Rapture: why a pre-tribulation rapture

1 Thess 4:13-18 (ESV) But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.


• What is he referring to when he says "those who are asleep (ESV)," or "fall asleep? (NIV)"  Dead
• Is there any corroborating information in the text?
• Grieve (why, unless dead); we who are alive (in contrast to sleeping), dead in Christ (in context, mentions the dead rising first)
• Verse 17, "caught up" is where we get the word "rapture."  The Greek work is harpazo, our word is from the Latin equivalent
• The rapture is imminent but the Great Tribulation is not -- what does that mean?
• It is a theological distinction.  There are specific events related to the Tribulation which must occur first, whereas the rapture can happen at any moment
• What do we know about the rapture from scripture?
• John 14:1-3 (ESV) Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.  2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
• No details, but some basic truth -- what do you see?
• Promise to take us to where he is going
• Where is he going?
• to Heaven
• Suggests that we will spend some in heaven in our new bodies
• This is counter to the post-tribulation view, where Jesus meets us in the air at his second coming and takes us with him down to the earth.  Which is one reason pre-tribulation makes more sense.  We are met in the air by the Lord and taken to Heaven.  At the end of the tribulation we come back with Christ to earth
• In the 1 Thessalonian verses read earlier, we learn that the dead will not miss out, and we also get a chronological sequence, what do you see?
• The Lord descends from Heaven
• With a shout (probably a command for resurrection and translation)
• WIth the voice of the archangel (probably Michael repeats Jesus' command, much as you would see in many military units)
• With a trumpet of God (trumpet used for battle and worship; in this case it triggers the rapture itself and sets the plan in motion)
• The dead in Christ will rise first (this is limited to Church saints only; the bodies of OT saints will be resurrected at a later time)
• Then, we who are alive, shall be caught up (this is when living saints are removed from the earth)
• Meet the Lord in the air (so we return to heaven)


1 Cor 15:50-56 (ESV) I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 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 shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:


 "Death is swallowed up in victory."
55  "O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?"


56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.


• Verse 50 explains the necessity of the rapture:  our bodies are corrupt.  This leads to a very long discussion on the intermediate state between death and resurrection (will be included in a later input -- a quick summary: our souls rise and are with Christ in heaven at death, but our bodies are not resurrected and changed into new bodies until the rapture)
• Gen 2:17 (ESV) but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
• When Adam ate of from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he corrupted the body which God had given him.  Because the body is now perishable, it cannot enter heaven.  Therefore, we need a new body
• How will the change occur?  Instantly
• When will it occur?  At the last trumpet
• Here is where people try to place the rapture in the tribulation, they interpret it to be the seventh trumpet
• At the time Paul wrote this passage, John had not written Revelation, so no one would have interpreted it in that context  (Fruchtenbaum, 2003).  More likely, it refers to the Feast of the Trumpets, where there are a series of trumpet blasts followed by one long trumpet blast.  When you look at the Jewish feasts, . . .
• There is a line of reasoning that suggests that the seven feasts of Israel have prophetic significance  (Fruchtenbaum, 2003)
• The first four occur in the Spring and are fulfilled in the FIRST coming
• Feast of Passover (Pesach, Nisan 14)
• Celebrates the Passover in Egypt
• Jesus is called the lamb of God
• Jesus probably died Friday around 3pm, which is the time of the national sacrifice of the Passover lamb at the temple
• Feast of unleavened bread (Hag Hamatzah, Nisan 15-22)
• Absence of leaven where leaven is a symbol of sin in the OT; the power of sin is the law and represents the beginning of a new covenant not based on law
• Jesus was our sinless substitute
• Feast of First Fruits (Hag Habikkurim, Nisan 16)
• Occurs on the third day from Passover
• Jesus' resurrection is called the firstfruit
• Feast of Weeks or Pentecost (Shavuoth, Sivan 6-7)
• Begins 7 weeks after Pesach
• Second of the three pilgrimage festivals
• Pentecost (beginning of the church and the age of grace (or New Covenant), also occurs on the same day (and therefore contrasts to) as the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, which represents the age of the Law (or Old Covenant)
• Four month gap between the feasts
• Jesus said that there are four months until the harvest
• The church age is fulfilling that now
• The second three feasts occur in the fall and will be fulfilled in the SECOND coming
• Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah) - Rapture of the church
• When "last trumpet" was written to the Corinthian church, Revelation had not been written. Yet, Paul expected his listeners to understand
• Last trumpet would refer to the last of the trumpet blasts on the feast of trumpets
• It begins a ten day period of repentance that ends with Yom Kippur
• The day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) - Tribulation
• Also the day of redemption. There is a blowing of trumpets to gather all the surviving believers
• Picture seems to have the elements of the tribulation (atonement and judgment)  and of Jesus coming (redemption)
• The Feast of Tabernacles (Succoth; booths; ingathering) - time of rejoicing after the tribulation
• Celebrates the end of the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness
• It is also the feast of ingathering of the spring harvest
• The timing of the rapture
• Book of Revelation
• The church is mentioned in chapters 1 to 3, events prior to the tribulation, and in chapters 19-22, events after the tribulation
• The church is not mentioned in chapters 6-18, the tribulation period.  Therefore the church is not in the tribulation (tribulation saints, individuals who come to Christ during the tribulation are present)
• Luke 21:34-36 (ESV) "But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.  35 For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth.  36 But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." 
• The only way to escape is to be able to stand before the Son of Man, and the only way to stand before the Son of Man is to be a believer (Fruchtenbaum, 2003)
• 1 Thess 1:9-10 (ESV) For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
• The Thessalonians were waiting for Jesus' return
• Jesus will return for the believer and will rescue us from the coming wrath, the tribulation
• "Delivers" is present tense. KJV is wrong here. Also, the wrath is still to come, but the believer is no longer under wrath
• The phrase "delivers us" means "away from." The idea being that the wrath will not touch you
• 1 Thess 5:1-11 (ESV) Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10  who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. 
• Salvation is physical here and not just soteriological
• God has not appointed us to suffer wrath. The church is not part of God's plan for wrath. The issue is whether wrath refers to the full 7 years or only the last 3 1/2 years
• Rev 3:10 (ESV) Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.
• There is a distinction between Church saints and Tribulation saints in Revelation
• This statement is to Church saints
• I think the reason it is not stated to the Laodicean church is that the church is made up of primarily non-believers
• Discussion on Matt 24:31 (taken from Fruchtenbaum's book "Footsteps of the Messiah," page 644. This follows a discussion of the sign of the second coming (Matt 24:29-30)
I. The Regathering of Israel – Matthew 24:31; Mark 13:27
    Since the Jewish prophets had predicted in great detail the worldwide regathering of Israel, Jesus did not spend much time with this, but only specified that it will occur after His Second Coming. The Matthew account reads:
    Matt 24:29-31 (ESV) "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.  30 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.  31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
    The Mark passage reads:
    Mark 13:24-27 (ESV) "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,  25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.  26 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.  27 And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
    Following the Second Coming, the Messiah will send his angels all over the world to regather every Jew and bring them back into their Land. The background to the Matthew passage is Isaiah 27:12-13, which prophesied that the final restoration of Israel will be signaled by the sound of a great trumpet. The background to the Mark passage is Deuteronomy 30:4, which also emphasizes that the final restoration will come from two localities: earth and Heaven. Those who are gathered from the uttermost parts of the earth will be living in Israel, the one-third Remnant that survives the Tribulation. Those who are gathered from the uttermost part of heaven will be the resurrected Old Testament saints. This part of the Olivet Discourse summarizes many Old Testament prophecies (e.g., Is. 11:11-12:6; 43:5-7; Jer. 23:5-8; 31:7-14; Ezek. 11:16-21; 20:40-42; 36:22-31, et. al.), specifying that the final worldwide restoration will come only after the Second Coming, and not before.
• Isa 27:12-13 (ESV) In that day from the river Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt the Lord will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel. 13 And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
• Deut 30:4-5 (ESV) If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. 5 And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it.
• Discussion on post-tribulation and mid-tribulation rapture
• Argument concerning Christian are not exempt from persecution and hardship
• It is certainly true that the new covenant is different from the old covenant in the place of persecution and blessing
• John 15:20-21 (ESV) Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.  21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
• 2 Tim 3:12 (ESV) Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
• Tribulation is a specific time of judgment against the world
• Rom 2:5 (ESV) But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.
• Post-trib rapture
• Wedding motif is lost
• Jesus would have to meet us in the air and then take us down on the way
• No judgment for believers until the judgment for the unbelievers
• No home in heaven unless it is the New Jerusalem which comes down from heaven after the millennial kingdom
• Does not really explain the verses concerning rapture that say we are protected from wrath (trib is not about persecution but judgment against the world and Israel)
• Mid-trib rapture
• Seventh trumpet in Revelation was not known until 40 years after Paul wrote his letter to Corinth
• Common understanding of the last trumpet would be the feast of trumpets
• Better fulfills the feast motif that was followed in the first coming and will be followed in the second coming
• Seventh trumpet includes all the bowl judgments and is the third woe judgment. Meaning we will have to go through 6 seal judgments and 6 trumpet judgments, including the two of the three woes