What is 'the rapture'?
It is the taking away of the church when Christ returns. The belief that this is going to take place is widely spread over the world among Christians, but it is a lie. It originates from a false, evil 'prophecy', 'revelation'; if you wish, 1830, by a Ms. Margaret Macdonald of Port Glasgow, Scotland. It is also called the pre-trib revelation. You can read about it in the book 'The Incredible Cover-up'; by Dave MacPehrson. He investigated what happened in 1830 in Great Britain when Margaret Macdonald had her so called revelation about the 'rapture';.
Basically Margaret Macdonald was a mentally ill person, who was most likely possessed by evil spirits.
What she said or 'prophesied'; is not true and it is not written in God's Word.
Let us start to analyze the so called 'rapture theory'; with the help of the Word of God, the Bible.
The 'rapturists', that is they who believe in the 'rapture', believe that Christ is going to return a first time to take, rapture, the church out from the earth up in the sky, heaven, before the tribulation and then come back again to stay. This is not true according to the Word.
The 'rapturists' are using several Scriptures as evidence. Let us start with 1 Thess 4:
17 Then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Who are we that are alive? We who live on earth when Christ returns.
Who are 'them'? We have to go to the previous verses 14, 15 and 16 to find the answer.
16 For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
'Them' are the dead in Christ who shall rise first. What does 'rise first' means? We see in verse
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.
that like Jesus died and rose so also they who died in Christ rose. They went to be with God, like we all do when we die the flesh death, the first death.
This might be shocking to some, but let us read 1Cor 15:
51 Behold, I show You a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
Changed to what? Put on our celestial, heavenly body.
What does all mean? Let's go to Acts 24:
15 And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.
'Resurrection' here means 'rise', like in 1Thess 4:14 and 16. It can not mean resurrection of the soul, for the unjust's soul can not be resurrected, unless they repent, and all will not, but they can put on an incorruptible body, and they will, as in 1Cor 15:
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
Incorruption is about the body. That happens when Christ returns. We will all, just and unjust, put on the celestial, heavenly, body then. We are all going to be changed. That body everyone, just and unjust, is going to have through the millennium. There will be teaching by Christ and his elect during the millennium, for there are going to be a lot of people saved then. They are, thereafter, going to be tested by Satan when he is loosed a little season after the millennium, Rev 20:3 and 7-8. They will be judged according to their works, Rev 20:12-13. We are judged by faith now, for we can not see Christ. In the millennium we can. There is a difference here.
Immortality is about the soul. That happens for some, they who are going to teach during the millennium, at the first resurrection, Rev 20:6, and for others at the white throne judgment, after the testing mentioned above, Rev 20:11-15.
So we learn from this, that there is a difference between 'to rise' and 'to resurrect'.
Read in Rev 20:
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
The word for 'dead' here is the Greek, with Article, 'hoi nekroi', which means dead bodies in the grave apart from their personality they once had. 'Live' is the Greek word 'anazao', which means to recover life', 'revive' and 'live again'. It means that the rest of the people that have died the flesh death are not going to live spiritually until after the millennium, if they overcome of course.
Those spiritually dead are those that have not overcome yet, but have a chance, their first, in the millennium, the thousand years. You see, God, our Father, is fair. Most people don't have a chance now, because of the lack of true teaching of the Word of God.
Now let's go back to 1Thess and verse 4:
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent they which are asleep.
We see here that we who are alive when Christ returns can not prevent them that are asleep, they who are dead in the flesh, because they are already with God. 2 Cor 5:
8........to be absent from the body,..... is....... to be present with the Lord.
Think about that when you want to comfort somebody, when their nearest have died. Eccl 12:
7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God Who gave it.
is giving the same message. This is of course one place from where Paul got his message. So, when we die, our spirit = Hebr. ruach, that will say we, our soul, because the spirit is the intellect of the soul, and they can therefore not be separate, goes back to God to await judgment, and the body goes back to dust, in the grave, or is burned, cremated. The body is only a bunch of minerals used as our suit for this earth age only. You should read Eccl 12: 5-6 in your Bible to get the context.
1Thess 4:17 is really talking about Christ's return, but it is not saying that we are going to fly away; from earth. That is because of the following.
There are two words that play an important role here in the misunderstanding of this Scripture.
Paul was a Hebrew scholar, but not a Greek scholar so he spoke and wrote street Greek. The word 'clouds' means 'crowds' and this we can see from Hebr 12:1, where Paul is talking about 'a cloud of witnesses.' He means of course a crowd.
The word 'air' in verse 17 is from the Greek word 'aer' from 'aemi', that means 'the breath of life' or 'spirit'. It does not mean 'sky' which is another word in the Greek, 'ouranos'.
The verse is communicating the same thing as 1 Cor 15:
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
The last trump is the seventh. We are going to be changed into our spiritual body when Christ returns. The flesh body is done away with, so remember that if you are still in the flesh, Christ is not here yet. Read in 1 Cor 15:
40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
Celestial is heavenly and terrestrial is earthly.
1 Cor 15 and 1 Thess 4 are basically teaching about where the dead are.
Paul wrote a second letter to the Thessalonians. He did that to make certain that they had understood what he taught them in the first letter. 2 Thess 2:
1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by
gathering together unto Him.
2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by
word, nor by letter, as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there
come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is
worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God, showing himself as
God.
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