One of the real tests of a person’s belief system is how that belief system stands in the face of death. Consider some of these dying words of people throughout history. Welsh poet Dylan Thomas urged us to not go gently into the night but to rage against dying. The Roman Emperor Vespian said, "I am becoming a god" as he died in 79 AD. Kurt Cobain, former lead singer for the grunge band Nirvana said, "I hate myself and I want to die." 1960s drug guru Timothy Leary mumbled, "Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not?" Stand up comic Lenny Bruce’s final words were, "Do you know where I can score any heroin?" Then of course there was civil war general John Sedgwick, who’s final words were, "They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—"
These final words give us an insight into how well the belief systems of each of these people prepared them to face death. Contrast that with these final words. English evangelist George Whitefield’s final words were, "Lord Jesus, I am weary in your work but not of your work. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and preach once more in the fields, seal the truth, and then come home to die." Missionary Adoniram Judson said, "When Christ calls me home, I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school." John Wesley said, "The best of all is God is with us. Farewell!" And one of my favorites is Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, who died in 1329, who said, "Now my dear children I have had breakfast with you and I shall have supper with my Lord Jesus Christ." What a contrast between belief systems.
Death is the final uncertainty we face in life, the biggest and darkest uncertainty of all. How well does the Christian faith prepare people to face the final uncertainty of death? We’re in the midst of a series called LIVING CONFIDENTLY IN UNCERTAIN TIMES. In this series we’re going through the New Testament books of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, to see what God has to say to us as we face a new century. Today we’re going to see three confident actions that Christians can take as they face the final uncertainty of death.
1. Confident Trust (1 Thess 4:13-14)
Paul begins by confronting an area of spiritual ignorance among the Thessalonians in vv. 13-14. Remember Paul and his co-workers Timothy and Silas had only spent a short time in the Greek city of Thessalonica before the pressure got unbearable and they were forced to leave town. One of the topics Paul wasn’t able to cover in detail was how the second coming of Jesus Christ relates to Christians who have died before Christ comes again.
Now each of the 27 books of the New Testament claim that at some future point in human history Jesus Christ will come again to this earth. In fact every chapter in 1 and 2 Thessalonians mentions the second coming of Jesus. The New Testament claims that this will be a literal, personal and visible second coming, something that every person experiences. In a Newsweek poll last year, 52% of Americans said they thought the second coming of Jesus Christ would occur within the next 1000 years.1
Because of their limited knowledge, the Thessalonians had an incomplete understanding of God’s plan for the living and the dead when Jesus comes again. The Christians in Thessalonica lived expecting Christ to return within their lifetime. The problem came when some members of their Christian friends died, and they wondered what would become of their loved ones when Jesus came again. Would they be at a disadvantage? Would they miss out on the joy?
Paul knows that a lack of knowledge about this issue leads to hopelessness and despair when we face life’s final uncertainty of death. Even though lots of people in the first century believed in the afterlife, it was viewed more as a kind of wishful thinking. One Greek writer who lived at this time put it this way: "Hopes are for the living; the dead are without hope."2 Most people back then held to some view of immortality in theory, but in the face of the real death of a real person, the general attitude was one of hopelessness and despair. Ignorance about what the Christian faith has to say about death and the afterlife leads even Christians to despair and hopelessness, so Paul knows that before he can truly comfort he must instruct them.
Now Paul’s not telling us that Christians are immune from grief here. Bible teacher John Stott’s quite right when he says, "However firm our Christian faith may be, the loss of a close friend or relative causes a profound emotional shock. To lose a loved one is to lose a part of oneself."3 Death still hurts, even if you’re a Christian. But for the Christian, we don’t grieve in hopelessness, but we grieve in hope.
Paul goes back to basics, that the core of the Christian faith is that Jesus died and rose from the grave. The crucifixion of Jesus and his literal resurrection from the grave three days later is the irreducible core of the Christian faith.4 If you take away the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus Christ, the Christian faith crumbles. Some Bible teachers believe Paul is quoting an early creed that the church would recite each time they gathered together to worship.5
If the death and resurrection of Jesus are true--and the testimony of history is that it is true--then it follows that Jesus will bring back those who’ve died while trusting in him. If God didn’t abandon his own son Jesus Christ to the grave, then we can be sure that God won’t abandon those who’ve trusted in Jesus to the grave either.6
Those who’ve "fallen asleep in Christ" are those people who’ve trusted in Jesus but who died before he came again, which of course includes all Christians from the first century to present day.
In this statement of comfort to the Thessalonians, we find the first confident action we can take as we face the final uncertainty of death. BECAUSE JESUS CHRIST ROSE FROM THE GRAVE, WE CAN CONFIDENTLY TRUST OUR DEPARTED LOVED ONES TO CHRIST.
Even though death still hurts, our grief is infused with hope. Now granted that this text is talking about Christian loved ones, and some of the people we care about who’ve died weren’t necessarily been Christians. But the reality is that no one but God alone knows the state of a person’s soul when they die. We can trust all our departed loved ones to Jesus, knowing that we can trust him to do the right thing because he loves them even more than we do.
This reality was driven home to me earlier this year when my stepfather was killed in an airplane accident. At his funeral my mom’s pastor shared about how the resurrection of Jesus changed everything, that we can face death--even though it hurts--as a homecoming, as a celebration because we know my stepfather is at home with Jesus and will come back with Jesus someday. One of my cousins, who isn’t a Christian, shared with my mom later that she disagreed that there was anything to celebrate about, that this was just a terrible tragedy with no sense of hope or joy. There I saw in stark contrast the difference between the way the world grieves and the way followers of Jesus grieve.The cross and the empty grave of Jesus change everything, including the way we grieve. Because of the cross and the empty grave, we can confidently trust our loved ones to Jesus as we face the final uncertainty of death.
2. Confident Acceptance (1 Thess 4:15-17)
Now it’s one thing to face the uncertainty of death when people we care about die, but it’s quite another to contemplate our own death. As that famous theologian Woody Allen once said, "I’m not afraid to die; I just don’t want to be there when it happens." In the 1970s Freudian psychologist Ernest Becker wrote his Pulitzer prize winning book The Denial of Death.7 In that book Becker demonstrated how modern people avoid facing their own mortality in all kinds of different ways, and how anxiety about the fact that we’re eventually going to die lies at the root of many psychological disorders. Becker acknowledged that religious people who are able to face the reality of death with a sense of hope and courage tend to be more well adjusted and mentally healthy.
Yet still we live in a culture that pretends like death will never come. Look at what Paul says in vv. 15-17 light of this.
Now at first the phrase "the Lord’s own word" appears to be Paul’s way of teaching this with authority. But whenever Paul uses this phrase "the Lord’s own word" elsewhere in his other writings it refers to something Jesus himself actualy taught.8 So Paul’s not giving new information here, but he’s appealing to something Jesus himself taught. He’s probably alluding to Jesus Christ’s teaching about his second coming as its recorded in Matthew 24.
The event that Paul is referring to here is "the coming of the Lord." The word Paul uses here is the Greek word parousia, which is the same word Jesus used to describe his coming in Matthew 24. This word brings together the idea of someone’s personal presence and of someone’s arrival.9 Often this word was used in the ancient world for the arrival of a king or ruler to a community.10 The corresponding Latin word for parousia is the word adventus, which is where we get our word advent from. So the parousia Paul is speaking of here and that Jesus himself speaks of in Matthew 24 is the second advent.
Now Paul’s point here is that the Christians who happen to be alive when this event occurs don’t have any advantage over Christians who’ve died. Both those followers of Jesus Christ who happen to be alive when this event occurs and those followers of Jesus who’ve died will both equally participate in this incredible event. No true Christian from the times of the apostles until that point in the future when Christ returns will miss this or be at any disadvantage when this event takes place.
Paul further describes this coming of Jesus as a time when Jesus himself descends from heaven. The loud command is probably addressed those Christians who’ve died to come back to life, to raise from the dead even as Jesus did on Easter Sunday. Jesus had promised in John 5:25, "A time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live." As those Christians who’ve died are raised from the grave and as those Christians who happen to be alive are reunited in the air, they are joined with Jesus and together with him forever.
Now some of you have probably heard the term "rapture" before and this is the primary passage in the Bible that describes the rapture. That verb "caught up" in v. 17 is a Greek word that means "to grab or seize by force."11 When the New Testament was translated from Greek into Latin, the Latin equivalent to this verb was the word "rapture."
Now Paul’s purpose here isn’t to tell us everything we’d like to know about the rapture, but it’s to bring comfort to Christians who thought those who’d died would be at a disadvantage when the rapture came. Now when exactly does this event take place in relationship to the end of history? The Bible’s teaching about the events related to the end of history and the second coming of Jesus Christ is very complex, and Bible teachers have differed over how to fit the various events together.
The most popular and widespread view in our culture today is the PRETRIBULATION view of the rapture. The Bible teaches in the books of Daniel and the book of Revelation that the second coming of Jesus Christ will be preceded by 7 years of intense persecution and pouring out of God’s judgment. This unprecedented time of suffering and judgment is called the Tribulation, and pretribulation Bible teachers believe the rapture occurs before--hence the word pre--the start of this seven year tribulation. Relying on verses like 1 Thess 5:7 that tells us that God has not appointed Christians to suffer God’s wrath, this view believes the church will be taken away from the world before this time of unprecedented persecution and judgment. So this view believes that Christ’s coming for his church—-the rapture—-is separated from Christ’s second coming to the earth by seven years. This is the view presented in the popular fiction series Left Behind, by Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins, and it’s by far the most popular and widespread view of the rapture in our generation. Of three shelves of books on this topic at our local Christian bookstore, all but one assumed this pretribulational view. In fact, many Christians today don’t even know that there are other views than the pre-trib view.
But there are other views, and one such alternative view is the MID-TRIBULATION view of the rapture. This view emphasizes the fact that it appears to be the first half of the tribulation period that’s marked by persecution of God’s people, while the second half is marked by God’s wrath. Thus this view believes the church will go through the persecution part of the tribulation, but be raptured out before God starts pouring out his judgment on the earth. The pre-wrath view of the rapture is a variation on the midtrib view.
Another alternative view is the POST-TRIBULATION view of the rapture. This view holds that the event being described here is the second coming of Jesus at the end of the age, and that the church must go through the suffering of the tribulation period. This view believes God protects Christians from his wrath during the tribulation, not by taking the church out of the world, but by protecting the church in the midst of the world. Just as God protected Noah from his wrath in the midst of the flood, just as God protected Israel from the plagues he sent on Egypt in the book of Exodus without taking them out of Egypt, this view believes that God will protect his church from God’s judgment without taking them out of the world. The recent book by Bob Gundry called First the AntiChrist is an example of this posttrib view.
Now at Life Bible Fellowship Church we don’t promote a particular view of the rapture. We have some pastors and elders who are pre-trib, some who are mid-trib, and some who like me lean toward a post-tribulation view. This is an area where serious Bible teachers legitimately differ in their interpretation, and we shouldn’t be dogmatic about which view we hold to.
But with that said, let me give you a bit of historical perspective on this view. From 200 AD until about 1850, the vast majority of Bible teachers believed the church would eventually go through the tribulation period. It wasn’t until about 1850 that the pretrib view began to surface and gain popularity, and that popularity has exploded now to the point of it being the dominant position of the church. As early as 1901 Bible believing pastors were equally divided on the different rapture views, but by 1958, 87% of Bible believing pastors in American embraced the pretrib view.12 If you’re really interested in this issue, I recommend the book "Three Views of the Rapture: Pre; Mid; or PostTribulational" edited by Richard Reiter.
Now, back to the text of 1 Thessalonians, let me just make one observation about the text that could, perhaps, suggest a post-tribulational view. The Greek word translated "meet" in v. 17 was often used as a technical term in the ancient world for when a king would visit a town on official business.13 When a city knew a king was visiting their community, they’d send out a delegation to meet the king just outside the city limits, and then once the delegation met the king, they’d escort the king back into the city. This would suggest that the church meets the Lord in the air, and then accompanies the Lord back to the earth where he returns with glory and power at the end of the age.
Now granted, no one can prove that Paul is using this word in this technical sense and Paul doesn’t tell us where we’ll go after we meet the Lord in the air, so this isn’t conclusive. Regardless of whether we meet the Lord in the air and then go to heaven for 7 years, or 3 and 1/2 years or we meet the Lord in the air and accompany him back to this earth, the point is that we’ll be with the Lord. Whether it’s earth or heaven, being with him always is sufficient to give us comfort and hope.
So here we find the second confident action we can take. BECAUSE JESUS CHRIST PROMISED TO RETURN AGAIN, WE CAN CONFIDENTLY FACE OUR OWN MORTALITY.
If you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, then regardless of whether you die before this event or you’re alive when it happens, you can face the future no matter what it holds. Christians have the capacity to accept the fact that we’re going to die because we know that death doesn’t have the last word. Whether we die before this happens or we live to see it, whether it’s pre-, mid-, or post-tribulational, we have the Lord’s own promise that we’ll be with him forever, never separated from him. That enables us to confidently face our mortality.
3. Confidently Helping (1 Thess 4:18)
Paul closes this discussion with a very significant statement: "Therefore encourage each other with these words" (4:18 NIV).
Notice what he doesn’t say: He doesn’t say, "Therefore, make charts based on these words," or "Write theology books based on these words." This teaching is meant to be practical, to give us a basis to comfort each other. Whenever we stop comforting each other, and focus all our attention on trying to figure out every detail or coming up with a detailed timeline of end time events, we go astray. God didn’t reveal these things to satisfy our curiosity to solve puzzles, but to help us follow Jesus confidently.
Here we find our final confident action. BECAUSE JESUS HAS MADE OUR FUTURE CERTAIN, WE CAN CONFIDENTLY HELP EACH OTHER DURING TIMES OF GRIEF.
Followers of Jesus Christ have a resource to offer comfort that no other belief system, religion, or worldview has to offer...genuine hope in the face of grief.
Archeologists have discovered a letter addressed to a married couple who had lost a son. This letter was written during this same period of time. The writer of the letter had also lost her son, named Didymas, and she writes to comfort her friends as they face the loss of their son. The letter reads: "I sorrowed and wept over your dear departed one as I wept over [my son] Didymas...but really, there is nothing we can do in the face of such things. So please, comfort each other."14 What a contrast to Paul’s here to comfort each other based on these words of truth from Jesus himself.
I notice that people who don’t have a relationship with Jesus are strangely silent at funerals. Either they mumble pious platitudes like "It’s for the best," and "she’s in a better place" or they’re speechless, avoiding eye contact with those around them. This is because they have nothing to say, no real hope to offer but wishful thinking and overused clichés. But followers of Jesus have Jesus Christ’s own words, authenticated by Jesus’ resurrection, to actually help each other even in the face of horrible grief and loss.
So in the face of the final uncertainty of death, followers of Jesus Christ can confidently trust their loved ones to Christ, confidently face their own mortality, and confidently help each other during times of grief. The Christian faith can confidently stare death in the eye. This is because Jesus conquered death, has promised to return again at the end of the age, and has made our future certain.
Can you face the final uncertainty of death? Can you say that because of your belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection you can trust your loved ones to Jesus, that because of Jesus’ promise you know for sure you’ll participate in the rapture--whenever it occurs--and because Jesus has made your future sure, that you can really help others in their grief? Or does uncertainty plague you in the face of this final uncertainty?
Notes
1. Princeton Research Associates www.pollingreport.com/religion.
2. Theocritus, Illyd. 4.42, cited in F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians (Word Biblical Commentary: Dallas, Word Books, 1989), p. 96.
3. John R. W. Stott, The Message of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. ( Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1991), p. 92-93.
4. Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians p. 97.
5. Charles A Wanamaker, The Epistles To the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. (New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), p. 168.
6. Stott, The Message of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, p. 98.
7. E. Becker, The Denial of Death (Free Press, 1997).
8. Stott, The Message of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, p. 99.
9. Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1990), Vol. 5, p. 166.
10. New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 198?), Vol. 2, p. 898.
11. J. P. Louw and E. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1989), CD rom version, 18.4.
12. R. Reiter (ed.), Three Views of the Rapture: Pre; Mid; or Post-Tribulational? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), p. 38.
13. Wanamaker, The Epistles To the Thessalonians, p. 175; Bruce, p. 103.
14. P. Oxy. 115, cited in Bruce, p. 96.
