Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
17 And so we shall be ever. To those who have been once gathered to Christ he promises eternal life with him, by which statements the reveries of Origen and of the Chiliasts See Calvin’s Institutes, vol. 2. are abundantly refuted. For the life of believers, when they have once been gathered into one kingdom, will have no end any more than Christ’s.
Do not sorrow immoderately for those who die in the Lord, as if you had no hope of eternal life, that is to grieve like the heathen, who imagine everything taken from the world perishes. We Christians have sure hope of resurrection; this alone is enough to balance all our griefs. Yet weep we may, for our own loss if nothing else, so long as we remember the dead sleep in Jesus and shall wake to glory.
AI summary
Commenting on 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Then we which are alive and remain,.... See Gill on Th1 4:15. shall be caught up; suddenly, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and with force and power; by the power of Christ, and by the ministry and means of the holy angels; and to which rapture will contribute, the agility which the bodies both of the raised and changed saints will...