Christ’s return to earth in Matt. 24 is not the same event as his return in 1 Thess. 4:13-17

There is a reason why theologians treat these two narratives as the same event:

They believe, and thus teach, that everything from Matthew’s gospel to John’s Revelation is the same message espousing the exact same doctrine.

In other words, they do not acknowledge the distinctiveness of the Pauline epistles from the rest of the letters of the New Testament section of the Bible.

Therefore, believing Paul’s gospel/doctrine to merely be another facet/extension of what the Lord preached in the gospels and his disciples preached in their respective epistles, they presume these two events to be the same.

In the following expose I will show, point by point, the falsity of this presumption.

Matthew 24; the Olivet Discourse and the second advent of the Lord on the earth.

1. First of all, who is the Lord addressing in the Olivet discourse? He is addressing his 12 disciples, exclusively.

2. What is the subject matter he is addressing in the first 28 verses of the chapter? He is addressing what he referred to in vs 21 as “great tribulation” and “the tribulation of those days” in vs 29, which he identified as the final week (seven years) of Daniels 70 weeks (490 years) prophecy (Dan. 9:24-27; 12:11,12) in verse 15, of which he says they (the 12) are going through. Friends, this is, undoubtedly, the same thing as “the wrath to come” spoken of in Matt. 3:7 and Luke 21:23. Verse 14 establishes that “the gospel of the kingdom” ((This is the gospel he launched his ministry with in Matt. 4:23))  is to be the message preached in all the world during this period.

3. Beginning in vs 28, the discourse moves from the tribulation/wrath narrative to address what will happen following it: the return of the Lord with his angels, ((Also, reference Matt. 25:31)) who it says he will send to “gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (vs. 31) It also says He will come in the clouds “with power and great glory…and all the tribes of the earth will mourn when they see Him. In other words, the entire world is going to see this event.

4. It goes on to say that certain signs will immediately precede the Lord’s coming, e.g., “the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light (as an aside, this is proof that the light of the moon is not a reflection of sunlight, as modern cosmology contends), and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. ((Also reference Hag. 2:6))

5. And then comes the biggie, vs 34. I say this because it is the verse that Preterists—those folks who believe all the above already took place sometime before AD 70—hang their hat on. They contend that this verse proves there is no way this event can still be in the future. It does not, and I will show why before I’m finished with this expose.

6. He then goes on to compare His coming and its timing to Noah and the flood. Note that people in the world were carrying on their lives totally oblivious to what was about to happen to them in that time preceding the great flood. Also, note that verses 40 and 41 speak of some being taken in this event and being left behind, but it doesn’t designate who goes and who stays. We can compare two areas of scripture for the answer to that. One is the flood where the unrighteous were taken away; the other is the parable of the tares in Matt. 13:30, which says the unrighteous, represented by the tares, were harvested first from among the wheat and burned. Thus, we can say it’s the righteous who stay. Keep that in mind.

7. Lastly, the final ten verses address the issue of faithfulness, or the necessity to “endure unto the end to be saved,”* which He had already established in vs 13.

1 Thess. 4:13-17; The pre-tribulation rapture of the church, the body of Christ.

1 Thessalonians is one of the very first epistles Paul wrote, probably around AD 54, in Acts 18 or 19 from either Corinth or Ephesus in his second missionary journey. In the first chapter, the 10^th verse, he establishes something of extreme importance in proving that what he describes in chapter four is not the same event as the one described in the Olivet Discourse, for it says that Jesus delivered them from the wrath to come. He repeats this promise in chapter 5, vs. 9 in saying that “God hath not appointed us to wrath.” As pointed out in the second point above, the tribulation was one and the same as “the wrath to come,” and it says the 12 are going through it. Paul does mention in chapter 3, vs 4 that he suffered tribulation but it is obvious from the context that he is talking about afflictions he and his followers suffered in their efforts to deliver the gospel of Christ in the various regions they went to, which in no way can be equated with the “great tribulation” spoken of in Matt. 24.

The primary reason, IMO, why most theologians treat the event described in chapter four, the one that I and others of my persuasion refer to as the rapture, as the same event described in the second half of Matt 24, is the wording in verses 16 and 17 that says the Lord himself shall descend from heaven bringing with him all the saints that had died before this event, and then catches up those saints who are still alive on the earth “in the clouds.” What it doesn’t say is what disqualifies it as the Matt 24 event. but before I address this, let’s look at exactly what it says:

13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

What this doesn’t say:

1. It doesn’t say a bunch of angels are in company with him in this event, nor does it say they will be used to gather up the church, as Matt 24 says will happen in that narrative. All it says is the Lord descends from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel (Michael), and that it is the Lord himself who does the catching up.

2. It doesn’t say anything about “all the tribes of the earth” witnessing this event and mourning it, as it says will happen in the Matt 24 event. The only people we know of, by scripture, that witness it are the people who get caught up, which is the church the body of Christ.

3. It doesn’t say the Lord will get any closer to terra firma than the clouds in the 1 Thess 4 narrative. The prophecies describing the Lord’s return to the earth to establish his kingdom, of which Matt 24 is a fulfillment, e.g. Zech 14:4 and Job 19:25, definitely describe an earthly coming.

What it does say:

4. In the 1 Thessalonian event, it is the righteous who are “taken out” and the unrighteous who are left behind; In Matt 24 it is just the opposite.

5. In the gospels, the Lord told the disciples that the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. (Matt. 19:30; Mark 10:31) With the rapture of the church in 1 Thess 4 narrative, it is just the opposite order.

6. Finally, it is an error to claim that if the rapture is a future event it would render Matt 24:34 to be a false statement, because for God to have revealed at that time what he would later reveal through Paul—that anyone could be saved by trusting Christ, believing that he died for their sins—the most important event in history would not have happened (1 Cor. 2:8): the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Roman government at the behest of the Jews. Why? Because the true force behind it, Satan, “the god of this world,” would have known the true reason for it, and would not have caused it to happen, and people like you and I could not have been saved, which brings us to the true purpose of what I refer to as “the interruption” of the gospel of the kingdom program started by the Lord in his three-year earthly ministry and continued by his disciples in the Acts, with Paul’s “revelation of the mystery.”

The purpose of Paul’s revelation is to explain what that world-changing event affected: the free offer of salvation, apart from the works of the law or religious affiliation/participation, to anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances, regardless of what they’ve done or failed to do in their lives if they will simply receive it. As Paul said in his first letter to his understudy, Timothy,

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. (1 Tim 2:5,6)

In other words, no priest/preacher, religious system, or lesser “god” stands between you and God Almighty!

And in his second letter to the Corinthians, he said…

“…that God was in Christ, reconciling himself unto the world, not imputing their trespasses unto them…that he “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him….IF…we are willing to reconcile ourselves to God through belief of the truth. (2 Cor. 5:19-21)

My friends, this message cannot be found in the four gospels, or the Hebrew epistles, all of which are written to Israel, and all of which require faith and obedience as requisites for salvation.

Israel was looking for the Lord’s return to establish the earthly kingdom promised to them in the Old Testament prophecies. That is what Matthew 24 is about. But they will have to endure “the wrath of God,” a seven-year period of “great tribulation” before this can happen. Those Jewish saints who do this, and the Gentiles nations who support them, will then inherit the prophesied kingdom.

As it has been pointed out by Scripture in the above narrative, the church the body of Christ is “not appointed” to the wrath of God, therefore we—those of us who have accepted God’s offer of salvation by grace—will be caught up off this earth before it takes place in that event described by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, and the only thing anyone in this world needs to do in order to assure themselves that they will be in the number that goes in this thing referred to as “the rapture,” is to trust Christ, believing that he died for your sins and was raised again the third day…for your justification.

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved…”

*Also, ref. Mark 13:13

All Scripture is taken from the King James Bible.

Please feel free to freely publish this abroad as you see fit.