Journal 2005

The passage in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 has always puzzled me. And it’s hard to find someone with whom to reasonably discuss it because I find that most evangelicals have their minds made up about their eschatological position based on verses that supposedly support their claim. These verses leave me with more questions than answers. Anyone care to give your opinion?

What does it mean, “God will bring with Him those who are dead”?

• Bring them where? To heaven? To earth? Bring them back to life? Believers? Nonbelievers?

“We who are alive and remain till the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep.”

• If you stop reading here, it makes sense. Obviously, the dead arrive in heaven before the living do.

“The Lord returns with a shout and a trumpet and the dead in Christ will rise first.”

• First before whom? Before the living? Before unbelievers?
• What will rise? Their bodies? Aren’t their spirits already risen?

“Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we’ll always be with the Lord.”

• If this happens in the twinkling of an eye, why the “first” and “precede” references? Doesn’t this happen all at once?

On earth, humans are body/soul/spirit (yes, I’m a trichotomist). In heaven (or wherever the holding place is for spirits separated from their bodies), there’s only spirit—or does that include the soul? After the resurrection of the dead, there will be a reunion of the body and the spirit (and presumably the soul wherever that’s been).

And why the choice of words “asleep” instead of “dead”? Jesus obviously saw this from a different perspective than His disciples.

If this passage (along with I Corinthians 15) was the only teaching on eschatology, I’d be convinced of a post-tribulation rapture. But based on other verses, and contrary to many evangelicals, I lean toward a mid-trib position.

In the end, of course, my position is irrelevant. Just because I believe something, doesn’t make it so. What I do stake my life on is that Jesus is coming back someday. Period.