Eschatology Part II - The Rapture

In this post I will be discussing the rapture, what it is, and when it takes place.

The first point is to establish IF the rapture exists, and if so, what it is. There are a growing number of people (at least I seem to be running into more of them) who believe that the rapture is not a biblical concept. They usually champion their cause with the claim "the word rapture isn't in the bible!!!"

This same tactic is often used by anti-trinitarians who frequently lead off their argument with the fact that the word trinity is not found in the bible, as if this must therefore mean that the concept which the word represents is made up. My usual first response is "so?" The issue is not wether or not an individual word is found in the bible or not, but wether or not the idea/doctrine is found in the bible.

In the case of the rapture however, those who put forth this claim are merely show-casing their own ignorance, and lack of study. The word rapture is actually in the bible, its just not in the english bible. The word "Rapture" is latin. It comes from the Latin root "rapio, rapere" which means to seize, or carry away. Many words in the english language (anywhere from 65% - 70%) were either borrowed directly from latin, or are slightly changed versions of latin words. This is the case with the word Rapture. In 1st Thessalonian 4:17 the phrase "shall be caught up" in latin is "rapiemur" this was term was borrowed by the english language (by way of french) in the form of "rapture" to mean "caught up" or "caught away".

Thus, not only the concept, but the word is actually in the bible and it is found in 1st Thess. 4:17.

"Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. " (ESV)

So what is this rapture, this catching up? Lets begin by looking at the passage in more full context.

1st Thess 4:15-17 (ESV)
"15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. "

First we will note that this event encompasses both the dead in Christ and those believers who are alive on the earth at that time. It is accompanied by #1 the Lord descending with a command, #2 the voice of an archangel, and #3 the trumpet of God.

the dead in christ are resurrected, and we who remain alive join them as we all rise to meet Christ in the air, and from that point on, we will ever be with him.

So this is a meeting. What kind of meeting?

The word translated "meet" in 4:17 is in greek is "Apantesis" and it means "to meet one". This word is used only 4 times in the new testament. The first two occurances of the word are both in Matthew in the parable of the ten virgins. In these verses, Matt 25:1 and 6, it describes the processional of the virgins to meet the bridegroom and go with him into the wedding feast.

The next occurance of the word is in Acts 28:15 where it is used to describe the believers of Rome sending a welcoming party to meet Paul on the road and usher him into Rome.

The final usage of the word is in our verse listed above.

From this it would appear that the usage of the word apantesis refers to people welcoming an important person in a procession.
If we go outside the bible, we find that this is also the usage of the word apantesis in other greek sources. The word was used specificly to describe when a dignitary visited a city and the citizens of the city formed a procession outside the city to welcome the dignitary into the city.

Thus the rapture is a welcome procession both for the bridegroom of the church and for the King of Kings.

The next question is, when does the rapture happen?

and here is where we will undoubtedly begin to run into disagreements.

It is my belief that the rapture takes place after the tribulation. I believe this for a number of reasons all of which come from what the bible has to say, or not say on the topic.

Issue #1 This event (the rapture) obviously takes place at the return of Christ. There are several passages in the bible that refer to Jesus Christ returning. They refer to a number of events which occur at the return. The events include the resurrection of the righteous dead, the rapture, the judgement of the wicked, the destruction of the "anti-christ". Now, do these verses all describe one single return of Jesus Christ, or do they refer to two different returns, one of them being a "secret" coming.
First, in some of the verses it is obvious (or directly stated) that the return described must happen after the tribulation. For example, those verses which link the return of Christ with the judgement of the wicked, and with the destruction of the anti-christ can not possibly happen before the tribulation therefore, they must be describing a return after the tribulation.
The question then becomes, do any of the verses referring to the return of Christ refer to a seperate, different return?

In order to answer that question we will have to think about how we can tell from the description of the events if they are describing the same, or different returns.

Starting with 1st Thess 4:17 which is clearly describing the rapture, and probably the key verse in the bible on the teaching about the rapture, we can see that the rapture is clearly linked to the resurrection of the righteous dead. Thus any verse which describes the return of Christ as including the resurrection of the righteous dead must also be describing the return at which the rapture happens.

Secondly it is obvious from the verses which describe the return of Christ as judging the wicked and destroying the anti-christ that these must happen after the tribulation, thus if there are two seperate returns of Christ then none of these verses should include refrences to either the rapture, or the resurrection of the righteous dead (which as we have established from 1st Thess 4:17 occur in immediate succession).

So lets look at the verses which refer to the return of Christ, and see what they say (keeping the above questions in mind). We'll start at the beginning of the new testament and work our way through.

Matt 24:29-31

"29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

The first thing obvious in this verse is that it occurs after the tribulation since the first sentance of the verse is "immediately after the tribulation of those days..." Then appears the Son of Man in the heavens coming on the clouds in great glory, and he sends out his angels to gather the elect from all the earth.

Now, this verse is too obvious to be missed by those of the pre-trib view point. It clearly states that it happens at the end of the tribulation, and it describes something which sounsd a great deal like the rapture described in 1st Thess. 4:17.

The pre-trib view point answers this verse by saying that the book of matthew applies specificly to the Jews and not to gentile christians. Thus the elect in this verse does not refer to the church (as it does everywhere else) but to Jews who have been saved during the tribulation period after the rapture of the church. Problems with this idea include, first, there is simply no evidence for it in the book of Matthew. There is nothing in the book of matthew which suggests that it applies only to the Jews, and a great deal which would suggest that it applies to all christians. Secondly, The pre-trib view relies heavily upon the parable of the wedding feast for its own concept of the pre-trib rapture and that concept is found where? in Matthew 25, the parable of the ten virgins. Thirdly, virtually the exact same description of the Return of Christ occurs in the book of Mark.

Mark 17:24-27

"24 “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 26 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven."

There are some extreme forms of dispensationalism which hold that none of the gospels apply to the church, but only to the Jews. This is neither an orthodox, nor a common view so I'm not going to bother going through the bother of refuting it.

There is no reason to assume (unless you have already decided and are simply looking to support your own view) that both these refrences refer to the Jews specificly, and not to gentile Christians. However, the pre-trib view is that, at the very least, these refrences refer to the gathering of "tribulation christians" or people who were saved after the rapture of the church, during the tribulation.

How does this "gathering" compare to the rapture of 1st Thess 4:17?

Both directly state that Jesus is returning in the clouds in glory

both directly state that the believers are brought to meet Jesus in the air

Both involve a great trumpet call which announces the 'gathering' of the elect

The main difference between these verses and 1st Thess. is that these verses do not explicitly mention the resurrection of the dead.

Never the less, there is obviously a great deal of similarity between the descriptions... so much so that I would call them, nearly identical.

It is a basic maxim of reasoning (often stated as Occam's Razor) that in the absense of extenuating evidence, the simple explanation is the best, and usually the correct one. Thus if we see two verses which place the return of Christ after the tribulation, and directly link it to an event which appears to be identical to the rapture, then it is most reasonable to assume that the verses are describing the rapture, and not a seperate events. If we to believe that there are infact two returns of Christ, and also two raptures, we must find fairly significant evidence to this effect somewhere.

to be continued...