Welcome back to All About the Rapture. Today, we are going to focus on one of the main details of the pre-Tribulation rapture: our disappearance. The traditional pre-Tribulation rapture belief says that, at the rapture, Christians everywhere will disappear. At some point in the future, without any notice, Jesus will appear in the sky with a shout, and every living Christian, everywhere in the world, will disappear. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, every living Christian will instantly receive a new, spiritual body and will instantly be removed from the planet to meet Jesus in the air. Then, at light speed, we’ll be whisked back to Heaven where we will live for seven years while the Tribulation Period plays out on Earth. When we disappear at the rapture, the world will not know what happened to us. They will not know where we went. They will not have seen Jesus appear in the sky, they will not have heard His shout. They will not have seen our transformation, and they will not have seen us go. Suddenly, without any notice or explanation, we will have just vanished.
That’s the pre-Tribulation rapture. And though it’s the common teaching in many churches – especially here in America- it may surprise you to know that the Bible doesn’t actually say most of it. While the Bible does say that Jesus will appear in the sky with a shout, and we will instantly receive new bodies, and we will rise to meet Him in the air, we don’t disappear. The Bible never says that we disappear. In fact, the rapture is a visible event. Today, we are going to look at what exactly the Bible says about the rapture and how it unfolds.
There are two main passages in the Bible that tell us about the rapture: 1 Corinthians 15:50-52 and 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18. Both passages are located in the New Testament, and both were written by the Apostle Paul. We’ve discussed them before in previous posts, and we’re going to look at them in more detail today. Here they are:
1 Corinthians 15:50-52
50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption.
51. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed –
52. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (NKJV)
1 Thessalonians 4:14-18
14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
15. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.
16. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
17. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
18. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (NKJV)
As you can see, while the Bible does say that we will receive new bodies ( 1 Corinthians 15), and it does say that we will meet Jesus in the air (1 Thessalonians 4), it does not say that we disappear. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we will be changed. The dead will be resurrected with their new bodies first, and then, instantly, we will be changed, too. It is an instantaneous transformation, but there is no talk of it being a transformation that leaves us invisible, or a transformation that makes us disappear.
In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul talks about another aspect of the rapture: our meeting Jesus in the air. Paul says that the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we Christians who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. However, being “caught up” is not a instantaneous event, and again, there is no mention of us disappearing.
Now let’s take a closer look at the phrase “caught up”. In the original language, the word Paul uses for “caught up” is harpazo. The word harpazo can be translated several different ways, including to lift, to seize, to snatch, to draw up, to be caught up, to transport, and to rapture. And although the translators of the Bible chose to use the phrase “caught up” when they translated the word harpazo, any of the other words could have been used instead. Any of the other words would have been an acceptable substitute. And here’s my point: as you can see, none of those words mean or suggest instantaneousness or an event that happens so fast that, for all intents and purposes, we disappear. They could have used any of the words I mentioned. They could have used the word lifted, seized, snatched, drawn up, etc., and none of those words would have meant or implied disappearing, vanishing, teleporting, or any other kind of instantaneous act. There is nothing fantastic about any of those words. To the contrary, each word is a normal word. They are each action words that take a certain amount of time to carry out. So, when we are “caught up” to meet Jesus in the air, it will take a certain amount of time for it to happen.
How long, you ask? A few moments? A few minutes? Well, we don’t know because the Bible doesn’t say. It will probably be quick, but it will not be instantaneous because Paul did not use a word or phrase that means instantaneous. Remember, when Paul wrote, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye…”, he was writing about our transformation. He wrote “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye…we shall be changed.” Then, at another time, in another letter, while writing to an entirely different group of Christians (the Thessalonians), describing an entirely different aspect of the rapture (our being reunited with our deceased loved ones), he wrote that we will be “caught up” to meet the dead in Christ and Jesus in the air. In other words, we will be lifted up, transported, seized, snatched, etc. And that act will not be instantaneous because Paul did not say – neither did he imply nor suggest – that it would be.
What this means is that as we are transformed and lifted up to meet Jesus in the air, it will be visible. The unsaved world will see us as we receive our new bodies and as we rise to meet Jesus. We will not disappear. We will not suddenly vanish. And there is absolutely no mention in the Bible of us doing so. When pre-Tribulationists say that, at the rapture, Christians everywhere will disappear and no one will know where we went, they are wrong. They are wrong because they are misinterpreting 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4. They read where Paul writes, in 1 Corinthians 15, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye”, and they apply that to Paul’s other description of the rapture, found in 1 Thessalonians 4, where Paul is talking about our meeting Jesus in the air. They combine these passages in an erroneous way and they come up with a description of the rapture that says that, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we disappear and instantly meet Jesus in the air with brand new bodies. But Paul did not say that! Paul did not say that we instantly leave Earth and meet Jesus in the air. He said that we are instantly transformed, but that we are caught up to meet Jesus in the air. They are not the same thing. Each is a separate and distinct aspect of the rapture. And both are visible.
Keep in mind that when we study the rapture, we are, of course, supposed to put the two passages of 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4 together in order to get a clearer picture of the event. But what we are not supposed to do is take one descriptive element of one of the passages and blindly apply it to the other. When we put these passages together, we must make sure that we maintain the integrity of each passage. When Paul says, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye…we shall be changed”, then that is what he means. And when he says that we shall be “caught up… to meet the Lord in the air”, then that is what he means. We must make sure that we do not mix and match the details of the passages and come up with some weird, hybrid teaching that says that we are all going to disappear and instantly leave the planet and secretly meet Jesus in the air. That is not at all what the apostle Paul wrote. And, like I said, while we are supposed to put the passages together, we cannot break them into little pieces and then reconstruct them in a way that makes the word of God say something that it doesn’t say. And the Bible does not say that we disappear.
In fact, it is only when you remove the erroneous idea of disappearing from the equation that you can start to understand what the rapture really is. You will understand that the rapture is a visible event, and that it happens at the Second Coming. When Jesus descends from heaven with a shout, the world will see it and hear it. And when we Christians are instantly transformed, the world will see it. And when we are lifted up to meet Jesus, the world will see it, too. The world will know exactly what’s happening. They will see us as we leave and they will know exactly where we have gone. They will see us as we are reunited with Jesus and they will have the revelation of knowing exactly who He is and what they are missing out on. That is why, in Revelation 1:7, John writes that the tribes of the earth will mourn: it is because they will finally realize that Jesus is Lord, and that not only has he returned to save the Jews from the anti-Christ and to establish His millennial kingdom, but He has come back for His church, and they have missed out on it.
And that is what the rapture is: it is the time when Jesus is reunited with His church. It is not an event to be done in secret as the pre-Tribulationists would have you believe. It’s not a time of confusion and uncertainty, of the world wondering where all the Christians have gone. It’s a time of joy and victory and triumph for believers. It’s the time when Jesus rises from His throne, leaves Heaven, and comes to Earth to redeem His bride. It is not an event to be taken lightly and it is not an event to be done in secret. It is an event to be done in the light of day, to be held high for all the world to see. It is not a stealth operation and it is not a secret. It is part of the Second Coming. It is the time when Jesus announces His authority over the world and announces us as His own.
That’s all for today. I hope you’re starting to see that the rapture is part of the Second Coming. I know that this is probably a different teaching than you’ve heard at church, but this is a message that Christians need to hear. The Bible shows, in so many ways, that Christians will have to live through the Tribulation Period and that the rapture will not happen until the Tribulation Period is over. Christians need to start mentally and spiritually preparing themselves for that so that they are not caught off guard when the events of the book of Revelation start happening. But I know that accepting a new teaching can take time, so I encourage you to take some time and become as familiar as possible with the subject matter. Keep reading my messages, review the past posts on this website, and read your Bible. Look up all the verses and passages that I’ve cited, and read the surrounding verses and chapters, as well. I really believe that the more you look into this, the more you will see that the Bible does support a post-Tribulation rapture. See you next time!
Julie J
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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