The Hope of the Thessalonians | Understanding the Rapture

I remember speaking to churches in the Ukraine in 1995 and tried to give them hope of a future with Christ. Right away, the people responded favorably, because they want to know that we will all be winning in the end! The fact that this is a topic at all points to the early nature of this letter and may be the first epistle of the New Testament; or even the first book written! John MacArthur writes:

When Paul penned this epistle, the Thessalonians had been in Christ only for a few months. The apostle had taught them about end-time events, such as Christ’s return to gather believers to Himself (e.g., 1:9–10; 2:19; 3:13). They also knew about the Day of the Lord (5:1–3), a time of coming judgment on the ungodly. 

But the Thessalonian believers were confused about some things. First, they thought they had missed the Rapture. Their persecution confused them into thinking there were in the Day of the Lord (end of the tribulation period). Second, false teachers were confusing them. 2 Thessalonians 2:2, “[Do] not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.” But the persecution they were experiencing was not that associated with the Tribulation or the Day of the Lord. It was merely the persecution that all believers can expect (2 Tim 3:12) and that Paul had warned the Thessalonians about (3:3–4). Once again, John MacArthur writes:

The Thessalonians’ fears that they were in the Day of the Lord and thus had missed the Rapture imply that the Rapture precedes the Tribulation. If the Thessalonians knew that the Rapture came at the end of the Tribulation, persecution would not have caused them to fear they had missed it. Instead, that persecution would have been a cause for joy, not concern. If the Day of the Lord had arrived, and the Rapture was after the Tribulation, then that blessed event would have been drawing near.

Third, the Thessalonians were concerned about the believers who had died. What was going to happen to them. Would they miss the rapture? Would they be second class citizens in heaven? John MacArthur again writes:

The Thessalonians’ fear that their fellow believers who had died might miss the Rapture also implies that they believed in a pretribulational Rapture. If the Rapture precedes the Tribulation, they might have wondered when believers who died would receive their resurrection bodies. But there would have been no such confusion if the Rapture follows the Tribulation; all believers would then receive their resurrection bodies at the same time. Further, if they had been taught that they would go through the Tribulation, they would not have grieved for those who died, but rather would have been glad to see them spared from that horrible time.

We are exhorted to please God by progressing from justification to sanctification as we live out our faith, love and hope in Christ. Remember that Paul changes the order of the familiar “faith, hope and love” in 1 Corinthians 13, because the Corinthians were lacking in love toward one another; so Paul emphasized love to them. But clearly the Thessalonians were experiencing persecution, and in times of persecution we need hope. That is why Paul has the order “faith, love, and hope.”

A Cognizant Hope  1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

First Paul says that the Thessalonians can know the Truth. In 1 Thes 4:13 Now we do not want you to be not knowledgable, brothers, concerning those who are sleeping in order that you might not grieve just as also those remaining who have no hope.

Literally he writes, “We do not want you ignorant.” This was a well-known formula that was used in letters to introduce new material (e.g., travel plans; cf. Rom 1:10; 15:32) or an elaboration on familiar material (cf. 1 Cor 10:1; 12:1; 2 Cor 1:8). Paul uses it concerning the godly dead. The Thessalonians wanted to know what was going to happen to those who died before the rapture. This was causing them grief and confusion. To alleviate their grief, Paul needed to set them straight on end time events. They needed to know the facts so that their hope in Christ would cause them to persevere!

Also understand that this was a word from the Lord, not a word from Paul! The issue is not those alive at Christ’s coming, but those believers who have died. Will they be a part of the rapture? We can’t know if the problem at Corinth was the same as the Thessalonian believers, or if it was simply a Greek problem because of mythological teachings.  1 Cor 15:12-22:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 

 “Asleep” is the New Testament way to speak of believers who have died and are in spirit with the Lord. Non-believers are dead; but believers are only “asleep.” The idea previews our resurrection. Death is always treated as a non-finality for the believer. It is probably from the “optimistic” nuance of κοιμᾶσθαι that the Jewish and Christian term κοιμητήριον, “cemetery,” was derived.

 is a present tense participle (v. 13) and refers to those who are continually falling asleep as a regular course of life in the church. They had grown increasingly concerned as their fellow believers continued to die. Also for the believer, “sleep” refers to the death of the body, never soul sleep. That is the false teaching that the souls of all dead are in a state of unconscious existence in the afterlife. In Luke 16:19-31, the rich man dies and goes to immediate punishment while Lazarus goes to Heaven. 2 Cor 5:8 “absent from the body, at home with the Lord” and Phil 1:23 when Paul desired to depart and be with Christ as a better condition than this life.

Paul uses it concerning grief in the next part of the verse. Paul doesn’t want them to grieve like those who have no hope. “Don’t you Christians grieve like unbelievers!” But there is grief for believers. Jesus wept over Lazarus (John 11:33, 35) and Paul said to weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15). Eph 2:12 unbelievers “Having no hope and without God in the world.” Unbelievers have no hope for the future! James E. Frame writes:

“Irene to Taonnōphris and Philo, good comfort. I was as sorry (ἐλυπήθη) and wept over the departed one as I wept for Didymas. And all things whatsoever were fitting, I did, and all mine, Epaphroditus and Thermuthion and Philion and Apollonius and Plantas. But, nevertheless, against such things one can do nothing. Therefore comfort ye one another (παρηγορεῖτε οὖν ἑαυτού)”; see Deiss. Light, 164; and cf. Mill. Papyri, 96, and Coffin, Creed of Jesus, 1907, 114–138. With this average pagan view may be contrasted the following from a contemporary Christian apologist, Aristides (noted by Dob.): “And if any righteous man among them passes from the world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God; and they escort the body as if he were setting out from one place to another near” (translation of D. M. Kay in Ante-Nicene Fathers, IX, 277). 

The point is believers have hope. Christians do not experience the hopeless grief of nonbelievers. Christians never say a final farewell to each other. There will be a “gathering together [of all believers] to Him” (2 Thess. 2:1). Partings in this life are only temporary.

Second Paul gives the key to the believer’s hope. In 1 Thes 4:14 literally, For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in this manner also, God, those sleeping, through Jesus, will bring with Him. Paul gives the Thessalonians two reasons that believers should not grieve like the world without hope grieves. The first reason is the resurrection of Jesus. The return of Jesus is based upon His death, resurrection and revelation. “For if (since)” (the NIV fails to translate these words and so loses Paul’s argument!) “For if Jesus died and rose again” appears to be a creedal formula that Paul also uses in 1 Cor 15. This was probably publicly stated by the church like some churches say the Apostles’ Creed today. This is not just a private belief of Paul, but the belief of the whole church! That adds weight to his argument.

Yet even more striking is the presence of the verb anistēmi (to rise), which Paul uses only here and in verse 16 (perhaps under the influence of v. 14) and in quotations from the Old Testament (Rom 15:12; 1 Cor 10:7) and other sources (Eph 5:14). Paul’s preferred verb by far when referring to the resurrection is  (thirty-seven times).

Paul sums up the atoning work of Christ as the foundation for the church’s ingathering. His death satisfied the righteous and holy demands of a just God by becoming sin (2 Cor 5:21) and making full payment for all the sins of those who would believe. 1 Peter 2:24 “he bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” When believers die, their conscious being goes into the presence of the Lord while their body “sleeps” until the resurrection.

In essence, death has been changed to sleep by the work of Jesus Christ. It is an essential metaphor in which the whole concept of the death that is in Adam has been transformed into the life/sleep that is in Jesus Christ. The Lord made “sleep” the name for death in thelife of the church. The resurrection proves that Jesus satisfied God’s holy demands (Rom 3:26; 4:25). He conquered sin, death, and the grave and became the basis of resurrection life for every believer. I. Howard Marshall writes: 

The death of believers does not take place apart from Jesus, and hence Paul can conclude that God will raise them up and bring them into the presence of Jesus at the parousia. God will treat those who died trusting in Jesus in the same way He treated Jesus Himself, namely by resurrecting them. 

Paul’s second reason is the resurrection of Believers. “Even so” links the believers’ resurrections to the resurrection of Christ. John 14:19 “Because I live, you will live also” (1 Cor 6:14; 15:23; 2 Cor 4:14). “Through Jesus” is a statement of agency and “with him” (i.e., Jesus) is a statement of association. The resurrection of Christ and all believers is inextricably and eternally linked. All believers will be brought back with Christ in their glorified bodies, whether dead or alive (1 Cor 15:18). It is Jesus’ resurrection that validates the gospel and guarantees the believers’ resurrection. John MacArthur writes:

Commenting on the pointlessness of a posttribulational Rapture, Thomas R. Edgar asks,

What can be the purpose for keeping a remnant alive through the tribulation so that some of the church survive and then take them out of their situation and make them the same as those who did not survive? Why keep them for this? [The] explanation that they provide an escort for Jesus does not hold up. Raptured living saints will be exactly the same as resurrected dead saints. Why cannot the dead believers fulfill this purpose? Why keep a remnant alive [through the Tribulation], then Rapture them and accomplish no more than by letting them die? There is no purpose or accomplishment in [such] a Rapture.…

With all the saints of all the ages past and the armies [of angels] in heaven available as escorts and the fact that [raptured] saints provide no different escort than if they had been killed, why permit the church to suffer immensely, most believers [to] be killed, and spare a few for a Rapture which has no apparent purpose, immediately before the [Tribulation] period ends?… Is this the promise? You will suffer, be killed, but I will keep a few alive, and take them out just before the good times come. Such reasoning, of course, calls for some explanation of the apparent lack of purpose for a posttribulational Rapture of any sort.

We can note the following:

(1) An unusual, portentous, one-time event such as the Rapture must have a specific purpose. God has purposes for his actions. This purpose must be one that can be accomplished only by such an unusual event as a Rapture of living saints.

(2) This purpose must agree with God’s general principles of operation.

(3) There is little or no apparent reason to Rapture believers when the Lord returns and just prior to setting up the long-awaited kingdom with all of its joyful prospects.

(4) There is good reason to deliver all who are already believers from the tribulation, where they would be special targets of persecution.

(5) To deliver from a period of universal trial and physical destruction such as the tribulation requires a removal from the earth by death or Rapture. Death is not appropriate as a promise in Rev. 3:10.

(6) Deliverance from the tribulation before it starts agrees with God’s previous dealings with Noah and Lot and is directly stated as a principle of God’s action toward believers in 2 Pet. 2:9. (“Robert H. Gundry and Revelation 3:10,” Grace Theological Journal 3 [Spring 1982], 43–44)

John MacArthur continues:

The view that the raptured saints return to earth with Christ also contradicts John 14:1–3 . . .

The phrases “My Father’s house” and “where I am” clearly refer to heaven (cf. John 7:34). Jesus promised to take believers back to heaven with Him when He returns to gather His people. There has to be a time interval, then, between Christ’s return to gather His people (the Rapture) and His return to earth to establish the millennial kingdom (the Second Coming). During that interval between the Rapture and the Second Coming, the believers’ judgment takes place (1 Cor. 3:11–15; 2 Cor. 5:10); a posttribulational Rapture would leave no time for that event.

A Confident Hope  1 Thessalonians 4:15-17

God’s promise gives a confident hope. In 1 Thes 4:15 For this to you we declare by a word of the Lord, that we ourselves who are alive who remain into the Coming (parousian) of the Lord will not ever proceed those who have been sleeping. Regarding “a word of the Lord” John MacArthur records Robert L. Thomas writings: 

Similarities between this passage in 1 Thessalonians and the gospel accounts include a trumpet (Matt. 24:31), a resurrection (John 11:25, 26), and a gathering of the elect (Matt. 24:31).… Yet dissimilarities between it and the canonical sayings of Christ far outweigh the resemblances.… Some of the differences between Matthew 24:30, 31 and 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 are as follows: (1) In Matthew the Son of Man is coming on the clouds, … in 1 Thessalonians ascending believers are in them. (2) In the former the angels gather, in the latter the Son does so personally. (3) In the former nothing is said about resurrection, while in the latter this is the main theme. (4) Matthew records nothing about the order of ascent, which is the principal lesson in Thessalonians. (“1, 2 Thessalonians,” in Frank E. Gaebelein, ed. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 11 [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979], 276–77)

John MacArthur continues:

Nor is it likely that Paul is referring to a saying of Jesus not recorded in the Gospels (cf. Acts 20:35); he does not state or imply that he is directly quoting Christ’s words. Further, in 1 Corinthians 15:51 Paul referred to the Rapture as a mystery; that is, a truth formerly hidden but now revealed. That indicates that Jesus did not disclose the details of the Rapture during His earthly ministry. (He referred to the Rapture in John 14:1–3 in a general, nonspecific sense.) Paul’s teaching on the Rapture was new revelation, possibly given by God through a prophet (such as Agabus; Acts 21:11) but more likely directly to Paul himself. The Thessalonians had apparently been informed about the Day of the Lord judgment (5:1–2), but not about the preceding event—the Rapture of the church—until the Holy Spirit through Paul revealed it to them. This was new revelation, unveiled mystery.

Paul says the church (dead and alive) will participate in the rapture. “We who are alive and remain.” Paul may or may not have believed the Lord would return in his lifetime. He hoped! But he was alive; so he couldn’t foresee that he was more than 1989 years away from a rapture that still hasn’t occurred. What believer doesn’t hope that the rapture will happen in their lifetime? In any case, that is the reason for the living to hope for the imminent anticipation and expectation of the rapture. Jesus says: Matthew 24:36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone,” and Acts 1:7 “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority.” Paul writes: Rom 13:11 Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.

God’s plan gives a confident hope. In 1 Thes 4:16-17. First God’s plan is given for the dead in Christ 1 Thes 4:16 Because the Lord Himself in a command by a voice of the Archangel and in a trumpet of God, will descend from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Weima takes this as apocalyptic language that is metaphorical and cannot be taken literally, but literarily. He then plants his eschatology on the text instead of allowing the text to speak for itself. Very disappointing work from a great scholar! Other than that, his commentaries on 1 and 2 Thessalonians is the best you can find anywhere.

The Lord Himself will return for His church, and not send angels in contrast to the gathering of the elect that takes place at the second coming (Mark 13:26-27). Jesus will descend from Heaven where He has been seated at the right hand of God the Father (Heb 1:3), standing at the death of Stephen (Acts 7:56) and is preparing a place for us (John 14). It will be noisy! Yet in the twinkling of an eye!

Jesus will descend with a “shout” ( a command. This is the only place in the New Testament this word occurs, but was commonly used in secular Greek writings. This word has, as Morris writes, “Always there is the ring of authority and the note of urgency.” It envisions a commander of an army calling his troops to fall in. Just as Jesus cried out “Lazarus, Come forth!” (John 11:43); so he will command the dead and living believers to “Come forth!” Jesus proves that Satan, as the Prince of the power of the air is no match for Jesus Christ our Lord; as Jesus infringes upon Satan’s territory to take His church, His bride, back to heaven.

I am intrigued by the movie entitled Ben Hurr. Ben Hurr was found guilty of attempted murder when a lose tile fell from his roof and struck the newly appointed governor from Rome. He was committed to the rowing of a ship as a condemned slave of Rome. When the new commander of the battleship saw Hurr’s steely glare, he tried to break him. He had his cadence drummer start off at a regular speed. Then the commander ordered, “Battle speed!” Then “Attack Speed!” And finally, “Ramming speed!” All the while you have this “dum dum dum de dum dum” ringing in your ears. Jesus will give the shout of command like “Ramming speed!” at the rapture and take from Satan’s realm those who are His!

The second of the three audible sounds is the voice of the archangel. Jude 9 is the only other passage in Scripture that mentions an archangel who’s named Michael. The third sound is the Sound of the trumpet of God (1 Cor 15:52). In the Old Testament the trumpet was used to assemble God’s people (Exod 19:16-19)  and to signal His deliverance of them (Zech 1:16; 9:14-16).

At the sound of these three things, the dead in Christ will rise first. It is a call of resurrection and glorifying power. Contrary to what the Thessalonians might have believed, the dead are not inferior, but will be the first to be raptured! Note that we are speaking of deceased believers only! 1 John 3:2 We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. Death cannot separate believers from Christ (Rom 8:38).

Also at the sounds of these three, the Living in Christ will be glorified and caught up with the dead believers in 4:17a-b Then we who are alive who are remaining at the same time with them will be caught up in clouds into a meeting of the Lord into the air. “We who are alive and remain.” Paul was still alive and included himself in with the living. He began to change his style in later epistles, esp. those to Timothy from prison. 

Caught up () is a strong, irresistible, even violent act. This word is used in John 10:28-29 of the impossibility of anyone snatching believers out of the hands of Jesus Christ or God the Father. This would be a Satanic evil rapture to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ our Lord. The Latin Vulgate uses “rapturo” from which we get “rapture.” To say, that “rapture” is not found in the Bible is a misnomer, for it is in Latin! Warren Weirsbe writes: 

I once heard the Greek scholar, Dr. Kenneth S. Wuest, preach on this passage and explain the various meanings of the Greek word that is translated “caught up” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Each of these meanings adds a special truth to the doctrine of the Lord’s return.

 “To catch away speedily.” This is the translation in Acts 8:39, where the Spirit “caught away Philip” after he had led the Ethiopian to Christ. When the Lord returns in the air, we who are alive will be caught away quickly, in the twinkling of an eye. This means we should live each moment in the expectation of our Lord’s return, lest He come and find us out of His will (1 John 3:1–3).

“To seize by force.” See John 6:15. Does this suggest that Satan and his armies will try to keep us from leaving the earth? I trust it does not suggest that some of the saints will be so attached to the world that they must literally be dragged away. Like Lot being delivered from Sodom, they will be scarcely saved (Gen. 19:16).

“To claim for one’s own self.” This views the Rapture from our Lord’s point of view as He comes to claim His bride.

“To move to a new place.” Paul used this word when he described his visit to heaven (2 Cor. 12:1–4). Jesus Christ has gone to prepare a home for us (John 14:1–6), and when He comes, He will take us to that glorious place. We are pilgrims and strangers in this world. Our true citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20–21).

“To rescue from danger.” See Acts 23:10. This suggests that the church will be taken home before the time of Tribulation that will come to the world from God. First Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9 seem to state this clearly.

MacArthur adds:

In Matthew 11:12 it describes the taking of the kingdom of heaven by force. In John 10:12 it describes a wolf snatching sheep; in John 10:28–29 it speaks of the impossibility of anyone’s snatching believers out of the hands of Jesus Christ and God the Father; in Acts 8:39 it speaks of Philip’s being snatched away from the Ethiopian eunuch; and in 2 Corinthians 12:2, 4 it describes Paul’s being caught up into the third heaven. It is when living believers are caught up that they are transformed and receive their glorified bodies (Phil. 3:21). “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” believers “will be changed” (1 Cor. 15:52), rescued from the grasp of Satan, the fallen flesh, the evil world system, and the coming wrath of God.

There is no mention of judgment in the rapture texts. But the texts concerning the second coming of Christ are all about judgment. The rapture is not a time of judgment. The Day of the Lord is a time of great judgment, in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. The fact that this catching up is not a time of judgment, distinguishes the rapture from all other eschatological texts.

John MacArthur makes a strong case for a pretribulational rapture in his commentary on 1 Thessalonians:

First, the earthly kingdom of Christ promised in Revelation 6–18 does not mention the church as being on earth. Because Revelation 1–3 uses the Greek word for church nineteen times, one would reasonably assume that if the church were on earth rather than in heaven in chapters 6–18, they would use “church” with similar frequency, but such is not the case. Therefore, one can assume that the church is not present on the earth during the period of tribulation described in Revelation 6–18 and that therefore the Lord has removed it from the earth and relocated it to heaven by means of the Rapture.

Second, Revelation 19 does not mention a Rapture even though that is where a posttribulational Rapture (if true) would logically occur. Thus, one can conclude that the Rapture will have already occurred.

Third, a posttribulational Rapture renders the Rapture concept itself inconsequential. If God preserves the church during the Tribulation, as posttribulationists assert, then why have a Rapture at all? It makes no sense to Rapture believers from earth to heaven for no apparent purpose other than to return them immediately with Christ to earth. Further, a posttribulational Rapture makes the unique separation of the sheep (believers) from the goats (unbelievers) at the return of Christ in judgment redundant because a posttribulational Rapture would have already accomplished that.

Fourth, if God raptures and glorifies all believers just prior to the inauguration of the millennial kingdom (as a posttribulational Rapture demands), no one would be left to populate and propagate the earthly kingdom of Christ promised to Israel. It is not within the Lord’s plan and purpose to use glorified individuals to propagate the earth during the Millennium. Therefore, the Rapture needs to occur earlier so that after God has raptured all believers, He can save more souls—including Israel’s remnant—during the seven-year Tribulation. Those people can then enter the millennial kingdom in earthly form. The most reasonable possibility for this scenario is the pretribulational Rapture.

Fifth, the New Testament does not warn of an impending tribulation, such as is experienced during Daniel’s seventieth week, for church-age believers. It does warn of error and false prophets (Acts 20:29–30; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 4:1–3), against ungodly living (Eph. 4:25–5:7; 1 Thess. 4:3–8; Heb. 12:1), and of present tribulation (1 Thess. 2:14–16; 2 Thess. 1:4; all of 2 Peter). Thus it is incongruous that the New Testament would be silent concerning such a traumatic change as Daniel’s seventieth week if posttribulationism were true.

Sixth, Paul’s instructions here to the Thessalonians demand a pretribulational Rapture because, if Paul were teaching them posttribulationism, one would expect them to rejoice that loved ones were home with the Lord and spared the horrors of the Tribulation. But, in actuality, the Thessalonians grieved. In addition, with a posttribulational teaching one would expect them to sorrow over their own impending trial and inquire about their future doom; however, they expressed no such dread or questioning. Further, one might expect Paul to instruct and exhort them concerning such a supreme test as the Tribulation, but Paul wrote only about the hope of the Rapture.

Seventh, the sequence of events at Christ’s coming following the Tribulation demands a pretribulational Rapture. A comparing and contrasting of Rapture passages with Second Coming passages yields strong indicators that the Rapture could not be posttribulational. For example: (a) at the Rapture, Christ gathers His own (vv. 16–17 of the present passage), but at the Second Coming, angels gather the elect (Matt. 24:31); (b) at the Rapture, resurrection is prominent (vv. 15–16 of the present passage), but regarding the Second Coming, Scripture does not mention the resurrection; (c) at the Rapture, Christ comes to reward believers (v. 17 of the present passage), but at the Second Coming, Christ comes to judge the earth (Matt. 25:31–46); (d) at the Rapture, the Lord snatches away true believers from the earth (vv. 15–17 of the present passage), but at the Second Coming, He takes away unbelievers (Matt. 24:37–41); (e) at the Rapture, unbelievers remain on the earth, whereas at the Second Coming, believers remain on the earth; (f) concerning the Rapture, Scripture does not mention the establishment of Christ’s kingdom, but at His second coming, Christ sets up His kingdom; and (g) at the Rapture, believers will receive glorified bodies, whereas at the Second Coming, no one will receive glorified bodies.

Eighth, certain of Jesus’ teachings demand a pretribulational Rapture. For instance, the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matt. 13:24–30) portrays the reapers (angels) removing the tares (unbelievers) from among the wheat (believers) in order to judge the tares, which demonstrates that at the Second Coming, the Lord has unbelievers removed from among believers. However, at the Rapture, He takes believers from among unbelievers. This is also true in the parable of the dragnet (Matt. 13:47–50) and in the discussion of the days of Noah and the description of the nations’ judgment, both in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24–25).

Ninth, Revelation 3:10 teaches that the Lord will remove the church prior to the Tribulation. In the Greek, the phrase “I also will keep you from” can mean nothing other than “I will prevent you from entering into.” Jesus Christ will honor the church by preventing it from entering the hour of testing, namely Daniel’s seventieth week, which is about to come upon the entire world. Only a pretribulational Rapture can explain how this will happen.

A Comforting Hope  1 Thessalonians 4:17c-18  

God’s Person gives the believer a comforting hope. In 1 Thes 4:17c And so always with the Lord we will be! There is eternal security of the believer in the church age. The Thessalonians thought death got in the way of a believer’s security, rewards, rapture, etc. Paul assures them that it does not! 

Rom 8:38-39:

 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In John 10:28-30 Jesus states:

“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

God’s purpose gives the believer a comforting hope. In 1 Thes  4:18 Therefore comfort one another in these words. Paul’s goal in teaching the Thessalonians about the Rapture was to comfort them. “Comfort” is  meaning “to exhort, appeal, comfort.” The noun refers to the Holy Spirit as the “Comforter!” The church is to find mutual comfort “in these words.” The God of all comfort (2 Cor 1:3) gives comfort through the revelation of His return.  God’s Word gives comfort because the God of all Comfort writes it.

At that monumental event, the dead in Christ will be raised, join by the living saints in experiencing a complete transformation of body, and be with our Lord Jesus Christ forever. Therefore there was no need for the Thessalonians to grieve or sorrow over their fellow believers who had died. No wonder Paul calls the return of Christ “the blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). Christ in you, the hope of glory! (Col 1:27b). Warren Weirsbe writes on meeting Christ:

It will be a glorious meeting, because we shall have glorified bodies. When He was here on earth, Jesus prayed that we might one day see His glory and share in it (John 17:22–24). The suffering that we endure today will be transformed into glory when He returns (Rom. 8:17–19; 2 Cor. 4:17–18).

It will be an everlasting meeting, for we shall be “forever with the Lord.” This was His promise: “I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:3). The goal of redemption is not just to rescue us from judgment, but to relate us to Christ.

Our meeting with the Lord will also be a time of reckoning. This is called “the Judgment Seat of Christ” (Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10). The Greek word bema, which is translated “judgment seat,” referred to the place where the Olympic judges awarded crowns to the winners. Our works will be judged and rewards will be given (1 Cor. 3:8–15).

As I get older and contemplate the Lord’s rapture in my lifetime or my death, whichever may come first, I find myself brought to an exhilaration beyond words. To be in the presence of the Lord, either in death or the rapture, is the desire of my heart. Yet I remain to help Christ’s church. Whenever God chooses to take me home, like Paul, my desire to be with the Lord is “great gain.” Even so, come Lord Jesus!