ON THAT GREAT GETTIN’-UP MORNING

1 THESSALONIANS 4:13-18

NASB

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep [a]in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive [a]and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a [a]shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive [a]and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

4:14 [a]Lit through  4:15 [a]Lit who  4:16 [a]Or cry of command  4:17 [a]Lit who 

NLT

13 And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died[*] so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.

15 We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died.[*] 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died[*] will rise from their graves. 17 Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. 18 So encourage each other with these words.

[4:13] Greek those who have fallen asleep; also in 4:14.   [4:15] Greek those who have fallen asleep.   [4:16] Greek the dead in Christ.  

In over half a century of ministry, I think I’ve nearly seen or heard it all. I’ve met people who sincerely believed all the prophecies of the Bible have already been fulfilled in the first or second century after Christ’s ascension and that all we’re waiting for now is to die and go to heaven. I’ve known others who were so crazed with end-times fever and so convinced that we were living in the last days (if not the last day) that they neglected everything and just waited for the Rapture to happen.

Extremes. Again. It seems like many Christians are in a constant state of running from one edge of a listing ship to another, constantly overcompensating for a previous error. When it comes to the end times, many Christians also seem to fixate on extremes. One extreme is end-times exuberance, characterized by an overreaction to the promise of Christ’s return. Obsessed with end-times teaching, some interpret current events as fulfilled prophecy. They set dates, label political figures “antichrist,” and can’t seem to keep their eyes off the clouds.

The other extreme is end-times ignorance. For some Christians, talk of God’s prophetic timetable draws glassy-eyed stares or wide yawns. Some of these Christians even become so uninterested in the world to come that they lack passion for the lost and lose their motivation for personal purity. Others live in fear of future events and dread their own death because they haven’t anchored their hopes in the Bible’s revelation of the future.

People are often driven to these extremes not by good information about the end times or by lack of information, but by misinformation. As Mark Twain once quipped, “The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.”[28]

To help us know what’s so and what “ain’t so,” we need to pay attention to what Paul says on the issue of the end times in his letter to the Thessalonians. It seems that those new believers had possibly sunk into the mire of misinformation themselves and needed some help to get out. Paul’s divinely inspired teaching on the subject of the end times was just what they needed to get their footing on solid ground and to avoid getting bogged down in the marshlands of extremes.

The ABC’s of the Christian hope —the basics of our end-times expectations —are discussed in 4:13-18. I have divided this passage into three parts: 4:13-14 discusses our death and life afterwards; 4:15-17 talks about Christ’s coming and our joining Him in the clouds; and 4:18 talks about the comfort this hope brings in the present.

— 4:13-14 —

For all their strengths —and they had many —the Christians in Thessalonica had a few weak spots. They seemed to have been a little too ecstatic about Christ’s return. We saw Paul hint at this in the last section, and he would take it on directly in his second letter (2 Thes. 3:6-12). But it seems some had potentially neglected their daily responsibilities and obligations and had become freeloaders and busybodies because they thought that the imminent coming of Christ excused them from planning for the future.

Others likely feared both the present trials and tribulations as well as the coming day of wrath, perhaps based on misinformation regarding some details of the second coming of Christ. Some were even afraid that their Christian loved ones who had died before Christ’s return would be somehow left out of the glorious promises associated with the coming kingdom.

To strengthen them in their weakness, Paul spells out some facts about the future of which they were “uninformed” (1 Thes. 4:13). The Greek term “uninformed,” agnoeō [50], literally means “ignorant.” It wasn’t that they were negligent, rebellious, or stupid. They simply didn’t know. They hadn’t been given all the pieces to put the puzzle of the end times together in a complete manner. So speculation or imbalance had resulted. Paul’s words concerning “those who are asleep” (4:13) were meant to fill this gap in their understanding.

The word “asleep” is clearly a euphemism for death. But Paul doesn’t employ this simply to avoid the nastiness of the “D” word. Just as people wake up from a night of sleep when the morning dawns, Christians will one day awaken from the “sleep” of death on that “great gettin’-up morning” when the Son descends and calls His own from their graves. The use of the image of “sleeping” implies a future “awakening.”

Paul gives them this instruction about the resurrection of those believers who are asleep not so that the Thessalonians can put the details in the proper order in their end-times charts. It’s not simply information Paul’s concerned about. Rather, Paul has a genuine pastoral concern for the believers who are grieving over the loss of their loved ones as if they had no hope —as if the grim reaper had dragged their brothers and sisters in Christ into an eternal abyss from which there was no return.

How tragic is a hopeless grief! How desperate the sobs of those who kneel before the grave with no prospects of ever seeing their loved one again! Without a God-given revelation, humans are left with only unanswered questions: Where are they now? Is there life after death? Is my father in torment? Will I ever see my mother again?

Paul says believers in Christ don’t have to grieve like that. Yes, they grieve at the loss of a loved one. Paul doesn’t condemn appropriate mourning. Only unfeeling psychopaths would face the death of a child or parent or sibling with the proud logic of Mr. Spock. There’s nothing Christian about an emotionless vacuum. The death of a fellow believer is indeed a sad occasion. Believers aren’t called to a chiseled stoicism. We’re called to “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4, emphasis added). But in that walk we can have the God of hope at our side, reminding us that death is not the end, but that an eternal dawn will come after the darkness of night.

The basis of this hope isn’t just a line of a creed that says, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead.” And it isn’t merely a handful of hymns singing about “some glad morning” in the “sweet by-and-by.” Nor is it a few moving graveside sermons crafted to soften death’s blow with platitudes of “she’s in a better place” or “his striving is over.” The solid foundation for our hope is a fact of history: “Jesus died and rose again” (1 Thes. 4:14). Through His atoning sacrifice in our place as a once and final payment for all our sins —past, present, and future —we can have absolute confidence that nothing stands between us and the God of heaven.

From My Journal

The Cemetery Evangelist

1 THESSALONIANS 4:13-18

When I was a kid growing up in Houston, our family lived across the street from a man and woman who had married later in life, beyond the childbearing years. The two of them enjoyed a honeymoon that lasted well into retirement. Mr. Roberts was a wonderful, doting husband who loved his wife deeply, and she found great joy in the man of her dreams.

Then, a sudden heart attack took him from her, plunging her into a seemingly bottomless grief.

In the weeks that followed the funeral, my mother watched Mrs. Roberts leave the house every day to visit his graveside. She spent hours there, talking, crying, seeking solace, grasping for some kind of connection with her departed mate. Instead, her despair deepened. You see, our neighbor had no personal relationship with Christ and no firm basis for hope beyond the grave. As she looked back on her delightful years with her husband —years that ended so suddenly, so absurdly —she had no answers. And her futile graveside attempts to reconnect only further confused her and deepened her hopelessness.

I’ll never forget the day my mother said to me, “Charles, I’m going across the street to talk to her. I want you to pray that Mrs. Roberts’s heart will be open to what I have to say.” And within a few minutes, she was across the street with a batch of warm cookies and a pitcher of lemonade. That very afternoon, Mrs. Roberts embraced the truth: Because Jesus rose from the dead, death doesn’t have the final victory.

That day, a miracle happened. That day, my mother returned with an empty pitcher and a full heart. Mrs. Roberts embraced the good news that Jesus Christ conquered death. But she didn’t stop her trips to the cemetery. She said, “I’m going back. I’m going to talk to the people who are there.” In her many graveside visits, she had noticed other people weeping over and talking to cold stones, trying in vain to contact the dead in hopes of recapturing the relationships they once enjoyed. She understood their despair . . . but now she held a truth they desperately needed to hear and believe.

And that’s how Mrs. Roberts became a cemetery evangelist. She was the first and last I ever knew. With her little New Testament and a few well-chosen words, this transformed lady comforted mourners as they wept, then offered them the very hope that had given her a new perspective on life and death: the resurrection of Jesus Christ!

Our confidence reaches beyond the defeat of sin at the Cross to the conquering of death by Christ’s grave-defeating resurrection. The Lord Jesus stepped out of the cold, dark tomb in a miraculous, glorious resurrection. As a result, Paul tells the Thessalonians, “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus” (4:14). There’s that word again —asleep: not a euphemism to avoid reality, but a confidence in the new reality that the death of a believer is temporary, to be miraculously undone at the return of Christ and our bodily, glorious resurrection that will “transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory” (Phil. 3:21).

Yes, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6-8). That’s the promise of life with Christ even after death, because His death has paid for the sin that separated us from God (Eph. 2:12-13). But while we’re present with Christ, our bodies will lie silent, sleeping in their graves. That physical part of us —part of God’s original good creation (Gen. 2:7) —will be miraculously raised and transformed. So Christ’s death and resurrection provide the payment and power for our complete salvation —soul and body, spiritual and physical.

That’s hope beyond the grave!

— 4:15-17 —

After laying down the central truth of our hope in salvation and bodily resurrection because of Christ’s death and resurrection (4:13-14), Paul zooms in on some specifics, answering the lingering question, “Okay, but what about those of us who are still alive when this goes down?” Here Paul introduces the startling doctrine of the miraculous transformation and Rapture of those believers who are still alive at Christ’s coming.

Students of Scripture have killed a lot of trees and spilled a lot of ink over the centuries on the question of the order of end times events. Different views of the Rapture of the church have developed, revolving around several disputed questions, like:

Paul doesn’t address all these questions directly. However, he does give a pretty detailed description of the moment of the Resurrection and Rapture of the church. And he gives some hints at how we might relate this event to the future time of God’s end-time wrath at the end of this age of gospel proclamation.

But before we get into the basic order of events in 4:16-17, let’s not miss Paul’s important point in 4:15. He first assures his readers that the details he’s about to share with them didn’t spring from his imagination. They aren’t “educated guesses” or clever interpretations of obscure passages. Rather, they come from “the word of the Lord.” This phrase has created some debate among commentators. Was Paul referring to something from the Lord’s teaching concerning the end times, perhaps from Jesus’ “Olivet discourse” recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 17?[29] At that time Jesus spoke of a mysterious event at Christ’s coming in which “one will be taken and one will be left” (Matt. 24:40-41). If so, then Paul’s description of events here (4:15-17) are his apostolic explanation of that prophetic event introduced by the Lord. He’s merely expanding on a teaching already known to Jesus’ disciples concerning the Resurrection and the Rapture.

It is likely that the phrase is more properly interpreted as “a message from the Lord,” referring to a new revelation given to the apostle Paul or, possibly, Silas. The New Living Translation puts it this way: “We tell you this directly from the Lord.” Bruce notes that in the Old Testament such a word of the Lord “was regularly conveyed through the lips of prophets” and that “Paul and Silvanus were themselves acknowledged to be prophets (cf. Acts 13:1; 15:32).”[30] In that case, Paul and Silas were explaining to the Thessalonians a new revelation concerning the Second Coming and the Resurrection —details that had not previously been revealed to the church. Of course, these would be in agreement with what had already been revealed through the Old Testament, the teachings of Jesus, and any other prophecies regarding the end times. But in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, Paul presents additional details that had not been known before.

The new details relate to the relationship between those saints who would still be alive at Christ’s return and those saints who had already died “in Christ.” Paul says, “We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep” (4:15). In dealing with the troubled hearts of the Thessalonian Christians, who were concerned about their departed loved ones, Paul informed them that both those who had fallen asleep and those who were alive would be included in the glorious Resurrection, transformation, and catching up with Christ, because all who have believed in Christ and who have been baptized into Him share the same Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13).

This is where Paul comes to the order of events that will occur at the Second Coming. Let’s break down the events described here into an easy-to-follow timetable.

First, Christ Himself will descend from heaven (1 Thes. 4:16). Remember that at this time He will “bring with Him those who have fallen asleep” (4:14). Though this may be looking forward to the catching up of the resurrected saints in the air (4:17), it may also refer to the spirits of departed saints who had been absent from the body but present with the Lord awaiting resurrection (2 Cor. 5:6-8). In that case, Paul may envision Christ coming from heaven with the spirits of the departed saints who will then be united with their resurrected bodies.

Second, there will be a shout, the voice of the archangel, and a trumpet (1 Thes. 4:16). I take this as a sort of “wake-up call” to those who sleep, a summoning of those who are alive, and perhaps even a warning to those unbelievers who do not know that the day of the Lord is about to come. The prophet Joel wrote, “Blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming; surely it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Joel 2:1-2). And the prophet Zephaniah described the coming day of the Lord this way:

Near is the great day of the LORD,

Near and coming very quickly;

Listen, the day of the LORD!

In it the warrior cries out bitterly.

A day of wrath is that day,

A day of trouble and distress,

A day of destruction and desolation,

A day of darkness and gloom,

A day of clouds and thick darkness,

A day of trumpet and battle cry

Against the fortified cities

And the high corner towers. (Zeph. 1:14-16)

These Old Testament images may be what Paul had in mind when he mentions the sound of the trumpet —marking not only the resurrection of the dead and the catching up of the saints, but also the commencement of the last-days events called “the day of the Lord” —not a twenty-four hour day, but a prolonged period of intense judgment, often involving warfare, destruction, and supernatural judgments (Joel 2:1-2, 10-11; Zeph. 1:14-18). In any case, the shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet are meant to be decisive signs that the Lord has come for His saints.

Line drawing of a Roman blowing a long trumpet

In 1 Thessalonians 4:16, Paul refers to God’s salpinx, or herald’s trumpet, as the sound that announces the Resurrection, the Rapture, and the beginning of the day of the Lord.

Third, those who have died in the Lord will be the first to rise (1 Thes. 4:16). Before a single living saint is transformed and caught up, God’s life-giving power will reach into the darkest depths of the earth and redeem the bodies of those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. But this won’t be a gruesome scene from a zombie apocalypse! Those graves will burst open to release the glorious, immortal bodies of believers whose bodies will be conformed to Christ’s glorious postresurrection body. Paul describes the relationship between our old bodies and our resurrection bodies this way: “It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power” (1 Cor. 15:42-43).

Fourth, the living believers will join the resurrected saints and meet the Lord in the air (1 Thes. 4:17). Though Paul doesn’t clearly describe in this verse what happens to the bodies of believers who are still alive at the resurrection of the dead saints, he does explain this in his first letter to the Corinthians: “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:51-53). In other words, if Christ were to come for us today, the dead would be raised in glorious, immortal bodies fit for heaven . . . and we who are alive, without tasting physical death, would be instantly transformed into our glorious, immortal bodies. In 1 Thessalonians 4:17, Paul says both groups —the resurrected and the transformed —will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

The Greek word translated “caught up,” harpazō [726] (4:17), is translated as rapiō in the Latin translation of the Greek Bible. From this Latin word we get the term “rapture,” or “snatching away” of the church. The event of the Rapture is certain. Whether we’re alive or dead when Christ returns, all believers in Christ have the same hope of being “caught up” in glorious, immortal bodies to be with the Lord.

— 4:18 —

What a glorious family reunion that will be! Husbands and wives, parents and children, friends and relatives, even ancient heroes of the faith and their living heirs of the gospel will be called up yonder at the return of Christ for His church. Such detailed end-times events must have come as awe-inspiring news to the Thessalonians who were confused about how to fit the pieces together.

EXCURSUS: IS PAUL’S “LAST TRUMPET” THE SEVENTH TRUMPET OF REVELATION?

1 THESSALONIANS 4:14-17

Some scholars equate the “last trumpet” in 1 Corinthians 15:52 and “the trumpet of God” in 1 Thessalonians, both announcing the Rapture of the church, with the “seventh trumpet” of Revelation 11:15. On the surface this may seem like a reasonable assumption, given that the “seventh trumpet” in Revelation appears to be the last trumpet of a series. A close examination, however, reveals that these two trumpets refer to separate prophetic events.

The seventh trumpet of Revelation 11:15 clearly announces the final phase of the wrath of God during the future Tribulation, the beginning of Christ’s reign, and the praises of the heavenly chorus in response to this epochal change of power. In contrast, Paul’s end-times trumpet refers to the bodily resurrection and the “catching up” of believing saints from the earth. When we place all these accounts side by side, we observe that the only thing these passages have in common is the mention of a trumpet. So, is it still possible that Paul’s “last trumpet” at the Rapture and John’s “seventh trumpet” are the same?

1 CORINTHIANS 15:51-52

1 THESSALONIANS 4:14-17

REVELATION 11:15-18

Last trumpet sounds

Christ descends from heaven

Seventh angel sounds

 

Voice of archangel is heard

  
 

Trumpet of God sounds

  

Dead saints raised

Dead saints raised

  

Living saints changed

    
 

Living saints caught up

  
 

Resurrected and Raptured saints meet Christ in the air

  
   

World kingdom becomes Christ’s kingdom
   

God takes His power and begins to reign
   

God’s wrath comes
   

Dead judged
   

Prophets and saints rewarded

To answer this question, we must keep in mind that Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians around AD 50 and 1 Corinthians around AD 55. Because John received his visions and wrote Revelation around AD 96, neither Paul nor his readers would have been aware of the series of seven trumpet judgments recorded in the book of Revelation. So, we can confidently conclude that Paul himself was not referring to the seventh trumpet of Revelation when he mentions the “last trumpet.” But could John have been referring back to Paul’s final trumpet when he mentions the angel sounding the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11:15? Not likely. Had John intended to make this connection, he probably would have used the exact same term, “last trumpet,” to erase any doubt. Or he would have at least made a specific reference to the saints’ resurrection and Rapture, or to the descent of Christ —events announced by Paul’s “last trumpet.”

In light of this, it appears that these two trumpet blasts refer to separate prophetic events. Paul’s “last trumpet” announces the Resurrection, Rapture, and rescue of the church from the earth prior to the beginning of the seven-year Tribulation period. The seventh trumpet blast of Revelation 11 brings the series of trumpet judgments to a close, previews both the wrath and reign of Christ, and makes way for the visions leading up to the seven bowls of wrath (Rev. 12–16).

Paul tells the Thessalonians, “Therefore comfort one another with these words” (4:18). This threefold promise of resurrection, glorification, and rapture to heaven is an encouragement to the fearful, who wonder if Christ may have forgotten the dearly departed. They are words of certainty for the unsure, who may consider eternity beyond their grasp. They provide comfort for the grieving, who may believe the last flower on the coffin must be their final farewell. The good news of the resurrection of the dead is that Christ has not forgotten His own. His own death and resurrection have rendered our own death but a temporary sleep until we are caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

These are words of confidence and hope.

APPLICATION: 1 THESSALONIANS 4:13-18

“Are You Ready?”

In light of this powerful preview of the Second Coming, we need to ask, “How should I respond?” How does our knowledge of the future affect us as we live in the present? Toward the end of his life, Paul provided an answer to these questions in a letter to his friend and protégé, Titus:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. (Titus 2:11-13)

First, make sure you have taken what God has given —His salvation. The grace of God has appeared, giving everyone an opportunity to be saved from death, damnation, and the coming wrath (Titus 2:11). Christ died to pay for your sins and rose from the dead to give you eternal life. Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” We can’t raise ourselves to newness of life any more than we can raise ourselves in the future resurrection at Christ’s return. Both of these resurrections are a gift from God —grace. All we must do is acknowledge our inability to save ourselves and place our full confidence in Christ: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Have you received this free gift of eternal life?

Second, continue to resist a corrupt lifestyle. This salvation doesn’t have only our sin and guilt in view. It’s much bigger than that. Yes, we’ve been declared “not guilty” before the heavenly court because of Christ’s death in our place, but He has also called believers “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called” (Eph. 4:1). Paul said to Titus that the same grace that saves us also instructs us “to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:12). There should be no contradiction between being saved by grace and living a life of righteousness by grace. Even on the heels of Paul’s unambiguous assertion that we are saved “by grace . . . through faith; and . . . not as a result of works” (Eph. 2:8-9), he adds without lifting his pen, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). As we live in the present evil age, awaiting our Lord from heaven, we need to continue to resist a corrupt lifestyle. Are you living as you should?

Third, look up with hope in our great God and Savior. One day there will be a moment like no other. With a thundering shout and the blast of a trumpet, Christ will split the sky, blast open the graves, and claim His own. Only the power of the God-man can accomplish such salvation. We who are alive, plodding through this dark world of sin, suffering, and death, will finally see our Savior face-to-face. We’ll meet those loved ones who have gone on before us, now transformed into glorious bodies, as we are all taken to heaven to be with our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. In the words of the old spiritual, that will be a “great gettin’-up morning.” Are you ready?