mes back from glory all the departed saints will be
with Him. This is what the Thessalonians needed to know first of all.
Before we follow this blessed revelation in its unfolding we call
attention to the phrase "fallen asleep through (not in) Jesus;" it may
also be rendered by "those who were put to sleep by Jesus." His saints
in life and death are in His hands. When saints put their bodies
aside, it is because their Lord has willed it so. "Precious in the
sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" (Ps. cxvi:15). When our
loved ones leave us, may we think of their departure as being "put to
sleep by Jesus."

But blessed as this answer to their question is, it produced another
difficulty. Hearing that the saints who had fallen asleep would come
with the Lord on the day of His glorious manifestation, they would ask,
"How is it possible that they can come with Him?" Are they coming as
disembodied spirits? What about their bodies in the graves? How shall
they come with Him? To answer these questions the special revelation
"by the Word of the Lord" is given, by which they learned, and we also,
how they would all be with Him so as to come with Him at His appearing.
"For this we say to you by the Word of the Lord, that we, the living,
who remain unto the coming of the Lord, are in no wise to anticipate
those who have fallen asleep." He tells them that when the Lord comes
for His saints, those who have fallen asleep will not have an inferior
place, and that, we, the living, who remain to the coming of the Lord,
will not precede those who have fallen asleep. When Paul wrote these
words and said "We, the living, who remain," he certainly considered
himself as included in that class. The two companies who will meet the
Lord when He comes, those who have fallen asleep and those who are
living, are mentioned here for the first time. How the living saints
will not precede those who have departed and the order in which the
coming of the Lord for His saints will be executed is next made known
in this wonderful revelation.

"For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with an assembling
shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God; and
the dead in Christ shall rise first, then, we, the living, who remain,
shall be caught up together with them in clouds, to meet the Lord in
the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one
another with these words." This is the full revelatio