13 ¶ But I would not have you to be ignorant,
brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others
which have no hope. 14 For if we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God
bring with him. 15 For this we say unto
you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming
of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 16 For the Lord himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of
God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so
shall we ever be with the Lord. 18
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Depending on context sleep can be a euphemism for death.
Psalm 13:3 Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten
mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;
John 11: 11
These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend
Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. 12 Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep,
he shall do well. 13 Howbeit Jesus spake
of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. 14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is
dead.
Paul is telling the Thessalonians not to be sorrowful as
those would be who have no hope when a loved one that is in Christ passes away.
Verse 14 tells us that it naturally follows that if we believe that Christ rose
from the dead that those who die in Christ will also rise.
For review, look again at 1Thessalonians 1:10;
“And to wait for his
Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us
from the wrath to come.”
The church will not face the wrath God is bringing on the
world.
Then, you can see 1Thessalonians 2:19;
“19 For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of
rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his
coming?”
The church is in Christ’s presence at His return. And then
chapter 3, verse 13;
“To the end he may
stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.”
I have already shown that the, “saints,” are God’s people.
Christ is returning with all His saints.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
Verse 15 tells us that if we are alive when this event
occurs this will not, “prevent,” which can mean not to allow to happen or it
can mean to go on before as in pre-event, a meaning we no longer use in common
speech.
Psalm 88:13 But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in
the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.
Psalm 119:148 Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I
might meditate in thy word.
Matthew 17:25 He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the
house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the
kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of
strangers?
When the trumpet sounds, the dead in Christ go first, and
then we which are alive follow.
1Corinthians 15:51
¶ Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall
not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall
be changed.
When this singular event, the fulfillment of the promise of
the Resurrection of Christ, takes place we believe is before the Great
Tribulation, God’s wrath upon the whole world, as we have been promised that we
are delivered from that as stated previously as several early Christian leaders
such as Victorinus, Shephard, Cyprian, and Ephraim the Syrian seemed to
understand. The pretribulation “rapture” of the church, followed by a Great
Tribulation, and the physical return of Christ to the earth to rule for a
thousand years appears to have been understood by a great many Christians in
the first three centuries of the Christian era. It wasn’t until the state
church of Rome, glorifying man’s hope of a creation of God’s kingdom on earth,
that this once common belief went underground.
The Bible word for what we call the “rapture,” of the church
is the word, “translation.” “Translation,” is used in the Bible for removing
something from one place to another. Although we understand,” translation,”
today as referring to the meaning of a word in one language in another,
different language that is called, “interpretation,” in the Bible as in an “Interpreter,”
at the U.N.
Enoch was taken by God alive and well from this earthly
plane of existence.
Genesis 5:24 And Enoch walked with God: and he was not;
for God took him.
He was translated. Notice the mention of this three times in
the next verse.
Hebrews 11:5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should
not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before
his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
Why did the Holy Spirit use the word, “translation”? In my
opinion, because all existence is based on God’s speech and any work that He
does from one form of existence (the physical world) to the spiritual (the
invisible world – to us anyway) is a type of translating from one language to
another.
Three times, in the Bible, the phrase, “Come up hither,” is
used which we understand to be, “Come up here.”
Proverbs 25:7 For better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither; than that thou
shouldest be put lower in the presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen.
This would correspond to the events around the Resurrection of Christ and His ascent to God the Father.
Now, for the second time.
Revelation 4:1 After this I looked, and, behold, a door was
opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet
talking with me; which said, Come up
hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.
This corresponds to the time when the apostle, John, the
beloved, representing the church, is carried forcibly to heaven to see the
events there he related in the book of the Revelation. Notice that the next
verse says by what means he entered heaven.
2 And immediately I was in the spirit: and,
behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.
Now for the third.
Revelation 11:12 And they heard a great voice from heaven
saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud;
and their enemies beheld them.
This is when the two Jewish witnesses are called up representing
the believing Jews toward the end of the Great Tribulation. Jesus, when
speaking to his Jewish disciples said,
Matthew 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days
shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars
shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of
man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall
see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he shall send his angels with a great
sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four
winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
So, while there appears to be three distinct translations of
the people of God this passage in 1Thessalonians is referring to the
translation of the church.
Colossians 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
After all we are currently seated with Him in heaven.
Ephesians 2:6 And hath raised us up together, and made us
sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
There are many things in the Bible that have happened in
eternity that we have not experienced yet but faith tells us that we shall. Here
are more passages that indicate that Christ’s people are to be gathered to Him
before His return to rule.
Psalm 50:4
He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may
judge his people. 5 Gather my saints
together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
Solomon, as
a type of Christ, calls out His bride, His church, in the Song of Solomon.
Song of Solomon 2:8 ¶ The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh
leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. 9 My beloved is like a roe or a young hart:
behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing
himself through the lattice.
10 My
beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
It is important to note that this is not the Second Advent, when
Christ comes to rule on the earth. This is the church meeting Christ, “in the
air.” When Christ returns to rule, as the passages in the letters to the
Thessalonians show, He returns with the church. The next great event in history
will be the translation, or rapture as it is popularly called from the Latin
rapto, of the church. As Ephraim the Syrian wrote in the AD 300s,
For
all the saints and the elect of God are gathered prior to the Tribulation that
is to come and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to
overwhelm the world because of our sins. (from Paul Alexander’s The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1985), 210.
Extant writings on this subject from early church
writers include Shephard in AD 150, Victorinus, and Cyprian, both in the middle
of the third century. So, without going into a long detailed description and
explanation here let it suffice, for my purposes here, to explain that there
will be a translation of the church, a Great Tribulation shaking the earth, and
then the physical return of Christ to rule for a thousand years. This is what
the Bible teaches and the early church taught. It is not necessarily healthy or important to
go into when these events might take place because we don’t know when or
whether the Great Tribulation is a seven year period or the last half of a
seven year tribulation. These are more appropriate subjects for the study on
the book of Revelation.
What is important right now is that these verses in
1Thessalonians tell them and us that at some point all of us will be called out
of this doomed earth by the Lord, to remain with Him forever. That alone is
enough to shout about, one would think. We should be looking up.
Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
1 comment:
Thank you!
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