THERE is sometimes great significance in small words. Paul tells his Thessalonian brethren that "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. 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."
Here the events through which we are to pass to gain an entrance to the presence of the Lord and a dwelling-place with him, are plainly stated. Popular teaching of the day says, that at death the soul, the essential part of man, if he be righteous, immediately departs into the presence of its Maker and so is forever with the Lord. Paul however does not so teach. He makes all turn upon the coming of the Lord and a resurrection of the dead. He places no hope before the righteous dead of ever being with the Lord except through a resurrection; and none before those who are alive at the coming of Christ except through being changed and caught up. Then all together, the resurrected saints, and the changed living, ascend to meet the Lord, and so (houtose) thus, in this way, shall we ever be with the Lord.
These are words with which Paul exhorts us to comfort one another; not with the hope of going to heaven at death, but by the coming of the Lord, and the resurrection from the dead. It is through these and only these that we shall ever go to dwell with him.