Where Does God Bring Dead Saints?

Our last two posts on First Thessalonians provided key information about Paul’s “rapture” passage (i.e., 1 Thess 4:13–5:11). First, his aim was to assure the Thessalonians that their dead brothers and sisters would be at no disadvantage during the messianic-age parousia (presence¹) of the Lord Jesus with his people.² Second, the basis of his comfort is “the word of the Lord” (1 Thess 4:15) found in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse.³ 

These two insights show that the Thessalonians were expecting significant prophetic events to occur in their lifetime. Those events would end the Mosaic age and establish the messianic (kingdom) age. In the new age, Christ would sit on his throne until all his enemies became his footstool (cp. Ps 110:1). He would defeat the last enemy, death, in the resurrection at the end of the messianic age (1 Cor 15:25–26).

In this post, I will show how this inmillennial⁴ understanding affects our interpretation of one element in Paul’s reasoning. He says: 

I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him (Gk. agō sun) those who sleep in Jesus. (1 Thess 4:13–14)

What does Paul mean by, “God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus”? Are most commentators correct when they say Paul means that the dead will accompany Jesus when he returns at the end of the messianic age? 

Inmillennialism says the Apostle has more in mind than just a point-in-time event in our future; he is referring to the gathering Jesus mentioned in his Olivet Discourse, one that would occur during his messianic-age parousia (presence) with his people. The Lord had said he would “send His angels … and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt 24:31). Paul is using this promise of messianic-age gathering to assure the Thessalonians that their dead would be at no disadvantage in the age of the parousia. Jesus would fulfill his promise to return in his generation (e.g., Matt 16:17–18; 24:34). The age-long gathering of the elect into the kingdom would continue, culminating in the bodily resurrection.⁵ All the saints—even those who had died before the Lord returned—would take part in it. 

I will now present my case that Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 4:14, is speaking of the same gathering Jesus promised in the Olivet Discourse (Matt 24:31). To do so, I will use Euclid’s first postulate: “Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other”:⁶ if A = C and B = C, then A = B. I will apply this truth to our present passage: (1) 1 Thessalonians 4:14 expresses the same truth as 2 Thessalonians 2:1; (2) Matthew 24:31 also expresses the same truth as 2 Thessalonians 2:1; therefore (3) 1 Thessalonians 4:14 expresses the same truth as Matthew 24:31. Let’s consider each of these statements.

1 Thessalonians 4:14 = 2 Thessalonians 2:1

Here are two statements Paul made to the Thessalonians:

1 Thess 4:14: “Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with (Gk. agō sun) him”
2 Thess 2:1: “Now we beseech you … by our gathering together (Gk. epi-sun-agō-gē⁷) unto him”

G. K. Beale makes an important observation about the context of these two statements. He says three crucial phrases appear in both:

“the coming of the Lord” [1 Thess 4:15; 2 Thess 2:1], “God will bring with Jesus” (1 Thess 4:14 = “our being gathered to him” in 2 Thess 2:1), and “the day of the Lord” (1 Thess 5:2; 2 Thess 2:2.)”⁸ 

Charles Wanamaker, in his comments on 2 Thessalonians, agrees regarding the identity of the gathering in these two passages: “This is the only instance in Paul’s letters of [episunagōgē] or its cognate verb, but the idea is parallel to the one found in 1 Thes. 4:16f.”⁹ 

Neither Beale nor Wanamaker embraces inmillennialism, but they confirm its view of these passages: “bring with” in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 has the same meaning as “gathering together” in 2 Thessalonians 2:1. Paul is speaking of the same process in both passages.

Matthew 24:31 = 2 Thessalonians 2:1

Nehemiah Nisbett mentions “the very remarkable and striking resemblance between our Lord’s language [in the Olivet Discourse] and that which he [Paul] made use of in [2 Thess 2].”¹⁰ He lists the following similarities:

1. Both passages speak of Christ’s parousia:
   • “What is the sign of thy presence (Gk. parousia), and of the full end of the age?” (Matt 24:3 YLT)
   • “And we ask you, brethren, in regard to the presence (Gk. parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of our gathering together unto him….” (2 Thess 2:1 YLT)
2. Both passages contain encouragement against being troubled:
   • “See that you are not troubled.” (Matt 24:6)
   • “We ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled.” (2 Thess 2:2)
3. Both passages contain warnings against deception:
   • “Take heed that no one deceives you.” (Matt 24:4)
   • “Let no one deceive you by any means.” (2 Thess 2:3)
4. Both passages contain a reference to the messianic-age gathering:
   • “He will send His angels … and they will gather together (Gk. episunagō) His elect.” (Matt 24:31)
   • “Now we beseech you … by our gathering together (Gk. episunagōgē) unto him.” (2 Thess 2:1)

William Hendriksen adds a fifth similarity: the apostasy in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 “had been clearly predicted by the Lord while he was still on earth (Matt. 24:10–13).”¹¹ These common factors show Paul was basing his teaching on Jesus’ Olivet Discourse.

Sam Storms makes the following observation about this gathering in the Olivet Discourse:

 This text is primarily a description of Christ’s ingathering of his people into the Church throughout the course of the present age following the judgment that befell national Israel in A.D. 70. The passage is a clear allusion to both Deuteronomy 30:4 and Zechariah 2:6. There we read: “If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you” (Deut. 30:4); “Up! Up! Flee from the land of the north, declares the Lord. For I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, declares the Lord” (Zech. 2:6).¹²

John Lightfoot agrees with this view; he takes Jesus’ “gathering” passage in the Olivet Discourse to mean that,

When Jerusalem shall be reduced to ashes, and that wicked nation cut off and rejected, then shall the Son of man send his ministers with the trumpet of the gospel, and they shall gather together his elect of the several nations from the four corners of heaven so that God shall not want a church, although that ancient people of his be rejected and cast off: but, that Jewish church being destroyed, a new church shall be called out of the Gentiles.¹³

So, Jesus associated the start of this gathering with the temple’s fall and his parousia (presence) in his generation (Matt 24:1–3, 27, 31, 34).

Paul is speaking of this gathering in 2 Thessalonians 2:1, using the noun form of the verb Jesus used.¹⁴ These cognate words link Jesus’ “gather together” (Matt 24:31) and Paul’s “gathering together” (2 Thess 2:1). The verb, episunagō, means “to collect and bring to a place, to gather together…. Hence [episunagōgē]”;¹⁵ one gathers to have a gathering.

In 2 Thessalonians 2:1, Paul is speaking of the same gathering that Jesus had described in the Olivet Discourse (Matt 24:31).

1 Thessalonians 4:14 = Matthew 24:31

In a previous post, I listed the common prophetic elements in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11 and Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. Now I am able, in this post, to make the logical connection between the gathering element in these passages:

1. If Paul’s “will bring with Him” in 1 Thessalonians 4:14 is the same as his “gathering together to Him” in 2 Thessalonians 2:1;
2. And if Paul’s “gathering together to Him” in 2 Thessalonians 2:1 is the same as Jesus’ promise to “gather together His elect” in Matthew 24:31;
3. Then Paul’s “will bring with Him” in 1 Thessalonians 4:14 is the same as Jesus’ promise to “gather together His elect” in Matthew 24:31.

This conclusion is not surprising, for, as G. K. Beale says, “1 Thess 4:15–18 and 1 Thess 5:1–11 … form one continuous depiction of the same narrative in Matthew 24 [i.e., the Olivet Discourse].”¹⁶ 

Conclusion

Paul comforts the Thessalonians regarding their dead by saying, “God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus” (1 Thess 4:14). By these words he means they, too, will experience the messianic-age gathering. As Charles Wanamaker says, Paul’s “‘Will bring’ does not refer to the resurrection of the dead in Christ.”¹⁷ It means that the saints who had died before Christ came to destroy the temple would also enjoy the palpable fellowship of the kingdom. They, too, would “sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 8:11).

The writer of Hebrews might have exhorted the Thessalonians to not forsake “the assembling of [them]selves together (Gk. epi-sun-agō-gē)” (Heb 10:25), for they had

come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect. (Heb 12:22–23)

The dead saints about whom the Thessalonians were worried would take part in this gathering. They would be at no disadvantage in the messianic-age parousia (presence) of Christ.

1. For more on this definition of parousia, see here.
2. See my post, What Concerned the Thessalonians About Their Dead?
3. See my post, What “Word of the Lord”?
4. For a full-length account of this prophetic model, see Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020). It is available here. A PDF version of the book is available here. For a summary, see the free PDF here.
5. Rogers, Inmillennialism, 166–78.
6. Luke Mastin, “Euclid of Alexandria—The Father of Geometry,” The Story of Mathematics, https://www.storyofmathematics.com/hellenistic_euclid.html.
7. I have divided this compound word to show its constituent parts.
8. G. K. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 133.
9. Charles A. Wanamaker, The Epistles to the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and W. Ward Gasque (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 238 (emphasis added).
10. N. Nisbett, The Mysterious Language of St. Paul, in His Description of the Man of Sin (Canterbury: Rouse, Kirkey, and Lawrence, 1808), 21.
11. William Hendriksen, Exposition of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1955), 169.
12. Sam Storms, Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative (Fearn, Scotland: Mentor, 2013), 197–98.
13. John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament From the Talmud and Hebraica, ed. Robert Gandell, 4 vols. (1859; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997), 2:320.
14. Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000).
15. H.G. Liddell, A Lexicon: Abridged from Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996), 303.
16. Beale, 1–2 Thessalonians, 136.
17. Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 170.