What is the Rapture of the Saints?

-

13But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,[a] that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For 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. 17Then 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. 18Therefore encourage one another with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 ESV).

There are some Christians who do not believe that there will be a rapture of the saints. I don't know how they get around the common understanding of these verses. I agree with them that the word rapture is not found in the Bible. The word Raptureis a word we use to describe the Church, the people of God, being caught up to heaven. The English word comes from the Latin word rapere, meaning rapid. The Latin phrase rapereis from the original Greek word, harpazō,translated as “caught up” in the King James Bible and English Standard Version, as in the passage above. Harpazō means: "to strip, spoil, snatch. To seize upon with force; to rob. It is an open act of confiscatory violence. To snatch or tear away, yank away, pluck out of, remove by swiftly and aggressively grasping."[1]There is coming a time when the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout (how those that have refused and scorned His grace and act of love will tremble), and at that instant, we will be snatched from this earth and changed as we are gathered together to be forever with Christ. It goes along with what Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the change in our nature: 

“in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality (1 Corinthians 15:52-53).

This word, changed, what does it mean? That which is on the inside, the real you, the character that God has been working on throughout your life, will someday be revealed. It won't be the same as the old nature that we inherited from Adam; Paul says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50). Our new bodies will no longer be perishable but imperishable (15:53). We won’t all sleep; there will be some who are transformed instantly without going through the death process. This transformation is the rapture or being caught up, whichever word you wish to use. When Christ comes, in a flash, in the batting of an eye’s time, we will be changed from having a perishable body to being clothed with an imperishable body (Verses 51-52). 

 

the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transformour lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body(Philippians 3:20-21 Emphasis mine).

 

Isn’t this your longing and desire, to be like Jesus?—I hope it is. What a wonderful thing. This word translated transformis the Greek word Metaschēmatizō. It is a construction of two Greek words. Metameans a change of place or condition, and schēmameaning shape, or outward form. To transform, change the outward form or appearance of something, refashion, reshape.[2]There is a rapture of the saints at the coming of Jesus, a transformation. That which is on the inside will be revealed—and it will be glorious:

2Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 3Those who are wisewill shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever (Daniel 12:2-3).

Taken from the series The Second Coming of Christ. Click on the study, The Rapture and Day of the Lord.Keith Thomas


[1]Key Word Study Bible, AMG Publishers. 773 Harpazō.

[2]Key Word Study Bible, AMG Publishers, Page 1651.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Organic Union with Christ

-
Image
Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me (John 15:4). If you have come to the place where you have entrusted your life to Christ, at the point of repentance and abandonment to Him (believing), something happened at the core of your being. The Spirit of God came into your life and baptized you into the Body of Christ. Here’s what Paul the apostle wrote: 12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit  so as to form one body —whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). In some unseen mystical way, the Spirit dipped us, soaked and saturated us (that's what the word baptism means) into an organic union with Christ. Notice that Paul the apostle writes that it is not  some ...
Read more

Paul’s 3 Things That Must Happen Before the Rapture

-
1 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and  our being gathered to him , we ask you, brothers and sisters,  2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for  that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.  4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4).   The apostle Paul has received a letter back from the Thessalonian church after his first letter that was in part about the rapture. We know this for he starts out this chapter with the word “concerning.” The Thessalonians had received some communication from some people t...
Read more

The Mistakes of the Five Foolish Virgins

-
Image
We are continuing to look at what Jesus taught about the Last Days and His Second Coming. He told a parable about ten virgins waiting to light up the way for the Bridegroom, a picture of the Lord Jesus in His coming. All ten were asleep before the Bridegroom came, but five had prepared extra oil, while five had nothing extra. They were not expecting that the Bridegroom would be coming so late at night: 7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.  8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’  9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’  10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.  11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’  12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I ...
Read more