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1Th_4:15. A solemn confirmation of the comforting truth τοὺς κοιμηθέντας ἄξει σὺν αὐτῷ , by bringing forward the equality between those living at the advent and those already asleep. Koppe, Flatt, and Koch erroneously assume a reference to 1Th_4:13, making the γάρ in 1Th_4:14 parallel to the γάρ in 1Th_4:15, and finding in 1Th_4:15 a new reason for comfort.
τοῦτο ] refers not to the preceding, but is an emphatic introduction to what follows the first ὅτι : this, namely, we say to you, ἐν λόγῳ κυρίου , that we, the living, etc.
ἐν λόγῳ κυρίου ] in or by means of a word of the Lord (comp. áÌÄãÀáÇø äÇîÌÆìÆêÀ , Est_1:12; áÌÄãÀáÇø éÀäÉåÈä , 1Ki_20:35), that is, the following statement on the relation of the living to those who are asleep at the advent does not rest on my (the apostle’s) subjective opinion, but on the infallible authority of Christ. Comp. 1Co_7:10; 1Co_7:12; 1Co_7:25.
Pelagius, Musculus, Bolten, Pelt, and others have regarded this λόγος κυρίου , to which Paul appeals, as the words of Christ in Mat_24:31 (comp. Mar_13:27); whereas Hofmann is of opinion that Paul might have inferred it from the promises of Christ in Mat_26:25 ff.; Joh_6:39 f. But the expressions found there are too general to be identified with the special thought in our passage. Schott’s statement, that Paul might justly appeal to the prophecy in Mat_24:31, because it contained nothing of a prerogative of the living before the dead, but on the contrary represents simply an assembling of believing confessors with a view to the participation of the Messianic kingdom, is subtle, and does not correspond to the expression ἐν λόγῳ κυρίου , which points to positive information concerning the definite subject in question. Also Luthardt’s (l.c. pp. 141, 57) view, that in λόγος κυρίου a reference is made to the parable of the virgins who went out to meet the bridegroom (Matthew 25), and for which view εἰς ἀπάντησιν (1Th_4:17) is most arbitrarily appealed to, is evidently erroneous. Others, as Calvin and Koch, have thought that Paul referred to a saying of Christ not preserved in the Gospels, but transmitted by tradition. (So, recently, also v. Zezschwitz, l.c. p. 121, according to whom the apostle thought “on a word” which is “to be sought for in the peculiar and intimate communications of our Lord to His disciples, such as He would have given them during the forty days, when He spoke with them concerning the βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ .”) This supposition may certainly be supported by the analogy of Act_20:35; but it must always remain precarious, the more so as there was no inducement to Christ, in His intimations concerning the period of the fulfilment of the Messianic kingdom, to make such special questions, arising only in consequence of concrete circumstances, the subject of an anticipated instruction. It is best, therefore, with Chrysostom, Theodoret, Hunnius, Piscator (who, however, arbitrarily supposes the fact described in 2Co_12:2; 2Co_12:4), Aretius, Turretin, Benson, Moldenhauer, Koppe, Olshausen, de Wette, Gess (die Lehre von der Person Christi, Basel 1856, p. 69 f.), Alford, Riggenbach, and others, to suppose that Paul appeals to information concerning the matter in hand which had been communicated to him in a direct revelation by the heavenly Christ; comp. Gal_1:12; Gal_2:2; Eph_3:3; 2Co_12:1.
ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες οἱ περιλειπόμενοι εἰς τὴν παρουσίαν τοῦ κυρίου ] we, the living, who remain unto the presence (or return) of the Lord. From the construction of these words it undoubtedly follows, that Paul reckoned himself with those who would survive till the commencement of the advent, as indeed the same expectation is also expressed in 1Co_15:51 f. Comp. besides, 1Co_7:26; 1Co_7:29-31; 1Co_1:7-8; Rom_13:11-12; Php_4:5. See also Dähne, Entwickel. des Paulin. Lehrbegr. pp. 175 f., 190; Usteri, Paulin. Lehrbegr. p. 355; Messner, Die Lehre der Apostel, Leipz. 1856, p. 282. This expectation is not confirmed by history: Paul and all his contemporaries fell a prey to death. What wonder, then, if from an early period of the Christian church this plain meaning of the word was resisted, and in its place the most artificial and distorted interpretations were substituted? For that Paul could be capable of error was regarded as an objectionable concession, as an infringement upon the divine authority of the apostle. It has therefore almost universally[57] been maintained by interpreters, that Paul speaks neither of himself nor of his contemporaries, but of a later period of Christianity. So Chrysostom, Theodoret, John Damascenus, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Erasmus, Castalio, Calvin, Musculus, Bullinger, Zanchius, Hunnius, Balduin, Vorstius, Cornelius a Lapide, Jac. Laurentius, Calixt, Calov, Joach. Lange, Whitby, Benson, Bengel, Flatt, and many others. Whilst Calvin and Cornelius a Lapide, in order to remove difficulties, do not scruple to charge the apostle with a pious fraud; supposing that he, although he was convinced of the distance of the advent, nevertheless represented himself as surviving, in order in this way to stimulate believers to be in a state of spiritual readiness at every instant; Oecumenius, after the example of Methodius, interprets ΟἹ ΖῶΝΤΕς Κ . Τ . Λ . of the souls, and οἱ κοιμηθέντες of the bodies of Christians; ζῶντας τὰς ψυχάς , κοιμηθέντα δὲ τὰ σώματα λέγει · οὐκ ἂν οὖν προλάβωσιν αἱ ψυχαί · πρῶτον γὰρ ἐγείρεται τὰ σώματα , ἵνα αὐτὰ ἀπολάβωσιν αἱ ψυχαί , ἃς καὶ περιλιμπάνεσθαί φησι διὰ τὸ ἀθάνατον · οὐ γὰρ ἄν , εἰ μὴ περὶ ψυχῶν ἔλεγεν , εἶπε τὸ ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες οἱ περιλειπόμενοι , τελευτήσειν μέλλων · λέγει οὖν , ὅτι οἱ ζῶντες αἱ ψυχαὶ οὐκ ἂν τὰ σώματα προφθάσωμεν ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει , ἀλλὰ μετʼ αὐτῶν τῆς ἀναστάσεως τευξώμεθα . Usually, however, in order to remove the objectionableness of the words, an appeal is made to the fact that by means of an “enallage personae” or an ἀνακοίνωσις , something is often said of a collective body which, accurately taken, is only suited to a part. Then the sense would be: we Christians, namely, those of us who are alive at the commencement of the advent, i.e. the later generation of Christians who will survive the advent. But however often ἡμεῖς or ὙΜΕῖς is used in a communicative form, yet in this passage such an interpretation is impossible, because here ἩΜΕῖς ΟἹ ΖῶΝΤΕς Κ . Τ . Λ ., as a peculiar class of Christians, are placed in sharp distinction from κοιμηθέντες , as a second class. Accordingly, in order to obtain the sense assumed, the words would require to have been written: ὅτι ἡμῶν οἱ ζῶντες κ . τ . λ . οὐ μὴ φθάσονται τοὺς κοιμηθέντας , apart altogether from the fact that also in 1Th_5:4 the possibility is expressed, that the day of the Lord might break in upon the presently existing Thessalonian church. Not less arbitrary is it, with Joachim Lange, to explain the words: “we who live in our posterity,” for which an additional clause would be necessary. Or, with Turretin, Pelt, and others, to understand οἱ ζῶντες , οἱ περιλειπόμενοι in a hypothetical sense: we, provided we are then alive, provided we still remain. (So, in essentials, Hofmann: by those who are alive are meant those who had not already died.) For then, instead of ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες , οἱ περιλειπόμενοι , it would necessarily require ἩΜΕῖς ΖῶΝΤΕς , ΠΕΡΙΛΕΙΠΌΜΕΝΟΙ (without an article). The same also is valid against J. P. Lange (Das apostol. Zeitalter, I., Braunschw. 1853, p. 113): “The words, ‘the living, the surviving,’ are for the purpose of making the contrast a variable one, whilst they condition and limit the ἡμεῖς in the sense: we, so many of us (!), who yet live and have survived; or (?) rather, we in so far as we temporarily represent the living and remaining, in contrast to our dead.” Lastly, the view of Hoelemann (Die Stellung St. Pauli zu der Frage um die Zeit der Wiederkunft Christi, Leipz. 1858, p. 29) is not less refuted by the article before ζῶντες and ΠΕΡΙΛΕΙΠΌΜΕΝΟΙ : “The discourse, starting from the ἩΜΕῖς and rising more and more beyond this concrete beginning, by forming, with the next two notions οἱ ζῶντες , οἱ περιλειπόμενοι , always wider (!) and softer circles, strives to a generic (!) thought—namely, to this, that Paul and the contemporary Thessalonians, while in the changing state of περιλείπεσθαι (being left behind), might be indeed personally taken away beforehand; although the opposite possibility, that they themselves might yet be the surviving generation, is included in the ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες with which the thought begins, and which always echoes through it.” Every unprejudiced person must, even from those dogmatic suppositions, recognise that Paul here includes himself, along with the Thessalonians, among those who will be alive at the advent of Christ. Certainly this can only have been a hope, only a subjective expectation on the part of the apostle; as likewise, in the fifth chapter, although he there considers the advent as impending and coming suddenly, yet he supposes the indefiniteness of the proper period of its commencement (comp. also Act_1:7; Mar_13:32). That the apostle here states his surviving only as a supposition or a hope, is not nullified by the fact that he imparts the information (1Th_4:15) ἘΝ ΛΌΓῼ ΚΥΡΊΟΥ . For the ΛΌΓΟς ΚΥΡΊΟΥ can, according to the context, only refer to the relation of those who are asleep to the living; but does not refer to the fact who will belong to the one or to the other class at the commencement of the advent. Only on the first point was the comforting information contained which the Thessalonians required.
The present participles ΖῶΝΤΕς and ΠΕΡΙΛΕΙΠΌΜΕΝΟΙ are not to be taken as futures (Calvin, Flatt, Pelt), but denote the condition as it exists in the present, and stretches itself to the advent.
Οὐ ΜῊ ΦΘΆΣΩΜΕΝ ΤΟῪς ΚΟΙΜΗΘΈΝΤΑς ] shall by no means precede those who are asleep, so that we would reach the end (the blessedness of the advent), but they would be left behind us, and accordingly lose the prize. The apostle speaks in the figure usual to him of a race, in which no one obtained the prize who was forced half way to interrupt his running.
On the emphatic οὐ μή , see Winer, p. 449 [E. T. 634].
[57] Exceptions in early times are very rare. They are found in Piscator (yet even he hesitates), Grotius, and Moldenhauer. To bring the correct view to more general recognition was reserved for recent times.