Sunday School | The Return of Christ - Part 3

If you haven't been here in the last two weeks, or in any case, you didn't get this handout, we've got about 20 copies left. This is every mention of the return of Christ in the New Testament. Doug is willing to run around and pass them out if you want one. Maybe Taylor will too. It's just a reference for you. I think it's really pretty fun to be able to read through all of them at once and to see how pervasive this is across the New Testament.

Cleanup Items

A couple of cleanup things before we jump in here. Two things. Brenda asked about Matthew 24:14. We were talking about whether the gospel has already been preached to the whole world as a testimony to all nations.

This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. — Matthew 24:14

Brenda was saying, well, are we sure that hasn't happened? It seems like over the course of the centuries, maybe we've already done that. And I would say, I don't think that we have done that, but there has been an unmistakable westward movement of the gospel if you look at the spread of the gospel.

If you think of your globe and you start in the Middle East, start in Israel, the gospel first spread out through the Roman Empire, and it kind of moves west, comes up through Europe, and goes across to North America, and then kind of coming back around really more to Asia in more recent decades. There is this westward spread of the gospel, and there's some sense that perhaps there's literally going to be this westward travel. As we move from Asia back to the Middle East, then the game will be over, possibly.

Now, of course, it's not tidy. The gospel has gone northwest, east and south all over the whole time. But there is generally this progression across. I do think that there are places where there is no record of the gospel. Largely, the Muslim lands is worth noting. What we call the 10/40 window—have you ever heard the term the 10/40 window? It's 10 degrees north latitude to 40 degrees north latitude. So it would be the Middle East and across India, southeast Asia, that band is where the vast majority of unreached people are.

Now, it might be that at some point in history, there was some Christian witness in Laos, or something. But there hasn't been for some time, or at least not in extensive numbers. There are still billions with a B today who have never heard the gospel proclaimed in any kind of meaningful way to them. So I don't think that we are done, but nor do I think that the fulfillment of the Great Commission will require everyone simultaneously hearing the gospel on that same day, that same week, that same month. But there has been a general progression. There's a lot of work that has been done, but there's just an enormous amount that is still not done. Many, many unreached peoples.

So there's that. Okay, second thing to clean up. Taylor totally scooped me on Sunday last week. She wrote to me and said, "Hey, I had talked about—wait, was this not even in class? This wasn't in the sermon, was it?" Oh, I forgot. My brain is skipping.

So for those of you that were here when I was preaching last week, we talked about Philippians. We're starting this new series on Philippians, and it is one of the prison epistles. I mentioned there are four prison epistles. Look it up—there are absolutely four prison epistles. Anywhere you look, any grouping of this is going to be Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon. Those are Paul's four prison epistles.

But Taylor, a little smarty pants, is like, "Well, didn't you write Second Timothy from prison?" And he totally did, absolutely. And I'm like, "Yes, of course he did." We preached on this a while ago. We talked about how he's in prison, he's cold, and he wants his Bible and a blankie. Do you remember that line? He was in prison when he wrote Second Timothy, but we don't group it as a prison epistle.

So it is a prison epistle in the sense of it was an epistle written from prison, but we group it as a pastoral epistle. And I don't know why we don't. I mean, it was a pastoral epistle written to Timothy, certainly to a person, a pastor, rather than to a church. But Taylor's right—there's really five. We just don't call it that. We just pretend that there's four. I don't know why, but everyone in the whole world is wrong, and you are right. Second Timothy was written from prison.

Okay, good enough. All right, any other cleanup details that I forgot to mention from last week? Does that feel good?

Bob Blacksmith, so you guys, Will and Becky, you used to be part of this church—they're both on staff here—and now they're serving as missionaries in Cambodia. We love them and they're back for the summer, but they're traveling around to different churches. Next Sunday they'll be back here with us, and Will and Becky are gonna—during this hour I'm gonna still teach my class, but somewhere else they're gonna—what is it? Oh, we found a place.

It's empty right now, so I'm assuming it'll be. Okay, Bob has just claimed room 301. Which wing is that, bro?

The very end, it's kind of the library now, the couches.

I didn't know we had a library now, so this wing?

Down that way, yes.

Okay, so over on this side—so if you wanna hear, you guys, kind of to Brenda's comment earlier—what Will and Becky are doing is the tip of the spear, okay? You guys, this is like the frontier of the gospel, spreading to places where the vast majority of people in their city don't have the biggest idea who Jesus is. This is completely inaccessible, and so what they are doing is leading, bleeding edge, tip of the spear, gospel proclamation. If you would like to hear some of their stories, they'll be doing that in room 301.

This class is recorded, okay? Theirs is not. So you can come in here and hang out with us—I'd love to have you—but if you'd rather go listen to what they're doing, you can listen to this on tape. Then you can hear this kind of very front edge of the work that they are doing, literally to hasten the return of Christ. So room 301 next Sunday. Good enough?

All right, anything else that I forgot so far? We good? Okay, so hopefully if you just snuck in, we've got a few more copies. There's a document of every mention of the return of Christ. We've got these if you want to sneak up here and grab another one. What we've been doing the last couple of weeks is just talking about it. Last week I gave you this document a couple of weeks ago and then invited you to just read through it and have a quiet time—one big massive kind of bleed through it, or a couple. Yeah, feel free to grab them, bro. And then we talked about a whole bunch of my favorite lessons, and then I kind of ran out of time where I was trying to invite you guys to jump in.

I know that we lose a little bit of the priming of the pump when we have this break, but I'd love to know—I got more in reserve, so there will not be any dead air here—but what have you noticed as you read this about the return of Christ? Any particular lessons or things you've pondered as you've read it? And I'm sure there are, so don't be shy. This is the pump priming thing. Okay, then I'll give you some more.

How the Return of Christ Should Change How We Live

How about this? One thing you might notice if you look through these is that the return of Christ, a consciousness that he is coming, the day will be drawing near, should change the way that we live our lives today. This is one of the recurring themes. I'll read you a couple of these. Titus, chapter two:

He's talking about the grace of God. The grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. — Titus 2:12

Something about waiting for his return should shape the way that we live right now. It teaches us—the grace of God teaches us to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in the present age while we wait for the blessed hope. Or Hebrews 10:25, listen to this one:

Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching. — Hebrews 10:25

So when you live conscious that the day is approaching, it should not just be that you are living holy lives and godly lives yourself, but when you see someone, you tell them, stop it, come on. It's difficult, we encourage one another, right? Because you're like, you guys, it's coming. That person is doing great, by the way, okay?

Or how about this? Jude 20. Jude only has one chapter, so Jude 20 is Jude 1:20:

But you, dear friends, build yourself up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord, Jesus Christ, to bring you to eternal life. — Jude 1:20

So here's the abomination—he's coming. You know that he's coming. You're waiting for the revelation of his mercy. What do you do? Keep yourself in God's love. We drift away. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Take my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

We know that we are wandering things, but we know that he's coming, and so we are intentional that we're gonna remain in his love. Why? Because we know that he's coming soon, right? Here's one more.

So what kind of people ought you to be? Well, you ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and you speed its coming. — 2 Peter 3:11

I'm looking forward to the day of God and therefore today, while I wait for that, I should live holy and godly lives. And what does he mean when he says we should speed its coming? Do you remember this? What does it mean to speed the coming of the Lord? Evangelism, what do you say? Pass the word, that is it.

For the gospel will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come.

So we're living godly lives because we know that he's coming back. We're gonna encourage others to come and don't drift away because we know he's coming back. We're gonna fight to remain in his love because we know he's coming back and we are gonna work to speed the day, like come soon by the proclamation of the gospel. These are all the ways that if we're thoughtful about that, then that'll shape our today, right?

Robin: Don't make me think about John 15, about fighting in the vine, and there's a warning in that too.

To be sure. So when Robin talks about John 15, it's kind of this famous passage and it's part of the upper room discourse, kind of this final night of Jesus's life, and he invites us, like remain in my love. I remain in the Father's love, you remain in my love. And that's what it means here when Jude says, stay in his love, like we must intentionally remain. He's the vine, we are the branches. He's saying, don't separate yourself from him because if a vine gets cut off from a branch, or a branch gets cut off from a vine, it dies, right? So we remain in him, we stay connected in him, we have this vital thing because we know that he's coming again and we want to be connected to him when he comes. Very good, excellent.

Okay, does this jog anybody's memory, other things? I'll keep going, but it's more fun when you guys talk. Things you saw in this packet, how about his return, things you're noodling on, questions you have about his second coming? Okay, you just kept interrupting, I'm gonna keep going.

The Return Has Not Yet Happened

All right, how about this? Did you know that it hasn't happened yet? Is that familiar to you? It hasn't happened yet. Did you know that some thought that it had happened? Where do we see evidence of this in the New Testament that people were freaked out that they missed it?

Gary: That's Thessalonians.

Yes, very good Gary, yeah, take a look at this. So both First Thessalonians and Second Thessalonians have all kinds of information about his coming. You might recall, the last line of every chapter in First Thessalonians is about his return. It just permeates the letter. Blah, blah, blah, he's coming. Blah, blah, blah, he's coming. Blah, blah, blah, he's coming. But Second Thessalonians is a little more technical about it.

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you brothers not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us saying that the day of the Lord has already come. — 2 Thessalonians 2:1

Can you imagine if you get a letter saying, oh, hey, did you hear what happened last week? Jesus came back, you know?

There was some joke I remember hearing a long time ago where the Pope gets a phone call and someone comes in and says, "You're a holiness. I have good news and I have bad news." And he says, "Okay, well, give me the good news first." And he says, "The Lord Jesus is on the phone." And the Pope's like, "It's amazing. Like, what could possibly be bad news in light of that?" And the guy says, "Well, he's calling from Salt Lake City."

It's not gonna be like that. You're not gonna get a message that they got it and you missed it, okay?

Audience member: Okay, crazy question. But when we were in Israel, there was talk of it, you know, the East Gate had been boarded up because they were afraid that it said that Jesus is gonna come from the East. They boarded that up so it couldn't be the gate and the dead are all buried around there because Jesus wouldn't come over the dead. And there's something right here that says—where is it?—"For as the lightning that comes from the East is visible even in the West." So when the Son of Man comes. "Wherever there is a carcass, there are vultures will gather." So I didn't know if that plays in together. I've always questioned it. Jesus is supposed to come back. We'll be looking for him there or it'll be something totally different.

Yes. That's an interesting observation.

Okay, this is great. So let's try to weave all this together. Dan is quoting from the Olivet Discourse. Was that Matthew 24 or one of the other gospels?

It's probably Matthew 26.

So Jesus is asked about when he's gonna come. Let me answer that in light of all this. In 2 Thessalonians, it says:

Considering the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report, or letter supposed to have come from us saying that the day of the Lord has already come. — 2 Thessalonians 2

This is about the perception of whether you could miss it. What Jesus says there is you can't miss it because it's like lightning. You can see it from as far east or as far west—it'll be unmissable. Everybody's gonna know. There will be no hearsay. If you ever hear hearsay about the return of Christ, you can be certain that it's false because you're not gonna read about it. You're gonna see it with your own eyes. His coming will be obvious to everyone. That's what he means when he says, listen, east to west, you're all gonna see it.

You may think, well, what if he does come back to Israel? That's the other side of the world. Maybe we'll need to read about that. If I had to guess, he probably is coming back to Israel. It doesn't seem like most likely, you know? I mean, you probably think that's probably America. No, it isn't. It's probably Israel. But whenever it happens, however it happens, we're all gonna know about it.

Paul continues and he says this:

Don't let anyone deceive you in any way. For that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. — 2 Thessalonians 2

So what Paul is saying is not only will it be obvious everywhere—everyone will know from east to west—his coming will not be something you'll read about. You'll know about it. He also says there will be, at the very least, this prior thing. This has freaked a lot of people out. Don't let anyone deceive you because the man of lawlessness needs to be revealed, the one doomed to destruction. He will oppose and exalt himself over everything. I don't know how else to take this other than some particular human figure that will be the final fulfillment of the antichrist.

John says there are a lot of antichrists. Many antichrists have come and will come. But it seems that in the very end of the thing, before Jesus comes, there will be a particular version of rebellion that'll be obvious to everyone else.

So all that to say, you're not gonna miss it. You're not gonna miss it because it'll be obvious to everyone, and you're not gonna miss it because there will be some crazy stuff happening in the days leading up to it and it's all gonna be seen.

The Problem with Charts

The particular thing is that there are people who feel like they've got a very strong map of how all that's gonna play out. They tend to be in a dispensationalist framework or a pre-millennial, pre-trib kind of framework. Those guys feel like they've got a very clear chart of how all things proceed. I think some of their fundamental assumptions are mistaken, and so I'm suspicious of their charts. But I'd have to admit, I don't have a chart. I don't know. I think there's a lot of vagaries and I don't know how it's gonna play out.

These are a couple of key things that I think are gonna happen. You won't miss it, but this fear that you'd miss it actually shows up a couple of times in the New Testament. So we won't. It'll be okay. We'll know it.

Do you know what the 30 minutes of silence in heaven in Revelation refers to?

I don't.

That's for all of these guys that made those charts.

Well, John is making a joke that Revelation describes a period of silence when he comes, and there's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna be surprised. One of them is going to be me.

Like somebody said—I forget who it was—but when Jesus returns, I think three things will surprise me. Number one, who's there? Number two, who's not there? And number three, that I'm there. Everyone, when this all comes down, there's a certain part of me that really hopes we keep score because I think I'm gonna do pretty well. I'm not gonna get 100% for sure, and I might do much worse than I think.

In terms of our theological assumptions or understanding of things, there's gonna be so many things, but it's probably the case that we're not gonna be keeping score at all because who's gonna care, right? When he comes back, we're not gonna go, "I got a 92 on my exam," right? There's gonna be such greater things you're gonna transcend all that. So let's try to get it right, but when it all comes down, if I'm wrong about everything and he comes back and I'm with him, good enough. Amen. Jesus God. Good enough.

Okay, Taylor?

I just got this packet so I haven't read it thoroughly, but I am seeing a lot of "the day." Yes. The day, the day, the time, the day, the day. The day is highlighted over and over.

It is, yeah. Let me unpack that. So very often, the New Testament uses different language to label the coming of Christ. I usually call it the return of Christ. That's my preferred term. Sometimes it's called the day. Sometimes it's called the great day. Sometimes it's called the day of the Lord. Sometimes it's called the revealing. So if you go through you'll see all these different moments.

Philippians is funny that you mentioned the day because we're about to study Philippians and I was just talking to Bob about this. Go to the Philippians section if you have your page, and if not, no worry about it. Bob, you wanna just riff on this? You were making comments about this a couple of days ago.

It's interesting that Paul only uses the phrase "the day of Jesus" or "the day of Jesus Christ" in the book of Philippians in chapters one and two. We always think of "the day of the Lord," "the day of Jesus," "the day of Jesus Christ," and Paul, the author of Philippians, he only did it in his book to the Philippians, which I thought was interesting.

Yeah, so there's finally, you know, you all have catchphrases, right? And it's always embarrassing when you hear somebody imitate you and you realize I didn't know that I say that all the time. I just feel like a dork. So there are things that Paul will say—idiosyncratic phrases or even in particular letters—these kinds of vocabulary pitches that he will fall into. So Taylor, when you say "unpack it," do you have any assumptions about what that means or is something that catches your attention about that?

No, I thought it was funny it was highlighted so many times because in my brain I'm like, well, no, it will be a day. Like we'll just be living, thinking that's just another day and it won't be. It will be a very special day. It'll be the day.

Right, so in my mind, I didn't know if there was more to that or if it was just like, this is the header title of this signal.

I think it is what you said. There's a day, a day, a day, a day, a day, a day—the day. This is the day of days, which is, by the way, that's literally what D-Day means. So you know that? Like D-minus one, D-minus two—counting down till the day that we invade Normandy. The day is the day to which all things point. Everything in the world is driving to a very specific, particular day. May it be so.

So, Kelly?

I feel like there are verses where they call it "the day" and they're referring more to his return, but then there's also verses where they call it "the day" and it's talking more about his judgment. And so the question is, is his return and the judgment of believers—are they the same day?

Yeah, okay, so whether he gets here—let's say he gets here at six a.m. local Israeli time—will judgment be accomplished by midnight? I don't know. The day is used in reference to his return and to the judgment. So here's a look at this one. Go to Matthew 25. This would be a good example of this.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, "Come, you are blessed by my father. Take your inheritance." — Matthew 25:31-34

There's just a very clear picture of the linkage between his coming and his judgment. It's one event. You can see the same thing in 1 Thessalonians. Paul's gonna say this. Let me find it. The T books are together in alphabetical order, by the way. So in 1 Thessalonians—where do we wanna pick this up? Or no, 2 Thessalonians. Let me see. Where's 2 Thessalonians? God is just—this is 2 Thessalonians 1:6.

God is just, he will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, unto us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction.

And that phrase "shut out" doesn't exist in Greek—it's false. Then we punish with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people.

So again, his coming and the judgment are a simultaneous event—it's one thing. Whether it takes a full week or not, I don't know. But the day is both his coming and the judgment; it's one thing.

Harry: I think the issue is you can't classify today as God sees today. The simple reason we classify it as the rotation of the earth.

Tim: Yeah.

Harry: And classify here as the rotation around the sun.

Tim: Sure.

Harry: God doesn't see that. So what is the meaning of a day to God versus our interpretation of judging when this is going to occur?

Tim: Well, he calls it a day. He says in Genesis, there was evening, there was morning, the first day—evening, morning, the second day. Of course, the first few days there wasn't a sun, which makes things a little confusing for folks. In fact, I just got—I wish I should play for you. Is Aisha in here? Aisha's an incoming fellow and she sent me the most delightful voicemail a couple of days ago because she just noticed that, wait a minute, the days proceed before—I don't have permission. I would love to play this for you though; it's so fun. She was like, what in the world does this mean? And then she's kind of working out: does that mean that God himself was the light before he made the sun? I'm like, yes, exactly what that means, right?

So our definition of day is not just something we're making up. God gives us that framing. But both before and at the very beginning, at the very end, there is no sun. He is the sun; the Lord himself is the light. And so what will that be? How is that gonna play out? I don't know. But whatever it is, he's coming and the judgment is coming. These are simultaneous events.

They're a handful—I'm getting behind on hands, Jared.

Jared: Yeah, with a lot of these scriptures that we're talking about here specifically, it's really interesting how when we think of the Lord's coming, it's usually with the sense of escapism—like he's gonna come and save us and then there's gonna be years where it's kind of working everything out. But really, the way the scripture reads is that he comes and there's a judgment and he's coming to the earth where we'll be able to reign right then and there. And so you don't have a lot of these long timelines—instead you have Jesus coming to set things right.

Tim: This—everything Jared said is exactly true. And don't miss what his claim that a lot of American theology is rooted in escapism. That is not a biblical framing of things, right? The whole—I addressed it a couple of weeks ago. I did my best to kick the rapture out of your head because I think it's just not what the scriptures teach. But it is part and parcel escapism, right? Like, let's leave and God's just gonna rain down all this terror on everybody and then we come back and everything's all cleaned up. That's not the way it's gonna play out. We're not going anywhere. He is coming here and we will be with him.

We have a sense that this world is just this disposable launching point for some other place. And that's not—you cannot sustain that view with a strong interpretation of the scriptures. This is the world that he made. This is the world that he loves. This is the world he's redeeming. This is the world in which we will dwell forever, right? We're not going someplace else. We are redeeming this one, right? It's huge.

Robin: I'm not sure I should say because I don't have the scripture in verse in my brain right now, but there's a verse that talks about us being caught up in the sky with him.

Tim: Yeah.

Robin: How does this fit together?

Tim: Okay. Were you not here two weeks ago, perhaps? You were not, okay. So you're probably thinking of 1 Thessalonians 4. So who was not here two weeks ago? Okay, that's good enough for me. All right, 1 Thessalonians 4. We'll do a real quick version.

The basis of the claim that Jesus will rapture his church—we won't do this every week for the rest of time, but just any time you ask me to, because I love this stuff, okay. First, the basis of rapture, Robin, is 1 Thessalonians 4. Some people on my side of the world, my camp, would say that the Bible never uses the word "rapture"—that's false. The English Bible never uses the word "rapture." The Latin Bible does, and the place that it does is 1 Thessalonians 4. So this is the central rapture text. And it says this, verse 16.

Well, I'm going to do the speed version of this.

According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not proceed those who have fallen asleep before. The Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command and the voice of the archangel and the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. — 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17

There it is. Caught up is rapture. That's the passage you mean, right? Okay, that is going to happen. But the question is: what happens next?

The typical dispensational, pre-millennial, pre-trib kind of framing—and if you don't know all those words, we'll cover them eventually—expects that Jesus comes down, we come up, he does a U-turn, and we all go away. So far so good. That passage only says Jesus comes down and we go up, and then it says we'll be with the Lord forever. I do think that is going to happen, but what is going to happen next is that we come down. We do the U-turn; he doesn't do the U-turn. It is not the case that we're going to be taken away for seven years while all bunch of other stuff happens. It is the case that when he comes, we will meet him—which, P.S., this is one of the reasons you're not going to miss it. You're going to be part of it.

So when he comes, we come and we join him. The reason that I think that makes the best sense is not only other things that scripture says, but the very word here—to meet the Lord—is apantesis in Greek. It occurs three times in the New Testament, and every time it occurs, the other two times it occurs, it's for people going out. The bridesmaids go out to meet the groom and they're supposed to escort him in. Paul is heading to Rome, and believers go out to meet him at the Tavern of the Three Taverns and they escort him in. So I think that what 1 Thessalonians 4 is teaching is not that we get drawn away when he comes, but that we escort him in when he comes.

Matthew 24 and the Days of Noah

And then the second most famous passage for rapture is Matthew 24: two people are doing the same thing and then one is taken and the other left; two other people are doing the same thing and one is taken and the other left. If you look at that, Jesus explicitly says:

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

People were doing a bunch of normal stuff and then the flood came and took them all away. In Matthew 24, to be taken is not to be taken in rescue as the rapture proponents imagine—it is to be taken in judgment. So that passage means the exact opposite of what it's generally represented as meaning.

That's the two-minute version. Good enough?

Question: It says that there's a scripture, "absent from the body and present with the Lord." The scripture talks about those who have fallen asleep. So those of our loved ones who have gone before Christ—are they asleep? Are they with the Lord?

Great question. Here's what we have. In Philippians, for instance, Paul is going to say:

A desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. — Philippians 1:23

And then you've got here in 1 Thessalonians: Paul says the Lord will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. And you also see that we will not proceed those who have fallen asleep.

Here's how do we make sense of what is happening for people that are dead? Here's what I think is happening. This is possible that I'm wrong—I'm high confidence, but not absolute certainty on this. Your body is going in the grave and your soul will go to be with him. When Paul says, "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far," there's some non-material part of him that he believes will be with Jesus. In the same way that Jesus says to the thief on the cross:

Today you will be with me in paradise. — Luke 23:43

Paul desires to depart; to be absent from the body is to be present. I do think that our soul goes to be with him.

And then what's going on here in 1 Thessalonians 4—when it says, "We believe that Jesus died and rose again. And so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him"—if he's bringing them with him, then they're with him, right? And when it says "who have fallen asleep," that is overwhelmingly the way they knew this. This is one of the peculiar things. It's strange to me that Christians have never adopted this language. The New Testament never describes dead Christians as being dead. It always describes them as being asleep. And I take that to mean a sleep on this planet.

Their body is lying there, inactive. Not that they are asleep with Him in heaven. So our body is asleep. We are awake with Him. And when He comes, we will reunite our soul to our body. Is that still coherent?

Now, some people, Martin Luther among them, believed that when you die, you lose consciousness and you won't regain consciousness until your body is alive again. It's not a heretical belief. It might even be a correct belief, but I don't think it is. I think he was mistaken about that. However, it's possible.

And we know even less about this. It is possible, maybe, that those who are in Christ are alive and awake with Him in heaven, awaiting the restoration of all things and the resurrection of the body. But those who are apart from Christ, who will be judged in Matthew 25, are asleep. That's possibly the case—that we're not all in the same state. The lost are asleep in anticipation of what is coming to them, and the righteous are awake and enjoying His presence.

So it might be that Luther's right about soul sleep for those who are apart from Christ, and most people are right about the righteous being awake and alive and conscious. I might be mistaken about that. We have very little biblical information about the fate of the lost in the interval between death and resurrection. They will all be raised, all of us, and we know what happens after that. But what happens in what we call the intermediate state—there's just not as much information.

The rich man in Luke 16—so Robin is referencing the story of the rich man and Lazarus. We're going to unpack all of this in like two years. But the rich man and Lazarus is Luke 16. We're talking about the return of Christ under the rubric of Jesus' ministry. We're going to also cover eschatology in much more detail at the end of this whole series. And when we get there, we'll look more at that.

But Luke 16 is the story of a man who is suffering terribly after his death and before the resurrection. It's not final state, it's the resurrection state. It might be historically accurate, or it might be meant to be historically accurate—it's a parable, so it's hard to know. And that's our only data point. So we can't rule it out, but I wouldn't overemphasize what we can draw from it. We'll get there in a couple of years.

What Are We to Do?

Catherine, I always feel like we're going to get into all of this, but what are we to do? And that's kind of where I'm usually ended up. So tell me, and hold us accountable. I think that's why, if you're going to maybe get to that part, we're okay. Now we understand—okay, now what are we going to do? You mentioned it last time when you said, "You know, he is coming." And then you said, "All right, what are we supposed to be doing?"

Right. And so that's why I think Philippians 1:9 is my life first because—and I've been praying this for all of us, just so you know, I'm praying this:

This is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, that you may be able to discern what is best and be pure and blameless. And that you may be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—for the day of Christ. — Philippians 1:9-11

And I remember there was someplace in there where he said, "Just love people like crazy." Just as much as you can, just be doing that, you know? It's like, wow, how can we lose if all we're thinking about—we're not thinking about ourselves anymore. We're not going to sit around thinking only about him coming and feel like, "Oh good, I don't have to do anything." But it's like, where am I loving? We're not loving people, I don't know—thank you.

That's great, Calvin. That's exactly right. What you think—the New Testament, over and over, when it talks about the return of Christ, it does exactly what you are intuitively doing. It anchors it back to: okay, so what about that? Right now, what do we do? We live godly lives. We speed. All these things. And Philippians 1:9 could be included in that list, exactly right.

In 1 Thessalonians, right before the one you were talking about, it says this is what you ought to be doing. And Paul goes, "Look at me, what am I doing?" And I know a pastor one time said, "I just stopped reading all the books in the world and I started just reading the Gospels. And I just started doing what Jesus did." And he started praying for people, and nine out of ten people got healed. But at first, only one person out of ten.

Amen, hurry the day. Like, right, that we would embrace all that and that he would come. Okay, so here's what we gotta do—we gotta stop.

The Three Rs

Three Rs, what are the three Rs that we're talking about? Do you remember?

• Return of Christ
• Restoration of all things
• Resurrection of the dead

So when he comes back, he's gonna return, he's gonna raise the dead, he's gonna restore all things.

Next Week: The Resurrection of the Dead

Next week, we're gonna talk about he's gonna raise the dead. So if you really wanna understand what this means, go to 1 Corinthians 15. In advance of next week, read through 1 Corinthians 15. That is what we would call the chair passage—it's kind of where the seat of the doctrine lay. Not his resurrection, but our resurrection. It's not the only place. It's actually Daniel 12 is maybe a key spot. Acts 24—there's a bunch of places. But by far, the meatiest thing that we can mine, if you wanna understand that, would be 1 Corinthians 15.

1 Corinthians 15

So that's what we're gonna talk about next week. Not just that he's coming, but that when he returns, he's going to raise the dead. Take a look at that—1 Corinthians 15. We'll unpack that more together next week. Cool?

All right, thank you, thank you. Or go hang out with Will and Becky instead. Either way.