Tim: The ‘catching away of believers’ is very much a biblical doctrine. 1 Thess 4:13-18 tells of this event occurring when the Day of the Lord occurs. Paul clarifies his remarks in 2 Thess 2. Why be cautious about an event that Holy Scripture say will occur? Granted, because it is a future event, one cannot be dogmatic about when/what the Day of the Lord entails, but some views are more credible than others.
The idea of the “Catching away of believers” is not a proper understanding of what Paul was referring to as he wrote to people living in the city of Thessalonica almost two thousand years ago.
We have to always remember that the authors of scripture were writing to specific audiences, and the words and phrases they used had specific meaning to those audiences. We don’t always understand the context because we don’t live in their times and in their culture. When we interperet any scripture, the first thing we have to do is to understand the meaning of the words as the author intended it and as his audience would have understood it.
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord. (1 thessalonians 4:16)
This was a reference to the practice of a population “
going out to meet” a visiting dignitary or member of the royal court who was coming to visit their city. They would leave the relative safety of the city and “go out to meet” the visiting party to
escort them back to the city as honored guests. One always “Went out to meet” a beloved relative who was coming to visit, or an honored guest. Often the visitor would send a messenger ahead to announce that he was soon to arive, to give his host an opportunity to “Come out to meet” him. To not do so was a sign of disrespect. It was also a phrase which meant that two enemies were to do battle.
The phrase “out to meet” appears twenty nine times in the Bible.
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After his [Abraham’s] return from the defeat of Ched-or-lao’mer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). (Genesis 14:17)
Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare, and went into the tent. (Exodus 18:7)
Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. (Judges 11:34)
And Asa went out to meet him, and they drew up their lines of battle in the valley of Zeph’athah at Mare’shah. (2 Chronicles 14:10)
And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood. (Matthew 8:34)
So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” (John 12:13)*
That’s how the audience to whom Paul was writing would have understood his words, in the context of the very common practice of “Going out to meet” en enemy in battle or, as was the case with Jesus’ trimphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, to escort him back to the city as an honored guest - the King of Israel!
Remember that Paul was a great scholor of the Hebrew Scriptures. He drew heavily on the Hebrew Scriptures as he wrote to the Christians in his letters, and he was making direct reference to the practice of “Going out to meet” a king and escorting him back to the city.
The city they would escort Jesus to was the “Heavenly Jerusalem” or the “New Jerusalem.”
No, you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering. (Hebrews 12:22)
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:1-2)
Jewish belief at the time of Jesus was that when the Messiah came, he would physically transform the earth. The earth would be physically changed, Heaven would exist on earth and God would dwell with man. The Heavenly Jerusalem, the new Heaven and new earth is where those who go out to meet Jesus would have escorted their King.
The one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5)
It’s not about literally flying up to Heaven with Jesus for 1000 years. It’s about “Going out to meet” our King who is returning the same way he came, and escorting him back to a creation which will be radically transformed at the end of time - a new creation where we will get our glorified bodies and where God will dwell with man.
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them. (Revelation 21:3)
The “Catching up” of believers is simply not a correct undersanding of scripture based the intended meaning of the authors and how their audience would have understood it. If you told the people in Thessalonica that Paul was talking about them literally flying up to meet Jesus, that there would be a catching up of all believers into the sky, they would have looked at you like you had three heads!
-Tim-
