Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 5

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren,

concerning those who have fallen asleep,

lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again,

even so God will bring with Him

those who sleep in Jesus.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord,

that we who are alive and remain

until the coming of the Lord

will by no means precede 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.

And 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.

Therefore comfort one another

with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, NKJV

Finally Paul reaches the crux of the matter, the question being addressed him by the Thessalonian church.  How do those who have died believing in Jesus Christ fit into this concept of never dying and the Rapture?  Do they miss out on what God has prepared and promised?  Having established that Jesus is indeed coming from heaven to earth to get his people and take them back to heaven with Him to present them blameless before God, Paul now moves into the discussion of the dead in Christ with more key facts about the Rapture, the Resurrection, and the Return of Jesus Christ.

11.  Jesus is coming to bring his people to heaven, and with Him God will bring all those who have died, who "sleep" in Jesus.  Take note that that the dead in Christ are not being sent back to earth, but rather will be brought back to heaven.

12.  Jesus is coming from heaven with a shout.

13.  The archangel will also shout.  We aren't told which angel it will be, although Michael and Gabriel are both good candidates.  Gabriel is usually associated with good tidings of great joy, whereas Michael is often seen as a warrior doing battle and contending for Israel and Israelites.  I think it also likely that this event will be such a celebration, that the shouting won't be limited to just Jesus and one angel.  They may all begin to shout, and I'd imagine there's going to be alot of shouting on earth too.

14.  The trumpet of God will sound.  The inclusion of a trumpet blast here and also in 1 Corinthians 15 (which we will look at soon) gives us extra meaning, associating the coming of the Lord with the Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which is also called the Day of the Awakening Blast, when the resurrection of the dead is supposed to take place.

15.  The Dead in Christ will be resurrected.  This is specifically the resurrection of those who believed in Jesus Christ as their savior after his death and resurrection.  For those righteous people of the Old Covenant whose souls waited in the holding place of the dead described by Jesus in Luke 16:19-31, they have already been raised from the dead and taken to heaven.  When Jesus died, the tombs of the ancients broke open, and after he was resurrected, they also were brought out of their graves.  And after people witnessed them walking around, they went to the Paradise of God in heaven, probably at the time of Jesus ascension.  It has even been suggested that the "cloud" which received Jesus as he ascended was the great cloud of witnesses, the Old Testament saints.

16.  Those who are alive and remain in Christ will be caught up--RAPTURED--with the resurrected dead.  Paul actually said "we who are alive and remain."  This was something he expected to experience himself before his own death.  Fifteen years later, as he writes 2 Timothy, he recognizes that he is indeed going by way of the grave, but that he still anticipates the appearing of Jesus Christ.

17.  All believers, both the resurrected dead and the raptured living, will be caught up "in clouds".  Those new white garments of the righteous could indeed look like clouds as we shoot into the sky.  There is also the thought that we may meet in clusters above the earth as Christ circles the globe, reuniting and waiting to join the procession back to heaven.

18.  We will meet the Lord in the air.

19.  After that, we will never be separated from Jesus again.