Therefore encourage one another with these words.
18 Comfort. He now shews more openly what I have previously stated — that in the faith of the resurrection we have good ground of consolation, provided we are members of Christ, and are truly united to him as our Head. At the same time, the Apostle would not have each one to seek for himself assuagement of grief, but also to administer it to others.
Do not sorrow immoderately for those who die in the Lord, as if you had no hope of eternal life, that is to grieve like the heathen, who imagine everything taken from the world perishes. We Christians have sure hope of resurrection; this alone is enough to balance all our griefs. Yet weep we may, for our own loss if nothing else, so long as we remember the dead sleep in Jesus and shall wake to glory.
AI summary
Commenting on 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Wherefore comfort one another with these words. Or doctrines; as that the saints, when they die, do not cease to be, but are asleep, and asleep in Jesus; that their souls are with him, and their bodies sleep in his arms, and are his care; that these will be as soon with Christ, as the saints that will be alive when he comes; that the...