Vs. 1-8… Once again we are told who we should be following in vs. 1. In Galatians 1: 2 we are told… “those who are with us”. Who are you with? Most preachers are with Peter, James and John!
In the epistles of Paul, doctrinal teaching is followed with practical application. Chapter 4 begins this practical instruction. Most Christians don’t mind studying the great doctrines of the Bible, but they do not particularly like to have their conduct discussed. What good is it to understand the great doctrines of Scripture, and its dispensational divisions, if we do not live by them; if they have no effect upon our daily lives? Therefore the Apostle opens this section by “beseeching' the Thessalonian saints, and “exhorting' them, as a representative of the Lord Jesus, to recall how he had taught them how to "walk and to please God," and to "abound" in these things "more and more" (vs. 1). As we have seen, this epistle does not contain one word of reproof or condemnation of the Thessalonian believers, but much commendation and praise. Yet, Paul knew that they had "turned to God from idols," and prior to that time they had taken part in sins associated with pagan idolatry. Now, in this chapter he exhorts them to take heed to their walk as believers in Christ, especially where moral purity is concerned. First, in Verses 3-8 he deals with the purity of life that should characterize all believers. They had been called into the wholesomeness of Christian life and were much happier as a result, but he knew what temptations still surrounded them, to say nothing of temptations from within.
BIBLICAL SANCTIFICATION
The word sanctify simply mean "to set apart" or "to separate." For instance Jerusalem is called "the holy city" (Matt. 4:5), the "sanctuary" of the tabernacle, "the holiest of all" (Heb. 9:3,8); the Bible is called "the holy Scriptures" (Rom. 1:2), and the Spirit of God, "the holy Spirit" (Eph. 4:30). In our salvation and in our Christian walk it has been God's purpose, not merely to set us apart from the world, but to set us apart as sacred to Himself? It is not a negative list of "dos" and "don'ts," but a positive indication of God's love to us more than of ours to Him. This truth should cast an entirely new light on the Bible doctrine of sanctification. It is with this in mind that the Apostle exhorts the believers at Thessalonica to keep morally pure. He does not say, "This is the will of God, that ye should abstain from fornication,” but "This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should [for this reason] abstain from fornication.” The thought should be, "How can I so grieve the One who loved me enough to die for me, and desires me for His very own?" This is not an issue of "self-control vs. birth-control," but the exercise of self-control because we are God’s sacred possession. "That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor” (vs. 4).
Our bodies are containers, as it were, either of what is good or of what is bad, and each believer should learn to possess his vessel as one who is precious to God, one who will bring Him due honor. In II Tim. 2:21 the Apostle states: "If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work.” In this case he refers to separation from those who "overthrew the faith of some" by false teaching. We are merely tenants who should possess these vessels in sanctification and honor, for a bad tenant can soon ruin a man's house. A good tenant, however, will care for it so that, while it naturally grows older, it will still be in good condition. How many have exhausted their energies and ruined their bodies by sin, rendering them practically useless for God's service! To those the Apostle says: "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's” (I Cor. 6:19,20).
Vs. 9-12…The Thessalonians had shown their Christian love toward the brethren throughout Macedonia. Paul commends them for their attitude and urges them to "increase [in this] more and more”. He exhorts them: "... study to be quiet and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you” (vs. 11). It may be that they felt they were justified in just waiting for the Lord to come. In any case, the Apostle urges them to study to be quiet, to mind their own business and to "eat their own bread" (3:12). Such lack of integrity and self-reliance can only dishonor God and the message He has committed to our trust.
Vs. 13-14…We have seen from I Thess. 3:10 that the Apostle was praying "night and day… exceedingly” that he might see these brethren again and "perfect that which [was] lacking in [their] faith." One of the subjects was what was going to happen to those Christian loved ones who die prior to the Rapture. Paul explains that when our Lord comes for us He will come for the sleeping members of the Body as well as for those who "are alive and remain.” Paul does not speak of Christ bringing souls with Him from heaven, but rather of God bringing the bodies of the "sleeping" saints back from the dead. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again" it will not be hard to believe that "them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him [i.e., from the dead].
Vs. 15-17…A misinterpretation of this passage has led to the erroneous doctrine of "soul sleep." But never in Scripture do we read of soul sleep: it is rather the body which is said to sleep (Dan. 12:2; Matt. 27:52; Acts 13:36). Death is not the extinction or suspension of person’s existence, nor even of conscious existence, for the possession of a physical body is not essential to consciousness. For example, our physical eyes do not actually see. The moment after death, though still in perfect physical condition, they obviously see nothing. Our eyes are but the lenses through which the inner man now sees the things of this life. But with eyes closed we can see people, houses, rivers, in our dreams and also in our imaginations. To the unbelieving Jews, who insisted that "Abraham is dead," our Lord responded, "Abraham . . saw My day [My appearance on earth], and was glad” (John 8:56). In II Cor. 5:6,8 the Apostle states that "while we are, home in the body, we are absent from the Lord," but added "We are . . . willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” Note, he states it both ways for clarity and emphasis. Phil. 1:21-23 indicates that this latter condition is one to be desired.
Many preachers do not see clearly that the coming of Christ for His own at the close of the present dispensation, was part of the great "mystery" revealed to and through Paul. Such passages as Matt. 24:40-42; 25:1-13; John 14:3 and Acts 1:11 are mixed in with grace doctrine and as a result it appears that Christ will not come for His own until after the Great Tribulation, and that the members of Christ's Body, therefore, will have to endure horrors.
The above error would have been avoided had strict enough attention been paid to Paul's claims as to this revelation. This "mystery" is one of those "mysteries of God" of which he had been made a steward (I Cor. 4:1).
"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye...” (I Cor. 15:52). Many unbelievers have laughed at the very idea that suddenly, one day, all true believers in Christ will be caught away from this world to be with Him. o you think that the God who created and controls this vast universe, and has shown such a special interest in Planet Earth and those who dwell upon it.
Vs. 16…This is the first and most significant reason why the Apostle designates the Rapture as "that blessed hope" (Tit. 2:13). Only in Paul's epistles do we read about the Lord's coming into the air to catch away the members of His Body to be with Him. Many believe that John 14:3 refers to the Rapture and that the Lord is now preparing mansions in heaven for His people to dwell in and that when these mansions are ready He will return to catch away His own and bring them to heaven to the mansions prepared for them. But our Lord told His disciples nothing about the present dispensation of grace, or of the catching away of the Church of this age. He prepared them for the Tribulation and His return to earth to reign with them.
John 14:3 says nothing about "catching up" His disciples and taking them to heaven. He simply says, "I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." Thus when our Lord returns to earth in glory He will not forget His promise to the twelve. Having returned as He said, He will receive them to Himself in resurrection so that they may reign with Him on earth (Matt. 19:28; Luke 22:28-30).
The "blessed hope" of the Rapture, then, is the unique hope of the Body of Christ, the Church of the present dispensation.
Vs. 17…"Caught up together . . . in the clouds”. Any multitude or host is spoken of in the Bible as a "cloud." In Heb. 12:1, the heroes of the faith listed in chapter 11 are called "so great a cloud of witnesses”. When the Lord led Israel through the wilderness, His guiding presence was veiled in what appeared as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. At His incarnation “the glory of the Lord" shone about the shepherds, and there was with the announcing angel “a multitude of the heavenly host” (Luke 2:9,13). At His transfiguration “a bright cloud overshadowed them" (Matt. 17:5). At His ascension “a cloud received Him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9). And finally, at His return to earth He will come "in the clouds of heaven" (Matt. 26:64). Surely the "clouds" here are not rain clouds; they are “a multitude of the heavenly host" (Luke 2:13), the attendants of “the Lord of hosts" (Psa. 103:21).
Concerning those members of the Body of Christ who will have died before His coming, the Apostle says that they shall be raised in "incorruptibility.. . in glory.. . in power . . . [in] spiritual bodies," bearing "the image of the heavenly" (I Cor. 15:42-44,49), and those who contend that the resurrection of the dead is itself an impossibility, he silences with the reply: Since this trumpet is called "the last trump" in I Cor. 15:52, it is supposed by some that both passages refer to the seventh trumpet of the Great Tribulation (Rev. 11:15). But this would be anticipating revelation, for how could the Apostle refer to the last of seven future trumpets when it was not yet revealed that there would be seven, or even two or three? Then, when the believing dead have been raised in glorified bodies, "we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them". In I Cor. 15:51 the Apostle declares: "Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself" (Phil. 3:20,21 ).
James and Paul both liken the Word of God to a mirror, but James speaks of the Law, while Paul proclaims grace, and the Law and grace fulfill opposite functions in the believer's life. James says:
"For if any be a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was" (James 1:23,24). How typical! When one looks into the divine Mirror to behold himself he generally does not like what he sees, for this Mirror “tells it like it is." But what does he generally do about it? Little or nothing. Rather, he goes his way “straightway forgetting what manner of man he was." This is because the Law gives little motivation and no power to the natural man to set things right in his life.
Paul also encourages us to look into the Word, the divine Mirror, and urges us to “tilt" the Mirror, as it were, to observe, not ourselves but Christ -- and see the result: "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (ll Cor. 3:18). As we behold, in the divine Mirror, "the glory of the Lord," it produces a change in us.
Note that all the members of the Body of Christ, whether living or dead, for even those who are “absent from the body [i.e., their physical bodies] and present with the Lord," still await "the redemption of our body" (Rom. 8:23), the body which was for so long the vehicle of sin. But when our Lord comes for us, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall all be changed, transformed into the likeness of the Lord of glory!
There is substantial evidence that the judgment seat of Christ will take place at the rapture of the Church, which is His Body.
Most people seem to have the notion that at the Rapture our Lord will take us to heaven with Him. But I Thess. 4:17 clearly states that at our Lord's coming for us, we will be caught up "to meet the Lord in the air”. He has given us a present position "in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:6), where we are blessed with "all spiritual blessings... in Christ" (Eph. 1:3). This is where we will one day be taken bodily, for we shall be forever with the Lord. But first the "meeting in the air," (held there) as the culmination of our long battle with "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2), who is active in confusing and dividing the saints and in tempting them to evil.
From the passage in I Thess. 4 alone it seems clear enough that the judgment seat of Christ will convene immediately upon our having been "caught up" to be with Christ, but there are other clear Scriptures that refer to the same event and also indicate exactly when it will be held. In I Cor. 4:5 the Apostle says:
"Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.” When will the "hidden things" be revealed? When will we receive "praise of God"? When the Lord comes. There will be things we did for Him to which we gave little or no thought, but He noticed them and appreciated them, and we will surely be rewarded for them. All this, of course, entirely apart from salvation. Salvation is not a reward for good works, but faithful believers will be richly rewarded in addition to having been saved.
Another passage which tells us when the judgment seat of Christ will convene is II Tim. 4:7,8: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.”
Vs. 18…Where the Bible speaks of our Lord's return to earth the context is always one of trouble, sorrow, war, bloodshed -- and the wrath of God. But no such thing can be said of those Scriptures which proclaim the rapture of the Church. In these references we find not one word about the Tribulation or the wrath of God, but rather, in I Thess. 4:15-18, the most detailed description of the Rapture, the apostle closes with the exhortation, “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” More than this, in chapter 5, where he does deal with the Tribulation, he reassures the members of the Body of Christ with the words: "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. WHEREFORE COMFORT YOURSELVES TOGETHER, AND EDIFY ONE ANOTHER, EVEN AS ALSO YE DO” (I Thes. 5:9-11).
The dispensation of grace is timeless and sign-less as far as the revealed Word of God is concerned. There is nothing that need happen, or ever needed to happen in fulfillment of prophecy before the dispensation of grace is brought to a close by the coming of our Lord for His own. Thus the believers ofPaul's day were told, as we today are told, to be waiting and looking for our blessed Lord to come for us.
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