"The Catching Up of the Believers"

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 ESV)

We are more familiar with Chapter 4 of Paul’s letter to the believers in Thessalonica than any other chapter. Chapter four is the chapter in which Paul explains the “catching up” of the church, so that we shall always be with the Lord.

Paul in 4:13 says, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” I appreciate Paul’s teachings throughout Thessalonians. Paul really was interested in the Thessalonian believers’ spiritual growth. Sometimes we get spiritual growth mixed up with holiness. They are two completely separate things. As we found out in Chapter 2, verse 13, it is God Himself who makes our hearts blameless in holiness; it isn’t something we do. It isn’t based upon our efforts, or activities, it’s because Jesus Himself made us holy the moment we accepted His gift of eternal life based on our faith (our confidence) that God’s way of salvation was right and our way of Salvation (by trying hard to please Him) was wrong (that’s what repentance is “the changing of our mind”).  Holiness is something done to us by God, and no one can take that away. We were as holy as we will ever be the moment the blood of Jesus washed our sins away, for now and eternity.

But spiritual growth is another thing altogether. Paul states that he didn’t want the Thessalonian believers to be uninformed, or, as the KJV translates it, “ignorant.” Both translations convey the meaning; it was Paul’s intent to teach them something they may not have known before. That’s what we all need: we need to know something about our God that will help us understand Him better. We need to learn the truths about Him that are throughout the Bible. We need to take the time to read and study His Word, so that we can live our lives to bring honor and glory to our risen Savior.

So, here Paul is teaching these new believers about some end-time events. It seems that someone had been telling them that they had missed the return of Jesus. Stop for a moment and ask yourself, how heavy would your heart be if you thought you had missed the return of Jesus? I know I would be devastated. So, Paul, after hearing, probably from Timothy, after he brought word of how these believers were doing back to Paul, took this opportunity to explain to them the wonderful doctrine of the “catching away” of the believers to be ever with Jesus.  This doctrine is best known now by the word “Rapture”, which, by the way, is not found anywhere in the New Testament. Dr. Scofield was one of the theologians who popularized the word “Rapture” in the notes of his study Bible.  But regardless of the word used, we know that Paul gives us excellent, detailed teaching on the “catching away” of believers in Christ. You see, when a believer dies, their bodies are committed to the ground to return to the dust. We are told in Philippians 2:21-23 that for the believer, to die is gain, and that when we die, our spirits immediately go to be with Jesus.

Paul is telling these believers who are now alive that their believing loved ones who have died will not miss the return of Jesus. As a matter of fact, they will be raised from the dead; their old earthly bodies will be resurrected into new, glorified bodies, and they will meet Jesus in the air. Then, after the dead believer’s resurrection, those believers who are still alive will be “caught up”, snatched away, or, as we say, “raptured”, to meet those believers who have been raised from the dead with their glorified bodies. We will also receive our glorified bodies at that time, and as Paul states, “and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

And to that I say, “Come Quickly Lord Jesus!”

"Living in Grace is not about what I can do, but about what Jesus has already done!"