The next word claiming attention is Parousia, which is usually translated in the Authorized and Revised versions by coming, and in the recent independent translations by coming and arrival. We first meet it in the N.T. at Matthew 24:3, which reads: "What will be the sign of your Coming and of the close of the age?"[1] Here and everywhere else in the Gospels it refers to the triumphant Advent of our Lord at the close of the present world-period. Pre-tribs admit this, but contend that the Lord was addressing the Apostles as representatives of a Jewish Remnant of the End-time, and that it is to the Epistles of Paul that we must go to get light on the Church’s hope; the Coming of the Son of Man is not for the Church, but for Israel and the world. Literally, as I have said, a volume is required to examine adequately the theories of the standing, sufferings, and missionary preaching of that Remnant. But in the Epistles of Paul we are on common ground: it is allowed that Parousia in the Epistles always refers to that Coming of Christ which is the hope of Christians. Let us go, therefore, to Paul. And it is in his earliest Epistles (excepting Galatians), those to the Thessalonians, that we meet with several references to the word that we are to examine. Pre-tribs think that Paul is with them, and rely on these very Epistles to prove their whole case on the Second Coming. Here are the references according to the Revised Version. For the sake of completeness I also give the occurrence of the word in the great chapter on resurrection:

Only two of the above texts require detailed study. We may as well consider first the stronghold of the new program of the End.

(1) 1 Thessalonians 5:13.

Most pre-tribs are frank enough to admit that if this passage goes against them, then their main position is lost; their whole safety rests, in the last resort, upon the holding of this fort against attack. To borrow a figure from Provost Salmon, we face an adversary who has been driven from one fortress after another, but now secures himself with special confidence in his last; if he fails here he must fall back in a rout. What does the Apostle say?

The careless reader will have read the above passage without observing any appreciable change in its wording; others will have noticed a significant variation at verse 13. Whereas Paul writes: "I would not have you to be ignorant brethren, concerning them that are asleep," the citation above reads, "concerning the rapture of the saints," for so it is often unconsciously read by every theorist who approaches the text. According to Paul, he is going to give fresh instruction concerning "them that are asleep;" according to the theorists he is about to give a revelation concerning the Rapture of the saints. In a former chapter I quoted the dictum of a pre-trib in America— "the Rapture is an incident of the coming, spoken of directly once, and only once; and then given as a new revelation to meet the sorrows of the Lord’s bereaved. It is never repeated." Such statements are characteristic of thousands made in pamphlets, books, and magazines; they are typical of the exegetical looseness that characterizes so many of the school. For, first, it may be asserted with all boldness that the Rapture was not given in 1 Thessalonians 4 "as a new revelation." I have already shown in chapter 6, with the complete concurrence of Darby, Kelly, Newberry, and, indeed, of all the earlier theorists, and present-day ones like Scofield, that the Rapture of believers was not "given as a new revelation" by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4, but by the Lord Jesus Christ twenty years earlier. Secondly, it is to be asserted that the new revelation given "to meet the sorrows of the Lord’s bereaved" was not the Rapture at all, but the fact that at the Coming of the Lord, the saints who survive till then will have no precedence or advantage whatever over the saints who sleep. Thirdly, in view of the Rapture craze, fathered by theorists, it needs to be asserted that the real message of comfort about the Apostle’s words is not that there will be a Rapture, but that at the Lord’s Coming the saints, whether watching or sleeping, will live together with the Lord, and be forever with Him; so that, as Faussett beautifully puts it in his commentary: there will be "no more parting, no more going out," and Moffatt: "no more sleeping in him or waiting for him." Fourthly, it will be shown before we have finished with strange theories, that the Rapture, so far from being "spoken of directly once and only once, and never repeated" was so spoken of more than once, and was often repeated.[2]

To anyone not infatuated with special theories the meaning of 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18 is as plain as a pikestaff: in the words of Faussett:[3] "Jesus is represented as a victorious king, giving the word of command to the hosts of heaven in His train for the last onslaught, at His final triumph over sin, death and Satan," (Rev. 19:11-21).

The N.T. grammarian, A. T. Robertson, writing on the phrase "with a shout" in verse 16 says: "an old word, here only in N.T., from keleuo, to order, command (military command). Christ will, come as conqueror." Conybeare translates by a "shout of war," and adds: "the word denotes the shout used in battle." Alexander in The Speaker’s Commentary has the paraphrase: "with a cry of command ringing forth, like that of the general of a great army."

"Christ will come as conqueror." Here is the keynote of the passage. And this is proved beyond all doubt by the kingly word Parousia, used here. It is one of the great contributions of modern scholarship that we now understand what the early Christians felt when they read in Paul’s Epistles of the Parousia of the Lord Jesus Christ. Scholars and archaeologists have been digging in the rubbish-heaps of Egypt and found this word used in scores of documents in everyday life for the arrival of kings and rulers, or the visit following. Let us have this in the words of a scholar, who has rendered priceless services in explaining the words of Paul. In his great work, Light from the Ancient East,[4] Deissmann deals with the word Parousia. I quote some paragraphs from it:—

Finally:-

It is not too much to say that these facts about the language in which the N.T. was written must revolutionize some old and favorite ideas. In particular, when we open the Epistles to the Thessalonians, we know for certain that Paul, in speaking of the Parousia of the Lord, is referring to the arrival, nay, the arrival in triumph, of Christ the Lord. The humble believers in Thessalonica, when they witnessed the imposing parousiæ of the emperor or his representative, and when they read the words of the Apostle about the Parousia of the Lord, would remember with joy that their Emperor, Jesus the Messiah, will have His Parousia, which will be an overpowering manifestation of divine power and glory, full of joy for the righteous, full of terror for the impenitent and the ungodly, and opening up a new era for the world.

At 1 Thessalonians 2:19 this Parousia is associated with crowns and rewards for the servants of Christ; at 3:13 with an immense retinue (entourage) of the holy dead; at 4:15-17 with the resurrection of those saints, and the Lord’s summons to His hosts for the decisive conflict; at 5:23 with the saints’ holiness and preparation for that day; at 2 Thessalonians 2:1 it is mentioned with the assembling of the Elect as one of two events characterizing the Day of the Lord, and requiring to be fulfilled before anyone could say, "the Day of the Lord has come;" at 2:8 with the Glorious Appearing of Christ, and the overthrow of Antichrist; and at 1 Corinthians 15:23, 50-52, with the resurrection and transfiguration of the redeemed when the Kingdom is established.

Not different is the teaching of the other Apostles: James, who, according to Bartlet, Mayor, Zahn, and many other authorities, wrote about A.D. 45, a few years before the "revelation" in 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18 of a special coming "for the Church," deals with the Parousia of the Lord in a primitive almost O.T., way;[7] He who judges the ungodly and vindicates the elect is at hand. In 2 Peter 1:16 the Parousia is associated with the Coming and Kingdom of the Son of Man in the Gospels;[8] at 3:12, the Apostle desires that his readers should be found "looking for and hasting the coming of the day of God" (R.V. mg.), which is the same as the Day of the Lord in 5:10, the day that closes the present Dispensation of mercy, and ushers in the regeneration of nature, according to Isaiah and our Lord.[9] John in his First Epistle, at 2:28, associated the Parousia with the public manifestation of the Son, and this in 4:17 is called "the day of judgment." This majestic event requires that we abide continually in Him, so as to have boldness in the great Day, and "not be ashamed before him at his parousia."

These words, mutatis mutandis (things being changed which are to be changed), are an exact reproduction of pre-trib ideas of 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17. It is Darby and Kelly who insist, and loudly insist, that this latter passage "does not describe an event visible to men on earth." It is they who assert that that sublime Advent will take place "without any interruption of the ordinary course of human life," and that the passage does not contain "any hint of a visible return of Christ to earth." And, as if to complete the resemblance between the two schools, Beet indicates that in his opinion the reign of the risen ones in Revelation 20:4-6 will not be exercised on earth but in heaven—exactly the position of Kelly and his colleagues, who vigorously insist that the risen saints during the millennium will not reign on earth, but from heaven.

Thus we see how thoroughly the strange doctrine of a secret, invisible advent of Christ is a complete undermining of the fundamental position of Pre-millennialism. In vain may the theorist protest against the violence of Beet’s exegesis; in vain may he insist that the language of the Apocalypse requires a visible, glorious Advent breaking in upon the life of humanity; he himself by his own violent principles of interpretation has provided Beet and his school with the requisite justification. Every argument he uses against Beet is a refutation of his own system.

Similarly it must be admitted that if the innumerable company of the sleeping saints who rise at the Advent of 1 Thessalonians 4 may rise and be transferred to heaven without any interruption of the life of humanity beyond a passing scare and inconvenience, then the same must be granted as possible of the resurrection of the martyrs in Revelation 20:4-6. Finally, if millions of living Christians, whom the world sees and with whom it has intercourse every day, can be translated in clouds to heaven without the world’s witnessing it, then it is but straining at a gnat to deny that God can bind Satan—whom we have never seen—and overthrow Antichirst and his allies secretly, and without a glorious Advent of which all the world will know. Thus we see, I repeat, that the Secret-Rapture theories are a menace to the hope of Christ’s Coming.

But there is no need to labor the point: the Secret Rapture theory is being increasingly abandoned by theorists. R. A. Torrey gave it up; so did Anderson; now Messieurs Hogg and Vine indicate[12] their doubts about it, combined with a reluctance to give the fond thing up; they say: "What is to happen ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ cannot be witnessed and therefore must, in so far, be secret," (p. 168).

Yes, people can never see lightning; it cannot be witnessed; it is so secret! May one point out that what is said to take place "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" is not the Rapture of the saints, but their transfiguration, as 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 proves? Yet every theorist works the phrase to death to prove a million miles of miracle at the Rapture; for, they tell us, the whole round world will see nothing of the stupendous events of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. It is as pure a myth as ever entered the brain of man.

Men who taught this dangerous delusion were capable of teaching other beautiful and comforting errors on the Second Coming. And they did; and did it with such success that multitudes in all the Churches hail them as heaven-sent truths, worth dying for. "It is amazing," says an American theologian, "how gullible some of the saints are when a new deceiver pulls off some stunts in religion."[13] And very devout and Christian men, "with half-baked theories about the Second Coming of Christ," can be as successful as any deceiver. The very excellence of their character and Christian standing adds to the danger. This accounts for the amazing popularity of the Secret-Rapture, pre-Tribulation theory:[14] some spiritual giants espoused it. But sound exegesis, and the new discoveries about the use of the word Parousia in popular speech, are the annihilation of all ideas of secrecy at the Advent, and of an Advent to be followed by the triumph of the Man of Sin.

In their work Touching the Coming, Messieurs Hogg and Vine complain that the translation coming is wrong; relying, or seeming to rely, on Cremer’s Lexicon, they claim that presence is the fundamental meaning of Parousia and that the word should be so translated (pp. 58-67). With rashness the authors set aside the comments of Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot, and all the scientific commentaries, and press on the reader their view that presence is the only acceptable translation (pp. 60, 153). The reader is even led to believe that Cremer treated the translation arrival as erroneous, and as "somewhat artlessly" admitting that translators thus made the Greek word Parousia "mean what, in fact, it does not mean." This is a complete misstatement of Cremer’s position. He gives the first meaning of Parousia as presence, with 2 Corinthians 10:10, and Philippians 2:12 as his examples of this sense. He then gives arrival as the second sense of the word, quoting 1 Corinthians 16:17, 2 Corinthians 7:6, 7, 2 Thessalonians 2:9, and 2 Peter 3:12, as examples. He then goes on: "With this meaning is most probably connected the application of the word to the second coming of Christ."[15] He gives numerous examples and continues:

And Cremer is appealed to by our authors to prove that Parousia does not really mean arrival, and should always be translated "presence." What next!

The burden of Cremer’s article is, in fact, the annihilation of pre-tribs’ and our authors’ views on the word Parousia, and their whole program of the End; this although Cremer is sixty years behind the times of Deissmann, Milligan, Moulton, and Abbot-Smith. Cremer admits that Parousia in Matthew 24:27, 37, 39, means "arrival," and he goes on to identify it with the terms Appearing, Day, Revelation, and Coming in the Epistles. Our authors say that "‘Coming’ is properly represented by a perpendicular line thus |; parousia is properly represented by a horizontal line thus —." Yes, but if we read the page sideways we get an opposite effect. And our authors read Cremer on the skew.

Cremer goes on to raise a doubt about the rightness of using Parousia in the sense of arrival. But he is not quarrelling with modern translators for translating the word coming or arrival. His doubt is over the Apostles themselves: they used it undoubtedly in the sense of arrival: how did they do this when the original sense was presence? That is Cremer’s argument.

When teachers misread the Lexicon, how can we trust their reading of the N.T., which it explains?

What Cremer did not know fifty years ago has been made abundantly clear by the Papyri discoveries in the Near East, cited copiously in this chapter. Parousia was everywhere used in the sense of the arrival or coming of kings and rulers on a visit to a town. How appropriate to the Arrival of our Saviour-God, Jesus Christ, when He comes in triumph to rescue His afflicted people, and establish the kingly rule of God. All the new translations of the N.T. that have been published in the last sixty years, in the light of intense research, give coming, advent, arrival, appearing, to translate Parousia, when used of the End. Darby, Kelly, the American and English revisers, Weymouth, Moffatt, Goodspeed, Way, Wade, and the Twentieth Century, all make use of those terms. The new N.T. lexicons of Souter, Abbot Smith, and the monumental one of Milligan and Moulton, which incorporate the new material from the Papyri discoveries, all give arrival or coming as one of the fundamental meanings of the Greek word Parousia. And now the famous Greek lexicon compiled by Liddell and Scott, in the new edition revised and augmented throughout by Dr. H. S. Jones, gives the senses presence, arrival, occasion, visit, and then says, "In the N.T. the Advent, Ev. Matthew 24, 27 al." (Part 7, 1933 p. 1343.) So also the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1936) on the anglicized form: "The second coming or advent of Christ (the sense in 1 Corinthians 15:23, etc.)."

But no translation (not even Darby’s), and no up-to-date lexicon of N.T. or classical Greek will satisfy the authors. Why? Because they want a "blanket" meaning for the word to cover a new-fangled, fantastic scheme of the End-time, which turns topsy-turvy all previous programs, including Darby’s. They themselves require a chart to explain their scheme. I will give a silhouette in a few words, and not unfairly: the Coming or Presence of Christ, according to them, begins at the Secret Rapture, extends over an undetermined period of several years, and ends with the Appearing in great glory of our Lord.

Let the reader think of the implication in this: after Messiah’s Presence begins, ex hypothesi, Antichrist arises, deceives the nations, oppresses the Covenant People, and comes to a full triumph in the Great Tribulation when the millions of saints in Revelation 7:9-17 are martyred! A truly bewildering and misleading program as to His Coming.

If the writers had applied their idea, in which there is an element of truth, to the Advent of our Lord in glory, and to the period of His "visit," when He opens up a new era for the world, by His kingly rule, there would be much in the new researches to support them; but their scheme, as they put it, is totally without foundation; it is an innovation on the faith, and on pre-trib traditions as well. Moffatt, whose translation embodies the results of the new lexical research, translates parousia by "arrival," again and again. It is his usual word:—

Of particular interest is 2 Corinthians 7. "But the God who comforts the dejected comforted me by the arrival of Titus. Yes, and by more than his arrival"(vv. 6-7). According to the conjecture of Wieseler, cited by Weymouth, Titus walked in as Paul was writing. This cheered the Apostle, as did the report he had to give. This one passage completely demonstrates that arrival is a fundamental meaning of Parousia; Paul was comforted by the arrival, and the subsequent intercourse.

But the most damaging exposure of this new program and this new chart is the word of our Lord: "For like lightning that shoots from east to west, so will be the arrival (parousia) of the Son of Man."[16] Here, as in Thessalonians, "Christ comes as a Conqueror" and Rescuer, and his Parousia, far from being a prolonged period, is a single crisis breaking with the utmost suddenness; and, far from being followed by the rise of Antichrist, is preceded by it, and followed by the reign of the Son of Man (Matthew 24:15; 19:28). Shall we prefer the fond theories of men to this majestic declaration?

Having examined the word Parousia let us come to grips with the great passage in First Thessalonians.

First, concerning the occasion of Paul’s oracle, I cannot do better than quote some remarks from Prof. Frame’s masterly volume in International Critical Commentary (ICC) on Thessalonians:

Prof. Frame then goes on to show "that the question is not: Will the Christians who die before the Parousia be raised from the dead? but: Will the Christians who die before the Parousia be at the Parousia on a level of advantage with the survivors?"

Secondly, concerning the nature of the revelation made by Paul, it is as clear as light that it was not the Rapture, still less an entirely new coming of Christ "for the Church," but merely a new detail of the Lord’s Coming to show the sure blessedness of the sleeping saints. That the burden of 4:13-18 is the place and blessedness of the Christian dead at the Advent, is clear from the fact that four times they are referred to, as the following from the R. V. will show:

And Paul meets the difficulty by indicating a new circumstance concerning the relation of the survivors to the holy dead at the Advent; this to show that at the Coming of the Lord, the living will have no precedence over the dead, and that these, consequently, will be at no disadvantage,

Prof. Frame observes on the central point:

If Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 professed to be giving some additional details concerning the relation of the sleeping and surviving saints at the well-known Coming of Christ, then he could not have made himself better understood, because, since the time the Apostle penned the words, no doubt has ever existed amongst his principal interpreters concerning the precise significance of his "revelation." But if his intention was to introduce—as theorists now insist—an entirely new coming of Christ, and a new resurrection of the saints—a coming and resurrection different from those found in the earlier Scriptures—then, though he was writing in a language that is said to be the most perfect instrument of accurate thought and expression that the world has seen, and though the Apostle himself was possessed of singular lucidity and great powers of reasoning, he failed miserably to make himself understood; since for nearly two thousand years all his best expositors failed to see his meaning, until recent theorists discovered, or thought that they had discovered, that Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 was setting forth a new resurrection earlier than the "first," and a new coming of Christ earlier than that in the Gospels.

The question of importance now is, have we any indication when this coming of Christ will take place? Pre-tribs insist that the passage teaches that Christ will come for His saints prior to the last of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, and especially before the Great Tribulation. This, however, is impossible, since the text contains no reference to the Great Tribulation and Daniel’s prophecies, and this it must have had, to reach any such doctrine as that proposed. And Daniel’s prophecies contain no reference to the Rapture, as such. It is clear, therefore, that the theorists in interpreting 1 Thessalonians 4 read their ideas into the passage; Paul did not put them there.

But though the prophecy in 1 Thessalonians 4 contains no reference to the Seventy Weeks, it nevertheless gives us a clue that enables us to overthrow the new theories. In that Scripture the Coming of the Lord synchronizes with the resurrection of the saints. The latter follows immediately upon the former. Nobody disputes this. Well, when do the dead rise, before or after the apocalyptic Week? We have already seen that, alike in the teaching of the Prophets and the Lord Jesus Christ, of Paul and the Apocalypse, the resurrection of the saints is located with the utmost definiteness at the Day of the Lord. Paul, far from revealing a new resurrection, insists that he is expounding an old one.

Here is the fundamental blunder, the crowning disaster of the new ideas on the Second Coming; the theorists quietly assume that all the passages on the resurrection of the saints can be brought forward in front of the Seventieth Week to suit their novel interpretation of the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4; but it is to be insisted on that such wresting of the Scriptures cannot be allowed. The time of the Rapture must stand or fall with the time of the saints’ resurrection; and this is located at the Day of the Lord.

It remains to answer some objections to the obvious view that 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, will be fulfilled at the Day of the Lord. The theorists contend that, as there is no mention of signs and seals heralding the Advent in 1 Thessalonians 4, and as seals and signs are always associated with the Advent at the Day of the Lord, the former cannot be identical with the latter. But what these writers have overlooked is that there is no mention of seals and signs after the Coming in 1 Thessalonians 4. Not even in the following chapter, where the Day of the Lord is spoken of, is there any mention of preceding signs and seals: so that if from the absence of seals in 1 Thessalonians 4 it is legitimate to assert that the Coming in that chapter must precede the Day of the Lord, then the same must be conceded concerning the Advent in chapter 5, because there also is no mention made of signs and seals.[17] It must be different from the Day in Revelation 19:2 ff, and 2 Thessalonians 2:8.

Moreover, the absence of preceding signs and seals does not necessarily prove that the Advent in chapter 4 will precede the Day of the Lord by seven years; adopting the theorists’ method of interpreting the text by itself, it would be just as reasonable to maintain that that Advent will occur seven years after the Day of the Lord, when all the signs and seals are done with!

The reason why there is no mention of preceding signs and seals in 1 Thessalonians 4 is because the Apostle does not profess to be describing the Second Coming. His theme, properly speaking, is not the Second Advent, but the relation of survivors to the dead at that event. In other words, the Apostle is dealing with a single aspect of the Coming, and that as it concerns the dead in Christ. And this avails also to explain why no mention is made of the bearing of the Advent upon the unbelieving world. Theorists of course find here a proof of their theory of two "second" Advents, but it is sufficient to say, in the words of Westcott on Hebrews 9:28: "Nothing indeed is said of the effect of Christ’s Return upon the unbelieving. This aspect of its working does not fall within the scope of the writer."

Paul, I repeat, is not even describing in detail the hope as it concerns the Church; for there is no mention of the transfiguration of the believers—an essential feature of their blessedness; the Apostle says nothing again of the judgment-seat of Christ, and the recompense of the saints; nothing of the marriage-supper of the Lamb. These aspects are all omitted, as also the relation of the Advent to Israel and the world, simply because the Apostle had no occasion to raise them. He was dealing with a company of Christians who already knew the main facts of Christ’s Coming from the Apostle’s own oral teaching, but had doubts about the place that the dead whom they mourned would have at the Advent. But to argue from the Apostle’s silence upon other points—such as the destruction of Antichrist, the judgment of the ungodly, and the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom—that therefore these events do not occur at this time is an unreasonable attitude. Just as logical would it be to contend that since there is no mention of the transfiguration of the saints and the marriage-supper of Christ, those events must be conceived of as occurring some time later.

It is well-known that post-millennialists made much of Paul’s silence at this point upon the question of the establishment of the Kingdom of Christ at the Advent. "Paul does not teach in 1 Thessalonians 4 that the millennium will follow the advent." So they argue—just as our theorists do. The reply that Alford and Faussett gave to such unreasonable exegesis is as applicable to the reasoning of our theorists as it was to that of the antagonists of a literal millennium. Alford writes in his commentary:

Nor, he might have added, to the purpose of this Advent.

Excellent also is the interpretation of Moffatt in his Commentary in Expositor’s Greek Testament (EGT):

Pre-tribs also make use of the Rapture of the saints to meet the Lord "in the air" to prove their extraordinary theory that Christ does not come on to earth at this time, but returns to heaven. This also was an essential part of the postmillennialists’ argument; the idea of Christ’s reign upon earth was as obnoxious to them as it is to most theorists.

The truth is, pre-tribs are precluded from an adequate appreciation of 1 Thessalonians 4; the Secret Rapture delusion has blurred their vision, and the importance attached to the Rapture has led them to overlook the elementary principle that "no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation" (2 Pet. 1:20, R. V.), but must be compared diligently with other Scriptures. For when we compare 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 with other Scriptures, and carefully weigh its own terminology, we have no difficulty in seeing that the Second Coming will not be secret, but in visible glory; that the hope of the Church is not an event to be followed by the rise and reign of the Man of Sin, but by his destruction, and the reign of Christ and His saints on the renewed earth.

But if any doubt exists that the Coming of 1 Thessalonians 4 will take place at the Day of the Lord, it is removed by the opening verses of chapter 5 of the same Epistle, where the Apostle is still speaking of the Second Coming.

This passage causes great embarrassment to pre-tribs, and they are reduced to unnatural explanations to square its teaching with their theories: the Apostle is no longer speaking of the Second Coming of Christ, but of the third; no longer dealing with the Advent as it affects Christians, but unbelievers; the Day of the Lord, and "the times and seasons," have no reference to the Church’s hope, but only to the Day of judgment some years later. So they assert.

If the Day of the Lord has no reference to the Christian hope, why did the Apostle give the Thessalonians so much instruction concerning its arrival, and the necessity of sobriety and alertness on the part of Christians in view of its coming? If he held the views of pre-tribs, why did he not drop the subject of the Day of the Lord altogether when speaking to Christians, and confine himself to the Rapture? This is what pre-tribs do; they insist that Christians have not the least practical concern with the coming of the Day of the Lord as a hope, since they will have been with the Lord for years when it comes. But the awkward thing is that the Apostle, far from eschewing the giving of instruction to Christians about the Day of the Lord, has given very detailed instruction, in the Second as well as the First Epistle, about the coming of that Day; and this, not merely to arouse their interest in a subject of prophetic inquiry, but to prepare them mentally and morally for its coming.

Light is thrown upon 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, by considering what led the Apostle to write it. The Thessalonians had two difficulties about the Lord’s Coming. The first was concerning the hope and place of the dead. The Apostle answered it in the closing verses of chapter 4, where the living are referred to but incidentally, to show the precise relation of the two classes. The second difficulty of the Thessalonians followed from the first: if the dead saints missed the blessedness of the Coming and Kingdom of Christ, then their own position became precarious, since they were mortal men and might not survive to see the Advent and share its glory. Unless, therefore, they could be sure that Christ would certainly come in their own lifetime, their hope was vain. Hence they requested from the inspired Apostle information "concerning the times and seasons," that is, they wished to know the precise period that must intervene before the Advent, and they desired to know exactly when the Lord would come. In other words, their second difficulty was about the living and their prospect of seeing the Day.[18]

Paul answers it in chapter 5 by dealing with the Day of the Lord as it will affect the living. The dead are no longer in view, since he has already settled the difficulty concerning them; they are not mentioned at all now, until the end of the whole section. The Apostle informs the Thessalonians that their request to know the intervening period prior to the Advent is beside the mark, since the time of the Lord’s Coming is not a subject of calculation at all; for the day of the Lord’s Coming will be like the arrival of a thief—sudden and unexpected. Like a thief, however, that day will come upon the ungodly alone; not so upon the believers, since they are expecting that Day, and will be ready for it whenever it comes.

The true significance of this section is obscured for pre-tribs by the unfortunate break into chapters at this point. Convinced that the meaning will become clearer, I propose to set down here, in parallel columns, three of the admirable modern versions of Paul’s oracle in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, to 5:2, without any division into verses and chapters; then I shall add two paraphrases from famous expositors of the passage in Paul.

Of the many idiomatic translations of First Thessalonians I purposely choose three that were not made by professional theologians, but by classical scholars, two of them—W. G. Rutherford and A. S. Way—Greek scholars of renown. This is done simply to avoid the suggestion that I have sought translations with a theological bias.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:2

1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:2

Having given three translations by classical scholars of the crucial passage in Thessalonians I propose now to give two paraphrases of it by eminent exegetes; the first is by Dr. Plummer as given in his commentary; and the second by G. Milligan in his volume in the Macmillan series. Then I shall give the setting and argument as seen by G. G. Findlay in his volume in Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (CGT), and by Zahn in Introduction to the New Testament (INT) (vol. 1, pp. 221-2, 253). There will be some repetition, of course, but there will also be increasing light from some of the most lucid expositions ever given of these Epistles.

Findlay gives thus the setting and argument of 1 Thessalonians 4:13 to 5:11:—

CONCERNING THEM THAT FALL ASLEEP (4:13-18)

THE COMING OF THE DAY (5:1-11)

If Paul believed that the Thessalonians would be raptured to heaven some years before the Day of the Lord, what a chance he had at 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 of asserting his belief! How easy to have said, "the Day of the Lord is coming, but, thank God, you will never see it, since years before its arrival, you will be raptured to heaven." Instead of that he has left no doubt whatever that Christians will exist on earth to see that Day;[20] it is the day they wait for—day of joy for the redeemed, of wrath for the impenitent. Of joy, because He who comes is the Saviour who will gather the saints to Himself and complete their joy; of wrath, because He who comes is also the Judge who will take vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, whenever He shall have come to be glorified in His saints, and admired. in all them that believe.[21]

It will thus be seen that according to Paul the day of the Lord’s Coming will have a two-fold aspect. For unbelievers Christ will come as a thief: for Christians He comes as the Master to reckon with His servants, and induct them into the inheritance. It was ever thus that the Lord Himself preached the doctrine of His Second Coming—not two distinct advents, separated by a number of years, but one single Advent with a two-fold bearing—upon His faithful people, who look with humble yet joyous expectancy to His Return, and upon the false and unbelieving who say, "where is the promise of His coming?"[22]

What the speaker failed to observe was how admirably his parable also fits the teaching of Paul; for the great Apostle in speaking of the effect of Christ’s Coming upon the living, remarks that, to the worldly-minded the Day of the Lord will come as a thief, because, to use Anderson’s parable, "they neither expect nor want Him." It will be otherwise, however, with Christians: "they will not scream with surprise and fright" for, to continue in Anderson’s words "His coming is the most natural thing possible." The Lord meets His Bride and judges the faithless at the same crisis.

(2) 2 Thessalonians 2:8:

Only one other use of the word Parousia in the Epistles to the Thessalonians need detain us longer: it is one that has already been cited, but not considered.

This text confirms the doctrine drawn from 1 Thessalonians 4:14—5:10, for Christ is again represented as coming in the character of a Conqueror and Rescuer; again, the regal word Parousia is used; Antichrist is sent to his doom; "the mere outburst of His presence shall bring the adversary to nought, cf. the sublime expression of Milton, —‘far off His coming shone.’"[24] The same glorious event as gathers the saints brings judgment upon the Man of Sin.[25]

ENDNOTES: