{"id":12980,"date":"2022-02-19T11:29:18","date_gmt":"2022-02-19T16:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/?p=12980"},"modified":"2022-02-19T11:29:18","modified_gmt":"2022-02-19T16:29:18","slug":"1-thess-415-did-paul-teach-that-he-would-be-alive-when-christ-returned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/1-thess-415-did-paul-teach-that-he-would-be-alive-when-christ-returned\/","title":{"rendered":"1 Thess 4:15 &#8211; Did Paul teach that he would be alive when Christ returned?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Problem:<\/strong> Paul spoke here to the Thessalonian Christians of \u201cwe who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord.\u201d This seems to imply that he was affirming that Christ would come before he died. But Christ did not come before the death of Paul (2 Tim. 4:6\u20137). Did Paul make a mistake here?<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<strong>Solution:<\/strong> There are two ways to understand this verse without alleging that Paul made a mistake. First of all, it could be an editorial \u201cwe.\u201d That is, it may be a literary expression that is the equivalent of \u201cthose\u201d who are alive. This is a perfectly acceptable way of speaking, which authors often use. For example, in view of a friend\u2019s death, I might say \u201cwe never know when such an eventuality may overtake us,\u201d without expressing either the belief or hope that it will occur to me.<\/p>\n<p>Second, Paul may simply be expressing his own hope here, without affirming that he would in actual fact be alive when Christ returns. After all, Christ\u2019s return is the blessed hope (cf. Titus 2:13) of all believers. Had Paul wanted to affirm that he would be alive when Christ came back, he could have said very clearly, \u201cI will be alive and remain until the coming of the Lord.\u201d But he did not say this. The \u201cwe\u201d could have implied a hope he had without making any affirmation about whether he would or would not remain alive until the rapture.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&#8220;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. (1 Thess 4:15)&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Problem: Paul spoke here to the Thessalonian Christians of \u201cwe who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord.\u201d This seems to imply that he was affirming that Christ would come before he died. But Christ did not come before the death of Paul (2 Tim. 4:6\u20137). Did Paul make a mistake here?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22,3,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-errors","category-bible-proof","category-bible-teaching","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}