Glory Unassailable

“When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

A friend and older brother in Christ who has been a role model going on thirty years never fails to distinguish between the sloppy, euphemistic way evangelicals use the word “glory” (as in “We’re going home to glory” and other such expressions) and the more precise way the writers of the Bible use it. Glory, he says, is not a synonym for heaven. Rather, glory is a state of being.

I used to wonder why he made such a point of this. Now I get it.

A Word from the Lord

Here and there over the past months, we have been considering evidence from various passages of scripture for a pre-wrath rapture of the church. It is only in the last few years that I’ve come to realize how few modern Christians believe in it. Most find pre-wrath rapture teaching either “escapist” or else inconvenient to (and inconsistent with) their own systematic theology.

I find that very sad. If our current theological system demands the church remain on earth throughout the entire tribulation period, that system needs some serious rethinking. Our first century counterparts would be appalled at us for ignoring a major theme of New Testament scripture, not to mention failing to understand the character of our God.

Even the OT hints, albeit obscurely, at a pre-wrath rapture. The imprecatory Psalms required no explanation in their time; they were entirely appropriate to it. But if any of them are prophetic (and I believe some are; take Psalm 10, Psalm 17 or Psalm 58 as examples), then they also demand a pre-wrath rapture of the church; I see no other conceivable way to account for them.

In the NT, Thessalonians plainly and explicitly teaches the doctrine of the rapture as a new, prophetic “word from the Lord” to Paul, one so critically important he included it in one of his earliest letters to churches, putting that letter’s recipients under oath to pass on its teaching, something the apostle does nowhere else. Another early missive, 1 Corinthians, fleshes out the mystery of God’s resurrection plan for believers of the present age. And John’s prophetic visions in Revelation are entirely consistent with Paul’s teaching about a pre-wrath rapture.

A Public Manifestation

But you will also find evidence for a pre-wrath rapture elsewhere in the New Testament, as I’ve been noticing in my latest pass through it. Look, here it is again in Colossians, in similar language to that which Paul uses in Thessalonians and Corinthians.

Christ, Paul says, will appear, and “you also” (the Colossians, and presumably other members of the church) will appear with him in a glorified state. Note that Paul wrote this to men and women who are now all dead. They are the “dead in Christ” of 1 Thessalonians. The word “appear” in both instances is phaneroō, which means to be exposed to view, to be made visible or manifest, to be revealed publicly. The word is used repeatedly of the Lord Jesus after his resurrection. He “appeared to” the eleven. He “revealed himself again” to the disciples by the sea of Tiberias. When the writers of the gospels use the same word of Jesus prior to his resurrection, it always has to do with a public appearance. His brothers said to him, “If you do these things, show yourself [phaneroō] to the world.” The fact that this is a public revelation removes any possibility that this appearance takes place privately in heaven. Paul is speaking of Christ declared, on display before a world that rejected him.

The Timing of the Appearance

Matthew 24 fixes the timing of this momentous manifestation of the Lord Jesus: “All the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” When should we expect this? “Immediately after the tribulation of those days.” Which tribulation is this? “There will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved.” In other words, not Jerusalem in AD70. This display will be orders of magnitude bigger than that. There will never be another to compare to it.

Paul led everyone he taught to expect this public display of the glorified Son of Man in the timeframe established by the Lord Jesus. When the apostle writes about it in 1 Thessalonians, he says, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” There is no doubt about what he means: he means the very same events the Lord Jesus had spoken about, and which Matthew describes. He tells them, “You have no need to have anything written to you. You yourselves are fully aware.” This was a standard part of orthodox Christian teaching in the first century, consistent with what the prophets of old foretold.

The Requirements of Glorification

The meaning is clear: this same Jesus will return to this same earth just as physically and personally present as he was the first time around. Except this time, Paul says, he will have glorified company. We will “appear with him in glory”. Get that? He tells dead people they are to be glorified, and to accompany their Savior when he returns to earth. For a dead person to be glorified requires embodiment. We can’t see spirits. Certainly the unsaved world can’t. An appearance requires that one be able to appear. A manifestation requires something to manifest. Even the ministering spirits who interacted with men of old took on tangible form to do so.

Remember what my old friend said: glory is a state of being, not a physical location. To be glorified requires the removal of every trace of sin. If appearing with Christ demands embodiment, how much more does appearing in glory require it? It absolutely insists on it! In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes of the dead body, “It is sown [speaking of burial] in dishonor; it is raised in glory.” For us to appear with Christ in glory requires that the judgment of saints precedes our appearance with him to the world.

Glory Unassailable

This little verse in Colossians is not an isolated slip that we may handwave away. Paul writes the same thing in 1 Thessalonians. He speaks of the “coming of the Lord Jesus with all his saints.” It’s an old, old story that goes back to the earliest writings familiar to the apostles. Jude writes of Enoch’s prophecy that “The Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones.” Zechariah writes, “YHWH my God will come, with all the holy ones with him.” Some of these references to “holy ones” or “saints” are taken to refer to angels, and where the word “messengers” is used, this is quite likely the case. But Paul says of this same appearing, “You also [those in Christ now dead] will appear with him.” He leaves no doubt about it.

The New Testament nowhere speaks of a general, simultaneous resurrection of the righteous and unrighteous dead to stand before God side by side at the same judgment event. Rather, it tells us that when Christ comes to judge, we will come with him to serve as his fellow judges. The dead in Christ will have already been raised, their deeds already assessed, their status never in question, their glory unassailable. “We who are alive and remain” will join them in that happy state.