1 Thessalonians 4:17

ἐν νεφέλαις, the ordinary method of sudden rapture or ascension to heaven (Acts 1:9; Acts 1:11; Revelation 11:12; Slav. En. iii. 1, 2). ἁρπαγησόμεθα. So in Sap. 1 Thessalonians 4:11, the righteous man, εὐάρεστος τῷ θεῷ (1 Thessalonians 4:1) γενόμενος ἠγαπήθη (1 Thessalonians 1:4), is caught up (ἡρπάγη). ἅμα σὺν αὐτοῖς … σὺν Κυρίῳ, the future bliss is a re-union of Christians not only with Christ but with one another. εἰς ἀπάντησιν, a pre-Christian phrase of the koinê (cf. e.g., Tebtunis Papyri, 1902, pt. i., n. 43, 7, παρεγενήθημεν εἰς ἀπάντησιν, κ. τ. λ., and Moulton, i. 14), implying welcome of a great person on his arrival. What further functions are assigned to the saints, thus incorporated in the retinue of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 3:13; cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:10), whether, e.g., they are to sit as assessors at the judgment (Sap. 1 Thessalonians 3:8; 1 Corinthians 6:2-3; Luke 22:30) Paul does not stop to state here. His aim is to reassure the Thessalonians about the prospects of their dead in relation to the Lord, not to give any complete programme of the future (so Matthew 24:31; Did. x., xvi.). Plainly, however, the saints do not rise at once to heaven, but return with the Lord to the scene of his final manifestation on earth (so Chrysost., Aug., etc.). They simply meet the Lord in the air, on his way to judgment a trait for which no Jewish parallel can be found. καὶ οὕτως πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθα (no more sleeping in him or waiting for him).