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1Th_4:13 to 1Th_5:11. A comforting instruction concerning the advent. This is divided into three sections—(1) 1Th_4:13-18 removes an objection or a doubt; (2) 1Th_5:1-3 reminds them of the sudden and unexpected entrance of the advent; and lastly, in consequence of this, 1Th_5:4-11 is an exhortation to be ready and prepared for the entrance of the advent.
(1) 1Th_4:13-18. A removal of an objection. The painful uneasiness, which had seized on the Thessalonians concerning the fate of their deceased Christian friends, consisted not, as Zachariae, Olshausen, de Wette, Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, 2d ed. p. 649 f., and in his H. Schr. N. T.; Luthardt, die Lehre von den letzten Dingen, Leipz. 1861, p. 138 f., and others assume, in anxiety lest the deceased should only be raised at the general resurrection of the dead, and would thus forfeit the blessedness of communion with the Lord in the interval between the advent and this general resurrection (“the so-called reign of a thousand years,” Olshausen). There is no trace in our section of a distinction between a first and a second resurrection; and the idea of a long interval of time between the resurrection of believers and the resurrection of the rest of mankind (Revelation 20) is, moreover, entirely strange to the Apostle Paul, as it is evident from 1Co_15:22 ff. correctly understood that the resurrection of unbelievers takes place in immediate connection with the resurrection of Christians. Rather it was feared that those already dead, as they would no more be found alive at the advent of Christ, would receive no share in the blessedness of the advent,[53] and accordingly would be placed in irreparable disadvantage to those who are then alive. See exposition of particulars.
[53] Calvin: Vitam aeternam ad eos solos pertinere imaginabantur, quos Christus ultimo adventu vivos adhuc in terris deprehenderet.
On 1Th_4:13-18, see von Zezschwitz in the Zeitschr. f. Protestantismus und Kirche, new series, Erlangen 1863, p. 88 ff.