One day a pastor was flying home from a speaking engagement. During the flight he observed one of the pilots flirting and chatting it up with one of the women flight attendants. He also noticed that the pilot was wearing a wedding ring and the flight attendant was not. As he watched the couple flirt he had thought. “What if this were the moment that God picked to remove the faithful from the earth, leaving behind only their clothes and a lot of bewildered unbelievers?”
That thought stuck with him so he looked up a writer friend of his when he got home and they came up with a fictional account of what could happen if the LORD returned to earth and suddenly took all Christians to Heaven. The book, of course, is Left Behind … written by Dr. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Left Behind opens with a distraught flight attendant interrupting an airline pilot in mid-flight to report that dozens of their passengers have suddenly disappeared. Clothes and shoes were all that remained where these passengers once sat.
What Dr. LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins depicted in Left Behind is a fictional account or a conjecture of what they thought the “Rapture” might look like when it happens. Let’s hear what the Apostle Paul has to say about the Rapture in his letter to the Christian Community in Thessalonica:
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord Himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from Heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1st Thessalonians 4:13-18).
When Paul and Silas were released from prison in Philippi, they traveled to Thessalonica and stayed there for three Sabbaths. As always, Paul went to the synagogue and began preaching about Jesus Christ, explaining how Christ was the Passover Lamb. Many of the Jews were converted to Christianity, which upset some others, who proceeded to drive Paul and Silas out of the synagogue and ultimately out of the city (Acts 17).
While Paul was preaching in Corinth, a group of believers from Thessalonica approached him and told him that the Christian community in Thessalonica was in uproar and state of confusion over a couple of issues. One had to do with the return of Christ and the other had to do with those who were or would be deceased when Christ came back. Their understanding was that Jesus would come back and claim the living but those who had died … like spouses or parents or children … would be left behind. What if everyone in Thessalonica who had given their lives to Christ when Paul and Silas were there died before Christ came back? And so, Paul wrote this letter to reassure them and give them hope … something that we can use with all the craziness that’s going today, amen?
Now, Paul never did use the word “rapture.” What he did use was the word “harpazo” … which Paul chose because it has several significant meanings. “Harpazo” means “to be caught up” … to “carry off by force.” No surprise but Satan and his demonic buddies are going to do everything they can to thwart God’s plans, amen? They can try to stop Christ from claiming His own, but Christ and His angelic forces will overpower them, obviously, and take them from Satan and his demons’ hands by force.
“Harpazo” also means “to claim for oneself eagerly.” The reason that Jesus will forcibly take us from Satan’s hand is that we are His children, His people, purchased with His life and redeemed by His precious blood. Just as we would fight anyone and anything that tried to take away our children or keep us from them, so Christ eagerly fights to claim us.
Another meaning for the word “harpazo” is “to snatch away speedily.” There will be no long or protracted struggle when Jesus comes to claim His own. He will eagerly snatch them up to Heaven to be with Him and to share in His glory.
And finally, “harpazo” means “to rescue from the danger of destruction.” As Dr. LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins tried to portray in their book, Left Behind, those who are not snatched away will have to suffer through the Tribulation … a time of horror, agony, and devastation like nothing the earth has ever seen before … and the earth has suffered some pretty great horror and agony and devastation … so it’s hard to imagine anything worse than what the world has already suffered. A pretty chilling thought, amen?
Those who are alive when Christ comes, says Paul, will be “harpazo” … claimed by Christ, speedily snatched from the world, and rescued from the danger of destruction. So, where did the word “rapture” come from? The Latin. “Raptio” is the Latin translation of the Greek world “harpazo” … and our word “rapture” is obviously a translation of the Latin word “raptio.” “Raptors,” for example, are birds of prey … like eagles and falcons … who swoop down out of the sky and snatch up their prey with their claws and carry their prey away … which paints a powerful picture of Jesus swooping down out of Heaven to snatch us up in His arms and carry us away to Heaven as Satan and his minions begin to tear the world to pieces and destroy it. As Jesus told the Christian community in Philadelphia, “Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world” (Revelation 3:10).
So … let’s take a quick look at what Jesus is “catching” or “snatching” us from. According to the Book of Revelation, a political leader will emerge in the tribulation that follows Jesus’ rapture of the church who will broker a peace in the Middle East between Israel and her Arab neighbors and the world will be deceived into believing that this leader is the greatest peacemaker in history … only to discover the Antichrist’s true nature and purpose. He, the Antichrist, says Paul, “will oppose and will exalt himself over every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the Temple of God, declaring himself to be God” (2nd Thessalonians 2:4). Thus begins the great Tribulation described in graphic detail in the Book of Revelation.
As you may recall, the Disciples asked Jesus what the signs would be of His coming or return. Since, in Jesus’ own words, there would be many false prophets and many cataclysmic events after He left, the Disciples also wanted to know how they could tell if it was … quote … “the end of the age” (Matthew 24:3). “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars,” said Jesus, “see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but then is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places; all this is but the beginning of birth pangs” (Matthew 24:6-8). In the end, however, says Jesus, no one will know the hour or the day, not even the angels of Heaven or the Son. “For as in those days before the flood they are eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all way, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore,” Jesus told them, “for you do not know on what day your Lord is come” (Matthew 24:38-42).
Just as Jesus died and rose from the dead, Paul explains to the Thessalonians, “through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have died” (1st Thessalonians 4:14) and those “who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever” (v. 17). I hope you listened carefully. As one Bible scholar observed, Jesus comes to earth twice. First, when He was born. The second time He will bring a divine or Heavenly army with Him to defeat the Antichrist. Jesus doesn’t come down to earth during the Rapture. We are “caught up” into the clouds where we will meet Jesus and be with Him forever. As John Walvoord explains it: “The Rapture is a movement from earth to Heaven. The Second Coming is a movement from Heaven to earth” (Walvoord, J.F. The Final Drama: 14 Keys to Understanding the Prophetic Scriptures. Grand Rapids: Kregel Pub.; 1993; p. 70).
The distinction between the Rapture and the Second Coming is important. In 1st Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul says that the Rapture will happen in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (v. 52). There will be no signs … no warning. It will happen faster than the blink of an eye. A Greek scholar once posited that a “twinkle” of the eye was the time it took for light to travel from the front of your eyeball. through your eye, and strike your optic nerve and register that light, which travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, had struck and entered your eye. The average distance from your cornea to your optic nerve is about 24 millimeters … so it only takes light .6 nanoseconds to go from the front of your eye to the back. That is one-sixth of a billionth of a second. So, in a moment, in the “twinkle” of the eye … in one-sixth of one billionth of a second … the Rapture will have come and gone.
In that moment, in that split second, says Jesus, “two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left” (Matthew 24:40-41). In his book, The Rapture, Dr. LaHaye tries to imagine what that will be like:
“When Christ calls His living saints to be with Him, millions of people will suddenly vanish from the earth. An unsaved person who happens to be in the company of a believer will know immediately that his friend has vanished. There will certainly be worldwide recognition of the fact, for when more than one-half of a billion people suddenly depart this earth, leaving their earthly belongings behind, pandemonium and confusion will certainly reign for a time. A million conversations will end midsentence. A million phones … will suddenly go dead. A woman will reach for a man’s hand in the dark … and no one will be there. A man will turn with a laugh to slap a colleague on the back and his hand will move through empty air. A basketball player will make a length-of-the-floor pass to a teammate streaking down the court and find there is no one there to receive it. A mother will pull back the covers in a bassinet, smelling the sweet baby smell one moment but suddenly kissing empty space and looking into empty blankets” (LaHaye, T. The Rapture: Who Will Face the Tribulation. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Pub.; 2002; p. 39).
“But about that day and hour,” says Jesus, “no one knows, neither the angels of Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:36). The Christians in Thessalonica thought that Jesus’ return was going to be “immediate.” Paul explains to them that Jesus’ return was “imminent” … that it could happen today, right now during this church service … or it could take years. Like Jesus said, we don’t know the hour or the day, the week, the year, or the century, amen? “The English word ‘imminent’”, says Bible scholar Renald Showers, “comes from the Latin verb ‘immineo, imminere,’ which means to ‘overhang’ or ‘project.’ In light of this,” he says, “the English word ‘imminent’ means ‘hanging over one’s head, ready to befall or overtake one; close at hand in its incidence’. … Other things may happen before the imminent event, but nothing else must take place before it happens. If something else must take place before an event can happen,” says Showers, “that event is not imminent. … When an event is truly imminent, we never know exactly when it will happen” (Showers, R. Maranatha – Our Lord, Come! A Definitive Study of the Rapture of the Church. Bellmawr, NJ: Thee Friends of Israel Ministry; 1995; p. 127).
The Rapture will come in a split second and swoop up all the faithful to be with Jesus in the clouds. No warning. In fact, the Rapture itself will be a “sign” that the Tribulation is about to begin … and the Tribulation will signal that Christ will come with His Heavenly army to reclaim the earth as His own. Man, this is pretty exciting stuff, amen? According to the Prophet Daniel, the Tribulation will last 7 years, which corresponds to what John heard in his vision. The Tribulation will end when Jesus returns and defeats the Antichrist at Jerusalem. Many people think that “Armageddon” refers to the final cosmic battle. The correct title for that battle would be “The Battle of Jerusalem” since it will take place at Jerusalem. “Armageddon” is the mountain or place about 50 miles north of Jerusalem where the Antichrist will gather his army to attack God’s mountain, Mt. Zion. It will be, as one author put it, “the world’s shortest battle” (Dykes, D. Are You Ready for the Rapture. Posted on Sermon Central, Oct. 9, 2014). Revelation 19 says that Jesus will slay the Dragon’s army with His Word, His truth, that is sharper than any two-edged sword. “Then,” says the Apostle Paul, “the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of His mouth and destroy by the splendor of His coming” (2nd Thessalonians 2:8).
Since we don’t know when the Rapture will happen … since there will be no sign, no warning … guess what? We need to be aware and ready at all times, amen? As St. Augustine advised: “That last day is hidden that every day may be regarded” (Quoted in: Jeremiah, D. Is This the End? Nashville: W Publishing Group; 2016, p. 249).
Two kinds of judgment will take place. Those who are taken up will be those who have a place reserved for them in Heaven. “In My Father’s House there are many dwelling places,” says Jesus. “If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will” what? “… I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:2-4).
This is the first judgment. As one author put it, Jesus’ promise of coming to claim His own “speaks of the Rapture as a family affair reserved solely for those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 251). In 1st Thessalonians 4:13 … Paul’s main passage about the Rapture … he refers to his readers as “brethren” … a familial term or title used in the New Testament to describe a “believer” … describing the brethren as those who “believe that Jesus died and rose again” in verse 14, and then describes the deceased members of the Christian community in verse 16 as dead “in Christ.”
The Rapture will separate the true believers from the non-believers. When Jesus comes a second time, He will come, as we say in the Apostles’ Creed to “judge the quick and the dead.” As one author explained: “The first event that happens in Heaven is the Judgment Seat of Christ. This isn’t a judgment about who is saved and lost; this will be the time when rewards and crowns will be given. But don’t think you’ll be wearing a crown for eternity,” says Pastor David Dykes, “because the Bible says we’re going to cast our crowns at the feet of Jesus” (Ibid.; p. 3). While we sit down to a glorious wedding feast with Jesus, the earth will be experiencing great suffering “such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be” (Matthew 24:21). “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him,” says Jesus, “then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He will put the sheep at His right hand and the goats at the left” (Matthew 26:31-33). I believe that the Rapture is that moment, for Jesus will have literally separated His sheep from the goats and the goats, well, the “Son of Man will send His angels, and they will collect out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:41-42).
“For the Lord Himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from Heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first” (1st Thessalonians 4:16) … then, says Paul, “we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up” … harpazo … raptio … “in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever” (v. 17). How can the “dead in Christ” rise before we who are alive? The Greek word that Paul uses for “dead” literally means “asleep.” It suggest that those who are “dead” are not “dead” but have merely “fallen asleep.” This concept of “falling asleep” is used in the New Testament to refer only to the death of a believer in Christ … never to describe the death of an unbeliever. Why is that? Because non-believers are dead and stay dead for all eternity but believers will be “resurrected.” “The Bible views the death of believers as a temporary suspension,” says Bible scholar Dr. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum. “Just as physical sleep is a … temporary suspension of physical activity until one awakens, yet there is no suspension of mental activity,” he explains, so is death for the believer … “it is a temporary suspension of physical activity until one awakens at the resurrection. … There is no cessation of spirit-soul activity,” says Fruchtenbaum, “only physical activity” (Fruchtenbaum, A.G. The Footsteps of the Messiah: A Study of the Sequence of Prophetic Events. San Antonio: Ariel Press; 2004; p. 144). I love the way one author put it:
“You and I set our alarm clocks every night expecting to awaken in the morning. If we die before Christ’s return, we know that one day our bodies will be awakened by the alarm clock of our Lord’s coming in the clouds” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 257).
The Thessalonians were not the only ones concerned about the resurrection of the dead … apparently the Christians in Corinth were wondering the same thing. “But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” (1st Corinthians 15:35). In fact, I get asked this question a lot when it comes to the matter of cremation. As I always like to point out, a believer who died a hundred years ago is nothing but a pile of bone, right? There is no flesh, no heart, no internal organs, no eyes, no brain. They are gone and yet they do still exist … just in the form of molecules spread out all over the earth. Some of my molecules may end up being part of a fish, others part of a tree or swimming about in the ocean or floating about in the breeze until they get breathed in by some person or animal and I become a part of them for God knows how long … until they either breath them out or sweat them out or sneeze them out or they die and their molecules drift about to become part of a fish or a tree … just as the molecules that were used to make me came from many different sources. The “law of conservation” says that there is only matter and energy in the universe. Matter can be converted into energy but energy can never be created or lost … it can only be changed from one form to another.
I tend to agree with Paul. God created these bodies that we live in right now. Since the “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (1st Corinthians 50), then God will replace these bodies … in the twinkle of an eye … with new bodies … spiritual bodies. “Listen,” says Paul, “I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die” … hear that? “We will not all die, but we will ALL be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” (1st Corinthians 15: 51-52; emphasis mine). Both living and the dead … the dead first … will be given new bodies … imperishable bodies … immortal bodies that will never grow frail or feeble or sick.
Think about what Paul is saying for a moment. The Christians in Paul’s day, just like Christians today, wonder if they will meet their loved ones in Heaven and whether we will recognize each other or not. Well, says Paul, your loved ones … like your grandparents or parents … siblings like my two brothers who are currently “asleep” … will not only be resurrected but will be “caught up” before me so that when I get to Heaven they will already be there. That, my friend, is wonderful news … can I get an amen?
Even though Paul doesn’t mention it in his first letter to the Christian community in Corinth, what he described as the resurrection of the dead will occur at the Rapture because he describes this transformation as happening at the last trumpet … which the world will hear when the rapture occurs … and what a sad, sad day that will be for those who hear the trumpet and are still here … can I get another amen?
Jesus said that when He has finished preparing a place for us and everything is ready that He would come back for us and bring us to be with Him in Heaven … and when He does that, Paul says that He will “with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, … descend from Heaven” (1st Thessalonians 4:16). When Jesus stood outside of the tomb of His friend, Lazarus, He commanded Lazarus to come forth from the dead (John 11:43). In both cases, the Greek word suggests the tone and volume of voice that a military leader would use when giving a command. As one author put it: “One day the Chief Commander will come out of His heavenly tent and give a shout, a command for the resurrection and the translation to occur” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 253; italics sic.). This will be followed by the thunderous voice of an unnamed archangel … though many, many scholars assume that it will be the thunderous voice of the Archangel Michael, who is God’s Commander in change of His angelic or divine army … and the tone of the scripture would suggest Michael is a likely choice. “If known military procedure can be applied to this situation,” says Dr. Fruchtenbaum, this simply describes “the repetition by the sub-commander of the order … of the chief commander. Jesus gives the shout or command for the program of the Rapture to begin and it is Michael’s task to set it into motion, so he repeats the command” (Ibid., p. 144; italics sic.). The Archangel Michael’s shout at the Rapture may be his command to God’s legions upon legions of angelic warriors to defend His believers … living and sleeping … from Satan’s forces as they “harpazo” or forcibly snatch them out of Satan’s clutches and safely escort them to Heaven the moment that Christ calls them.
The blast of God’s trumpet also paints a military picture. The Romans used a trumpet blast to wake the soldiers up in the morning. A second blast was a call for the soldiers to assemble and receive their orders for the day and the final trumpet was sounded to dismiss the soldiers and send them out to do their duty. Prior to the Rapture, God assembles His angels and gives them their marching orders. The Archangel Michael shouts God’s commands to His troops, and then a trumpet blasts dismisses them so that they can do as God commanded and protect the believers who about to leave earth and join Jesus in Heaven. The shout of Christ is a call for believers to rise from the grave … the voice of the archangel is the sound of protection and safe passage … and the blast of God’s trumpet heralds the ascension of the believers’ into Heaven.
The first thing that will happen is that “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God” (1st Thessalonians 4:16). This will be followed by the resurrection of those who are asleep and those believers who are still living … who will then be redeemed so that our lowly bodies may be “conformed to His glorious body” (Philippines 3:21). God, who is hovering over this universe, will snatch up those who have been resurrected and those believers who are still alive “like particles of iron drawn upward by a magnet, pulled right out of the population, sucked right off the planet” (Jeremiah, Ibid., p. 261). And then there is going to be one incredible reunion where we will all be “caught up in the clouds together … and meet the Lord in the air” (1st Thessalonians 4:17) … where we will be with the Lord forever and ever.
This is all going to happen instantly … in the blink of an eye. No prelude. No preliminaries. No time to get ready. “Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out,” says Jesus. “Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak” (Mark 13:15-16).
What Paul describes reflects the protocol of his day. When a city welcomed a visiting dignitary, the magistrate would go out and meet the visiting dignitary outside the city gate … the idea being to ascertain the intentions of the visitor … good or evil … before letting them into the city where they could scout or do great harm. Satisfied as to the intention of the visitor, the magistrate would then escort their guest through the gates and into the city. In the Rapture, Jesus will come out of Heaven to greet us and escort us into the Heavenly city.
“But we do not want you to be uniformed, brothers and sisters,” Paul writes to the Christians in Thessalonica, “about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. … Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1st Thessalonians 4:13, 18). What comfort do we get from Paul’s words and our awareness of the coming Rapture? As we lose loved ones to death, as we face our own mortality, the Rapture reminds us that death is not final … that they will only be asleep in the Lord until He calls us all together in the clouds. When the time for Jesus’ departure drew near, He reassured His Disciples that His death was not the end of His ministry or His purpose for coming. After His resurrection, He spent 40 more days with His disciples. Over 500 people saw Him in His resurrection body. Then He gathered His Disciples on the top of Mt. Olive and they watched as He ascended Home. He promised that we would one day “ascend” into Heaven to be with Him forever. Then, says Paul, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1st Corinthians 15:54-55).
In 1st John, the Apostle wrote: “And now, dear children, continue in Him, so that when He appears we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming (2:28). Do you live in a state of continual expectancy of the Rapture? During the first century, it is believed that Christians traveling from one city to another would stop at every crossroads and look in all directions in the hopes of seeing Christ coming their way.
Dr. Vance Havner used to tell the story of a young woman who was waiting at a train station for her fiancé. She stood in the station looking, longing, and waiting. The old stationmaster was there as well. He too was watching and waiting for the same train but for a different reason … it was his job. He wasn’t expecting the train in the same way that the bride-to-be was. “May God give us the spirit of that bride rather than the spirit of the stationmaster,” Dr. Havner concluded (www.preceptaustin.org/matthew_2437-42_commentary).
At the end of his book, Maranatha – Our Lord, Come!, author Renald Showers says:
“The fact that the glorified, holy Son of God could step through the door of heaven at any moment is intended by God to be the most pressing, incessant motivation for holy living and aggressive ministry (including missions, evangelism, and Bible teaching) and the greatest cure for lethargy and apathy. It should make a difference in every Christian’s values, actions, priorities, and goals” (Showers, Ibid., p. 256).
Suppose that the Lord Jesus chose this very moment to return. Would you be ready? Are you working for your Lord while it is still day or are you simply waiting passively to be rescued? Our objective as Christians is not merely to be included in the Rapture but to bring as many people with us as we can. Jesus warned us that He could come at any moment and when that moment comes it will come quickly, in the twinkle of an eye, and there will be no time to prepare or get ready. So the question is this: Have you committed yourself to Jesus Christ and submitted to Him as your Lord and Savior? My eternal hope and my ongoing prayer is that neither you nor I get “left behind.”
