Page 13 - Watchman- What of the Night

portions the editorial ―we‖ is used of the living, and could be broadly paraphrased

―those of us, believers of this age, then alive and surviving.‖ It cannot be taken
literally as including the Apostle Paul himself, since he has long since died and the
parousia is yet future, and the scripture does not err. Nor can it be asserted that he
even thought he would be one of the living survivors, in view of his plain assertion

elsewhere: ―I am not ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand‖ (II
Tim.4:6).
One verse in the New Testament then, (I Thess. 4:17) categorically asserts the
rapture of surviving saints to meet the Lord at His parousia, verse 15 suggests it, and I

Cor,15:51,52 declare the supernatural change in the living and dead which will
facilitate this transport. That the change in the bodies of both dead and living, and
their translation into the clouds to meet the Lord is exactly simultaneous, is also
crystal clear from these portions. So if we wish to discover the time of the translation

of the living in relation to other predicted events, it simply remains to determine the
time of the resurrection, from the many times it is spoken of, and we have our answer.
Let us grasp this fact fully, and remember it carefully, as it will be the basis of a great
deal of our future discussion.

Returning to the canon of interpretation previously laid down, viz. that we should
not give emphasis to any doctrine or event of scripture except in proportion to the
stress laid upon it in the scripture, it becomes obvious that the teaching which makes
the ―rapture ‖ the object of hope of believers through all the ages, the very center of

their thought and anticipation, is a shockingly disproportionate emphasis, in view of
the fact that there is ONLY ONE verse in the New Testament that unmistakably
declares it.
But, behold His Coming in glorious manifestation, to be ―glorified in His Saints

and marvelled at in them that believe‖—that innumerable company of sleeping saints
raised I mighty triumph over death! Then there will be the weeping and lamentation
of ―all the kindreds of earth,‖ the light that shines from one end of heaven to the other,
the judgments, followed by the blessed and peaceful reign of Immanuel, the dominant

theme of all the prophets: these are the things so oft-repeated in scripture, that they are
unmistakably the events upon which the Holy Spirit intends that we shall fix our gaze
and pin our hope.

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