Talk about the Rapture

There are a couple of prime texts in the New Testament that refer to the Rapture. The first occurs towards the end of Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth. Here’s what he says: I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—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. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immorality—Paul, I Corinthians 15:50-53. The second is from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. Some in that church had expressed a concern for those of their Christian friends and loved ones who had passed away. When Christ returned, what would happen to them? Here is Paul’s answer: Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 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. Therefore encourage each other with these words—Paul, I Thessalonians 4:13-18. The Greek word for the phrase “caught up” (v. 17) is “harpazo,” which means to snatch up suddenly without warning. The word that Christians most commonly use to refer to this event is the “Rapture”—a word that is actually not found in the Greek New Testament—and for good reason. Author Tim LaHaye (of the “Left Behind” series of books) explains: “Now, the word rapture does not appear in the original Greek New Testament, for it is a Latin word. The Greek word harpazo, which means “caught up” or “snatched up,” was translated to rapturo by Jerome in the Latin Vulgate (a Latin translation of the Bible created from 382-415 AD, and made the official translation for the Catholic Church in the 16th century). Jerome’s word choice caught on, and the term rapture has been used ever since.” That all said, the Rapture is an event in which Christ will call His church—all born-again believers—out of the earth and into heaven, actually meeting Christ, along with all deceased believers now miraculously resurrected, in the air, before they proceed to heaven. This will leave the earth without the church, without the influence of Christians, without the presence of the Holy Spirit in people around the world. This sets the stage for the arrival of the Antichrist, the events of the Tribulation, and the final stages of human history. It will also mean somebody is going to have to explain the sudden disappearance of approximately 15% of the world’s approximately 7.3 billion people (meaning about 1.1 billion people gone “in the twinkling of an eye”). I’d love to know how they’re going to do that—but I’ll be gone!