TEXT: I Thessalonians 4:13-18

SUBJECT: Eschatology #2: The Rapture

This afternoon, with the Lord’s blessing, we’ll resume the study we began back in November. The title is Eschatology or The Last Things. Some teachers have made the Last Things into the only things—as though the Antichrist or the Tribulation, the Millennium or 666 were more important than the cross, repentance, faith and obedience. They are not! Paul did not preach on the end times nearly as much as he did on Christ and Him crucified. His priorities are the right ones, and we would do well to make them our own.

But in saying this, we mustn’t go to the opposite extreme, of ignoring the Second Coming of our Lord and the events that go with it. These things are also in the Bible and are worth knowing.

The Last Things, in my opinion, should be divided up into two categories: the ones that are plainly revealed in the Bible and the ones that aren’t. Of the former, we have (1) The Second Coming of Christ, (2) the resurrection of the dead, (3) the Last Judgment, (4) heaven, and (5) hell. I have a hard time seeing how anyone could honestly read the Bible and not find these things in it. The Whole Church agrees with me: the Historic Creeds do not touch on every End Time issue, but they all include the ones I have just named.

On these things we should to be kind, patient…and narrow-minded. But on the other things, we ought to be slow to speak, swift to hear, and [especially] slow to wrath. It is stupid and shameful that believers who agree the Lord is coming again split with each other over when He’ll come or in how many stages His coming will be! Remember, the people who disagree with you on these lesser points study the same Bible that you do and are not liars, fools, or idiots!

A couple of years ago, I read two or three dozen books on The Last Things. They did not change my mind at all, but they very much heightened my respect for Christians on the other side of the issues.

The study of Last Things demands hard word, much prayer, and a big dose of humility.

In our last study, we had a look at The Last Days as they are described in the Bible. Much to the surprise of many Christians, the Last Days did not begin with the founding of Israel in 1948 or at a date even more recent, but way back with the coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the First Century.

This means: we’re in the Last Days—but it’s not just we who are in them, but so was John Newton, Martin Luther, St. Augustine, and the Apostle Paul. All Christians, after Pentecost, are Children of the Last Days.

The Last Days will be marked by two things—both taught in the Bible and neither (as far as I can tell) more prominent than the other: The Last Days are times of revival and of apostasy, of great success for the Church and of appalling persecution. Like the wheat and the chaff in the Lord’s parable, both good and evil, grow together. Till the end of the world.

If the Last Days began with the First Coming of Christ, they end with His Second Coming, which is still in the future. When He will come, nobody knows—and we mustn’t speculate. Only that He will come and bring in the Final State of happiness for some and misery for others.

Today’s topic is a lot narrower than this one, thankfully, and is based chiefly on the verses I read to you a few minutes ago, I Thessalonians 4:13-18, and especially, on v.17,

In Latin, the word for caught up is rapio, from which we get our word Rapture. This is what I’m going to talk about today—the Rapture.

The rapture is plainly taught in the Bible. If nowhere else, it is taught here—and no fair reading can say otherwise.

Paul is writing as a pastor and not as a scholar. Thus, he is not offering a complete theology of the End Times. What he’s doing is comforting the disciples who are very, very upset!

What has them pulling out their hair? The Second Coming of Christ. They thought it would occur right away—maybe in the next few weeks or months—and surely not more than a year or two from now. But it didn’t come right away and some of their members died.

They feared their dead friends had missed the Lord’s Return and lost the blessings it would bring. This had them crying their eyes out, as people without hope.

But Paul says the despair is misplaced. Christians who die before the Second Coming are not annihilated, but only asleep in Jesus. When the Lord comes again, He will wake them up with a shout, the voice of an archangel, and the trumpet of God.

Dead bodies will rise from their graves and be re-united with their spirits that have already gone to heaven. And they will have the priority in the Second Coming—the living will by no means precede those who are asleep.

This will account for most Christians—99% of whom will be dead when the Lord comes again. But some won’t be dead at the time. What happens to them? Are left out? Paul says they aren’t.

This is the Bible doctrine of the Rapture and the blessed hope we ought to be looking for.

Thus far there is no dispute. To deny the Rapture is to reject the Second Coming of Christ or to deprive the saints then alive of the blessings the Lord died to secure for them. All Christians believe there will be a Rapture.

Where we differ is on its timing, its purpose and its publicity. But before we get to these, let me remind you: our agreement is far more important than our disagreement. This is not a nuclear war we’re in, but a lovers’ quarrel. In the end, we’ll all kiss and make up.

From the founding of the Church, there have been minor differences in the way we think of the Rapture. But, in 1830 or thereabouts, a major shift took place in the doctrine, and for the last eighty years it has become the standard view of Bible-believing Christians in America—including many popular preachers and fine scholars.

The theology is called Dispensationalism. It affects many Bible doctrines, and none more so than the Rapture. It differs from the older view (and my own) in three big ways:

1. The time of the Rapture. Traditionally, the Rapture is placed at the Second Coming of Christ and the End of the World. Dispensationalists believe the Rapture precedes both: It occurs seven years before the Second Coming and 1007 years before the world is broken and made new.
3. The purpose of the Rapture. Historically, the Rapture is seen as part of the Lord’s victory over His enemies. Christ is coming to conquer His enemies—and all His people are coming with Him (including those who are alive at the time). Dispensationalists say the Rapture serves two, very different ends: (a) it spares the Church from the wrath of God that is about to fall on the earth and (b) it gets the Church out of the way so that Israel—ethnic Jews—can once again be the People of God on earth.
4. The publicity of the Rapture. Before 1830, nearly all Christians thought the Rapture would be a spectacular public event—Every eye will see Him, and so on. But since that time, many have come to believe in a Secret Rapture, that is, secret to the ungodly—they will notice we’re not here anymore, but they’ll hear no trumpet and see no Lord, angels, or saints coming in glory. Thus, what happened to us will be a mystery to them. Maybe the False Prophet will come up with something.

I do not agree with the Dispensational view of the Rapture. My problems with it are many and some of them are too involved to get into at the moment. And so, I have to summarize and leave it to you to evaluate the doctrine for yourself.

My first objection is based on the text of Scripture. To my way of thinking, I Thessalonians 4:13-18 is the only passage in the Bible that plainly teaches the Rapture. Note the word, "plainly"; many other verses are cited, but these are the only ones I find persuasive.

But in reading them, I cannot find the peculiarities others make so much of. I cannot find anything about the Rapture occurring before the end of time. There’s nothing in here about a Tribulation, a Millennium, or anything else you’d like to find to make the Rapture fit the system. There is certainly nothing in it about escaping a tribulation or making way for Israel.

And least of all is there anything that smacks of secrecy! You’d think the Lord’s shout, the voice of an Archangel, and the trumpet of God would make quite a racket!

To me this Rapture sounds a lot like The Second Coming of Christ—and this is precisely what Paul takes up in the eleven verses that follow it. Remember, the Bible had no chapter divisions, but they were put in centuries later to help us. Most of the time, they do, but not this time. There is no break—that I can see—between the Rapture of Chapter 4 and the Day of the Lord in Chapter 5, complete with its unexpected judgments that will fall on the Children of Darkness. You can read it for yourself.

My second problem is theological. Does God have one people or two peoples? In other words, do the Jews have a special claim on God based on the Covenant He made with Abraham?

If they do, perhaps the Church needs to be taken away so that His Older People can be front-and-center. And if the Covenant made with Abraham is not fulfilled, then it will be, it must be—and this might allow for the Rapture of the disciples of Christ who are not Jewish.

So, does the Lord have one unified people or two separate peoples? Some teachers in Galatia said He had two—and even though both were saved, the wall between them had to be kept intact—Jews eat with Jews, the Gentiles with Gentiles. In Galatians 1:6-8, Paul says the men who teach that have perverted the Gospel and are cursed. Even if an angel backs them up!

Dispensationalists agree with my interpretation, but they limit it to The Church Age. For now, there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, but when the Rapture occurs, there will be.

I guess this is possible, but it seems to swim against the current of the New Testament. In place after place, the Apostles emphasize the unity of believers in Christ—whatever their race. What’s more, they apply the images of the Old Testament to the Church. Peter, for example, calls us

Peter is guilty of plagiarism! He got every one of these words out of the Old Testament—both Law and prophets—and said they pertain to the Church.

And so, if the Gospel knocks down the middle wall of partition and if the Church has become the Israel of God, I can’t see why the Lord needs to put up the wall again and fulfill His promises a second time.

I need to say one more thing here, about the Covenant made with Abraham. Not long after 911, I heard a very fine preacher denounce the Muslim world as godless, and the United States as no better—every bit as idolatrous as the terrorists and the people who support them.

I was about to say, Amen! But then he blew it! He said we’re as ungodly as they are, but… "I’d rather be the friend of Israel than its enemy, for `Whoever blesses you, I will bless and whoever curses you, I will curse’, Genesis 12:3".

If the preacher had been speaking as an American who supports Israel, I’d have no problem with him. He’s entitled to his opinion as much as anyone else is. But he was not doing that. He was equating America’s support for Israel to the Covenant made with Abraham as though backing the state of Israel today is the same as blessing the children of Abraham.

It isn’t the same thing! The Lord says unbelieving Jews are not children of God (or of Abraham), but "Of [their] father the devil" (John 8:44). Paul explains the children of Abraham are—in fact—those who share Abraham’s faith in Christ (Galatians 3:7).

Believers in Christ are the seed of Abraham and the promises made to him are fulfilled in us. Every last one of them.

But that leaves one loose end. The spiritual blessings promised to Abraham may be fulfilled in the Church, but what about the other ones—the land and so on? Isn’t that still future to us? And, if the Lord keeps His Word, mustn’t He give Israel a land stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates as He said He would do?

No He doesn’t have to keep that promise—because He has already kept it! I found two verses that say so:

All of the earthly promises made to Abraham and his biological descendants have been kept. And this means, we don’t need a Millennium to make them good—and without that—we don’t need a secret rapture.

My last concern is pastoral. The Secret Rapture makes the Bible way too complicated. It makes us divide the Second Coming into a Second, Third, and Fourth Comings. It makes us unsure of what parts of the New Testament apply to us and what parts to the Tribulation saints, and what parts to the Jews in the Millennium. It cuts us off from 1800 years of Church history. It divides the people Christ died to unite.

I do not think the false view of the rapture is at all helpful. Do many fine Christians believe it? Yes they do, but they’d be even better if they didn’t. Do many fools deny it? Yes they do, but they’d be more foolish if they affirmed it. This is not about character, but about truth.

The true doctrine of the Rapture is a great comfort to the Lord’s People. It means the Lord is coming for us one day—and whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

It also means that Mankind will not destroy itself and the persecution of the Church must fail. If the Lord has people to rapture when He comes, then both the human race and the Elect must still be with us. This means we mustn’t give in to despair or become hysterical at the latest doomsday prediction.

With such a happy hope before us, we should pray for the Lord’s coming and hope for it will occur in our lifetime. Why not? Somebody’s got to be here when He comes. Why not you and me?