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and speak to heart and mind, giving Divine illumination and guidance as to where
believers stand today in the Divine purpose of the ages, their calling and the practical
response in testimony and service that the Lord is requiring from them.
Coming back to I Thess. 4: 15-18, we note that the Apostle again stresses that what
he is teaching is the "Word of the Lord". There is no room here then for his own ideas.
This is Christ's revelation on the hope of the believer then obtaining. He assures the
Thessalonian believers that those who are living when the Lord returns will on no
account precede (prevent--old English of the A.V.) or realize their hope before believers
who have died. There was no need for them to worry about loved ones who had fallen
asleep. They would not be left behind but would rise from their graves first and then
those who are living would be caught away to join them in the clouds and so--IN THIS
WAY, and only in this way, would they be with the Lord Jesus for ever.
Together they would meet the Lord as He descends to the air. The word "meet" is the
Greek apantesis. It has the thought of meeting with the idea of returning. Such is its
meaning in Matt. 25: 6, where the midnight cry exhorts the ten virgins to go out and
meet the Bridegroom as he comes: also in Acts 28: 15, where the brethren go as far
as the Apii Forum to meet Paul and return with him to Rome.
"When a dignitary paid an official visit or parousia to a city in Hellenistic times, the
action of the leading citizens in going out to meet him and escorting him on the final
stage of his journey was called the apantesis" (F. F. Bruce, D.D.).
This is all in line with the hope of the Acts period. The one hope that dominates this
period is Israel's hope (Acts 26: 6, 7; 28: 20). Rom. 15: 12, 13 links this hope
with the millennial chapter of Isa. 11:, making quite clear that it is to be realized on the
earth. What more natural then, that those who share in it should return to the earth
with the returning Lord and the holy angels, at the parousia He revealed so clearly in
Matt. 24: 27-31?
I Thess. 4: 15-17 does not teach that these saints are on the way to heaven. There is
not the slightest hint here, that, after descending into the air, the Lord takes them back to
heaven or the heavenly Jerusalem, yet this idea is often supplied in the minds of believers
who are not careful to check their conceptions with what God has written and revealed.
The Lord descends with a "shout" keleusma. This means `the word of command' and
note its one occurrence in the LXX (Prov. 30: 27). "With the voice of the archangel."
Scripture gives us his name--Michael (Jude 9) and in Dan. 12: 1 he is linked with Israel
(the children of Daniel's people) and the Great Tribulation and this definitely fits the time
described by the Lord in Matt. 24: and Israel's hope as we have seen. This is again
confirmed by the next statement "and with the trumpet of God". I Cor. 15: 51-53 links
the believer's hope in the Acts period with resurrection at the last trumpet. Now `the last
trumpet' presupposes a series, and the only series of trumpets in the N.T. are in the Book
of Revelation. The `last trumpet', the seventh, leads us to the same point as I Thess. 4:,
the realization of the kingdom of the Lord on the earth (Rev. 11: 15), which most clearly
takes place at His parousia or Second Coming.