1 Thessalonians4:18
Previous VerseTranslation
Paraphrase
Therefore, come alongside one another and encourage each other by reminding each other of these truths.
Footnotes
1
This is the same word that is used in John 16 where the Holy Spirit is called our “counselor or comforter.” It means one who comes long side us to encourage us, comfort us and guide us.
When we meet Jesus in the air, are we going to heaven, or is He coming to earth?
I assure you that we are meeting Him on His way to the earth. Here’s why.
In those days if a king or important person came to your house you would go out to meet him and then accompany him back into your house. It was considered rude to wait at your door for him to come to you. That custom is still practiced in many parts of the world today. Every Jew of John’s day would tell you that when the New Testament speaks of us meeting Jesus in the air, we are meeting Him as He comes to earth, He is not meeting us as we are going to heaven. The popular notion of Him meeting us in the clouds and then taking us to heaven makes us greater than Jesus, and Jesus lessor than us! (I get shivers and my skin crawls just by typing those words!) It is impossible that the imagery of meeting Jesus in the air means what modern westerners say it means!
Did Paul think this event would happen in his lifetime?
Yes, it appears that he did. He thought that way because he was basing his comments on the words of Jesus in Matthew 24 without realizing that Jesus included some things that would have double fulfillments. With the use of the word “we” he always included himself in those that were expecting to still be alive when Jesus showed Himself in power and glory. We would have been thinking the same thing if we had lived back then.
Actually, some of them came close to being there for the climactic events of AD 70, and John lived about 20 years past that event. The destruction of the temple by the Romans was actually Jesus’ first return in power and glory. We now know that there are two “comings” after His resurrection, one to confirm that the former age, the age of the Law, had been brought to completion by His death and resurrection, and the other one is yet to occur. The last one is the only one that most believers refer to as His “second coming.” The Apostles thought that all of that would be accomplished in one single event and that it would happen within a few decades of the resurrection. Some of it did happen in AD 70, but there is much more that has not yet taken place.