In my last four posts, I have laid the groundwork for a revised understanding of Paul’s “rapture passage” (1 Thess 4:13–5:11), especially his statements about the dead rising and the living being “caught up.” He says,
The dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thess 4:16–17)
In my last post, I offered a tentative explanation of these statements: they are Paul’s picturesque way of describing what would happen on the day of the Lord in his near future (cf. 1 Thess 5:2; 2 Thess 2:1–2). It is equivalent to Jesus’ teaching in the Olivet Discourse in the following passage:
Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send His angels, and gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven. (Mark 13:26–27)
Neither Jesus nor Paul were thinking of the bodily resurrection. Both were thinking of something that would happen in their generation, in the “last days” of the Mosaic age.
One impediment to someone accepting my view is Paul’s use of the Greek word parousia in this passage: “We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming (Gk. parousia) will certainly have no advantage over those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thess 4:15 HCSB). The existing prophetic systems assume that the parousia is Jesus’ “coming” as a point-in-time action in our future. This assumption limits the possibilities for what Paul meant: the dead “rising” and the living being “caught up” must, in this case, refer to the bodily resurrection (or the “rapture”).
I have shown elsewhere1 that this is a fallacious assumption: the primary definition of parousia is “presence.” Jesus and the apostles use this word to signify the Lord’s presence with his people during the soon-coming (to them) messianic age. This divine presence would be one of the fundamental characteristics of the new covenant age (cf. Jer 31:31–34; Heb 8:8–12; 10:16–16). God would dwell with his people in the “age about to come” (e.g., Heb 6:5 Wuest2); they would enjoy his presence in an unprecedented way.
In this post, I want to make an argument from silence: when Paul elsewhere speaks of events in his near future as being in the parousia (presence) of Christ, he never explicitly mentions the resurrection (or rapture). If he is doing so in the “rapture passage,” it is an exception.
I realize this argument, by itself, cannot be conclusive. As J. B. Lightfoot says, “An argument from silence is always of questionable force. In order to be valid, it ought to apply to all these epistles alike.”3 Still, that the apostles, following Jesus, elsewhere never say the resurrection in the parousia is in their near future suggests Paul is not doing so in his “rapture passage” either.
Because of space considerations, I will limit my discussion to the six times Paul uses parousia in his two brief letters to the Thessalonians. I want to show that, in the five instances outside the “rapture passage,” he does not refer to the bodily resurrection. Also, I want to show that he associates the parousia with the same themes Jesus did in the Olivet Discourse.
Before doing this, I want to stress that I affirm a bodily resurrection and general judgment at the end of the messianic age. The Lord Jesus—in his glorified physical body—will come to be with his saints, who will also then have their glorified physical bodies. I maintain that the resurrection is the last stage of the messianic-age gathering that Paul has in mind in the “rapture passage.” However, in this passage, he is emphasizing the beginning of the messianic age, not its end. (I have discussed the orientation from which Paul is writing in my book4 and this blog.5)
Now for the parousia passages in Thessalonians. In the first passage, the Apostle asks, “What is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus [in his presence (Gk. parousia)6]? Is it not you?” (1 Thess 2:19 ESV). This is another example of Paul’s thought flowing from Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. There, the Lord expressed the same desire for his disciples: “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy … to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36). His disciples would stand in his presence when he returned in his generation (Luke 21:32). Paul has the same thing in view: life in the soon-coming messianic (kingdom) age. He is not thinking about the physical resurrection at the end of the messianic age.
In the second parousia passage, Paul again emphasizes holiness in the presence of Christ:
May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father [in the presence (Gk. parousia)] of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. (1 Thess 3:12–13)
Here, the Apostle adds an important element from Jesus’ Olivet Discourse: the gathered elect. The Thessalonians would live in the presence of the Lord and “all His saints.” Jesus had said he would gather the elect from heaven and earth at his return in that generation (Mark 13:27, 30). Paul was encouraging the Thessalonians to live lives worthy of their presence in the messianic age.
The writer of Hebrews appeals to his readers on the same basis: Christians should live holy lives because they
have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Heb 12:22–24)
The Hebrews writer associates this state of affairs with the coming of Christ and his kingdom in his immediate future (cf. Heb 10:37; 12:27–28). And, he does not mention the resurrection of the body in this context.
In the third parousia passage in Thessalonians, Paul says, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless [in the presence (Gk. parousia)] of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 5:23). Paul believed some of the Thessalonians would live to see the day of the Lord that would fully inaugurate the messianic age; he did not think they would live until the resurrection at the end of that age.
In the fourth parousia passage, Paul again links Christ’s coming in his generation to his gathering of the elect:
We also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, brethren, concerning [the presence (Gk. parousia)] of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together (Gk. episunagōgē) to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled. (2 Thess 1:11–2:2)
Here, the apostle bases his exhortation on the same two truths as before: the soon-coming parousia (presence) of Christ and his gathering of the elect in the messianic age. That Paul fears a letter might persuade the Thessalonians that the “day of Christ had come” (2 Thess 2:2) shows he is not thinking about the bodily resurrection—no one would believe that event had occurred based on the contents of a letter! No, Paul is speaking about life in the soon-coming kingdom and the events Jesus said would happen before it arrived: the temple would fall and the Son of Man would send his angels to “gather together (Gk. episunagō) His elect” (Matt 24:31). Some of the Thessalonians would live to see these events.
In the fifth parousia passage, Paul continues describing this soon-coming state of affairs: “Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with [the manifestation of his presence (Gk. parousia)]” (2 Thess 2:8). Without providing a detailed explanation, I will observe that Paul has already told the Thessalonians that the destruction of apostate Israel—whom I take to be the lawless one—loomed in their near future (1 Thess 2:16). He could say this because Jesus had associated his parousia with this judgment. Jesus had also said that, immediately after this judgment, he would gather the elect into the kingdom (cf. Matt 24:29–31; Mark 13:24–27; Luke 21:23).
This brings us back to the only remaining parousia passage in Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians: the “rapture passage” of our current study. And, once more, Paul links the soon-coming parousia (presence) of Christ with events Jesus described in the Olivet Discourse, as I showed in a previous post (here). I now base my point in this post on the following summary: (1) Paul, following the Lord’s example, nowhere else associates the resurrection with events in his immediate future. (2) Paul, as did the Lord, elsewhere associates the parousia with the gathering of the elect in the messianic age. (3) Paul, like Jesus, wants Christians to walk worthy of life in the presence of Jesus and his gathered saints. And, (4) Paul and Jesus place all these things in their generation.
So, here is my tentative amplified version of Paul’s “rapture passage” based on these observations (with my explanations in brackets):
This we say to you by the word of the Lord [in His Olivet Discourse], that we who are alive and remain until [the presence (Gk. parousia)] of the Lord [in this generation] will by no means precede [or have an advantage over] those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God [as Jesus said]. And [all the saints will be gathered into the messianic-age kingdom—]the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord[; now spiritually, later bodily]. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thess 4:15–18)
This reading equates the rising of the dead and the catching up of the living in Paul’s near future to the gathering of the saints in Jesus’ generation.
In coming posts, I will show (D. V.) the plausibility of this view by considering the Greek words Paul uses. I will also show that this view conforms to Jesus’ sayings about the coming time when “Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets” would enter the kingdom of God and the apostate Jews be cast out of it (e.g., Luke 13:28–30). I will also make a few other observations—some based on pictures of the messianic age in the Old Testament—that confirm the view I have presented here.
Footnotes
- See the post (here) and the book: Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020), 73–90. This book is available in hardcopy here; a PDF version is available here.
- Kenneth S. Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 521.
- J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (1913; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), 34.
- Rogers, Inmillennialism.
- For a summary of my views, see the free PDF here.
- Per Young’s Literal Translation. I will use Young’s translation of parousia in the references below without note.
2 comments
1. You said of the rapture passage: “It is equivalent to Jesus’ teaching in the Olivet Discourse”. If it’s equivalent to Olivet D then do the same experiences forecast by Paul for Thessalonian believers happen in Israel? Pella? Or in Lystra? Etc. Paul insists that Thessalonians who remained till His coming would experience the Parousia, and will be caught up to be with those described as ‘risen’.
2. ‘A word from the Lord’ may not be from Olivet. Rather Paul talks several times about his revelations from Jesus.
3. If the dead in Christ were ‘risen’ as Paul says, would not that be followed by the ‘raptured’s’ resurrection also? Were they disappointed? still waiting for Jesus to come and raise them, when they all passed away 2000+ years ago? Historically, I understand that believers down the ages before Darby, Scofield and Co, saw this passage as the resurrection of the saints.
4. Paul doesn’t have to keep explaining the resurrection to the Thessalonians like he did in 1 Cor 15. Here their resurrection is taken for granted and his concern was their grief. Why should he have to keep mentioning ‘rising’? ‘Rising’ means bodily rising. Spiritual rising can be experienced by any Christian (Col 3:1).
5. Did Paul or any other apostle have anything to say about life beyond the Parousia? Or did they assume that the Parousia ended everything?
6. We today no longer ‘eagerly await his son from heaven’. Now we who have the presence of Christ by the sealing of the Holy Spirit await our passing, one by one to be with Him. Isaiah 27:12-13 says ‘On that day . . . . you will be gathered up one by one, sons of Israel. . . . on that day that a great trumpet will be blown . . . .’. Then see 1 Cor 15:23 “each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming . . .’. That phrase implies, not a collection of millions together, but one at a time—each of us, ‘his’. Also 2 Cor 5:10 ‘For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive compensation for his deeds . . . .’
7. Mike, do all deceased believers now ‘sleep’ for thousands of years before their resurrection? Do Paul and all the Thessalonians still ‘sleep in Jesus’? Would that idea really comfort his readers? Abraham? Abraham’s bosom? Mat 22: 29-32. ‘ . . . For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
Ian,
Thank you for the thoughtful comments and questions. I apologize for taking so long to respond. I will number my responses to correspond with your comments.
1. Your comment prompted me to edit the post to make my meaning more clear: “It is equivalent to Jesus’ teaching in the Olivet Discourse in the following passage.” My point is not that the Olivet Discourse and Paul’s “rapture passage” are equivalent in every detail, but that 1 Thess 4:16–17 is equivalent to Mark 13:26–27.
2. You are correct, the “word of the Lord” may not be the Olivet Discourse. However, I find it passing strange that at least twelve specific elements match in the two passages, including the coming of the Son of Man and his parousia (see here). I agree with Beale’s analysis:
3. I ask that you continue to follow my posts as I explain what I mean by the dead being raised and the living caught up with them. If I am right, neither they nor we should be disappointed. Yes, most Christians have understood this passage as a reference to the bodily resurrection at the end of the messianic age. I find this unsatisfactory for the reasons I have stated: some Thessalonians would live to see the parousia, Jesus said these things would happen in his generation, etc. If the thesis of my book, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days, is correct, we must understand the “rapture passage” (1 Thess 4:13–5:11) differently. I am proposing one such new way in these posts.
4. I am not sure how to respond to your question, “Why should he have to keep mentioning ‘rising’?” Please elaborate a bit.
In the meantime, I will observe that this word (ἀναστήσονται) was not Paul’s usual word for resurrection. He uses it elsewhere only two times for bodily resurrection (Rom 14:9; 1Th 4:14), but he uses it three times for something other than bodily resurrection (Rom 15:12; 1Co 10:7; Eph 5:14).
I know this may be irrelevant to your meaning; if so, please forgive me.
5. I encourage you to read my post on the word parousia! This word does not refer to a point-in-time event; it stands, in these contexts, for Christ’s presence with his churches during the entire messianic age. So, yes, Paul had much to say about life in, and the future of, the kingdom beyond the temple’s fall.
6. I again ask that you consider my current series of posts. The gathering of the elect comprises several elements: their rising together with Christ in his bodily resurrection, their individual conversions one-by-one during the messianic age, their individual deaths and going to be with the Lord, and their bodily resurrection at the end of that age (lit., “in his parousia”).
7. Again, I hope my recent posts have clarified my views. I believe Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets are now feasting at the messianic-age banquet with Christ, that we living Gentiles have joined them by faith, that our souls continue in fellowship with them after death, and that our bodies and theirs will rise from the grave—just as Jesus’ did—at the end of the messianic age. This kingdom status began in the “last days” of the Mosaic age and included God thrusting Israel after the flesh out of the kingdom. The Thessalonians were concerned, I think, that those who lived to enter Christ’s parousia—his messianic-age presence with his people—would have some advantage over their loved ones who had died (cp. 1 Thess 4:15 HCSB). Paul assured them this was not the case; they, too, would take part in the kingdom as I described above.
I understand how strange some things I say may sound to people who have not followed the previous posts. Please consider reading my book. I will gladly respond to questions it raises. I think that once you see the entire paradigm, these individual posts will make more sense.
Again, thank you for taking the time to interact.
Yours in Christ,
Mike