1 Thessalonians 4:18

The hope of being reunited with saints who have died and, what is more important, with Christ, gives believers a hope that we can and should use to comfort one another when loved ones die.

"Paul’s central point [in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18] is that Christians who have died are in no way behind those who are alive at the Lord’s coming, since the dead will actually rise first; then, we will all go together to meet the Lord in the air." [Note: Thomas R. Edgar, "An Exegesis of Rapture Passages," in Issues in Dispensationalism, p. 204.]

Note that it is not the Lord’s return by itself that Paul offered as encouragement here (cf. Titus 2:13) but the reunion of dead and living saints and their shared glory in His presence.

Both pretribulationists and posttribulationists agree that the revelation Paul just gave is a comfort to believers. The hope of translation before death that Paul revealed is greater than the hope of resurrection after death that the Thessalonians had held. Will this translation occur before the Tribulation or after it? Pretribulationists say it will occur before. Consequently we have a very comforting hope. Not only may our translation precede our death, but it will also precede the Tribulation. Furthermore it may take place at any moment. Posttribulationists say our hope consists only in the possibility of our being translated before we die. We may have to go through the Tribulation. Therefore the Rapture is not imminent in their view.

"The hope of a rapture occurring after a literal great tribulation would be small comfort to those in this situation [i.e., in mourning for loved ones who have died]." [Note: Walvoord, The Blessed . . ., p. 96.]

". . . although the church has gone through periods of great persecution in the past and undoubtedly may go through greater and even more intense persecutions before Christ returns, nevertheless, the view of a posttribulational rapture is impossible for the simple reason that it makes meaningless the very argument that Paul was presenting in the Thessalonian letters. Paul was arguing for the imminence of Christ’s return. This is to be the major source of comfort for suffering believers. If Christ will not come until after the great tribulation (that is, a special period of unusual and intense suffering still in the future), then the return of the Lord is not imminent and tribulation rather than deliverance is what we must anticipate." [Note: James Montgomery Boice, The Last and Future World, pp. 41-42.]

I prefer the pretribulational explanation of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 for the following reasons. The passage pictures the Rapture as an imminent event, but it is not if the Tribulation must come first. Second, Christians are not destined to experience the outpouring of God’s wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10), which the Tribulation will be. Third, the prospect of an imminent Rapture is a much greater comfort than the prospect of a posttribulation Rapture, and Paul revealed this information to provide comfort. Fourth, there is no mention of the Tribulation in the passage, but that would be appropriate and reasonable if it will precede the Rapture. The pretribulation view existed in the church long before John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) popularized it. [Note: See Timothy J. Demy and Thomas D. Ice, "The Rapture and an Early Medieval Citation," Bibliotheca Sacra 152:607 (July-September 1995):306-17.]

A comparison of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 with John 14:1-3 shows that they refer to the same event.

A similar comparison of 1 Thessalonians 4 and Revelation 19, which describes the second coming of Christ, reveals that these two chapters must describe different events. [Note: Both comparisons are from J. B. Smith, A Revelation of Jesus Christ, p. 312.]