Summary
In 1 Thessalonians 5:4-11, Paul exhorts us to be awake and sober, for we are not children of darkness, but children of the light. Despite modern Christianity’s distaste for and avoidance of eschatology, we need to do our homework here and be watchful, so that we will be ready for our Master’s return. Our waiting should be marked by faith, hope, and love, because “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10, NIV11).
Content
On the need for watchfulness, and its relation to the end times
In our previous discussion of 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3, we discussed how those verses—alongside, for example, Revelation 19:11ff. and the Olivet Discourse in Matthew chapters 24 and 25—indicate that the return of Christ will catch off guard all those who do not see fit to keep watch for Him. The forces of wickedness will be completely annihilated upon the sudden return of the Son of Man, whom they will be powerless to resist. Because this time He is coming with the Crown, having been exalted to the right hand of God the Father.
But in 1 Thessalonians 5:4-11 (basically directly in parallel with Matthew 24:36ff.), Paul tells his audience in Thessalonica (and us, by extension) that we are not children of darkness so that this day should surprise us like a thief. Instead, we are children of the light, and are to be awake and sober. To flesh out this concept of watchfulness a bit more:
- Matthew 24:43 speaks of a homeowner keeping watch, so as to not let his house be broken into.
- Matthew 24:45-51 speaks of the faithful and wise servant who does as he ought even when his master is away. He does need need to fear his master’s return.
- Matthew 25:1-13 speaks of wise virgins waiting to meet the bridegroom (a custom in their culture), prepared with extra oil so that they might properly greet him upon his arrival, no matter how late it may be. Contrast the foolish ones who did not bother to make proper preparations, and therefore ran out of oil and missed the bridegroom’s return. (For Christ as the bridegroom of the Church, compare, for example, Luke 5:34-35; John 3:29-30; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Revelation 19:7).
- And then there is Matthew 25:14-30, the Parable of the Talents. It too speaks of a master going away on a journey (just as Christ is now veiled from us). The sense of this parable too is that we ought to put to good use all that God has given us, so that when Christ (our master) returns to settle accounts, we will have nothing to fear.
The point of all of this is that we must be aware and alert, always prepared for the return of our master. In our discussion of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, we briefly touched on the false doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture, and argued that believing that particular false teaching inherently makes one spiritually complacent… the exact opposite of the attitude that 1 Thessalonians 5:4-11 (and Matthew 24:36ff.) would have us adopt! For if God will just take us from the world before Christ “actually” returns anyway (His annihilation of the armies of evil at Armageddon being the culmination of a years-long series of judgements rendered against the world), why bother worrying about all this dark prophecy stuff? It can all be completely academic to us if we won’t have to live it.
Modern Christianity’s distaste for and avoidance of eschatology
If you think I’m exaggerating the carelessness modern Christians have when it comes to looking into the interpretation of Revelation and other eschatological prophecy, consider the last time you heard any sort of actually substantial teaching about the end times.
I suppose there are those who “teach” about the end times… in the sense of lining up current political figures with the antichrist, getting all exercised about blood moons and ancient calendars and whatnot, and other such nonsense. The crazy sort of end times “interpretation”, if one can even grace it with such a label. More like well-intentioned (if completely misguided) teaching based on gross misunderstanding at best… and outright fleecing of the sheep at worst, intentionally making things up and twisting scripture to gain money and power and the like.
And then, as a response to the stigma end times teaching gets as a result of the above, the vast majority of the Church visible completely avoids teaching on eschatology. People (rightly) point out that it is very complicated—far, far more so than the very elementary principles that most churches never really go past in their teaching these days. (But hey, props to them for at least teaching something, even it is basic. Plenty of churches never even graduate past teaching nothing much at all—unless one counts pop psychology, anecdotes, motivational speaking, and flowery rhetoric as “Bible teaching”).
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, but rather than just choosing not to teach much about these matters themselves, many people have decided that since they don’t know how to interpret complex prophecy generally and involved eschatological timelines specifically, then anyone who claims to know what it all means must either belong to the crazy group, or is breathtakingly arrogant to claim they’ve figured out what apparently many other supposedly “great” theologians over the centuries have given up on. That is, despite probably not saying such with their lips directly, people in practice very much reject any formal teaching in this areas as impossible for us as humans to know with certainty.
“No man knows the day or the hour”
A variety of arguments are used to support this implicit belief that matters of eschatology are fundamentally unknowable, but none is used more often than proof-texting with Matthew 24:36. People will smugly say “Matthew 24:36 teaches that no man can know the day or the hour!”—with the implication being that we must throw up our hands and acknowledge we know nothing of eschatological chronology, because the Bible makes this statement.
One problem with proof-texting with this verse to condemn looking into matters of eschatology is that this verse is specifically in reference to Christ’s return, and there are far more events described in, say, Revelation, than just that one. (Although it is true that this is probably the future event that we Christians look forward to more than anything else). Put differently, this verse makes it clear that we cannot know exactly when Jesus Christ returns, but not roundabouts when the Tribulation begins, when the Great Tribulation begins, and so on. On what interpretive basis—that is, by what hermeneutic principles—do people apply this verse to more than Christ’s return specifically? I’ve never received a convincing answer to such a question.
But even more than that, the real problem with proof-texting with this verse to support the position that we cannot know with certainty anything at all (or at least what amounts to such) about end times events is that Jesus contradicts that very notion several verses earlier, when He speaks of the fig tree and seasons, saying “So you also, when you see all of these things [the things previously described before Matthew 24:32ff.], know that it (i.e., the return of the Son of Man) is near—at the doors!”. And then all the verses after this one (even into the next chapter) exhort us to be sober and watchful, which makes no sense if it is impossible for us to make sense of anything by paying attention.
So no, we won’t know the exact time of Christ’s return, since the timeline will be cut short for the sake of the elect—cf. Matthew 24:22. 1 Not even the angels (who have way more knowledge and perspective than us) will be able to know or guess the exact time that Christ will return. But the notion that we won’t be able to know that it is near? That we won’t be able to to recognize the clear signs of the end times around us (like, for example, the worldwide lightning and worldwide earthquake prophesied to occur as the world falls into judgement, the antichrist’s inescapable worldwide persecution of believers during the Great Tribulation, and so on)? Complete rubbish, that—as the context of Matthew 24:36 makes crystal clear, when one reads it in context, as one obviously ought to.
Context is always important in proper interpretation—and that’s not some debatable principle, but literally hermeneutics 101.
One of the easiest ways to spot weak arguments is when people pull verses out of context in an attempt to prove a point they’ve already decided upon in their minds, as here—when they strip verses from their context in the quest for “ammunition” to prove their predetermined conclusion. We must always interpret scripture through the lens of other scripture, and we don’t ever get to cast aside this approach for expediency’s sake. We must draw our conclusions out of the Bible (so-called “exegesis”), not read them into it by ignoring context (so-called “eisegesis”).
We should take this verse more or less literally then—like the verse says, it is the exact day and hour that we will remain in the dark about, not, say, the month or the year. For scripture in fact has such an abundance of information concerning the end times (when properly understood and painstakingly arranged into one comprehensive timeline) that once the Tribulation begins (which will be obvious to all—cf. Revelation 8:5, and see here for explanation), then based on knowing that start time, the precise information we have would actually let us accurately discern the timing of our Lord’s return, were the days not cut short like Matthew 24:22 says they will be. That is a far cry from us “not being able to know things” about the end times!
The claim I just made made—namely, that we would actually know the timing of Christ’s return were the days not cut short for the sake of the elect like Matthew 24:22 says—may seem to be a bit outrageous. It is really not all that complicated though. The reasoning goes something like this:
- The Bible teaches that the Tribulation will last 7 years, and the Great Tribulation 42 months (i.e., exactly half that = 3.5 years = 3 years 6 months).
- The exact starting point of the Tribulation will be very obvious to all due to the worldwide signs prophesied to occur. (See again the the explanation already linked above).
- Christ will return at the end of the Tribulation, right before Armageddon
So unless the days were shortened, we’d just start a timer for 7 years after the clear starting point of the Tribulation, and that would be that. But since the days will be shortened, that won’t work, exactly.
However, since the Bible is clear on the 42 months, the “shortening of the days” will be just that—days, not months. Otherwise it would no longer be 42 months, as prophesied. So “we will not know the day or the hour” means literally the day and the hour, not the time generally, QED.
Ichthys makes much the same argument in the following quote:
[T]he passages “no one knows the day or the hour” (Matt.24:36; cf. Mk.13:12), are often misunderstood. They are to be taken literally. The exact day and the exact hour of our Lord’s return is not revealed in scripture even though we have a very good idea of generally when He will return. After all, the second advent will occur after the Tribulation is over, and that event will last seven years, with its second half, the Great Tribulation, lasting forty two months, as we know from a variety of places in scripture (see the link). In the same context of the passage you ask about, our Lord also had said this:
If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.
From the above, we can say for certain that 1) there is a precise time-table; 2) it has been slightly shortened at the end for the sake of the elect (that is, to preserve the lives of believers who are still alive on earth at the Tribulation’s end); and 3) this shortening is, literally, a matter of “days” rather than months (since the 42 months is confirmed repeatedly in scripture; see prior link).
And this is why we need to stay watchful and sober: because we can know when the time is near! It is quite literally the opposite of the aforementioned negative attitude towards eschatology that worships uncertainty. So the shoe here is, in fact, very much on the other foot. That is, since the Bible clearly exhorts us to be watchful in this area, then failing to properly study these matters so as to prepare makes one like the foolish virgins of Matthew 25:1-13. In other words, presupposing some degree of study here is really where the discussion should be starting from (i.e., asking questions like “Exactly how much time should we focus here on eschatology, as opposed to studying other matters?”), not whether or not we should be looking into matters of eschatology to begin with. That ought to just be a given.
How do verses 8-11 fit in with what we just talked about?
If we buy the above—that we are to be awake and sober, awaiting the long-prophesied return of our King—then how are verses 8-11 related?
After having made the point that we are children of the day, Paul here goes into more detail about how we should act given that fact. Being sober, he tells us in verse 9, involves “putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of of salvation as a helmet.” 2 So being awake and alert as we await the return of Christ ought not be marked by worry and anxiety, but by faith, hope, and love. (For more on these three cardinal virtues specifically, see here).
And why can we act in such a way—why should we put on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet? Because “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10, NIV11).
We have been given an immeasurable blessing, and we need to respond to it in the proper way:
- By exercising our faith in believing that God actually has saved us and redeemed us.
- By looking forward in the hope of blessed expectation to our eternity with God.
- By letting our love overflow in our lives and interactions with others, as we more and more come to appreciate how much we must love others in the same way God loves us.
And because God has saved us from wrath and appointed us to salvation—dying for us all so that we might forever live with Him—for that reason we are to encourage one another and build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11). For we are all one body as the Church here in the world (cf. 1 Corinthians 12), but our unity will be even greater on the other side in eternity, when we share perfect fellowship with not only God, but also each other.
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This verse is another one that clearly shows the falseness of the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture. Since this verse would make no sense if believers are raptured before the tribulation and hence not even in the world. That is, why would God cut the days of the Great Tribulation short for the sake of the elect if there are no elect in the world? ↩︎
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For more on the idea of Christian virtues being analogous to military equipment, compare Ephesians 6:10-17. ↩︎