CHRIST'S RETURN (continued) were buying and selling, “marrying and giving in marriage,” so just before His return men will be following their usual course of life when the dread event will overwhelm them “and they shall in no wise escape.” The unexpectedness of the coming of that day is illustrated by the behaviour of the unbelievers at the time when it comes. The subject of the verb is not given, but there is no real doubt as to who are meant. Unlike the Christians, the unredeemed world will have no thought of a cataclysmic end to the universe, and they will be rejoicing in a fancied security right up to the very moment of the disaster. "Peace," as we saw on 1:1, usually in the New Testament denotes the pros perity of the whole man, but in this context the emphasis is rather on the absence of alarms. It is a complete failure to reckon with the realities of the situation. So also with the word “safety.” It is an unusual word with a basic meaning like “that cannot be shaken” under the circumstances this is the height of folly and misapprehen sion. The startling nature of the disaster is further emphasized by the use of the unusual adjective rendered “sudden” (elsewhere in the New Testament it is found only in Luke 21:34). The startling nature of disaster it self is described as “destruction.” It is not completely clear what this means, but we are probably right in refusing to see in it anything approaching an nihilation. Rather, the term is to be understood as denoting loss of fellow ship with God, the loss of that life which is really life. Like the term “death” when applied to ultimate re ality, it is the opposite of life and not simply the cessation of existence. The word is used again in II Thess. 1:9, and there it clearly means banishment from the living presence of the Lord. This is its meaning here also. If the destruction in question is to be sudden, it is also inevitable. This is the point of the last words of the verse. Sometimes the figure of childbirth is
used to bring out the thought of the pain of birth (Isa. 13:8, Jer. 4:31, Matt. 24:8, Gal. 4:19). But here the thought is different. When the time has come, what is in the womb must come forth. The travail cannot be avoided, and so with the destruction of which the Apostle writes. It is written into the nature of things, and must inevitably come to pass. It will be completely impossible for men to escape, and Paul does not leave this to be inferred, but states it cate gorically. He employs the emphatic form of the negative (which, outside quotations, he uses four times only in all his epistles; see note on 4:15), and the compound form of the verb. It still needs emphasis that there are no other alternatives than life with the Lord or eternal loss. One or the other is inevi table. This return of Christ does have its solemn punitive phase of judgment upon the impenitent and the godless. For the believer it is the' time of de liverance. It is the day of his perfected salvation. For him the coming of Christ should not be a sudden and overwhelm ing surprise; certain signs are to be given, certain events to immediately precede. Of these Paul will write in his next epistle. Christians should be looking for Christ’s return and living lives of such sobriety and purity that the approach of the great day will give them no consternation, no feair: “Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief: for ye are all sons of light, and sons of the day.” “Darkness” here indicates “ignorance.” However, as the following sentences show, it has a further in timation of moral depravity. Christians are “sons of light.” They possess know ledge of Christ’s return, in striking con trast with the benighted state of the unbelieving world. Christians are “sons of the day,” particularly of the day of Christ’s return. For that day they are waiting, and in its dawning they will rejoice. Ryrie, “the day of the Lord will de lude and destroy. It will delude because men will be saying (the verb is in 22
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