1 Thessalonians 5:10

5:6-11 Most of mankind do not consider the things of another world at all, because they are asleep; or they do not consider them aright, because they sleep and dream. Our moderation as to all earthly things should be known to all men. Shall Christians, who have the light of the blessed gospel shining in their faces, be careless about their souls, and unmindful of another world? We need the spiritual armour, or the three Christian graces, faith, love, and hope. Faith; if we believe that the eye of God is always upon us, that there is another world to prepare for, we shall see reason to watch and be sober. True and fervent love to God, and the things of God, will keep us watchful and sober. If we have hope of salvation, let us take heed of any thing that would shake our trust in the Lord. We have ground on which to build unshaken hope, when we consider, that salvation is by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, to atone for our sins and to ransom our souls. We should join in prayer and praise one with another. We should set a good example one before another, and this is the best means to answer the end of society. Thus we shall learn how to live to Him, with whom we hope to live for ever.

1 Thessalonians 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” ( 1 Thessalonians 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.

1 Thessalonians 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. Romans 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.

Who died Frequently the resurrection is coupled with the death of Christ by Paul, as 1 Thessalonians 4:14; Philippians 3:10; Colossians 2:12; Colossians 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. Romans 14:9. Καθεύδειν in N.T. always literally of sleep, except here, and possibly Ephesians 5:14. In Mark 5:39; Luke 8:52, it is contrasted with death. In lxx in the sense of death, Psalm 87:5; Daniel 12:2; 2 Samuel 7:12.

Verse 10. - 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" ( 1 Thessalonians 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. Romans 14:8, 9 ). 1 Thessalonians 5:10

1 Thessalonians WAKING AND SLEEPING 1 Thessalonians 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.

10. 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 (1Th 4:13).

(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 1Thessalonians 5:2 to 1Thessalonians 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 (Hebrews 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 Luke 20:38; and compare the more developed passage in Romans 14:8).