This is similar to the first epistle and Rom. 16: 20. So concludes two of the earliest

letters of Paul. It should hardly be necessary to say that no doctrinal import can be placed

on the order of the epistles given in the A.V. Though the Thessalonian letters come last

in this grouping, no teaching can be deduced from this. To teach that these letters give

the climax of revelation given in Paul's epistles because of this position is false. The

Apostle was in the early stages of his ministry at this point and the climax was yet to

come in his prison letters after the nation of Israel had been set aside in unbelief at the

ends of the Acts period.

Those who hold the above mentioned view fail to understand the position of the

people of Israel during this time and the relationship of I Thess. 4:, with its emphasis on

the return of Christ, to the purpose then being worked out. So much is usually mentally

added by such to what is actually taught in this chapter that a distorted view is bound to

result. How many who read the words, `The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven

with a shout . . . . . then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with

them in the air . . . . ." add in their minds the thought that these believers are then taken

up to heaven? The addition of the word `up' in our English version partly suggest this

idea, but there is no warrant for it in the original Greek. There is no thought of direction

in the verb harpago; it could just as easily mean `caught downwards' as upwards. The

immediate context does not deal with what happens after this `catching away'. Only the

remoter context and what had already been revealed can guide us here.  It is the

descending Lord that these saints meet and as both these letters deal with the Lord's

arrival (parousia) there is nothing that need be added by ourselves in order to understand

what 4: 16, 17 is teaching. Those who do so evidently have an axe to grind and this is

not the way to get truth.

We have intensely grateful for these early epistles of Paul, showing us, as they do, his

faithful concern for the well-being of the Thessalonian saints, their zeal as well as some

of their problems which could only be resolved by understanding the purpose of God so

far as it had been revealed at this time. May we have grace to imitate their practical

keenness and outworking of the Truth, so that it can be said of us, as it was of them,