Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
Can you explain how His coming "as a thief in the night" (I Ths 5.2) can correspond "with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God?" They just don't seem to be the same.
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Here is the entire passage:
Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you.
2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.
3 While they are saying, "Peace and safety!" then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.
4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief;
5 for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;
6 so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.
7 For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night.
8 But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.
9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
(1Th*5:1-9*NAU)
I cannot read this passage in its entirety and conclude it is pointing to anything other than the second coming. To the ones who are in figurative darkness His coming will be like a thief. To the ones in the light, it will be during the "day".
The idea that the "thief" is coming to steal believers simply does not hold up to scrutiny in this context. The thief is not coming to believers, but rather to unbelievers, and they will be taken by surprise and destroyed. And there is nothing "secret" about it: the day will be noticed.
Sorry Darby, I don't buy it. There is only one day, not two.