Why
I Believe in the Rapture - Part 2
"How
can a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to Thy
Word," Psalm 119:9. "Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not
sin against Thee," Psalm 119:11. "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and
a light unto my path," Psalm 119:105. "Jesus prayed to the Father,
sanctify them in truth, Thy Word is truth," John 17:17. "For the
grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God shall stand
forever," Isaiah 40:8.
Before we get started this evening, we'll have a few moments of silent prayer.
This is the opportunity that you have to take advantage of to make sure that
you are in fellowship with God in silent prayer. You can confess any known sins
to Him. 1 John 1:9 tells us that we are instantly forgiven and cleansed of all
unrighteousness; and so after a few moments of silent prayer then I will open
in prayer. Let's pray.
Father, it is such a privilege to come before Your throne of grace because
Jesus Christ has paved the way, opened the door, removed the veil that we may
have immediate access to Your grace because of His work on the cross. Father,
we thank You for our salvation that is complete in Christ and that all we need
to do is to trust in You and we have eternal life; trusting in Christ's work on
the cross where He paid for our sins. Now Father, as we continue our studies of
the Scriptures understanding Your plan and purposes in human history, we pray
that you might help us to understand these things and to see that though things
may seem chaotic around us, things may seem random, nevertheless You are in
control and You are working history toward an ultimate goal, an ultimate
purpose. We pray that You would help us to understand
the things that we study this evening to gain a greater understanding of future
things. We pray in Christ's Name, amen.
We are continuing tonight in our study on the Rapture and we looked at this
last time in terms of some key verses and we will continue to look at some key
verses this evening and then move on beyond that. We may or may not get into
the next dispensation, which is the Tribulation. Here is a reminder chart of
the ages. This is God's plan that we know from revelation, from God's Word that
is, not the book of Revelation, but from God's revealed truth. There are two
basic ages in the Old Testament period as seen at the top of the chart, age of
the Gentiles, from Adam to Abraham, the age of the Jews (Israel), from Abraham
to the cross, and since then we are in the age of the church, the church age. In
the Old Testament age of the Gentiles that was subdivided into three
dispensations or administrations of God, from creation to the fall was the age
of perfect environment or the dispensation of perfect environment. The second
dispensation, the dispensation of human conscience, from Adam to the flood, and
then from the flood to the tower of Babel you have the dispensation of human
government. The failure at the tower of Babel led God to choose to work through
one person, Abraham. This is the shift, major shift that takes place in all
history. Since the giving of the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12 is shaped by
that covenant. The Jewish people, descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are
the centerpiece of history. They are the focal point of God's plan even during
the time when they are apart from God.
In the Old Testament there were many times when Israel was under divine
discipline when they were apostate, when they were in complete disobedience to
God, nevertheless, they were still at the center of God's plan. They are still
at the center of God's plan today, even though the group that God is working
with today is the church age in which Jewishness or Gentileness is no longer a
significant factor in the spiritual life. That will change at the end of the church
age, which is signified by the arrow pointed up. That is the Rapture of the
church, which will then be followed by the Tribulation.
I started a couple of weeks ago looking at the question of
why I believe in a pre-Tribulation Rapture. This is an important question. I
never went through an oral exam at Dallas Seminary where I wasn't asked a
question, why do you believe in a pre-Tribulation Rapture? About three or four
different times I had oral exams either in my masters' work or doctoral work
and that was always one of the questions. Why do we believe in a
pre-Tribulation Rapture? Now to answer this we basically have to answer two
questions: What is the Rapture? When is the Rapture? We will complete the
answer to the first question this evening and probably get into a good bit of
the answer to the second question as we go along. So the first question: What
is the Rapture? We defined it this way: The Rapture is the translation of all
living believers from the earth at the end of the church age immediately
following the resurrection of all dead church age believers; the Rapture occurs
before the Tribulation begins.
Jesus Christ, we are told in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, will at some point
unknown in the future descend from heaven in the clouds, not to the earth, but
in the clouds, and according to 1 Thessalonians 4:16 there will be three
simultaneous events: 1. There will be a shout. 2. There will be a cry from the
archangel and the trumpet of God will blast. 3. Then the dead in Christ rise
first.
That term rise there is important.
That verb is "resurrection." It is not rapture. The next verb relates
to the Rapture. "And then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up
together." That is the word in the Greek, HARPAZO. It was
translated into Latin with the verb rapio and rapio means
rapture. It means to take something up, to snatch it away, and it is a future
indicative of that verb. That is where you find the word in Scripture. HARPAZO means to be
"caught up." It would refer to a thief, perhaps coming into the house
and stealing something. It is unannounced. It is a surprise. It is something
that is snatched. It some times can imply force. So that is the word that is
used there that is where we get the word "rapture."
The key passage we looked at was 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 as I pointed out. Look
at 1 Thessalonians 4:18 at the bottom Paul concludes this by saying,
"Therefore comfort one another with these words." I think it is
important because you get so many people who get really wrapped around the axle
on prophetic things. They want to know when Jesus coming back and aren't these
the signs of the times? Look around us right now. The world is in chaos today.
We have the rise of China and China's power threatening Japan over some
territories in the Pacific Ocean. We have Russia threatening the Ukraine and
every day we are reading about new forces and new threats on the Ukraine. We
have just gone through a fifty-day war with Gaza (Hamas) in Israel. We have the
rise of ISIS. We have
various threats to the security of the United States by people who claim to be
associated with ISIS down along the Texas border. All kinds of crazy
things are going on not to mention just the normal craziness we see in the
world with crime and with war and with poverty and with all of these other
things.
When the Bible teaches prophecy it teaches us about God's plan for the future,
and its purpose is always to give comfort. Even in the Old Testament when you
look at books like Daniel and Jeremiah, these announcements from God that give
future details, are all designed to give comfort to God's people so that even
though they may be taken out of the land of Israel, nevertheless, God would
bring them back to the land. God would be faithful to them. God would be
faithful to his promises. God would take care of them. And so it is always
couched within the language of comfort. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13 we read that
Paul says, "We don't want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who
are asleep." That is, those who have died in Christ. Now
"asleep" is really a euphemism used in Scripture to apply to
believers who have died physically. It doesn't mean soul sleep, which is a
doctrine that Jehovah's Witness teaches. It means they
have died physically; they have gone to be with the Lord, face to face with the
Lord. There is another category of those who are "asleep" in Jesus
and they are usually on the back row and every now and then they snore
(laughter). So that is our first main passage.
The second main passage is that of John 14:1-3, which I looked at or began to
look at last time, where Jesus is talking to His disciples in the upper room
the night before He goes to the cross. It is very important to understand that
context. Jesus has just observed what is known as the "Last Supper."
The Last Supper was a seder meal, a Passover meal, the
night before Passover; and it was later that night that Jesus is going to be
arrested by the Roman soldiers. He is going to be taken through a series of six
different trials at the end of which He will be beaten mercilessly by the Roman
soldiers, and then He will be horribly crucified upon a cross just outside the
walls of Jerusalem at a place called Golgotha in Hebrew, meaning the place of
the skull. There He would die for our sins. He would pay the penalty for our
sins as God poured out our sins upon Him from twelve noon
until three p.m. This is the night before. Jesus is giving His last parting
instructions to His disciples. It is during this time that He is telling them
what is going to take place after the crucifixion.
Up to this point we have been still in the age of Israel. The Mosaic Law has
still been effective, but the Mosaic Law is going to come to an end at the
cross the next day. Then God is going to usher in a new era, a new dispensation
that will begin fifty days later on the day of Pentecost, "Pentecost"
that "pente," at the beginning, means fifty. It is fifty days later
after Passover. And so the disciples are beginning to realize that there is
something amiss and they are not really focused on the crucifixion. They don't
seem to have really understood that Jesus was going to die, but they are
concerned about the fact that He has announced that He is leaving them. And so
they want to know, especially Peter, who is the outspoken one, where He is
going. So that the end of John 13 Peter is asking, well where are you going and
how can we go there? So Jesus answered and said, "Let not your heart be
troubled." So again, just like Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4, Jesus is
comforting them. John 14:1-3, "Let not your heat be troubled, believe in
God, believe also in Me. In my Father's house are many
mansions," "are many dwelling places," as the New King James
translates it, which is more accurate. "If it were not so I would have
told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself;
that where I am, there you may be also."
I think this is really important to remember. This was an observation by a
Mennonite commentator on Revelation by the name of J. B. Smith, who noted that
there were eight significant parallels between John 14:1-3 and 1 Thessalonians
4:13-18, showing that they are talking about this same kind of thing and that
if they are talking about a pre-Tribulation Rapture, then this would be quite
different from talking about the Second Coming. In the Second Coming Jesus
comes to the earth. Jesus comes to judge the earth and to rescue Israel from
the judgments of the Tribulation. At the Rapture Jesus comes to take His own
with Him back to heaven. That is the thrust of John 14:1-3. Jesus is talking
about the fact that He is going to heaven where He came from and that in His
Father's house, which is in heaven, are many dwelling places, if it were not
so, I would have told you. I go there to prepare a place for you that where I
am, i.e., in heaven, you may be there also. So He is talking about a heavenly
destiny. He is not talking about the church coming with Him, just being
raptured at the end of the Tribulation, sort of meeting Him halfway up in the
air and then coming right back down where they would stay on the earth. He is
talking about something very different.
When J. B. Smith took the language, the vocabulary of John 14:1-3 and compared
it to the Second Coming passage of Revelation 19:11-12, there weren't any
significant similarities. When he took 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and compared
that vocabulary to Revelation 19:11-12, there were no significant similarities.
But when he compared John 14:1-3 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 together, there
were these eight striking similarities. What is also interesting in the last
point is that each of these items that he noted occurs in the same order in
each of these passages.
We covered these last time, but it is striking that there are these
similarities. That helps us understand that John 14:1-3 is clearly a Rapture
passage. In 1 Thessalonians 4:15 Paul says, "For this we say to you by the
word of the Lord," that is he is indicating that Jesus has taught about
this. Where did He teach about it? Here in John 14:1-3. Now what the passage in
John 14:1-3 clearly states is that Jesus is going to heaven. He is going to
this destiny from whence He came. He was with the Father in heaven, now He is
going to go back to the Father in heaven. He is going to do something, prepare
something in heaven and in the abode of God in heaven, and then He is going to
come for us and take us to that place. Now it is important to understand that
this fits with other passages of Scripture in that in Acts 1:11, we see Jesus
ascending to heaven. After He ascends two angels appeared to the disciples and
said, why are you looking into the sky, men of Galilee? "This Jesus, who
has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you
have watched Him go into heaven." And so that is the same.
So Jesus is going to heaven to prepare places for us. This helps us to answer
the two previous questions related to where Jesus is going and what He is doing
there. He is going to heaven and He is going to a place called His Father's
house, which is an allusion to the Father's throne, which is where He goes to
be seated at the right hand of the Father according to Psalm 110:1, as well as,
Acts 2:33-35 and Revelation 3:21. Now He goes there to prepare dwelling places.
Now the Old King James translated this "mansions" and that has
entered into the warp and wolf of evangelical Christianity. People think there
are hymns written about their heavenly mansions and all of this is due to
probably a failure on the part of William Tyndale when he translated the Latin
word mansiones into English as
"mansion" because the English word "mansion" comes to
indicate some sort of palatial dwelling. But that is not part of the meaning of
the Latin word mansiones, which is in
the Latin Vulgate. It is the term that translates a Greek word MONE as I have at
the bottom of the screen, which is related to the verb MENO. Remember,
we talked about that a lot in John 15. Jesus said, "abide
in Me." "If you abide in Me, I will abide in you;" "If you
abide in My Word." That word "abide" means to remain or to stay.
It is the verb MENO.
The noun form is MONE. It means a place to stay, a place to remain
and it came to refer to a dwelling place. It came to refer to a temporary
dwelling place, such as an inn, something probably a little nicer than some of
the inns that are advertized on TV that keep the light on for us. But it could
refer to an apartment. It could refer to a home. It is just a broad term. It is
not a technical term. It is used only one other time in the New Testament,
interestingly enough. In this same passage but in the next chapter in John 14
where it talks about the indwelling abode of the Father and the Son in the
individual believer. So that is quite a significant different context from the
one that we're looking at. So it is not some fancy palatial mansion. I know
that is going to disappoint a lot of people who have thought that they have a
place to go and they know exactly what it is going to look like. It is really a
temporary place. It is not temporary in the since that it is some shack; it is
temporary in that it is not our permanent abode. Our permanent abode is going
to be in the New Jerusalem. And so He is preparing a temporary abode because
that is not where we are ultimately going to end up. We come back with the Lord
at the end of the Tribulation period and then we will rule and reign with Him.
Now the church is composed and our destiny is considered heavenly as opposed to
earthly, but that is distinguishing the fact that we don't have an earthly
reward like the Israelites do in terms of the land that God promised Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Ours is related to our spiritual relationship to Jesus
Christ. And so He is going to prepare this dwelling place for us and it is
clear that this is something in the future. He says, "I will come
again." It is translated as a future sense. It is really a present tense
verb. There is a sense in which the present tense is used to refer to future
things because they are so certain they are referred to as if they are present.
So He says, "I am coming again" and it indicates that this is a
future time. So this clearly speaks of Jesus' departure from the earth to the
heavenly abode of God, and there He prepares for the arrival of the church. He
has a temporary abode for us because fitting in the Jewish marriage ceremony,
the Jewish betrothal ceremony that the bridegroom would provide a temporary
place for the bride to stay prior to the marriage feast. And we know from
Scripture that the marriage feast takes place when Jesus returns at the
beginning of the millennial kingdom. That is when that fits. So it fits the
pattern of Jewish wedding customs. Jesus will return to the earth as described
in Revelation 19:7 and He will be bringing His bride with Him to the wedding
feast. It is very different from the other scenarios that we will look at.
Okay, the third verse that indicated and emphasizes the coming of Christ at the
Rapture is Philippians 3:11. I wish I had time to go through the entire context
because this is one of the great contexts for the emphasis on possession of
Christ's righteousness and not our own righteousness, as Paul says in
Philippians 3:8-9, "I count all things lost for the excellence of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all
things, and count them as rubbish." That is a pretty bland word for the
Greek. The Greek word is SKUBALA, which refers to manure. So he refers to
everything lost. He suffered the loss of all things, and counts everything as
manure "that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own
righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in
Christ; the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and
the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being
conformed to His death, if by any means" he says in Philippians 3:11. And
that really has more the sense of "in order that", which is how I
translated it in the slide. It is more of a nuance. He is not saying
"if" maybe I will maybe I won't. He is saying "in order
that" I will attain to the out-resurrection, EXANASTASIS. ANASTANSIS would just
be resurrection.
So you think of the resurrection of the dead as a broad term, everybody from
all the ages is resurrected. But the church is a subset, as we will see in our
passage in 1 Corinthians 15, the second group that is resurrected. Jesus is the
firstfruits, the church next, and then we are going to have at the end of the
Tribulation period the resurrection of Old Testament saints and Tribulation
martyrs, and then there is another general resurrection at the end of the
millennial kingdom. So Paul is talking about something specific here, which is
something that is out from the entirety of all of the resurrections, so that is
an allusion to the Rapture. In Titus 2:13 another important passage, it tells
us that we're "looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory
of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus." Now this is a very important
passage for a number of reasons:
1. First of all it connects God and Savior together. It is a clear passage on
the deity of Christ that Jesus Christ is both God and Savior.
2. A second thing that we are really focusing on here is that this coming of
Christ, "the appearing" of Christ, and it uses the word EPIPHANEIA here, which
is just a general word for appearance. But what this tells us, in terms of
prophetic things, is that the next thing that we are looking for is the
appearance of Jesus.
Now when you look at the panorama of prophecy in Revelation, you know that
there are going to be a number of things that happen. There is going to be the
rise of the prince who is to come, who is called the Antichrist, and he is
going to sign a treaty with Israel, according to Daniel 9:24ff. He signs that
peace treaty at the beginning of the last seven year period in the history that
God has for Israel's people. It is a time period we'll get it into this either
later tonight or next week that we refer to as the Tribulation period. It is
that last seven-year period that ends with the campaign of Armageddon. We have
all these things that happen after that. After the Antichrist signs the peace
treaty there is going to be war upon the earth. There are going to be various
geophysical disasters that take place. There is going to be an enormous meteor
shower or something of that nature that is going to rain stones upon the earth,
and all these different things that happen. So if Jesus doesn't come back in
any way shape or form until the end of the Tribulation, then we wouldn't be
looking for His return to be next. We would be looking for the Antichrist. That
is what you find a lot of people do. They speculate in the midnight glow, over
the midnight sun, or National whatever Enquirer, and all of these other things.
Is so-and-so the Antichrist? Has the Antichrist been born? All of these different things.
Well as Christians, who properly understand the Bible, we're not looking for
the Antichrist; we're looking for Jesus Christ. The next thing that is going to
happen is going to be the Rapture. The Antichrist does not become known; he is
not revealed until the after the Rapture of the church. Now you and I may know
him. He might be your next-door neighbor. He may be somebody that you think is
very wonderful in politics today. He may be somebody who is European. He may
not even be American. Who knows who he is? We may know him. He may be on the
scene internationally as a politician or a government leader in some country
somewhere, but he is not going to be identified as the Antichrist until after
the Rapture has taken place. And so none of us will ever know who the
Antichrist is until after the Rapture has taken place. So the importance of
Titus 2:13 is that it tells us that we are not looking for any of these other
signs of the times that Jesus talked about because all of those so called signs
of the times mentioned in Matthew 24 and the things that occur between
Revelation 4 and Revelation 20 are all take place after the Rapture. So we are
looking for the next thing that is going to happen in God's prophetic
timetable, and as things tick tock, tick tock, down the line, the next thing
that is going to occur that is prophetically significant for us, not for
Israel. Some things are happening that is stage setting for what will take
place after the Rapture, I believe. The next thing that we know for sure that
happens is going to be the Rapture of the church.
That takes us to our next passage, Philippians 3:20, where Paul says, "For
our citizenship is in heaven." We have a citizenship. That doesn't mean
that you don't have earthly responsibilities or that you gave up your earthly
citizenship responsibilities at all. How do we know that? Because every time
Paul got threatened a certain way by Roman authorities, he pulled out his
citizenship papers. He went to his citizenship argument. I am a Roman citizen;
you can't whip me because I am a Roman citizen and that is illegal. So Paul
isn't saying here that we don't have our earthly citizenship anymore, but that
is not the most significant citizenship. The most significant citizenship, the
most significant and eternal one as church age believers, is that "our
citizenship is in heaven, from which all we eagerly wait for a Savior."
See we wait for the Savior who will come from heaven. Why? John 14, He has gone
to heaven in order to prepare a place for us and so we are waiting for Him,
according to what the angel said in Acts 1:11, to come back to the earth. We
are waiting for our Savior to return, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the last passage that we are going to look at that is another significant
passage. I think the three most significant passages are: 1 Thessalonians
4:13-18; John 14:1-3; 2 Corinthians 15:51-53. Here is 1 Corinthians 15:51-53,
but we will look at these as we lead into this. 1 Corinthians 15 is one of
those great chapters in Scripture that people need to understand. It is in 1
Corinthians 15 that Paul is giving in depth defense of the doctrine of
physical, bodily resurrection. Think about Jesus' resurrection from the dead. I
always use this example somewhat facetiously. When Jesus was raised from the
dead, when Mary and Martha came the next day, and Peter and John came and they
went into the tomb, the grave clothes were laid out in perfect order. There was
the main body of the grave clothes and then there was a gap for the neck and
then there was the scarf that covered His face. And so it is as if His physical
body dematerialized and then rematerialized as a new resurrection body, a
non-corporeal body. But His resurrection body had a direct connection to His
corporeal human body. He didn't just get another body that had no connection
with His previous body.
So I have always wondered about this. When people get transplants, you know you
die and you give a cornea transplant and you give a heart transplant or
whatever all your organs go to somebody else? If the Rapture were to occur do
you get all of those back? People losing their heart all of a sudden, you know?
Lighten up a little bit; we've got to laugh about these things! We don't know
but there is this physical connection and that is what Paul is talking about in
1 Corinthians 15. It is that this is a physical bodily resurrection and there
is a direct connection between that body that we will have, that resurrection
body that we will have in the future, and our present corporeal body. It is
going to be different. So if you are too skinny you are not going to be too
skinny. If you are too fat you are not going to be too fat. If you are old you
are going to be young again. If you are still a baby you are going to be
mature. But there is a connection between the two and this is what Paul is
talking about and this whole argument is grounded upon Jesus' physical, bodily
resurrection; and he gives the evidence and witnesses for that in the 1
Corinthians 15:1-11.
In 1 Corinthians 15:12-34 Paul explains that without Christ's physical, bodily
resurrection from the dead, Christianity would have no foundation. He basically
says if Jesus didn't physically, bodily raise from the dead, then we have no
hope and we are hopeless people. We are believing in a
myth because our hope is that there is victory over death and Jesus is the One
who established that victory over death. He was the firstfruits, the first in
order. He uses that term "firstfruits" from the Old Testament analogy
that the very first of the harvest would be given to God as an offering to God.
So it also implies that it is the first, it is the best, and that there will be
much more to follow. So if Christ is the firstfruits that implies
that there are going to be subsequent resurrections. And so we see that
consistent with what Jesus taught in John 14:2-3 He is raised from the dead
first. He will go to heaven and then He will return for those who compose the
church. These are described as those who are Christ's at His coming. This is
here in 1 Corinthians 15:23. "But each one in his own order" and he
uses the Greek word there for "order" that indicates like rankings,
as in the military. If you watch a military parade it will be
led off by one unit followed by another unit followed by another unit.
And so there is going to be an "order" in which the resurrection
takes place. It is not just one massive resurrection where everybody goes up at
the same time.
If you look at the way this is described, there are thousands of years in
between these illustrated resurrections. First of all we have Christ the
firstfruits. This took place in approximately April of AD 33. Then we
have afterward those who are Christ's at His coming; well that refers to church
age believers when Christ comes at the Rapture. How much time is there that has gone by from Christ's resurrection to the Rapture?
Well at least almost 2,000 years at this point. Then comes the end when
Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father. Now that occurs at the end of
the millennial kingdom. So between the resurrection of the church and the
millennial kingdom at least a thousand years or a little more than a thousand years
takes place. So there are many different groups that are resurrected: 1.
Christ. 2. The church. 3. Then the Old Testament saints and Tribulation martyrs
at the end of the Tribulation. 4. And then there will be a general resurrection
at the end of the millennial kingdom.
He is just giving a broad outline here indicating that there are these distinct
groups that will be resurrected. That these lengthy time periods take place
between the resurrection and at the very end, that comes at the end of the millennial
kingdom, after the Rapture, after Daniel's 70th week, and after the one
thousand year reign of Christ upon the earth. So then he answers the question
related to how the dead are raised and this is covered in 1 Corinthians 15:35
and following, until he gets to the point where he talks about how this
happens, how this takes place.
I had the opportunity to drill down on this a few years ago, and I realized
that this is saying something; a lot more than what
appears on the surface. There are even today, even some pre-Tribulation
dispensationalists that who think that this is just a general statement for the
resurrection in the future, and that this is not talking about the Rapture, but
this is talking about the end of the Tribulation period even though they are
pre-Tribulation Rapture. But I want to point out the first clause (1
Corinthians 15:51) it says, "Behold, I tell you a mystery;" that
tells us right away that what he is talking about here is something that has
never previously been revealed.
Now we studied this term "mystery," the Greek word MUSTERION in the New
Testament,
and it doesn't refer to something like a riddle that you are trying to find the
answer to, discovering somebody who committed a crime like we think of in terms
of mystery novels or murder mystery television shows or films of that nature.
It talks about something that is a previously unrevealed truth. Now in the Old
Testament
period there was never any prediction of the church or the church age. It was a
mystery. And the spiritual life of the believer in the church age was not
revealed in the Old Testament. One of the reasons for
that is that Jesus was going to come give the Jews an offer of the kingdom, and
it had to be a legitimate offer of the kingdom. If He had revealed that there
was going to be another people of God following that, then that would have made
it clear that, hey, you guys are going to reject the kingdom. So in order to
make it a really fair offer there is no indication of what is going to happen
afterwards given in the Old Testament. Prophecy goes up to the
crucifixion and stops until we get into end times prophecy. There is a gap
there that becomes evident when you study the Word.
So this is talking about something that wasn't revealed in the Old Testament
because it doesn't relate to Israel. It relates to the church. Now anything
that happens during the Tribulation period is happening during the time of
Daniel's 70th week. That relates to Israel. We're going to cover that remarkable
prophecy probably in about two weeks. We will wait until we get there, but most
of you have gone through that with me. When Daniel gives that prophecy
he is laying out the chronology of God's plan for Israel. But the Messiah is
cut off or killed at the end of the 483rd week. That leaves one seven -year
period to go between 483 and 490; 490 years were decreed for Israel. So at the
end of 483 years the Messiah was cut off, then there is a pause. God hit the
"pause" button on the plan for Israel and He hits the "go"
button after the Rapture. So there has been this pause for almost two thousand
years now.
This mystery applies to the church and so it is not talking about just general
resurrection. That was clear in the Old Testament. In Daniel
12:1-2 it is very clear that Daniel talks about the fact that there will be a
future resurrection. So the whole concept of that general resurrection was not
a "mystery" in the Old Testament. It was clearly revealed. So what is
being said here has to do not with the general resurrection, but it has to do
with something else related, a different resurrection. And so he is giving this
as it relates to the church. Paul says (1 Corinthians 15:51), "we shall
not all sleep, but we shall all be changed," indicating that he is talking
about "we" as church age believers. How will this take place? It
takes place (1 Corinthians 15:52) "in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye." And the word that is used there indicates just as light would
reflect quickly off of somebody's eye. It is quicker than a blink. Some have
measured it to be 1/64th of a second. So fast your brain can't even register
it. It is just going to happen in a nanosecond, we would say today.
"In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." Now
this is the trumpet for the church age. There are many different trumpets. Some
people try to argue that this is the last trumpet in the Tribulation period.
But the last trumpet in the Tribulation period is composed of seven bowl
judgments. There are three series of judgments given during the Tribulation
period. The first seven are called the "seal judgments." The seventh
seal judgment, that seventh seal is opened, and it reveals seven more
judgments, and they are called the trumpet judgments. When the angel blows the
last of the trumpet judgments, the seventh one, this is somewhere near the
middle point of the Tribulation period. And when he blows that last trumpet it
is not to indicate that He is coming back, it is to indicate that there are
seven more judgments that are called bowl judgments. It is not announcing a
resurrection at all. So trumpets were used to announce things and there would
be last trumpets to end different segments of God's plan in history. So this is
the last trumpet of the church age. And the "trumpet will sound and the
dead will be raised imperishable." We have the same order that we have in
1 Thessalonians 4, "the dead will rise first and we who are alive and
remain will be caught up together with them in the cloudsÉ and thus shall we
ever be with the Lord."
So here we are told that this happens in a nanosecond. "The dead are
raised imperishable and weÉ" Paul distinguishes "we" from the
dead because he is still thinking that he'll be alive when this takes place.
That is called the doctrine of the imminence. Paul believed that it would take
place at any moment. It would happen during his lifetime. Now that changed as
he got older, but he believed that was still imminent. So the simple point that
I am making here is that he has got the same order that you have in 1
Thessalonians 4, (1 Corinthians 15:52-53): the dead first, and then those who
are alive will be changed. So "the dead will be raised imperishable and we
shall be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable."
Whether you are alive or dead you have a perishable, corrupt body and it must
be transformed into that which is imperishable. The perishable body is
described as a mortal body by the parallelism there at the end, "this mortal must put on immortality." So this describes
the Rapture. This sequence of events is the same in all of these passages: 1
Thessalonians 4; 1 Corinthians 15; John 14:1-3. And we learn that Jesus Christ
will return "in the clouds" and then we will all be caught up to be
with Him.
So now we are going to shift. We've look at what is the Rapture and we are
going to look at "when is the Rapture?" Two questions: 1. What is the
Rapture?
2.
When is the Rapture?
Four views:
1. The first view is the pre-Tribulation Rapture. And it is defined that the
Rapture occurs "before" that is the prefix, before the Tribulation,
and it ends the church age. It is not the beginning of the Tribulation. It is
the end of the church age. Just as the cross was the end of the Law, but the
church age does not begin until 50 days later on the day of Pentecost. The
Rapture is the end of the church age and it is the signing of the covenant
between the Antichrist and Israel that begins Daniel's 70th week. So it can be
charted like this. We have timeline the church age, Tribulation, and
Millennium, and the pre-Tribulation Rapture occurs before the Tribulation. It
ends the church age. That is the "pre-Trib" Rapture.
2. Then we have the partial Rapture view. The partial Rapture view is defined
that at the Rapture only those faithful dedicated Christians will be caught up.
Carnal Christians, if you are out of fellowship, if you haven't been walking
with the Lord, according to this view, you get to stay behind and go through
the Tribulation. But if you get your act right, you may get raptured at
several points throughout the Tribulation. This is really the product of a
legalistic mentality because you always have certain Christians who are not
comfortable with the fact that some Christians are carnal.
Some Christians don't walk with the Lord. They're living in disobedience. So
they always want to punish them. They don't understand grace. Now in this view
you have the timeline; spiritual Christians are raptured at the beginning of
the Tribulation, before the Tribulation, but carnal Christians get raptured at
various times through the Tribulation. So it is the partial Rapture view. This
is really a minority view. It was more popular for some during the mid-19th
century.
3. There were some who held to a mid-Trib Rapture view which is the view that
the Rapture occurs in the middle of the Tribulation, halfway through at the end
of the first three and a half year period, roughly at the same time as the
abomination of desolation, and that believers will endure the first half. There
is a variant that came out a few years ago called the pre-wrath Rapture. And
that view only the last stage, the bowl judgments, are called the wrath of God.
And so Christians won't endure the "wrath," the wrath of God. It's
really a variant. The same critique, the same problems with mid-Trib basically.
There are some differences; I understand that, but just for general sake, right
now, it is just a modification of the mid-Trib view. This is the idea here that
all believers go up halfway through the Tribulation.
4. And then we have the post-Trib view. This is a view that the Rapture occurs
at the end of the Tribulation forcing all believers to endure the entire
seven-year period.
Now I always like to do this with my students when I teach in Kiev because
sometimes a good visual helps you understand why the Rapture has to take place
at a certain time and you don't get it otherwise. So what I am going to do is
to ask for some volunteersÉ. You guys come down here. We are going to walk
through different scenarios of history. We are going to pretend that this is a
timeline. We are going to go from left to right, so
all three of you stand over here. Stand next to each other. Don't stand facing
me; face me this way. Now this is a timeline. They're in the church age and we
are going to walk through time and we are going to walk through the Tribulation
period, and then we are going to have the Second Coming, and then we are going
to walk into the millennial kingdom. We are going to see what happens according
to the two primary views that describe the Rapture in relation to the
Tribulation.
Now the first one is the pre-Trib view. So Barb is going to be a Christian
because she is so nice. She is going to be the Christian. John and Greg are
unbelievers. But after the Rapture John is going to become a Christian and
Greg, all through this thing Greg is just going to go to the lake of fire. He
is just absolutely reprobate. Okay. So they are going
to start walking. We are going to walk and oh, all of a sudden the Rapture
occurs! So Barb goes off to heaven and these guys keep
going. Now John becomes a Christian and he goes along and we are going to come
to the end of the Tribulation period and Jesus comes back. And see Greg is a
reprobate, an unbeliever, so he is going to be sent off to judgment. So you go
over there to judgment. Now John is a believer. He survived all of the
judgments of the Tribulation so he is one scarred up guy! But he is saved. He
is still in his mortal body. He hasn't been resurrected and he is going to find
some lovely woman and they are going to get married and have lots of kids and
repopulate the earth during the millennial kingdom.
Now let's go do the other scenario, same people, same scenario, but this is going
to illustrate what happens in a post-Trib Rapture scenario. Come
on, we are walking through the church age, but there is no Rapture. So the
Tribulation begins. Remember, this is illustrating the post-Trib Rapture view.
So the Tribulation begins and now John becomes a believer. So Barb and John are
both believers and Greg here, well, he is still a reprobate. So they are going
to go through the Tribulation and they come to the battle of Armageddon and
Jesus comes back and they survive, but the Rapture occurs as Jesus is coming
down. So they get resurrection bodies. Okay, y'all go off there. There is going
to be a judgment and Greg gets sent to Torments. Now who is going to be
left with a mortal body to go into the millennial kingdom and repopulate the
earth? Absolutely no one. The post-Trib view falls
apart not only exegetically and theologically, but in
terms of fitting any kind of scenario. It leaves no one to repopulate the
earth. So that will stick with you forever! No matter what else we sing, no
matter what else I teach, the one thing you will always remember is that little
illustration.
Father, thank You for this opportunity to go through these passages dealing
with the Rapture. It is a great comfort because we know that whether we die or
whether we survive to the Lord's coming, what we are looking forward to is not
disaster, but we're looking forward to the Lord's return. We are looking for
Jesus Christ. We are not focused on signs of the times. We are not focused on all
these other things. We are not distracted by those things.
We can just focus on our mission as believers to make disciples, to teach
others, and to grow to spiritual maturity. Father, we pray that You will help us to understand and assimilate all the things
that we are learning about future things and Your timeline that we may be
encouraged and may use that to encourage others as well. We pray this in
Christ's Name, amen.