1 Thessalonians 4:17-Living Believers Will Be Snatched Away Together with the Dead in Christ to Meet the Lord in the Earth’s Atmosphere

1 Thessalonians 4:13 Now we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also we believe that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep as Christians. 1 Thessalonians 4:15 For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep. 4:16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 4:17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. (NET)

1 Thessalonians 4:17 asserts that those Christians who are left alive on the earth at the time of the Lord’s arrival at the rapture will suddenly be caught up together with the dead in Christ in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

This verse is presenting the next event that will take place chronologically after the Lord Jesus Christ raises the dead in Christ, which we noted in 1 Thessalonians 4:16.

Paul is employing the first person plural form of the personal pronoun egō which means “each and every one of us,” which not only refers to those Christians who are alive at the time of the rapture but is used also in a distributive sense emphasizing no exceptions.

This is indicating that absolutely no Christian who is left alive on the earth at the rapture will fail to receive their resurrection body.

That those Christians who are alive at the time of the rapture are the referent of this personal pronoun is clearly indicated by two participial clauses, which modify it, namely “who are alive, who are left,” which also appears in 1 Thessalonians 4:15 with the prepositional phrase “until the Lord’s arrival” modifying them.

Therefore, the distributive use of the personal pronoun egō refutes the “partial” rapture view, which contends that not all believers will be taken off planet earth at the time of the rapture.

This view contends that only those who are “watching” or “waiting” for that event and who have reached some degree of spiritual development that makes them worthy to be included.

Those who adhere to this theory use Luke 21:36, Philippians 3:11, Titus 2:13, 2 Timothy 4:8 and Hebrews 9:28 to support this view that only those believers who “wait, look for” and “have loved His appearing” will be removed from the earth at the rapture.

This view does not understand the doctrine of justification, which by way of definition is a judicial act of God whereby He declares a person to be righteous as a result of crediting or imputing to that person His righteousness the moment they exercised faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

Consequently, God accepts that person and enters that person into a relationship with Himself since they now possess His righteousness.

The other problem with this view is that it denies the teaching of the unity of the body of Christ since 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 teaches that through the baptism of the Spirit, all church age believers are united to the body of which Christ is the head (Ephesians 5:23; Colossians 1:18).

Also, as was the case in 1 Thessalonians 4:15, Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 employs the nominative first person plural form of the personal pronoun egō which means “we” which would also include Paul, Silvanus and Timothy.

This would indicate that these three men believed that the rapture or resurrection of the church was imminent.

Why else would Paul include himself and these two men in the statements in verse 15 and now verse 17 if this was not the case?

Since Christ’s return at the rapture was imminent and because no Christian knows the exact date and time it will take place, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy included themselves with those who are alive on the earth at the time of the rapture.

So therefore, the rapture of the church is “imminent” which means that the rapture could happen at any time.

There are several Scriptures, which teach the church to expect Christ to come back at any moment (cf. John 14:1-3; Romans 13:11-12; 1 Corinthians 1:7; 1 Thess. 1:9-10; 5:1-9; Titus 2:13; James 5:7-9; Philippians 4:5; Hebrews 10:25; 1 John 2:28; 3:2-3; Revelation 22:7, 20).

Now, in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, the verb harpazō means “to snatch, seize, forcibly remove something, to seize by force with the purpose of removing” and is translated “will be caught up” by the ESV and NASB95 and “will be suddenly caught up” by the NET Bible.

This verb is translated into the Latin with term rapio, “caught up,” which is transliterated into English with the word “rapture” and so therefore, this verb is where the concept of the rapture is taken from.

This verb means “to snatched away” since the English verb “snatch” expresses more accurately the idea expressed by this verb harpazō because the former means “to attempt to seize something suddenly.”

Therefore, I am in agreement with the Lexham Bible’s translation of this word which translates this verb “will be snatched away.”

“With them” (σὺν αὐτοῖς) refers to the dead in Christ who will receive their resurrection bodies immediately before those Christians who are left alive on the earth at the time of the rapture, which is indicated by the result clause at the end of 1 Thessalonians 4:16, which asserts this about the dead in Christ.

This prepositional phrase indicates that those Christians who are left alive on the earth when the Lord returns at the rapture will be snatched away from the earth and receive their resurrection bodies “along with” or “in association with” the dead in Christ.

Also, in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, the word hama, “together” does not denote a point of time which is emphatically simultaneous with another point of time demonstrating two different actions occur at the same time.

This interpretation of this word would indicate that those Christians left alive on the earth at the time of the rapture will receive their resurrection bodies at the same time as the dead in Christ but rather, the word means “together” since the word is a marker of association involving additional items affected by some event.

Here the word denotes that those Christians who are left alive on the earth when the Lord returns at the rapture will receive their resurrection bodies “together” with the dead in Christ.

This interpretation is indicated by Paul’s statements in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 in which he emphatically asserts that the dead in Christ receive their resurrection bodies first before those Christians who are left alive when the Lord returns at the rapture of the church.

In other words, these two verses assert that these two groups will not receive their resurrection bodies at the exact same time.

There is an interpretative issue regarding the noun apantēsis, “meet” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.

Robert Thomas explains the interpretative issue with this prepositional phrase, he writes “Some feel that the technical force of the word obtains-i.e. a visitor would be formally met by a delegation of citizens and ceremonially escorted back into their city (Best, p. 199). On this basis, they contend that Christians go out to meet the Lord and return with him as he continues his advent to earth. Advocates of this proposal see this connotation in two other NT usages of the word (Matt. 25:6; Acts 28:15, 16).”[1]

I am of the conviction that the noun apantēsis does not retain the Hellenistic usage in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 since there is nothing in the context which would suggest that the resurrected members of the church escort the Lord to the earth.

In fact, there is no mention of touching the earth bodily and there is no reference to the seventieth week of Daniel, the tribulation or the Bema Seat Judgement of the church in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

However, Scripture and in particular John 14:2-3 teach that the Lord Jesus Christ will receive the resurrected members of the church to Himself and then be escorted by the Lord back to His Father’s house in heaven.

Therefore, 1 Thessalonians 4:17 makes clear that the rapture of the church will take place in the earth’s atmosphere, which will deliver the church from “the wrath to come” upon the earth during the Tribulation period of Daniel’s seventieth week (1 Thess. 1:10; 4:13-17; 5:9; 2 Thess. 2:1).

Thus, 1 Thessalonians 4:17 makes clear that the Lord Jesus Christ will not touch planet earth bodily when He gives the church age believer a resurrection body.

However, other passages assert that when He returns to earth that He will land bodily on it to end the seventieth week of Daniel and to establish His millennial reign, which we call “the Second Advent.”

Thus, the Word of God clearly makes a distinction between these two events or in other words, it asserts that there will be two returns of Christ to planet earth.

One in the earth’s atmosphere to remove the church from the earth and the other will be to land on the earth to defeat His enemies and establish His kingdom on the earth.

1 Thessalonians 4:17 comes to an end with the statement that the dead in Christ and those who are left alive on the earth when the Lord returns at the rapture will for their own benefit always be with the Lord in their resurrection bodies.

This statement presents the result of the previous statement indicating that both of these groups will always be with the Lord in their resurrection bodies “as a direct result of” both groups meeting the Lord in the earth’s atmosphere.

Paul is also in this verse marking a correspondence and correlation between these two groups meeting the Lord in the earth’s atmosphere and these two groups always being with the Lord from that point on.

[1] 1, 2 Thessalonians.” In The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. 11. Page 279; Edited by Frank Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1978.