The Coming of The King

5. The Voice of the Archangel

One of the finest passages of Scripture relating to the Second Advent is that which enshrines St. Paul's words to the Christians of Thessalonica who were fearful that their departed brethren might be forgotten when the Lord came. Those words have been an inspiration to all succeeding Christian generations and they remain a stimulus and ground of confidence today. That some understand their background literally and others spiritually makes no difference to the assurance and incentive that all derive from them, but the very fact there are differences of thought on the structure of the passage makes it certain that no matter how sure one may be of the meaning, a fresh approach to the question will be of interest. There is no disagreement upon the principles of the doctrine itself, only differences of view as to precisely how and when the event comes to pass.

Let the glorious beauty of the words themselves rise before the mind again as prelude to consideration of what they involve. "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so" (we must believe) "them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming (presence) of the Lord shall not prevent p(ecede) them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 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" (1 Thess.4.14‑17).

There is an evident association of thought between this passage and the noteworthy words of 1 Cor.15.51‑52. "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." In both passages there is a distinction between the "sleeping" and the "living" saints. The former are "raised" to the glory of immortal spiritual nature, the latter are "changed".

The descent of the Lord from heaven in this context, then, is intimately associated with the resurrection of the Church, the entire body of dedicated believers in this Age, whether they be in the grave or still living upon earth at the time of the Advent. It may be said with justice that this entire statement in Thessalonians is concerned with the Advent only as it relates to the Church; the complete picture of the arrival, the voice, the trumpet, the air and the clouds, have to do entirely with the dead in Christ and their fellows who remain. The wider aspects of the Advent as respects the Lord's manifestation to all men, his work of bringing this Age to an end, and his initiating the Messianic Kingdom, is neither mentioned nor hinted at. In short, here is presented a picture of the Lord coming for his own, to gather them to himself preparatory to his being manifested with them for the evangelical work of the next Age. The popular idea of the "rapture of the saints" illustrates this principle; those dedicated men and women whose lives have been yielded to Christ, and who have been fitted by their Christian experience for the task of world conversion in the future Day, are now taken, from death or from life, to be ready for the commencement of that great work.

The nature and manner, both of the Lord's "descent" and the resurrected ones "ascent", come naturally for consideration at this point. Does our returning Lord appear visibly in the sky, as a gloriously radiant human being, attended by flying angels, to the sound of shouts and silver trumpets audible to the human ear, or are these expressions vivid metaphors expressive of a reality which cannot itself be defined without some such material analogy? Are the air and the clouds the literal atmosphere and vapour masses of this planet, or did the words convey a meaning to the Thessalonian believers which is not easily appreciated in our day and generation?

It is well known and accepted that the Scripture writers, including St. Paul himself, frequently used "figures of speech" to convey a meaning perfectly well understood by their readers, just as we do ourselves. We habitually refer to the death of an aged believer as "passing beyond the veil" without claiming that there is a literal veil which has to be passed in order to gain entry to the spiritual world. We speak of such an one as having gained his "crown" without implying that he is to be presented with a literal laurel wreath as adornment for all eternity. The "white robes" of the redeemed and the "robe of righteousness" of the justified are recognised for what they are, metaphors expressive of a reality which cannot otherwise be defined in human terms. All these allusions are commonly used without further explanation and no one ever thinks of taking them literally. Likewise when Paul declares that the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout he is clothing a truth that we with our human limitations cannot understand in literal everyday terms that we can understand. And we have to remember that the extent of human knowledge in St. Paul's day was considerably more restricted than it is now so that in many respects truths concerning the celestial realities "on the other side of the veil" had to be stated in even more down‑to‑earth terms than are necessary today. After all, at the First Advent and right into the Middle Ages even the best scientific knowledge of the times held that this earth was the centre of the universe and that the heaven of God's throne was situated on the surface of a kind of crystalline sphere which revolved around the earth at not too great a distance away, so that the only possible manner in which any man could picture the coming of the Lord was by an aerial descent from "there" to "here" through the atmosphere. No one dreamed then that the air extended only a few miles up and the wings of the angel would be of no possible use in empty space!

In our own day, although we know so much more of the physical universe now, and the vast distances involved, and that this earth, so far from being the centre is but the merest speck in the immensity of God's creation, we ourselves are quite unable to visualise the reality. We must be frank and confess that we do not know how our Lord returns at his Second Advent or from whence He comes; what we do know is that He does come to earth at the appointed time. We cannot understand the nature of the celestial world and we do not know "where" it is, nor how one gets there. It might well be that when St. Paul says "the Lord shall descend from heaven" he was, under guidance of the Holy Spirit, framing his words to express the truth within the general knowledge and belief of his time; the value of his definition is shown by the fact that even now, two thousand years later and with a totally different understanding of astronomical science we still think instinctively of our Lord as coming down from above, although we no longer consider that heaven is only a few hundred miles up on the outside of an encircling glass sphere. The reality is that at the time of the commencement of the Advent our Lord leaves that sphere of being which we call the celestial, the company of its angelic citizens and everything of which that creation exists, and comes within the space and time framework of this material creation, with its stars and suns and circling planets, and this earth in which He once lived as man for thirty three earth years. Such a coming can be a reality without demanding necessarily a visible appearance, any more than our Lord was visible to his disciples during the major part of the six weeks intervening between his resurrection and his ascension.

He will descend "with a shout, the voice of the archangel". The shout and the voice of the archangel are one and the same. The word "shout" is "keleusma", used nowhere else in the New Testament and evidently intended to convey a meaning which could not be indicated in any other way. It is a technical term for the cry of combined command and encouragement given to horses by charioteers, hounds by hunters, and especially to oarsmen of galleys. In order to ensure that these latter pulled on their oars in unison, an overseer known as the "keleustes" stood in a commanding position on the ship and at regular intervals uttered the "keleusma", which, urging the men to sustained effort, became a call of combined authority, direction and encouragement. Michael the archangel was pictured in Jewish tradition as the leader of the hosts of heaven and the princely champion of the nation of Israel, standing in the presence of God as the executor of Divine judgment upon angels and men. The prophet Daniel was told that at the end of the age of evil, and the inception of the kingdom of righteousness, Michael would stand up and wage war for the overthrow of God's enemies and the establishment of his kingdom on earth. (Dan.12.1‑3). The "voice of the archangel" thus becomes an allusion to the heaven‑sent signal of command and encouragement which indicates that the Advent has begun—encouragement that the time is at hand, and command to recognise and accept the implications of the event and proclaim the fact of the Advent in positive terms. Such a proclamation has in fact been given; from the days of the Baptist minister William Miller nearly two hundred years ago, Christian recognition that the "time is at hand" became clear and positive. Miller's own expectation of a visible descent from the skies in the year 1843AD was not realised, but later in the century sober reflection and discussion showed that the initial stages of the Advent are not accompanied by an outwardly visible manifestation, and the voice of the archangel is heard, spiritually, only by those who recognise the significance of the times in which they live. This view began to be propounded and debated from 1840AD onward, and that recognition, against the background of contemporary events, is abundantly demonstrated, not only by the work of William Miller and the Second Advent movement of the early nineteenth century, but also by a widespread proclamation later in the century and a general awareness among thoughtful Christians of all schools of thought, then and since, that the world is moving into the "days of the Son of Man". In England the inter‑denominational Mildmay conferences of 1873‑1878 discussed every aspect of the Advent and gained the support of hundreds of ministers and students, as did similar conferences—notably Clifton Springs in America—at the same time. The level of understanding of both the purpose and manner of the Advent was higher—more enlightened and more sober—than that of the Miller thesis half a century earlier. It might well be true, therefore, that the voice of the archangel has been heard for more than a century past.

"And the trump of God." This is the traditional "Last Trumpet"—popularly known as "Gabriel's Horn"—announcing the onset of the Day of Judgment. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians was written at least twenty years before St.John, in exile on the island of Patmos, witnessed the visions of Revelation which still constitute the most familiar picture of this momentous event to Christians. "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever...And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest...destroy them which corrupt the earth" (Rev.11.15‑18 margin). St. Paul therefore drew his allusion from an earlier basis and both in Thessalonians and in Corinthians associates it with the resurrection of the Church. "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" (1 Cor.15.51‑52). This idea of the great trumpet which signals the coming of Divine judgment upon the evil things of this Age and the introduction of a new and better world "wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet.3.13) has its origin in the Old Testament, where the prophets used the simile to picture God rising up to take action for judgment upon evil. Zech.9.14 and Joel 2.1‑15 are cases in point. It is a military metaphor; the trumpet is blown to announce that the forces are about to attack; many such references appear in the historical books of the Bible. Since an essential prerequisite to the destruction of man's world edifice of evil and its supersession by the Messianic Kingdom is the resurrection to celestial conditions of all who are to be associated with Christ in the administration of that kingdom, it follows that the "last trump" is the symbol, not only of the imminence of "Judgment day", but also of the immediate resurrection of the Church, and this explains the close association in the mind of St. Paul between the two ideas. The medieval idea was that "Gabriel's horn" sounding on the air would cause those hearing it to know that the time was at hand. The modern understanding is that when outward evidences in the world accumulate to the point where there is no longer any possibility of avoiding the obvious conclusion that the world of men is running into disruption and dissolution and judgment, then the "Last Trump" is sounding. Many Christians believe that this position has already been reached. Other men, far‑sighted and sober thinking men of the world often, are increasingly coming to the same conclusion. "Upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity...men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world" was Jesus' description of the position (Luke 21.25‑26 RSV). It could very reasonably be held that on this basis the sound of the "Last Trump" has been heard upon earth for a number of decades past.

It is against this background that the age‑old hope and aim of all Christians—to be translated at the end of earthly life to that celestial condition in which they will find their place of service in God's purposes and be associated with the Lord Christ for evermore—must be set. When the outward evidence becomes conclusive that the voice of the archangel and the trump of God are both sounding in the earth, even although only those who "watch for his appearing" are as yet aware of the fact and the bulk of the sons of men, even if seeing the signs, do not know what they portend, then the implication is that the Advent has commenced even although the returned Lord is not discerned by human sight. The further implication is that the first work of the Advent, the "change" of the Church, is then in progress or is imminent. Until that work is completed there can be no advance in the manifold activities which are to characterise the Advent and eventuate in the replacement of this present world order by that which is to bring peace to the nations and an end to evil and death.

The resurrection of the Church is known in Scripture as the "First Resurrection" (Rev.20.4‑6; 1 Cor.15.23‑24; Rom.8.19), because it precedes the general resurrection of the remainder of mankind, a process which commences only after the Messianic Kingdom is in operation with Christ and his Church in control. This "First Resurrection" has a dual aspect; at the time of the Advent there is to be, initially, the resurrection of believers who are described as "asleep"—i.e. in the grave, having finished their earthly lives prior to the Advent. After this comes the "change" of those who are still living at the time of the Advent. The net effect is the same; in both cases the individuals concerned close their eyes to the earth, they come to the end of consciousness and existence as experienced through the human organism, which thereafter returns to its dust, and they open their eyes to a new and celestial world in which consciousness and existence is experienced through a new and celestial body, one adapted to that order of life. St. Paul only alludes to the fact in Thessalonians and 1 Cor.15.51‑52, where the sleeping ones are "raised" and the living ones are "changed" or "translated". The philosophy of the matter is much more closely set out in 1 Cor.15.36‑50 and 2 Cor.5.1‑4 where this whole question of the celestial body and environment of those who thus go "to be with the Lord" is discussed in detail.

This then is the first great event of the Advent. There will be no outward sign and it will not be known to, or suspected by, the general mass of humankind. This is essentially a preparation for the more spectacular manifestation of a later stage of the Advent when no living creature will be able to dispute the fact. 1 Thess.4 in particular, and a number of related New Testament passages in general, afford a wealth of detail as to the nature and manner of this resurrection of the Church, and it is to this aspect of the subject that much Advent truth relates.

AOH

(To be continued)