Intro to the End Times is a series walking through some of the key themes of the story of Jesus’ return from a historic premillennial perspective, with special focus on knowing the heart of Jesus as we partner with God through the most dramatic chapter of human history.
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We’ve almost made it to the end of our series! In the last post, we looked at a play-by-play what Jesus does as soon as He appears in the sky. In the next post, we’re going to try to hit as many details as I can about the Millennium, the thousand-year era that kicks off Jesus’ eternal reign. Before we move on to that, though, I really want to take a pause and zoom in on what happens to the church in that specific timeframe of Jesus’ return.
Resurrection
This is definitely one of my favorite things to talk and think about. (A few years ago, I wrote a longer post on our future resurrection that I’m going to link to but also borrow heavily from here.) One of our most helpful passages is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep… For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-16)
When Jesus returns, He will bring with Him an army of resurrected saints (we talked about this in my last post). This is everyone who has ever had saving faith in God from throughout history, from Old Testament saints like Abraham to my grandma.
Make no mistake- these aren’t just ethereal spirits, but actual living bodies– resurrected, incorruptible, eternal bodies. These bodies will be in many ways like Jesus’ own resurrected body (Co. 3:4, Ro. 6:5, 1Co. 15:49, Ph. 3:20-21, 1Jn. 3:2).
1 Corinthians 15 is a goldmine of information about the future resurrection and our resurrected bodies. It describes our future bodies as imperishable, and says that they will be glorious and powerful, while our natural bodies now are dishonorable and weak by comparison.
“So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” (1 Corinthians 15:42-44)
In his next letter, Paul says that our current natural body is like a tent, and we are groaning with longing to put on our future, immortal body, which is like a house by comparison. He even says that compared to having that future body, being without it is like being naked.
“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” (2 Corinthians 5:1-4)
This is our future! Your life in your current body is just a passing mist (Ja. 4:14), but you’re going to be in your epic, resurrected, eternal body FOREVER.
Rapture
Even if you’ve never studied the end times, certainly you’ve heard of the rapture. A lot of people imagine it to be like the Left Behind novels portrayed: at any moment, without warning, all believers evaporate out of their clothes and disappear into heaven, leaving the world confused in their wake. No hate to Left Behind (God used that series so much in my life in my teen years!), but that picture couldn’t be further from the truth.
First, did you know that the word “rapture” isn’t even in scripture? It comes from the Latin word “rapturo” which is a translation of “caught up” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17: “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.” It’s fine for us to use the word “rapture,” but let’s make sure we’re getting our understanding of this event from the Bible!
Second, the event we call the rapture is absolutely tied to Jesus’ coming in the sky with the sound of the seventh trumpet and dark clouds with a rain/hail/fire storm. It is NOT silent and mystifying; it will be dramatic and unmistakable (more on all that in my last post).
Third, it very clearly happens AFTER the resurrection! I’m going to share the 1 Thessalonians 4 passage again so we can see these details in context:
“For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 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, and so we will always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)
We can see the order laid out here: resurrection, then rapture. Boom, boom. They’re obviously very closely tied together, but there’s no way that the rapture can happen until after the resurrection happens. (Sorry, Tim LaHaye.)
If you’re one of the saints on earth who survived the tribulation and are alive on earth when Jesus comes, that’s when you get your resurrected body, right after the saints who are being raised!
“Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)
Rewards
At the time Jesus comes and gives us our resurrected bodies, He also rewards us for our faithfulness to Him in this life. Your salvation is free, but additional rewards are earned– and the pay scale is ridiculous! God sees and records every tiny deed and thought that glorifies Him, and He will reward us lavishly according to our deeds. This is incredibly exciting, but it should also strike the fear of the Lord into us, because while we have opportunity to be great in the kingdom of God, we also might end up least if we’re not careful (Mt. 5:19)! Some in the next age will realize how much they wasted their lives when they see how many rewards they missed out on.
There is a direct, tangible correlation between the quality of our eternal experience and our degree of faithfulness to Jesus in this life.
“For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.” (Matthew 16:27)
“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)
In our lives, we have the opportunity to “build” on the foundation by our works. These works might be valuable like gold, silver, and precious stones, or they might be worthless like wood, hay, and straw. God sees the motives of our heart, and He can accurately judge what was done for His glory or for our own flesh. On that Day, God will judge our works by fire, which doesn’t mean punish us or burn us up, but He will evaluate our lives and test our works to reveal what was worthy of reward.
Scripture describes several different kinds of rewards, one of which is the degree of glory on our resurrected bodies. Paul says that our resurrected bodies won’t all be identical. Just like the sun, moon, and stars are all different from each other, our bodies will reflect the glory of God in different ways– some more, and some less (1Co. 15:37-42, read more in this post). Others will be able to see on our bodies the testimony of our faithfulness to God in this life.
Another kind of reward is the degree of authority we will have. All of the saints will rule alongside Jesus, but that can mean many things (Da. 7:27, Lk. 19:13-19, Mt. 5:3-10, Re. 2:26-27, 3:21, 5:10). In our own earthly government, there are many positions, from president to governor to senator to local city councilor. The higher positions are not only more honored, but get closer proximity to the president. When I aspire to a higher position of authority in the next age, I’m mostly not thinking about the personal honor I want. I’m mostly thinking about being closer to Jesus.
There are also various other rewards described in scripture- crowns, stones, positions, etc, which leads me to imagine that God is very creative and very specific in the types of rewards He can bestow. No doubt we’ll be surprised and delighted at the magnificence and variety He has created!
One other quick point– let’s not let false humility creep in, like we’re more holy if we don’t care about rewards. God is the one who put these promises in the Bible. He wants us to be motivated by them! Remember that Jesus told us to store up treasures in heaven (Mt. 6:20), and Paul described seeking for the honor and glory of eternal rewards as the opposite of self-seeking.
“He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.” (Romans 2:6-8)
Blessed Hope
In studying these passages, the most frequent application we find is the exhortation to hope (Ac. 24:15, Ro. 8:23-24, Co. 1:5, 1Th. 13-18). I love Paul’s phrase to Timothy, that Jesus’ return and all it entails is our “blessed hope” (Ti. 2:13).
“…He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5)
The resurrection of Jesus is the key to our future resurrection–not that we get to exist forever in some disembodied spiritual plane, but we will be physically raised from physical death and given immortal, glorious, resurrected bodies, in the image of Jesus’ own resurrected body, as different from our current bodies as a palace is from a tent or an oak tree is from an acorn. This is the future “salvation” the Bible refers to. Our spirits have already been saved by the blood of Jesus, but our bodies themselves will one day be fully saved from every effect of sin and death.
Recommended Resource
For more on why the rapture cannot biblically happen any minute (ie, before the tribulation), I recommend Not Afraid of the Antichrist: Why We Don’t Believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture by Dr. Michael Brown and Craig Keener. Such a helpful study on what the Bible actually says on this subject!
