The Thessalonians feared that those who were alive and remained to the parousia—Christ’s presence with his churches in the messianic age—would have some advantage over their dead loved ones (1 Thess 4:15 HCSB). Paul calmed their fears by reinforcing the truth:
The dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thess 4:16–17)
The dead would take part in Christ’s parousia.
I have said (here) that Paul’s vivid images—the dead rising and the living being “caught up”—mean the same thing as Jesus’ “gathering” promise in the Olivet Discourse (cf. Mark 13:27). I have supported this view in several ways. Now, I am presenting four Old Testament passages in which the prophets used resurrection imagery to describe the transition from the Mosaic age to the messianic age. A previous post (here) discussed the first one. In it, Isaiah linked Christ’s resurrection to the “great tribulation” that came on Israel before the temple fell in AD 70. Both resurrection and tribulation were necessary for God’s “holy nation” to enter the kingdom of heaven (i.e., the messianic age) and “fill the face of the world with fruit” (Isa 27:6).
Similar resurrection imagery is at work in Ezekiel’s vision of a valley “full of bones” (Ezek 37:1).1 I will summarize this prophecy, then show how the New Testament reveals its fulfillment in the Mosaic-to-messianic age transition.2
Ezekiel’s Resurrection Prophecy
Before Ezekiel prophesied, God had used the Babylonians to judge Israel as he had earlier promised:
Indeed I, even I, will bring a sword against you.… And I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars. (Ezek 6:3–5)
The Lord had fulfilled this prophecy but now promises to reverse the effects of his judgment: he will resurrect Israel.
Restoration to the Land
The Lord told Ezekiel to preach to a valley of dry bones and promised wonderful results: “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: ‘Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live’” (Ezek 37:5). The prophet did as God commanded: “I prophesied … and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army” (Ezek 37:10).
This vision pertained to “the whole house of Israel” (Ezek 37:10). God said, “I will open your graves … and bring you into the land of Israel” (Ezek 37:11–14; cp. Gen 12:1).
Life in the Land—One Kingdom, One King
God said this “resurrection” would lead to a gathering of “one nation” unto “one king”:
I will take the children of Israel from among the nations … and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. (Ezek 37:21–22)
He promised to “cleanse them” and said that “then they shall be My people, and I will be their God” (Ezek 37:23).
God further described the reign of this king:
David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them. Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. The nations also will know that I, the LORD, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore. (Ezek 37:24–28)
War in the Land
I will make two observations from Ezekiel 38 that affect my proposed explanation of 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17. Extending my analysis to this chapter is legitimate because of a point Ralph H Alexander makes: Ezekiel “normally kept his themes and messages within the chronological framework of what preceded.”3
My first observation relates to timing. The prophet describes a great war in the land after Israel returned and during the reign of God’s appointed king. It would occur, or at least begin, “in the latter years,” “in the latter days” (Ezek 38:8, 16).
My second observation relates to imagery. I will mention just one image in this chapter. God speaks to the future (to Ezekiel) invading army—“You will ascend … covering the land like a cloud” (Ezek 38:9). Again, “You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land … in the latter days” (Ezek 38:16).
Figuratively, this would be a war fought in the clouds.
New Testament Interpretation
Typology determines the interpretation of these visions. I have elsewhere documented its role in the New Testament.4 My post Teaching by Typology applies it to 1 Thessalonians.
Jesus brought a reformation in Israel (Heb 9:10). This change substituted antitypes for types, substance for shadows (cp. Col 2:16–17; Heb 10:1). The typical sacrifices of the Mosaic age gave way to the one sacrifice of Christ (Heb 10:12); the Exodus of Moses diminished in significance because of the Exodus of Christ (1 Cor 10:6, 11; cp. Luke 9:31 in Greek); etc. This typology defines each element of Ezekiel’s vision.
Israel
The apostles defined reformed Israel as those who are in Christ. Here are a few examples of their teaching:
He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God. (Rom 2:28–29)
Paul said the blessings of salvation are to those “who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised” (Rom 4:12). He later continued this line of thought:
They are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “‘In Isaac your seed shall be called.” That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. (Rom 9:6–8)
Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. (Gal 3:7)
Beware of … the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. (Phil 3:2–3)
Peter said,
You [Christians] are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. (1 Pet 2:9)
All the promises of God in the reformation pertain to this Israel.
Israel’s Land
Reformed Israel has a land just as the Mosaic-age holy nation did, but it transcends physical boundaries. The people of God are now citizens of the country for which Mosaic-age saints longed. It is “a better, that is, a heavenly country” where God “has prepared a city for them” (Heb 11:16). Paul says this city is “the Jerusalem above … which is the mother of us all” (Gal 4:26) and that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:20).
The physical land of Israel after the flesh represented the heavenly land we now occupy; earthly Jerusalem symbolized heavenly Jerusalem.
Life in the Land: One King, One Kingdom, One Covenant
God has established his King in his kingdom and has made an everlasting covenant with his people. The King is our Lord Jesus Christ: “He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful” (Rev 17:14). He now relates to us “through the blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb 13:20; cp. Jer 31:31; Heb 8:8, 13; 10:9; 12:24).
The kingdom of Ezekiel’s prophecy (Ezek 37:22) is the kingdom of heaven that God established in the days of the Roman Caesars (cp. Dan 2:44), in the “last days” of the Mosaic age (Heb 1:2; cp. Ezek 38:8, 16). God completed the transition to the messianic age through the “great tribulation” and the temple’s destruction in Jesus’ generation (cp. Matt 24:1–3, 21, 34).
Paul says participation in this kingdom is free from physical considerations. In it,
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal 3:28–29)
To use the prophet’s image, all the people of God have “become one” (Ezek 37:17) through faith in Christ (cp. Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 10:17; 12:12–13, 20; Eph 2:6; 4:4; Col 3:15).
Resurrection
We can now interpret Ezekiel’s resurrection imagery. As a type, the vision of dry bones pertained to Israel’s restoration from Babylonian captivity to their land. It occurred in the prophet’s immediate future. Adam Clark says the dry bones
represented the hopeless state of the Jews when dispersed throughout the provinces of the Chaldean empire. But God, contrary to every human probability, restores these bones to life, thereby prefiguring the restoration of that people from the Babylonish captivity, and their resettlement in the land of their forefathers (Ezek 37:1–14).5
This restoration occurred just as God promised.
But the prophecy meant more than this, for, as Brant Petrie says, all such “resurrection” texts in the Old Testament foretell Israel’s restoration in the times of the Messiah.6 It does so through typology: God’s restoration of “Israel after the flesh” (1 Cor 10:18) to her physical land was a picture of him bringing Israel after the Spirit—the “Israel of God” (Gal 6:16)—into the kingdom of God. This is the antitype or fulfillment of Ezekiel’s figure.
Resurrection imagery is appropriate in both cases. It describes the type—the return of the Jews by nature (Gal 2:15) to their land. It also suits the transition of reformed Jews (in the sense here given) to the country of their eternal abode. They were dead, but have risen with Christ to “heavenly places” (Eph 2:6).
God’s promise—“I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live” (Ezek 37:5)—is a picture of God putting the Holy Spirit in his people during the messianic age. Jesus said, “the Spirit of truth … dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:17).
God said, “I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves” (Ezek 37:12). Jesus gave the fulfillment:
As the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.… Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me … has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. (John 5:21, 24–25)
This resurrection is a leading characteristic of the messianic age that Jesus established in the “last days” of the Mosaic age.
Paul exchanged his life in the Mosaic age for the resurrection life of the new age:
What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Phil 3:7–11)
Paul was not striving for resurrection with Christ—that was already his by grace. He was not working to attain the bodily resurrection at the end of the messianic age—no amount of works can earn that blessing. Paul was seeking to live the resurrected life of the messianic age.
War
The New Testament describes a great worldwide battle that Ezekiel said would occur after Israel (as defined above) returned to their land. Jesus returned in his kingdom in his generation (cp. Matt 16:27–28); this warfare will last throughout the kingdom age. It is a spiritual war waged with spiritual weapons against spiritual foes. In it, God’s holy nation (i.e., the church) robs Satan of his possessions (cp. Matt 12:29). Regarding this war, Paul said,
Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. (2 Cor 10:3–5)
In this war, God will fulfill his promise: “Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezek 38:23). He will do so by making disciples of all nations (cp. Matt 28:18–19).
Ezekiel’s imagery of Israel’s physical war with Gog and Magog is symbolic of the spiritual war we are now waging “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12). This is kingdom warfare. In it, the gates of hell cannot withstand the onslaughts of the church (Matt 16:18).
Cloud imagery is appropriate for this warfare “in the heavenly places” for the saints have “a large cloud of witnesses surrounding” them (Heb 12:1 HCSB). Did Gog and Magog “ascend” to cover “the land like a cloud” (Ezek 38:9)? Even so, God’s army ascended in Paul’s generation to wage war against them in the clouds (cp. 1 Thess 4:17).
Conclusion
As we saw (here), Isaiah 26 linked the resurrection of God’s people, the judgment of Israel after the flesh, and the fruit-bearing of the Israel of God (Gal 6:16) in the messianic age. Ezekiel omitted the judgment of Israel after the flesh, but he linked the (figurative) resurrection of reformed Israel to her subsequent spiritual warfare in the messianic age.
Paul is doing the same thing in his “rapture passage” (1 Thess 4:13–5:11). In his generation, God had, through Christ, raised the elect from the dead. Soon, “wrath … to the uttermost” (1 Thess 2:16) would come on Israel after the flesh. This “great tribulation” would complete the transition to the messianic age. Through these events, the dead in Christ would rise to full messianic-age status and the living would be “caught up” with them. Age-long warfare in the clouds would ensue. Some of the Thessalonians would live to see these things happen (1 Thess 4:15; cp. Matt 16:27–28; 24:34).
Paul’s “rapture” is the same as Jesus’ “gathering” of the elect (cp. Matt 24:31). It is the fulfillment of God’s promise in Ezekiel’s resurrection passage: “I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them” (Ezek 37:21).
All those who experience this rising, catching up, gathering, and warfare will also experience the bodily resurrection at the end of the messianic age (1 Cor 15:20–28).
Footnotes
- Brant Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile: Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement (Grand Rapids; Tübingen: Baker Academic; Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 414.
- The image in this post is Die Vision des Propheten Ezechiels von der Auferstehung der Toten by Quentin Metsys the Younger (1543–89). This file (here) is in the public domain (PD-US).
- Ralph H. Alexander, “Ezekiel,” in Isaiah–Ezekiel, vol. 6 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 928.
- See Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020), 265–79. This book is available here in hardcopy and here as a PDF. A free summary PDF document of inmillennialism is here.
- Adam Clarke, The Old and New Testaments With a Commentary and Critical Notes, 6 vols. (Nashville: Abingdon, [1970?]), 4:523.
- Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, 414.
