The good news about living in a world where every word is public and permanent is that we have the opportunity to have conversations with those whom we would never be able to have otherwise. And there is the ability to live out the authenticity of our faith to a watching world.

Not long ago, Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson was ousted from his post at Southwestern Seminary.[i] The firing began not with a dramatic revelation, but with a public statement Patterson made some 18 years ago. In that statement, Patterson said that he had never counseled couples to separate or divorce.[ii] The trickle turned into a stream and then a torrent as other statements and counsel surfaced (including discouraging a female student from reporting a sexual assault on his campus). The external pressure from the mounting claims made Patterson’s firing all but inevitable.
I believe the outcome was just. Paige Patterson’s record is marked with ongoing abuses of power. And yet, there was a time not so long ago when he wouldn’t have lost his job. It is only in today’s world that the voices of those injured by Patterson or upset with the trustees at Southwestern Seminary would have been heard so quickly and had such an impact.[iii]There are benefits to the age of the fishbowl.
But there are dangers of fishbowl living as well. We live in a day and age where every statement is public and permanent.
Every word is public.
Every word is permanent.
I grew up in a mega-church. From time to time our pastor would reflect on the difficulty of his family living “in a fishbowl” where everything they did was monitored. As someone who felt a call to ministry, I took note. Such would be my life one day. Little did I realize that one day we would all live in that fishbowl.
There are obvious dangers of this reality in the world we live. But there are also wonderful opportunities.
Who could disagree with James’s admonition about the tongue? “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.”[iv]
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In Christ Jesus, God takes us from death to life, from following the adversary to being seated with Christ in heaven, from being children of wrath to eternally loved children with access to heavenly riches. THIS is the truth we must cling to, believe in, and live out. Why would we choose something or someone else? Surely our Savior is worthy of being savored—not pushed away or suppressed.

Recently I taught Romans 1:18–32 for the women’s Bible study at my church. This passage shows God’s response to those who persist in rejecting him as Creator, Savior, and loving Lord. There’s no way to faithfully deal with this passage without explaining that all forms of sexual immorality are displeasing to our Creator. When we refuse to live under his design and instead invent our own “truth” about how we want to live sexually, we shake a defiant fist in his face.
Paul goes on in this passage to soberly proclaim that God’s holy hostility towards evil, what the Bible describes as his wrath, “is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18). God takes it seriously when the image-bearers he created push down his truth and choose lies. Our determination to pursue man-made rules for life—including all we do with our bodies—is dangerous.
God’s Holy Hostility and Lavish Love
Romans 1 is surely a passage our secular society would like to “cancel.” Why? Paul refuses to spin God’s truth to make it tickle his audience’s ears. He boldly names several expressions of ungodliness which provoke God’s holy hostility against evil: sexual immorality (any behavior outside the covenantal marriage of one man and one woman) and thinking that is unmoored from biblical truth. In fact, I wonder if the “giving up” to a “debased mind” (v. 28) is the most severe example of God giving people over to sinful desires. Courtney Doctor points out that Paul lists twenty-two fruits of God’s wrath (ESV) because “in response to continued rebellion and open idolatry, [God] will release people to the misery of who we are apart from him.” (38)
I don’t promote the shaming, angry, call-down-God’s-fire kind of preaching that is sometimes the caricature of Christian Bible teaching. Yet the Scriptures do present our God as holy and righteously angry toward sin, even as they reveal him as the loving Father and Rescuer of brokenhearted, hopeless sinners. Ephesians 2 is a clarifying and comforting complement to Romans 1:
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
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Observe carefully that Paul says nothing at all about the Lord removing his Church to Heaven. The apostle leaves her—and us—in the air. What, then, will take place after this happy reunion? Here, Paul does not say. However, what he does say suggests an interpretation far richer than that of the dispensationalists. Paul writes, “And as a result of these things, we shall always be with the Lord.” Note the finality—the ultimacy—of that phrase. When the Lord returns, we shall always be together: together with him and together with one other. Thus, Paul’s exact wording strongly suggests that he has in mind the ultimate goal of Salvation History: life together with Christ in the new heavens and the new earth. Admittedly, he makes no explicit mention of where the saints will be with the Lord. But that is simply because his present focus is elsewhere: the reunion of separated loved ones at the Parousia. We have already seen, however, that in his other eschatological writings Paul uniformly associates the Resurrection with the final renewal of all creation (Rom. 8:18-25; 1 Cor. 15:20-28, 50-57; Phil. 3:20-21).

The Apostle Paul’s two letters to the Thessalonian Christians contain some of the Bible’s richest veins of eschatological gold. Written from Corinth around AD 50-51, they reveal that the apostle’s early ministry to the European Gentiles was charged with a lively expectation of the Lord’s soon return (1 Thess. 1:10; 2:19; 3:11-13; 2 Thess. 1-2; cf. Acts 17:16-21; 1 Cor. 15:1-58). However, they also reveal a problem: Paul’s Jewish opponents had forced him to flee the city quickly, with the result that some of his converts were left confused (or ignorant) about his teaching on the afterlife and the Consummation (Acts 17:1-9). These two letters give us his efforts to clear up the misunderstanding. Not surprisingly, they speak often and in great detail about the last things: the signs of Christ’s Parousia, the nature and purpose of the Parousia, the Resurrection, the Judgment, and the World to Come. Notably, they never speak of a future millennium (1 Thess. 4:13-18; 5:1-10; 2 Thess. 1:3-12; 2:1-12).
Let’s take a close look at two major (and very closely related) texts found in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Of the three NT passages cited by dispensationalists in support of a pre-tribulation rapture, this is by far the most important (cf. John 14:1-3; 1 Cor. 15:51-52). Accordingly, I will first offer an amillennial exegesis of the text itself, and then carefully consider both the dispensational interpretation and the case made for it.
Our text begins in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, where Paul states his purpose for the remarks to follow. His goal is to give hope to Christians whose (believing) loved ones have recently “fallen asleep” (i.e., died in the Lord). He knows that some of the brethren are troubled about this. Perhaps they fear that their departed loved ones will not be included in Christ’s Kingdom when he comes again. Certainly they fear they will never see them again. Therefore, Paul takes up this subject once again, so that they will no longer grieve as unbelievers do, but instead enjoy a lively hope of being reunited with their Christian family and friends—soon.
In verse 14 he succinctly states the healing truth; in the verses that follow he carefully explains. It is this: “When Jesus comes again he will bring your departed loved one(s) with him and back to you.” Observe how Paul, in declaring this truth, builds on the Thessalonians’ pre-existing faith. They already believe that God has raised Jesus from the dead. But if they can believe that, surely they can also believe that he will raise their loved one(s). And, says Paul, that’s exactly what he will do: At the Parousia God will bring with Jesus the souls of all who have fallen asleep in him, so that they, just like their Lord, may rise from the dead and be reunited with the saints who are living on the earth at that time.
Importantly, Paul has already touched on this subject in 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13, where he prayed that God would establish their hearts “ . . . blameless in holiness in the presence of our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his holy ones.” Note the comprehensiveness of that final phrase. When Christ returns he will empty Heaven, bringing with him all the holy angels and the spirits of all the departed saints whom he has redemptively separated to himself. Thus will he set the stage for the Momentous Event: the Consummation of all things and the recreation of the world.
In verses 15-17 the apostle delves into the aspect of the Consummation that lies uppermost in the minds of his flock: the reunion of the departed saints with the living saints. In verse 15 he declares that the instruction he is about give is “the word of the Lord.” That is, it comes, at least in part, from the earthly teaching of Christ himself (Matt. 13:37-43; 24:29-31). Possibly, it also includes further revelation specially vouchsafed to the apostle (1 Cor. 15:51-52). In any case, the Thessalonians can trust what he has to say, for it is the very Word of God.
Next, he affirms that “ . . . we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep.” He means that the living saints will not receive their glorified bodies before those who have died in the Lord. There is, then, a definite chronological sequence in the glorification of the Church: First, Christ will join the souls of the departed saints to their new resurrected and glorified bodies; then—and only then—he will transform and glorify the bodies of the living saints. In days ahead, Paul will say much the same thing to the Corinthians: “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we [who are alive and remain] will be changed” (1 Cor. 15:50-53).
Observe that all of this happens at “the Parousia of the Lord” (v. 15). There is only one of them. And according to every other Pauline text touching on this event, it has nothing to do with Christ secretly removing his Church to Heaven for seven years. Rather, it has everything to do with his raising (all) the dead, judging the world in righteousness, and bringing in the completed Kingdom of God.
In verses 16-17, which closely parallel Jesus’ own descriptions of the Consummation, Paul elaborates on what he has just said about the events surrounding the Parousia (Matt. 13:37-43; 24:29-31). He begins with this: “The Lord himself will descend from heaven.” This is Christ’s definitive descent to the earth, the descent that results in the creation of the new heavens and the new earth, where he will live forever with his beloved Bride. In this descent the Lord is not leaving Heaven behind; rather, he is bringing it with him. In this descent he and the holy angels are coming home once and for all (Rev. 21:1-4)!
The cosmic homecoming will be accompanied by three great sounds: A shout (or “cry of command”), the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God. I take it that the shout emanates from the lips of Christ himself. If this is indeed a shout, then it is a shout of (final) victory (Num. 23:21; Josh. 6:5; Ps. 47:5; Is. 42:13; Jer. 25:30; 1 Cor. 15:54). If, as seems more likely, it is a cry of command, it is the voice of Christ summoning the dead from their graves (John 5:25; 11:43) and/or sending the holy angels to their appointed tasks (Mark 13:27). Perhaps it is both.
Concerning the archangel, he is almost certainly Michael (Dan. 12:1; Jude v. 9) or Gabriel (Dan. 8:16; 9:21; Luke 1:19, 26). In either case, this angel, by definition, is a ruler over all the rest. His presence on the scene therefore implies what the NT explicitly unveils elsewhere: the presence of all the holy angels (Matt. 25:31). When the archangel raises his voice, it will likely be for the purpose of sending all the angels to their work of judicial and redemptive ingathering (Matt. 13:41; 24:31; Rev. 14:18).
Finally, there is the trumpet of God. Its blast signals not only the final destruction of the evil world-system (Josh. 6:15-21; Rev. 18:2), but also the summoning of God’s people to their full inheritance: to the enjoyment of eternal life upon the glorious “holy mountain” that is the new heavens and the new earth (Ex. 19:16-17; Is. 11:9; Matt. 24:31; Rev. 14:1). This interpretation accords well with the teaching of 1 Cor. 15:52: The trumpet that raises the dead will be the last trumpet, the trumpet that signals the consummation of the purposes of God and the advent of the World to Come.
Considering the character of these two verses, it is marvelous indeed that anyone could find here a “secret” eschatological event devolving exclusively upon a small band of saints who alone can see and hear it. Quite to the contrary, the actual data cry out, over and again, that this is a hugely public event, precisely because it devolves, not simply upon the Church, but also upon the entire created universe. Just as every eye will see, so too every ear will hear: whether Christ’s shout, the archangel’s voice, or the final blast of the trumpet of God (Matt. 26:64; John 5:28; Phil. 2:9-11; Rev. 1:7).
In verse 16b Paul reiterates the basic message of verse 15: When the Lord returns, the dead in Christ will rise first. In verse 17 he explains what will happen afterwards, such that separated loved ones are reunited once and for all. To understand his thought here we must keep 1 Cor. 15:50-58 in mind. When we do, a clear picture emerges: Immediately following the Resurrection of the Dead, the living saints (i.e., “we who are alive and remain”) will be changed—glorified (1 Cor. 15:51-52). Then the entire company of the saints “. . . will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” The Greek word for “caught up” (arpazo) denotes taking (or being taken) suddenly and with great force, whether urgently to obtain (Matt. 11:12), maliciously to abduct (Matt. 13:19; John 6:15; 10:12), or benevolently to help or rescue (Acts 8:39; 2 Cor. 12:2; Jude v. 23). Here it is used in the latter sense, since at his return the Lord Jesus—with great zeal and power to match—will swiftly gather his Bride to himself, even as he rescues her from her human enemies and the fiery judgment that will consume the earth below (2 Peter 3:8-13; Rev. 11:11-13).
How exactly will Christ catch up his Church? As we have seen, it will be at the hands of the holy angels (Matt. 24:31; Mark 13:27; Rev. 14:14-16). Carrying the saints into (and perhaps through) the spiritual “clouds” by which God and Christ are visibly manifesting their divine presence, power, and glory, the angels will bring them to meet the Lord in the air (Luke 9:34; Acts 1:9). This detail is important, signaling that when Christ comes again he will draw very near to the earth, which, according to Scripture, is the center of the physical universe, the apple of God’s eye, and the future home of Christ and his Bride (Matt. 17:5; 24:30; Luke 9:34-35; 21:27; Rev. 21:1-4).
Observe carefully that Paul says nothing at all about the Lord removing his Church to Heaven. The apostle leaves her—and us—in the air. What, then, will take place after this happy reunion? Here, Paul does not say. However, what he does say suggests an interpretation far richer than that of the dispensationalists.
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