The Rapture…or Not?
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven…and we who are alive and remain will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:16–17).
Up until the 1800s, most Christians understood this passage to refer to the second coming and general resurrection. However, many Christians in America today (namely, dispensationalists[1] such as Calvary Chapel pastors) say it refers to something called “the rapture,” wherein God will one day remove Christians from planet earth. In a twinkling of an eye, Christians will be physically transported (“caught up”) to heaven. Those left behind on earth will have to endure the great tribulation, an ever-increasing series of judgments that God will unleash on the world in order to try to get people to turn to him (particularly the Jews who reject Jesus). The purpose of the rapture, say dispensationalists, is to spare Christians from this tribulation. After the tribulation, Jesus will return to earth and set up his millennial kingdom.
As popular as this view is in evangelical circles—and I consider myself an evangelical—it lacks scriptural support.
Regarding the passage referenced above (1 Thess. 4:16–17), Paul was simply using the well-known political practices of his day to make a spiritual point; which is that at the second coming, the Thessalonians would escort Jesus back to earth in vindication and power and glory.
In Paul’s day (the first century), when a popular political official visited a city, the residents of that city would travel outside the city limits to meet the dignitary, and then they would escort the dignitary back to their city. This was done in honor of the visiting dignitary. In fact, Christians did this very thing when the apostles visited them. For instance, when the apostles visited the Christians in Rome, the Christians in Rome met them “as far as Appii Forum and Three Inns,” and then they escorted the apostles back to their city (Acts 28:15). How much more would the Thessalonians have done this—if only in spirit—for the coming of the Great Dignitary, Jesus Christ? At the second coming, the Thessalonians would “meet the Lord in the air,” figuratively speaking, and then escort him back to earth in vindication and power and glory (as Jesus came in judgment against those who had rejected him).
Paul was simply using the common political practices of this day to make this spiritual point.
What About the Rapture?
1 Thessalonians 4 (above) does not teach a rapture! In fact, the rapture doctrine—along with the rest of the dispensational schema—has serious flaws.
First, as shown above, Paul’s statement “We will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air” has nothing to do with Christians being raptured off the planet. Paul was simply using the well-known political practices of his day, which the first-century Thessalonians would have been intimately familiar with, to describe the second coming. Jesus was coming back to earth in judgment and vindication—not taking people to heaven!
Second, dispensationalists teach that the Christians who are raptured away (“caught up”) will never die. However, Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for men to die once, and then comes judgment.”
Third, dispensationalists say Christians will be taken out of the world (at the rapture). However, Jesus prayed for the exact opposite: “I do not pray that You [God] should take them [Christians] out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15–16, italics mine).
Fourth, dispensationalists say Christians will be raptured off the planet exactly seven years prior to the Second Coming. (Note: some dispensationalists say this number is three and a half years.) Yet dispensationalists also say that the timing of the second coming is unknowable, that it will happen when people least expect it. However, these two dispensational views contradict each other. If Jesus will come exactly seven years after the rapture—as dispensationalists claim—then the timing of the second coming will hardly be a surprise. We today would know it cannot happen until after the rapture (which has not happened yet); and once the rapture happens, those left behind would know that the second coming will happen in exactly seven years. Not much of a surprise to anyone!
Fifth, in AD 50, Paul warned his fellow Christians not to be deceived into thinking that the second coming had already happened: “Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come” (2 Thess. 2:2).
Here’s the problem for dispensationalists: If the rapture happens (seven years) prior to the second coming, as dispensationalists claim, then how could the Christians in Paul’s day think the second coming had already happened? Wouldn’t they have already been raptured away? Clearly, the Christians in Paul’s day knew nothing about a rapture.
Incidentally, this passage (2 Thess. 2:2) also shows that the Christians in Paul’s day were not expecting the second coming to be a global, planet-destroying, time-ending event. Otherwise, how could they have thought they missed it? Such an event could not be missed! The fact that some of the Christians in Paul’s day were worried about missing the second coming shows it is not the kind of event that most Christians today expect. See my article “What is the Second Coming?” for more about this issue.
Sixth, dispensationalists teach that Christians (the righteous) will be raptured off the planet so that God can make one final, last-ditch effort to convince unbelievers (the wicked) to turn to him. However, in the parable of the wheat and tares, Jesus taught that both the righteous (“the wheat”) and the wicked (“the tares”) would remain until the judgment: “Let both [wheat and tares] grow together until the harvest [judgment]” (Matt. 13:30). Then, Jesus would sort them out (v. 30).
In fact, Jesus said the wicked—not the righteous—would be taken first: “First gather together the tares [the wicked] and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat [the righteous] into my barn” (Matt. 13:30). Dispensationalists teach the opposite; they say that the wheat (the righteous) will be gathered (raptured away) first!
Seventh, dispensationalists say the rapture happens prior to the tribulation and Jesus’ “cloud coming.” However, Jesus said in AD 30 that the tribulation (Matt. 24:21) and his “cloud coming” (v. 30) would happen within his generation (v. 34). A biblical generation is forty years (Heb. 3:8–10, Num. 14:30–34 and Neh. 9:21), which means these events must have happened by around AD 70. And if the rapture doctrine is true, then the rapture must have happened prior to that.
While there is plenty of historical evidence that the tribulation and Jesus’ coming happened in the first century (see my articles “What is the Second Coming” and “Prophecies Fulfilled in the First Century”), there is zero evidence that a rapture happened.
Eighth, Jesus did not utter a single word about the rapture in the Olivet Discourse, which would have been the perfect time to do so. After all, the Olivet Discourse is specifically about the end-times! Jesus talks about false messiahs (Matt. 24:12), wars and rumors of wars (Matt. 24:6–7), famine, earthquakes and pestilence (Matt. 24:7), increase of lawlessness (Matt. 24:10–12), the end (Matt. 24:3, 13, 14), the greatest tribulation ever (Matt. 24:21), persecution of the saints (Matt. 24:9), the abomination of desolation (Matt. 24:15), the sun, moon, and stars growing dim (Matt. 24:29; Luke 21:25; Mark 13:24), and Jesus coming on clouds (Matt. 24:30).
Yet not a peep about a rapture!
Keep in mind, also, that dispensationalists say the purpose of the rapture is to spare Christians from the tribulation. And Jesus specifically discussed the tribulation here (Matt. 24:21). Yet he did not utter a single word about the rapture.
Ninth, if the rapture happens before the tribulation, then how could John, the writer of Revelation, have been a “brother and companion in the tribulation” (Rev. 1:9)? Wouldn’t John have been raptured away by this time?
By the way, this passage also shows that the tribulation had already begun by the time Revelation was written in approximately AD 65—which fits perfectly with Jesus saying back in AD 30 that the tribulation would happen within his generation (Matt. 24:21, 34). See my article “The Dating of Revelation.”
Tenth, no Christian prior to the 1800s (that we know of) held the dispensational view of the rapture. This doctrine is not found in any extrabiblical Christian writing before John Nelson Darby in the 1800s.[2] While this does not necessarily mean the doctrine is wrong, it does mean we should be extremely cautious before accepting it. It needs to be thoroughly vetted against Scripture. And when we do that, it’s found sorely wanting!
Three Popular Rapture Arguments–Debunked!
In closing, I want to respond to three popular rapture arguments.
Rapture argument 1: The rapture of the church is described in the book of Revelation. “The common NT [New Testament] term for ‘church’ (Greek: ekklesia) is used 19 times in Revelation 1–3, a section that deals with the historical church of the first century…However, ‘church’ is then used only once more in the twenty-two chapter book, and that use is at the very end (22:16) when John returns to addressing the first-century church” (italics mine).[3] The reason why the word “church” is not used in chapters 4–21 is that the church had been raptured.
Response: It is true that the word “church” is not mentioned in chapters 4–21; however, “the saints” are sure mentioned…all throughout the book (Rev. 8:3–4; 11:7; 13:7; 14:12; 16:6; 17:6; 18:24; 19:8). And according to Paul, “the saints” is synonymous for the church (1 Cor. 1:2; 6:1–6; 14:33). Therefore, the church could not have been raptured.
Note, also, that in the book of Romans, the word “church” (ekklesia) is not used until chapter 16. Yet nobody believes this indicates the church had been raptured—and it doesn’t indicate this in Revelation either.
Rapture argument 2: Jesus describes the rapture in the Olivet Discourse:
“But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left” (Matt. 24:37–41, italics mine).
One will be taken, and one will be left. This is the rapture!
Response: As verse 37 explicitly says, Jesus is talking about “the coming of the Son of Man”—not the rapture. This is the same coming that Jesus had just said three verses earlier would happen within his generation (v. 30–34)! This is not the rapture; it is Jesus’ coming.
Notice, also, how Jesus says this coming/judgment would be similar to the judgment in Noah’s day (v. 37), where one person was taken and another left. But who was “taken” in Noah’s day? It was not the righteous; it was the wicked! The wicked were “taken” (killed) by the flood, and the righteous (Noah and his family) were spared/left behind. This is the exact opposite of what dispensationalists teach about the rapture. Dispensationalists say the righteous will be taken, and the wicked will be left behind. Either dispensationalists have it backward, or this passage is not about the rapture.
Rapture argument 3: The Greek word harpazo, which is translated as “caught up” (in 1 Thess. 4:17), refers to God supernaturally transporting (rapturing) Christians—physically and bodily—from earth to heaven.
In fact, the book of Acts describes a similar rapture of Philip after he baptized the Ethiopian eunuch: “Now when they [Philip and the eunuch] came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught [harpazo] Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea” (Acts 8:39–40).
As the passage says, Philip was “caught up” physically and bodily, and he was supernaturally transported (raptured) twenty miles away. This is what will happen to Christians at the rapture; only Christians will be raptured to heaven.
Response: First, Acts 8:39–40 is not describing a rapture! The point of the passage is simply this: After baptizing the eunuch, Philip was prompted by the Holy Spirit to leave the area posthaste, so Philip went (on his own accord) to the city of Azotus, which is where he was later found doing God’s work. Philip was obediently following Jesus’s command to preach the gospel from place to place (Matt. 10:7), and he was being guided by the Holy Spirit where to go (Acts 2–3). The passage says nothing about what happened to Philip between point A and point B. To say that Philip was supernaturally “raptured away” is nothing but conjecture.
Second, the Greek word harpazo is often used metaphorically. For example, in John 10:28, Jesus says “nobody can snatch [harpazo] someone from my hand” (paraphrase). However, Jesus is not referring to somebody physically snatching a Christian out of his physical hand; he is merely using a metaphor to make a spiritual point. In another harpazo passage, Jude 1:23 describes people being “pulled [harpazo] from the flames of hell” (paraphrase). But again, this is obviously figurative language—at least, I’ve never met anyone who has been physically and bodily pulled from the flames of hell.
Conclusion: The arguments dispensationalists use to “prove” the rapture lack biblical and historical support. The rapture doctrine is just not biblical.
By Alex Polyak, The Bible Fulfilled 4/6/24
For more about the end times, and all the related topics, see my book The End Is Here, available summer 2024.
[1] Dispensationalism is the theological view founded in the 1800s by John Nelson Darby, which holds that God has two distinct people: Israel (the physical descendants of Abraham), and Christians (primarily Gentiles). Because Israel had rejected their Messiah two thousand years ago, God postponed the arrival of the kingdom of God. Since that time, God has been drawing people—primarily Gentiles—to himself through the church. But one day God will “rapture” (remove) the church from planet earth and get back to dealing with Israel. Despite its popularity of this view among American evangelicals, dispensationalism opposes the clear teachings of Scripture in many ways. For example, the Bible says nothing about a postponement of the kingdom. In fact, it says the exact opposite, that the kingdom of God came in the first century (Matt. 3:2, 4:17, 16:28). Note: the kingdom of God is spiritual, not physical (Rom. 14:17, Luke 17:20–22, John 3:2). Furthermore, Jesus broke down the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, creating one new man (Eph. 2:11–16, Gal. 3:28). The olive tree illustration shows that God has only one people today, consisting of Jews and Gentiles (Rom. 11:11–25).
[2] Dispensationalists sometimes argue there is a document written by Saint Ephrem the Syrian (AD 306–373) that shows he held the dispensational view of the rapture. However, this claim has been debunked. The document in question was not actually written by Ephrem, but rather by someone else claiming to be Ephrem.
[3] Richard Mayhue, “Why a Pretribunal Rapture?” The Master’s Seminary 10, no. 2, viewed Nov. 25, 2023, https://tms.edu/educational-resources/journal/archive/why-a-pretribulational-rapture/.