46. Iv. CONCURRENT GREEK USAGES: "PAROUSIA"
tell us that it refers always to the coming of Christ for his Saints before the Tribulation, and not the coming of Christ with His saints, after the Tribulation.
No one can help us in making this discovery; neither do we need any help beyond collecting all the data, and looking closely at every passage, and noting the different usages.
Having got our complete lists of twenty-four Texts, we read each (with its context, of course), and we find that:—
(a) Six times it is used of the presence of INDIVIDUALS, and that it is always their personal, bodily presence.
1 Cor. xvi. 17, Stephanus.
2 Cor. vii. 6, 7, Titus.
2 Cor. x. 10, and Phil. i. 20; ii. 12, Paul.
(b) Six times it is used of Christ's presence in the air, when He comes forth thither to meet His raptured saints, before the Great Tribulation (1 Thess. ii. 19; iii. 13; iv. 15; v. 23. 2 Thess. ii. 1, and 1 John ii. 28). We note that all but one of these six are in the Epistles to the Thessalonians.
(c) Eleven times it is used of Christ's presence on earth, when with His Church He comes unto the earth, in the Day of the Lord, "Immediately after the Tribulation of those days" (Matt. xxiv. 3, 27, 37, 39. 1 Cor. xv. 23. 2 Thess. ii. 8. Jas. v. 7, 8. 2 Pet. i. 16; iii. 4, 12).
(d) Once it is used of the presence of "that lawless one," who shall be destroyed by the glorious advent of Christ (2 Thess. ii. 9).
Here are all the usages; and we see, at once, that it is not correct to speak of "The Parousia" as though it related only to Christ; or to His coming as being one single act; or to one part only of that coming.
We note that there is one chapter (2 Thess. ii.) where the word is used of three distinct acts of being present:—
There is the presence of Christ in the air before the Tribulation (2 Thess. ii. 1) and our gathering together unto Him there;
There is the presence of the Lawless one on the earth during the Tribulation (2 Thess. ii. 9);
And there is the *presence* of the Lord on the earth, in all His glory, by which the Lawless one will be destroyed. This will be *after* the Tribulation (2 Thess. ii. 8).
If we are not careful to distinguish these various usages of the word *parousia*, we shall only create confusion in the Word, and trouble in our own minds. We shall find ourselves taking a passage which speaks of the Lord's *presence* on earth *after* the Tribulation, and interpreting it of His *presence* in the air *before* the Tribulation; and, if we thus take the word *parousia* as being used of the latter, then we shall interpret 1 Thess. iv. by Matt. xxiv., and not only take the Church through the Tribulation, but we shall defer the realization of the Rapture of 1 Thess. iv. until *after* the Tribulation, and take all the blessedness out of it. We shall give a flat contradiction to 1 Thess. v. 4, which categorically assures us that "the Day of the Lord shall not overtake us as a thief"; and plunge ourselves into that very "darkness" which the same word declares that we are "not in."
2. *Pneuma*, spirit. -The word πνεῦμα (*pneuma*), *spirit*, is a word of the greatest importance.
When we have made out our complete list (as before we made of Parousia) we find that there is practically little or no difference as to its *translation*; for it is rendered *spirit* every time, except John iii. 8, where it is rendered *wind*; Rev. xiii. 15, where it is rendered "life" (marg. *breath*); Matt. xxvii. 50 and John xix. 80, where it is rendered *ghost*.
In this case, though there are different usages, they are all confined to *interpretation* and not to translation.
We need not say more on this word here, for in our work, *The Giver and His Gifts, or, the Holy Spirit and His Work*, we have given a complete list of all the occurrences of the word *pneuma*; and have set out, in an exhaustive manner, all the data.
*Fourteen* different usages are given, and classified lists are appended, from which the reader can gather *for himself* all that can be learnt from those lists.
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