1 Thessalonians 4:13

The character of these times learn, along with the Thessalonians. For we read: “How ye turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus.” And again: “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord God, Jesus Christ, at His coming?” Likewise: “Before God, even our Father, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the whole company of His saints.” He teaches them that they must “not sorrow concerning them that are asleep,” and at the same time explains to them the times of the resurrection, saying, “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him. …

We now come to the most usual cavil of unbelief. If, they say, it be actually the selfsame substance which is recalled to life with all its form, and lineaments, and quality, then why not with all its other characteristics? Then the blind, and the lame, and the palsied, and whoever else may have passed away with any conspicuous mark, will return again with the same. What now is the fact, although you in the greatness of your conceit thus disdain to accept from God so vast a grace? Does it not happen that, when you now admit the salvation of only the soul, you ascribe it to men at the cost of half their nature? What is the good of believing in the resurrection, unless your faith embraces the whole of it? If the flesh is to be repaired after its dissolution, much more will it be restored after some violent injury. Greater cases prescribe rules for lesser ones. …

What service, again, does all the labour spent in arranging the hair render to salvation? Why is no rest allowed to your hair, which must now be bound, now loosed, now cultivated, now thinned out? Some are anxious to force their hair into curls, some to let it hang loose and flying; not with good simplicity: beside which, you affix I know not what enormities of subtle and textile perukes; now, after the manner of a helmet of undressed hide, as it were a sheath for the head and a covering for the crown; now, a mass (drawn) backward toward the neck. The wonder is, that there is no (open) contending against the Lord’s prescripts! It has been pronounced that no one can add to his own stature. …

21. Finally, the Apostle Paul reproaches, and rebukes, and blames any who are in sorrow at the departure of their friends. “I would not,” says he, “have you 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 which are asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” He says that those have sorrow in the departure of their friends who have no hope. …

In Genesis: “Then said the Lord to Adam, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of that tree of which alone I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat, cursed shall be the ground in all thy works; in sadness and groaning shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns and thistles shall it cast forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field in the sweat of thy brow. Thou shalt eat thy bread until thou return unto the earth from which also thou wast taken; because earth thou art, and to earth thou shalt go.” Also in the same place: “And Enoch pleased God, and was not found afterwards: because God translated him.” And in Isaiah: “All flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of grass. …

But the apostle has said nothing here regarding the resurrection of the dead; but in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians he says, “We would not have you to be ignorant brethren, concerning them which are asleep,” etc. These words of the apostle most distinctly proclaim the future resurrection of the dead, when the Lord Christ shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

Now, again, what means it that you say, “The soul acquires form from the body, and grows and extends with the increase of the body,” without keeping in view what a monstrosity the soul of either a young man or an old man would become if his arm had been amputated when he was an infant? “The hand of the soul,” you say, “contracts itself, so that it is not amputated with the hand of the body, and by condensation it shrinks into other parts of the body.” At this rate the aforesaid arm of the soul will be kept, wherever it holds its ground, as short as it was at first when it received the form of the body, because it has lost the form by the growth of which it might itself have increased at an equal degree of expansion. …

6. What is it then, Brethren? Let us treat now of the five wise and the five foolish virgins. They wished to go to meet the Bridegroom. What is the meaning of “to go and meet the Bridegroom”? To go with the heart, to be waiting for his coming. But he tarried. “While he tarries, they all slept.” What is “all”? Both the foolish and the wise, “all slumbered and slept.” Think we is this sleep good? What is this sleep? Is it that at the tarrying of the Bridegroom, “because iniquity aboundeth, the love of many waxeth cold”? Are we to understand this sleep so? I like it not. I will tell you why. …

9. “And after that He saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.” It was true what He said. To his sisters he was dead, to the Lord he was asleep. He was dead to men, who could not raise him again; but the Lord aroused him with as great ease from the tomb as one arouseth a sleeper from his bed. Hence it was in reference to His own power that He spoke of him as sleeping: for others also, who are dead, are frequently spoken of in Scripture as sleeping; as when the apostle says, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope.” Therefore he also spoke of them as sleeping, because foretelling their resurrection. And so, all the dead are sleeping, both good and bad. …

5. “I slept, and took rest” ( ver. 5 ). It may be not unsuitably remarked, that it is expressly said, “I,” to signify that of His own Will He underwent death, according to that, “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” Therefore, saith He, you have not taken Me as though against My will, and slain Me; but “I slept, and took rest; and rose, for the Lord will take me up.” Scripture contains numberless instances of sleep being put for death; as the Apostle says, “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep.” Nor need we make any question why it is added, “took rest,” seeing that it has already been said, “I slept.” Repetitions of this kind are usual in Scripture, as we have pointed out many in the second Psalm. …

Another perhaps has lost a little daughter or a son, or one of his kinsfolk, and he also having come here listens to Paul groaning over this present life and longing to see that which is to come, and oppressed by his sojourn in this world, and he will go away with a sufficient remedy for his grief when he has heard him say “Now concerning them that are asleep I would not have you ignorant brethren that ye sorrow not even as others who have no hope.” He did not say concerning the dying, but “concerning them that are asleep” proving that death is a sleep. As then if we see any one sleeping we are not disturbed or distressed, expecting that he will certainly get up: even so when we see any one dead, let us not be disturbed or dejected for this also is a sleep, a longer one indeed, but still a sleep. …

Wherefore also He here brings forward the heathens and the publicans, by the quality of the person putting the disciple to shame. Which Paul too did, saying, “Sorrow not, even as the rest which have no hope;”and, “Even as the Gentiles which know not God.”