1 Thess. iv. 13 — 18. / would not have you to be ignorant :, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For, if we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus loill God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we ivhich are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them ivhich are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first : then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
IT is justly said by the Apostle, that " godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come." Certainly true religion doubles our joys, at the same time that it greatly diminishes our sorrows. What- ever temporal happiness a man of God enjoys, he has, by anticipation, the joys of eternity also added to it ; whilst his griefs, whatever they may be, are also proportionably mitigated by the consideration of their transitory nature, their sanctifying efficacy, and their glorious issue. This St. Paul intimates in the passage before us. There were some of the Thessa- lonian Church who had given way to sorrow in an unbecoming manner ; so that, in that respect, they could scarcely be discerned as differing from the unconverted heathen around them. To correct this, he tells them of the glorious prospects which they have in the eternal world, and begs them to look forward to their future destinies, as the means of tranquillizing their minds under all the painful cir- cumstances which might at any time occur.
In the words which we have just read, he declares,
I. The certainty of the resurrection —
The heathen quite derided the idea of the resur- rection3, deeming it altogether incredible15: and some who professed Christianity explained away the doc- trine relating to it, and represented the resurrec- tion as a merely spiritual change, which had passed already0. Even some of the Thessalonian Church
a Actsxvii. 18, 32. b Acts xxvi. 8. c 2 Tim. ii. 18.