The believers of today are not certain whether or not our body will be raised from the dead or whether we will receive another body, a heavenly body, after we have been caught up to Heaven.

The emphasis is on our being "caught up" to meet the Lord and to go with Him to Heaven (which is not taught anywhere in the Scriptures). One seldom hears we must be resurrected before we ascend.

Let us look at the passage in question.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump 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. (I Thessalonians 4:16,17)

First the dead in Christ rise. After that they and we who are alive are caught up to meet the Lord in the air. No mention is made of returning to Heaven. In fact, the majority of those who are raised at this time have just come from Heaven. Why should they return to Heaven?

How long a period of time will elapse after we are resurrected and before we are caught up is not stated. The Lord Jesus did not ascend until forty days after He was resurrected. Perhaps the same will be true of us.

The above passage from First Thessalonians was written to comfort the living saints in Thessalonica concerning Christians who had died before the Lord returned.

When there is a death in the family, we comfort the bereaved with the hope that their loved one is in Heaven with Jesus. Paul offered a much better hope—that the bereaved will see their loved one in flesh-and-bone reality when the Lord returns and all will ascend together to meet the Lord in the air.

Let us think for a moment. After the saints have been resurrected they will be immortal. Nothing on this earth, including Antichrist, will be able to injure them in any manner, just as was true of the Lord Jesus after He was raised from the dead.

If the saints will be standing on the earth in resurrected bodies, what need would there be for God to catch them up to Heaven in order to escape Antichrist or the great tribulation? They are in redeemed bodies. How can they be harmed?

The teaching of today concerning the "catching away" of the Church to avoid Antichrist and the great tribulation is unscriptural and illogical. It also leads away from the truth because it suggests there is no need for the believer to prepare himself to stand in the evil day.

The teaching of the bodily resurrection of the saints, the victory over the last enemy, is stated clearly in the Scriptures. The doctrine of today does not state there is no resurrection of the dead. But the effect of the emphasis on living eternally in Heaven, and the "rapture" to Heaven, is to divert our attention to the point that it is the same as saying there is no bodily resurrection from the dust of the ground.

To be continued.