[MHGinTN]

So how do you reconcile the 1 Thess 4:13-18 (and 1 Cor 15:51-53) passage statement that the dead in Christ God will bring with Jesus for the raising incorruptible and the alive being caught up together in the clouds? These spoken of as being brought with Jesus are absent from their bodies, and Paul clearly states that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Paul also offers blessing to spirit, soul, and body, so can we say the spirit is with the Lord, while the corruptible body is decaying with the earth? Is the soul and spirit with the Lord? (I can't think of a way to make this any more of a softball than the offering here ... knock this one over the fence, Elsie).

[Elsie]

These spoken of as being brought with Jesus are absent from their bodies,
They ARE???

and Paul clearly states that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

No; Paul does NOT say that.

---

2 Corinthians 5:8    (KJV)

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

 

I; too; am WILLING to be absent from my body and with the Lord; but what I will is not necessarily what is going to happen.

 

(NIV)

We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Again; I'd PREFER this as well.

[Elsie]

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18    New International Version (NIV)

Believers Who Have Died

¹³ Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵ According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

 

 

 

 

From where to where? 

No believers are mentioned coming from Heaven.

Rise FROM where?

[Elsie]

1 Corinthians 15:51-53 King James Version (KJV)

⁵¹ Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

⁵² 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.

⁵³ For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

 

 

Raised? or Lowered?