----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Arnzen" <carnzen@...>
>*HE* is the one who
> inspired Paul to remind us about departed Christian loved ones rising
again
> and returning with Him as a powerful source of comfort.

It is not my intent to pick on Chris here, because this isn't merely his
view.  This is the majority view of this text.  It is the view of that
passage with which I was raised as a kid.  I do not think we realize the
presuppositional baggage we bring to that passage and others like it.  I
also do not think we realize how independent the majority view makes the
Thessalonians passage from the rest of the book.. i.e. it's been stripped of
its context.

What I mean is this: what is the authorial intent of that passage?  The
presupposition of the majority view is that Paul is answering the question
(which can be asked in a variety of ways): will we see our Christian loved
ones again?  It is assumed that the Thessalonians were mourning as if they
would never see their loved ones again.

But, as I pointed out in a previous post, that's not what Paul was
addressing, nor is his answer what the majority view says it is.  The focus
is on Christ, not the dead in Christ.  Paul places Christ as the source of
comfort.  Vos, in his Pauline Eschatology (pp. 246-252), points out that the
question being answered isn't "what happens to our loved ones", but "is
there any hope of the resurrection for us?"  What a huge paradigm shift.
The question isn't "what happens when *they* die?", but "what happens when
*we* die?"

There are two contextual issues here in Thessalonians that bear this out...
the first is that 4:13-18 is contextualized by 1:3, 9, 10, 2: 12, 19; 3: 10,
13, and 5:9, 10, 23, 24.  I don't have time to pull out all the implications
of how these passages bear on 4:13-18, but the context is the final
resurrection, which has been guaranteed by Christ's death and resurrection.
The comfort and encouragement of verse 18 is contextualized by the ongoing
comfort and encouragement of the other verses in being made complete in
Christ with its final destination in the coming of Christ at the final
resurrection... highlighted in 5:9: God has not destined us for wrath (the
wrath reserved for those who oppose Christ... 2:16), but for obtaining
salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (who rescues us from the wrath to
come... 1:10), who died for us (and was raised for us... 1:10), so that
whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with him (having been
called into His kingdom and glory... 2:12).  Paul is saying that the
Thessalonians are guaranteed a final resurrection because Christ died and
was raised.

The second contextual issue is connected to the first... in 4:13, Paul says
he writes "so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope".
Our Finneyistic presuppositional baggage is to assume that the pagans had no
hope in seeing their loved ones again, and therefore, Paul is answering the
question to give comfort to the Thessalonians that they would see their
loved ones again.  Therefore "those who are asleep" must mean that the
predominant thought is about the fate of those who have already died.
Unfortunately, that's not what the text says.  The text ends with "who have
no hope".  Period.  Paul doesn't add: "in seeing their loved ones again".

What was it that the pagans had no hope?  The resurrection.  Of course they
had no hope in seeing loved ones again because they did not believe in a
final resurrection, but placing the emphasis on loved ones here skips over
Paul's chief concern, in light of the rest of Thessalonians: the
Resurrection.  Paul places the grounds for the mourning of the Thessalonians
in the lack of hope in a resurrection, "as the rest who have no hope".  The
Thessalonians primary question wasn't about loved ones, but whether or not
they themselves would have a resurrection to see Christ.  "Those who are
asleep" is contextualized by the rest of the book's consideration of the
resurrection (whether we are awake or asleep... 5:10).  Paul sees a oneness
between those who are living and those who are dead... here's his
predominant "union in Christ" eschatology that permeates all of his
theology.  The Thessalonians want to know whether or not they are going to
miss the glory of the kingdom and Christ himself.  Paul writes the book with
an emphatic "No!".  "Those who are asleep" is the status of what the
Thessalonians would be eventually, and probably more sooner now than
later... they were enduring major persecution, including death (2:14-16).

The Thessalonians are not to mourn as the pagans who have no hope of a
resurrection.  Because they are united to the One who died and was raised,
they too will be raised.  God has called them into His own Kingdom and glory
and guarantees their completion (2:10, 13) in Christ, a completion whose end
is Christ, the means of which is our sanctification (2:3).  It is in that
guarantee of a resurrection at which time they will be "established without
blame in holiness" in "obtaining salvation" "with Him" that they are to
"comfort" and "encourage" one another in their endurance of suffering.

And as a side note: it's hard to miss the immediate, temporal ramifications
of Paul's emphasis on our death and resurrection with Christ... we already
live "with Christ.  Therefore encourage one another and build up one
another", as we "walk in a manner worthy of the God who has called us into
His own kingdom and glory".  Christ's resurrection breaks into the
already/not yet, changing our lives (4:1-12, 5:12-22).  The guaranteed hope
of seeing Christ in the final resurrection (5:23, 24) is our motivation, in
the expansion of the kingdom and glory of God, to walk and please God and to
love one another, to encourage and comfort each other.  This we do "with
those who are asleep" in living out our union in Christ (an interesting
implication of 5:10).

Paul doesn't just stick that resurrection out there as a comfort... the
Resurrection past with its end in the Resurrection future is already
breaking into the here and now in the comfort of resurrected living in the
midst of suffering and temptation.  The gospel (2:8) via the word of God
(2:13) is being imparted to us and performing its work "now".  It is through
that gospel we are connected to Christ and His resurrection... as the gospel
goes so does the resurrection and its effects (1:3-10).  The "day" has
broken into the "night" (5:4,5... thus the eschatological implications of
the first day of creation), and because Christ has been raised, we await our
guaranteed rescue from the night (1:10) by "working our faith, laboring in
love, and being steadfast in hope" (1:3).

Yes, I'm agnostic as to the fate of all infants.  Consistent Calvinism
suggests that some will be elect and some will be reprobate just like
everyone else (I also have a hard time swallowing the idea that this infant
salvation "promise" extends to reprobate parents... I think the paedo's have
a point to made there... the trajectory of the reprobate in the whole of the
canon is damnation, with no distinction between infant and adult).

What I'm not agnostic about is the sentimental emphasis on the destiny of
loved ones, which I believe takes away from Christ and His glory.  Yes, I
believe that 1 Thessalonians is saying, along the way, that those who die in
Christ are with Christ, and will come with Christ to meet the living.
Seeing loved ones again who are "in Christ" is part of all those "spiritual
blessings" that we have "in Christ".  But I do not believe it is the primary
import of the Thessalonians passage and certainly shouldn't be used as such.
Properly exegeting the passage is not harsh.  It is not cold.  It is only
harsh to those who believe that Christ is not enough.  Our hope is in
Christ.  We need no "additional comfort" (those very words, de facto,
impinge on the sufficiency of Christ).  If we do, we have not learned what
is meant by "Christ is my portion".

Chad Bresson
Xenia, OH