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THE DEAD IN CHRIST

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California, U.S.A. · Oct 21, 1930

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 57, No. 41.

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THE DEAD IN CHRIST

Paul E. Schafer of California inquires about “the dead in Christ” spoken of in 1 Thessalonians 4:16.
The context makes it patent that the “dead in Christ” in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 are those redeemed who shall be resurrected when Jesus comes the second time. See also 1 Corinthians 15. It is a perversion of Scripture to spiritualize away the meaning of the “dead in Christ,” as “those who are trying to live a Christian life, but the temptations and customs of this world are holding them back” so that “their physical bodies are their ‘graves’ ” until Christ comes to them in a spiritual experience. Paul is not giving an allegory here of religious life. He is writing of the actual and glorious bodily resurrection of those who will be saved eternally.