The Rapture Question?
David J. Nixon
I know of no other more hotly debated topic in all of eschatology than that of The Rapture Question? The debate is very much down to the complexities of determining the chronological timing of the Rapture in relation to the events of Daniel's 70th Week aka the Tribulation period in modern parlance. No one is any less of a true Christian believer because of what they believe about the timing of the Rapture - let us just get that thing straight from the outset! I am conscious that many different people will be reading this and so I want to make this article as neutral as possible to simply narrate and explain the different positions on the Rapture.
"The Rapture" itself is not a term found in the Bible! What the word refers to is the literal meaning of the Greek word "harpazo" which translates as "caught up" in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord". This is the moment that the Apostle Paul has earlier described to the Church in Corinth as: “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). Quite simply this is the moment that Jesus will return for His bride, the Church, and in an instant transform us for all eternity into our eternal righteous bodies - the completion of the good work that Christ has already begun in us.
The debate comes around when this event occurs in relation to the 7 years left unfulfilled in Daniel's 70 Weeks Prophecy, often called "The Tribulation". There are three large popular positions on this question today: the Pre-Tribulation, Pre-Wrath and Post-Tribulation Raptures - no disrespect intended towards those of the Mid-Tribulation Rapture position, but I have not come across much writing or advocacy of it in the last 5 years. If we humbly attempt to go through each then I will invite you to go and decide what you think given some of the scriptural passages I have given in support of each opinion that I have come across in what is a vast topic of scholarship. The Rapture is not a salvation issue, so it is not crucial that you come to a firm position and it is perfectly legitimate to skip over this sometimes contentious issue! If anything be satisfied with the confident knowledge that the Lord is coming again and let Him catch you up in the air as He has perfectly timed - however in the meantime be busy about the kingdom and gospel work we have been commissioned with for we do not want to be like the wicked servant of Matthew 25 and are meant to be salt and light in this world while we still are here!
Pre-Tribulation Rapture:
This position believes there is a two stage coming of the Lord, firstly a surprise Rapture with the Lord coming to the air at an unknown hour prior to the commencement of the Tribulation and then subsequently the Second Coming with the Lord Jesus' coming to the Mount of Olives after the battle of Armageddon. There appears to be two types of scripture regarding the Lord's return: the unknown hour (Matthew 24:42,44; 25:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2) and the known calculable time from the time that Satan turns on Israel through the Antichrist at the time of the Abomination of Desolation (Daniel 7:25, Revelation 12:14; 13:5). Reconciling these two results in this two stage conception of the Lord's return, and it is argued that this is the "mystery" not revealed in the Old Testament of which Paul speaks. The reason for the Rapture being conceived as Pre-Tribulation is the Apostle Paul speaking in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 describing how the "Restrainer" will need to taken out of the way and only then will the Antichrist be revealed. It therefore follows if the Holy Spirit is accepted as the identity of the "Restrainer", that the sudden absence of the Holy Spirit indwelt church as salt and light in the world will provide the opportunity for Satan to raise up the Antichrist into a position of power to make the agreement with Israel which kicks off the 70th Week (Daniel 9:27a). This view is very much ingrained in the view that the 70th Week is the time of Jacob's trouble prophesied about in Jeremiah 30, and so concerns God's redemptive programme for Israel, thus the removal of the Church until that time. They find the Rapture described in Revelation 4:1 when the voice like a trumpet calls John in through the door of Heaven (mirroring the 1 Thessalonians 4:16 description), which then in Revelation 19 is opened unleashing the armies of Heaven who accompany Christ back to Earth - seeing the saintly army as being the returning Raptured Church.
Pre-Wrath Rapture:
This position also agrees with there being a two stage coming of the Lord, at both an unknown hour and the calculable hour based on the definite duration of the Antichrist's reign and the 70th Week. However, in addition it also sees there being two different types of wrath being present in the 70th week, both in the latter half which is properly called the Great Tribulation when such will be the destruction that no life would survive unless God cut it short (Matthew 24:21-22). There is a distinction drawn between the wrath of Satan against the Church, described after his failed attempt to destroy Israel in the Abomination of Desolation when he is cast down to the Earth around the mid-point of the Tribulation (Revelation 12:17); and the wrath of God which can only properly be said to happen during the Trumpet and certainly the Bowls of Wrath Judgements. It is made clear "and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come...for God has not destined us to wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9). It follows that the Church is not destined to undergo the Wrath of God and so it is after the Wrath of Satan but before the Wrath of God - in that indeterminate time - that the unknown timed Rapture will occur taking the Church out of the world. As a result there is absolutely no need for the Church to be removed prior to the commencement of the Tribulation because it is not solely the time in God's programme for dealing with Israel and the unrepentant world. Indeed this accounts for the depictions of mass persecution against the Church during the Seal Judgements in the first half of the Tribulation which prompt the Saints in heaven to question how long it will be allowed to continue, to which the reply comes: "rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been" (Revelation 6:11). At the conclusion of the Great Tribulation the picture is the same as in the Pre-Tribulation view as the Saints return to see the Antichrist vanquished at the battle of Armageddon.
Post-Tribulation Rapture:
This position is critical of the conception of a two stage coming seeing that there is no direct scriptural reference to two such events. Taking all the scriptures together they find a harmony between them which accounts for one single stage return at the end of the 70th Week with all the various stellar and geological catastrophes happening at that time. In particular they cite Jesus' words: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out His angels to gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matthew 24:29-31), as a demonstration that the only gathering of the Church is after the Tribulation has ended as described by these same phenomena in: "It will come about in that day that there will be no light; the luminaries will dwindle. For it will be a unique day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but it will come about that at evening time there will be light" (Zechariah 14:6-7). It disagrees that the Tribulation is peculiarly part of God's plan for Israel and instead believes the Church will be present. This leaves the Church on Earth throughout the Tribulation period and so the lukewarm Laodicean Church Age of that day will be purified through the fires of the Tribulation (Revelation 3:18). Further, since Jesus refers to it being like the days of Noah in the Last Days (Matthew 24:37), just as Noah and his family had to go through the Flood but were preserved by God's provision of the Ark, likewise the Church cannot be said to undergo God's wrath for she will be protected. Some would argue that the person of the Restrainer in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 is really describing the Archangel Michael who is described as again standing up as defender of Israel in Daniel 12:1 at the end of the Tribulation, so it is he who is taken away to allow the Antichrist to rise into power by making the agreement with Israel in Daniel 9:27 until the Lord's return.
A lot more could be said on each of these positions but this is just a basic primer for each!
My own position can be found and argued for in the following article: "The Great Escape? An Exposition and Critique of Rapture Doctrine".
Third Temple
