The Rapture! When Is It? Two Scriptures Remove Any Confusion

by Pastor Jim Feeney, Ph.D.

Summary:  Jesus’ first coming to earth was 2,000 years ago. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory” (John 1:14, KJV). He lived, ministered, died on a cross for our sins, and rose again to eternal life as our Lord and Savior. He ascended back to heaven, where to the present day He sits at the right hand of God the Father.

The Bible tells us that “this same Jesus” (Acts 1:11) — the resurrected, glorified Son of God Almighty — “will appear a second time” (Hebrews 9:28) at the end of the age. This is what is known as the Second Coming of Christ. Note carefully: His first coming was 2,000 years ago. He will return to earth “a second time” — singular, not in two phases.

This will be seen to be very important as we identify the exact timing of the biblically promised “rapture” (which means “catching up”) of the redeemed at His coming. And that timing of the rapture, we will see from Scripture, is AT, not before, the one-and-only, visible, audible, “last trumpet” Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He will do two things precisely AT that coming: (1) resurrect all the redeemed, deceased believers (“they that are Christ’s” - 1 Corinthians 15:23, KJV), and (2) catch up (“rapture”) along with them the then-living believers to meet the Lord “in the air” as He returns to earth to establish His Millennial kingdom.

Let’s now look at two Scripture portions — Revelation 20:4-6 with 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 — that clearly place the rapture of redeemed believers AT, not before, the one-and-only, visible, “last trumpet,” post-Tribulation, second coming of Jesus to gather the redeemed unto Himself as He returns to earth to inaugurate the Millennium (described by many as “the Kingdom Age”).

     An appeal: If this summary conflicts with some beliefs that you hold, may I courteously ask your indulgence to just read on a little bit more to see if some of the following makes biblical sense to you.

Revelation 20:4-6   I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

• These verses speak of two resurrections: the “first” resurrection of the redeemed — the “blessed and holy” (vs. 6) — at the literal return of Christ to earth to establish the Millennium/Kingdom Age, then a resurrection of “the rest of the dead” after the 1,000 years of that Kingdom Age, the Millennium (vs. 5). Those blessed and holy, redeemed believers in the “first” resurrection “will reign with Him for a thousand years” (vs. 6). And keep in mind that this being the “first” resurrection of the redeemed removes any possibility of their being an earlier resurrection of the redeemed. There obviously cannot be any earlier resurrection than “the first”! This “first” resurrection is the one-and-only resurrection of the redeemed. This is of great importance in order to understand the events of the end times.

• The second coming of Jesus Christ is described in the previous chapter: Revelation 19:11-16. Professor Alan F. Johnson in Expositors Bible Commentary, p. 573, says, “Early as well as modern interpretation has for the most part seen in 19:11-16 a description of the second coming of Christ.” It is clearly Jesus Christ — “His name is the Word of God” (vs. 13), as in John 1:1, and “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (vs. 16 and also Rev. 17:14). That description of the second coming of Christ is immediately followed in chapter 20 by important details of that second coming.

• This resurrection at Jesus’ second coming is described by John as “the FIRST resurrection” (20:5). It includes all the “blessed and holy” of vs. 6. This is the specific “resurrection of the righteous” that Jesus spoke of in Luke 14:14. It’s the “resurrection of life” that He spoke of in John 5:29, NASB. The apostle Paul confirmed this in his famous resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15. Speaking of the future resurrection of the redeemed, Paul wrote: “…in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming” (15:21-23, KJV). All deceased, redeemed believers, they that are Christ’s, will be resurrected to immortal life at His coming, not before.

• And notice that this “FIRST resurrection” — “at His coming” for all those who “are Christ’s” — includes martyrs beheaded in the Tribulation under the reign of the antichrist “beast.” They had “been beheaded … they had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands” (vs. 4). This refers to the beast/antichrist’s Tribulation reign described in Revelation 13.

• This is extraordinarily important! It is urgent that believers understand that the FIRST resurrection, which is at Christ’s one and only, visible second coming, is clearly shown to be AFTER the Tribulation martyrs are killed under the Antichrist’s reign. There is no resurrection of the believers 3-1/2 years, or 7 years, or some other arbitrary number of years before the second coming of the Lord. No! That second coming and simultaneous “FIRST resurrection” follow the reign of the antichrist and his execution of the Tribulation martyrs. The antichrist must reign, believers will be martyred during his Tribulation, and then Christ comes and raises the faithful dead of all ages, including the Tribulation martyrs.

• In other words, the Second Coming and the “first resurrection” are at one and the same time at the close of the “beast’s” reign, not before! 2 Thessalonians 2:8 (Amplified) confirms this: “Then the lawless one [the antichrist] will be revealed and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth and bring him to an end by the appearance of His coming.” At the Lord’s second coming He slays the antichrist. At His one and only second coming — when He slays antichrist at “His coming” — Jesus at the same time raises up the redeemed dead, which Revelation 20:4-6 clearly says includes Christians martyred during the antichrist’s Tribulation. In sum, the first resurrection is at the end of the Tribulation, not before, because Tribulation martyrs are among those raised in the “FIRST resurrection.” In Scripture there is taught no end-time resurrection of the believers before the “first” resurrection.

You may be asking why all this discussion about what is perhaps only a few years’ difference concerning the end times. Here is why: There is a dangerous doctrine that in the last two centuries has taken hold in many evangelical Christian circles. It generally teaches (wrongly) that at some point in time — usually 3-1/2 years or 7 years — before Jesus’ visible second coming to earth there will be what many call a “secret” coming. Christ will come, they teach, “in the air” and will catch up (“rapture”) the faithful living believers to meet Him “in the air” and will take them back to heaven for the duration of the Great Tribulation.

This is a dangerous and harmful teaching. Picture this scenario: A Christian brother is expecting to be raptured (“caught up”) to heaven before the Great Tribulation. And it doesn’t happen! What then! When great tribulation starts to occur, will he begin to doubt other things he has learned from his pastor or from books or online videos? Will even his very faith be shaken when his certainty of a pre-Trib rapture has not been fulfilled? Let’s now take a look at a portion of Scripture that, sad to say, is often quoted as a mainstay of the erroneous Pre-Tribulation rapture theory. We’ll see that it clearly disproves that Pre-Trib rapture teaching, because it separates the rapture (the “catching up” to “meet the Lord in the air") from the first resurrection that occurs AT Christ’s literal, visible coming, not before.

1 Thessalonians 4:15-17  [15] According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. [16] 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. [17] 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.

• Let’s look at the apostle Paul’s Holy Spirit-inspired teaching a piece at a time. First, there will still be believers (“we … still alive”) on earth at “the coming of the Lord” (vs. 15). The living believers will not have “preceded” [i.e., gone ahead of] the already dead believers (15).

• Rather than the erroneously taught pre-Trib catching up of the saints, it is at the literal, visible, loud, last-trumpet, one-and-only second coming of Jesus (16) that two things occur:

(1) “The dead in Christ will rise first” (16). This is the “first” resurrection we saw above in Revelation 20:4-6. It includes all the redeemed, all the “dead in Christ,” all the “blessed and holy,” all the Tribulation martyrs. Remember, the “rest of the dead” (the lost, those not belonging to Christ) do not come to life until the 1,000 years of the Millennium are ended (Rev. 20:5). Note well: this rising of the “dead in Christ” is AT, not before, the visible, literal, second “coming” of the Lord Jesus Christ.
 

(2) “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up (‘raptured’) together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17). At Christ’s literal second coming to earth, two groups are caught up to meet the Lord in the air: (1) all the dead redeemed of the ages; and (2) the then-living believers on earth.

• Comparing Revelation 20:4-6 with 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, the much-anticipated “rapture” of the Church is seen thus:

(1) The Lord Jesus Christ descends from heaven in a loud, visible, last-trumpet, one-and-only “second coming” to earth.
 

(2) The “dead in Christ” of all the ages rise from the dead, including the Tribulation martyrs. This is the “first resurrection” (Rev. 20:6). [Remember, the “rest of the dead,” the lost of all ages rise to meet the Lord in final judgment after the 1,000 years (Rev. 20:5).]
 

(3) Along with the dead in Christ rising at His coming, those Christians alive and remaining on earth will be “caught up ['raptured'] together with them to meet the Lord in the air.”
 

(4) The saints of all ages, having been caught up in their glorified, resurrected bodies to “meet the Lord in the air,” then continue to earth with Jesus as He completes His return to earth to establish His 1,000-year Kingdom Age/Millennium. This is clearly taught in Rev. 20:4-6, where we are told that those raised to life in that “first” resurrection at Jesus’ coming “came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (vss. 5-6). Jesus’ Second Coming to earth, the resurrection, and the rapture of the believers all occur at the same point in time and inaugurate the Kingdom Age, the Millennium on earth, where the glorified, immortalized saints live and reign with Christ 1,000 years, then on into eternity with the Lord (spelled out in fuller detail in Revelation chapters 20 through 22).

“The RAPTURE” IN BRIEF:

• As prophesied (Hebrews 9:26 et al.), the Lord Jesus Christ will return to earth (the literal “second coming”).

• There will be believers alive and remaining on earth at His second coming.

• The believers will not have been raptured/caught up prior to His literal coming.

• Rather, at that one-and-only, literal second coming, first the “dead in Christ” will be raised to life in the “first resurrection.”

• And immediately with them the alive and remaining believers will be caught up also.

• Both groups are raptured/caught up together to meet the Lord in the air as He completes His triumphant return to earth.

• Jesus and His now-immortalized redeemed followers together establish the Millennial Kingdom, a 1000-year period where the redeemed live and reign with Christ on earth.

This order is made very clear in comparing Revelation 20:4-6 with 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17. Paul tells us in Thessalonians that the believers are not “caught up” to meet the Lord in the air before the dead in Christ rise from the dead. And the dead in Christ rise in the “first resurrection” AT the literal return to earth of Jesus Christ to establish the Millennial reign on earth. So there can be no earlier catching up/rapture of the saints before the first resurrection, which is AT Jesus’ literal coming to establish the Millennial Age on earth. If your doctrine on the rapture contradicts this Scripturally defined order, I encourage you to reexamine what you have been taught.

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POSTSCRIPT:

Below, for your additional study, I’ll reflect briefly on some more Bible verses which conclusively show that there is only one “second coming,” at which time the saints of all ages are caught up/raptured to meet the Lord in the air as He returns to earth. There is no basis in Scripture for an earlier “secret” one that many rapture teachers declare. That “secret” coming to catch the believers up to heaven before (or during) the Tribulation has no biblical basis. There is one, only one, “second” coming taught in Scripture, and it triumphantly closes out the Tribulation and establishes the Millennial Kingdom Age. And that is the Lord’s victorious, glorious coming that we have looked at above in both Revelation 20:4-6 and 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17. You’re welcome to take a few more minutes to read some more about this one-and-only “coming” of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts 1:9-11  After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

In the sight of His disciples Jesus ascended up from the Mount of Olives, into a cloud, and on into heaven. The two heavenly messengers told the onlookers that Jesus would “come back in the same way” they had seen Him go into heaven. How did He go? Not “secretly”! And He won’t come back secretly. He’ll return openly, visibly, seen by all (Rev. 1:7), “in the clouds” (1 Thess. 4:17), to the earth. And there are some Bible scholars who think that Zechariah 14:4 reveals that He will touch down at the Mount of Olives, from which He ascended to heaven 2,000 years ago.

Hebrews 9:28  Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

This is another clear statement of Scripture that Christ will “appear a second time.” The first time was 2,000 years ago, when the Son of God came to earth in a virgin birth, lived, ministered, died for our sins on the cross, and rose again to return to heaven where He now reigns at God the Father’s right hand as our Lord and Savior.

    Christ’s appearing “a second time” is His literal second coming at the end of the Great Tribulation. He comes to finalize our great salvation with the resurrection and the immortalization of our bodies unto eternal life. Notice that at this second coming He “will appear…to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.” The waiting believers clearly had not “gone up” in an earlier, nonbiblical, secret-coming rapture.

1 Corinthians 15:22-23, Amplified Bible  For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then those who are Christ’s [own will be resurrected with incorruptible, immortal bodies] at His coming.

Notice that His “coming” is singular. It is always recorded as singular, not in two phases (first a secret one, then a visible one). Those who are Christ’s will be resurrected precisely “at His coming.”

2 Thessalonians 2:1, 3, 8  Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters… [3] Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction… [8] And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

Once again, there is no confusion. The one and only “coming” of the Lord is singular, not in two phases. And at His coming the Lord Jesus will destroy the antichrist. This is further Bible proof that the second coming of the Lord is at the end of the antichrist’s great tribulation, not during or before it.

And notice that the inspired writer, the apostle Paul, looking ahead to the future time of the antichrist, expected only one coming of the Lord Jesus. It would not be before or during the time of the antichrist. It will come at the end of the antichrist’s reign. In fact, it is at the coming that Jesus will terminate the antichrist’s reign — the lawless one will be destroyed “by the splendor of His coming.”

Matthew 24:3  As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Again, the disciples asked Jesus about His prophesied “coming” (singular), which they understood would be at “the end of the age.” They did not expect two comings (one of them secret). Nor did Jesus describe two comings in His reply.

Matthew 24:27  For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Again, Jesus speaks of “the coming” (singular). And He speaks of that coming as visible, using the simile of visible lightning. There will be nothing secret about "the coming."

2 Thess. 1:7-10  [God will] give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

In his first epistle to them, Paul had told the Thessalonians (4:15-17) how at His coming the dead redeemed would be resurrected and the living believers would be caught up with them to meet the Lord in the air as He returned to earth to establish the Millennial Kingdom Age. Here in his second letter to them Paul is pointing out that at the Lord’s coming — “on the day he comes” — He will punish those who have rejected Him with everlasting punishment. By contrast, at that same coming He will greatly bless those who have loved and served Him — “on the day He comes to be glorified in His holy people and to be marveled at among those who have believed.” Jesus’ coming will be a day of the blazing fire of His wrath on the unbelievers and indescribable blessings on the faithful believers in Him.

John 17:15, 18  My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one... [18] As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.

Jesus Himself did not seek to escape the injustices and terrible trials of this world. To the contrary, He embraced them and, for our sakes, suffered them for us and our salvation. Having chosen to endure those things Himself rather than escaping them, Jesus prayed to the Father two important things for us in this regard:

1) "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one."

2) "As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world."

Jesus came 2,000 years ago to bring His kingship and His salvation to earth. Having finished His redemptive earthly work, He returned to heaven, having commissioned us, His followers, to continue under His oversight the building of His Church on earth. His plan has never been that His followers escape all the persecutions and trials that accompany kingdom work. Rather than take us out of the world, He has prayed for the Father's protection on us as Jesus sends us into the world as His ambassadors. In due time, at His literal, visible, last-trumpet second coming, the saints of all ages will be resurrected, and the living ones caught up, all of us together to meet the Lord in the air as He returns in triumph to establish His millennial Kingdom Age with us on earth. Meanwhile, my fellow believers, let's devote ourselves to laboring together with Him in building His Church in this world right up until that time when the final generation hears that blessed "last trumpet" and beholds the Lord Jesus returning in great power and glory.

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     Our Scripture in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 (above) contains an unspoken but clear appeal from Jesus Himself. Are you among those who will one day meet Jesus’ wrath? Will you see Him coming “in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:8, KJV)?

     Or will you be among the joyful believers in Him on that very same day, when “He comes to be glorified in His holy people and to be marveled at among those who have believed” (vs. 10)?

     If you have not yet done so, choose life! Choose eternal blessings in the Lord’s presence. Jesus died on that cross for your sins and mine and all the world’s. He rose from His grave and returned to heaven as the victorious Lord and Savior. His appeal to you is to come to Him in faith and in repentance for your sins (Acts 20:21), which He is ready and willing to forgive. Do so sincerely, and He’ll bring you into His family as a child of God, destined for eternal life and joy with Him. It will be the greatest decision of your life! For help in praying a prayer to receive Jesus personally as your Lord and Savior, I recommend the late, respected evangelist Billy Graham’s brief presentation at Peace with God.

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Check out our related sermon - The Rapture of the Church at Christ's Second Coming

Another related sermon: Revelation 12 = No Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church to Heaven

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