Given the word ‘all’ in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, will our Lord not have more saints on the earth before descending?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1999.

About the use of the word 'all' in 1 Thessalonians 3:13:

To the end he may stablish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

The clue to one possible answer would be found in the comparison of Exodus 39:1 with Exodus 36:8. The former says that 'of the blue and purple and scarlet, they made finely wrought garments, for ministering in the holy place'. And if you read that passage alone, you might suppose that all the blue, purple and scarlet was used for that purpose. Actually, Exodus 36:8 has already told us that a lot of the blue, purple and scarlet had already been used for making the curtains of the tabernacle, so you might have expected that strict logic would have said in Exodus 39:1: 'of the remainder of the blue, purple and scarlet have they made the holy garments'; but Scripture does not always spell out explicitly what common sense would lead us to perceive.

If you take this as a guide to your understanding of 1 Thessalonians 3:13, you might conclude that the word 'all' in 3:13 is used within the limits of its own context.

Another way of solving your problem would perhaps be to ask yourself whether your question, 'Will he not have more saints on the earth before descending?', carries theological implications that are difficult to square with the doctrines of salvation.

If participation in the resurrection and rapture described in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 is altogether dependent on grace through faith in Christ's atoning blood, how is it possible that, when the Lord comes in glory, he will leave genuine believers on earth? In other words, will Christ operate two different sets of salvation: one set that includes all believers in all the benefits of his atoning death; and another set of believers who are given only some, but not all, of the benefits of his redemption?

It seems very likely that there will be many people when the Lord comes in glory who have not refused to receive the love of the truth (see 2 Thessalonians 2:10)—for the simple reason that they never did understand the truth, and some of them never heard it. I do not see why they should be included in the severe judgments that 2 Thessalonians 1 and 2 describe. Seeing that the second coming of Christ is an event within history, and is not the end of the world, these people will presumably go on living and enter the millennium, just like the people who lived in other cities than the cities of the plain continued to live even after Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with fire and brimstone from heaven.

The New Testament informs us that, when Christ comes to reign in the millennium, he will rule the nations with a rod of iron. That suggests to me that the millennium is not going to be filled simply with born again and godly-living believers.

These, then, are a couple of suggestions. I speak as to a wise man: judge what I say.

Ever yours in Christ,