1 Thessalonians 4:15

1 Thessalonians 4:15. By the word of the Lord. The account of the Lord's Second Advent which follows is one of those revelations which human reasoning could not even help the apostle to predict. It must be revealed directly. Some spiritual truths Paul reached by the growth of his own experience; the Spirit worked imperceptibly along with and sustained his own inquiry and knowledge; but there were also some matters which could not be so discovered or discerned, and these could only be revealed by a wholly and directly supernatural enlightenment. Among these was the Lord's Epiphany. The occurrence of this expression here, reminds us that the possibility of mistake is precluded in what follows.

We who are living, who are being left over, i.e. we, whoever we may be, who are alive at the coming of the Lord. ‘Is St. Paul speaking here of his own generation only? or are the living at a particular time put for the living in general, these being spoken of in the first person by way of contrast with the dead from whom they are parted? We may consider “ we who are living” as a figure of the living in genera], just as “ they that are asleep,” though primarily referring to the dead in the Thessalonian Church, is also put for the dead in general' (Jowett). The ‘we ' embraces along with the apostle all the Christian Thessalonian' at that time alive; if, therefore, the expression implies that Paul expected that he would live till the reappearance of Christ, it equally implies that he expected that all the Thessalonians would survive till that time; which no one is hardy enough to maintain. That the words Paul uses are susceptible of a meaning which would imply that he expected to live till the Lord came, is evident from the circumstance that some of the Thessalonians, with whom Greek was the mother tongue, did so understand his words. But that Paul himself did not mean them to be so understood is evident from his distinct affirmation to this effect in the Second Epistle; which apparently was written chiefly for the purpose of correcting this false impression, and the disorders occasioned by it. What the words do imply is the possibility, but not the expectation, that some or all of them might see the day of the Son of man before dying. The beginning of the following chapter shows that Paul was unwilling to speak definitely of the times and seasons; and the Second Epistle shows that the one point on which he was confident was that other events must occur before the second coming. ‘A living man naturally classes himself with the living, in contradistinction to those who are dead. We do not read it as an express assertion that St. Paul himself would certainly be among the living at the Advent of Christ. At present he belonged to that division of the human race; he knew not but that he might still be so at that great epoch, of which the day and hour are known only to the Father, but which each generation of the Church ought to be constantly expecting. The Second Epistle expressly corrects the false inference that St. Paul here predicts an immediate return of Christ; and, by implication at least, the idea that he himself presumes upon living to behold it' (Vaughan).

Shall in no wise precede, i.e. shall not anticipate or be beforehand with; ‘shall not arrive into the presence of the Lord, and share the blessings and glories of His advent, before others' (Ellicott).