1 Thessalonians 4

Text

Textual witnesses

• Papyrus 30
• Codex Vaticanus
• Codex Sinaiticus
• Uncial 0226
• Codex Alexandrinus
• Codex Freerianus
• Codex Claromontanus

  Keeping the traditions (4:1–2)

Purity (4:3–8)

Brotherly love (4:9–12)

The circumstances of Christ's second coming (4:13–18)

Verse 16

Verse 17

• "Then we who are alive and remain": See Gill on 1 Thessalonians 4:15.
• "Shall be caught up": This has a sense of happening suddenly, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
• "Together with them": that is, with "the dead in Christ", who will then be raised, so everyone is present at the same time, not before the other, nor the sooner with Christ than the other, but as one being raised and the other changed, they will be gathered in one company and general assembly together.
• "In the clouds": perhaps in the same clouds when Christ will come, as a cloud received Jesus at his ascension, so at this time all the believers will ride up in the clouds of heaven.
• "To meet the Lord in the air": while Jesus will descend, and then clear the regions of the air of Satan and his followers, because Jesus will not descend on earth yet, when it is not fit to receive him. When the earth is purged and purified by fire to become a new earth, Jesus will descend upon it, and dwell with his believers in it. Another reason why Jesus will stay in the air, and his believers will meet him there, is that he will take them up with him into the third heaven and preserve them there until the burning of the world is over, and then all the elect of God will descend from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband, and he with them, also when the tabernacle of God will be with men.