1 Thessalonians 5:2

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 Paul answered the church’s grief over believers who had died, assuring them of the resurrection and of meeting the Lord together. Verse 1 opens with “But”, dé, a connective that marks a turn to a new subject, and the subject now is timing. Having told them what will happen when the Lord comes, Paul speaks to their wish to know when.

“Times” translates chrónos, a space of time, and “seasons” translates kairós, an occasion or set time. Together the two words cover the whole question of the date. Paul says they have “no need”, chreía, for him to write about it, because he had already taught them in person during his brief ministry in their city, when the church was founded (Acts 17). Their eagerness may have had a practical side too. They were new believers who expected the Lord’s coming intensely, and the second letter hints that some had let their daily work go because of it (2 Thessalonians 3:10–12).

Calling them “brethren” keeps the warmth of a family in what follows. Paul is turning their attention from the calendar to the way they live, and he does it as one of them.

“For yourselves know perfectly” appeals to what they already hold. “Know” is eídō, a verb that properly means to see and is used for knowing, and “perfectly” is akribōs, exactly or accurately. The Thessalonians had this teaching clearly, so Paul only needs to remind them of it.

“The day of the Lord” has deep roots in the prophets. There it is the time when God steps into history, bringing judgment on his enemies and deliverance for his people (Isaiah 2:12, Isaiah 13:6, Joel 2:31, Zephaniah 1:14, Malachi 4:5). In Paul’s letters it is tied to the second coming of Jesus Christ, and it takes in the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment and the full establishment of God’s kingdom. Paul speaks of “the day of Jesus Christ”, when God completes the good work he began in us (Philippians 1:6), and he says that when Christ, who is our life, appears, we shall appear with him in glory (Colossians 3:4).

The word “so”, hoútō, points to the manner of its coming, and Paul gives that manner in a picture: “as a thief in the night.” A thief, kléptēs, comes unannounced, under cover of darkness, at an hour nobody expects. The day of the Lord will come the same way, on no schedule anyone can work out. The image comes from Jesus himself. He said that if the goodman of the house had known when the thief would come, he would have watched, and he told his disciples to be ready in the same way (Matthew 24:42–44, Luke 12:39–40). Peter writes that “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night” (2 Peter 3:10), and the Lord says in Revelation, “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth” (Revelation 16:15).

Verse 3 describes the world at the moment the day arrives. “They” are the unbelieving world, people living apart from Christ who trust their own achievements, political order or prosperity to keep them secure. Their watchword is “Peace and safety.” Eirḗnē is peace, a state of quiet and well-being, and aspháleia is safety or security, the sense of being out of danger. Jeremiah heard the same false comfort in his day, from prophets “saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14).

Thessalonica was the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia and a busy port, and its people lived under the Roman peace that the empire held up as its gift to the world. Paul’s words may well have reminded his readers of that kind of boast, a peace made by men that cannot stand on the day God acts.

“Then”, tóte, means at that time. At the very time they speak of peace, “sudden destruction cometh upon them.” “Sudden” is aiphnídios, sudden or unexpected, the word the KJV renders “unawares” in Luke 21:34. “Destruction” is ólethros, ruin. This is God’s judgment at the day of the Lord, the wrath that verse 9 says believers are spared. Paul leaves its form undescribed, and he makes its certainty plain.

The comparison with “travail upon a woman with child” adds several things. The pains, ōdín, are expected, and yet they come at an hour no one can name. Once they begin they cannot be stopped, and they are severe. Jesus used the picture of birth pains for the troubles that come before the end, calling them “the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:8). Paul closes with “they shall not escape”, and the Greek strengthens the denial with a double negative, ou mḗ, “not at all”.

Real peace and safety are found in Christ. He said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you” (John 14:27). “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1), “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1), and God has delivered us from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his Son, in whom we have redemption (Colossians 1:13–14). The destruction of verse 3 is the very thing Christ has delivered his people from. He is their safety and their only escape.

“But ye, brethren” turns from the world to the church. Dé here marks the contrast, and adelphós, brother, is a word of family and belonging. “In darkness” is en, “in”, with skótos, darkness. Darkness here pictures spiritual blindness, ignorance of God, moral corruption and separation from him, the condition of those outside Christ. The Thessalonians were brought out of it when they believed.

“That that day should overtake you as a thief” gives the result. “That” is hína, which marks purpose or result, and “overtake” is katalambánō, to seize or come upon someone. “That day”, hēméra, is the day of the Lord, and “as”, hōs, brings back the thief of verse 2. The hour of the Lord’s coming stays unknown to everyone, believers included. What differs for believers is the outcome. The day will find them ready, and it will bring them salvation and the Lord they are waiting for.

Our coming out of darkness is God’s own work. He “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13). Jesus said, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).

“Therefore let us not sleep, as do others” draws the conclusion. “Therefore” is two small Greek words, ára and oûn, and the command follows straight from who believers are. “Sleep” is katheúdō, to lie down to rest or fall asleep, and here it pictures spiritual drowsiness: indifference toward God, moral slackness, and unawareness of the Lord’s coming. “Others” are the people of verse 3, the world that is unready.

The positive command has two parts. “Watch” is grēgoreúō, to keep awake and be alert, like a guard on duty. “Be sober” is nḗphō, which literally means to keep free of wine and figuratively means to be clear-headed, self-controlled and steady in judgment. A sober mind is clear of the worldly cares and moral compromise that cloud it. Paul has already urged this kind of self-control in 1 Thessalonians 4:3–8.

Verse 7 gives the reason, with gár, “for”: “they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.” Everyone knows it. People sleep at night, and in the cities of the Roman world the night was the time of revelry and drinking, when people were least accountable. “Drunken” is methýō, to be drunk, and “night” is nýx, the hours between sunset and sunrise. Paul uses these familiar facts as pictures. Sleep stands for spiritual unawareness, drunkenness for the recklessness and indulgence that dull the spiritual senses, and the night for the realm of ignorance and sin where the people of verse 3 live. Those who belong to the day keep the habits of the day.

Paul uses the same pictures in Romans 13:11–14, where he says it is high time to awake out of sleep and to cast off the works of darkness, and again in Ephesians 5:8–14. Jesus warned his disciples to take heed “lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares” (Luke 21:34–36). Peter writes, “Be sober, be vigilant” (1 Peter 5:8). Jesus made watchfulness the point of his parables of the faithful and wise servant (Matthew 24:45–51) and of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1–13).

Jesus is also the pattern of this watchfulness. In Gethsemane he was awake to the Father’s will and yielded to it, praying, “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). Our own watching is the Spirit’s work in us, the fruit of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

Verse 8 repeats the call with a new picture. “But let us, who are of the day, be sober” uses dé for the contrast with the night of verse 7, hēméra again for the day, and the same verb nḗphō for being sober. Then Paul arms the sober believer: “putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.”

“Putting on” is endýō, to put on clothes or be clothed with something, and it is a deliberate act. The breastplate, thṓrax, was a soldier’s chest armour, guarding the heart and the vital organs, and Paul makes it out of faith, pístis, and love, agápē. The helmet, perikephalaía, guarded the head, and Paul makes it out of hope, elpís, “the hope of salvation”, sōtēría. Hope here is expectation, looking forward with confidence to what God has promised. Roman soldiers were a common sight in a provincial city like Thessalonica, and their breastplates and helmets made the picture easy to see.

Each piece guards something. Faith, our trust in God and his promises, guards the heart against doubt, fear and unbelief. Love for God and for others guards it against bitterness, resentment and division, and love sums up the greatest commandments (Matthew 22:37–39). The hope of salvation guards the mind against despair and against the empty philosophies Paul warns of in Colossians 2:8, because it fixes our thoughts on our final deliverance and eternal life with Christ. Both pieces protect the one who wears them, so the picture is of standing firm. This armour equips people who already belong to the day, so that they hold their ground in a fallen world.

Paul fills out the picture in the whole armour of God (Ephesians 6:10–17) and speaks of “the armour of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 6:7). Faith, love and hope are the three graces he names together again and again, most famously in 1 Corinthians 13 and in his thanks for the faith, love and hope of the Colossians (Colossians 1:4–5).

All three lead us to Christ. He is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). The love we put on reflects his own: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Paul calls him “the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope” (1 Timothy 1:1). To put on this armour is to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14), who is our protection and the ground of our confident expectation.

Verse 9 gives the reason beneath everything Paul has urged. “For” is hóti, “because”. In “God hath not appointed us to wrath”, “appointed” is títhēmi, to put, set or appoint, and here it is God’s settled purpose. “Us”, hēmâs, is the believers Paul is writing to, himself among them. “Wrath” is orgḗ, anger or indignation, and by implication punishment. Here it is God’s righteous judgment on sin at the day of the Lord, the wrath revealed from heaven against all ungodliness (Romans 1:18) that comes on the children of disobedience (Ephesians 5:6).

In “but to obtain salvation”, “but” is allá, the strong contrast, and “to obtain” is peripoíēsis, acquiring or possessing. “Salvation”, sōtēría, means rescue or safety. In full it is deliverance from sin, its penalty and its power, and it includes reconciliation with God, adoption into his family and eternal life. “By our Lord Jesus Christ” names the one through whom all of it comes. “By” is diá, through, and the full title, kýrios, Iēsoûs, Christós, ends the sentence on him. Paul says the same in Romans: being justified by his blood, “we shall be saved from wrath through him” (Romans 5:9). We were once “by nature the children of wrath, even as others”, and God, rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:3–5).

The wrath we are spared fell on Christ. “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him” (Isaiah 53:5). “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). So the sudden destruction of verse 3 holds no threat for those who are in him.

Verse 10 tells us what Christ did and why. In “Who died for us”, “died” is apothnḗskō, to die, and here it is the real death of Jesus on the cross. “For us” is hypér, on our behalf, for our sake. Christ died in our place, bearing the penalty of sin that was ours, and this is the ground of all our hope. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

His death had a purpose: “that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.” Paul uses the same two verbs as in verses 6 and 7, grēgoreúō and katheúdō, and here they mean being alive or having died when the Lord comes. “Wake” is the believer still living, and “sleep” is the believer who has died, a gentle way of speaking of death as a rest from which the body will be raised. This answers the Thessalonians’ grief directly. Their dead will be with the Lord as surely as the living. Paul had told them that the living will be caught up together with the risen dead, “and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Jesus promised the same: “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:1–3).

“Live together with him” is life shared with the risen Lord, close and lasting. It rests wholly on his death and resurrection. Because he lives, we shall live too.

“Wherefore”, dió, draws the conclusion from all Paul has said: the hope of the resurrection, the coming of the Lord, our belonging to the day and our appointment to salvation. He ended the previous section the same way: “Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

“Comfort” is parakaléō, formed from pará and kaléō (“call”), a verb that covers asking earnestly, exhorting, encouraging and consoling. “Yourselves together” is allḗlōn, one another, so the comfort runs among all the members, each to each. “Edify” is oikodoméō, the ordinary verb for building, used figuratively for building up a person’s faith and strength. The Greek for “one another” in this clause is literally “one the one”, with the word heîs. Comfort meets present distress and fear, and building up serves lasting growth in faith, knowledge and character.

“Even as also ye do” is a word of praise. Kathṓs is “even as”, kaí is “also”, and poiéō is “do”. Paul is encouraging them to keep on in something they already practise. They needed it. The church was young and was suffering at the hands of its own countrymen, as the churches in Judea had (1 Thessalonians 2:14–16), and it carried grief and questions about the Lord’s coming. In such a church mutual care was a matter of survival. Its members saw themselves as a new family, bound to one another in Christ.

The New Testament repeats the call. “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another” (Romans 14:19). “Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification” (Romans 15:2). Our speech is to be “that which is good to the use of edifying” (Ephesians 4:29), and we are to “exhort one another daily” (Hebrews 3:13).

Paul answers a question about dates by telling the church who they are. The hour of the Lord’s coming is kept in the Father’s own power, and his coming is certain. We who believe belong to the day already. That is why the watchfulness Paul asks for is calm. It is the alertness of people who know whose they are, clothed in the faith, love and hope that God gives.

The passage also shows us who God is. He warns the world before the day comes, and he is just in the judgment that falls on those who say “Peace and safety” while they reject him. Toward his people his purpose is salvation, settled in his own counsel and paid for by the death of his Son. Whether we are alive when Christ comes or have fallen asleep before it, we will live together with him. That is the comfort the Thessalonians were already giving one another, and it is ours to share in the same way.