Homily 8 — First Thessalonians 4, verses 15 to 18

“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. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will always be with the Lord.” [a]

The prophets, wanting to show that what they said could be trusted, say this before anything else: “The vision which Isaiah saw” (Isaiah 1, verse 1); and again, “The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah” (Jeremiah 1, verse 1, in the Greek Old Testament); and again, “Thus says the Lord”; and many such expressions. Many of them even saw God sitting, as far as it was possible for them to see him. But Paul had not seen him sitting; he had Christ speaking in himself. So instead of “Thus says the Lord,” he said, “Are you looking for proof of Christ speaking in me?” (Second Corinthians 13, verse 3.) And again, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ.” For an apostle speaks the things of the one who sent him, and so he shows that nothing is his own. And again, “I think that I too have the Spirit of God.” (First Corinthians 7, verse 40.)

So all those things he spoke by the Spirit; but this, which he says now, he actually heard from God in so many words. So too with what he had said when he spoke to the elders of Ephesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”: he heard it among the sayings that were not written down. (Acts 20, verse 35.)

Let us see, then, what he says now as well. “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. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the last trumpet.” For then, he says, “the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Matthew 24, verse 29.) But why with the trumpet? We see this on Mount Sinai too, and angels there as well. [d]

But what does “the voice of the archangel” mean? It is like what he said in the parable of the virgins: “Get up! The bridegroom is coming!” (from Matthew 25, verse 6). Either it means this, or that it will be then as it is with a king: angels will serve at the resurrection. For he says, “Let the dead rise,” and the work is done. The angels do not have the power to do this; his word does. It is as if, at a king’s command, those who were locked up should come out, and the servants should lead them out; yet the servants do it not by their own power, but by that voice.

Christ says this too in another place: “He will send out his angels with a great trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matthew 24, verse 31.) And everywhere you see the angels running back and forth. So the archangel, I think, is the one who is set over those who are sent out, and who shouts like this: “Make everyone ready, for the Judge is at hand!” And what does “at the last trumpet” mean? Here he suggests that there are many trumpets, and that at the last one the Judge comes down. “And the dead in Christ,” he says, “will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will always be with the Lord.”

Verse 18: “Therefore comfort one another with these words.” [e]

If he is about to come down, why will we be caught up? For the sake of honor. When a king drives into a city, those who are held in honor go out to meet him, but the condemned wait inside for the judge. And when a loving father arrives, his children, and those who are worthy to be his children, are taken out in a chariot so that they may see him and kiss him; but those household servants who have done wrong stay inside. We are carried on our Father’s chariot. For he received him up in the clouds (Acts 1, verse 9), and “we will be caught up in the clouds.” Do you see how great the honor is? As he comes down, we go out to meet him, and, what is more blessed than all, so we will be with him.

“Who will tell of the mighty acts of the Lord, and make all his praises heard?” (Psalm 106, verse 2, in the Greek Old Testament.) How many blessings he has granted the human race! Those who are dead are raised first, and so the meeting takes place all together. Abel, who died before anyone, will then meet him together with those who are alive. So the living will have no advantage in this respect: the one whose body has decayed, who has lain so many years in the earth, will meet him together with them, and so will all the others. For if they waited for us so that we might be crowned, as he says elsewhere in a letter, “God having provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect” (Hebrews 11, verse 40), much more will we also wait for them. Or rather, they did wait, but we will not wait at all. For the resurrection takes place “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.”

As for the saying that they are gathered together: they rise everywhere, but they are gathered together by the angels. The rising, then, is the work of God’s power, commanding the earth to give back what was deposited with it, and no one serves in it, just as when he called Lazarus: “Lazarus, come out!” (John 11, verse 43). But the gathering is the work of servants. But if angels gather them together, running back and forth, how are they caught up here? They are caught up after the descent, after they have been gathered together. [f]

For this, too, happens without anyone being aware of it. When they see the earth shaken, the dust stirring, bodies rising perhaps on every side with no one serving to do it, the “shout” alone being enough, and the whole earth filled — for think how great a thing it is that all people from Adam to his coming will then stand there with wives and children — when they see so great an uproar on the earth, then they will know. Just as people foresaw nothing of the plan of salvation carried out in his flesh, so it will be then.

When these things have been done, then there will also be the voice of the archangel, shouting and commanding the angels, and the trumpets, or rather the sound of the trumpet. What trembling then, what fear will seize those who are left on the earth! For one woman is caught up and another is left behind; one man is taken and another is passed over (Matthew 24, verses 40 and 41; Luke 17, verses 34 and 35). What will their souls feel when they see some taken up and themselves left behind? Will these things not be able to shake their souls more terribly than any hell? [g]

Then let us picture it in words, as though it were here now. If sudden death, or earthquakes in cities, or threats terrify our souls like this, what will our souls feel then, when we see the earth breaking open and crowded with all these people, when we hear the trumpets, and the voice of the archangel louder than any trumpet, when we see the sky shriveled up, and God, the King of all, himself drawing near? Let us shudder, I beg you, and be afraid, as if these things were happening now. Let us not console ourselves with the delay. For when it must certainly happen, the delay does us no good.

How great the fear and trembling will be then! Have you ever seen people led away to be put to death? What do you think their souls feel as they go along the road to the gate? Is it not worse than many deaths? What would they not choose to do and to suffer, to be delivered from that cloud of darkness? I have heard many who were called back by the emperor’s mercy, after they had been led away, say that they did not even see people as people, their souls were so troubled, so struck with horror, so beside themselves. If, then, the death of the body frightens us like this, what will we feel when eternal death draws near?

And why do I speak of those who are led away? A crowd stands around at such times, most of whom do not even know them. If anyone looked into their souls, he would find no one so cruel, no one so hard-hearted, no one so firm, that his soul is not cast down and gone weak with fear and despair. And if, when others are carried off by this death, which is no different from sleep, those who have nothing to do with it are affected like this, what will become of us when we ourselves fall into greater evils? It is not possible, believe me, it is not possible to describe that suffering in words.

“No,” you say, “God loves humankind, and none of these things will happen!” Then it was written for nothing! “No,” you say, “it was written only as a threat, to make us wise!” Then if we do not become wise, but go on being wicked, tell me, will he not inflict the punishment? And will he not repay the good with rewards either? “Yes,” you say, “for that is fitting for him: to do good even beyond what is deserved.” So those things are true and will certainly happen, while the punishments will not happen at all, but are there only to threaten and to frighten! How I am to persuade you, I do not know. If I say that “the worm will not die, and the fire will not be quenched” (Mark 9, verse 44); if I say that “they will go away into everlasting fire” (Matthew 25, verses 41 and 46); if I set before you the rich man already being punished, you will say that it is all a matter of threatening. Then how am I to persuade you? This is a satanic line of reasoning. It flatters you with a favor that will do you no good, and it makes you lazy. [h]

How, then, can we drive it out? Whatever we say from Scripture, you will say is meant only to threaten. That might be said about things still to come, but not about things that have happened and are over. You have heard of the flood. Were those things, too, said only as a threat? Did they not actually happen? [i]

The people of that time, too, said many such things. For a hundred years, while the ark was being built and the timber was being worked, and the righteous man was crying out, there was no one who believed. But because they did not believe the threat in words, they suffered the punishment in actual fact. And this will be our fate too, if we do not believe. That is why he compares his coming with the days of Noah: just as some did not believe in that flood, so they will not believe in the flood of hell.

Were these things a threat? Were they not a fact? Then will he who brought punishment on them so suddenly then not much more inflict it now as well? For the things done now are no less than the offenses of that time. How so? Because then, it says, “the sons of God went in to the daughters of men” (Genesis 6, verse 4), and those unions were the great offense. But now there is no form of wickedness that is left untried.

Do you believe, then, that the flood took place? Or does it seem a fable to you? And yet even the mountains where the ark came to rest bear witness — I mean the mountains in Armenia. [j]

But, to give you more than enough, I will turn my discourse to something else, plainer than that. Has any of you ever traveled in Palestine? For I will no longer cite report, but facts — though the other was clearer than facts, since whatever Scripture says is more to be trusted than what we see. Has any of you, then, ever traveled in Palestine? I suppose so. Well then, you who have seen the places, bear witness for me to those who have not been there. Above Ashkelon and Gaza, as far as the very end of the Jordan River, there is a country, wide and fertile — or rather, there was, for it is not so now. This is the land that was like a garden. For it says, “Lot looked at all the plain of the Jordan, and it was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord.” (Genesis 13, verse 10.)

This land, then, that was so flourishing, that rivaled every country, that in its richness surpassed even the Paradise of God, is now more desolate than any wilderness. Trees still stand there, it is true, and they bear fruit. But the fruit is a monument to the wrath of God. For there stand pomegranates — I mean both the tree and the fruit — very fine to look at, and holding out great hopes to anyone who does not know. But if you take them in your hand and break them open, they show no fruit at all, only a great deal of dust and ashes stored up inside. The whole land is like that. If you find a stone, you will find it full of ashes.

And why do I speak of stone and wood and earth, when the air and the water share in the disaster? When a body has been burned and consumed, the shape remains, and the outline, in the look the fire has left, and the bulk and the proportions, but its strength is gone. In just the same way you can see earth there that has nothing of earth about it, but is all ashes; trees and fruit, with nothing of trees and fruit about them; air and water, with nothing of water or of air about them, for even these have been turned to ashes. And yet how could air ever be burned, or water, while it remained water? Wood and stones can be burned, but air and water, not at all. Impossible for us, but possible for him who did these things. So the air is nothing but a furnace; the water is a furnace. Everything is barren, everything unproductive, everything given over to vengeance: images of the wrath that has already come, and proofs of the wrath still to come.

Are these, too, only threatening words? Are these only the sound of words? [l]

For my part, the earlier things were not beyond belief; things unseen were just as believable to me as things seen. But even for the unbeliever these are enough to produce faith. If anyone does not believe in hell, let him think of Sodom, let him reflect on Gomorrah, and the vengeance that was inflicted there and still remains. This is a proof that punishment is eternal. Are these things harsh? And is it not harsh when you say that there is no hell, but that God has only threatened it, when you make the people’s hands go slack? You who do not believe are the one who forces me to say these things; you are the one who has drawn me out into these words. If you believed the words of Christ, I would not be forced to bring forward facts to produce belief. But since you have slipped away from them, from now on you will be persuaded, whether you like it or not.

For what do you have to say about Sodom? Would you like to know, too, the cause for which these things were done then? It was one sin — a grievous and accursed one, certainly, but only one. The men of that time had a passion for boys, and for that they suffered this punishment. But now ten thousand sins are committed that are equal to it and even more grievous. Then will he who poured out so much anger for one sin, and paid no regard to the pleading of Abraham, nor yet to Lot who lived among them — the man who, out of reverence for God’s servants, offered his own daughters to be abused — will he spare us, when there are so many sins? These ideas are truly ridiculous: trifling, delusion, and the devil’s deceit!

Would you like me to bring forward another example too? You have certainly heard of Pharaoh, king of the Egyptians. So you know the punishment he suffered too: how, with his whole army, chariots and horses and all, he was swallowed up in the Red Sea. Would you like to hear other examples as well? He was perhaps an ungodly man — or rather, not perhaps; he certainly was an ungodly man. Would you like to see people punished who were among the believers, who held fast to God, but did not live upright lives? Hear Paul saying, “Let us not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us grumble, as some of them grumbled, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Nor let us put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the snakes.” (First Corinthians 10, verses 8 to 10.) [m]

And if sexual immorality, and if grumbling, had such power, what will our sins not bring about?

And if you are not paying the penalty now, do not be surprised. They did not know of a hell, and so punishments followed close on their heels. But you, whatever sins you commit, even if you escape the penalty here, will pay for all of it there. Did he punish like this people who were almost like children, and who did not sin so greatly — and will he spare us? That would not be reasonable. For if we commit the same sins as they did, we will deserve a greater punishment than they did. Why? Because we have enjoyed more grace. But when our offenses are many, and more wicked than theirs, what vengeance will we not suffer?

They — and let no one think I say this because I admire them or excuse them; far from it! For when God punishes, whoever gives the opposite verdict does so at the devil’s prompting. I say this, then, not to praise them or excuse them, but to show our wickedness — they, then, though they grumbled, were at least traveling a road through the wilderness; but we grumble though we have a homeland and are in our own houses. They committed sexual immorality, but it was just after they had come out of the evils of Egypt, and they had hardly heard of such a law. But we do it having already received from our forefathers the teaching of salvation, so that we deserve a greater punishment.

Would you like to hear of other things too? What they suffered in Palestine: famines, epidemics, wars, captivities under the Babylonians and under the Assyrians, and their miseries at the hands of the Macedonians, and those under Hadrian and Vespasian? There is something, beloved, that I want to tell you. No, do not run away! Or rather, I will tell you something else before it. [n]

There was once a famine, it says, and the king was walking on the wall. Then a woman came to him and said these words: “O king, this woman said to me, ‘Let us roast your son today and eat him, and mine tomorrow.’ And we roasted him and ate him, and now she will not give me hers.” (From Second Kings 6, verse 28.) What could be more dreadful than this disaster? Again, in another place the prophet says, “The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children.” (Lamentations 4, verse 10.) The Jews suffered such punishment, then, and will we not suffer much more?

Would you like to hear of other disasters of theirs as well? Read through Josephus, and you will learn that whole tragedy, in case we may perhaps persuade you from these things that there is a hell. For think about it: if they were punished, why are we not punished? Or how is it reasonable that we are not punished now, when we sin more grievously than they did? Is it not plain that it is because the punishment is being kept in store for us? And if you like, I will tell you, person by person, how they were punished.

Cain murdered his brother. A horrible sin indeed; who can deny it? But he suffered punishment, and a heavy one, equal to ten thousand deaths, for he would rather have died ten thousand times. Hear him saying, “If you drive me out from the land, and I am hidden from your face, then it will be that everyone who finds me will kill me.” (Genesis 4, verse 14, in the Greek Old Testament.) Tell me, then: do not many people even now do the same things he did? When you kill, not your brother according to the flesh, but your spiritual brother, are you not doing the same thing? What does it matter that it is not with a sword? It is by some other means — when you are able to relieve his hunger and you neglect him.

What then? Has no one now envied his brother? Has no one plunged him into danger? But here they have not suffered punishment; yet they will suffer it. Then he who never heard the written laws, or the prophets, and never saw great miracles, suffered such great vengeance — and will the one who has done the same things in another way, and has not been made wise by so many examples, go unpunished?

Where, then, is the justice of God, and where is his goodness? [p]

Again, a certain man was stoned for gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and yet this was a small commandment, and less weighty than circumcision. The man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath was stoned; but those who often commit ten thousand things against the law have gone off unpunished! If there is no hell, then where is his justice, where is his impartiality, that shows no favoritism? And yet he lays many such things to their charge: that they did not keep the Sabbath.

Again, another man, Carmi, stole what had been devoted to God and was stoned with all his family. What then? Has no one since that time committed sacrilege?

Saul, again, spared against the command of God, and suffered so great a punishment. Has no one since that time spared? I wish it were so! Have we not, worse than wild animals, devoured one another against the command of God? And yet no one has fallen in war. Again, the sons of Eli, because they ate before the incense was offered, suffered the most severe punishment, together with their father. Has no father, then, been neglectful toward his children? And are there no wicked sons? But no one has suffered punishment. Where, then, will they suffer it, if there is no hell?

Again, one could list countless instances. What? Ananias and Sapphira were punished at once, because they stole part of what they had offered. Has no one, then, been guilty of this since that time? How is it, then, that they have not suffered the same punishment? [s]

Do we persuade you, then, that there is a hell, or do you need more examples? We will go on, then, to things that are not written, the kind that happen in life now. For we must gather this idea from every side, so that we do not harm ourselves by flattering ourselves for nothing. Do you not see many struck by disasters, maimed in their bodies, suffering endless troubles, while others are well thought of? Why do some suffer punishment for murders and others not? Hear Paul saying, “Some people’s sins are plain to see … and some people’s sins follow after them.” (First Timothy 5, verse 24.) How many murderers have escaped! How many grave robbers! But let these things pass.

How many do you not see struck with the most severe punishment? Some have been handed over to a long illness, others to continual torments, and others to countless other ills. So when you see someone who is guilty of the same things as they are, or even much worse, and yet is not suffering punishment, will you not suspect, even against your will, that there is a hell? Count up those here who have been severely punished before you; consider that God shows no favoritism, and that though you have done countless wicked things you have suffered nothing of the kind, and you will arrive at the idea of hell. For God has planted this idea so deeply in us that no one can ever be ignorant of it. Poets and philosophers and storytellers — in short, all people — have reasoned about the punishment that awaits there, and have said that most people are punished in Hades. And even if their accounts are myths, what we have received is not.

I do not say these things because I want to frighten you, or to lay a burden on your souls, but to make them wise and to make things lighter for them. I too could wish that there were no punishment — yes, I most of all people. Why? Because while each of you fears for his own soul, I must also give account for this office in which I preside over you. So I, most of all, cannot escape. But it cannot be that there is no punishment and no hell. What can I do? “Where, then,” they say, “is God’s love for humankind?” In many places. But I would rather speak on that subject at some other time, so that we do not confuse our discussions about hell. Meanwhile, let us not let slip what we have gained. For it is no small advantage to be convinced about hell. The memory of such discussions, like some bitter medicine, will be able to clear away every vice, if it is constantly settled in your mind. So let us make use of it, so that, having a pure heart, we may be counted worthy to see those things that “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man.” May we all obtain them by the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen. [t]