1 & 2 Thessalonians Commentary by John F. Walvoord

Author:John F. Walvoord [Walvoord, John F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8024-7831-3
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE SUDDENNESS OF THAT DAY (5:1-3)

5:1-3 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

A consideration of the day of the Lord immediately plunges us into a tremendous doctrine that covers many pages in the Old Testament. Before examining the scriptural revelation, it is necessary to determine precisely what “the day of the Lord” means. We say that the present age is the day of grace. We do not mean that God showed no grace in the previous dispensations. Obviously, many of God’s dealings with mankind from the garden of Eden down to the present day have manifested His grace. The salvation of every person, no matter when they lived, is a work of God’s sovereign grace. But God in this present age has especially singled out the doctrine of grace for unique display, highlighting grace as the basis for salvation and for our Christian life. Grace speaks of God’s unmerited favor to us through Christ, who loved us and who died for us. After this day of grace has come to its close, which may be simultaneous with the rapture of the church, the day of the Lord will begin.

The day of the Lord is a period of time in which God will deal with evil people directly and dramatically in fearful judgment. A person may be a blasphemer of God, an angry atheist, or one who openly denounces God and teaches bad doctrine. Seemingly God does nothing about it. But the day designated in Scripture as “the day of the Lord” is coming when God will punish human sin, and He will deal directly and dramatically in wrath and in judgment with a Christ-rejecting world. One thing we are sure of is that God in His own way will bring every soul into judgment.

The word day is used in the Bible in various ways. Sometimes it is used to refer to daylight, for instance, the hours between dawn and sunset (Gen. 1:5). Sometimes it is used to refer to a twenty-four-hour day. The Jewish day began at sunset and continued to the next day at sunset. That also is referred to as a day (Gen. 1:5). Sometimes the word day is used in the Bible as a period of time (Gen. 2:4), just as we use it in English. We speak of the day of our youth. We do not mean that we were young only one day, but we mean the extended period of time in which we were young.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, the day of the Lord is used in this sense of an extended period of time, but having the characteristics of a twenty-four-hour day. That is, it is a day that begins at midnight or in the darkness, advances to dawn, and then to daylight.

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