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1 Thessalonians 5:1
Comments
First of all we note that the return of Christ is sudden and unexpected. These things had already been taught to the Thessalonians. Just about a year before, the apostle and Silas and Timothy had been the evangelists who brought the gospel to Thessalonica, and the church was formed, and they taught them then about the return of Christ. But they taught them very carefully that of the day or the hour will no man would know, that was a secret with God. ‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons.’ Those are the words of Christ, recorded in the book of Acts 1.7, before his ascension, the very words that the apostle Paul uses here. The Greek word translated ‘times’ refers literally to that, the times or the dates, if you like. There are times, there are seasons. They are the same thing. There will be a number of them through the history of the world before Christ comes.Now all these terms mean is that we cannot know the dates beforehand. We can know them afterwards, obviously, but not beforehand. Just as we speak of seasons with summer and winter and spring and autumn and so on, so the Greek word translated ‘seasons’ describes the prevailing character, and ‘times’ describes the dates. We will not know them before they unfold. Hints, yes; believers have hints in the Scripture, but it is impossible to derive any solid information about the return of Christ in terms of when it will happen. But as far as the unbelieving world is concerned, it will be totally sudden and unexpected. To them it is a myth, a fiction, something unreal, something you cannot contemplate or imagine, a day when suddenly the very atmosphere changes, and for the unbeliever it is a day of terror and alarm. It is a day of impending judgement and end.
Application
Questions
This kind of prophecy is unique to the Word of God. There is no ancient human literature ever said anything like this. That the history of mankind would go on and would be a history that could be viewed as various clear seasons or periods of time. That is how we study history very often today. We think of the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages. We think of this period and that period. We think of the Victorian era. We think we can analyse history in socio-economic terms, or geographical terms, or in spiritual terms – the prevailing attitude of people to God. We think of the modern age and the post-modern age, and of course the last great apostasy, the era of unbelief which we seem to be into now.
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Introduction