w Cf. iii. 11; not
θέντας - 16. ὅτι " αὐτὸς ὁ Κύριος ἐν κελεύσματι, ἐν νὰ Σ Ἀπ τ ρα:
angels as καὶ ἐν " σάλπιγγι Θεοῦ, καταβήσεται ἀπ᾽ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ ” οἱ νεκροὶ " ἐν
in Μι. ΧΧΙΥ. 31. x Jude 9: to sum- mon the angels? (iil. 13). y 1 Cor. xv. μεθα. 52, from Joel ii. τ (LXX); cf. 4 Esd. vi. 23, etc. εν. το, II, i. 7; 2 Cor. iv. 14.
18.
zx Gor. χν.
as in Mt. xxv. I. f Burton, M.T. 237. 21, etc. i {.ε. 15-17. Ver. 16. κελεύσματι = the loud sum-
mons which was to muster the saints (so in Philo, De praem. et poen., 19: καθάπερ οὖν ἀνθρώπους ἐν ἐσχατιαῖς ἀπῳκισμ- ένους ῥᾳδίως ἑ ἑνὶ κελεύσματι συναγάγοι ὁ θεὸς ἀπὸ περάτων εἰς ὅ τι ἂν θελήσῃ χωρίον), forms, as its lack of any genitive shows, one μη with the Φϕ. a. and the σ. 6. (cf. DCG, ii. 766). The archangel is Michael, who in Jewish tradition not only summoned the angels but sounded a trumpet to herald God’s
approach for judgment (¢.g., in Afoc. Mosis, xxii.). With such scenic and real- istic details, drawn from the heterogene- ous eschatology of the later Judaism, Paul seeks to make intelligible to his own mind and to that of his readers, in quite an original fashion (cf. Stéhelin, Fahrb. f. deut. Theol., 1874, pp. 199- 218), the profound truth that neither death nor any cosmic crisis in the future will make any essential difference to the close relation between the Christian and his Lord. Οὕτω πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθα (cf. v. τι; 2 Cor. v. 8; Phil. 1. 20) : this is all that remains to us, in our truer view of the universe, from the naive λόγος κυρίου of the apostle, but it is everything. Note that Paul says nothing here about any change of the body (Teichmann,
35 f.), or about the embodiment of the risen life in its celestial δόξα. See Asc. Isa., iv. 14-15: ‘‘And the Lord will come with His holy angels and with the armies of the holy ones from the seventh heaven ...and He will give rest to the godly whom He shall find in the body in this world.”
Ver. 17. ἐν νεφέλαις, the ordinary method of sudden rapture or ascension to heaven ον i. 9, ΣῈ; Rev. xi. 12; Slav. En. iti. 2).--ἁρπαγησόμεθα. So in Sap. iv. τι, η the righteous man, εὐάρεστος τῷ θεῷ (x Thess. iv. τὴ γενόμενος ἦγα- πήθη (1 Thess. i. 4), is caught up (ἡρπάγη).---ἅμα σὺν αὐτοῖς ᾿ς τ σὺν Κυρίῳ, the future bliss is a re-union of
"Χριστῷ ἀναστήσονται πρῶτον :
περιλειπόμενοι, “ἅμα σὺν αὐτοῖς
15. a Blass, ὃ 47, 7 ἃ Post-classical form, Win. δ 13, 10 cf.
τῇ. ὁ ἁρπαγησόμεθα ἐν νεφέλαις εἰς
"ἔπειτα ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες, ot
A , ἀπάντησιν "τοῦ Κυρίου εἰς ἀέρα, καὶ οὕτω πάντοτε σὺν Κυρίῳ ἐσό-
f - - ὥστε " παρακαλεῖτε ἀλλήλους " ἐν τοῖς λόγοις | τούτοις.
b 1 Cor. xv.7, 23. Sap. iv. 10. e Genitive
δν. τα, 1s ΣῚΣ πο κά as 1 Cor. iv.
Christians not only with Christ but with one another.—eis ἀπάντησιν, a pre- Christian phrase of the koiné (cf. e.g., Tebtunis Papyri, 1902, pt. ies ΠΕ 3: τη παρεγενήθημεν εἰς ἀπάντησιν, κ.τ.λ., and Moulton, i. 14), implying welcome of a great person on his arrival. What fur- ther functions are assigned to the saints, thus incorporated in the retinue of the Lord (ili. 13; cf. 2 Thess. i. 10),— whether, e.g., they are to sit as assessors at the judgment (Sap. iii. 8; 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3; Luke xxii. 30)—Paul does not stop to state here. His aim is to reassure the Thessalonians about the prospects of their dead in relation to the Lord, not to give any complete programme of the future (so Matt. xxiv. 31; Did. x., xvi.). Plainly, however, the saints do not rise at once to heaven, but return with the Lord to the scene of his final manifesta- tion on earth (so Chrysost., Aug., etc.). They simply meet the Lord in the air, on his way to judgment—a trait for which no Jewish parallel can be found.—xat οὕτως πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθα (no more sleeping in him or waiting for him).