Caught Up in the Clouds for a Meeting with the Lord in the Air (1 Thessalonians 4.17)

First Thessalonians 4.13-18 reads:

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. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁵ 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. ¹⁶ 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. 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, and so we will always be with the Lord. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Encouraging believers about those who have died, Paul tells them that the Christian dead will be raised first and then those still alive when Christ returns will be caught up with them for a meeting in the air.  The verb ‘to meet’ in certain English translations of v. 17, such as in the ESV, is actually ‘for a meeting’ in Greek—a preposition plus a noun (eis apantēsin).  Paul’s main point is that believers need not worry about those who have died.  They will be resurrected. They will meet the Lord when He comes with those alive at the time.  In fact, they will precede them.  Yet what are we to make of being caught up in the clouds for a meeting when Christ returns?

‘For a meeting’ is a common expression and not a technical phrase.  The interpretation of what Paul means comes from the cultural practice of leaving a city or place to welcome an honoured person (or people) and accompany him back.  The expression is used in Jesus’ parable of the bridegroom and ten virgins.  At midnight, someone called out that the bridegroom was coming and the virgins should come out ‘to meet’ him (Matthew 25.6).  Similarly, when Paul arrived in Italy, Christians came out of Rome to meet him (Acts 28.15).  In both cases, the same phrase is used as in 1 Thessalonians 4.17, and the idea is going out to meet someone to welcome and accompany him back into the city.  When Jesus came to Bethany because Lazarus had died, Martha went and met (hypēntēsen) Him (John 11.20).  Similarly, when Jesus came to Jerusalem, a crowd accompanied Him into Jerusalem.  They received Him by spreading their cloaks and leafy branches on the road, shouting ‘Hosanna’.  They received Him as the one bringing the kingdom of David (Mark 11.8-10).  When the father of the prodigal son sees his son returning in the distance, he runs out to him, embraces him, and kisses him (Luke 15.20).

Some other examples of this practice of going out of a city ‘for a meeting’ to welcome a dignitary are instructive.  Plutarch says,

But when he [Sulla] learned the truth, and perceived that everybody was sallying forth to welcome Pompey and accompany him home with marks of goodwill, he was eager to outdo them. So he went out and met him [proelthōn apēntēsen autōi], and after giving him the warmest welcome, saluted him in a loud voice as ‘Magnus,’ or The Great, and ordered those who were by to give him this surname’ (Plutarch, Pompey 13.4).

Livy, writing in Latin, offers another example:

... and as they drew near Capua, the whole senate and people going forth to meet them used towards them all the rites of hospitality and every public and private courtesy (The History of Rome 9.6.7).

Josephus says,

 And when he was near to Samosata, Antony sent out his army in all their proper habiliments to meet him, in order to pay Herod this respect, and because of the assistance he had given him; for he had heard what attacks the barbarians had made upon him [in Judea] (Antiquities 14:445).

Plutarch also records the practice: ‘... people were going out to meet Caesar on his return from Spain’ (Antony 13.1).  Tacitus describes Nero’s return to Rome after having his mother, Agrippina, killed.  He was worried that he would not be received well, but ‘all the vilest courtiers’ assured him that Agrippina was hated and he would be welcomed instead.  As he proceeded,

They found greater enthusiasm than they had promised, the tribes coming forth to meet [inveniunt] him, the Senate in holiday attire, troops of their children and wives arranged according to sex and age, tiers of seats raised for the spectacle, where he was to pass, as a triumph is witnessed’ (Annals 14.13).

As a final example of the practice of going out to meet someone and so demonstrate welcoming him, Ammianus Marcellinus, says that Constantius’ approach and entrance to Rome with his troops was accompanied with a show of great honours, and he was escorted by troops (Rerum Gestarum 16.10.4).  Others joined the procession to welcome him: ‘And when he was nearing the city... he thought, not...that a throng of kings was assembled together, but that the sanctuary of the whole world was present before him’ 16.10.5).

With this cultural practice in mind of going out to meet a dignitary, especially a military figure or political ruler, Paul applies it to Jesus’ Second Coming.  The return of Jesus on the clouds has its roots in Daniel 7:

and behold, with the clouds of heaven
    there came one like a son of man,
  and he came to the Ancient of Days
    and was presented before him.
¹⁴   And to him was given dominion
    and glory and a kingdom,
  that all peoples, nations, and languages
    should serve him;
  his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
    which shall not pass away,
  and his kingdom one
    that shall not be destroyed (Daniel 7.13-14).

Paul interprets the universal rule of the Son of Man pastorally for the battered Thessalonian believers.  When He comes, those who have died would rise first, and then we who are alive will join them to meet Christ in the clouds of the air on which Jesus descends.  The custom of going out ‘for a meeting’ explains why this meeting does not take place at the point of Jesus’ destination, the earth.  The particular custom of showing a welcome to a coming general by going out to meet him and to meet his army also fits the understanding of Jesus’ return.  By going out to meet Christ in the air shows that we are on His side and not the enemies He is coming to fight.  Second Thessalonians says of this appearing of Christ that, when He ‘is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire’, He will inflict ‘vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus’ (2.7-8).  That He will come in the same way He departed, on the clouds, explains why this meeting takes place in the air (cf. Acts 1.9-11).

A most peculiar notion arose in the 1800s that this meeting in the air was so that Christians could then return with Jesus to heaven to wait out tribulation on the earth.  This is a classic example of reading one’s own interpretation into a text (eisegesis) rather than leading the meaning out of the text (exegesis).  The joy is not in escaping tribulation but in welcoming the Lord and in seeing our deceased fellow-believers who have been resurrected from the dead.  It is in being on the Lord’s side. 

For Christians, this is a celebratory occasion.  The coming Judge and King will bring them salvation, not condemnation.  They will go out to welcome Him in the air just as a city’s population might go out of the city to meet and welcome a general or Caesar.  People had welcomed Jesus in this way when He came to Jerusalem—the Triumphal Entry.  Yet Jesus was rejected and finally crucified.  After condemning the scribes and the Pharisees in Jerusalem, Jesus stated, ‘For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”’ (Matthew 23.39).  Paul’s statement to the Thessalonians is that they, with all Christians, are those who await the coming of the Lord so that they can go out to meet and welcome Him.  Gentile Christians had learned the one word Aramaic prayer, ‘Maranatha’ ‘Our Lord, come’ (1 Corinthians 16.22).  As Jesus had taught, believers should be ready and waiting as the virgins awaiting the bridegroom, with lanterns lit at midnight (Matthew 25.1-13).

Our grief at the death of a loved one is understandable, for it is sorrowful.  Yet mourning turns to gladness in the hope we have in the One who overcame the grave: hope that the Christian who dies is with the Lord, hope in the resurrection of the body when Jesus returns, hope that we will go up to meet the Lord in the air as He comes on the clouds, and hope that we will always be with the Lord.

Tacitus, Complete Works of Tacitus, trans. Alfred John Church (New York: Random House, Inc., 1942).