These passages were compiled by our brother, Alan E. Kurschner, Ph.D., Eschatos Ministries. I have the pleasure and liberty to comment on them briefly.
We shall now begin to examine a few particulars of these passages of the Scriptures that speak of tribulation before Rapture. We shall follow them in the order in which our brother presented them though they more or less can be understood independently though complementary. The first we shall look at is passage #1 which says that the raptured saints are remnants or survivors who past through the Great Tribulation.
Passage #1
1 Thessalonians 4:15b
. . . that we who are alive, who are left [hoi perileipomenoi] until the coming [parousia] of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep.”
This is the New English Translation(NET). The KJV says: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.”
The key Greek phrase which we shall examine in this passage is “hoi zon-tes hoi perileipomenoi. As we can see, the phrase is hyphenated in the Greek. The literal meaning is “the living-the remaining or the living-the surviving.” Our brother Apostle Paul used the collective pronoun we, the living-the remaining, which means that this pronoun is inclusive of all the living and remaining or the living and surviving believers at that time. Some literal Greek translation reads: “we who are alive and left,” which boils down to the same thing, we who are alive and are remaining or surviving. The real meaning of perileipomenoi is “to leave or remain here and there,” “to leave all around.” The big question is what are we survivors or remnants of? We are the living remnants or living survivors of those who passed through the Great Tribulation. Plain and simple.
Another important Greek phrase we shall look at is “ten parousian,” which means the Coming. It is usually translated the coming like “erchomai.” It is a derivative of “ “parousia,” a compound Greek word composed of “para” and “ousia.” It means “arrival” and subsequent “presence.” It is used to describe a state visit by a monarch to a particular region of his domain. When he arrives, he stays to accomplish certain purposes. He may inspect some project in progress and commission another that is already finished. There will be a state dinner, etc. Can this visit be secret? Hardly. This is how the second coming of Christ will be. It begins with His appearance in the heavens(the Shekhinah), and the Rapture of the living and surviving remnants of the saints who passed through the Great Tribulation to meet Him in the air and His continuing presence to accomplish certain divine purposes during the Day of the Lord, culminating at His victory over the antiChrist and his forces at Armageddon(Rev.19:11-21), and the institution of His Millennial Kingdom.
Avraham Shallom.
Mt Zion Heritage Ministries 