Is the Rapture Real?
When harmonizing Paul's letters to the Thessalonians debunks Dispensational eschatology.
“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. 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.”
– 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
Gustave Doré, “The Triumph Of Christianity Over Paganism“ (c.1899). Oil on canvas.
The pre-tribulation rapture is held by Evangelicals of all stripes—Baptists, Pentecostals, Charismatics—to be an immutable doctrine beyond rebuke. It is, for all intents and purposes, an eschatological fact. Evangelical dogma, you could say.
For many congregants, then, to contend against, or to even question, the pre-tribulation rapture is to oppose the clear reading of Scripture and, therefore, the authority of God’s Word. Speculation of your sincerity, skepticism of your spiritual walk in Christ, and concerns for your liberalism and doctrinal discernment abound. Granted, there are many teachers who push too far and condemn the rapture wholesale, emphatic that it is illusory, a symptom of Charismania. But only to a point. These teachers mistakenly reduce the term rapture to the ‘pre-tribulation rapture’ alone because the two terms are synonymous in our Evangelicalized Western context. (It is, after all, a belief that is not taught anywhere outside the West until recently.) This approach, frankly, muddies the water because, if pressed, those who oppose the pre-tribulation rapture are not opposed to a post-tribulation rapture at the moment Christ returns. In other words, we all agree that the rapture will happen—it is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.
So, will the rapture take place before the Great Tribulation?
I, for one, was raised to believe it was before.
But, I have come to the conclusion that this view is deeply mistaken.
Scriptural evidence leans heavily to the latter.
First Order Things
The English word rapture is a variation of the Latin translation rapturo, derived from the Greek word harpazō, which means, “to seize,” “to carry off by force,” or “to snatch out or away”. It is often translated to English in many different ways, such as “caught up” (1 Thess. 4:17), “carried away” (Acts 8:39), “plundered” (Matt.12:29), “taken by force” (Matt.11:12), and so on. Harpazō is not an isolated term in the text used only for a single special event, especially one that warrants a definite article, that is to call it the rapture, but is used in several different contexts, both positive and negative, and not just in reference to the church of true believers being “caught up” with Christ in the air, but also the reverse, when the crowd attempts to seize (harpazō) Jesus and make him king (John 6:15), or when Satan snatches away (harpazō) weak belief sown in people’s hearts (Matthew 13:19). We would never teach that Satan raptures people, would we? Or that God raptures the wicked? Well, Scripture does present a twofold rapture, one for the righteous and one for the wicked (cf. Matt. 24:39-42, 25:31-33, Rev.14:14-20), which I will touch on a bit below.
Now it is plain that there are bodily rapture-like events recorded in Scripture. Consider when the Spirit “raptured” Philip immediately after he baptized an Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza and brought him Azotus near Caesarea (Acts 8:39), and when Paul described a man who was “raptured” into the third heaven, “whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.” (2 Cor. 12:2-4) Also, Enoch and Elijah are two notable OT figures who were taken by God before death (Genesis 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11). There is precedent in the text for a bodily rapture.
Again, no one disagrees with this. Where the Dispees do disagree with everyone else is on the timing of it all. Premillennial Dispensationalism affirms the rapture is a distinct event that precedes the climactic triumphal entry of Christ’s return and will take place sometime during or after the Great Apostasy (1 Timothy 4:1-5, 2 Timothy 3:1-13), which is before the Great Tribulation and before the antichrist reveals himself in the third Temple in Jerusalem after three-and-a-half years (which is mid-tribulation).
But this causes tremendous difficulties with basic interpretation.
Letters to the Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians 2 is, perhaps, the most difficult passage to reconcile for the pre-tribulation rapture, if not, dispensationalism as a whole.
In Paul's first two letters to the Thessalonians, he extols their perseverance in the faith. He is emphatic that they are a truly faithful, steadfast, God-fearing church, who is being sanctified by God for salvation (2 Thess. 2:13). He is not concerned for their spiritual health. They are not a 'problem church' like the Corinthians, Galatians, or what have you. They are a good and healthy church, a persecuted church even, the kind of church who would be raptured (1 Thess. 1:2-8; 2 Thess. 1:3-5). He even encourages them by that fact when he references the great harpazō to come in his first letter:
“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. 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. 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. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18)
Later, in 2 Thessalonians 2, a false teaching spreads to the Thessalonians that Christ has already returned, and as you would imagine, many of them are worried about it. Paul, however, extols and encourages these same believers that the coming of Christ and the rapture has not yet happened, and so they need not worry about these false claims that Christ returned.
“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him [the rapture], we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.” (vv.1-3a)
Notice that he places “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” before “our being gathered together to him”, that is the rapture, and that he unifies the two so-called distinct events under one banner: “the day of the Lord” (v.3). He did not separate the two events.
Now, his reason why they should not be alarmed that the day of the Lord has come, is that they have not yet witnessed or experienced two eschatological facts: (a) the rebellion or apostasia, which is the Great Apostasy, and (b) the revealing of the antichrist.
“Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?” (vv.3b-5)
Notice what Paul is saying, here. The remaining believers will be caught up together, that is raptured, with the saints of the first resurrection in the clouds to meet Christ, but this rapture will not happen until the Great Apostasy and the antichrist is revealed first. This order of events aligns with the Olivet Discourse: Christ describes that tribulation happens in conjunction with apostasy (Matt. 24:9-14), and that “there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be” alongside many false prophets and false messiahs who arise before His second coming (Matt. 24:21-27)
The Timing of the Antichrist
The Great Tribulation happens in conjunction with the Great Apostasy. The Great Tribulation and Great Apostasy happen before the antichrist is revealed. The antichrist is revealed before the day of the Lord, that is his second coming and our being gathered together to him.
In other words, Paul encourages those who should be raptured not to worry about people claiming the second coming and, thus, rapture has already happened because they have not seen the antichrist yet, who is only revealed when “he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God”. Most pre-tribulation advocates place this event during peacetime, about 3.5 years, also referred to as 42 months or 1,260 days in Revelation 11:2-3, after the Great Tribulation.
Therein lies problem: The pre-tribulation rapture teaches just the opposite; it teaches that you will not see the antichrist before he is revealed because you will be raptured already.
But what did Paul say?
Well, Paul did not say, “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, do not fret, for you will be caught up in the air before His coming and, then, the antichrist will be revealed.” Certainly, he expects those “who are alive, who are left,” to go through the events and witness it. Hence, his final exhortation on the matter to his beloved Thessalonians is about perseverance and steadfast courage in trusting their word:
“So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” (2 Thess. 2:15)
You will see the antichrist.
And when you do, Christ will return and defeat him:
“And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.” (2 Thessalonians 2:8)
First Christ Descends, Then We Ascend.
Now compare that passage to Paul’s earlier teaching in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-16, “[W]e who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep” (v.15). The rapture is not just for those who are on earth, it is for all his saints throughout all of time. He goes on, “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.” (v.16) Notice the order of events and what is to happen first: (1) Christ will descend from heaven, meaning his second coming will happen first, and then (2) the dead in Christ will rise first, meaning we will not precede those who have fallen asleep but will witness the first resurrection, and (3) as those who are still alive, who are left, then we along with the first resurrected saints will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Now, compare that eschatological description to the very words of Christ’s about His second coming:
“For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. 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. 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. 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.” (Matthew 24:24-31)
After the Great Tribulation, Christ returns in a blinding flash of light (v.27), and then he gathers his chosen people from all over the world (v.31). Also notice that his second coming has a “loud trumpet call”, which parallels Paul’s description, “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.” Paul retells this same order in his letter to the Corinthians:
“Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)
The dead in Christ will rise first, right? The order of events, as described by both the apostle Paul and Jesus Christ, is very clear: The coming of Christ inaugurates the great harpazō. As Christ descends, then we ascend. First He returns, then He raptures.
“When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:4)
If we, then, harmonize Paul’s prophecy and the Olivet Discourse with Revelation, details about the order of events align: When Christ gathers his elect from the four winds it includes the dead in Christ who have fallen asleep. Therefore, the rapture includes the first resurrection. The apostle John also affirms this order of events in Revelation: The Great Tribulation happens first, then the antichrist is revealed, and then Christ returns. And when He returns, He defeats the antichrist, seizes the wicked, and raptures His saints.
“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war…. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur…. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” (Revelation 19:11,19-20, 20:4-6)
Those who stood firm and refused to worship Satan, those who were not fooled by the antichrist, those who did not get the mark of the beast, those who persevered till the end, are resurrected immediately at the beginning of the millennial reign of Christ. Paul says that “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command… And the dead in Christ will rise first.” Paul, John, and Jesus are all describing the very same moment when Christ returns and the millennial reign begins.
To this effect, and for something to chew on, we should reconsider taking Peter’s words a little more literally when he says, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8) For if the Day of the Lord is a thousand years, and a thousand years is the Day of the Lord, then both the literal thousand-year millennial reign of Christ and the literal Day of judgment can both be true (cf. Revelation 1:7). A little bit of time dilation never hurt anyone; perhaps I’ve let science fiction get the best of me… or have I?! For another day.
The Day of Wrath is the Day of the Lord
Now, concerning Christ’s second coming, it is also clear in the text that Christ’s return inaugurates the Day of Judgment, as well. This is stated in the beginning of Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, who are being persecuted for their faith:
“This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire [cf. Jude 1:14], inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.” (2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, emphasis added.)
Those of the second resurrection who did not partake in the first resurrection “will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints” (vv.9-10). We, the saints, await the day of Christ’s inevitable return and subsequent judgment. This clearly encapsulates the glorious rapture and the day of wrath as one single event under one banner: The Day of the Lord.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.” (Matthew 25:31-33)
When Christ returns, He inflicts vengeance! (v.8) His wrath comes with his return—not before. Christ comes to judge the earth at His second coming, the righteous and the wicked (Rev. 19:11-21; cf. Rev. 20:7-10). The Day of judgment is the Day of the Lord, when the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of a loud trumpet call, which is the trumpet of God.
It is a battle cry! The sound of victory!
“And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” (1 Thessalonians 1:10; cf. Revelation 3:10)
Again, it plainly reads like there is a twofold rapture or two “seizings” happening at the same time: one for the righteous and one for the wicked, one for the sheep and one for the goats, one for the Ark and one for the flood. There is no precedent to teach the rapture is an isolated event for the righteous alone.
“Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.” So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped.” (Revelation 14:14-16)
Immediately after Christ returns coming on the clouds of heaven, (Matthew 26:64; Acts 1:9-11; Revelation 1:7; Zechariah 12:10), His angels harvest people of the earth, including the wicked:
“Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse's bridle, for 1,600 stadia.” (Revelation 14:17-20)
This passage in Revelation is a direct parallel to Jesus’ parable of the weeds and the wheat: “Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’ (Matthew 13:24-30)
Christ says that after great tribulation people will mourn and faint with fear from what is coming on the world when they “see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” and encourages the reader that “when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:26-28) You see His coming, and vengeance comes with it.
The order of events as described by the apostle Paul and John and our Lord Jesus Christ is all very clear: The Great Tribulation happens first, then the antichrist is revealed, then Christ appears in the heavens, and then He raptures His saints and seizes the wicked and brings the antichrist to nothing. That is not my order of events, that is the Bible’s order of events. First Christ returns, then He raptures. As He descends, then we ascend.
A Second and Third Coming?
Last of all, if we take Paul’s description of the rapture, that “will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” as a literal statement, not as a hyperbolic one, then it actually harmonizes with Christ’s description of His second coming described in Matthew 24 and the inauguration of His millennial reign described in Revelation 20. How so? Christ will bodily descend from heaven so that the world will see Him when they look up, so to speak. Paul says we will meet him “in the clouds” and “in the air” in order to describe an actual concrete event that will happen in the sky, because Christ returns in the same way he left (Acts 1:11). But if we take Paul’s words as a literal statement, then the pre-tribulation requires Christ to descend to earth from heaven and make Himself known across the world before his ‘second’ coming.
“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.” (Matthew 24:30-31)
In other words, in order to believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, you have to believe in a second coming and a third coming. But that strives against the plain literal teaching of Scripture, now doesn’t it?
“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” (Hebrews 9:27-28)
We are not waiting for two more comings of Christ. There is only one second coming. The second coming of Christ and the rapture are woven together as two stages of the same event that happens on the same Day, they are not two distinct, separate events.
That is why all the apostles eagerly await Christ’s return, “Maranatha!” and never prioritize or emphasize “the rapture” over His return because the pre-tribulation rapture is not the sign of His coming—Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, is the sign of His coming—when “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.” Only after Christ descends from heaven for the world to see will He “send out his angels with a loud trumpet call” and “gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” That is why the apostles always, every single time, without exception, emphasize His appearance and coming above and before the rapture (1 Thessalonians 3:13; 5:2, 23; 1 Timothy 6:14; 2 Timothy 4:1,8; 1 Peter 5:4; Matthew 24:42; 1 John 2:28). His return inaugurates the rapture.
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11-13)
Our hope is in His appearance, not our removal.
It marks the end of our dispensation.
Matlock Bobechko | May 16, 2024 – 9:00AM EST. Revised on May 21, 10:52 AM.