What does Titus 2:13 mean?

[LindaR]

(04-29-2009 02:46 PM)Vic Wrote:  If the 'raptue' or second coming is your blessed hope, do those who have physically died before that event takes place, lose hope or have lost hope?

Do they or can they have hope in anything else but that event?

The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica about this very thing. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, he states:

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 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: 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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)

I have many Christian friends who have gone on to be with the Lord. I do believe they died believing in that "blessed hope"...that they would be "raised/resurrected" incorrruptible to "meet the Lord in the air" and "ever be with the Lord".

The rapture is not the same as the Second Coming....but that is another topic.