1 Thessalonians 4:14

14. Jesus died Both here and in 1 Corinthians 15:3, Paul says died of Christ; but sleep of the saints. An indication that in accordance with the spirit of Christianity he sees in sleep a thought of the waking. Even with hopeful pagans this emblem was used. A Greek epitaph says, “He sleeps; say not the good can die.” Our Lord in John 11:11, and other places, naturalized this language in Christianity. The Catacombs, those cities of the dead saints of the first centuries, cut beneath the surface of the earth in the soft rock, are made morally luminous by the spirit of purity and hopefulness pervading the epitaphs. The image of hopeful sleep is predominant. “Zoticus hic ad dormiendum Zoticus here laid to sleep; Dormitio Elpidis The sleeping place of Elpis; Dormivit et Requiescit He has slept and is at rest.” Catacombs, p. 430. The true life and glory of the spirit above, as contrasted with the corpse and sepulchre, are thus indicated: “She departed, desiring to ascend to the ethereal light of heaven.” “Here sleeps in the sleep of peace the sweet and innocent Severianus, whose spirit is received into the light of the Lord.” “Here rests in the sleep of peace Mala.… Received into the presence of God.” Catacombs, pp. 427, 8. These passages record the testimony of the early Church. 1. To the essential distinction of body and soul; the duality of man’s constituted nature: 2. To the supernal existence of the soul above, while the body lies in the tomb below; a denial of the sleep of the soul: 3.

To the resurrection of the same body; as the body that wakes is the same body that sleeps.

Sleep in Or rather, through Jesus. But how can the saints be said to be dead through Christ. Most commentators seem to think it to be too refined to make Paul say that their death is made to be a sleep through Jesus. They, therefore, connect through with bring, and read, God will, through Jesus, bring them with him; bring them, that is, from the grave into resurrection. But Alford argues, that inasmuch as sleep is spoken of Christian death alone, Paul truly means that so blessed a distinction is through Christ. Wordsworth plausibly renders it, “those who have been laid asleep, sommo compositos, through Jesus.”

Will… bring That is, from their graves, back to us, which are alive.