It is slightly ironic that there is so much controversy surrounding the rapture considering that the word “rapture” never even appears in the Bible. For me personally, the rapture held all sorts of interest and fear in my university days. I wasn’t following Jesus or attending church at that time. I knew that I was living a sinful life and that if Jesus did return, I was convinced that I would be “left behind”. I can still remember vivid nightmares of being left behind, crawling around in black lava rock caves, fire and lava all around, trying desperately to find a place to hide and escape. Yes, most of this was my subconscious mind working out all the guilt that I had for not following Jesus and living a wrong lifestyle, yet it revealed my fascination with the rapture.
Even though I wasn’t going to church and almost never read my Bible, there was one book that I actually did read: Revelation. Movies about the seven signs with Demi Moore didn’t help my eschatology, but they did fuel my paranoia. Some weekends I would come home from university to spend the weekend at my parent’s house. They are very committed Christians, and if I returned home and no one was there, I would panic. I was certain that I had been left behind and had missed the rapture. Maybe some of you can identify.
The concept of the rapture is based on the passage in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. The Thessalonians are worried that Christians who have already died will miss the rapture. This is mainly due to their Greek view that there is no resurrection from the dead (bodily that is). Paul wants to comfort them by letting them know, “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” When the Bible was translated into Latin, the word chosen to translate “caught up” was the word we get the English word rapture from. The Greek word harpazo has the implications of being “caught up, seized, or taken”. The Latin word rapio which was chosen unfortunately is the same root word where we also get the English word “rape”. Yikes!
From the King James to the New American Standard Bible, they all use “caught up”, so I guess we should call this the catching up debate (just not as snazzy as the rapture, huh?). As you can see, the 1 Thessalonians passage doesn’t give enough detail to give much warning or specifics on when the rapture will happen. It is simply the trumpet call and loud voice, and the next thing we know, we are all meeting Jesus in the air in our new bodies. No wars mentioned, earthquakes, years of tribulation, anti-Christs, or anything! Unfortunately, Revelation doesn’t mention this “catching up” as Paul describes, so some people try to find passages in Revelation that might fit.
The pre-tribulation rapture folks look at Revelation 4:1 where John is told to “Come up here” to heaven as being the rapture of the whole church. Not much in the text to support this at all as only John is mentioned. Mid-tribulation rapture people say that Revelation 11:12 where the two witnesses are resurrected and taken up to heaven is the rapture of the whole church. This might fit the text if you read the 2 witnesses figuratively as the church, but most people who debate the rapture take the 2 witnesses as two literal, end times prophets. Finally, post-tribulation supporters point to Revelation 19:14 and say that since the armies of heaven (Christians) are riding behind Jesus when He returns, we must meet Him in the air as He is coming down. Again, since there is no detail given in any of these passages that really fit with 1 Thessalonians, we must draw implications and infer these conclusions.
Of course, all of this debate over when the rapture happens is only within the one view of the end times we talked about called premillennial dispensationalism. Those who don’t hold to the literal, futurist view simply believe that the church is “caught up” when Jesus returns. Since they don’t believe that there will be a literal 7 year tribulation before Jesus returns, there is no urgency to determine if the rapture will happen before, in the middle of, or after the suffering in that specific time frame.
Having fun yet? Waiting for the part where it really hits home? Recall Jesus’ words to His disciples in Mark 13:32-33, “ “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.” Our main role as the church is to be watchful and be doing the Father’s business until Jesus returns. We may not know when, but we are assured that it WILL happen, and those of us who are Christians are going for a ride on the Jesus express. It is a one way ticket to heaven, and we are sitting in the first class seats of our new glorified bodies. All aboard!
The Bible Nerd 