and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead-- Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.
If this was the only reference to "the wrath to come" in this epistle, we might conclude that Paul was probably referring to the outpouring of God’s wrath on unbelievers generally. There is no specific reference to a particular judgment here. However, later he spent considerable space writing about the outpouring of God’s wrath in the Tribulation (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11). Therefore it seems to me that this is the first reference to that outpouring of wrath in the epistle (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:9). The biblical revelation about the relationship of church saints to the wrath of God strongly implies a pretribulation rapture of the church. [Note: See Renald E. Showers, Maranatha: Our Lord, Come! A Definitive Study of the Rapture of the Church, pp. 192-222; and Gerald B. Stanton, Kept from the Hour, pp. 25-50.] 