Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
For if--confirmation of his statement, 1 Thessalonians 4:13, that the removal of ignorance as to the sleeping believers would remove undue grief respecting them. See 1 Thessalonians 4:13, "hope." Hence it appears our hope rests on our faith ("if we believe"). "As surely as we all believe that Christ died and rose again (the very doctrine specified as taught at Thessalonica, Acts 17:3), so also will God bring those laid to sleep by Jesus with Him (Jesus)." (So the order and balance of the members of the Greek sentence require us to translate). Believers are laid in sleep by Jesus, and so will be brought back from sleep with Jesus in His train when He comes. The disembodied souls are not here spoken of; the reference is to the sleeping bodies. The facts of Christ's experience are repeated in the believer's. He died and then rose: so believers shall die and then rise with Him. But in His case death is the term used, 1 Corinthians 15:3, 1 Corinthians 15:6, etc.; in theirs, sleep; because His death has taken for them the sting from death. The same Hand that shall raise them is that which laid them to sleep. "Laid to sleep by Jesus," answers to "dead in Christ" (1 Thessalonians 4:16).
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
Job 3:13
Isaiah 57:2
Zechariah 14:5
Matthew 27:52
John 11:11-16
Acts 7:60
2 Corinthians 5:8
2 Corinthians 5:8
1 Thessalonians 3:13
Revelation 20:4-5
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