1 Thessalonians 4

1 Thessalonians 4:2

To send Epaphroditus - Back immediately. Your messenger - The Philippians had sent him to St. Paul with their liberal contribution.

1 Thessalonians 4:3

He was full of heaviness - Because he supposed you would be afflicted at hearing that he was sick.

1 Thessalonians 4:4

God had compassion on him - Restoring him to health.

1 Thessalonians 4:5

That I may be the less sorrowful - When I know you are rejoicing.

1 Thessalonians 4:7

To supply your deficiency of service - To do what you could not do in person.

1 Thessalonians 4:9

The same things - Which you have heard before.

1 Thessalonians 4:10

Beware of dogs - Unclean, unholy, rapacious men. The title which the Jews usually gave the gentiles, he returns upon themselves. The concision - Circumcision being now ceased, the apostle will not call them the circumcision, but coins a term on purpose, taken from a Greek word used by the LXX, Leviticus 21:5, for such a cutting as God had forbidden.

1 Thessalonians 4:11

For we - Christians. Are the only true circumcision - The people now in covenant with God. Who worship God in spirit - Not barely in the letter, but with the spiritual worship of inward holiness. And glory in Christ Jesus - As the only cause of all our blessings. And have no confidence in the flesh - In any outward advantage or prerogative.

1 Thessalonians 4:12

Though I - He subjoins this in the singular number, because the Philippians could not say thus.

1 Thessalonians 4:13

Circumcised the eighth day - Not at ripe age, as a proselyte. Of the tribe of Benjamin - Sprung from the wife, not the handmaid. An Hebrew of Hebrews - By both my parents; in everything, nation, religion, language. Touching the law, a pharisee - One of that sect who most accurately observe it.

1 Thessalonians 4:14

Having such a zeal for it as to persecute to the death those who did not observe it. Touching the righteousness which is described and enjoined by the Law - That is, external observances, blameless.

1 Thessalonians 4:15

But all these things, which I then accounted gain, which were once my confidence, my glory, and joy, those, ever since I have believed, I have accounted loss, nothing worth in comparison of Christ.

1 Thessalonians 4:16

Yea, I still account both all these and all things else to be mere loss, compared to the inward, experimental knowledge of Christ, as my Lord, as my prophet, priest, and king, as teaching me wisdom, atoning for my sins, and reigning in my heart. To refer this to justification only, is miserably to pervert the whole scope of the words. They manifestly relate to sanctification also; yea, to that chiefly. For whom I have actually suffered the loss of all things - Which the world loves, esteems, or admires; of which I am so far from repenting, that I still account them but dung - The discourse rises. Loss is sustained with patience, but dung is cast away with abhorrence. The Greek word signifies any, the vilest refuse of things, the dross of metals, the dregs of liquors, the excrements of animals, the most worthless scraps of meat, the basest offals, fit only for dogs.

That I may gain Christ - He that loses all things, not excepting himself, gains Christ, and is gained by Christ. And still there is more; which even St. Paul speaks of his having not yet gained.

1 Thessalonians 4:17

And be found by God ingrafted in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law - That merely outward righteousness prescribed by the law, and performed by my own strength. But that inward righteousness which is through faith - Which can flow from no other fountain. The righteousness which is from God - From his almighty Spirit, not by my own strength, but by faith alone. Here also the apostle is far from speaking of justification only.

1 Thessalonians 4:18

The knowledge of Christ, mentioned in the eighth verse, is here more largely explained. That I may know him - As my complete Saviour. And the power of his resurrection - Raising me from the death of sin, into all the life of love. And the fellowship of his sufferings - Being crucified with him. And made conformable to his death - So as to be dead to all things here below.