Smoodock's Blog

For some time, now, I’ve been involved in a study of Paul’s eschatological point of view, as understood from his two epistles to the Thessalonians. Although I have referenced other letters of his, it was done to clarify what he claims in First and Second Thessalonians. Moreover, I’ve demonstrated in the process of comparing Scripture with Scripture that Paul mentions only one coming of the Lord, one resurrection, one Great Tribulation, one Man of Sin etc. and all correlate in one single narrative about the second coming of Christ that Paul and his readers expected to occur in the first century AD. Paul never mentions the end of time, never mentions an earth-burning, human history-ending event. In fact, he mentions nothing so new that it can’t be found elsewhere in the Bible, and everything that he wrote about, as that pertained to Jesus coming, was fulfilled in the first century and came to a climax in 70 AD.

We are now in First Thessalonians chapter four, and we’ll be staying in this chapter and the first part of chapter five for the rest of this series. As I mentioned in a previous study Paul tells his readers that he is writing to them about what Jesus had said (1Thessalonians 4:15). While it can mean Paul was inspired to tell them something from the Lord, it cannot mean telling them something new, but, rather, in the sense of being inspired by remembrance of something Jesus had said or did (cp. John 14:26), in much the same manner that you or I might recall reading a Scripture that applies to a study we have undertaken.

Having said this, there is only one place in the Gospel narratives where Jesus speaks of each of the constituent elements Paul mentions in 1Thessalonians 4:13-18, and that is in the Olivet Discourse.

If we have Paul speaking of the very same things Jesus mentioned in his Olivet Prophecy, upon what would we base the idea that Paul was speaking of something different than Jesus? Jesus said everything he mentioned would occur in that generation in which he lived, which was when the Apostles preached the Gospel (Matthew 24:34, cp. verse-14).

There is no disparity between the texts. They agree on every point. They are speaking of the same event. If not, where is the evidence they speak of something different? Some may want to say that Paul spoke of the resurrection, but Jesus spoke of judgment upon the Jews in 70 AD, but this is a very shortsighted criticism. Paul was also speaking about the Lord’s judgment upon those who have troubled his disciples (1Thessalonians 5:2-3), and Jesus spoke of the resurrection in Matthew 24:31. The gathering is the resurrection, as I have shown in previous studies.