For if we have faith that Jesus died and rose again, so too God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in death through Jesus. 15 For this is what we tell you by Jehovah’s word, that we the living who survive to the presence of the Lord will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep in death; 16 because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a commanding call, with an archangel’s voice and with God’s trumpet, and those who are dead in union with Christ will rise first. 17 Afterward we the living who are surviving will, together with them, be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17)
Where will Christians reside after meeting the Lord in the air?
Regarding verse 17 the NICNT comments:
“being caught up “in clouds” is the one certain apocalyptic element in the description. In this its only occurrence in Paul’s letters, it is most likely related to the fact that this event is all about “meeting the Lord in the air,” who, according to the first clause in the sentence, is “descending from heaven.” Here especially Paul’s usage can be traced to the appearance of one like “a son of man” in Dan_7:13, who is described as “coming with the clouds of heaven.” According to the Synoptic records, Jesus himself made the connection between his coming as the Son of Man in final glory and Daniel’s “son of man,” whose coming is described in this way (e.g., Mar_13:26). Furthermore, Luke describes the ascent of Jesus in terms of “a cloud hid him from their sight” (Act_1:9). These various data suggest that it would be quite natural for Paul to describe the “ascent” of both the living and the dead in terms of being caught up “in the clouds” for their meeting with the Lord in the air, whose descent had come to be understood in this way…
Indeed, everything else that may be said beyond what Paul actually says is the result of piecing together various other materials, since many Christians tend not to be satisfied with leaving them “in the air,” as it were. In fact, even though Paul speaks often and in a variety of ways about the final glory awaiting believers, there are only two passages where he explicitly “locates” believers’ final destiny as “in heaven,” 2Co_5:1 (certainly) and Col_1:5 (probably).[1] The reason for this is simple: Paul has almost no interest whatever in our final eschatological “geography”; rather, his interest is altogether personal, having to do with their being “with the Lord,” whose “abode” is regularly expressed as “in heaven.” For the one whose life’s motto was “for me to live is Christ; to die is [to] gain [Christ],” location as such is basically an irrelevancy, and is mentioned only in passing when dealing with other matters. Perhaps people on all sides of the theological spectrum have something to learn from this, neither to make too much of Paul’s very few references to our future location, nor to make too little of it, as though final destiny itself were something of an irrelevancy for him. His own concern is what in fact is picked up at the end of this very long sentence: “and so we will be with the Lord forever.”…
The Lord himself is descending “from heaven,” and those who are being caught up to meet him are “from earth.” Hence their place of meeting is “in the air,” thus referring to the “space” between heaven and earth. And with that the description simply comes to an end; anything that one would say after that must be derived by piecing together all that Paul says eschatologically about believers’ relationship to the Coming.
Finally, Paul brings his explanation to a conclusion with the only really important matter in his eschatological understanding of things, already noted in item four above. Here there is no “return” to earth with those who meet him in the air, any more than there is any interest in heaven as the place of final destiny. His singularly driving concern in this entire description is the conclusion: “and so we will be with the Lord forever.” Here in particular one should note the complete absence of “geographical” locational language. The only location that interests Paul is being “with the Lord forever,” which, because the Lord himself is in heaven, means that this, too, is our final destiny. But that, along with almost everything else, is secondary, to the point of being irrelevant, to this singular reality. Probably (and unfortunately) this is also why there has been so much speculation by later believers, for whom “location” is all too often a primary way of thinking about the future. (The New International Commentary on the New Testament)
As this commentary mentions it is important to not take Paul’s expression “and thus we shall always be with the Lord” to mean “and there we shall always be with the Lord” as if the clouds were the final destination. Paul is simply expressing the means by which this meeting will be accomplished, whether by resurrection or being caught up alive in the clouds.
[1] One could imply such a locational understanding from other passages, such as Php_3:20 (“our citizenship is in heaven”), or the promise of our being “with him,” whose present “location” is understood to be in heaven, but these are the only two where such an understanding is expressed explicitly.