Explosive Joy & Divine Romance

Peace and salvation, Yahweh is King (Isa. 52:7-8). This was and is a victorious proclamation that Yahweh’s kingdom has come on earth as it is in heaven. The God of Israel has return to His people. Here comes the inauguration of the eschatological era. It is the dawn of the new creation. The time of restoration of the fallen world has come. “Behold, your God”, proclaims those who herald this evangelion to God’s people who are anxiously waiting to hear the good news. Waiting to hear that  the time of God’s dominion on earth as it is in heaven has come.

Where this evangelion is proclaimed, there there is an explosive joy among God’s people. This explosive joy is rooted in Christ Jesus. He is not only the bringer of the evangelion but also the evangelion itself. He is the bringer of God’s kingdom in heaven to earth and He is the everlasting King in that joyous divine rule that will wipe away God’s people tears, bring end to morning, suffering, pain and death. He is also the true fountain of the living infinitely and imperishable joy itself.

The Church is called to heralding this evangelion. She is sent to herald God’s redemptive drama. She is sent to behold Christ Jesus as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the fallen world and as the Lion of Judah, who has triumphed over darkness.

The Church is the last Eve. She is kept pure. She is without stain or wrinkle. For Her last Adam is keeping Her holy and blameless. Her mission, heralding and living in this divine romance, is a reaction. Just like laughter, it is not an action.

This mission is a reaction towards an overwhelming and compelling divine love. She is overwhelmed and compelled to be like Him, and to act like Him. She is overwhelmed and compelled to be holy, loving, patient and kind. She overwhelmed and compelled to protect the weak, to persevere in the darkness, to rejoice in truth, to welcome the outcasts, to heal the wounded and to bring hope in despair. The divine love compels Her to rekindle heaven on earth.

The Message of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11

Is there hope for Christians who have passed away? Will they participate in the eschatological hope, the parousia of the second advent of King Jesus? How ought the living Christians live their lives as they awaited the returning of their Lord and God? These were roughly the questions Paul attempted to address in his first epistle to the Church in Thessalonica (4:13-5:11). In the previous articles I went through different interpretations and the current debate surrounding Paul’s message, as I attempt to explore Paul’s answers to these questions:

• Eschatological Hope of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11
• An Exposition Of 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
• Rapture or No-Rapture, That is the Question
• Evaluating Eis Apantēsin & Eschatological Hope
• Concise Exposition of 1 Thessalonians 4:18-5:11

Concise Exposition of 1 Thessalonian 4:18-5:11

The idea that death has no last say for Christians because Christ Jesus will return to restore what is lost and renew what is perishing is sweet to the soul. This idea is what Christians in Thessalonica are called to encourage each other with. It is what Paul concludes with in 1 Thessalonians 4:18 and 5:11. This idea is unarguably the aim of general theme of 1 Thessalonian 4-5 (Weima 1995: 192). Thessalonians are called to encourage each other with eschatological hope that is not only theirs, those who are living, but also of their dead comrades.

It appears that the church in Thessalonica knew the times and the seasons that marked the return of their Lord and King (5:1 cf. Lk 21:34-36). It would be unexpected time, like that of a thief in the night. While the rest of the world believe that all is well, the King will return and all who did not pledge alliance with Him would be caught like a pregnant woman in labor pain without any escape route (5:2-4).

Evaluating Eis Apantēsin & Eschatological Hope

In Rapture or No-Rapture, That is the Question, I presented two different understanding of what Paul meant by the idea that Christians will be reunited again in the clouds to meet their returning Lord and King Jesus in the air ( 1 Thessalonians 4:17). Scholars who understand Paul as not teaching rapture, the idea that Christians will ascend to the sky to meet their Lord, have argued that eis apantēsin (“to meet”) ought to be understood as a technical term. Eis apantēsin, thus, connote the idea of meeting a visiting honorable dignitary.  In ancient Hellenistic Greek, the citizens of a particular city would often go outside their city to meet a visiting dignitary. These citizens will then joyously accompany him back to the city (Cameron 1922: 116; Gundry 1973; 104; Marshall 1983: 131; Elias 1995: 178-9; Martin 1995: 153; Green 2002:226; Wright 2004: 125).

Revisiting Erick Peterson’s work¹ , which I believe chiefly contributed to no-rapture reading, Michael R. Cosby explained that it is not always the case that eis apantēsin is used as a technical term to describing a Hellenistic Greek formal receptions. Cosby explained that “[s]ometimes ἀπάντησις describes a formal greeting of a dignitary, but often it does not. And some descriptions of such receptions do not use ἀπάντησις or ὑπάντησις (or the verb forms of these words)”(Cosby 1994: 20). The evidenced supporting “eis apantēsin” as a technical term for the formal reception of visiting dignitary is, thus, inconclusive (Weatherly 1996)

Rapture or No-Rapture, That is the Question

Rapture, following Andy Woods, is the reunion of Christians who were dead in Christ with the living up in the sky. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, Woods explained, is “probably the clearest reference to the rapture found in all of the New Testament.” (Woods 2004: 312) Six decades back, Arthur B. Whiting made a similar declaration. This passage, according to Whiting, provides us with an orderly and detailed exposition of understanding the Rapture (Whiting 1945: 361).

Maintaining the cessation of the baptism with the Holy Spirit at the second advent of Christ Jesus, Merrill F. Unger holds that 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 provides evidence that the Church will be removed out of the world (Unger 1944: 362). Lewis S. Chafer concurred with Unger and added that Christ Jesus will come “only to the upper-air spaces and the believers [would be] gathered together unto Him” (Chafer 1952: 134)

An Exposition Of 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17

What is the fate of Christians who died before the second advent of Christ Jesus? Will they participate in the parousia of their Lord and King? Paul of Tarsus addressed such questions in his first letter to the Thessalonians. He commended Christians in Thessalonica not to be distressed about their fellow comrades who died in Christ Jesus before the return of their King. Unlike those who died without Christ, those without hope (v. 13), the dead in Christ have the eschatological hope. The dead in Christ will indubitably not miss the future magnificent parousia, the glorious coming of their Sovereign Lord and King, because He will descend “with a loud command”, “with the voice of archangel” and “with the trumpet call of God”.

The dead in Christ will be resurrected to meet their Lord prior to the one living (v. 15). Together they will meet their King and be with Him forever (verse 17). A wonderful word-tree (fig.), by Jacob W. Elias, carefully captured the flow of Paul discourse in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17.

Fig. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 word-tree (Elias 1995: 173)

Early Christians’ Order of the Last Things

One of the very first things my wife Lea learned about me was my terrible habit of easily forgetting where I last place my wallet, keys and mobile phone. Helping me end this habit, she often would, with great love and patience, ask me to rework as much as possible my that-day  routine, every time I lost these items. She taught me to take a backward walk into my day’s past to look for what I had lost. Reading Church history is traveling back in Christians’ family story to learn, relearn or discover some of the lost Christians wisdom.

This series of article covers what the early Christians believe about the future time where Christ Jesus returns. Since early Christians strongly and passionately fond great consolation beholding this hope of future glory in a period where they were persecuted by the Jews and pagans, it is worthy to know what they believed about the unfolding of end-times.  It is a fact that this hope brought them unimaginable consolation through those hard times. As Apostle Paul, they considered their suffering not worth compared to the future glory that the whole creation is eagerly longing for (Rom. 8:22). How the future glory’s events would be unfolded is what this series attempted to investigate, mainly in the writings of Pseudo-Barnabas, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Papias, Hermas, and Tertullian.