1 Thessalonians 4:13 – Grief, but Not Without Expectation

13 Now we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are reposing, lest you may sorrow according as the rest, also, who have no expectation.

Why does Paul not want the Thessalonians to be ignorant about those who are reposing? Because this knowledge is directly connected to their grief. When someone dear to us dies, it hurts. Paul does not deny that grief. Nor does he write that believers must not sorrow. The decisive word is as: they need not sorrow as the rest, who have no expectation.

By “the rest,” Paul means those who do not know the expectation that believers have. For them, death means a final farewell, with no prospect of seeing one another again. But the Thessalonians do have an expectation. And that expectation is not based on a wish or a human conception of what might exist after death. It rests on what God has revealed.

Paul does not point his readers to the dead continuing to live in “the afterlife.” His comfort is much more concrete: the dead in Christ shall be rising when the Lord comes (verse 16). Death is a sleep from which God will awaken them. That does not take away the grief of parting, but it gives it an entirely different perspective. For those who know this expectation, the farewell is not final!

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