What is the Rapture?

A term often applied to the 'catching up' in the clouds of the saints, including both those raised from among the dead, and those who will be alive on the earth at that time, to meet the Lord in the air at His coming, according to 1 Thess. 4:16-17. This preliminary detail in the coming of the Lord is of great interest to the church, which is set to wait for Him. See ADVENT, SECOND.

This is to be accomplished by the Lord's sudden descent from heaven, not in judgement, not to appear to the world, but simply and only for believers, the dead in Christ rising first, then both they and the living being caught up together in clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. This is the rapture, which is a prospect to fill the heart with comfort.

It would not be right to say that the coming again of the Lord Jesus will be two comings, yet it is clear from Scripture that it will be in two stages. The first will be His coming FOR His saints, the second His coming WITH them. The first is spoken of as THE RAPTURE, i.e., the catching up to the glory of those that are His; the second, as THE APPEARING, i.e., His manifestation to the world.

— “Behold He cometh with the clouds.” The Second Advent of our Lord is a vital part of Christian testimony, and never more needed to be insisted upon than now, especially in light of the solemn reflection that both the Church and the world are about to enter on their final phases of accumulated guilt before being dealt with in sharp judgment. But it is essential to distinguish the two distinctive parts into which the Coming divides. There is a class of passages, confined to the New Testament, which directly refer to the Coming of the Lord for His saints, as John 14:3; Philippians 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17; and 1 Corinthians 15:23. But there is another set of texts, common to both Testaments, which as distinctly teach the Coming with the saints, as Jude 14; Zechariah 14:5; Colossians 3:4; and Revelation 19:11-14. Now, while both these aspects of the one Coming of our Lord should be increasingly pressed on the earnest attention of Christians as a part, and by no means the least important of the faith of God’s elect, yet the second part or stage of the Coming is the one referred to here. The former, i.e., the Translation of all saints at the epoch of the Lord’s descent into the air (1 Thess. 4:17) necessarily precedes the latter, i.e., His Coming with His saints (Jude 14) and angels (Matt. 25:31).

Here, then we have the mystery of His coming, the secret rapture of the saints by which they are taken from earth to meet Christ in the air, that they may be with Him when He comes.

Having then established that when the Lord returns it is to fetch His own, whether they have previously died, or are living still upon the earth, according to His word" If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself" (John 14:3)-we may now consider the manner of His coming, as well as the rapture of the saints. The most precise instruction is given to us upon the subject in a scripture already referred to, but which may now be quoted at large. "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" (go before, or anticipate) "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." (1 Thess. 4:13-17.) The bearing of this important passage is sometimes overlooked from inattention to its exact statements. The Thessalonian saints did not doubt concerning their portion in Christ on His return; but, somehow or other, they had fallen into the error of supposing that those who had fallen asleep before that event would suffer loss. It is to correct this mistake that the apostle gives some special instruction "by the word of the Lord," i.e. by a revelation upon this particular subject. He shows, then, that all who sleep in (or through, dia) Jesus, God will bring back with Him, that this indeed is connected with our faith in, and is a consequence of, the death and resurrection of Christ. Thereon he explains how this is possible, and this explanation it is which formed the subject of the special revelation to which we have alluded. The Lord will come, and then the dead in Christ will be raised, the living changed, and thus will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, etc.

Unless we are prepared to argue that words do not mean what they stand for, or that the Lord uttered vain words when He gave this revelation to His servant Paul, we must believe that the moment is coming when the dead in Christ will be raised up, and with them millions of people, the whole of the blood-bought church, gathered out of every nation, tribe, and tongue, will be caught up from the earth to meet the Lord in the air, to be for ever with Him. They will disappear suddenly and completely from every place, condition and pursuit, in which they have lived, to be seen no more by the world until they return with Him to reign over the earth.

Q. — If the Church is with the Lord, caught up to Him at His coming, how can any Christian love or look for His subsequent appearing? 1 Tim. 6:14; 2 Tim. 4:8; Titus 2:13. So, 1 Thess. 2:19; 5:23 seem to teach, not a secret previous coming for Christians, but the same as 1 John 2:28; Rev. 1:7; Mark 8:38. So that revelation, appearing, and coming seem to me synonymous and synchronical. A resurrection from out of the dead and a change of the living saints visibly going up to meet the Lord seems to me a more sober idea, if I may speak, and to do less violence to ordinary scripture statement, than a secret rapture, which seems to be both unnecessary and based on a very few and not very distinct scriptures. They are all (as I think) the same event, though many acts are folded up therein. J. L.

Now it is plainly revealed. We shall not all "sleep" (i.e. die) but we shall all be changed, whether alive or dead at the moment when the Lord comes for His saints. The change will involve the swallowing up of all that is mortal or corruptible about us, in life and in victory. We shall "all be changed," you notice, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" — not in many, or at least several, different moments, as would be the case if by a partial rapture, or series of partial raptures, the church is destined to enter into its glory.

The mighty change will be wrought instantaneously by the power of God, at the "last trump." In verse 29 believers were considered as soldiers stepping into the ranks by baptism to take the places of their fallen comrades. In verse 52 we see them all — whether in the ranks still, or fallen out of them by death — put, in one moment at the last trump, beyond death and corruption. Their warfare will be over. They will never need another trumpet blast for ever!

One shall be taken and the other left. — In describing the judgment at the coming of the Son of man, the Lord says, "Then two shall be in the field, the one shall be taken and the other left" (Matt. 24:40-41). At a first glance some have thought that this was like the rapture of the church, but it is exactly the converse. At the rapture the saints are caught away, and the world is left to proceed in its course. But when the Lord comes to the judgment of the living upon the earth, the taking away is in judgment, and the righteous are left to pass into blessing upon the earth at the millennium. This is plain from the parallel passage in Luke 21. There, speaking of the same judgment, the Lord states that "as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth"; and the disciples are exhorted to watch and pray that they "may be accounted worthy" — not to be caught away into heaven, but — "to stand before the Son of man"; that is, when He comes to the earth and the wicked are taken away in judgment. The judgment, however, is strictly discriminatory, wholly different from what takes place in the slaughter and sack of cities after conquest. Whether men in the field, or women at domestic operations, one is' taken and another left. Sudden it may be, but it is judicial.