top of page

The Rapture

What is “the rapture”? The word “rapture” does not occur in the Bible. It is a word used to label the doctrine, based on the phrase, “caught up” in I Thessalonians 4:17. The doctrine, though, is clearly taught in Scripture. The rapture of the church is the event in which God removes all believers from the earth before His righteous judgment is poured out on the earth during the tribulation period. “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,” (I Thessalonians 5:9).The believer is never instructed to watch for the Tribulation, but for the Lord. The Tribulation is not for the perfecting of the N.T. saints, but the judgment and perfecting of Israel. “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.”  (Daniel 9:24) “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s  trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” (Jeremiah 30:7)

The rapture is described primarily in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:50-54. God will resurrect all believers who have died, give them glorified bodies (Philippians 3:20, 21), and take them from the earth, along with those believers who are still alive and who will at that time also receive glorified bodies. “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: 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.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). This truth is to bring “comfort” to the believer (I Thessalonians 4:18).

bottom of page