Hi Gino,
Outstanding article, loved the way you wrote it.
My answer is All that are "in Christ" will go in the blessed hope, your wife, brother and you!
David Blackman
Gino (4 Oct 2013)
"What if I die one day before the blessed hope?"
What if I die one day before the blessed hope (rapture)?
Let’s say, that both my wife and I, (we are both saved), live all the way up to the time of the blessed hope.
However, for some reason I die the day before, yet she lives the extra day and is alive at the moment of the blessed hope.
For me, I’ll be with the LORD:
II Corinthians 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
By the way, that line of scripture is not for those who go in the blessed hope, but only for those “who walk the vale with him”, as the song puts it.
Those going in the blessed hope are not going to be absent from the body.
Getting back to the point at hand, if I die the day before, I will be absent from my body, but I will be present with the Lord.
Let’s say that I have not been “walking worthy” of the blessed hope.
Let’s say that I’ve been more of a Laodicean Christian, while my wife has been more of a Philadelphian Christian.
So, if I would have lived on earth one day longer, many can make the case that I would not have gone in the blessed hope, although I’m really saved.
The trumpet would blow, my wife would be changed & caught up to meet Jesus in the air, but I would be left behind.
That would be a grim prospect, to say the least.
However, as mentioned above, I died the day before, and am absent from my body and present with the Lord.
Now the next day comes, the trumpet blows, my wife is changed & caught up to meet Jesus in the air.
What happens to me, though, at that same time?
I Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Will my body rise at that time, along with the bodies of Paul, Peter, the martyrs of the church, and the other Christians who have already passed?
I know from those scriptures, that their bodies will rise, and they who are with the Lord will come with him, and all will meet in the air.
However, what about me?
If I wasn’t “walking worthy” of the blessed hope, so that if I was alive and remained, I would have been left behind.
Yet, I had died, and went to be with the Lord.
So, does my body not rise with the others, and stay buried until the end of the tribulation?
Is that how it goes with those who do not “walk worthy” of the blessed hope”, but who die before hand?
It would seem unfair if my brother in the church, who is like me, yet he remains until the blessed hope.
Like me, he has not “walked worthy” of the blessed hope, so he gets left behind?
He has to face the tribulation, but I don’t, because I died the day before.
I get to be with the Lord, while absent from my body, but he is still here going through the tribulation.
Or is it that the Adventists are partially right, at least in my case, that those die before, yet “unworthy” of the blessed hope, actually “soul sleep”?
That way I would not really be with Lord like the scripture says, nor even absent from the body like the scripture says.
No, therefore, that cannot be correct, I would not be “soul sleeping”.
What would be even more unfair, is if my body rises in the blessed hope, but my brother is left behind.
Not only have I been with the Lord for one day, and continue to be with the Lord, but then I get to experience the resurrection with my raised body.
However, my brother, who has lived identical to me, yet only one day longer, doesn’t get to experience any of that, but instead goes into the tribulation.
So I’m blessed for passing one day early, or at least my brother certainly is not, for living at least one day longer.
I Corinthians 15:51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
So, the “all” in, “all shall be changed”, doesn’t mean at the same time?
My wife will change at the blessed hope, my brother will change at the end of the tribulation, and me, well that is the question I’ve been asking since the beginning of this email?
What happens to me at the blessed hope, if I do not “walk worthy” of the blessed hope, but yet I die one day before?
Gino