, whether we be waking or sleeping, together with Him we should live.” Just as our natural life holds its course unbroken through waking or sleeping hours, so our spiritual life in Christ continues whether we are awake to this world or the body lies asleep in the grave (cf. Mat 22:32); the Christian dead are οἱ νεκροὶ ἐν Χριστῷ, 1Th 4:16, and return to us σὺν αὐτῷ, when “God shall bring” Jesus back to the world He left (1Th 4:14; see notes). Hence we gather that “the sleeping” are living somewhere with and in Christ; their “sleep” makes no vital difference: cf. Rom 8:38 f.; Joh 14:19 b.

The verbs γρηγορέω and καθεύδω, understood ethically in 1Th 5:6 f., by a change of metaphor become synonyms for natural life and death; see note on κοιμάομαι, 1Th 4:13. This figurative use of καθεύὁω (= κοιμάομαι) is a Biblical hap. legomenon (cf. καλὸς νέκυς, οἶα καθεύδων, Bion i. 71); it is suggested by the context (1Th 5:6 ff.), and γρηγορέω matches it in meaning. See Rom 14:7 ff., where Christ’s lordship over His people is declared to extend to the world beyond death: ἐάν τε ζῶμεν ἐάν τε ἀποθνήσκωμεν, τοῦ κυρίου ἐσμέν· εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν καὶ ἀνέστη, ἵνα καὶ νεκρῶν καὶ ζώντων κυριεύσῃ; cf., in this light, Eph 4:9 f. and Rev 1:18 with the passage before us.

The subjunctive after εἴτε, in place of indic., occurs also in 1Co 14:5, Php 3:11, and might be justified by later Greek usage; but here it appears to be due to the influence of ἵνα just preceding, the subordinate conditional clause being let into the final clause; see Winer-Moulton, p. 368. The aorist ζήσωμεν is antithetical to ἀποθανόντος, denoting the “life” which “Christ died” to procure “for us,” not as a continued state but as a single fact, a definite attainment won for us by Christ’s death and holding good alike in our “waking” or “sleeping.” For the aorist of ζάω, cf. Luk 15:24; Rom 7:9 (contrast ἔζων with ἀνέζησεν), Rom 14:9; Gal 2:19; Tit 2:12; 1Jn 4:9; Rev 2:8; Rev 20:4 f.: the present, on the other hand, in 1Th 3:8, 1Th 4:15 above; Rom 14:8; 2Co 5:15, &c.

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.

10. τοῦ ἀποθανόντος κτλ The risen Lord through whose indwelling power the believer gains salvation is also he who died for us, that is, for our sins (Gal 1:3, 1Co 15:3; cf. Rom 5:8, Rom 4:25).

Bא read περι (cf. Gal 1:3 where B has ὑπέ), but most have ὑπέ (cf. Rom 5:8); the distinction between these prepositions is becoming enfeebled (Moult I, 105). By the phrases ἀποθνήσκειν ὑπέ (Rom 5:6 ff. Rom 5:14:15, 1Co 15:3, 2Co 5:15), διδόναι περι (Gal 1:3), and παραδιδόναι ὑπέ (Gal 2:20, Rom 8:32), Paul indicates his belief in the sufferings and especially the death of Christ, the righteous for the unrighteous, as an atonement (cf. Moore, EB 4229 ff.). In speaking of the death of Christ for us, Paul uses regularly the category not of forgiveness (Rom 4:7, Col 1:14, Eph 1:7; cf Col 2:13, Col 3:13, Eph 4:32) but of reconciliation (Rom 5:10 ff. 2Co 5:18 ff. Col 1:20 ff.) and especially justification. “Forgiveness he calls justification. It is the same thing as atonement, or reconciliation, terms in which somewhat different aspects of the same process are emphasised” (Ropes, Apostolic Age, 156). The absence of these terms in I, II, and the fact that this is the only passage in I, II in which the death of Christ for us is mentioned, suggests not that the significance of that death was not preached prominently in Thessalonica, but that the purpose of these letters did not call for a discussion of justification, law, works, etc. Nothing is here said explicitly of Christ’s death “to sin” (Rom 6:10) or of the believers’ dying and rising with Christ (Gal 2:19 f. Rom 6:3 ff. Col 2:12, Col 2:20, Col 2:3:1), but this conception may underlie both the passage (4:14), “if we believe that Jesus died and rose,” etc., and διὰ τοῦ κυρίο and ἐν κυρίῳ

ἵν … ζήσωμεν The purpose of the death, stated in the light of the cognate discussion (4:13-18), is: “that whether we are watching (living) or whether we are sleeping (dead), we might together live with him.” γρηγορῶμε and καθεύδωμε are to be taken figuratively for ζῶμε and ἀποθνησκωμε (Rom 14:8), as, indeed, Th. Mops. Chrys. Ephr. (sive vivi simus sive mortui), and most affirm. For survivors and dead, salvation comes simultaneously at the Parousia, as ἄξει σὺν αὐτῷ (4:14) and πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθ (4:17) prepare us to expect.

It is noteworthy that even in a casual statement about the significance of salvation, three distinctive points in Paul’s conception are touched upon, forgiveness of sins through the death of Christ, moral renewal through the indwelling power of the spiritual Christ, and the final consummation of future fellowship with him. Ell. is again right in insisting that as in 4:17 so here ἅμ and σύ be separated; “the ζῆν σὺν Χριστῷ forms the principal idea, while the ἅμ subjoins the further notion of aggregation”; Vulg, however, joins simul cum (contrast 4:17). On καθεύδει = “to die”; see 4:13; but “to this particular use of γρηγορέ no Biblical parallel can be adduced” (Mill.). There seems to be no sharp difference in meaning between ει with the subjunctive (common in later Gk.; cf. Mill. and 1Co 14:5) and the expected ἐά (Rom 14:8). Burton (BMT 253), contrary to the opinion of many (e. g. Bl 65:4) thinks that the subjunctive “can hardly be explained as attraction since the nature of the thought (in our passage) calls for a subjunctive.” A few minuscules read γρηγοροῦμε and also with KLP καθεύδομεν. εἴτ, a favourite particle in Paul (cf. II 2:15), is rare elsewhere in Gk. Bib. (1Pe 2:13 f. Jos 24:15, Isa 30:21, Sir. 41:4, etc.).—A reads ζήσομε; DE ζῶμε; the aorist ζήσωμε (אB, et al.) indicates the future living as a fact without reference to progress or completion, “that we might have life.”

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

The death of Christ is a pledge of our victory, for therefore he died, that we might be partakers of his life or virtue, yea even while we live here.

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

died for us--Greek, "in our behalf."

whether we wake or sleep--whether we be found at Christ's coming awake, that is, alive, or asleep, that is, in our graves.

together--all of us together; the living not preceding the dead in their glorification "with Him" at His coming (Th1 4:13).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 10. Who died for us] His death was an atoning sacrifice for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews.

Whether we wake or sleep] Whether we live or die, whether we are in this state or in the other world, we shall live together with him-shall enjoy his life, and the consolations of his Spirit, while here; and shall be glorified together with him in the eternal world. The words show that every where and in all circumstances genuine believers, who walk after God, have life and communion with him, and are continually happy, and constantly safe. The apostle, however, may refer to the doctrine he has delivered, 1Th 4:15, concerning the dead in Christ rising first; and the last generation of men not dying, but undergoing such a change as shall render them immortal. On that great day, all the followers of God, both those who had long slept in the dust of the earth, and all those who shall be found living, shall be acknowledged by Christ as his own, and live together for ever with him.

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

10 Who died. From the design of Christ’s death he confirms what he has said, for if he died with this view — that he might make us partakers of his life, there is no reason why we should be in doubt as to our salvation. It is doubtful, however, what he means now by sleeping and waking, for it might seem as if he meant life and death, and this meaning would be more complete. At the same time, we might not unsuitably interpret it as meaning ordinary sleep. The sum is this — that Christ died with this view, that he might bestow upon us his life, which is perpetual and has no end. It is not to be wondered, however, that he affirms that we now live with Christ, inasmuch as we have, by entering through faith into the kingdom of Christ, passed from death into life. (John 5:24) Christ himself, into whose body we are ingrafted, quickens us by his power, and the Spirit that dwelleth in us is life, because of justification

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.

(10) Who died for us.—Not a mere pious recollection of a fact which has nothing to do with the context, but an account of the way by which Christ made it possible for us to set about earning salvation. What a blessed privilege a Christian’s life of labour must be, if it alone—to say nothing of the “salvation” at the end—cost such a price!

Whether we wake or sleep.—The mention of Christ’s death at once brings back the recollection of the Advent and the questions concerning the dead in their relation to it. The words “wake or sleep” seem distinctly suggested by the metaphor used from 1Th_5:2 to 1Th_5:8, being different in the Greek from the terms used in 1 Thessalonians 4, but abruptly take a much altered meaning. They here, no doubt, signify “life and death:”—“Let us arm ourselves with a brave hope of our salvation, for it will be against God’s will if we should 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.”

We should live.—In sharp contrast with “who died for us.” Christ’s dying destroyed the power of death (Heb_2:14); henceforth it is only a matter of being awake or asleep; those who sleep quite as truly live, and live with Him, as we who wake (see Luk_20:38; and compare the more developed passage in Rom_14:8). The word “together” (as the Greek clearly shows) must be separated from the “with;” rather, “we should live with Him together,” i.e., we quick, and our brethren the dead; for St. Paul has entirely reverted from the effect of the Advent-doctrine upon Christian life to the subject of the last chapter—the equality of the two classes at Christ’s coming. Bengel, thinking that St. Paul is still applying himself to the discussion of the date of the Advent (which in fact was scarcely raised), tries to make out the meaning, “That we should there and then live with Him.”

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

10. (through our Lord Jesus Christ,) who died for us] It has been said that the gospel which Paul preached at Thessalonica was “not the gospel of the Cross of Christ, but of the Coming of Christ.” But these two are not exclusive or conflicting doctrines; they are complementary parts of one and the same Gospel. This clause is enough to show how far the apostles were from ignoring the Cross of Christ in their ministry at Thessalonica. When St Paul writes, “Christ died for us … that we should live together with Him,” his words involve the entire doctrine of Redemption by the death and resurrection of Jesus, as it is set forth at length in the next group of Epistles—in Rom_3:21-26; Rom_4:25 to Rom_5:2; Rom_6:1-11; Rom_8:1-4; Gal_2:10-21; Gal_3:9-14; 2Co_5:14 to 2Co_6:2; &c. They imply the Atonement and Salvation by Faith, the receiving of Christ’s Spirit of sonship, and abiding union with Him in His risen and heavenly life. The whole theology of the Cross is in this sentence,—which indeed could only be interpreted and understood by the Thessalonians in the light of such teaching as we find in the later Epistles. The message of salvation through the death of Christ had been the staple and centre of the Apostle’s testimony all along. In writing to the Corinthians, and referring to his preaching in Corinth at the very time when he wrote the letters before us, he calls his message simply “the word of the cross” (1Co_1:17-18; 1Co_1:23; 1Co_2:2); comp., for an earlier period, Act_13:38-39; Gal_3:1, also Gal_6:14. See Introd. pp. 16, 17.

that, whether we wake or sleep] More exactly, whether we be awake or asleep, i.e. living or dead—with allusion to the use of the same terms to denote spiritual wakefulness or slumber in 1Th_5:6-7 (see notes).

At the same time these words carry us back, with a sudden change of metaphor, to ch. 1Th_4:13-18. There it was shewn that believers living at the Lord’s return, and those who “fall asleep” before He comes, alike belong to Him, and will share alike in the glory of His advent. And now it appears that this deep and sure relationship of the saints to Christ, unbroken by the sleep of bodily death, is grounded upon His death for them. That death He underwent for the very purpose of giving them a deathless life: in order that … together with Him we should live (comp. Rom_14:8-9 : “Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.… Christ died and came to life, that He might be Lord of both dead and living”). The stress lies upon the last word: Christ died for us, that we might live with Him—a life consisting in spiritual union with Him, and continuing undestroyed whether the man wakes or sleeps to this world. “I came,” said Jesus, “that men might have life … I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If any one eat of this bread, he shall live for ever. Yea, and the bread which I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world” (Joh_10:10; Joh_6:51). Risen from the grave, our Saviour “lives” evermore “to God; death no longer lords it over Him” (Rom_6:9-10). And those who are Christ’s, “joined to the Lord” as “one spirit” with Him (1Co_6:17), share His life, which flows from the heavenly Head to all the earthly members of His Body. This is the life “that is life indeed” (1Ti_6:19); it is superior to the accidents of time, since in its spring and essence “hid with Christ in God” (Col_3:1-4). Such is St Paul’s conception of the nature of the Christian’s life.

The “with Him” of ch. 1Th_4:14; 1Th_4:17 is echoed and unfolded in the “together with Him” of this verse, as it formed the basis of the “together with them” of ch. 1Th_4:17. All joy and strength for the present life and hope for that to come, for ourselves and for those dear to us, are centred in the words “together with Him.” So the Apostle resumes the strain of consolation, from which he had turned aside in 1Th_5:1 to utter words of caution; and he concludes, almost in the language of ch. 1Th_4:18—

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.

Who died for us,.... The elect of God, who are not appointed to wrath, but to salvation by Christ, on which account he died for them; not merely as a martyr to confirm his doctrine, or only by way of example, but as a surety, in the room and stead of his people; as a sacrifice for their sins, to make atonement for them, and save them from them; so that his death lays a solid foundation for hope of salvation by him:

that whether we wake or sleep: which phrases are to be understood, not in the same sense in which they are used in the context; as if the sense was, whether a man indulges himself in sin, and gives way to sleep and sloth, and carnal security, or whether he is awake and on his watch and guard, he shall through the death of Christ have eternal life secured to him; not but that there is a truth in this, that eternal life and salvation by Christ, as it does not depend on our watchfulness, so it shall not be hindered by the sleepy, drowsy frame of spirit, the children of God sometimes fall into: but rather natural sleep and waking are intended; and the meaning is, that those for whom Christ died are always safe, sleeping or waking, whatever they are about and employed in, and in whatsoever situation and condition they are in this world; though it may be best of all to interpret the words, of life and death; and they may have a particular regard to the state of the saints at Christ's second coming, when some will be awake, or alive, and others will be asleep in Christ, or dead; and it matters not which they are, whether living or dead; see Rom 14:7 for the end of Christ's dying for them, and which will be answered in one as well as in another, is, that

we should live together with him: Christ died for his people, who were dead in trespasses and sins, that they might live spiritually a life of sanctification from him, and a life of justification on him, and by him; and that they might live a life of communion with him; and that they might live eternally with him, in soul and body, in heaven, and reign with him there, and partake of his glory; and this all the saints will, whether they be found dead or alive at his coming; for the dead will immediately arise, those that sleep in the dust will awake at once, and they that are alive will be changed, and both will be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and be for ever with him: now the consideration of the death of Christ, and this end of it, which will certainly be answered, serves greatly to encourage hope of salvation by him, and faith in him, and an earnest expectation of his second coming.

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

10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

Ver. 10. Whether we wake or sleep] That is, live or die, our souls cannot miscarry; because God will have out the full price of his Son’s death. See Rom 14:8. {See Trapp on "Rom 14:8"}

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.

Who died for us - That is, to redeem us. He designed by his death that we should ultimately live with him; and this effect of his death could be secured only as it was an atoning sacrifice.

Whether we wake or sleep - Whether we are found among the living or the dead when he comes. The object here is to show that the one class would have no advantage over the other. This was designed to calm their minds in their trials, and to correct an error which seems to have prevailed in the belief that those who were found alive when he should return would have some priority over those who were dead; see the notes on 1Th 4:13-18.

Should live together with him - See the notes at Joh 14:3. The word rendered “together” (ἁμα hama) is not to be regarded as connected with the phrase “with him” - as meaning that he and they would be “together,” but it refers to those who “wake and those who sleep” - those who are alive and those who are dead - meaning that they would be “together” or would be with the Lord “at the same time;” there would be no priority or precedence. Rosenmuller.

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

Whether we wake or sleep. That is, whether we be of the number of those whom Jesus Christ shall find still upon earth, when he shall come to judgment, or among those who have slept and returned to dust, it is his will that we should be his. (Theodoret)

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).

Some refer these words to the latter end of the foregoing chapter, where the apostle had spoken of the saints’ death and resurrection, which is their sleeping and waking, as they are here called. And their being for ever with the Lord, is here called their living together with him. And lest it might be thought that none should be with Christ until they awaked at the resurrection, he therefore speaks of living with Christ even when we sleep. He had spoken of sleep in another sense, 1Th 5:6, as meant of security; but here meant of death, as it is taken 1Th 4:14. And as watching is set opposite to the former sleep, so here waking to the latter, which is a resurrection from death. And we hence gather that the soul doth not sleep with the body, but lives with the Lord when that sleeps in the grave; as the apostle expected to be with the Lord upon the dissolution of his body, Phi 1:23, and he mentions it as the privilege of other saints as well as his own, 2Co 5:1. When we sleep we are with him only in our souls; when we wake we shall be with him both in body and soul. And both these we have from Christ’s death. If he had not died, heaven had been shut against our souls, for our entrance into the holiest of all is by his blood, and the veil of his flesh rent for us, Heb 10:19,20; and the grave would have shut up our bodies, and there would have been no resurrection; so that our living with Christ, both when we sleep and when we wake, springs out of his death. Others carry these words no further than the foregoing verse, showing how we are saved by Christ; saith the apostle, he died for us. As God appointed persons to be saved, and Christ to be the person to be saved by, so also to be saved by his death; with respect to his Father he is said to be put to death, 1Pe 3:18; with respect to his own freedom and willingness, he is said here to die for us. And his dying for us implieth the greatness of our guilt, and expresseth the greatness of his own love, Joh 15:13. He loved us, and thereupon would have us live with him; and he died that we and he may live together. And so he may be said to die for our salvation, the substance whereof consisteth in our living with him. To live with so glorious a Person, and a Person that is full of love to us, and shall then be perfectly beloved of us, and that stands in many near relations to us, and whose presence will have such a blessed influence upon us, and in such a place as heaven is, and that for ever, surely carries the substance of our salvation in it. And if this was the end of his death, surely it was more than to be an example of faith, patience, and submission to God, or to confirm to us the doctrine he preached; it was to satisfy Divine justice, and obtain the pardon of our sin, and merit for us the privilege of living with him.

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

10. Wake or sleep… live—The question is raised whether wake or sleep is to be taken in a physical or spiritual sense. Sleep at the advent is the spiritual emblem of unbelief, and, therefore, excludes the life with Christ. Whitby’s sense, “whether the advent be by day or night,” is weak. As the live… with him must be the glorious life at the advent, the true meaning must be, whether we are living or dead at the advent.

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

Who died. His death being the meritorious cause of our salvation. For us; that is here, not "instead of us," but "for our benefit," or "on our account." That, whether we wake or sleep. Here not to be taken in an ethical sense whether we are spiritually awake or asleep, for those who are spiritually asleep will be surprised by the coming of the Lord; nor in a natural sense whether he come in the night and find us taking our natural sleep, or in the day, when we are awake which would be a mere trifling observation; but in a metaphorical sense whether we are alive or dead. The apostle has just been speaking of those who are dead under the designation of those "who are asleep", (1Th_4:13) and therefore it is natural to interpret the clause, "whether we wake or sleep," of the condition of believers at the coming of the Lord. There is here certainly a change of metaphor: "sleep" in ver. 6 denotes religious carelessness; in ver. 7, natural sleep; and here, death. We shall live together or, in one company with him. The apostle is still continuing his consolatory address to those who were mourning over their deceased friends; and he tells them that at the advent there will be no difference between those who are then alive and those who sleep both will live together with the Lord. (comp. Rom_14:8, Rom_14:9)

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

Whether we wake or sleep - Be alive or dead at his coming.

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

who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep [live or die before his coming] , we should live together with him . [This verse is suggested by the word "salvation" which precedes it. The hope of salvation may well defend us in the hour of temptation, and it should be strong enough to do so, for God has not appointed us to be lost, but to be saved, and has given his Son to die that we might be saved; and so, whether we remain alive unto his coming, or pass to our rest before that day, we may be assured that we shall live in one company with him.]

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.

10. Who died for us. That we might secure salvation. Hence our salvation is so assured that even death cannot rob us of it. Whether we are alive, or sleep in death, we shall live together with Christ.

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.

10.] who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep (in what sense? surely not in an ethical sense, as above: for they who sleep will be overtaken by Him as a thief, and His day will be to them darkness, not light. If not in an ethical sense, it must be in that of living or dying, and the sense as Rom 14:8. (For we cannot adopt the trifling sense given by Whitby, al.,—‘whether He come in the night, and so find us taking our natural rest, or in the day when we are waking.’) Thus understood however, it will be at the sacrifice of perspicuity, seeing that γρηγορεῖν and καθεύδειν have been used ethically throughout the passage. If we wish to preserve the uniformity of metaphor, we may (though I am not satisfied with this) interpret in this sense: that our Lord died for us, that whether we watch (are of the number of the watchful, i.e. already Christians) or sleep (are of the number of the sleeping, i.e. unconverted) we should live, &c. Thus it would = ‘who died that all men might be saved:’ who came, not to call the righteous only, but sinners to life. There is to this interpretation the great objection that it confounds with the λοιποί, the ἡμᾶς who are definitely spoken of as set by God not to wrath but to περιποίησιν σωτηρίας. So that the sense live or die, must, I think, be accepted, and the want of perspicuity with it. The construction of a subjunctive with εἴτε … εἴτε is not classical: an optative is found in such cases, e.g. Xen. Anab. ii. 1. 14, καὶ εἴτε ἄλλο τι θέλοι χρῆσθαι εἴτʼ ἐπʼ Αἴγυπτον στρατεύειν.… See Winer, edn. 6, § 41, p. 263, Moulton’s Engl. transl. 368, note 2.

ἅμα] all together: not to be taken with σύν, see reff.

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

Who died. Frequently the resurrection is coupled with the death of Christ by Paul, as ch. 4 14; Phi 3:10; Col 2:12; Col 3:1 - 4. Not so here; but the thought of resurrection is supplied in live together with him.

Wake or sleep. Whether we are alive or dead at Christ 's appearing. Comp. Rom 14:9. Kaqeudein in N. T. always literally of sleep, except here, and possibly Eph 5:14. In Mr 5:39; Luk 8:52, it is contrasted with death. In LXX in the sense of death, Psa 87:5; Dan 12:2; 2Sa 7:12.

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