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Meet and Return? That's Not What it Says


Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thess. 4:17)

 I want to call your attention to the phrase "to meet" in 1 Thess. 4:17.  It translates a Greek term apantēsis.  The standard understanding of this word, particularly by those who oppose dispensationalism, that this is a technical term that describes a formal meeting by an official delegation who goes out from a city to meet a visiting dignitary then escorts them back into the city.  When that meaning is applied to this verse then it would seem as if the saints will be caught up with Jesus in the air, then return immediately to earth, a post-tribulational rapture.  This is the interpretation of Henry Alford, James Moffat, Charles Ellicott, R.C.H. Lenski, and I. Howard Marshall.

Those who take the view that this describes a reception and escort back to the city do so even in contradiction of the way the term is used elsewhere in the New Testament.  In Mt. 25:6 the word is used to describe the meeting (apantēsis) between the bridegroom and the wedding party.  When they meet they all go to the wedding feast (v. 11).  Likewise in Acts 28:15 Paul was meet (apantēsis) by the brethren from Rome.  This meeting does is not described as a formal meeting of an official delegation.  So the two instances of this word in the New Testament both lack any evidence that the word is a technical term.

So where does the idea that apantēsis is limited to mean a formal meeting by an official delegation who escorts a dignitary back to the city come from? It originated with a man named Erik Peterson in 1929-1930.  Peterson's work has been quoted so often and so widely that it has become part of "conventional wisdom".  You know, a bit of knowledge or understanding that everyone unquestioningly accepts.  Unfortunately, its wrong.  Thank the Lord that Michael Crosby did not accept conventional wisdom.  In 1994 he published the results of an extensive study of the use of apantēsis.  He used a sophisticated digital library containing texts from the years around Paul's letter to the Thessalonians.  His search through this library produced 91 pages of instances of the use of this word.  He found only a very small number of instances where apantēsis was used in the sense of a formal delegation going out to meet a visiting dignitary and escorting them back to town.  Most of the time the word was used simply of a meeting.  In fact it is used of almost any king of meeting, even the clash of armies on a battlefield.

So this phrase in no way supports the post-tribulation view that believers ascend to meet the Lord in the air then immediately escort Him back to earth.  Rather this phrase simply means that we who are alive when Jesus returns will meet Him and remain with Him.  Furthermore, the imagery of this verse indicates not a return to earth but an ascent to heaven where the dead in Christ and those who are alive will be with the Lord safe from the coming wrath (1 Thess. 1:10) of God during the tribulation. A comfort indeed (1 Thess. 4:18).

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