1 Thessalonians 4:14

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again The faith of a Christian man in its briefest and simplest form. So in Romans 10:9 the Apostle declares the faith that "saves" to be the belief of the heart that "God raised Jesus from the dead." This involves everything else; it carries with it the conviction that Christ is Divine (Romans 1:4), and that His death brings "justification of life" for men (Romans 4:25). Such faith St Paul assumes, for himself and his readers, as a fundamental fact. He speaks of "Jesus," thinking of Him in His human Person and in the analogy of His experience to our own. He is "Firstborn of many brethren, Firstborn out of the dead" (Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:18); and what we believe of Jesus, we may expect to see fulfilled in His brethren.

even so them also which sleep in Jesus Rather, which fell asleep. The verb is past(historical) in tense. The Apostle is looking back with his readers to the sorrowful event of their friends" decease, that he may give them comfort; comp. 1 Thessalonians 4:15.

in Jesusis in the Greek through Jesus, or more strictly, that fell asleep (possibly, were laid to sleep) through the Jesus just spoken of, Him "Who died and rose again." For the force of the preposition, comp. 1 Thessalonians 4:2 and note. The departed Thessalonian Christians had "fallen asleep;" for them Death was robbed of his terrors and transformed to Sleep. "Through Jesus" this came to pass theJesus of their faith, the dying, risen Saviour! Trusting in His Name, remembering and realising what it meant, they had met the last enemy, and conquering their fears they "laid them down and slept." Such is the power of this Namein the last conflict:

"Jesus! my only hope Thou art,

Strength of my failing flesh and heart!"

(Chas. Wesley's Dying Hymn.)

them that fell asleep through Jesus, God will bring with Him. God(expressed with emphasis) is the Agent in their restoration, as in ch. 1 Thessalonians 1:10 in the "raising" of "His Son from the dead." He "Who raised up the Lord Jesus, will raise up us also with Jesus" (2 Corinthians 4:14; comp. Ephesians 1:19-20). But the Apostle does not say here "will raisethem with Jesus," it is not the resurrectionof the dead that is in question, but their relation to the Parousia, their place in Christ's approaching kingdom. Therefore he says: "God will bringthem with Him," they will not be forgotten or left behind when Jesus comes in triumph.

The argument of this verse is condensed and somewhat subtle. When the Apostle begins, "If we believe" &c., we expect him to continue, "so we believe that those who died will, by the power of Christ's resurrection, be raised to life, and will return to share His glory." But in the eagerness of his inference St Paul passes from the certainty of convictionin the first member of the sentence ("If we believe") to the certainty of the fact itself (" God will bringthem") in the second. In the same eagerness of anticipation he blends the final with the intermediate stage of restoration, making the resurrection of Jesus the pledge not of the believer's resurrection simply (as in 2 Corinthians 4:14), but of his participation in Christ's glorious advent, of which His resurrection is the prelude (comp. ch. 1 Thessalonians 1:10, "to wait for His Son from the heavens, Whom He raised from the dead," and note). The union between Christ and the Christian, as St Paul conceives it, is such that in whatever Christ the Head does or experiences, He carries the members of His body with Him. The Christian dead are "the dead in Christ" (1 Thessalonians 4:16); they will therefore be in due course the risen and the glorified in Christ (2 Thessalonians 1:12); comp. 2 Timothy 2:11, "If we died with Him, we shall also live with Him." The point of the Apostle's reasoning lies in the connection of the words "died and roseagain." Jesus has made a pathway through the grave, and by this passage His faithful, fallen asleep, still one with the dying, risen Jesus, will be conducted, to appear with Him at His return.