1 Thessalonians 4:13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I would not have you ignorant, brethren The apostle had intimated, (1 Thessalonians 3:10,) that he desired to make them another visit at Thessalonica, in order to perfect that which was lacking in their faith. Perhaps what he now proceeds to say was part of what he wanted to teach them, as not having seen it proper when he was with them to enter into such discoveries as are here made. But having been informed that they lamented over their dead with immoderate sorrow, and perhaps that they hired mourners on such occasions, and were even apt to repine at the divine providence for taking their pious friends and relatives from them, he here proceeds to give them information well calculated to support and comfort them in such circumstances. Concerning them who are asleep Των κεκοιμημενων, who have slept; who have departed this life. The death of the body is termed its sleep, because it suspends the exercise of all the animal functions, closes all its senses, and is a cessation of all motion and feeling in it; and because it shall be followed by a reviviscence to a more vigorous and active life than it now enjoys. That ye sorrow not Immoderately: herein the efficacy of Christianity greatly appears, that it neither takes away nor imbitters, but sweetly tempers, that most refined of all affections, our desire of, or love to the dead. As others Who are unacquainted with the truths of the gospel. It was the custom of the heathen, on the death of their relations, to make a show of excessive grief, by shaving their heads, and cutting their flesh, (Leviticus 19:27-28,) and by loud howlings and lamentations. They even hired persons, who had it for a trade to make these howlings and cries. But this show of excessive grief, as well as the grief itself, being inconsistent with that knowledge of the state of the dead, and with that hope of their resurrection, which the gospel gives to mankind, the apostle forbade it, and comforted the Thessalonians by foretelling and proving Christ's return to the earth, to raise the dead, and carry the righteous with him into heaven. Who have no hope Many of the heathen entertained a kind of belief of a future state, but that belief being derived from nothing but an obscure tradition, the origin of which they could not trace, or from their own wishes, unsupported by any demonstrative reasoning, could scarcely be called belief or hope, and had very little influence on their conduct. See note on Ephesians 2:12. Add to this, none of them had any knowledge or expectation that the righteous, or virtuous, would be raised from the dead with glorious, immortal, incorruptible bodies, and taken to heaven; neither had they any conception of the employments and enjoyments of that immortal state. St. Paul's discourse, therefore, concerning these grand events, must have given much consolation to the Thessalonians under the death of their relations, as it assured them that if they all died in Christ, they should all meet again, and spend an endless life in complete happiness, never more to part. In this light death is only a temporary separation of friends, which is neither to be dreaded nor regretted. Concerning our knowing one another after the resurrection, see on 1 Thessalonians 2:20.