Will We Meet Jesus as Soon as We Die?

00:00:00.000 | Well, recently we've received a lot of important questions on 1 Thessalonians 4, 16-17, that

00:00:09.880 | famous rapture text. Here's one from Jonathan who listens to us from New Jersey. "Hello

00:00:15.280 | Pastor John, it's fairly typical to hear Christians say of someone who has passed away,

00:00:19.520 | 'They're with Jesus now.'" But in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16-17, it sounds like Paul

00:00:25.020 | is saying that Christians who have died will meet Jesus at the second coming. Do Christians

00:00:30.200 | go to be with the Lord when we die? Or will we meet him when he comes back to earth? I

00:00:35.400 | guess what I'm asking is this, when a Christian dies, what comes first, seeing Jesus or being

00:00:42.840 | raised from the dead?

00:00:44.640 | The reason this is an excellent question is because 1 Thessalonians 4, 16-17, really do

00:00:53.880 | sound like what Jonathan says, that believers who have died are raised from the dead, and

00:01:02.800 | in that sense, first meet the Lord at his coming, rather than immediately meeting him

00:01:10.280 | when they die. It sounds like that. But I'm sure that's not what Paul means there, and

00:01:17.880 | I'll try to show why. I think it's really plain from two passages of Scripture that

00:01:25.320 | Paul was certain that when he and other believers died, they would go immediately to be with

00:01:34.460 | the Lord Jesus and see him in that moment. And here are those two passages, 2 Corinthians

00:01:42.960 | 5, 6-9. "We are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body,

00:01:53.020 | we are away from the Lord. We walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage,

00:02:01.260 | and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." Those are the

00:02:09.080 | two alternatives that Paul sees. I'm either here in my body, in one sense, away from at

00:02:16.400 | homeness with the Lord, or I die and I'm at home with the Lord. Now here's verse 9. "So

00:02:22.360 | whether we are at home or away, whether we're with him or here, we make it our aim to please

00:02:29.640 | him." Now, Paul did not conceive of a time when the body dies and we are not at home

00:02:39.180 | with the Lord. To die is to lose the body temporarily and go to be at home with the

00:02:48.280 | Lord. This is not his first choice. I mean, that's one of the things we might correct

00:02:53.280 | at funerals, is not to give the impression that he disembodied at homeness with the Lord

00:02:58.960 | is the first apostolic choice. His first choice is, "Oh, that the Lord Jesus would come before

00:03:06.680 | I die and overclothe my body with eternal life." But, he says, if we die, it was better.

00:03:17.320 | So his third choice is, "Stay here and work." His second choice is, "Go to be with Jesus

00:03:23.320 | without my body." His first choice is, "Come, Lord Jesus, and give me a new body so that

00:03:27.680 | I never have to be bodiless." The other passage is Philippians 1:22, "If I am to live in the

00:03:36.320 | flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet, which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I'm hard

00:03:42.360 | pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

00:03:53.800 | But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account." Now, those are the two possibilities

00:04:01.800 | for Paul, and one of them was not to die and have the soul lie in the grave sleeping. That

00:04:11.080 | wasn't the choice. Die and have the soul lie in the grave sleeping until the second coming.

00:04:17.280 | No. The two possibilities were, go on living here, or go to be with Christ, which is far,

00:04:26.720 | far better. So I conclude Paul had no doubts about being united with Christ with conscious

00:04:35.880 | joy, by faith, in this life, and it would never be interrupted by death, and when he

00:04:44.320 | left his body, when he was martyred, he would go to something far better than even the communion

00:04:52.680 | that he enjoyed with Christ here. Now, let's say a word about 1 Thessalonians 4. And here

00:04:58.440 | you've got to put on your thinking cap, because I'm sorry, the logic of this text is so important.

00:05:04.680 | I think it's clear, but it's complicated. It goes like this. "Since we believe," this

00:05:11.360 | is 1 Thessalonians 4, we'll start at verse 14, "since we believe that Christ died and

00:05:17.440 | rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep."

00:05:26.120 | Now that sounds like he means to bring them with him from heaven, where in fact they are.

00:05:34.080 | In fact, there are souls in heaven. We just argued for that from 2 Corinthians 5:8 and

00:05:39.240 | Philippians 1. Now, verse 15, "For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that

00:05:46.680 | we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have

00:05:54.680 | fallen asleep." Now that, too, might sound like we are already in our souls, body in

00:06:03.080 | the grave, souls with Jesus in the presence of the Lord, and in that sense, those still

00:06:09.960 | on earth have not preceded them into the presence of Christ. But here's the problem. Now comes

00:06:20.360 | the argument, the argument for why those who are left, who are alive, will not precede

00:06:28.640 | those who have died. It goes like this, verse 16, "For because," we won't precede them,

00:06:36.600 | "because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice

00:06:44.000 | of the archangel and with the sound of the trumpet, and the dead in Christ will rise

00:06:48.160 | first." That's why we won't precede them. They rise, they rise first. "Then we who are

00:06:57.080 | alive, who are left, will be caught up together," not a first and second, "together with them

00:07:05.600 | in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord." So

00:07:11.160 | the argument for why those who are alive at the Lord's coming will not precede those who

00:07:18.560 | have died is that those who have died will rise first. Then we will all go together,

00:07:28.240 | no ranking, "Oh, you got to go first," together to meet the Lord in the air. No first, no

00:07:34.960 | seconds, all together. So here's my conclusion when I put these three passages together.

00:07:43.800 | Precede in 1 Thessalonians 4:15 does not refer to the dead preceding the living into the

00:07:52.720 | presence of the Lord in heaven, which of course they clearly do. Paul's just not talking about

00:08:00.880 | that. Rather, precede refers to preceding with a resurrection body into the glorious

00:08:11.740 | experience of the second coming. Let me say that again, because that's what the argument

00:08:18.080 | of verses 16 and 17 demands that precede means. Precede—we won't precede the dead. Precede

00:08:26.240 | where? Preceding them with resurrection bodies into the glorious experience of the second

00:08:33.280 | coming. In other words, what Paul is saying in 1 Thessalonians 4:15 is the living won't

00:08:42.560 | have any advantage over the dead when it comes to the fullest enjoyment of that day, that

00:08:51.140 | resurrection second coming day, including bodily sight and enjoyment and bodily celebration

00:09:02.080 | of the second coming, because the dead in Christ shall rise first. In other words, before

00:09:09.940 | there is any glorious gathering to meet the Lord in the air, the bodies of all believers

00:09:16.460 | who have died will be raised from the dead, reunited with their souls, and then the entire

00:09:23.500 | Christian Church, the living and the resurrected, will together meet the Lord and welcome him

00:09:31.840 | to establish his rightful kingdom.

00:09:35.920 | Wow.

00:09:36.920 | Complicated.

00:09:37.920 | Yes, it is complicated. Thank you, Pastor John. You know what's not complicated? Get

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00:10:19.180 | Well, Jesus came to earth in the first Advent. We celebrate this glorious truth in Christmas,

00:10:28.080 | but there's a second Advent to come, and maybe a third Advent too. In fact, how many

00:10:33.720 | times will Jesus return to earth? One more time or two more times? That is a really good

00:10:39.640 | question. It's an important question. It's on the table Friday. We'll see you then.

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