The Resurrection

1 Thessalonians 4:14  •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 10
I suppose I must have perceived that this objection could be raised, for in the fourth edition,1 which I got to look at it, I have, 'All this (1 Thess. 4:14-1614For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15For 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. 16For 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: (1 Thessalonians 4:14‑16)) is a matter which belongs exclusively to the saints—to those who, sleeping or waking, are Christ's, and who will be, from that moment, forever with the Lord.' The truth is, the mind is justly occupied with what concerns the church; and so I find in the New Testament many passages refer directly to the christian saints who form the church, because they were there and then before the writer's or Holy Spirit's mind, which yet from other places we may know to be true of Old Testament saints. Here the word 'exclusively' meant to the exclusion of the wicked dead. I do not doubt the Old Testament saints will arise, though in many a passage they are not atall brought before the mind; because the Spirit was founding and encouraging the hopes of Christians then tried, perhaps persecuted, not meaning to deny that Old Testament saints would be in the kingdom. The word 'exclusively' does not apply here to the Old Testament saints, but to the world; but the mass of passages in the New Testament apply in fact only to the church. Other passages say we shall sit with Abraham and Isaac in the kingdom, and the Lord teaches clearly their resurrection. That which the Old Testament saints do not form is the body and the bride.
Ever yours truly in the Lord.
 
1. [The Hopes of the Church of God, Col. Writ., vol. 2„ p.468.]