Copyright © 2024 Michael A. Brown
‘In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it
were not so, I would have told you. And
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with
me that you also may be where I am.’
(John
14:2-3)
When
Jesus spoke the well-known words above to his disciples on the evening of the
Last Supper, they would have immediately recognised and understood what he was
referring to. Jesus used the analogy of
the Jewish wedding traditions of their day to draw a parallel with his own
future return for the bride of Christ. There
would have been no doubt in their minds that he was referring to this Jewish
tradition.
It
was this analogy that Jesus used to describe his own return as the heavenly
Bridegroom for his bride, the believing church, in the event that we know as 'the rapture' (1 Thess. 4:16-17). Since he
returned to heaven, Jesus has remained there preparing a place for us, but he
will very soon return to receive us to himself, as he promised. And as the next
chapter shows quite clearly, this is an event which is distinct from his Second
Advent at the end of the tribulation period.
In Jewish culture, the two fathers would agree
to the marriage. The groom then tells
the wife-to-be that he will prepare a place for them in his father’s house, adding
an apartment to it to use as their own home after the marriage. In her own parent’s home, the bride then prepares
her wedding garments and gets herself ready, and the groom returns for the
bride when he has finished his own preparations.
In Jewish culture in those days, it was the
groom’s father who made the final decision as to when the new apartment was
ready. He would then tell his son that
it was ready, and that the time had finally come when he could go and get his
bride.
The son would then get his best man and a
group of close friends, and these would walk through the streets shouting,
“Behold, the bridegroom comes!” They
would blow a shofar to announce that they were coming. When they arrived at the bride’s house, they
would wait outside and she would come out to meet them. Then they would all return to the groom’s house,
where the wedding ceremony took place.
Their marriage was then consummated physically. After this, the wedding party then ensued for
seven days.[1]
The following table highlights clearly this parallel.
The Jewish wedding tradition
|
The heavenly Bridegroom and his bride
|
The groom
leaves his father’s home and goes to his prospective bride’s home.
The groom
establishes a marriage covenant by paying a tribute or purchase price for his
prospective bride.
The groom
promises to return, leaving the bride at her father’s house and going back to
his father’s house. They remain
separated for a period of time, normally about a year.
During
the year of separation, the groom would stay at his father’s house to build
living accommodation for him and his wife.
The
groom, on an unannounced night, at the end of the year of separation, would
come and take his bride to be with him.
This would happen only after the living quarters were finished and
after his father gave approval, and told him he could go and get his bride.
When
the bridegroom came, he and his male escorts would wait outside the bride’s
house until she was ready. They would shout “Behold, the bridegroom comes!”,
and a shofar would then be blown.
When
the bride came out, the couple would return by torchlight procession to the
groom’s father’s house.
Upon returning to the groom’s father’s house, the wedding ceremony
took place, and the new couple remained hidden in the bridal chamber for
seven days in what was known as ‘the seven days of the bridal chamber.’
At the end of the seventh day, the groom would come out of hiding with
his bride, so that everyone could see his bride.
|
Jesus
left heaven to come to earth.
Jesus
establishes the new covenant through his blood, redeeming us to himself.
Jesus
promised to return, left the believers on earth and went to his Father’s
house (John 14:2-3).
Jesus
said he would go and prepare a place, to which he will later bring his bride.
Jesus, at the end of the separation, will come from his Father’s house at an unannounced time (Mark 13:32). He will come at his Father’s command (1 Thess. 4:16).
When
Jesus comes, he will not come the whole way down to earth, but will wait in
the air. The archangel will cry out
that the Bridegroom has come (Matt. 25:6), and the trumpet call of God will
sound (1 Thess. 4:16). Then the bride
will come up into the air to meet him.
Jesus
will return with his bride to his Father’s house to begin living in the many
rooms prepared for us there.
When Jesus and his bride return to the Father’s house, they will ‘go
into hiding’ for seven years, during the time that the tribulation takes
place on earth.
At the end of the seven years, Jesus will come out of hiding in his
Second Advent, and return to earth to rule and reign. The bride will come with him in full public
display for all to see.
|
The rapture: the
heavenly Bridegroom comes for his bride
Reading:
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
The
apostle Paul called the rapture 'a mystery,' i.e. it is something that was not taught clearly in the Old Testament writings, but was revealed to the apostles in the New Testament. His teaching on the rapture of the bride of Christ is found in the
passages in 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, as below:
‘For
the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the
voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in
Christ will rise first. After that, we
who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And
so we will be with the Lord forever.’ (1 Thess. 4:16-17)
‘Listen
I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a
flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be
raised imperishable, and we will be changed.’ (1 Cor. 15:51-52)
Although
we call this event ‘the rapture,’ there are actually two things which happen in
it. Firstly, the dead in Christ are
resurrected and then, after this and secondly, those believers who are living
at that time will be transformed and caught up together with those who have
been resurrected, and they will all meet up with the Lord in the air. So in this book, I refer to this event simply
as ‘the rapture’ or, more technically, as the ‘resurrection-rapture event.’
In
the first of these two passages, we can see the parallel with the Jewish
wedding traditions as it is outlined in the table above. When the time comes for Jesus to descend from
heaven and receive his bride, his Father will give him a clear and loud command
to do so, because the Father knows that the time has come. The Greek word keleuma which is used here in verse 16 referred to ‘an
order,’ ‘a command’ or ‘a stimulating cry’ such as that which is given to rouse
and urge horses on in a chariot race, or ‘a loud call which is given to people’
such as that given to soldiers by a commander.
Verse 16 also tells us that Jesus will be
accompanied by one of heaven’s archangels, much as the young Jewish bridegroom
was accompanied by his best man and a group of close friends. It is this archangel who will cry out,
“Behold, the bridegroom is coming!” (cf. Matt. 25:6), and presumably he will
also give the loud shofar trumpet blast to announce the coming of the heavenly
Bridegroom.
The Lord will not come down to earth, but
will wait in the air, in the same way that the young Jewish bridegroom would
not enter the bride’s house, but would wait for her outside. The dead in Christ will then be raised, and
believers who are alive will be transformed and caught up, and they will all meet
and gather together with Christ in the air.
The Greek verb harpazein which is used here literally means ‘to be
snatched away,’ or ‘to claim something eagerly for oneself.’ Its translation in the Vulgate Latin version
of the Bible uses the verb rapio from
which we get our word ‘rapture.’ The gathered bride of Christ will then return
with him to heaven, his Father’s house, and the wedding supper of the Lamb will
be celebrated there later on (cf. Rev. 19:6-9).
Paul
elaborates a little further on this in the passage in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52,
where he speaks of the transformation of the physical bodies of believers into
their spiritual bodies as they are caught up into the air to meet the
Lord. He say that this transformation will
happen ‘in a flash’ or ‘in the
twinkling of an eye.’ The Greek words
used here are atomos, meaning a
period of time that is so small it cannot be divided, and rhipe ophthalmou,
referring to the time taken for light to
flash on or across the pupil of a person’s eye.
So, expressed proverbially, this transformation of our bodies is going
to happen so fast that, if you blinked your eyes, you’d miss it!
The rapture: prophetic fulfilment of the Feast of Trumpets
From the passage in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
we can also discern the connection between this resurrection-rapture event and
the Hebrew Feast of Trumpets, Yom Teruah (cf. Lev. 23:23-25). The Feast of Trumpets was the first of the
three Autumn feasts which Jews were commanded to celebrate, and, just as the
three Spring feasts found their Messianic fulfilment in the life and work of
Christ, this feast also has Messianic prophetic significance. Today it is often referred to as Rosh
Hashanah and it marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year. It was held on the first day of the seventh
month (Tishri), and its purpose was to call the Jews to a period of prayer, confession,
repentance and putting things right in their lives, in preparation for the Day
of Atonement (Yom Kippur) which would take place on the tenth day of that same
month. These ten days of prayer and repentance,
beginning on Rosh Hashanah and ending on Yom Kippur, are called the Days of Awe.
Each day during this
period, the shofar (trumpet) is blown to awaken the people, and to warn them to
repent and return to God since God’s judgement of sin on Yom Kippur is coming. The final shofar blast on Rosh Hashanah was
known as ‘the last trump’ (i.e. the last blast of the shofar). It is this ‘last trumpet’ blast which Paul is
referring to in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52.
It should not be confused with ‘the trumpet call of God’ mentioned in 1
Thessalonians 4:16, as this refers to the shofar blast in the Jewish wedding
analogy, as we have seen above.
After the rapture of the bride of Christ, this world will enter
into a time of God’s call to repentance and the pouring out of his wrath on
earth because of human sin, a period of time which we generally call the
tribulation. During the time of the seven
trumpets and the seven bowls of wrath in the book of Revelation, there are
references to repentance, or rather to the lack of it (see Rev. 9:20-21; 16:9-10). This time of worldwide tribulation is then
followed by the Second Advent of Christ (the fulfilment of Yom Kippur) when the
Lord will judge the nations (Matt. 25:31-46).
Furthermore, the Feast of Trumpets is
also known as the Wedding of the Messiah.
In the analogy of a traditional Jewish wedding, the marriage takes place
over a period of time known as the ‘bridal week.’ During this bridal week, the groom and bride
consummate their relations in the bridal room which was built in the father’s
home. At the end of this week, the
marriage supper is held. This bridal
week represents the time when the bride of Christ is in heaven after the
rapture, while on earth it will be the time of the tribulation.
In Matthew 24:36, we can also see another
connection between the rapture and the Feast of Trumpets:
‘No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor
the Son, but only the Father.’ (Matt.
24:36)
It will be made clear in chapter 6 that this verse does not refer to the
Second Advent of Christ, but to the event of the rapture. The Feast of Trumpets was known as the feast
about which ‘we do not know the day or the hour.’
This was because this feast day could only be announced by the priests
to have arrived when two reliable witnesses had both seen the new crescent moon rising.
The
new moon is very difficult to see on the first day, because it can be seen only around the
time of sunset and it is very close to the sun which is travelling north. So, looking for a very slim and faint crescent moon, which is very
close to the sun, is
a difficult thing to do. If the crescent
moon was not seen on that day,
then it was automatically announced
the next day. It is for this reason that
Yom
Teruah is celebrated for two days, with the two being thought of as one long
day.
This is the only one of the biblical feasts that the Jews do not know
the exact day on which to keep it. They
know the season in which it is to be kept, of course, but not the day or the hour
(cf. Matt. 24:32-36). Therefore, they
have to be alert and to watch out for it.
Furthermore, the reference to the day of the rapture in Matthew
24:36 is to a day known only to the Father.
Even the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, does not know when it will be. He is waiting for his Father to tell him when
the right time has come to go and get his bride!
So the Feast of Trumpets finds its prophetic messianic fulfilment in the
event of the rapture. It foreshadows the return of the heavenly
Bridegroom for his bride. Because of
this, some people believe that the rapture, when it does actually take place,
will happen on the Feast of Trumpets (although we do not know in which year or
on which of its two days that will be, of course), so that it is fulfilled on
the exact day of its biblical counterpart, in just the same way that Jesus died
on the cross exactly on the day of Passover, in just the same way that he was
raised from the dead exactly on the day of the Feast of Firstfruits, and in just
the same way that the Church came into being exactly on the day of the Feast of
Weeks (the day of Pentecost). However,
because Rosh Hashanah is celebrated as a two-day feast, this would still mean
that we do not know the day or the hour when the rapture would happen, just as it
says in Matthew 24:36.
The Spring Hebrew Feasts
Passover Lev.
23:4-8 Jesus, the spotless Lamb
of
/ Unleavened Bread God,
bearing our sin
Feast of Firstfruits Lev. 23:9-14 Jesus’ resurrection
Feast of
Weeks Lev. 23:15-22 The day of Pentecost
/
Birth of the Church
The Autumn Hebrew Feasts
Feast of Trumpets Lev. 23:23-25 The rapture of the bride
Day of
Atonement Lev. 23-26-32 The Second Advent of Jesus
as
Judge (see later)
Feast of Tabernacles Lev. 23:33-43 The millennium (see later)
In Jewish
tradition, there are three particular trumpet blasts that have a name. These are ‘the first trump’ (blown on
the Feast of Weeks whose messianic fulfilment was in the birth of the Church,
cf. Acts 2:1-41), ‘the last trump’ (blown on the Feast of
Trumpets whose messianic fulfilment will be in the rapture of the Church, cf. 1
Cor. 15:51-52), and ‘the great trump’ (blown on
the Day of Atonement whose messianic fulfilment will be at the Second Advent of
Christ, cf. Matt. 24:31, Isa. 27:13).
The
rapture happens before ‘the day of the Lord’
Reading:
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
It
should be clear by now that the rapture happens before the day of the Lord,
i.e. before the period of the tribulation on earth. The content of chapters 5 and 6 will add
further weight to this viewpoint, and it is also clear from the apostle Paul’s
teaching in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11.
The
whole of the passage in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 – 5:11 forms one natural section
in this epistle. It is important that we
remember that when Paul wrote this epistle, he did not insert chapter and verse
numbers. These were added into the text
at a much later stage. So Paul’s
teaching about the ‘day of the Lord,’ the time of tribulation and God’s wrath
on earth, follows on naturally from his teaching about the rapture. It is given to us quite clearly in the
context of the rapture.
Evidently
then, the purpose of the rapture is for the Lord to take his bride away before
the time of wrath begins. Paul states
explicitly that, because we are God’s children and we do not live in darkness,
that day will not surprise us like a thief (5:4, cf. Matt. 24:42-44), and he
also states that, as the bride of Christ, we are not destined for wrath, but to
obtain salvation through Christ (5:9).
So it is clearly the case that the sudden event of the rapture will save
us away from the onset of ‘the day of the Lord,’ and then, after this period of
tribulation, we will return with the Lord at his Second Advent (1 Thess. 4:14).
Furthermore,
we are told that the rapture will happen suddenly and unexpectedly in a time of
relative ‘peace and safety’ on earth.
After the rapture, the world will then be plunged suddenly into the time
of destruction of the tribulation (5:3).
‘Peace and safety’ on earth will not be characteristic of the time of
tribulation, rather it will be a time when people’s hearts will fail them for
fear of what is coming upon the earth (Luke 21:25-26). So the rapture cannot happen after the
time of tribulation, or even sometime after it starts, it must happen before
this time.
Figures 3.1 and 3.2 below give a summary of the apostle Paul’s
teaching in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 – 5:11:
Figure 3.1 The
teaching of 1 Thessalonians 4:13 – 5:11
Figure
3.2 A summary of this teaching
So when will the rapture occur in relation to the tribulation?
There
are traditionally three major viewpoints as to when the rapture will occur in
relation to the tribulation period.
These are known as the pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation and
post-tribulation viewpoints. So,
although everyone accepts that it will happen on a day and at a time which is
unknown to us (cf. Matt. 24:36), some believe the rapture will happen before
the day of the Lord; some believe it happens in the middle of this period, and
others that it will happen at the end.
The
post-tribulation viewpoint holds that the rapture will occur at the end of the
tribulation, i.e. at the time of the Second Advent of Christ. So this viewpoint conflates John 14:2-3 and 1
Thessalonians 4:13-18 which are about the rapture, with the passages in Matthew
24:29-31 and Revelation 19:11-16 which are about the Second Advent. People who believe this, think that the
gathering referred to in Matthew 24:31 is the same as the rapture we have
described in this chapter. Hence, in this
scenario, all believers would go through the time of tribulation, and would then
be raptured at the end of it. So they
would be snatched up into the air to meet Christ as he descends from heaven at
his Second Advent, only to then immediately come back down to the earth with
him. It is the conflation of the
passages mentioned above which leads to this confused and wrong belief.
In
this viewpoint, there is no analogy of the rapture with the Jewish wedding
traditions as I have described in this chapter, and the deeply loved bride of
Christ effectively becomes an object of God’s wrath along with everyone else on
earth during the tribulation. This would
be something fearful to have to look forward to, and it would no doubt fill us
with anxiety, worry and stress, rather than looking forward with anticipation
and joy to the rapture happening before the tribulation, as I have described. This error is dealt with in chapter 5.
Furthermore,
although we do not know when the rapture will occur, yet we do know exactly
when the Second Advent will occur. It
occurs immediately after the time of tribulation on earth, and it is preceded
by signs in the sun, moon and stars, as described by Jesus himself in Matthew 24:29-30. So, anyone who were alive on earth in those
days and who knew the Scriptures well, would be able to tell exactly when the Second
Advent (and therefore the rapture) was going occur. S/he would simply have to wait for the end of
the time of tribulation and to see the signs in the sun, moon and stars,
because it is then that it will occur. So
this event does not happen suddenly like a thief coming in the night, and this
viewpoint therefore falls clearly into contradiction with Matthew 24:36 which says
that we cannot know the day or the hour.
It
is similar with the mid-tribulation viewpoint.
As we will see in a later chapter, there are two distinct halves in the
tribulation period, each lasting 3.5 years.
So again, if we were alive at that time and knew the Scriptures well, we
would know exactly when the first half of the tribulation would draw to a
close. We would simply have to count down
the number of days since it began (cf. Rev. 11:3), and then the rapture will
occur. A similar argument also holds for
the second half of the tribulation and for the post-tribulation viewpoint. It simply means that the rapture, when it
came, would not break into our lives as a sudden surprise, which is the picture
of it given to us in the Scriptures.
This
viewpoint also conflates the last of the seven trumpets in the book of
Revelation (which will happen at the mid-point of the tribulation period, cf.
Rev. 11:15) with the last trumpet of 1 Corinthians 15:52. This latter trumpet blast was the prophetic
fulfilment of ‘the last trump’ of the Feast of Trumpets, as we have seen, and
this is certainly prophetic of the rapture.
However, the seventh trumpet of Revelation 11:15 is simply the last of
seven trumpet blasts which will be sounded in heaven, but not heard on
earth. So they are not the same
thing.
There
is another viewpoint of when the rapture will occur in relation to the
tribulation period. This is called the
pre-wrath viewpoint, and basically it says that the rapture will happen about
three-quarters of the way through the seven-year period of the tribulation,
just prior to the pouring out of the bowls of God’s wrath (cf. Rev.
ch.16). However, as with the
post-tribulation viewpoint, this means that the bride of Christ will have to
experience at least part of the reign of the Antichrist, and that the rapture
cannot happen until after Antichrist rises up.
So then, according to this viewpoint, the first thing we need to look
out for is Antichrist, rather than the return of the Bridegroom. Again, this contradicts Matthew 24:36 which
says that we cannot know the day or the hour: we cannot say that it must
be after Antichrist arises. There are no
signs which the Bible says must happen before the rapture takes place. It will happen suddenly and unexpectedly, and
is something that we need to ready for.
For
these reasons, and for the other reasons given both in this chapter and in the
next two chapters, I believe that the rapture will come before the day
of the Lord, the time of tribulation on earth.
So this book is presenting a pre-tribulation viewpoint of the
rapture. This viewpoint is consistent
both with the Scriptures and with the Jewish wedding analogy which is used by
both the Lord Jesus and the apostle Paul as its parallel. No-one knows the day or hour when the rapture
will take place, and it has no signs which the Bible says must precede it. It is the next great event in the life of
the global church, and it will happen suddenly and unexpectedly in a time of
relative ‘peace and safety,’ before the time of the tribulation. As the bride of Christ, it is this event that
we are encouraged by the apostle Paul to look forward to with anticipation, inward
peace and joy, rather than being fearful and anxious of having to go through
the tribulation (1 Thess. 4:18, 5:11).
We will then return to earth with Jesus at his Second Advent (1 Thess.
4:14).
[1] See Ankerberg, J.
and deYoung J. Israel Under Fire,
Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2009, pp.134-136.
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