“With the
Voice of the Chief Messenger”
Ballinger:
In Matthew 24, when Jesus comes in the clouds He will
come with angels. And He shall send forth His angels (:31). In I Thessalonians
4 and I Corinthians 15, when Jesus comes in the clouds He will come with
angels. He will descend from heaven with … the voice of the archangel (:16).
Michael is the archangel and the prince of Israel (Daniel 12:1-2) and where
Michael goes so do his angels. There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels
fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels (Revelation
12:7).
An
“angel” or a “messenger” is one whose role or office involves delivering a
message, carrying out a decree or executing the purpose of another, and does
not necessarily refer to a particular class or category of celestial beings
(see, for example, Matthew 11:10; Luke 7:24; 9:52; Acts 12:15; 2 Cor. 12:7;
James 2:25). Significantly, both John the Baptist and Christ are prophetically
referred to as “messengers” in Malachi 3:1.
Ballinger
assumes that Michael is the “chief messenger” referred to in 1 Thess. 4:16. Is
this a valid assumption to make? After all, Michael is referred to as the
“chief messenger” in Jude 9, so why shouldn’t he be understood as the same
“chief messenger” of 1 Thess. 4:16? I believe there are good reasons to believe
that Paul did not have Michael in view here.
Let’s
first consider some verses from the book of Daniel that I believe can help shed
some light on this subject. In Daniel 10:12-14, we read the following words
spoken to Daniel by a celestial messenger (probably Gabriel; see Daniel 8:16;
9:21):
“Fear not,
Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The chief of the
kingdom of Persia withstood
me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the
first chiefs, came to help me, for I was left there with the chief of the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your
people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”
And in verses 20-21,
we read:
“Then he
said, “Do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight
against the chief of the kingdom of
Persia; and when
I go out, behold, the chief of Greece will come. But
I will tell you what
is inscribed in the book of truth: there is none who contends by my side
against these except Michael,
your chief.”
Finally,
in Daniel 12:1 we read: “In that era
Michael shall stand up, the great chief
who is standing over the sons of your people. Then an era of distress will come to pass, such as has not occurred
since there was a nation on the earth, until that era.”
What
we discover from the above verses is that there are several “chiefs” among the
celestial messengers. Some are on the side of God and the saints, and others
are antagonistic toward God and the saints (with the latter “chiefs” seemingly
opposing the former whenever they can). Among these “chiefs” is Michael, who is
referred to as “your [Daniel’s] chief” and as “the great chief who is standing
over the sons of your [Daniel’s] people.” Among the celestial messengers, then,
Michael is to be understood as the chief
messenger of Israel (just as
there is a chief messenger of Persia, a chief messenger of Greece, etc.).
Thus,
Michael’s dispute with the Adversary over the “body of Moses” (Jude 9) makes
perfect sense when we realize that Michael is the chief messenger of Israel.
But do we have any good reason to believe that Michael is the chief messenger
in view in 1 Thessalonians 4:16? No. In fact, I think there are good reasons to
believe that, rather than having Michael in view, Paul understood Christ himself to be the “chief
messenger” whose voice (and, I believe, trumpeting) will be heard during the
event described in 1 Thess. 4:15-17.
We
know that Paul did not have Daniel’s people, Israel, in view when he prophesied
concerning the “dead in Christ rising first” and the snatching away of the
living and the (formerly) dead in Christ to meet the Lord in the air. The saints
whom Paul had in view as being snatched away to meet Christ in the air are
those who, at that time, constituted the “body of Christ” (1 Cor. 6:15-19; 10:16-17; 12:12-27; Rom.
12:4-5). This distinct category of saints simply cannot be identified
with, or understood as equivalent to, either national Israel or the chosen remnant among Daniel’s
people.
During
the “Acts period,” the body of Christ existed alongside both national Israel
and the chosen Jewish remnant, and, even during this time, consisted primarily
of uncircumcised, non-proselytized gentiles. The majority of the members of the
body of Christ never were Israelites/Jews, and the minority of those who were (like Paul and Barnabas) understood
themselves to have been called through a different evangel to a different
expectation that was distinct from Israel’s, and as having joined a body of
believers that consisted primarily of gentiles (and which, consequently, could
never have been identified with Israel).
This
was the case even within the Thessalonian ecclesia to whom Paul wrote, as is
implied by 1 Thess. 1:9 and 4:3-5. What Paul wrote in these verses only makes
sense when the recipients of this letter are understood as having consisted
primarily of gentiles who were formerly involved in idol-worship and other
activities that the “nations also who are not acquainted with God” were
involved in at the time.
In
the article “What Is Your Hope?” Ballinger attempts to defend his view that the
Thessalonian believers (and, by implication, the body of Christ as a whole at
that time) shared Israel’s eonian, earth-based expectation with the following
assertion: “But the believers of Thessalonica were
followers of the churches of God which are in Judaea (I Thessalonians 2:14).”
Aside from the fact that the word mimetes
in this verse would be better translated “imitators” rather than “followers”
(as it is in the CLNT), Ballinger completely ignores the context in which Paul
wrote this. Had Ballinger quoted the rest of the verse, the reader would’ve
known exactly in what way the Thessalonian saints had become “imitators of the
ecclesias of God which are in Judea.”
According
to Paul, the saints to whom he wrote had “suffered the
same, even you by your own fellowtribesmen, according as they also by the
Jews…” In other words, the Thessalonian believers had endured
persecution from their own “fellowtribesmen” (or “countrymen”) just as the
ecclesias in Judea had from the Jews. It is in this way that they had become
“imitators” of them. This is perfectly consistent with the view that Paul had
in view two different categories of saints with two distinct expectations.
Moreover, the fact that Paul contrasted the “Jews” (as a people group) with the
“fellowtribesmen” of the persecuted believers in Thessalonica further confirms
the fact that the saints to whom Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians (or at least the
majority of the saints within this ecclesia) weren’t Jewish, but rather gentile.
Since Paul - in contrast with Peter or James –
wasn’t addressing a group of believers consisting primarily of those among the
twelve tribes of Israel (or even gentile proselytes to Israel) in his first
letter to the Thessalonians, it follows that the “chief messenger” of this
particular body of saints couldn’t have been Michael (who, again, is the chief
messenger of Daniel’s people, Israel).
There
is further evidence that the “chief messenger” referred to by Paul is someone
other than Michael. In contrast with Christ’s words in Matthew 24:30-31 and
John’s prophecy in Revelation 19:11-14 (for example), Paul doesn’t say anything
in 1 Thess. 4:15-17 about Christ coming with any (let alone all) of the “holy
messengers.” Rather, we read of “the Lord
Himself descending from heaven.” And immediately after this, we read that
Christ will be descending “with a shout of command.” In other words, Christ’s
voice will be heard as he’s descending (as a “shout of command”).
Thus,
when Paul goes on to add “with the voice of the Chief Messenger,” he can be
understood as referring back to (and expanding upon) what he’d just said
concerning the “shout of command.” This means that the “Chief Messenger” whom
Paul had in view is none other than the Lord himself. Like the nation of
Israel, the body of Christ (which is a multinational/multiethnic body of
people) has its own “chief
messenger.” But our Chief Messenger isn’t Michael; our Chief Messenger is Christ himself, the Head of “the ecclesia
which is his body.”
It
is the voice of Christ alone that
will be heard as a “shout of command” as Christ descends from heaven to the
atmospheric region where the meeting in the air will take place. However, in
contrast with what we read in John 5:25-29 (cf. John 11:43), it is not the voice of Christ that directly results in
the resurrection referred to by Paul in 1 Thess. 4:15-17. Rather, it is the
sounding of a trumpet, as revealed by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:51-52: “Lo! a secret to you am I telling! We all,
indeed, shall not be put to repose, yet
we all shall be changed, in an instant, in the twinkle of an eye, at the last
trump. For He will be trumpeting, and the dead will be roused incorruptible,
and we shall be changed.”
Notice
that it is both those saints who will still be alive and those who will be dead who will be “changed.” For those still
alive, the “change” will involve “putting on immortality,” and for those who
are dead it will involve being “roused incorruptible.” Thus, we see from verse
52 that both the change of the living and
of the dead is connected with the sounding of the trumpet, for both are said to occur “at the last
trump,” when “he will be trumpeting.” This is contrary to what Ballinger states
at one point, when commenting on Paul’s words in 1 Thess. 4:16 (according to
Ballinger, “the shout is for the dead; the trumpet for
those alive”). In any event, the fact that the sounding of this trumpet
will result in people being vivified is highly significant, for this can be
understood as revealing the identity of the one who will be trumpeting.
The “Word of the Lord” in 1 Thessalonians 4:15
Ballinger:
“When writing about the resurrection…in I Thessalonians 4 Paul said,
This we say unto you, by the Word of the Lord…(:15). Paul was quoting and using
the Word of the Lord to show them their hope. The hope found in I Thessalonians
4 with its trumpet, angels, shout and voices was written down in “the Word of
the Lord.””
Let’s
first take a look at what Paul actually wrote in 1 Thess. 4:15-17, and then
we’ll examine Ballinger’s assertion that in v. 15 Paul was referring to
something “written down in ‘the Word of the Lord.’” Here’s 1 Thessalonians
4:15-17:
“For this we are
saying to you by the word of the Lord, that we, the living, who are surviving
to the presence of the Lord, should by no means outstrip those who are put to
repose, for the Lord Himself will be descending from heaven with a shout of
command, with the voice of the Chief Messenger, and with the trumpet of God,
and the dead in Christ shall be rising first. Thereupon we, the living who are
surviving, shall at the same time be snatched away together with them in
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And thus shall we always be together with
the Lord.”
That
which Paul referred to as being “by the word of the Lord” is the information
found in the above three verses (beginning with “…that
we, the living, who are surviving
to the presence of the Lord, should by no means outstrip those who are put to
repose...”). Now let’s
consider the following three options for what, exactly, Paul had in mind when
he referred to “the word of the Lord”:
(1)
Paul was referring to something written in the Hebrew Scriptures (i.e., Genesis
through Malachi).
(2)
Paul was referring to something that Christ is recorded as saying in the Greek
Scriptures (e.g., Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).
(3)
Paul was referring to something that Christ told him directly (i.e., at some
point subsequent to his initial encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus).
We
can rule out option one, since there’s no place in the Hebrew Scriptures in
which the information found in 1 Thess. 4:15-17 was previously revealed
(Ballinger surely would’ve referenced this verse or passage in defense of his
position had such a verse or passage existed). But what about the second
option? It can be dismissed for the same reason as the first. There is
absolutely nothing said by Christ in the four Gospel Accounts that contains the
specific information that Paul made known to the Thessalonians in the above
three verses (if there was, why didn’t Ballinger provide his readers with a
chapter and verse?).
The
closest possible thing to what Paul wrote that can be found in any of the Gospel
Accounts is in Matthew 24:30-31 (which is part of Christ’s “Olivet Discourse”).
However, the differences between these verses and 1 Thess. 4:15-17 should be
evident from even a superficial reading, and cannot simply be ignored or
dismissed just because one’s doctrinal theory (Acts 28 or otherwise) demands
that the same event be in view in both passages. The information revealed in
each passage is in no way the same, and Paul is clearly not quoting the words of Christ in Matthew 24:30-31 (or elsewhere).
Notice
that the very first thing that Paul wrote as being “by the word of the Lord” -
and arguably the main truth that Paul
was intending to convey to the Thessalonians in this passage, in order to
console them (v. 18) - is something that is completely
absent from what Christ declared to his disciples. Not only this, but
nothing is said by Christ about anyone’s being resurrected or meeting him in
the air at this time (either before, when or immediately after “all the tribes
of the land” see “the Son of Mankind coming on the clouds of heaven with power
and much glory”). The reader is encouraged to read part one of my
study on the snatching away for why the “assembling” of Christ’s “chosen”
from “the four winds” involves living, faithful Israelites from all over the
world being brought to the land of Israel (via angelic agency), where Christ
will be at this time, and has nothing to do with anyone’s being resurrected or
snatched away to meet Christ in the air.
Here’s
Ballinger again: “Paul was quoting and using the Word
of the Lord to show them their hope. The hope found in I Thessalonians 4 with
its trumpet, angels, shout and voices was written down in “the Word of the
Lord.””
Based
solely on what Ballinger says above, one would think that the only thing Paul
was wanting to make known to the Thessalonians in 1 Thess. 4:13-18 was that
their hope involved a future event in which there will be “[a] trumpet, angels,
[a] shout and voices” (Gee, thanks for the informative and comforting words,
Paul)! But of course, Paul was making known to them something much more specific and informative than
that.
As
we’ve seen, the very first piece of information Paul makes known to the
Thessalonians as being “by the word of the Lord” is that “we, the living, who are surviving to
the presence of the Lord, should by no means outstrip those who are put to
repose…” Paul isn’t merely talking about some vague future event that will
involve (in some vague, unspecified way) a “trumpet, angels, shout and voices.”
No; he’s providing us with specific chronological information - information
that is revealed nowhere else in Scripture.
Where,
outside of this passage, are we told that, “Thereupon we, the living who are
surviving, shall at the same time be snatched away together with them in
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And thus shall we always be together with
the Lord”? Nowhere. We can
therefore conclude with certainty that option (3) is correct. When Paul wrote
“by the word of the Lord,” he was, without question, referring to something
that the Lord (Christ Jesus) told him directly, at some point subsequent to his
initial encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus[1]
(notice also that, after Paul referred to the “word of the Lord” in v. 15, he
referred to Christ Jesus as “the Lord” four
more times in this same passage).
Part 5: http://thathappyexpectation.blogspot.com/2017/05/restoring-unity-to-pauls-epistles_30.html
[1] The word
translated “word” here (logos)
denotes “the complete expression of a thought, not a grammatical but a logical
word, referring to a whole account” (Knoch). See, for example, John 4:39, where
we read of “the word of the woman” who testified concerning Christ (see also v.
41, where we read that “many more believe because of [Christ’s] word”).
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