1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven..."

"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 KJV).

Question:

I thought that after our bodies died, they rotted in our earthly graves, to be used no more. Moreover, our spirits are then in the presence of God. Who then will rise up from the earth when Christ returns?

Comment:

You specifically requested the King James translation, which I have quoted above; there is actually little difference between it and the NRSV, which I generally use. On one level this passage indicates a way in which Paul clearly misunderstood the message of Jesus Christ: He expected the end of the world to occur during his lifetime, since he is one of those "which are alive and remain." It didn’t happen, of course, which means either Jesus was wrong or Paul misunderstood the message. There are, indeed, many who believe that Jesus also expected an immediate end of the world, and that on this point, at least, he was wrong. I think the confusion stems from a misunderstanding of just what is meant by the “Second Coming.”   “The Christ” is the eternal Presence and Power of God that is the true identity of each of us. It’s “first coming” was its manifestation through Jesus, who so fully expressed his Christ identity that he became fully one with it—he became Jesus Christ. He did that as an example of our own possibility. He calls us, not to worship what he did, but to follow his example and do it ourselves—become fully expressive of our own Christ energy. That will be the "second coming"—the manifestation of divinity through each of us. That expression of the Christ in each of us is what this passage metaphysically describes. Death—as Jesus Christ vividly demonstrated—has no spiritual reality; it is merely a part of this human illusion. So we can never truly be “dead in Christ." But we certainly be dead in terms of our awareness of the Christ, and our faith in our own Oneness with the divine. It is from within us ("The kingdom of heaven is within you") that the Lord of our being will ’descend’ into our human consciousness, transforming this life experience into the kingdom of heaven and allowing us to fully and eternally express our Christ selves.   Blessings!

Rev. Ed