THE RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH

"But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.  For this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.  For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:  then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.  Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Th. 4:13-18).

 

There is much talk about the Rapture of the Church today, and yet, the word "rapture" does not appear in the King James Version of the Bible.  Ironically, non-Catholics have "borrowed" the term from the Latin Vulgate Version.  The Vulgate, a late fourth-century Bible, became the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century; why it took them over a thousand years to claim it as their own, is a mystery to me.  We get the word "rapture" from the Latin "rapiemur," which is Latin for the Greek original:  ἁρπάζω. 

 

According to the Blue Letter Bible, the Greek ἁρπάζω (harpazō), is translated:  "caught up" (2 Cor. 12:2, 4; 1 Th. 4:17; Rev. 12:5), "take by force" (Mt. 11:12; Jn. 6:15; Acts 23:10), "catch away" (Mt. 13:19; Acts 8:39), "pluck" (Jn. 10:28, 29), "catch" (Jn. 10:12), and "pull" (Jude 1:23).  As a result, the Strong's Concordance defines harpazō  as: to seize, carry off by force; to seize on, claim for one's self eagerly; or to snatch out or away.  Young's Concordance simply says:  "to catch away."  Either way, the idea here is that those born again believers who are still living, will be taken up into the air to meet Jesus. 

 

There are no signs or warnings that the Rapture is about to occur.  All the signs mentioned in the Bible (Dan. 9; Mt. 24; Rev. 6-18) are signs of Christ's Second Coming, an event which ends the Tribulation, and begins His 1000 year Millennial Reign on earth (Mt. 24:29f; Rev. 19:1f; etc.).  Because the Church Age is not mentioned in these passages, because Christ told His disciples that His coming for them would remove them from the earth, and because the Church is not going to be here when God pours out His wrath (1 Th. 5:9; Rev. 3:10; etc.), the Rapture must precede the Tribulation.  The signs we now see occurring in the news, are signs that the Church must be going up soon, since we leave before the actual seven-year Tribulation (Dan. 9:27; Mt. 24:3-28; Rev. 6-8)!

 

 

Praise the Lord that we will not get what we so obviously deserve!