1 Thessalonians 4:16–17

Context

1 Thessalonians is a letter that Paul sent to the church in Thessalonica, which he had founded only a short time before. Beginning in 4:13, Paul speaks about "them which are asleep," that is, church members who had already died. The believers appear to have been grieving out of fear that those who died before the Lord's return would be left out on that day. Paul assures them that the dead will be raised first and will meet the Lord together with those who are alive, and he concludes, "Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (4:18). The purpose of the passage, then, is to comfort a grieving church rather than to provide a timetable of the end times.

Interpretations

• The dispensationalist reading: Dispensationalism reads this passage as describing a "pretribulation rapture," in which the church is caught up into the air before a seven-year Great Tribulation. On this view the Lord comes only as far as the air at that time, and his Second Coming to the earth occurs separately after the Tribulation. The view was systematized by John Nelson Darby in nineteenth-century Britain and spread widely in the English-speaking world and in Korea through the Scofield Reference Bible.
• Historic premillennial, amillennial, and postmillennial readings: These views generally regard the meeting in the air and the Second Coming as a single event. Because the word "meet" (Greek apantēsis) was used in antiquity for the custom of a city's residents going out beyond the walls to welcome a distinguished visitor and then escorting him back into the city, they interpret the passage as a picture of believers meeting the Lord in the air and descending with him to the earth.
• Midtribulation and posttribulation rapture views: Other views affirm a rapture but place its timing in the middle or at the end of the Great Tribulation.

Controversies and Issues

The term "rapture" derives from "caught up" in verse 17 (Greek harpazō; Latin rapiemur). The timing of the rapture is bound up with views of the millennium and is disputed even within denominations. In Korea in 1992, the Dami Mission and other groups predicted the rapture on a specific date; when it failed to occur, the episode caused a major social stir. Major denominations condemned such date-setting eschatology as heresy, holding that it contradicts the words "But of that day and hour knoweth no man" (Matthew 24:36).

Related Passages

• 1 Corinthians 15:51–52
• Matthew 24:30–31
• 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11
• John 14:2–3