Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh 24

Go learn what times these are from the Thessalonians. We read how you turned from idols to serve the living and true God and to await his Son from heaven — Jesus, whom God raised from the dead (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10). And again: 'What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus at his coming?' (1 Thessalonians 2:19). Also: 'Before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints' (1 Thessalonians 3:13). Paul teaches that their sleep is less to be mourned and simultaneously lays out the times of the resurrection, saying: 'If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep' (1 Thessalonians 4:14). We tell you this by the Lord's own word: we who are alive, who remain until the coming of our Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep (1 Thessalonians 4:15). For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; the dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16); then we who are alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:17). What voice of the archangel, what trumpet of God has already been heard — unless perhaps in the chambers of heretics? Even if the trumpet of God can be called the evangelical word that would already call them, either they are already bodily dead so that they may rise again, or they have been snatched into the clouds — and how are they still here? Truly most wretched, as the Apostle pronounced, those who have hope only in this life will be excluded while they seize what is promised after it; frustrated concerning the truth, no less than Phygelus and Hermogenes (1 Corinthians 15:19; 2 Timothy 1:15). Therefore the majesty of the Holy Spirit, perceiving such thoughts, suggests in the very Epistle to the Thessalonians: 'But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you, for you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night' (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2). 'When they say, "Peace and security," then sudden destruction comes upon them' (1 Thessalonians 5:3). And in the second letter, with fuller concern for them: 'I beg you, brothers, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering to him, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed — neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as if from us — to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand' (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2). 'Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God' (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). 'Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way' (2 Thessalonians 2:5-7). Who is that but the Roman state? Its apostasy, dispersed into ten kings, will bring in the Antichrist. 'And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing' (2 Thessalonians 2:8-10).