THE PAROUSIA IN THE APOSTOLIC EPISTLES--Part II
EVENTS ACCOMPANYING THE PAROUSIA.
1. The Resurrection of the Dead in Christ.
2. The Rapture of the Living Saints to Hearen.
I Thess. iv. 13-17 -- ' But I would not have .you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which
are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even ,is others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we
say unto you by [in] the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of
the Lord, shall not prevent [come before, take precedence of] them which are asleep. For the Lord
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump
of God: and first the dead in Christ shall rise then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.'
These explanations of St. Paul are evidently intended to meet a state of things which had begun to
manifest itself among the Christians of Thessalonica, and which had been reported to him by
Timotheus. Eagerly looking for the coming of Christ, they deplored the death of their fellow
Christians as excluding them from participation in the triumph and blessedness of the Parousia. ' They
feared that these departed Christians would lose the happiness of witnessing their Lord's second
coming, which they expected soon to behold.' [6]- To correct this misapprehension the apostle makes
the explanations contained in this passage.
First, be assures them that they had no reason to regret the departure of their friends in Christ, as
if they bad sustained any disadvantage by dying before the coming of the Lord; for as God had raised
up Jesus from the dead, so He would raise u His sleeping disciples from their graves, at His return in
glory.
Secondly, he informs them, on the authority of the Lord Jesus, that those of themselves who lived
to see His coming would not take precedence of, or have any advantage over, the faithful who had
deceased before that event.
Thirdly, he describes the order of the events attending the Parousia : --
1. The descent of the Lord from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel,
and the trump of God.
2. The raising up of the dead who had departed in the Lord.
3. The simultaneous rapture of the living saints, along with the resuscitated dead, into the
region of the air, there to meet their coming Lord.
4. The everlasting reunion of Christ and His people in heaven.
The legitimate inference from the words of St. Paul in ver. 15, 'we who are alive and remain unto
the coming of the Lord,' is that he anticipated it as possible, and even probable, that his readers and
himself would be alive at the coming of the Lord. Such is the natural and obvious interpretation of his
language. Dean Alford observes, with much force and candour, -
' Then, beyond question, he himself expected to be alive, together with the majority of those to
whom he was writing, at the Lord's coming. For we cannot for a moment accept the evasion of
Theodoret and the majority of ancient commentators (viz. that the apostle does not speak of
himself personally, but of those who should be living at the period), but we must take the words in
their only plain grammatical meaning, that "we which are alive and remain" [oi zwntej oi
perileipomenoi] are a class distinguished from "they that sleep" [oi koimhqentej] by being yet in
the flesh when Christ comes, in which class by prefixing " we " [h,me/ij] he includes his readers and
himself. That this was his expectation we know from other passages, especially from 2 Cor. v.' [7]
But while thus admitting that the apostle held this expectation, Alford treats it as a mistaken one,
for he goes on to say :
"Nor need it surprise any Christian that the apostles should in this matter of detail have found their
personal expectation liable to disappointment respecting a day of which it is so solemnly said that
no man knoweth its appointed time, not the angels in heaven, not the Son, but the Father only
(Mark xiii. 32).'
In like manner we find the following remarks in Conybeare and Howson (chap. xi.):
' The early church, and even the apostles themselves, expected their Lord to come again in that
very generation. St. Paul himself shared in that expectation, but, being under the guidance of the
Spirit of truth, he did not deduce therefrom any erroneous practical conclusion.'
But the question is, had the apostles sufficient grounds for their expectation ? Were they not fully
justified in believing as they did ? Had not the Lord expressly predicted His own coming within the
limit of the existing generation ? Had He not connected it with the overthrow of the temple and the
subversion of the national polity of Israel ? Had He not assured His disciples that in 'a little while'
they should see Him again ? Had He not declared that some of them should live to witness His return
? And after all this, is it necessary to find excuses for St. Paul and the early Christians, as if they had
laboured under a delusion ? If they did, it was not they who were to blame, but their Master. It
would have been strange indeed if, after all the exhortations which they bad received to be on the
alert, to watch, to live in continual expectancy of the Parousia, the apostles had not confidently
believed in His speedy coming, and taught others to do the same. But it Would seem that St. Paul
rests his explanations to the Thessalonians on the authority of a special divine communication made to
himself, ' This I say unto you by the word of the Lord,' etc. This can hardly mean that the Lord had
so predicted in His prophetic discourse on the Mount of Olives, for no such statement is recorded; it
must therefore refer to a revelation Which he had himself received. How, then, could he be at fault in
his expectations? It is strange that so great incredulity should exist in this day respecting the plain
sense of our Lord's express declarations on this subject. Fulfilled or unfulfilled, right or wrong, there
is no ambiguity or uncertainty in His language. It may be said that we have no evidence of such facts
having occurred as are here described,-- the Lord descending with a shout, the sounding of the
trumpet, the raising of the sleeping dead, the rapture of the living saints. True; but is it certain that
these are facts cognisable by the senses ? is their place in the region of the material and the visible ?
As we have already said, we know and are sure that a very large portion of the events predicted by
our Lord, and expected by His apostles, did actually come to pass at that very crisis called 'the end
of the age.' There is no difference of opinion concerning the destruction of the temple, the overthrow
of the city, the unparalleled slaughter of the people, the extinction of the nationality, the end of the
legal dispensation. But the Parousia is inseparably linked with the destruction of Jerusalem ; and, in
like manner, the resurrection of the dead, and the judgment of the 'wicked generation,' with the
Parousia. They are different parts of one great catastrophe ; different scenes in one great drama. We
accept the facts verified by the historian on the word of man ; is it for Christians to hesitate to
accept the facts which are vouched by the word of the Lord ?
EXHORTATIONS TO WATCHFULNESS IN PROSPECT OF THE PAROUSIA.
I Thess. v. 1-10.-- 'But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto
you. For yourselves know perfectly that the flay of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For
when they shall ray, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon
a woman with child ; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day
should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day : we are
not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others ; but let us watch and be
sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
But let us, who axe of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an
helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by
our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together
with Him.'
It is manifest that there would be no meaning in these urgent calls to watchfulness unless the
apostle believed in the nearness of the coming crisis. Was it to the Thessalonians, or to some unborn
generation in the far distant future, that St. Paul was penning these lines ? Why urge men in A.D. 52 to
watch, and be on the alert, for a catastrophe which was not to take place for hundreds and
thousands of years ? Every word of this exhortation supposes the crisis to be impending and
imminent.
To say that the apostle writes not for any one generation, nor to any persons in particular, is to
throw an air of unreality into his exhortations from which reverent criticism revolts. He certainly meant
the very persons to whom he wrote, and who read this epistle, and he thought of none others. We
cannot accept the Suggestion of Bengel that the 'we which are alive and remain' are only imaginary
personages, like the names Caius and Titius (John Doe and Richard Roe) ; for no one can read this
epistle without being conscious of the warm personal attachment and affection to individuals which
breathe in every line. We conclude, therefore, that the whole bad a direct and present bearing upon
the actual position end prospects of the persons to whom the epistle is addressed.
PRAYER THAT THE THESSALONIANS MIGHT SURVIVE UNTIL THE COMING OF CHRIST.
1 THESS. v. 23 -- ' Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit,
and soul, and body, all together be preserved blameless at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
[8]
If any shadow of a doubt still rested on the question whether St. Paul believed and taught the
incidence of the Parousia in his own day, this passage would dispel it. No words can more clearly
imply this belief than this prayer that the Thessalonian Christians might not die before the appearing of
Christ. Death is the dissolution of the union between body, soul, and spirit |
