The Hope of the Gospel (Future: The Rapture)

 In looking at the Thessalonian letters, we have been looking at the past, at Paul's ministry to the Thessalonians and their response. But, as I established at the beginning of our study, one of the main themes of these letters is the future, specifically eschatology.

However, before we get to that, we have to look back at the past, back to before Paul began his journeys. The past we saw in 1 Thessalonians is that these people had believed the gospel. But what was the gospel?

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” (Hebrews 2:14) The center of the gospel is this belief that God became a partaker of human nature; that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was God incarnate, fully divine and fully human without mixture and without confusion so that we could be saved through faith in Him. This is the doctrine which the Christians in Thessalonica had received. This is the doctrine which the enemies of the church in Thessalonica had rejected. 

Jesus lived a human life, like any other man, but without sin. And He died, like any other man. And then He was resurrected. But Jesus' resurrection was not simply a return to His old life. He didn't go back to what he had been doing before. It was quite definitely and distinctly a new beginning.

After Christ's resurrection, He spent some time with his disciples, giving them every opportunity to be certain that He had truly been raised, that this was no dream or delusion, but a reality. He prepared them for the new task they would have to do after Pentecost. And then: “And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.” (Acts 1:9)

This is what we refer to as the Ascension. This is not the end of the life of Jesus. It isn't even the end of His work on Earth—both Paul and John would meet with Him again on Earth. But it does represent a shift of some kind, a change, a transference to a new kind of life, a new kind of work. Psalm 110:1 was understood even by the Jews to be a reference to the Messiah and it says: “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” So we see God speaking to the Messiah, placing Him as His right hand, in a position of authority and respect, and is promised ultimate conquest. Jesus is God and therefore He was already in the highest position and yet as Messiah, as a Man, through that exaltation which is represented by the Ascension, He has this special position. Notice what Paul said in his sermon at Athens: “Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31) Speaking of the judgment, he connects it specifically with Jesus as a man, as a human being—not merely as God.

But mentioning that brings us back to the main point. Jesus, though He had accomplished His earthly ministry, through He had made the sacrifice of Himself, and had been resurrected—despite all that, His work wasn't over. The Ascension is not the end but a beginning. When Christ ascended, angels appeared to the disciples with this message: “Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)

The church began with a future focus; they began with this expectation of something yet to come. They proclaimed what God had done in the past, but also what God was yet to do in the future. We have seen this throughout Thessalonians—over and over, Paul pointed to the future and specifically to what Jesus was to do in the future. This reality, of Christ's return, was a foundational part of the early church. From the beginning, eschatology was part of the gospel. And from the beginning, it seems to have been a source of controversy and confusion within the church. 

In our last article, I pointed out that despite all the good things going on in Thessalonica, Paul desired to visit them to perfect their faith. They were in a good way but they hadn't arrived. They still had room to grow and to learn. Probably, when Timothy came from Thessalonica, he brought news of some problems or questions in the church which prompted this letter. Hope and a look for the future have already come up several times, but now Paul looks specifically to the future and begins the main section on eschatology.

(1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as 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 the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent 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 the dead in Christ shall rise first: 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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

The key phrase here to note in the beginning is that phrase: “I would not have you to be ignorant.” Paul wanted the Thessalonians to be knowledgeable, to be instructed. There is more to being a Christian than having good doctrine, and you still be a Christian and have issues in your doctrine—e.g., the church at Corinth—but that doesn't change the fact that doctrine does matter; truth matters. We have to live out our doctrine--and that's something we'll come back to later--but you have to have some doctrine to live out.

And even more specifically, eschatology matters. It is something worth studying and learning about. I think for many people, the amount of confusion and controversy that surrounds this subject discourages them from studying it at all, and that is completely understandable. Often this is a subject that creates needless controversies that produce nothing. But Paul thought it was important enough to try to write this letter about and God thought it was important enough to inspire and preserve that letter as part of the Bible. We may not agree or understand all the details about end times, but there are some ideas here that matter, that make a difference.

Now, we come back to the Ascension. Jesus departed from this world but with that came the promise of a return. He came once but there would be a Second Coming. In these verses, Paul is describing that coming, or at least some part or phase of that coming.

So, we need to talk about the word raptor. A raptor is a bird of prey, a bird that swoops down and carries away its prey. (It's also a dinosaur and a truck, both of which I assume are named after the bird.) It comes from a Latin word meaning to catch up or seize. Sometimes, you'll hear someone say that they are listening to something with rapt attention—that is, their attention has been fully caught up by whatever they are listening to.

And so it is that we get the word rapture, meaning to be caught up or seized; this is the word often used to describe the event in which Christ catches up His people. We can broadly say that this passage describes the Rapture, and is probably the passage which most clearly describes it of any passage in the Bible. And the most important thing it teaches, perhaps, is the fact that the rapture is an act of God.

That may seem obvious, but there is an important point we need to notice. Look at verse 16: “For the Lord himself...” The Rapture isn't something that just happens. It isn't an accident or a part of the natural order and, certainly, not something caused by man. It is the work of God. Many people, outside the church, believe the world will end someday. Given the natural order, that is inevitable. But Paul is not picturing the inevitable collapse of the natural order. He is picturing something done by God.

And specifically by Jesus. It is the Lord Jesus who will come for His people. In the passage from Acts, the angels emphasized the point that it was the same Jesus whom they had known who would return. Paul bases this entire passage on two facts—the word of the Lord and their belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was Jesus who was the foundation of their faith and it was Jesus who would enact their hope.

Jesus is the one who would return and He will return with a purpose. He won't come simply to stand around in the sky and take some observation. That's why I call it an act of God. In verse 16, Paul describes a three-fold phenomenon that will accompany the rapture: there is a shout, then the voice of the archangel, and then finally the trump of God. The word translated shout often has the idea of an order; it is a shout made to incite people to action. The RSV translates it “a cry of command.” We might compare the picture here to a general giving the rallying order to his troops, or a king calling an assembly of his people. And then, the Archangel, like a crier, repeats the shout, and then the trumpet's sound carries on the call. 

Whatever exactly these details mean, I think they point to this at least—that this is a deliberate and intentional action by God. It is part of his plan. 

Suppose you went to see a play, and halfway through the second act, a fire broke out and everyone had to evacuate the theatre. That would be an ending to the play, in the sense that the play would not go on any longer, you wouldn't see any more of it. But, suppose, instead, no fire broke out and you watched the play to the end, until the last actions had been performed and the last lines spoken. That would be the end of the play; but it would not merely be the cessation of the play—it would be the conclusion, the consummation that the dramatist and the actors had planned out and had been working for through the entire play. That ending, rather than being a tragic interruption of the play, is actually the thing that the entire play exists to bring about. It is a grand finale, not an accidental interruption.

And when we deal with the Rapture—and all of eschatology—we are not dealing with an accidental interruption to the story of this world, but to the grand finale which God has been working to since the beginning. In a sense, it is not the ending God would have wanted—the Rapture would not happen or would happen very differently if sin had never entered the world—but, still, this is the ending God has chosen. It is not an accident or a mistake or a last-second reactionary measure; it is an act of God.

It is something that we know will happen. But we do not know when it will happen. In the very next chapter, Paul reminds the Thessalonians: “But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2) In the Olivet Discourse, Christ describes an event that seems to correspond to this passage and he adds this warning: “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.” (Mark 13:32-33) This was, of course, before His death and resurrection. But even afterwards, He gave His disciples a similar warning when they asked about God's future works: “And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” (Acts 1:7)

From all of this, we can say that the rapture is an Act of God and that it is at an unknown time. That is not to say there may not be signs which indicate its nearness (or farness), but it does mean that we cannot (and should not attempt to) fix its date with any certainty. 

Paul compares it to the coming of a thief. Albert Barnes comments: “A thief comes without giving any warning, or any indications of his approach. He not only gives none, but he is careful that none shall be given. It is a point with him, that, it possible, the man whose house he is about to rob shall have no means of ascertaining his approach until he comes suddenly upon him.” You might be able to calculate the likelihood of being robbed, based on your neighborhood and on other crimes being committed around you, but you cannot be certain on any given night whether you will or will not be robbed.

The unknown or uncertain timing of the Rapture connects to the fact that it is an act of God. It will happen when God choses for it to happen. If it were a natural event arising out of the course of nature, we could roughly calculate when it would happen. If it were an event which we had to accomplish, then God might have told us how and when to bring it about. But it is an act which originates within God's own sovereign will and therefore we cannot and do not need to know it.

I want to emphasize that point for two reasons. First, I think we, as a church, have done a disservice to the doctrine of the Rapture by attempting to set dates or even general time frames for it. By this point, many people have trouble taking this doctrine seriously, because they have heard so often that it will happen at some given time, and it hasn't. 

But secondly, it is important because this was the issue that was troubling the Thessalonians. This is hard for us to grasp because we look at all this from a different perspective.

But consider how it must have been for these early Christians. We know that Christ's return was something Paul had preached to them; they were looking forward. They were expecting to see Christ descend as the apostles had seen him ascend. But then, some of their own members began to die, to die without ever seeing this great event take place. The rest of the church had to realize that they might die without seeing it happen. And so... what then? They were waiting and watching, but what if they didn't actually see the thing for which they waited and watched? (Remember, most of the NT wasn't written yet, so it's not as if they had clear Biblical teaching on the matter. Paul had discussed some of this with them while he was there, but we don't know how much.)

This seems to have been a matter of great concern for the Thessalonians, and Paul largely wrote this letter in order to set their minds at ease. His main point here is to show that the Rapture is a hope for all Christians. 

In verse 14, Paul says that those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. They still belong to God and still have a part in his plan, even if they are no longer with us. The key phrase here is “in Jesus.” The dead in Christ are not lost because they are in Christ; they are in His keeping, in union with Him. Therefore, whether they die or live, they belong to Him and are with him. When Paul, in prison, was contemplating the quite real possibility of his own death, this is what he had to say: “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:20-21) In life and in death, Paul was serving Christ and was united with Christ. 

In verse 15, Paul makes a statement that sounds strange in modern English: he says that those who are alive at the Rapture “shall not prevent them which are asleep.” The Greek word means “to come before, precede.” (Which is what 'prevent' meant in Old English.) We might make a loose translation and say that the living will not have a head-start on the dead.  Paul continues this idea in the next two verses. He says that the dead in Christ shall be raised first and then the living “shall be caught up together with them.” 

This hope is for all Christians. Those who die before seeing that day are at no disadvantage. They haven't missed out on part of that glory. All who are in Christ will share in that day. Paul and all those to whom he wrote are now dead. Almost two thousand years have passed since these words were written. Many Christians have lived and died in faith and hope, waiting for that day. And all of them will have their place at the Rapture. And if another two thousand years pass before it and all Christians today pass away, we will still have a place at that day. This is a hope for all Christians.

And while Paul is looking here only at this issue of the dead and living, this really applies to every other division. Because the key is that Christians are 'in Christ' it doesn't matter their ethnicity or culture or gender or economic status. This isn't a hope for one specific group or kind of people, but for all who are in Christ—for all who are willing to embrace this hope.

And we could go on and say this hope is not limited by geography. Basically, the entire Christian church in Paul's day was concentrated in the Mediterranean area, spreading out from the Middle East. Many people believe that when Jesus does return, He will physically be located in the sky above the Middle East, specifically Israel. But even if that is true, that doesn't mean Christians in the US or in Australia won't equally share in the Rapture. We can even push this further. If, when the Lord returns, there are Christians living other places besides Earth—in space stations or on other planets—they will equally share in the Rapture, because the key point in all of this is Christ. It is not where we are on earth that matters, but whether we are in Christ.

In saying all that, we have also touched on another important aspect of the Rapture. But to make this clear, we need to go back and talk about the life of Christ.

The basis of our faith as Christians is in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul makes that the anchor point here in verse 14. But when we talk about the Resurrection of Christ, we have to remember that Christ's resurrection was something special. Jesus had died, very definitely and in a very brutal and physically demanding way. But on Easter, He did not come crawling out of His tomb, battered and bloody like something out of a B-grade horror story. Though He had the scars He received in His crucifixion—and was able to show them to Thomas when He met with the disciples—He apparently looked normal enough that on three different occasions, people didn't even realize He was someone special.

Often, if someone has, say, an accident where they come to the point of death, if they do recover, it will take weeks or months of surgery, recovery, and therapy before they can return to normal life and even then will have limited functionality. But Jesus walked out of His grave fully restored to new life, able to do everything He could before—and some things He couldn't. Three different times, Jesus simply appears or disappears as if He were teleporting. This is something we never see in the life of Jesus before the Resurrection. 

And there is something more. During Jesus' ministry, Jesus took Peter, James, and John on to a mountain where they saw Jesus' body transfigured and filled with some kind of glory. The gospels don't explain this story—probably the apostles didn't understand it themselves at the time. But most of the commentators think that what they saw was a foretaste of the glory which properly belongs to Christ in His resurrection. This makes sense because when John sees Christ in the first chapter of Revelation, he sees a figure clothes in glory much like what he had seen years before on the mountaintop. In other words, there was in Christ's resurrection a glorification. His body was not simply a restored version of the body He had before. It was something new and glorious, even if that glory was concealed or hidden during the time He was on earth before the Ascension.

Of course, you could argue that Jesus, as God, already possesses innately all glory and therefore could not experience anything called glorification. And that is obviously true. But we have to note this about the resurrection. Luke 24:37-43 tells of one of Jesus' meetings with His disciples: “But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them.”

When Jesus was with His disciples, He made it clear that He was not a ghost or vision, by allowing them to touch Him and even ate some fish and honey. But what is so significant about this is what Jesus says in verse 39: “It is I myself.” The point of all this was to impress on the disciples the reality that the man they were seeing was the same man they had known before.

For years, the disciples had worked side-by-side with Jesus, sharing in the troubles and the toils of His ministry. They had seen Him experience the problems and weariness of life. John, at least, had seen Him die. And now they were seeing Him—the same man they had known before—but resurrected from the dead and living some kind of new life. He had somehow passed beyond life as we know it and would shortly pass out of this world altogether, and yet He was still the same man He had been before and was still able to sit down and share a meal with His friends.

In other words, Jesus' body in His resurrection was distinct from but had continuity with His previous body. He still remained (and still remains) a human being with a physical body, but that body is something different from His pre-death body and seemingly possesses a special glory.

What does all this have to do with the Rapture? Because you can make this comparison. The Rapture is like the Ascension. In the Ascension, Christ departed from this world. It is the juncture point between life as we know it and something more. And in the Rapture, His people will depart from this world, will pass from life as we know it into something more. But before Christ ascended, He was raised from the dead in a new body.  And at the rapture, the dead in Christ will be raised from the dead; and even those who are alive will experience a transformation. The theological term for this is glorification. “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” (Philippians 3:20-21) Paul also talks about this in 1 Corinthians 15 with words that parallel the words of our text: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52) This is the fourth thing we see about the Rapture. When it happens, there will be a transformation for both the dead and living.

But comparing what happened to Christ with what will happen to the Christian isn't simply a comparison—it isn't just an analogy. There is a real connection between these two things. Look at verse 14, the basis for a belief in the Resurrection is in the fact that Jesus died and rose again. Paul makes the reverse argument in 1 Corinthians 15:16: “For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised.” There were those in Corinth who denied the future resurrection and Paul said that if that were true, then Jesus also had not risen. These two ideas—Christ's resurrection and ours—stand or fall together because they have a vital connection. Following the death of Lazarus, Jesus had this conversation with Martha: “Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Jesus said that He was, in Himself, the resurrection and the life. Resurrection isn't just an event that is going to happen someday. Jesus is the resurrection—that was why Lazarus was resurrected at Christ's prayer; that is why Jesus was resurrected; that is why those who are in Christ will be resurrected at the Rapture.

Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why the incarnation was so important. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” (Hebrews 2:14-15) Jesus took on a human life because only a living person can die and only a dead person can be resurrected. A few verses before, the writer refers to Jesus as the Captain of our Salvation. The word translated captain means a leader, but it sometimes has the idea of a trailblazer or pioneer—someone who goes into a new area so that he can lead other people through it. We can follow Jesus through life and death to resurrection and glory because Jesus has gone that way before us to make a road. I think it was Irenaeus who said that God became what we are so that we could become what He is.

This resurrection or transformation which accompanies the Rapture is a difficult subject. Often when trying to explain or understand something difficult, an easy approach is to ask basic questions. And so I thought we could use that approach here, by asking the when, where, who, what, how, and why of the Resurrection.

The first three of these we have already covered. WHEN is at the Rapture—when Christ returns, that is when His people will be raised from the dead and transformed. (Though there are those who believe there may be a second or third resurrection for God's people after the initial one at the Rapture.) And when exactly that will be, as we've said before, we don't know. WHERE will the Resurrection happen? Wherever there are those who are in Christ. And WHO will experience it? Again, all those who are in Christ. That's why the term 'Resurrection' can be confusing to some people. Because we think of resurrection as meaning the dead coming back to life. But this resurrection will be for the living as well as the dead—because it is not just a return to life but a transformation to a new kind of life.

And that leads us directly to the WHAT. What is the resurrection? It is a transformation that changes the bodies both of the dead and the living into something new.

Think of a candle and a flash light. Those two things are very different. One is made of string and wax. The other is made of glass and metal. Someone who had never seen them before might examine them and think they have absolutely nothing in common; no reason for them to be grouped together. But we also realize they also have a great similarity; both have the same function, giving light. They achieve that function by different means, but they do ultimately the same thing. On a dark night, you might be happy to have either one; and from a distance in the dark you might not be able to tell them apart.

In other words, they are similar enough to be classed together but also different enough that no one would ever confuse them together. They are distinct from but connected with each other.

And when Paul discusses the resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15, he makes a similar argument—that the resurrection body and our present body are distinct from but connected with each other. Our present body, our present flesh and blood “cannot inherit the kingdom of Heaven;” that is why it must be changed, but it changed into something similar enough to still be classed under the term 'body.' 

Paul paints the contrast between our present body and the resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15:42-43: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.” And again in verse 53: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” The picture here is of a transformation where the limitations and negative attributes of our present existence are not merely removed but replaced with something positive. The resurrection body is incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and immortal. 

But perhaps the most interesting statement is in verse 44: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” The term 'natural body' can be translated “animal body.” It reminds us of the many similarities that exist between humans and animals. From a purely biological standpoint, man is simply another animal; he has the same needs and functions that an animal does.

Man is an animal but he is also more than an animal. He has a spirit; he has the ability to think and make moral choices and form a relationship with God in a way that animals cannot.

But in this life, the two sides of man are often in conflict. The body forces the spirit to be essentially inactive for eight hours every night. Sickness, hunger, and tiredness make it difficult to think or pray. The union of the two halves of man is an uneasy alliance at best. But Paul makes it clear that just as surely as there is now a natural body there will be a spiritual body. That seems to mean that the present conflict which exists between man's body and spirit will be no longer. 

A man might be able to jump on the back of a wild horse and by force and skill be able to ride it. He might even be able to get it to go in the direction he wanted it to go. But it would be a constant battle and it would certainly not be a smooth ride. But suppose that same man mounted a saddled horse which he had trained its entire life so that it was obedient to his every command. That seems to be a parallel to the contrast Paul is painting between our relationship to our body now and what it will be in the Resurrection.

So in the resurrection, there is a transformation of the body into something new and glorious. There is also a widely accepted idea that there will be some sort of spiritual transformation or perfection at the Resurrection. 

There is a logical reason for this. Consider two hypothetical people. Person A became a Christian at a young age and for his entire life served God, studying the Bible and praying and drawing closer to God, until the day he died at ninety-five. Person B had no knowledge of God and lived a sinful life, until one day when he happened to come into church and hear the Gospel and then prayed through. Then, on the way home from church, he was hit by a bus and died. Both these men were Christians, were in Christ, and therefore both will go up in the Rapture. But though Person B has a genuine experience with God, he lacked the development and maturity of experience that someone like Person A had. And Person A had less development and maturity than he would have had if he had lived for another ten years. So it makes sense that there would be some kind of perfection of the spirit as well as a glorification of the body.

However, in preparing for this, I couldn't actually find anywhere in the Bible that teaches this or even suggests it. And since we have all of eternity to work with, a difference in progress may not be that important.

All of that covers the WHAT. Now we have to look at the HOW. And the HOW is obviously a difficult question. It is almost impossible to imagine the bodies we have now suddenly being transformed into something new; there is no known principle that would make such a thing possible. And that is without touching on the bodies of the dead, most of which have decomposed into nothing. When the graves are opened, in most graves there will be nothing there to work with. If we were tasked with the problem of resurrecting the body, we would have a hard time even imagining where to begin. N. T. Wright comments that in Greek, the word resurrection meant one thing and it was a thing that didn't happen.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul compares death to planting a seed and the resurrection to the harvest of the seed. But notice what he says in verses 37-38. “And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.” The main point Paul is making is that there is a distinction between our body now and the resurrection body, though there is also continuity between them. We know that a seed and a plant are, in a sense, the same thing, even though they are different in every respect. There is nothing strange about a seed packet having a picture of a plant on the front, even though it has nothing inside but a few hard pellets that are nothing like the plant. We understand, in general, the principle involved; we know how a seed germinates and grows. If you have a scientific education, you may know this process in great detail; but someone who didn't have that background would find the whole thing absurd—would find it bizarre to suppose that cold, hard seeds could turn into flowers or tomatoes or trees.

But the really important point here is in verse 38: “But God giveth it a body.” We call the growth of a plant a natural process because it is part of the world as we know it, but nature itself is a result of God's power. It was God who created a world in which seeds could turn into trees. We recognize and understand the principle of this transformation, but we did not make the principle—God made it. And if God could make this world that allows for such transformation, it doesn't take much faith to suppose He could bring about the resurrection also. If God could make the body of Adam, He surely will not be hard-pressed to make new bodies for us.

When you make a casserole, you take a few different ingredients, mix them together in a dish, and then bake them. The final result is different from the ingredients you use to make it, but (generally speaking) not that different. You can still differentiate the various ingredients and it wouldn't really taste all that different if you ate it cold without baking it. But there are other foods which are completely different after they've been cooked. Nobody, unfamiliar with baking, would ever guess that something as runny as cake batter could turn into anything like a cake. Or that a heavy, wet, and sticky ball of dough could be transformed into light and flakey biscuits. In these cases, the process of baking brings about a real and radical transformation, bringing something completely new out of the raw materials of baking. If we can perform that sort of magic in any ordinary kitchen, is it really so hard to believe that God—the God who made this whole world—can bring about such a transformation in the resurrection?

That is why in 1 Corinthians 15:36, Paul calls those who deny or question the resurrection “fools.” It is a strong term, but there is a reason for it. Because those who think this way are making not merely an intellectual mistake, but a spiritual one.  Jesus was dealing with some who denied the Resurrection, and His response was: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29b)  Resurrection isn't something that just happens to happen. It is something that is deliberately brought about by the infinite creative power of God, the same power that brought this whole world into being in the first place. 

But there is something even more than that. “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” (1 Corinthians 15:45) When Adam was made, he was a living soul. He had life but that life was contingent. And after sin came into the world, the life that he had began to decay and by now he's been dead for millennia and the body he was given has deteriorated to nothing. But Jesus Christ, the Last Adam, is not merely alive, not merely resurrected out of death, but is a “quickening spirit”--that is, not only is He alive but He brings life to others. Adam was a pool of life, but Christ is a fountain, a never-ending source of life for those who believe in Him. That is why even the loss of life is not the end for the Christian because to be a Christian means to have a connection with the ultimate and final source of life. You can empty all the water out of a pond but it will fill up again so long as the spring is still flowing.

So finally, we have to consider the WHY; why would God bother about changing and transforming the body like this? Obviously, our bodies as they presently exist are too temporary to endure eternity, so a change would be necessary. But most Christians believe that the spirit, apart from the body, is still capable of experiencing God, so why wouldn't God just keep the spirit and leave the body alone?

I don't think there's anywhere in the Bible where we have a clear, hard-and-fast answer to this. But I think there is scripture that points to the answer. Look at the way Paul describes the Resurrection in 2 Corinthians 5:1-4: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.”

Paul uses two metaphors here; picturing our present body as a tent, a temporary dwelling place for us, and also as our clothing, as something we wear or put on. He had assurance that if our present house were lost, we would still have somewhere to live; that God has built a house for us. Again, if we lost the clothing of this body, Paul was assured that we would be reclothed with an eternal suit.

Both of these metaphors imply the same idea. A man can exist without any sort of house and a man can exist without any clothes to wear. But that is not an ideal existence. The preferred, the proper, one might say the normal, existence of man is to be clothed and housed. And by analogy, while the spirit continues to exist without a body, the preferred, the normal, we can even say the natural, condition for the spirit is to be clothed and housed in a body.

This is something we haven't really talked about yet, because it doesn't fall under the scope of the Rapture—but the Bible does teach that there will also be a resurrection of the wicked. And I think it falls under the same reason—because to be human means to be a body and a spirit, and therefore it is in that state that man will face his final reward, for good or evil. 

So, to review: the rapture is an (1) act of God, which will happen at an (2) unknown time, when (3) all of God's people will be (4) transformed into a new body which is distinct from but has continuity with our present earthly existence. 

We might add as a fifth point this will be the entry point for eternity. Look at the end of verse 17: “And so shall we ever be with the Lord.” We talked about how the resurrection body will be immortal. And here we see why—so that we can be forever with God. There may or may not be more that happens on Earth after the Rapture, but the Christian has moved to a new story, a new mode of existence, one which can be summarized by companionship with God. We will come back and talk about this later, but for the moment, we just need to remember that the really important thing about the Rapture and the resurrection is not the trumpet or the transformation, but the fact that it is the doorway into the unending presence of God.

And all of this makes a difference. As I said earlier, many Christians try to avoid the study of eschatology because it can be so confusing and controversial. And I think there is a danger of getting too caught up in some of the details. But there is something important here, something that makes a difference. Look at verse 13; there was a reason that Paul wrote all this: “that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” 

I don't think Paul is saying that we shouldn't mourn for those we have lost. Paul himself mourned the near-death of Epaphroditus. We do sorrow, but not in the same way as those who have no hope. Eugene Peterson put it that we must not grieve “like people who have nothing to look forward to, as if the grave were the last word.” The resurrection gives us hope.

There is the obvious reason. Death, for the Christian, really is only sleep. We are parted—and that is sad—but the hope is that this parting is not forever. We have hope for the dead—that they will be with God—but also for us, that we will be reunited with them. Note verse 17 again, we “shall be caught up together.” There is no idea of each soul individually meeting God and spending eternity alone with God. The picture is of a community, a common meeting with God and with each other.

But I think there is another idea here. The resurrection means that our life now has meaning. If there is no resurrection, if our life here is all that there is to us, then there's not much to it. We live for a few years, comparatively speaking, and all we do and all we care about vanishes with us. In the grand scheme of things, nothing we do really matters.

But if death is not the end, if there is a resurrection, if our actions now will be judged and rewarded by God, there our life has meaning. We are real people with real meaning. This even carries through to the resurrection of the wicked. It is a terrible thought to realize that some will be resurrected to eternal death, but it does mean that our actions and decisions now truly matter. We are determining the course of eternity, for ourselves at least. C. S. Lewis said something to this effect: you have never met any ordinary people. Every person you rub shoulders with will someday be clothed either in unimaginable glory or unimaginable corruption—and we are all, every day, helping one another to one of those two goals.

We have hope. And the 'we' there is important. The hope is for the body of Christ and so it is something which nourishes that body even now. That is verse 18: “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” As a church, we are united in this journey and we can help one another because we are traveling to the same hope.