Like a thief in the night

The phrase and the picture

“He will come like a thief in the night.” For many Christians that sentence settles the matter: thieves are quiet, they come when nobody is looking, they take what they want and are gone before anyone wakes. Surely, then, the coming of Jesus must be quiet and unnoticed, at least by the world. But the Bible uses the thief picture five times, and in every case it tells us what the comparison means. It never means silence. It means unexpectedness.

Paul’s explanation

Paul uses the phrase immediately after the loudest description of the second coming in the New Testament, which we read in the last chapter. He has just described the shout, the archangel’s voice and the trumpet of God. Then he writes:

But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.

Read what Paul says the thief comparison means. The day “comes as a thief” in that people are saying “Peace and safety!” and then “sudden destruction comes upon them”. The point is suddenness and surprise, not stealth. A thief in the night is a picture of an arrival that catches you unprepared. And for whom is it a surprise? For “them”, those in darkness. “But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.” The thief image is explicitly not about believers quietly disappearing. It is about unbelievers being caught off guard by a day they refused to expect.

Paul then adds the application: “Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6). The thief is a reason to stay awake. That is the whole meaning.

Peter’s explanation

Peter uses the same phrase, and he too tells us what happens on the day that comes like a thief:

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

The day comes “as a thief”, and in that day “the heavens will pass away with a great noise”. If the thief picture meant silence, Peter has contradicted himself in a single sentence. It does not. The day is unexpected by scoffers who say, “Where is the promise of His coming?” (2 Peter 3:4), and when it comes, it comes with a great noise. Thief means surprise; the day itself is anything but quiet.

Jesus’ explanation

Jesus Himself introduced the picture, and He explained it before anyone else could misunderstand it:

Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Look at the single point of comparison. “If the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come.” The thief illustrates one thing only: you do not know the hour. Jesus states the lesson twice, before and after the picture: “you do not know what hour”, “at an hour you do not expect”. Nothing about the thief’s quietness, nothing about the thief slipping away unseen. The comparison is about timing and watchfulness, and Jesus does not let it mean anything else.

The two uses in Revelation

In the letter to Sardis, a church that had a reputation for being alive but was dead, Jesus says: “Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you” (Revelation 3:3). Again the thief is paired with “you will not know what hour”, and again it is a warning to the unwatchful, not a promise to the watchful. And in the middle of the account of the last plagues, as the kings of the earth gather for the battle of the great day of God, a voice breaks in:

“Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.”

“Blessed is he who watches.” Five times the thief picture appears, and five times the lesson attached to it is the same: the hour is unknown, so watch. Not once is the lesson that the coming itself will be quiet.

What a thief actually does

It is worth noticing, too, what the thief picture does not say even on its own terms. A thief does not take the master of the house; he takes the master’s goods. If anything, the thief picture fits the world being plundered of its false security, not the church being quietly removed. But the biblical writers do not press the picture that far, and neither should we. They use it for one thing. We should let them.

The sum of it

When Scripture says that Jesus will come as a thief, it is answering the question when, and the answer is: when you are not expecting it, so expect it always. When Scripture describes how Jesus will come, it answers with lightning, clouds, a shout, a trumpet and every eye seeing Him. The two sets of texts do not compete. A thief-like day can also be a world-shaking day; Peter puts both in one sentence. The only way to make “thief” mean “secret” is to ignore every explanation the Bible gives of its own comparison.