For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
All men shall rise again, but let no one lose heart, and let not the just grieve at the common lot of rising again, since he awaits the chief fruit of his virtue. All indeed shall rise again, but, as says the apostle, “each in his own order.” The fruit of the divine mercy is common to all, but the order of merit differs. The day gives light to all, the sun warms all, the rain fertilizes the possessions of all with genial flowers. We are all born, and we shall all rise again. But each shall be in his proper state, whether of living or living again, for grace differs and the condition differs…. Therefore he is aroused that he may live, that he may be like to Paul, that he may be able to say, “For we that are alive shall not precede those that are asleep.” He speaks here not of the common manner of life and the breath which we all alike now enjoy but of the future merit of the resurrection.
And after this he says to them, “Lazarus, our friend, is sleeping; but I am going that I may awaken him from sleep.” He spoke the truth. To the sisters he was dead; to the Lord he was sleeping. He was dead to men who were unable to raise him up; for the Lord roused him from the tomb with such ease as you would not rouse a sleeping person from his bed. Therefore, as regards his own power he spoke of him as sleeping; for other dead men, too, are often referred to in the Scriptures as sleeping, as the apostle says, “But I will not have you ignorant, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you may not grieve, even as others who have no hope.” And so he, too, called them sleeping, because he foretold that they would rise again. Therefore, every dead man sleeps, both the good and the evil. –.
The apostle’s words show with the utmost clarity that there will be a resurrection of the dead when Christ comes; and assuredly the purpose of his coming will be to judge the living and the dead. But it is continually being asked whether those whom Christ is to find living in this world (represented in the apostle’s picture by himself and his contemporaries) are never to die at all, or whether in that precise moment of time when they are caught up in the clouds, along with those rising again, to meet Christ in the air, they will pass with marvelous speed through death to immortality. For it must not be said that it is impossible for them to die and come to life again in that space of time when they are being carried on high through the air…. The apostle himself seems to demand that we should take his words in this sense; that is, we should take it that those whom the Lord will find alive here will undergo death and receive immortality in that brief space of time. He confirms this inter...
Thus when we have to face the hard and cruel necessity of death, we are upheld by this consolation, that we shall shortly see again those whose absence we now mourn. For their end is not called death but a slumber and a falling asleep. Therefore the blessed apostle forbids us to feel sorrow concerning those who are asleep, telling us to believe that those whom we know to sleep now may hereafter be roused from their sleep. And when their slumber is ended, they may watch once more with the saints and sing with the angels, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men of good will.”
And do you say, How is it possible for one that is human not to mourn? … Do not say then, “he is perished and shall no more be”; for these are the words of unbelievers; but say, “He sleeps and will rise again,” [or] “He is gone a journey and will return with the King.” Who speaks like this? He that has Christ speaking in him. “For,” Paul says, “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again,” and revived, “even so God will bring with him those also who sleep in Jesus.” If then you seek your son, seek him where the King is, where the army of the angels is; not in the grave; not in the earth; lest while he is so highly exalted, you yourself remain groveling on the ground.
If, however, we are on the alert, these evils that came into life as a result of the sins of our forebears will in no way be able to harm us, going no further than the level of terminology, as they do. While it was the first formed human being who through the Fall brought on the punishment of death and was responsible for spending his life in pain and distress, and it was he who was the cause of servitude, Christ the Lord on the contrary came and permitted all these evils to occur only at the level of terminology, provided we are of the right mind. You see, death is now not death but only carries the name of death—or, rather, even the very name has been abolished. I mean, we no longer call it death, but sleeping and dreaming. Hence Christ himself said, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep.” And Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, said, “About those who are asleep, brethren, I don’t want you to be ignorant.”
Where are they who deny the Flesh? For if He did not assume Flesh, neither did He die. If He did not die, neither did He rise again. How then does he exhort us from these things to faith? Was he not then according to them a trifler and a deceiver? For if to die proceeds from sin, and Christ did not sin, how does he now encourage us? And now, concerning whom does he say, O men, for whom do ye mourn? For whom do ye sorrow? For sinners, or simply for those who die? And why does he say, Even as the rest, which have no hope? For whom do the rest mourn? So that to them all these things are vapid. The firstborn from the dead Colossians 1:18, he says, the first-fruits. Therefore there must also be others left. And see how here he introduces nothing from reasonings, because they were docile. For in writing to the Corinthians, he started many things also from reasonings, and then he added, You fool, that which you sow is not quickened. 1 Corinthians 15:36 For this is more authoritative, but it i...
Man, therefore, was made from different and opposite substances, as the world itself was made from light and darkness, from life and death; and he has admonished us that these two things contend against each other in man: so that if the soul, which has its origin from God, gains the mastery, it is immortal, and lives in perpetual light; if, on the other hand, the body shall overpower the soul, and subject it to its dominion, it is in everlasting darkness and death.
