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Our apostle, from this verse to the end of the chapter, exhorts the Thessalonians to moderate their grief and sorrow for their friends who died in Christ, many of which, no doubt, were martyrs for the truth in those days of persecution: he lays down many consolatory arguments, as so many sovereign antidotes against immoderate sorrow for the death of pious relations; and, first, he acquaints them, that such sorrow as is excessive, would be more like Pagans than Christians, who mourn without hope of any life after this, that is, of a resurrection from the grave, and a future state of immortality. Our apostle doth not forbid sorrow for the dead absolutely, which Christ shewed for Lazarus, and the church for Stephen, but it is excessive sorrow only that is here condemned.
Learn hence, 1. That all sorrow for the death of friends is not unlawful, or forbidden to Christians; the Christian religion doth not destroy natural affections, but teaches us to moderate them.
Learn, 2. That there is a mighty difference between the Christian's sorrow for the dead, and theirs who are strangers to Christianity: the sorrow of the heathen was extravagant and excessive in the measure, foolish, cruel, and impious in the manner; they tore their hair, beat their breasts, cut their flesh, and ran howling up and down in the most desperate manner: but the Christian's sorrow is sober, moderate, silent, free from ostentation, under the government of reason and religion.
Learn, 3. That the belief of a future state, and the hope of a joyful resurrection, is the cause of this great difference: it is the ignorance of the happiness of glorified saints in heaven, which is the cause of our immoderate sorrow for their death here on earth.