OF all the scriptures of the New Testament which treat of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ there is none that deals with it more explicitly and with such fullness of detail, as 1 Thessalonians 4:13, 18. In speaking of the Second Coming of our Lord I do not refer especially to that side of it which Charles Wesley celebrates in his majestic hymn―
“Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favored sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of His train.
Hallelujah!
Jesus comes and comes to reign!”
That He will thus come at the appointed hour we do not doubt. And this passage in its earlier verses expressly alludes to it, as we shall see. That is what may be called the second part of His coming; there is an anterior part of which the saints at Thessalonica had heard but little, possibly nothing at all. They were not ignorant of the fact that the Saviour would return. That great truth was an integral portion of the gospel which they had received and wherein they stood. And in receiving it they had turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven, even Jesus our Deliverer from coming wrath. All this is stated in so many words in the closing verses of chapter one, which we shall do well to read. From this we learn that the gospel which Paul preached unto them did not end with a Saviour who had died for their sins, who was risen and in glory. He was coming again to deal with His foes, to establish His kingdom, and then His saints should have their part in His glorious reign.
But this prospect was not so clear to their minds as it may be to ours, and it gave rise to questions which they felt themselves incompetent to answer. What about those who fall asleep meanwhile? Would they not be great losers? How could they share in the glory of His kingdom if they were not on earth when He came? For we must not suppose that as yet they knew the truth of the resurrection from among the dead. It is more than probable that they did not, That Christ was risen they knew very well, but that others should be raised even as He, was another matter. And so the Apostle writes to set their, mind at rest. He lets them know that “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” No doubt about that. They shall come with Christ and share His glory when the day of His glory dawns.
And then follows a new revelation—something they had never heard before. And what he is about to tell them is invested with all the authority of “the word of the Lord.” This in itself should place us in the position of reverent and attentive hearers anxious not, to miss a syllable, but to profit to the utmost by the communication he is now to make. First of all he would have them know that we who are alive and rain unto the coming of the Lord shall in no wise take precedence of those who fall asleep. No advantage will accrue to us. Blessed though it be to remain till the Lord returns, it will confer nothing upon us. Indeed, “the dead in Christ shall rise first.” It will be theirs to feel the first touch of that divine power which will conform both them and us to the image of our Lord (Phil. 3:20, 21).
“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: 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).
More than, one thing may be noticed here. It is the Lord Himself who shall come for His saints. When the purposes of God begin to ripen for the restoration of Israel to the land of their fathers, it is the angels who shall be sent forth to gather His elect from the four winds of heaven (Matt. 24:31). Those celestial beings shall be His servants to set in motion everything that will be needed to accomplish that sure and great result. But in our case no angels are in view. None but the Lord is seen. And it is into the air He descends. That will be the meeting-place between. Him and His heavenly saints. Then His glorious voice shall be heard that calls the dead in Christ from their graves. What an answer there will be from every part of this wide earth where the dead in Christ now lie! The body sown in weakness shall be raised in power, sown in dishonor it shall be raised in glory, sown a natural body it shall be raised a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:42-44). Then shall be heard that triumphant challenge, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Nor is that all. “We who 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.”
“How bright the resurrection morn
On all the saints will break!
The Lord Himself will then return,
His ransomed Church to take.
Our Lord Himself we then shall see,
Whose blood for us was shed;
With Him forever we shall be,
Made like our glorious Head.”
To the man of the world all this may seem like an idle dream, the child of an unbridled imagination. “What” he may exclaim in incredulous tones, “would you have us believe that at some unknown moment, possibly near at hand, not only the dead shall rise, but every living Christian shall be caught away to heaven as you say Elijah was? Impossible! HOW could such things be?” Similar questions were asked by the Sadducean school of old. And the Lord pointed out to them the source of all error, doubt, and unbelief—they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God (Matt. 22:29). Now the Scriptures cannot be broken. Every word shall stand. And as for the power of God, it can do all things. Impossibilities vanish away, they flee from the presence of God’s almightiness. With Him nothing is impossible. The Hand that fashioned all worlds and holds them firmly compacted together—the One who gives life and motion and being to every creature in the vast universe—whose wisdom, power, and glory are seen in the infinitely small as in the infinitely great, He is able both to raise the dead and take away the living—changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor. 15:52). Amid these august mysteries of the Christian faith the humble believer walks with steady step and unreeling brain. He knows that his Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, is able to do everything, and on His sure word he rests.
And if it be “the dead in Christ” who shall be raised, so all who are “in Christ” shall be caught up when the Lord comes. Not one of them shall be left behind. There are those who would fain persuade us that only some of the dead in Christ shall hear His voice and come forth—those who when on earth attained to a high degree of personal sanctity and to a lofty standard of devotedness—these only. The rest, though they shall have a place in the eternal kingdom, shall have no part in Christ’s millennial reign. They were not faithful, they shall be excluded. And as regards the ling saints, only the very true and loyal-hearted shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. All others will be left to go through the great tribulation. With such views we have no sympathy, we believe they lack the support of the Word of God. If we mistake not they originate partly in the failure to observe the difference between the coming of our Lord for His, saints and His appearing with them in glory, and partly through not seeing the unique place the Church holds in her calling and hopes as distinct from the redeemed of a past dispensation and of one yet to come. For there will be another when the Church period ends and God begins to fulfill His counsels concerning Israel and all the families of the earth.
“Israel’s race shall then behold Him,
Full of grace and majesty
Though they set at Naught and sold Him.
Pierced and nailed Him to the tree;
Then in glory
Shall their great Messiah see.”
But to return. As to the resurrection, it is said, “Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming” (1 Cor. 15:23). So in 1 Thessalonians 4 “the dead in Christ shall rise first.” There is in neither passage the slightest hint that only some of these shall be raised. And as to the living it is said, “We shall be changed.” “We... shall, be caught up.” Beyond doubt, the “WE” of both passages is broad enough to embrace every saint who is alive and remains unto the coming of the Lord. Were it otherwise, were our part in that glorious event to depend on our faithfulness rather than on His grace, who among us could cry, “Come, Lord Jesus”? Who with any just sense of his own imperfections, both as a saint and a servant, would be confident that he would be “caught up” if it rested on what he had been? Such a theory tends either to bondage or pride, and is destructive of the finest spiritual affections which have our precious Saviour as their object.
Nor can any tell when this great event will take place. The day is fixed and written down in the Counsel Book of the Eternal, but no man on earth knows it. It may be today or to-morrow or the day aster. None can tell. Therefore we should ever watchapter And so we shall if Christ be deeply loved. For this watching and waiting for Him is much more a question of the heart than of the head. Clear views have their value, but they are worthless and cold as a winter day if they stand alone. Two children may know that mother—long absent—is coming home tomorrow. One is as sure about that as the other, but one of them intensely longs for the hours to pass because she intensely loves. And mother, too, in whose affections both children have their place, she longs for the meeting-time. O Christian, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ and kept by His mighty power, are you waiting for your Saviour to come? Has the Morning Star arisen in your heart? Are you standing on the hill-top watching for the daybreak and the first silver streaks of the morning? “And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come.... Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:17, 20).
“‘Tis Thy heavenly bride and Spirit,
Jesus, Lord! that bid Thee come;
All the glory to inherit,
And to take Thy people home.
All creation
Travails, groans, till Thou shalt come.”
W.B.