Homily 7 — First Thessalonians 4, verses 13 to 14

“But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as the rest do, who have no hope.” [a]

There are many things that cause us sorrow from ignorance alone, so that if we come to understand them well, we put our grief away. Paul shows this too when he says, “I do not want you to be ignorant, so that you will not grieve as the rest do, who have no hope.” Is it for this reason, Paul, that you do not want them to be ignorant? Then why do you not speak of the punishment that is stored up? “Ignorant,” he says — that is, of the teaching about the resurrection. But why? That is plain from the other, and everyone grants it. But meanwhile, along with that, there will also be this gain, and no small one.

For they did not disbelieve the resurrection, yet they still wailed over their dead, and that is why he speaks. He talks one way with those who disbelieve the resurrection, and another way with these. For it is plain that they knew about it, since they were asking about “the times and the seasons” (First Thessalonians 5, verse 1).

Verse 14: “For if we believe,” he says, “that Jesus died and rose again,” and lived, “even so God will bring with him those also who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” [c]

Where are those who deny that he had flesh? If he did not take on flesh, then he did not die either; and if he did not die, neither did he rise again. How, then, does Paul urge us on to faith from these things? By their account, was he not a trifler and a deceiver? For if dying comes from sin, and Christ did not sin, how is he encouraging us now?

And now, whom does he have in view? My friends, for whom do you mourn? For whom do you grieve? For sinners, or simply for those who die? And why does he say, “as the rest do, who have no hope”? For whom do the rest mourn? Is it that to them all these things are empty? He calls Christ “the firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1, verse 18), the firstfruits. So there must be others still to follow.

And notice how here he brings in nothing from reasoning, because they were ready to be taught. In writing to the Corinthians he set out many things from reasoning as well, and then he added, “You fool, what you sow does not come to life” (First Corinthians 15, verse 36). This carries more authority, but only when he is talking with a believer. With someone outside, what authority would it have?

“Even so,” he says, “God will bring with him those also who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” Again, “fallen asleep”: nowhere does he say “the dead.” But of Christ his words are “he died,” because mention of the resurrection followed; here, though, it is “those who have fallen asleep.”

What does “through Jesus” mean? Either that they fell asleep through Jesus, or that through Jesus he will bring them. The phrase “who fell asleep through Jesus” means the faithful. Here the heretics say that he is speaking of the baptized. Then what place is there for “even so”? For Jesus did not fall asleep through baptism. But why does he say “those who have fallen asleep”? It shows that he is speaking not of the general resurrection but of a partial one. “Those who have fallen asleep through Jesus,” he says; and he speaks this way in many places.

Verse 15: “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord: that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means go ahead of those who have fallen asleep.” [g]

He is speaking of the faithful, of those “who have fallen asleep in Christ” (First Corinthians 15, verse 18); and again, “the dead will rise in Christ.” For his subject is not the resurrection only, but both the resurrection and the honor in glory. All will share in a resurrection, he says, but not all will be in glory; only those in Christ. So since he wants to comfort them, he comforts them not with the resurrection alone, which they already knew, but also with the greatness of the honor and with how soon it will come. To prove that he means to comfort them with the honor, he goes on to say, “And we will always be with the Lord,” and “we will be caught up in the clouds.”

But how do the faithful fall asleep in Jesus? It means having Christ within themselves. And the words “he will bring with him” show that they are brought from many places.

“This.” He was about to tell them something strange. That is why he also adds what makes it believable: “by the word of the Lord,” he says — that is, we are not speaking on our own, but have learned it from Christ — “that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means go ahead of those who have fallen asleep.” He says this in his letter to the Corinthians too: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (First Corinthians 15, verse 52). Here he makes the resurrection believable by the way it will happen as well. Because the thing seems difficult, he says that as it is easy for the living to be taken up, so it is for the departed too.

When he says “we,” he is not speaking of himself, for he was not going to remain alive until the resurrection; he is speaking of the faithful. That is why he has added, “We who are left until the coming of the Lord will by no means go ahead of those who have fallen asleep.” It is as if he had said: “Do not think there is any difficulty in it. It is God who does it. Those who are alive then will not get ahead of those who have decayed, who have rotted away, who have been dead ten thousand years. As it is easy to bring back those whose bodies are whole, so it is easy to bring back those who have decayed.”

But there are some who do not believe it, because they do not know God. For tell me: which is easier, to bring someone into being out of nothing, or to raise up again one who has decayed? But what do they say? “A certain man was shipwrecked and drowned at sea. Many fish fell on him, and each fish ate a part of him. Then of those same fish, one was caught in this bay and another in that, and this one was eaten by one man and that one by another, still holding the pieces of flesh they had eaten. And again, the men who ate the fish that had eaten up the man died in different places, and were themselves perhaps devoured by wild beasts. When there has been so great a confusion and scattering, how will the man rise again? Who will gather up the dust?” [h]

But why do you say this, my friend, spinning out strings of trifles and making a riddle of it? For tell me: suppose the man had not fallen into the sea, the fish had not eaten him, and the fish had not in turn been devoured by countless people. Suppose instead he had been laid carefully in a coffin, and neither worms nor anything else had disturbed him. How will what has decayed rise again? How will dust and ashes be glued back together? Where will the body get its bloom again? Is this not a difficulty too?

If it is the Greeks who raise these doubts, we will have countless things to say to them. What then? For there are some among them who move souls into plants and bushes and dogs. Tell me, which is easier: to take back one’s own body, or someone else’s? Others again say that all things are consumed by fire, and that there is a resurrection of clothes and shoes — and no one laughs at them. Others say it is all atoms. With these, however, we have no argument at all. [i]

But to the faithful — if we ought to call people faithful who raise such questions — we will still say what the apostle has said: that all life springs from decay, all plants, all seeds. Do you not see the fig tree, what a trunk it has, what boughs, how many leaves and branches, shoots and roots, taking up so much ground and bedded deep in it? This tree, so great and so large as it is, springs from the seed that was thrown into the ground and itself first decayed. If it is not rotted and broken down, none of these things will come. Tell me, how does this happen? And the vine too, so lovely both to look at and to enjoy, springs from something mean to look at.

And tell me: is not the water that comes down from above one thing? How is it changed into so many things? This is more wonderful than the resurrection. For there the same seed and the same plant are involved, and there is close kinship. But here, tell me, how does something with one quality and one nature turn into so many things? In the vine it becomes wine, and not only wine, but leaves and sap; for not only the cluster of grapes but the rest of the vine too is nourished by it. Again, in the olive it becomes oil, and all those other things. And what is wonderful, here it is moist and there dry, here sweet and there sour, here astringent and elsewhere bitter. Tell me, how does it turn into so many things? Show me the reason! But you cannot.

And in your own case — tell me, for this comes nearer home — this seed that is deposited, how is it fashioned and molded into so many things? How into eyes? How into ears? How into hands? How into a heart? Are there not in the body ten thousand differences of shapes, of sizes, of qualities, of positions, of powers, of proportions? Sinews and veins and flesh and bones and membranes, arteries and joints and cartilage, and as many more things besides as the physicians list precisely, which make up our nature — and these come from that one seed! Does this not seem to you far harder than those other things? [k]

How is what is moist and soft set hard into what is dry and cold, that is, bone? How into the warm and moist, which are joined together in the blood? How into the cold and soft, the sinew? How into the cold and moist, the artery? Tell me, where do these things come from? Are you not completely at a loss about them?

Do you not see a resurrection and a death taking place every day, in the stages of our life? Where has our youth gone? Where has our old age come from? How is it that the man who has grown old cannot make himself young, yet begets another, a very young child, and what he cannot give to himself, he gives to another?

We can see this in trees and in animals too. And yet what gives to another ought first to give to itself. That, at least, is what human reasoning demands. But when God creates, let everything give way. [l]

If these things are so difficult — no, so exceedingly difficult — I am reminded of those madmen who pry into the bodiless birth of the Son. Things that happen every day, that lie within reach of our hands, that have been looked into ten thousand times, no one has yet been able to discover. Tell me, then: how is it that they pry into that hidden birth beyond all words? Is not the mind of such men worn out, treading that empty space? Has it not been whirled around in ten thousand fits of dizziness? Is it not struck dumb? And yet even so they do not learn. When they can say nothing about grapes and figs, they pry into God!

For tell me, how is that grape seed turned into leaves and stems? How is it that before this they were not in it, nor seen in it? You say: “But it is not the grape seed; it all comes from the earth.” Then how is it that without the seed the earth bears nothing by itself? But let us not be without understanding. What happens comes neither from the earth nor from the grape seed, but from him who is Lord both of the earth and of its seeds. That is why he has made the same thing come about both without them and with them: first, to show his own power, when he said, “Let the earth bring forth the green plants” (from Genesis 1, verse 11); and second, besides showing his power, to teach us also to work hard and be diligent.

Why, then, have we said these things? Not for nothing, but so that we may believe in the resurrection too; and so that when we want to grasp something by our reasoning and cannot find it, we will not be angry and take offense, but will modestly withdraw, rein in our reasoning, and take refuge in the power and skill of God. Knowing these things, then, let us put a bridle on our reasonings. Let us not overstep our bounds, nor the measures that have been set for our knowledge. For “if anyone,” he says, “thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know” (First Corinthians 8, verse 2).

“I am not speaking about God,” he says, “but about everything.” What then? Do you want to learn about the earth? What do you know? Tell me. How great is its measure? What is its size? How is it placed? What is its essence? What is its place? Where does it stand, and on what? You cannot tell any of these things? But that it is cold and dry and black, this you can tell — and nothing further.

Again, what about the sea? There you will be brought to the same uncertainty, not knowing where it begins and where it ends, on what it is borne up, what holds up its floor, what sort of place there is for it, and whether beyond it there is dry land, or it ends in water and air. And what do you know of the things that are in it?

But what of it? Let me pass over the elements. Would you have us choose the smallest of plants? The barren grass, a thing we all know — tell me, how is it brought forth? Is not its material water and earth and manure? What is it that makes it look so beautiful and gives it such a wonderful color? And how does that beauty fade away so? This is not the work of water, or of earth. Do you see that faith is needed everywhere? How does the earth bring forth? How does it go into labor? Tell me. But you can tell me none of these things.

Learn, my friend, from the things here below, and do not pry or meddle in heaven — and would that it were only heaven, and not the Lord of heaven! Do you not know the earth you were brought forth from, which nourished you, which you live in, on which you walk, without which you cannot even breathe? And do you pry into things so far away? Truly “man is emptiness” (Psalm 39, verse 5, and Psalm 144, verse 4). If someone told you to go down into the deep and trace out the things at the bottom of the sea, you would not put up with the order. Yet when no one forces you, you are willing of your own accord to sound the bottomless abyss? Do not do it, I beg you. [m]

Instead, let us sail upward — not by swimming, for we will soon tire and sink, but using the divine Scriptures as a ship, let us spread the sails of faith. If we sail in these, the Word of God will be with us as our Helmsman. But if we swim on human reasonings, it will not be so. For which swimmer has a helmsman beside him? So the danger is twofold: there is no ship, and the Helmsman is absent. If even a boat without a helmsman is unsafe, when both are missing, what hope of safety is there?

So let us not throw ourselves into plain danger, but let us board a safe ship, made fast by the sacred anchor. For so we will sail into the calm harbor with a rich cargo, and at the same time in great safety, and we will obtain the blessings stored up for those who love him, in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom, to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.