Copyright © 2024 Michael A. Brown
A brief study into the apostle Paul’s first and last references in his epistles
to the resurrection-rapture event is an instructive exercise that can yield
some helpful insights. His own personal
journey with regard to the rapture presents us with a paradigm which has been
true for every generation of believers since then.
Paul’s
first recorded reference to the coming of the Lord for believers in the
resurrection-rapture event is in 1 Thessalonians 1:10. He wrote these words around 49-51 AD. Although he must necessarily have been aware
of this revelation truth for many years previously, and must therefore have
lived in the conscious awareness of it in his own personal life and must also
have taught it to many other believers, yet this is his earliest reference to
it which is actually recorded in Scripture.
So as far as Paul’s own inward convictions regarding this truth are
concerned, we can only go back as far as this date, but his words to the Thessalonian
believers would suggest that he lived eagerly in expectation of the Lord’s
coming:
‘They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.’ (1 Thess. 1:10)
This eager and
confident anticipation is reflected in Paul’s use of the Greek verb anamenein
which is used solely in this verse. It
means to actively wait for someone with eager expectation, confident hope, and increasing
intensity. You know they are
coming, but
you don’t know quite when they will arrive, so you stay up and don’t go to bed, and with every sound
or movement you hear from outside, you look out of the window to see if it’s
them. So this word clearly suggests the
concept of imminency regarding the Lord’s coming. We are expecting it to happen, and to happen very
soon, certainly while we are still alive, but we don’t know exactly when.
That
Paul was expecting to be alive when the rapture happened is clear from his repeated
use of the pronoun ‘we’ in his statements about it:
‘...that
we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord... Then we who are alive, who are left,
will be caught up...’
(1 Thess. 4:15,17)
‘Listen,
I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be
changed… the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed…’ (1 Cor. 15:51-52)
However,
Paul’s last recorded reference to the resurrection-rapture event in 1 Timothy
6:14-15, penned over a decade later around 62-64 AD, seems to show a
development in his thinking about the rapture at the coming of the Lord. He says that God will bring it about in
his own time. And by the time he
wrote 2 Timothy, his final epistle, shortly afterwards around 65 AD, he knew
that he was going to be executed very soon by the Emperor Nero, and that he
would therefore die before the Lord’s return.
So by then Paul had realised that the rapture was not going to
happen in his own lifetime:
‘...the appearing of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which God will bring about in his own time…’
(1 Tim. 6:14-15)
‘…the time for my departure is
near. I have fought the good fight, I
have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness…’ (2
Tim. 4:6-8)
These
verses seem to indicate a development in Paul’s thinking regarding the rapture
as the years passed in his lifetime. When he was younger, he expected that the
rapture would happen soon, but as time went by and he saw the end of his earthly
life clearly approaching, he realised that it was not going to happen, but
rather that he would pass away through physical death before it happened.
When
we are younger in age, and physical death seems to be far off in the future and
hardly worth even thinking about, it is the rapture that predominates in our
thinking, and we look forward to it with eager expectation: the Lord is coming
for us! However, as we grow older and become
consciously aware that the time of our passing is approaching, it is perfectly
normal for this to then begin to become more dominant in our thinking than it
had been previously. So by then it could
be either the rapture or physical death that takes us from this life into the
Lord’s presence. And then as time
continues to pass and physical death becomes clearly imminent, it is both
natural and normal for this to become our predominant expectation: ‘to depart
and be with Christ which is better by far.’ (Phil. 1:23). We know then that it is physical death which
will usher us into the presence of Christ, rather than the rapture, and we also
know therefore that it is another generation of believers who will experience
the rapture, rather than us: it will happen in God’s own time.
I
do not believe that Paul allowed the issue of God’s unknown timing of the resurrection-rapture
event to dampen or discourage his eager expectation of the Lord’s return, as
the years went by without seeing this promise fulfilled. He did not lose his inward conviction about
the Lord’s return, and neither did he lose his faith that it would one day take
place. No, he simply entrusted this
issue to the Lord, learned to wait patiently, and in the meantime got on joyfully
with the Lord’s work every day that dawned.
He would still have lived ready and prepared within himself for the
rapture to happen, and he died in faith knowing that he would soon be in the Lord’s
presence anyway.
It is just as true and normal of the rapture as it is of any other promise that God has made, that believers may well ‘die in faith, not having received the promise.’ (Heb. 11:13). As with any other divine purpose, the rapture has its own set time for fulfilment and only God the Father knows when that will be (Matt. 24:36). So we are obliged to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 4:18, 5:7; cf. Hab. 3:2). God knows his present purpose, and he is not slow concerning his promise: he is waiting patiently, because he does not want anyone to perish eternally, but wants everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). The tension between the Lord’s impending return and it being fulfilled in God’s own time, is unresolved in Scripture. Eager anticipation of the rapture as an impending event, and waiting for it patiently as the years of our life go by, are two sides of the same prophetic coin. They are both true at one and the same time. So just like Paul, we too have to trust God with the matter and learn to live with this inherent tension, while we wait patiently and get on faithfully with the Lord’s work in the meantime. I believe that this inherent three-fold tension between eager expectation, patiently waiting, and lack of fulfilment of the promise in one’s lifetime, presents us with a paradigm of the inward journey of many believers over their lifetime with regard to the resurrection-rapture event.
The
inevitable disappointment of rapture fever
If
a believer does not come to terms with living with this tension between the
impending nature of the rapture and it happening in God’s own time, then this can
easily breed frustration and perhaps even irritation in their heart as they
sense their living hope in the Lord’s return being deferred. They may lose their inward joy and peace, and
they can become disappointed and perhaps even disillusioned (cf. Prov. 13:12).
I
am sure that many of us are all too familiar with what happens with excitable believers
from time to time, especially on internet forums. Someone somewhere makes the basic error of seeming
to set (or actually setting) a date for the rapture to happen, especially
around a particular Jewish feast day; or they become aware of certain end-time
events or signs happening in the world, for example the latest war in the Middle
East involving Israel, or the so-called Revelation ch.12 ‘sign in the heavens’ which
happened in 2017. Books are written and
sell like hot cakes, internet posts get liked and shared thousands of times, hopes
are raised, discussion is excited and frenetic, so rapture expectancy takes off
and reaches fever pitch before eventually falling away and subsiding into yet
another dashed hope. If believers are not
careful, this can potentially lead to deep disappointment and even
disillusionment with rapture teaching. It
is important to emphasise that in Scripture there is no sign that must precede the
rapture before it can happen.
Other end-time events may happen around us, but none of them are signs
upon which the rapture is conditional.
The
rapture is not a stand-alone event
We
must learn to live with the inherent tension described above, and make sure that
we guard our inward state of anticipation and readiness regarding the coming of
the Lord. It is a source of living
hope, deep joy and settled inward peace which can sustain us as we go through the
various challenges and situations of life. We should not reject the clear exhortation of
the word of God to ‘watch, wait, pray and be ready’ in passive resignation, shrugging
our shoulders in an ‘I don’t care anymore’ attitude, simply because we have
waited for so long and the rapture hasn’t happened yet (cf. 2 Peter 3:3-4).
As
well as being related to the intermittent phenomenon of ‘rapture fever,’ the
problem of disappointment with rapture teaching can also be related to the fact
that believers who are not very well taught may treat the rapture as though it
is an event isolated from other end-times events. It is important therefore to emphasise
that the rapture is not a stand-alone event. It is intrinsically connected to other
end-time events, and it should not be separated out from these in our thinking.
I
know several believers who, out of frustration with the inherent tension described
above, have rejected belief in a pre-tribulation rapture, and have embraced a
post-tribulation viewpoint. However, it
is interesting that these same people are quite happy to continue to believe in
the future rise of Antichrist and the tribulation period. They do not doubt these. However, this is inconsistent. The rapture is inseparable from these events,
and so it stands or falls together with these.
It necessarily precedes the rise of Antichrist and the tribulation,
because believers are taken away in the rapture from the time of God’s
end-times wrath. There is no reason to
doubt a pre-tribulation rapture simply because of time continuing to pass
without it being fulfilled. It will
certainly be fulfilled when God’s time for it has fully come, just as certainly
as Antichrist will then be revealed and the tribulation will take place.
Although
we are exhorted to anticipate the coming of the Lord and to live our life in
the light of this, and therefore that we should be ready to go ‘at a moment’s
notice’ as it were, yet God will bring the rapture about in his own time; we do
not know the day or the hour. So it is
perhaps better to say that the rapture is an impending event, rather than being
imminent. However, at the present time, it
must also be emphasised that we are the first generation that is actually
seeing the rise of a worldwide globalist system, together with the convergence
of many other end-times signs which the word of God talks about, so we know
objectively that the rapture is now very close indeed. We really are living in momentous times! In this sense, the rapture is therefore
imminent, and we should be expecting it to happen very soon. The rapture is the trigger of the end-period of
this present age, and its purpose is to take believers who are ready away from
the outpouring of God’s wrath during the time of the worldwide globalist
Antichrist system.
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