Our Expectation and Hope
Dearly beloved of God, Christ is coming! Our identification with Christ will not be complete until we are glorified with Christ.
When he returns and gathers us up to meet him in the air he will transform these bodies of humiliation to be like his glorious body, and we will both be with and like him forever.
The last enemy that will be destroyed is death, and for the Church that will take place when he comes to gather us together up to meet him in the air. The dead in Christ will be raised with incorruptible bodies and those living will be transformed to be immortal, and together we will caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Christ Jesus our Lord will deliver us from death, this evil world, and the wrath to come. God tells us three times in the Church epistles that we will be saved from the wrath of God when it is poured out on the earth.
Romans 5:9 and 10
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
We are NOW justified from the sin and condemnation of Adam by the accomplishments of Jesus Christ who gave himself for us. His death reconciled us to God, and God raised him from the dead.
Christ Jesus is the first fruit of those who have fallen asleep but the dead in Christ will be made alive also when he comes to execute the Father’s command to raise them to life.
Then, the living saints will be transformed to be like him, and together we will be gathered up to meet him in the air. We will be saved by his life.
I Thessalonians 1: 9, 10
For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;
And to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
The believers in Thessalonica showed what kind of entry Paul, Silas, and Timothy had among them; they ministered the gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ to them, and were among them as God’s servants in that they carried out the good pleasure of His will among them.
When the Thessalonians believed, they became a model for all those who believed in Macedonia and Achaia even though they “received the Word in much affliction but with joy from the Holy Spirit.”
The Thessalonians changed from previously being idolaters, to becoming children of God who served the living and true God. Even though they were children of God, they carried out the Father’s will as servants following Paul’s, Silas’s, and Timothy’s example.
The Word of the Lord sounded out from them not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place their believing to God-ward was spread abroad.
Not only did they serve God, they lived with great expectation for God’s Son from heaven, who delivered them from the wrath that will come upon the unjust in the future.
I Thessalonians 5: 8-10
But let us who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.
The word “sleep” in verse 10 is used in contrast to watching and being sober minded as spoken of in verse six.
In other words, we should live every day with the expectation of our Lord’s coming. The expectation of our calling is to obtain, to acquire salvation at his coming, not wrath.
We will obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, dearly beloved! Our salvation is nearer today than when we first believed. Who knows, it may even be today!