What Does the Bible Say About..The Rapture?

When I asked you this question previously, you told me rapture isn’t something talked about in the Bible, and I read a few chapters and I talked to a pastor at my church and my closest relative. If rapture isn’t taught in the bible then explain, chapter 7 of Revelation, verses 13-14. There is also a lot of things concealed in the Old Testament about it but I’m not going to go down that rabbit trail.

I still don’t get how you can say rapture isn’t something taught in the Bible. I know for sure you have read 1 Thes 4:16-18 giving us such a clear description of the rapture. The word rapture isn’t in the Bible but there are a huge number of words that don’t appear in the bible ”like the word bible” because God word was originally written in Hebrew and Greek. One could truthfully say that no English words are in the Bible. Take a look at 1 Thes 4:16-18 in the original Greek. I bet nowhere in there you see the dead in Christ rising, Jesus descending from heaven, and us meeting Him in the air. So the cynics are right: the word “rapture” is nowhere to be found. All I see is gobbledygook. For the record, the word “rapture” comes from the Latin word “rapturo,” which in turn was a translation of the Greek verb “caught up” found in 1 Thes 4:17. You can call it the pre-trib rapture, the pre-trib rapturo, or the pre-trib caught up–it’s all the same thing. So back to my point it is taught in the bible, it is actually pretty crystal clear.

Answer

I will admit I am at fault for that comment about the word “rapture” not being in any common English translation. The words “caught up” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 could translate the Latin word “rapturo.” However, to refer to that as “the rapture” could lead to the same problems and misunderstandings that have resulted from the King James Version translators using the word “baptism” instead of translating it “immersion.” My first statement, that the idea of the rapture as some people being caught up from the earth and others remaining not being taught in the Bible, still stands.

You bring up two passages, neither of which teaches anything about some people being taken from the earth before others. One is a picture of the church throughout the ages, and the other is talking about the end of the world.

Revelation 7:13-14 talks about a great number of people who are before the throne of God. Since the Revelation was written about things that were to happen within a few years of its writing, it is a symbolic view of the church going through the Roman persecution. The description of a multitude serving God in his temple is a beautiful picture of the church. Christians serve God daily in his temple, which Paul frequently said was the church (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:21).

The passage in the Revelation said they had come “out of great tribulation.” So we should see where else the Bible talks about Christians coming out of or having tribulation. The examples all show that Christians have experienced tribulation even from the beginning. Paul told the Corinthians that he was then in tribulation (2 Corinthians 1:4; 7:4). He told the Thessalonians that a tribulation had already occurred. “For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know.” ( 1 Thessalonians 3:4) So these who were serving God in his temple (the church) had been in great tribulation, such as had occurred in John’s day and was about to repeat itself in the Roman persecution of the church for the next century and a half. Revelation 7:13-14 says nothing about anyone having been “snatched” from the earth before anyone else.

The other passage to which you refer is 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18. Actually, the thought begins in verse 14. “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 precede 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.”

Other than the phrase “caught up,” which you pointed out, I find no rapture mentioned in this passage. That is, I find no reference to anyone being removed from earth before the end of the world, when all will be taken. That is actually the point of this passage. Apparently the Thessalonians were worried that those who were still living when the Lord came in judgement would have an advantage over the dead. Paul here simply states that the dead and the living will be taken to be with the Lord at the same time. Yes, I see the passage talking about “the dead in Christ rising, Jesus descending from heaven, and us meeting Him in the air,” as you said. But I don’t see any separation in time between some people meeting Jesus and others being left. The indication is that all the dead and all the living will be taken at once, not that some of the living would be left for a later time.

 

9 thoughts on “What Does the Bible Say About..The Rapture?”

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  3. WHO CARES? We shouldnt be wasting our time on this brothers; Rather, 6,790 unreached/unengaged people groups continue to be unreached/unengaged and you guys are continuing to argue about the rapture? Come on! C limb aboard what God is doing in our midst.

  4. [Just ran into this goodie on the worldwide net. Any reaction?]

    PRETRIB RAPTURE STEALTH !

    Many evangelicals believe that Christ will “rapture” them to heaven years before the second coming and (most importantly) well BEFORE Antichrist and his “tribulation.” But Acts 2:34, 35 reveal that Jesus is at the Father’s right hand in heaven until He leaves to destroy His earthly foes at the second coming. And Acts 3:21 says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven with the Father “until the times of restitution of all things” which includes, says Scofield, “the restoration of the theocracy under David’s Son” which obviously can’t begin before or during Antichrist’s reign. (“The Rapture Question,” by the long time No. 1 pretrib authority John Walvoord, didn’t dare to even list, in its scripture index, the above verses! They were also too hot for John Darby – the so-called “father of dispensationalism” – to list in the scripture index in his “Letters”!)
    Paul explains the “times and the seasons” (I Thess. 5:1) of the catching up (I Thess. 4:17) as the “day of the Lord” (5:2) which FOLLOWS the posttrib sun/moon darkening (Matt. 24:29; Acts 2:20) WHEN “sudden destruction” (5:3) of the wicked occurs! The “rest” for “all them that believe” is also tied to such destruction in II Thess. 1:6-10! (If the wicked are destroyed before or during the trib, who’d be left alive to serve the Antichrist?) Paul also ties the change-into-immortality “rapture” (I Cor. 15:52) to the end of trib “death” (15:54). (Will death be ended before or during the trib? Of course not! And vs. 54 is also tied to Isa. 25:8 which Scofield views as Israel’s posttrib resurrection!) It’s amazing that the Olivet Discourse contains the “great commission” for the church but not even a hint of a pretrib rapture for the church!
    Many don’t know that before 1830 all Christians had always viewed I Thess. 4’s “catching up” as an integral part of the final second coming to earth. In 1830 this “rapture” was stretched forward and turned into an idolized separate coming of Christ. To further strengthen their novel view, which evangelical scholars overwhelmingly rejected throughout the 1800s, pretrib teachers in the early 1900s began to stretch forward the “day of the Lord” (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do) and hook it up with their already-stretched-forward “rapture.” Many leading evangelical scholars still weren’t convinced of pretrib, so pretrib teachers then began teaching that the “falling away” of II Thess. 2:3 is really a pretrib rapture (the same as saying that the “rapture” in 2:3 must happen before the “rapture” [“gathering”] in 2:1 can happen – the height of desperation!). Google “Walvoord Melts Ice” for more on this.
    Other Google articles on the 183-year-old pretrib rapture view include “X-Raying Margaret,” “Margaret Macdonald’s Rapture Chart,” “Pretrib Rapture’s Missing Lines,” “Edward Irving is Unnerving,” “The Unoriginal John Darby,” “Catholics Did NOT Invent the Rapture,” “The Real Manuel Lacunza,” “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” “Wily Jeffrey,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “Scholars Weigh My Research,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” “Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal,” “Pretrib Rapture Secrecy,” “Deceiving and Being Deceived,” “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty,” “Famous Rapture Watchers,” and “Morgan Edwards’ Rapture View” – most by the author of the bestselling book “The Rapture Plot” (the most accurate and documented book on pretrib rapture history which is obtainable by calling 800.643.4645).

  5. You have added to the book of Rev. when you say that they “HAD” come out of the great tribulation. The verb tense of the word come is “present and imperfect”. Present meaning “happening now” and imperfect meaning “ongoing” the verse is Rev. 7:14. Yes, I know that the AMP and NIV versions place the word in past tense, but they writers of these versions also push their pretrib view throughout the book of Revelations and have endangered themselves by positioning themselves into receiving the curse promised in Rev. 22:18.

    The appropriate understanding of the word come in Rev. 7:14 is to know that they are coming out, just like those in the 5th seal in Rev. 6:9 who’s numbers are not yet complete. I realize that those who believe the pretrib doctrine wish it so much to be the rapture, but this passage is clearly speaking of the multitude of martyrs in Rev. 6:9, and thus the great multitude in Rev. 7:9. This great multitude is defined by the elder in Rev. 7:14 as those who are coming out, not a past tense usage.

    Be careful that no man deceive you. The pretrib doctrine leaves this deceptive fingerprint in every interpretation of all scripture… 2 Pet. 3:16

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