What Does the Bible Say About the Rapture?

I’m surprised at how often the subject of the rapture comes up on our television program. Someone will point out the fact that the word “rapture” is not even mentioned in the Bible and wonder why it is that we Christians, or Baptists in particular, insist on talking about it so much.

Let’s think about that for a few minutes.

The first church I served as Pastor was in the western part of the United States and may have been a little more informal than some other groups. It was not unusual for someone to raise a hand in the middle of my Sunday morning sermon and ask, “Where does the Bible say that?” Actually that’s not a bad question to ask, and I’d like to answer that today.

In John 14 you will find Jesus and the Twelve in an upper room on the final evening of His earthly ministry. He had many things to teach disciples, such as the fact that He would go away. Then in verse three, He told them, "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.”

What interests me about this verse is that it is so different from other descriptions of the Lord’s Second Coming. Scripture tells us that Jesus will come to the earth. He will come to rule the nations. He’ll come to defeat Satan. Here, He told them that instead of coming to join His disciples, He’ll come and receive them, implying that they will come to Him.

In all honesty, if that was the only verse in the Bible that talks about the issue, you probably wouldn’t use that to come up with the doctrine of the Rapture. It would remain an interesting mystery. Fortunately, there are places where the Bible does explain what Jesus meant by this.

The Apostle Paul offered some help when he said something even more shocking in 1 Corinthians 15. Ever since Adam, the human race has been under a death penalty. Our hope is not to escape death, but to go through death to resurrection. Here, however, one of the things Paul taught was that there are some people who will not go through death, but will go directly from this life to resurrection. “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall 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 incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52

How does that happen? Paul gives a description in 1 Thessalonians 5:16, 17 when he said, “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”

That’s the Rapture. The Lord comes down and Christians who are alive at the time shoot up to meet Him! It is also where we came up with the word “rapture”. The word may not be in any English translation but the word for “caught up” in the Vulgate (rapiemur) is where it comes from.

Who wouldn’t talk about something so great?

And, of course, it raises the question, when? Pre? Post? Mid?

I’ll be glad to answer the question and we’ll see what the Bible has to say about it next time.

Have a great day, everyone.