Paul’s
Thessalonian Portrait of Christian Hope
July 2004
§1:
The Issue:
1 Thess. 4:14-18 is
commonly interpreted as a future event when Jesus comes down from heaven, raptures
his saints up off the earth to meet him in the air, then turns around and take
his church with him back to heaven.[1]
§2:
Initial Problems:
In 1 Thess. 4:14-18 Paul
concludes with the comforting promise that we will “be with the Lord evermore.” Yet nowhere in the text does Paul specify
just “where” that will be. Although the
passage pictures Jesus descending from heaven, raising the dead “in Christ,”
and “catching them up” to meet him “in the air (aér),” Paul does not state
whether the saints return to heaven or the earth with Jesus after these
events. The popular assumption that the
“raptured” church returns with Jesus to heaven is just that; an assumption read
into the text.
The notion that
believers are taken to heaven is strengthened in the minds of many by English
translations of the New Testament (NT) which render the verb in 1 Thess. 4:17
as “caught up,” with emphasis on the “up.”
The problem with this is that “caught up” is a translation of the Greek
verb harpazô into idiomatic English.
The Greek verb has a basic meaning of, “to snatch or seize,” and there
nothing in the word itself to indicate direction. Note also that in 2 Thess. 2:1 Paul uses a different verb to
refer to the same event (“…with regard to the arrival of our Lord
Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him”), using episunagôgé
(“to gather together or a gathering together”) rather than harpazô.[2] In other words, Paul’s primary emphasis is
on being with Jesus and not direction or locality.
§3:
Paul’s Choice of Words:
The word commonly
rendered “coming” in 1 Thess. 4:15, parousia, means “presence” or
“arrival.” Parousia occurs in
Paul’s writings fourteen times (and another fourteen times outside of his
writings). Six times he uses it to
refer to the arrival or presence of a human being (1 Cor. 16:17; 2 Cor. 7:6, 7;
2 Cor. 10:10; Phil. 1:26; 2:12), seven times in reference to the return or
arrival of Christ at the end of the age (1 Cor. 15:23; 1 Thess. 2:19; 3:13;
4:15; 5:23; 2 Thess. 2:1, 8), and once to refer to the arrival of the “man of
lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:9 - his arrival is a satanic parody of the parousia
of Christ).
Rather striking is
Paul’s use of parousia in 1 Thess. 4:14-18 in combination with the noun apantésis,
“a meeting.” This latter was a technical
term in Hellenistic Greek used to refer to a meeting when an official
delegation would go outside of a city to meet an arriving dignitary, especially
if the occasion was an imperial visit.[3] The purpose was to greet the arriving royal
figure and escort him back into the city, presumably with all appropriate pomp
and ceremony. Parousia was the
term normally used to refer to such an arrival. Josephus uses both words precisely in this manner when he
describes Jerusalem’s preparations to greet the arrival of Alexander the Great,
“He
therefore ordained that the people should make supplications, and should join
with him in offering sacrifices to God, whom he sought to protect that nation,
and to deliver them; whereupon God warned him in a dream, which came upon him
after he had offered sacrifice that he should take courage, and adorn the city,
and open the gates; that the rest should appear in white garments, but that he
and the priests should meet the king in the habits proper to
their order, without the dread of any ill consequences, which the providence of
God would prevent. Upon which, when he
rose from his sleep, he greatly rejoiced; and declared to all the warning he
had received from God. According to
which dream he acted entirely, and so waited for the coming of
the king” (Antiquities 11.VIII.4).
One last aspect of the
picture is the fact that the main roads leading to ancient Greek cities were
lined with cemeteries. This observation is important for what prompted Paul’s
discussion of the parousia of Jesus was not questions concerning the
timing of his return, but the concern of the Thessalonians over the
participation of dead believers in the event.
Paul’s response is that the dead in Christ will share in the same
experience as those still alive on that day, and he does so in a most
picturesque way.
Paul describes the hope
of both living and dead Christians using language and imagery with which his
Thessalonian readers would have been familiar.
The portrait he draws is of the righteous leaving the “city” (i.e.,
the earth) on a most festive day in order to meet their arriving Lord. The dead in Christ will be raised to join
with the living saints in this great meeting.
Since Paul is using a pictorial image, one must be careful not to push
the imagery too far. However, if Paul
intended this imagery to be consistent with his understanding of what is to
unfold at the parousia, then it one can infer from it that after
believers meet Jesus in the air they return with him to the earth (presumably
to establish once for all God’s kingdom on the earth).
§4:
The Relevancy of Paul’s Portrait:
Because of the
influences of Hellenistic philosophy and Western Civilization’s view of
religious experience as a highly individualized affair, the common idea regarding
Christian hope is that the believer receives his or her rewards “in heaven”
immediately following the moment of death.
Rather than the Last Enemy to be destroyed (1 Cor. 15:26) death has
become little more than a doorway to eternal life (or eternal damnation for the
wicked).
The problem is the NT consistently portrays collective resurrection at the end of the present age when Christ returns to the earth as the true hope of believers (by “collective” is meant the entire body of Christ being raised at the same point in time. The resurrection has both individual and corporate implications).[4] Paul wrote the Corinthians, “for if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished....for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His parousia” (1 Cor. 15:16-18, 22-23. Cf. John 5:29; 6:39-40; 11:25; Acts 24:15; Rom. 11:15; 1 Cor. 6:14; 2 Cor. 4:14; Phil. 3:10-11).
In Matt. 13:39-42, the parable of the tares, Jesus describes the final ingathering of the righteous into God’s “barn” and the wicked to be burned in fire, all of which occurs at “the end of the age (aiôn)” (unfortunately the KJV is misleading when it translates this as “the end of the world”). The hope of the righteous lies in the future at the end of the present age when Christ returns (e.g., Matt. 7:22; Rom. 8:19; 1 Cor. 1:7-8; 3:13; 15:23; 1 Thess. 1:10; 2 Thess. 1:10; 2 Tim. 4:1, 8; Titus 2:13; 1 Pet. 1:5, 7, 13; 4:13; 2 Pet. 3:12).
Finally, the establishment of God’s kingdom following the return of Christ (and all that this entails) is something that takes place on the earth (2 Cor. 5:2; 1 Thess. 1:10; Rev. 3:12; 21:12.). Salvation history moves from original creation to new creation for in his death and resurrection Jesus did not simply accomplish salvation for mankind but started the process whereby God will reconcile and restore the entire cosmos (Rom. 8:20-22; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1).
§5: Summary:
In 1 Thess. 4:14-18 Paul paints a picture using terminology and imagery familiar to the Thessalonians. The custom in that Hellenistic culture when the emperor or other high dignitary visited a city was for city officials and other citizens to go out and meet the arriving personage on the road leading into the city, and afterwards to accompany him into the city with great fanfare.
Using this image Paul portrays Jesus approaching the earth from heaven. Before reaching the earth the righteous dead are raised and along with those believers still alive Christ is met “in the clouds…in the air” by his people. Thereafter believers are evermore “with the Lord.” Though Paul does not address the question of locality (i.e., “where” are they with him?), based on his imagery and biblical precedent the most plausible scenario is that the righteous are with him on the earth in the new creation. The assumption that Jesus takes his church back to heaven runs contrary to the image and other biblical passages.
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[1] Cf. Hal Lindsey, Vanished Into Thin Air (Beverly Hills, CA: Western Front Ltd., 1999), pp. 60-64; Timothy LaHaye, The Rapture (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2002), p. 36.
[2] The only other NT
occurrence of episunagôgé is Heb. 10:25, “not forsaking our own
assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another;
and all the more as you see the day drawing near”).
[3] Helmut Koester, ‘Imperial Ideology & Paul’s Eschatology in 1 Thessalonians,’ Paul and Empire [Ed. Richard A. Horsley] (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press Int’l., 1997), p. 160; Karl P. Donfried, ‘The Imperial Cults & Political Conflict in 1 Thessalonians,’ Paul and Empire [Ed. Richard A. Horsley] (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press Int’l., 1997), p. 217; Ernest Best, The First & Second Epistles to the Thessalonians (Peabody, MA: Hendricksons Publishers, 1986), p. 199; G. Milligan, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Thessalonians (NY: MacMillan); Charles Wanamaker, The Epistles to the Thessalonians (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990), p. 175.
[4] The question of the so-called Intermediate State of the dead is not a topic of this paper.