¹⁶For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

The Lord’s coming will be broadcast in an unmistakable way. His first coming was heralded by an archangel to a single young woman in Nazareth and then by a host of angels to a band of shepherds outside Bethlehem. At His empty tomb, two angels declared His resurrection, and at His ascension, an angel proclaimed that He would return. So it is fitting that His “partial” return would be accompanied by “a shout, with the voice of the archangel.”

This broadcast will not necessarily come through the evening news, although one could imagine the after-reports by those not caught up! The original word translated “shout” carries a sense of authority, like a commander calling His troops to order or to carry out an assignment. In this case, the Lord will call His people, those who have been redeemed and have placed their hope in Him, to arise from the earth and come to Him. There will be no mistaking this call, and it will be instantaneous. The rallying trumpet will sound. And we shall all respond.

Notice there will be no debating whether this is the real thing. For believers, it will be an entirely passive experience. When it happens, the Lord will bring us up. At the least, the event described here will unfold according to God’s plan, regardless of our theological persuasion about the specifics of end-time prophecy. The arguments of theologians will not determine God’s hand. When it happens, all true believers will be taken.

Keeping to the immediate application that concerned the Thessalonians, Paul explains that the “dead in Christ will rise first.” By this he means those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior but have died or will die before He returns. They will rise from the dead and be taken up “to meet the Lord in the air.” In other words, those believers who have already died will be resurrected before the rest of us who are still alive at His coming. So rather than be disconcerted over them, in a sense, we should instead be jealous, if we understand this correctly. We who are alive at Christ’s return will be caught up with them, but not before them. We will be joining them, not them joining us. Dying before Christ’s return does not put a believer at a disadvantage! Praise God; whether we live or we die, we will all see Him when He returns.

Lord Jesus, I look forward to being caught up to be with You forever.