The Apostle now turns to speak of Christian hope. It is a transition to a new and all-important theme the hope of the Christian in regard to the saints at the second coming of their Lord. The coming of the glorified Saviour is, as it were, the red thread running through the whole tissue of these two epistles. It is more or less prominent in all its parts, giving the whole its colouring and plan.
I. The Gospel has revealed to man the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and the re-union in Heaven of long-divided hearts. The Apostle thus exhorts believers to cherish feelings in regard to departed friends of a far different kind from those which took gloomy possession of heathen breasts. Christ's people are "as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing." The eye of their faith can see the bright light in the cloud of even the heaviest earthly trial. They do not refuse to shed tears, but they also do not refuse to dry them at their Saviour's bidding.
II. The Apostle gives one reason why Christian sorrow in presence of death is to be different from that of the others. It lies in the threefold repetition in this passage of the word "asleep," as applied to the Christian dead, a figure possibly suggested here by our Lord's own parable of the ten virgins, the imagery in both passages being the same. It was generally thought among the Thessalonian Christians that at the Lord's second and glorious coming, the departed saints the resurrection not having then taken place would not have a share in the peculiar joys of meeting with Him, and greeting Him on His return to earth. That joy, they thought, would only be shared in by the living. The Apostle bids them not be sunk in sorrow about their absent friends. If these had been among those on earth who had clung through reproach to the crucified One, they would assuredly not be torn from His fellowship when He came in glory. They are not severed from their Lord now; they cannot be severed from Him when He comes again.
J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians,p. 163.
Reference: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., p. 273.