“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: 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” (1 Thess. 4:16-17).
The Lord Jesus has left the sure Word of promise to all His people.
“I will come again and receive you unto Myself” (John 14:3).
The “Shout” of the returning Lord, when He descends from the Father’s throne upon which He now sits (Rev. 3:21), to raise “the dead in Christ” from their graves, to change those of His people who are “alive and remain unto His coming” (1 Thess. 4:15), to gather both around Himself “in the air,” and thence lead them glorified, in His own likeness to the Father’s House (John 14:3), to be welcomed there as the children of God without distinction, on the ground of sovereign grace alone.