1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, The Rapture of the Saints

Are you confused about all the events to happen at the end of the world with Christ’s return? Join the crowd. I’ve written a book on it and still struggle at times. The Thessalonians were concerned and had questions, one of which, the most important, perhaps, was whether their dead would be resurrected sometime after Jesus returned. Paul takes this chance to instruct them about the Lord’s return.

^4:13 We don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, about those who are in the sleep of death, so that you don’t grieve like the rest of those who have no hope. ¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so also God will, through Jesus, bring with him those who sleep. ¹⁵ For this we say to you by a word of the Lord, that we who live and who remain alive till the Lord comes will not precede those sleeping in death. ¹⁶ Because the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with a voice of an archangel and with a trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will be raised to life first, ¹⁷ then we who remain alive will, together with them, be caught up in the clouds for a meeting with the Lord in the air, and so we will be in intimate union with the Lord always. ¹⁸ So then, encourage each other with these words.

What is the concern that the Thessalonians have about Christ’s return? Why does it matter that their fellow believers who have died (are “asleep”) might miss Jesus’ coming, and Paul has to affirm that they will be resurrected before those who are alive at Jesus’ return? We don’t know. But they are grieving like those who don’t have the hope of the resurrection.

So here is what Paul tells them:

1. Jesus’ resurrection is the certainty of our resurrection. We are in Jesus, so all that happens to him happens to us.
2. When Jesus returns, he will bring with him those who sleep, that is, those who have died. What is Jesus bringing with him? The bodies of those believers who died are in the grave, or burned to ashes, or decayed and part of the earth or ocean. The bodies of dead believers are not with Jesus in heaven, but their souls are. When Jesus returns, he will bring the souls of all who have died in him, bringing them back to join with their resurrected bodies.
3. The bodies of the dead in Christ will be resurrected first before the bodies of those who are alive when Jesus returns will be transformed into resurrected bodies. Paul hasn’t talked with the Thessalonians about what happens to those still alive when Jesus returns, but he has received a word from the Lord that those who remain, he and his readers if they are alive when Jesus comes, will be transformed after those who have died. In 1 Corinthians 15 he speaks of this as a mystery revealed to him, that “We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51,52). This action of being changed is described by Paul as a “catching up” or a “snatching,” and the word for this in the Latin translation of Scripture is “rapturo,” from which we have coined the word, the rapture.
4. Jesus coming will be with a shout (some suggest to call the dead awake), with the voice of an archangel (which one we are not told) and the trumpet of God. As Meyer notes about the Greek word used for “shout”: “denotes an imperative call, e.g. of a commander to his host to exhort them to the conflict or to warn them to decamp, of a driver to excite his horses to greater speed, of a huntsman to encourage his hounds to the pursuit of the prey, of sailors to excite themselves to vigorous rowing.” And the trumpet is a well known instrument of summoning (Numbers 10:2; Numbers 31:6, Joel 2:1) and often accompanied God’s manifestation to Israel (Exodus 19:16; Psalm 47:6; Zechariah 9:14; Isaiah 27:13). In 1 Corinthians 15:52 and Matthew 24:31, the trumpet is said to accompany Christ’s manifestation or coming. Will unbelievers hear this sound? Probably, though they will have little context to understand what it means. When, however, believers disappear and the graves of believers are emptied, they will certainly have reason to understand that Christ has done this.
5. Believers, resurrected and “changed,” will meet Jesus in the air, not go to heaven nor come down immediately to earth. The Zondervan llustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary of the New Testament notes: “The Greek word used here, apantēsis, which lies behind the English translation “to meet,” was a technical term in the ancient world. It referred to the meeting of a delegation of citizens from a city with an arriving dignitary in order to accord that visitor proper respect and honor by escorting him back to their city. Such processions of leading citizens going out to welcome and accompany a visiting ruler or official back to the city were common in Hellenistic times. The term apantēsis has this same sense in its two other New Testament occurrences: The wise virgins with their oil-filled lamps meet the bridegroom and escort him back to the banquet (Matt. 25:6); the Christians in Rome walk south to meet Paul on his prison journey and escort him back to the capital city (Acts 28:15). The picture that Paul presents, therefore, is of the church—consisting of both deceased (but now resurrected) and living Christians—meeting the descending Christ in the air and then escorting him back to earth.” But, as we will argue, this escorting back to earth is not immediate.
6. Our meeting with the Lord will be the beginning of the forever intimate relating to Christ that is the promise for all believers. Heaven is a place, but what makes it heavenly is being with the Triune God forever.

This is the basis for encouragement that Paul wants his readers find hope in, for their dead fellow believers and for themselves. It is “the blessed hope” (Titus 2:13).