Chapter 4

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1 Thess 4:3-4

That you should abstain from all fornication; this Timothy told him, returning from among them, that they came together indiscriminately with women, and even committed fornication with strange women, and also with married women. And because there are many kinds of fornication, he distinguishes that about which he wishes to speak thus, That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and in honor; calling his wife a vessel, not inclining after another, and not in the passions of lust, as if he were inclining after another; nor let him be with his wife as with his spouse; yet because of his desire alone let him live with her.

 

1 Thess 4:5

Lasciviousness with other women he calls the lusts of concupiscence; for passion is not blameworthy, that a man should be with his wife according to the law of Nature; nevertheless he calls lasciviousness with other women the lusts of concupiscence; from which lusts it is seen that a man will also make use of his wife as one of these;

 

1 Thess 4:6

and, Christians, do not go beyond and defraud, etc. Do to go beyond showed that the man confuses established bounds; and by Defraud, he showed that he is plundering something belonging to another; and by his brother, that is to say, his comrade in the Faith, in this thing he means to say, chastely.

 

1 Thess 4:12-13

Concerning them who are asleep; he calls them asleep, first, because Death has been put to death by the death of Christ; second, because of the hope of the resurrection afterwards; that just as a man who lies down to sleep, must of necessity be awakened, likewise he will so easily be awakened at the last, that sorrow on that account is superfluous. But third, to show that souls possess neither feeling nor knowledge nor memory after their exit from bodies, according to the nonsense of some people; but sorrow is not taken away altogether; for it is not possible for the sea not to be agitated by winds; nor for a man not to suffer when one of his limbs is cut off; but he forbids that which is above measure; he suitably added, asleep. That you sorrow not as others who have no hope; (Verse 13) for if we believe that Jesus died and rose, thus also, etc. And it is asked, Why does Paul call the death of Christ Death, but our own Sleep? He calls his own Death; first, because the empire of Death was not yet destroyed from human Nature when our Lord tasted its cup instead of us; second, to show that Christ did not die in illusion, as some say, but actually bore death, because if Death were in hallucination. Resurrection would be also in illusion of necessity; and from this also our resurrection would be falsified. But about Believers Paul wrote Sleep, first, because the authority of Death had been brought to nought by the Resurrection of our Savior; second, to console their grief or our grief; because to Sleep awakening is joined of necessity.

 

1 Thess 4:14-15

This we say unto you, that is to say, through the revelation that came to us by the operation of God; also by that which Christ was speaking through him, as he said, He also says in the Gospel, one will be led away, and the other left, etc. (Mt 24:40), because our Lord in the command and in the voice of the Archangel, etc. (Verse 15), he calls the Archangel him that is higher and greater than all spiritual beings, who receives first revelations from the habitation of the Trinity, and makes them dawn to all who are below; who, according to Dionysius and others, is chief of the rank of the Seraphim. Others say that it is Gabriel, the leader of the New Covenant. This passage, Our Lord will come down from Heaven by the command, or, at the shout of the Archangel, who shall shout before Him and command everyone to rise from the dust; and he shall cry next to the Angels to assemble and glorify His coming. Others say that the parts of the sentence will be mixed, and the word reversed, like this passage in Job 24:20, In Sheol they have sinned and been forgotten from the womb, and this, Wealth hath destroyed those whose habitation hath not been seen for many years; and like this, The wicked man hath given His grave, and the rich in His death; and Tarry all night, and wash your feet, and other such passages (Is 53:9; Gen 19:2); thus also here; he says that our Lord in His humanity, by the command of God who dwells in Him, and at the voice of the Archangel's trumpet, which shallsound at His Coming, shall come down from Heaven; for three times also shall the voice of the trumpet be heard, as we have explained above.

This, We shall not overtake them which are asleep; the Greek says, shall not precede them; that is to say, in the ascension those that are alive at that time shall not precede those who have died. We shall not overtake is like our own, that is to say, we shall not die like them, and afterwards live.

And the dead in Christ shall rise first; first, so to speak, foremost, is said in five ways, but here it speaks only of being in honor; because both of them, that is to say, Resurrection and Renovation, shall take place in one moment; and this. They that sleep, sleep in the night, etc. He calls the submersion in evil things Sleep; and want of knowledge he calls Night as likewise Knowledge the Day.

 

2 Thess 4:16

Whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him; that is to say, those who are found alive at the Coming of our Lord, and those who  have died already, all of them shall be thought worthy of life in the world to come.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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