<p>4:17 <i>Then we that are alive- </i>Paul is speaking of the faithful believers in 1 Thess. 4 and 5 rather than all the responsible. He comforts them that the dead believers really will be rewarded with immortality, and that they can take comfort from the fact that they would live for ever (1 Thess. 4:13,14,18).&nbsp;Paul is therefore assuming their acceptability at judgment. &quot;You are all the children of light&quot; (1 Thess. 5:5) as opposed to the unworthy within the ecclesia, who were in darkness.&nbsp;This suggests that Paul wrote as though his readership were all faithful and assured of eternal life.</p><p>If we believe that we are counted righteous, we must likewise assume that all those properly baptized are equally righteous, and will be saved along with us. We cannot condemn each other; therefore we must assume each other will be saved. If we have a positive attitude to our own salvation, we will likewise perceive our whole community. And the reverse is true; if we cannot believe that God sees <i>us</i> positively, we will tend towards a negative outlook upon ourselves. My sense is that many of us fail in this area. Paul had many reasons to think negatively of his converts; and yet he writes to the Thessalonians as if &lsquo;we all&rsquo;, all his readership, would be saved (1 Thess. 4:17). And likewise to dodgy Corinth, he writes as if they would all be accepted at the Lord&rsquo;s return (1 Cor. 15:52); he saw them <i>all</i> as innocent Eve in danger of being beguiled (2 Cor. 11:3).</p><p><i>That are left, shall together with them be snatched away in the clouds in the air-</i> Jesus will return to earth for judgement with His Angels, as we are told in His parables concerning the judgement. In the parable of the wheat and tares the point is made that the Angels do not just come to gather the harvest, but also to separate the wheat from the tares. Thus it would seem that the actual process of judgement will be largely associated with the Angels. We are told in 1 Thess. 4:17 that &quot;we which are alive and remain shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air&quot;. The clouds must be the clouds of Angels with which Jesus returns, and may even represent the figurative &quot;air&quot; in which we meet Him first of all, as if He is manifested through the Angels which He sends to gather us to judgement (although it is quite possible to take the 'air' literally too).&nbsp;</p><p><i>To meet the Lord, and so shall we ever be with the Lord</i>- The connections between the parable of the virgins and 1 Thess. 4 are strengthened by the same Greek word being translated &quot;meet&quot; in Mt. 25:6 concerning the wise virgins going out to &quot;meet&quot; Christ and also in 1 Thess. 4:17: &quot;We which are alive and remain shall be caught up... in the clouds to <i>meet</i> the Lord in the air&quot;.&nbsp;The picture is therefore presented of the righteous obeying the call of their own volition, and then being confirmed in this by being 'snatched away' to meet Christ in the (literal) air.&nbsp;We will then travel with Christ &quot;in the clouds&quot; (literally) to judgment in Jerusalem.&nbsp;In no way, of course, does this suggestion give countenance to the preposterous Pentecostal doctrine of being 'raptured' into heaven itself.&nbsp;Every alternative interpretation of 1 Thess. 4:17 seems to run into trouble with the phrase &quot;meet the Lord <i>in the air</i>&quot;.&nbsp;1 Thessalonians is not a letter given to figurative language, but rather to the literal facts of the second coming. Further, the 1 Thess. 4:16-18 passage is described by Paul as him speaking &ldquo;by the word of the Lord&rdquo; Jesus (1 Thess. 4:15). If 1 Cor. 7 is any guide to how Paul uses this phrase, he would appear to be saying that in this passage he is merely repeating what the Lord Himself said during His ministry. This deals a death blow to some Pentecostal fantasies about the passage.</p><p>Those wise virgins who go forth to meet Christ immediately are those who will be &quot;caught up together&quot; with the faithful believers who will have been resurrected. This will be when the Angels &quot;gather together <i>his elect</i>&quot; (Mt. 24:31). They then &quot;meet the Lord in the air&quot; literally, perhaps connecting with Rev. 11:12:&nbsp;&quot;They (the faithful, persecuted saints of the last days) heard a great voice from heaven (cp. &quot;the voice&quot; of 1 Thess. 4:16) saying unto them, Come up (cp. &quot; caught up...&quot;) hither.&nbsp;&nbsp; And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud (cp. &quot; caught up... in clouds&rdquo;); and their enemies beheld them&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; It may well be that Rev. 11:12 is speaking of the faithful Jewish remnant of the last days, who will be snatched away along with us. This cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1) will then go with Jesus to judgment, which must be located on earth for the glimpses of the judgment seat which we are given to be realistically fulfilled. It is reasonable to guess that this assembly of faithful believers will visibly reflect God's glory, giving the impression of a 'shekinah' cloud. This may be due to the physical presence of the Angel with us during our time in this cloud.&nbsp; Such a picture is presented in Dan. 7:9-14;&nbsp; Jesus comes with the faithful, symbolized as clouds, along with the Angels, to the judgment seat. It is at this stage that the responsible from all nations come to the judgment (Mt. 25:32) so that there can be a separation of sheep and goats. The 'coming down' of the righteous responsible to Jerusalem will be at the same time as the judgment of the wicked nations in that same place: &quot;Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down&quot; (Joel 3:11) occurs in the context of Armageddon. &quot;Saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau&quot; (Obad. v 21), i.e. Israel's Arab enemies.&nbsp;The sequence of events here suggested chimes in with the thought so often expressed by generations of believers - that our initial reaction to the knowledge that our Lord is back will effectively be our judgment, although this will be formally confirmed at the judgment seat before which all the responsible must appear (2 Cor. 5:10).</p><p>The chronology we have suggested can now be summarized:- <br />-&nbsp; Persecution of believers. <br />-&nbsp; The Lord is revealed; the resurrection. <br />-&nbsp; An Angel invites each of the responsible to go and meet Christ. <br />-&nbsp; The unworthy delay, whilst the worthy go immediately. <br />-&nbsp; The worthy are snatched away into the air, forming a cloud of glory which is visible to all.&nbsp;They are physically with Jesus. <br />-&nbsp; Along with Him they come to Jerusalem. <br />-&nbsp; The unworthy are then gathered there. <br />-&nbsp; There is a tribunal-style judgment. The sheep and goats are together&nbsp;&nbsp; before the judgment seat. They are then finally separated by Christ's judgment, and receive their rewards. <br />-&nbsp; The wicked are destroyed along with the nations then surrounding Jerusalem.</p><p>The time scale for all this is unimportant- it could well be just a few seconds, if the meaning of time is to be collapsed, although there presumably must be a period of time for the cloud of witnesses to be beheld, and for the unworthy to desperately try to slap themselves into spiritual shape.&nbsp;The tremendous encouragement offered by the scenario here presented should not be missed:&nbsp;we will come with our judge, possibly already reflecting His glory, to the judgment.&nbsp;This in itself should give us a sense of humble certainty as we come before His tribunal.&nbsp;So much will depend on our reaction to the Angel's coming- our faith in acceptance, our degree of concern for the things of this life - all will be revealed in that instant.</p>