Rapture vs. 2nd Coming

Rapture vs. 2nd Coming

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 BSB

13 Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. 14 For 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. 15 By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. 17 After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

The emphasis of the passage is on the resurrection, not the rapture. The concern of the Thessalonian believers is that their loved ones who have died will miss out on being with Christ forever in their bodies.

Paul’s purpose is to encourage the Thessalonian believers with the reality that neither they nor their believing loved ones will not miss out on the resurrection. To die in Christ is to be with Him forever, and at the resurrection, the Christian’s body and soul are forever reunited.

The direction that Jesus Christ is moving is downward - He will descend from heaven (toward earth); the word “meet” in v. 17 means that the saints who are raptured will go up to greet Him and accompany Him down to earth. There is no mention of going up to heaven, and such a meaning contradicts the plain meaning of the word.

There is no mention of a tribulation in this passage. “Wrath” in 5:9 doesn’t count. There is no reason in the text to believe that “wrath” refers to the tribulation instead of to eternal punishment.

There is also no mention of a second coming of Christ separate from the rapture. It doesn’t say, Jesus will rapture believers and take them to heaven, then there will be seven years of tribulation, then Jesus will bring saints with Him to establish His millennial kingdom on earth, and then there will be a final judgment, the righteous will be rewarded, the wicked will be thrown in the lake of fire, and believers will live forever with Christ in the new heavens and new earth. There is no passage that says all these things or even a majority of these things. It is a matter of interpretation and piecing together lots of different information regarding the end times.

Failure to lovingly accept differences in this matter distorts the centrality of Christ and the Gospel. There are many areas of theology and practice that are secondary issues and should not divide believers:

Method and meaning of baptism (that’s hard for me to admit as a Baptist)

Divorce and remarriage allowed? In what circumstances?

Meaning and practice of the Lord’s Supper

Observance of the Sabbath - what is allowed or required on Sundays?

Usage of alcohol permitted or not

End times - order and nature of events

All of these are matters of interpretation; Christians who love Christ have differed on these matters for the last 2000 years, and God has not yet given the universal Church a unified understanding of all these things (and others)

The ability to differ without dividing over secondary issues is a mark of spiritual maturity. It is a matter of pride to refuse to have fellowship over such matters.