Death is Irrelevant

1 Thessalonians 5:10 KJV

Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

Barnes Notes says that an error had apparently developed in Thessalonica that those who survived to see the Lord's return were somehow more blessed than those who died previous to His coming. The teaching is in some ways ironic seeing that all of them died, not seeing His return. Whether a person lives or dies in no way effects their standing before the Lord. Some of the most wonderful Christians died very early in life. This does, however, demonstrate their understanding of the imminent return. They knew perfectly that Christ would come and they believed it could be in their own lifetime.

Another error dispelled in this verse is that of souls sleep. When a person dies, their body is in the grave but they are immediately in the presence of the Lord.

The real lesson of the passage is the powerlessness of death in the face of the Lord. We make so much of death.

• People pay fortunes to delay the day of their deaths
• Some people obsess over death, idolizing someone they loved who has died
• Some have crippled themselves emotionally and spiritually in their grief over ones death
• The world has used the threat of death to try to hinder the growth of Christianity

The fact of it is that death is rendered powerless in the presence of Christ. Whether we are in that group of believers who will enter into the presence of the Lord through rapture, or those who enter His presence much sooner, through the doors of death, it makes no difference. Either way we are blessed to be in His presence. Death is defeated in the presence of the Lord it is

• Innocuous
• Irrelevant
• Inert

And so, the wages of sin has continued its regular paydays. But it has never so much as slowed the progress of faith.

Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?