The Order of Resurrection

     It appears that the early Church also confronted confusion concerning the Lord’s coming as we have today. They, too, heard false teachers speak questionable things concerning that Day. For one thing, they began to fear for their fellow believers who had died before Jesus could return. What would happen to them? Would they miss out and not receive resurrection? What if we don’t last until that time? Although their specific questions were somewhat different from our own in these days, the bottom line is that we do not have to question the hope of our calling—of being fully redeemed and perfected in spirit, soul, and body at the appointed time.
     Once again Paul comes to the rescue because he had come to understand the extended nature of the tribulation of those Days. He came to understand that Jesus would not be returning soon, but latter—at the appointed Day.
       End-Time Lesson: In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul gets right to the heart of the matter—the hope we have in Christ. “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep [a nice way of referring to those who have died because they are eternal spirits], lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.”
      When believers die, they go to Heaven to be with the Lord until that appointed Day. Their mortal bodies return to dust here on the earth. They have some sort of spiritual covering that is recognizable, but that is about all we know about this interim “body.” When Jesus returns, Mark 13:27 says, that Christ will send His angels to “gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven.” So when Christ comes, He won’t be alone. He will bring the dead in Christ back with Him.
      Paul continues, “For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16). The dead in Christ will be born from the dead first. Their bodies will somehow be gathered from the earth and changed into immortal, glorified bodies. Being birthed from death—resurrection—means they shall be alive forevermore, no longer subject to death.
      "Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17). The Greek word for caught up here is harpazo (har-pad’zo); it is always used in references to the rapture. We know that the rapture is when we are birthed from death—resurrection. So those of us who alive at His coming then receive our immortal, glorified bodies “in a twinkling of an eye.
       The Greek word for “meet” in this passage is apantesis (ap-an’-tay-sis), which refers to a friendly encounter. It comes from the root word that means to meet away. In other words, both the dead in Christ and those who are alive in Christ at His coming are resurrected, gathered to meet together with our Beloved Lord, to be taken back to Father’s House in Heaven as promised. “And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”
      We do not simply go part way up in the sky somewhere, meet Christ and the dead in Christ, and then come back down to earth in our glorified bodies as if we’re on some sort of divine Ferris Wheel ride. The masses of ungodly people left on the earth could not stand in the presence of so many glorified beings. That which is unholy cannot coexist with that which is completely holy and sanctified. More on that later.
     In a similar letter to the Corinthians, Paul adds a few more descriptive details as to what it is like to be birthed from death, never to die again.
       “Behold, I tell 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 trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ ” (1 Cor. 15:51-54).