Now, before we move on to Ephesus we need to take a little deeper look into what Paul was doing in Corinth, besides establishing another church. Several lessons back (183) I said we would begin to look at the New Testament in chronological order and we examined the first New Testament letter written by James (Jesus’ brother) in 45 AD.
Paul writes the first of his letters to the church at Thessalonica during his stay in Corinth, around AD 52. This church had been established during Paul’s stay in Thessalonica just the year before. You may remember he had been mostly rejected by the Jews there, but had some success among the Gentiles.
Now, while in Athens, an anxious Paul had sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to check on the condition of the church (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20, 3:1-5). When Timothy rejoins him in Corinth (Acts 18:5, in this verse Luke mentions Macedonia, just so there’s no confusion, this is where Thessalonica was located), he gives Paul this report: the church is thriving, but they may be laboring under some misconceptions regarding the second coming of Christ and the rapture of the church (I have to say this is pure conjecture on my part, based solely on the content of Paul’s letter). So, Paul writes this letter to set their minds at ease.
It’s not my intention to break these letters down in detail. This one contains things common to most of Paul’s letters, including salutations, encouragements, exhortations to Christian living, maybe some practical things concerning church discipline and a conclusion. But I do want to point out what I think may be the important development of doctrinal content over time through the principle of progressive revelation. And in 1 Thessalonians, the doctrine is the rapture and the second coming.
The first information in scripture on the second coming is found in what is called the Olivet Discourse, given by Jesus on the night before His crucifixion (Matthew 24:3, 27-51 and 25:31-46). The context of Jesus’ comments to His disciples that night are clearly about His second coming at the end of this age or the conclusion of the 7-year tribulation period as it is described much later in Revelation 19 (we’ll look at this in greater detail in later lessons as we go through John’s complete revelation almost verse-by-verse). This is when He returns to the earth with His saints.
But we know (because we can look at what all the New Testament teaches) there is a time before that when He comes for His saints. And even though Jesus does mention the resurrection and the rapture briefly during His public ministry (Luke 21:36; John 5:25, 28-29, 14:1-3), those references are absent the detail we are about to see for the first time in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians.
When you look at the New Testament in chronological order 1 Thessalonians is the first mention of the rapture of the church with this much information. Paul develops it even further in his later letters to the church in Corinth. And you may be wondering, did Paul actually teach these believers at Thessalonica about the rapture and they were just confused or forgot? Or, did Paul teach them what he knew about the second coming, but didn’t know that much, if anything, about the rapture at that point in time? It seems reasonable that Paul had some knowledge, or at least some question in his mind about it because of the things Jesus had said about the resurrection, since the rapture and the promised resurrection of believers are basically bound up in the same event.
So, for now, we’ll look at 6 new revelations on this subject seen for the first time in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. “Now brethren, we do not want you to be ignorant concerning those who have fallen asleep (in death), that you may not grieve like those who have no hope (of life beyond the grave).” (Verse 13) The key to understanding this verse is the verb “to be ignorant”, taken from agnoeo, from the negative prefix a, and noeo, to know, understand or apprehend. Paul is about to explain something to them that they did not know.
“Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.” (Verse 14) The first new revelation comes as a simple statement of fact that is explained more fully in the verses that follow: all those who have died in Jesus and have gone to be with Him will return with Him to experience the resurrection. Maybe I should jump forward in time here and remind you of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:6-9 about being absent from the body and present with the Lord. It is not until his later letters to the Corinthians and Philippians that Paul further expands our understanding of the resurrection and the characteristics of a new incorruptible, immortal body.
“And it’s by the Lord’s own word, I tell you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with a voice of an archangel and the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” (Verses 15, 16) These verses give us the second and third new revelations. But before we get to those, let me point out the phrase “by the Lord’s own word”. This gives us another reason to think that what we’re seeing here is the result of new revelation Paul had received since he had come to Corinth.
The second revelation, then, is that it is the Lord Himself that will descend from heaven, not someone else or an angel. It’s interesting that in the several statements Jesus made about the resurrection of believers, He never connected Himself to that specific event or gave any pertinent details – He only said it would happen, but not how it would happen.
The third new revelation is that the living will not go before those who have fallen asleep. The dead will be resurrected before the living are changed. Verse 16 mentions two things associated with this resurrection: “a voice of an archangel” and “the trumpet call of God”. We’ll see several references to trumpets, when we get to the series on Revelation; however, none of them are directly related to this. The “voice” here is defined in John 5:28-29, where Jesus is talking about the resurrection and the authority the Father had given Him. In verse 28 He says at the resurrection “all those in the graves will hear His voice.”
Before I list the remaining three new revelations, I’ll quote verse 17. “Then, the rest of us who are still alive will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And we will always be with the Lord throughout all eternity.” So, then, the fourth new revelation is that the living will not die, but will be changed and caught up with the resurrected dead.
The fifth new revelation is that both the resurrected dead and the changed living will meet the Lord in the air. Earlier I mentioned there is a time when the Lord returns with His saints. This is the second coming to the earth. But at the rapture when He comes for His saints, He doesn’t set foot on the earth, He meets them in the air.
The sixth and last new revelation found in this passage is that the rapture includes all those in Christ from righteous Abel to the very moment the rapture takes place. Now, it may not be accurate to say, “the moment the rapture takes place”, Paul describes it as a much faster event. In 1 Corinthians 15:52 he describes the rapture taking place “in the twinkling of an eye”, where “twinkling” is from rhipe, a word generally used to describe rapid movement, a flash of light.
Now, at the beginning of this lesson I said the church in Thessalonica may have been a little confused about the second coming and the rapture. The reason I said that is the very fact that we find this new revelation regarding the rapture, then immediately following that, Paul talks about “the day of the Lord”. This time is referenced many times in the Old Testament and several in the New by Paul and is detailed in Revelation 19 and 20. It begins with the Lords second coming to the earth with His saints to establish His 1,000-year reign to prepare the earth for eternity. So, for the next 11 verses (5:1-11) Paul talks about the day of the Lord to distinguish it from the rapture.