And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Read Chapter 24
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And He shall send His angels, &c. There is an inversion of order in this passage; for Christ shall previously send His angels with a trumpet, or rather with many trumpets, throughout all the world, to wake the dead and summon them to judgment. For when this trumpet sounds very many angels shall gather together the ashes of every one of the dead, and from them form the semblance of human bodies, which God shall organize and animate. And after life has been restored to those bodies, He shall, if they be those of the holy and elect, glorify and bless them. Wherefore also the Blessed themselves shall, by the gift of swiftness, with which they shall be endowed, immediately transfer themselves in the company of the angels from all parts of the world to the Valley of Jehoshaphat to judgment. But the reprobate, because they shall lack the gift of swiftness, shall be dragged thither by the devils, or rather by the angels.
From the four winds, i.e, from the four quarters of the world, from when...
The sound of the trump refers to the resurrection, and the rejoicing, and to represent the astonishment which shall be then, and the woe of those that shall be left, and shall not be snatched up into the clouds.
That the Lord calls His elect by His Angels pertains to the honour of the elect; and Paul also says “that they shall be caught into the clouds;” that is, the Angels shall gather together those that have risen, and when they are gathered together, the clouds shall receive them.
But when you have heard of this, consider the punishment of them that remain. For neither shall they suffer that former penalty only, but this too. And as above He said, that they should say, Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord, Matthew 22:39 so here, that they shall mourn. For since He had spoken unto them of grievous wars, that they might learn, that together with the fearful things here, the torments there also await them, He brings them in mourning and separated from the elect, and consigned to hell; by this again rousing the disciples, and indicating from how many evils they should be delivered, and how many good things they shall enjoy.
And why now does He call them by angels, if He comes thus openly? To honor them in this way also. But Paul says, that they shall be caught up in clouds. And He said this also, when He was speaking concerning a resurrection. For 1 Thessalonians 4:16 the Lord Himself, it is said, shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice...
Here we are not to think of a real trumpet, but of the voice of the archangel, which shall be so loud that at its sound all the dead shall rise out of the dust of the earth.
That is, from the four quarters of the world, north, south, east, and west.
Or otherwise; Lest any one should suppose that they should be gathered only from the four quarters of the world, and not from the middle regions, He adds this, “And from one end of heaven to the other.” By the heights of heaven meaning the central regions of the earth, which are under the heights of heaven; and by the ends of heaven, meaning the extreme parts of the earth, where the land seems to join a very wide and distant horizon.
He will send the angels to gather together the saints and those risen from the dead, so that they can meet Him in the clouds. He also honors them by calling them with angels. And if Paul says that they will be caught up in the clouds (1Thess. 4:17), this is not contradictory. For when they have been gathered together by the angels, the clouds will snatch them up. There will be the trumpet, to cause the greater consternation.
