Paul: Death Would Not Prevent his Presence with the Dead and Living Saints at the Second Coming

Paul: Death Would Not Prevent his Presence with the Dead and Living Saints at the Second Coming

Below is the 37th of multiple excerpts from The Parousia, the late 19th-century masterpiece on the Second Coming by James Stuart Russell. "THE DEAD IN CHRIST TO BE PRESENTED ALONG WITH THE LIVING AT THE PAROUSIA [SECOND COMING] 2 Cor. iv. 14 [2 Cor. 4:14].---‘Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.’ "We now enter upon a most important statement, which deserves special attention. ... "We have already seen (1 Thess. iv. 15 [1 Thess. 4:15-17], and 1 Cor. xv. 51 [1 Cor. 15:51-55]) that the apostle [Paul] cherished the hope that he himself would be among those ‘who would be alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord [1 Thess. 4:15].’ In this epistle [2nd Corinthians], however, it would seem as if this hope regarding himself [to be alive at the Lord's coming] were somewhat shaken. His experience [of affliction in Asia, Acts 19:21-31] in the interval between the First Epistle and the Second [letter to the Corinthians] had been such as to lead him to apprehend speedy death. (See chap. i. 8 [2 Cor. 1:8---'For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.'...]) His 'trouble in Asia’ had made him despair of life, and he probably felt that he could not calculate on escaping the malignant hostility of his enemies much longer. He had now ‘the sentence of death in himself’ [2 Cor. 1:9]; he bore about ‘in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus’ [2 Cor. 4:10], and felt that he was ‘always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake’ [2 Cor. 4:11]. "But this anticipation did not diminish the confidence with which he looked forward to the future; for even should he die before the Parousia [the Second Coming], he would not on that account lose his part in the triumphs and glories of that day. He was assured that ‘he which raised up the Lord Jesus would raise up him also by Jesus, and would present him along with the living saints who might survive to that period [2 Cor. 4:14]. He would not be absent from the great episunagoge [Greek for 'gathering together'] at the coming of the Lord (2 Thess. ii. 1 [2 Thess. 2:1]), but would be ‘presented’ [2 Cor. 4:14] along with his friends at Corinth and elsewhere, ‘before the presence of his glory’ [Jude 1:24]. In fact, the apostle now comforts himself with the same words with which he had comforted the bereaved mourners in Thessalonica. He appears [based on his afflictions in Asia] to have relinquished the hope that he would himself live to witness the glorious appearing of the Lord; but not the less was he persuaded that he would suffer no loss by having to die; for, as he had taught the Thessalonians, ‘them also which sleep in Jesus God would bring with him;’ and the living saints would in that day have no advantage above those who slept (1 Thess. iv. 14, 15 [1 Thess. 4:14-15])." [next: further commentary by Russell on 2nd Corinthians]

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