Is The Rapture Biblical?

boxman144 said:

Title says all. Have at it.

boxman144

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• Those who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who are dead (1 Thessalonians 4:15).
• The dead in Christ will resurrect first (1 Thessalonians 4:16).
• The living and the resurrected dead will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

eleos1954 said:

The word rapture isn't in the bible. What IS in the bible is resurrection, with the 1st resurrection being that of the saved

When Jesus returns the 1st resurrection happens.

• Those who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who are dead (1 Thessalonians 4:15).
• The dead in Christ will resurrect first (1 Thessalonians 4:16).
• The living and the resurrected dead will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

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The Quiet In Christ said:

The word harpazo is.
View attachment 275559

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boxman144 said:

Title says all. Have at it.

boxman144

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boxman144 said:

Title says all. Have at it.

boxman144

Click to expand...

eleos1954 said:

Did the poster ask about the greek word harpazo? No ... he asked about the english word rapture .... and the english word rapture is not in the bible

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eleos1954 said:

... will be caught up ...

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Amittai said:

Exact synonym!

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1. 1.
   a feeling of intense pleasure or joy.

eleos1954 said:

...

1. a feeling of intense pleasure or joy.

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Thanks to books like Left Behind, the English word rapture often conjures up images of bodies mysteriously disappearing into thin air, followed by several years of severe tribulation, leading up to the final judgment and resurrection. Such a view is a product of dispensationalism, a relatively new theological framework, and not one that the church fathers espoused.

Does that mean that the church fathers did not believe in a rapture? On the contrary: they did believe in it, though not in the same sense as the word is commonly understood today.

The word rapture comes from the Latin word raptus, meaning "a carrying off." This idea is included in non-religious definitions of rapture:

a state or experience of being carried away by overwhelming emotion (MW)

A related Latin word, rapio, is used in the Latin Vulgate's translation of 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17:

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 [rapiemur] together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. [ESV]

The rapture, then, is not a concept that suddenly appeared when dispensationalism came along. The word was used in English and Latin long prior. However, it was understood differently, so we need to examine what the church fathers wrote regarding this rapio or raptus: a) what is it, b) when does it occur and c) is it secret or visible.

What is the rapture?
Church fathers widely understand the rapture to be a future physical meeting of Christ and Christians in the air.

Origen gives no indication of a hidden meaning in Paul's words in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. He simply writes that both the dead and alive in Christ will rise:

Those whom we spoke of as dead have special need of the resurrection, since not even those who are alive can be taken up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air before the dead in Christ first rise. (Commentary on John, 20.233)

Rufinus of Aquileia clearly indicates a physical reunion with Christ in the sky:

And do not marvel that the flesh of the saints is to be changed into such a glorious condition at the resurrection as to be caught up to meet God, suspended in the clouds and borne in the air. (Commentary on the Apostles' Creed, 46)

Augustine says that living Christians will "both die and rise again at once while caught up into the air":

And why should it seem to us incredible that that multitude of bodies should be, as it were, sown in the air, and should in the air forthwith revive immortal and incorruptible, when we believe, on the testimony of the same apostle, that the resurrection shall take place in the twinkling of an eye, and that the dust of bodies long dead shall return with incomprehensible facility and swiftness to those members that are now to live endlessly? (City of God, 20.20)

When will the rapture occur?
Church fathers routinely associate the rapture with the physical resurrection of believers following the tribulation, and many see a close connection between the rapture and other eschatological events, such as the final judgment.

Hippolytus, one of the relatively few proponents of a premillennialist view (chiliasm), sees the rapture as following the tribulation and rule of the Antichrist:

These things, then, being to come to pass, beloved, and the one week being divided into two parts, and the abomination of desolation being manifested then, and the two prophets and forerunners of the Lord having finished their course, and the whole world finally approaching the consummation, what remains but the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from heaven, for whom we have looked in hope? (On Christ and Antichrist, 64)

Others connect even more prophecies with the rapture. For example, Gregory of Nazianzus, using the language of 1 Thessalonians 4:17, writes:

I shall await the voice of the archangel, the last trumpet, the transformation of heaven, the change of earth, the freedom of the elements, the renewal of the universe. Then shall I see Caesarius himself, no longer in exile, no longer being buried, no longer mourned, no longer pitied, but splendid, glorious, sublime. (Fathers of the Church, v22, p22)

Similarly, Augustine writes that this passage refers to both the taking up of believers as well as the final judgment:

These words of the apostle most distinctly proclaim the future resurrection of the dead, when the Lord Christ shall come to judge the quick and the dead. (City of God, 20.20)

Chrysostom and Jerome (quoted below) also connect the rapture with the final judgment.

Will the rapture be secret?
If the rapture corresponds with the defeat of the Antichrist and final judgment, it follows that it will not be secret. Jerome says the "world shall howl" and "its peoples shall tremble," which is obviously not indicative of secrecy. (Letter 14.11)

Chrysostom uses the analogy of the entrance of a king into a city, arguing that honor is the purpose of this event, thus seeming to emphasize the visible nature of the rapture:

If He is about to descend, on what account shall we be caught up? For the sake of honor. For when a king drives into a city, those who are in honor go out to meet him; but the condemned await the judge within. [...] Seest thou how great is the honor? and as He descends, we go forth to meet Him, and, what is more blessed than all, so we shall be with Him. (Homily on 1 Thessalonians, VIII)

Summary
We must be careful not to impose our modern understanding of rapture on the church fathers: they believed that 1 Thessalonians 4 refers to a rapture in which living Christians will meet Christ in the sky and be transformed. They saw this visible event as closely associated with at least the end of the tribulation and the defeat of the Antichrist, and often the final judgment itself.

Dispensational ideas like a "secret" rapture and significant gap in time between the rapture and final judgment are not expressed by the church fathers. If we wish to say that the church fathers "believed in the rapture," we must be very careful to specify that we are using rapture in the traditional sense—a taking up, a carrying off—not the dispensational sense.

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There are two prominent meanings of the word "rapture". The most common meaning today is the one used by Dispensational theology, in which

the rapture refers to the belief that either before, or simultaneously with, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to earth, believers who have died will be raised and believers who are still alive and remain shall be caught up together with them (the resurrected dead believers) in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Wikipedia

This concept of rapture was popularized starting in the late 18th century, although as early as the 16th century some were beginning to talk about similar concepts.

In this sense of "rapture", it is clear that by any meaningful definition of "early church," there were no beliefs about this. Nobody had even considered it

But Wikipedia also points out that

The other, older use of the term "Rapture" is simply as a synonym for the final resurrection generally, without a belief that a group of people is left behind on earth for an extended Tribulation period after the events of 1 Thessalonians 4:17.

Certainly the early church had beliefs regarding this sense of rapture. But 1 Thessalonians 4:17 wouldn't have had much sway over this, except as an affirmation that it would happen. As NT Wright points out in numerous places, When Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, he did so with poetic prosody which is inevitably lost in translation, but would have been immediately recognized by his original audience reading the text in the original language. He also used many rich metaphors which also would have been immediately recognized by his original audience, but which can become easily lost over the centuries as culture has changed and the original meanings of these metaphors fell out of public consciousness.

Paul’s description of Jesus’ reappearance in 1 Thessalonians 4 is a brightly colored version of what he says in two other passages, 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 and Philippians 3:20-21: At Jesus’ “coming” or “appearing,” those who are still alive will be “changed” or “transformed” so that their mortal bodies will become incorruptible, deathless. This is all that Paul intends to say in Thessalonians, but here he borrows imagery—from biblical and political sources—to enhance his message. Little did he know how his rich metaphors would be misunderstood two millennia later. Farewell to the Rapture

Wright further explains the multiple metaphors that Paul employs in describing these coming events:

• First, Paul echoes the story of Moses coming down the mountain with the Torah.
• Second, he echoes Daniel 7, in which “the people of the saints of the Most High” (that is, the “one like a son of man”) are vindicated over their pagan enemy
• Third, Paul conjures up images of an emperor visiting a colony or province (this being the literal meaning of the word "parousia" found in verse 15 and translated "coming" (of the Lord), which Wright elaborates on further in this video).

So where many modern (and predominantly American) Christians take these verses as a literal (more or less) description of Christ's second coming, if Wright is to be believed, the early church would not have seen it this way. They would have seen it as metaphorical language, describing a more general truth, and not prescribing anything specific or literal about any sense of "rapture," except perhaps to affirm that those dead in Christ, and those still living, would, in some way unknown, be united when Christ returns in his metaphorical "parousia."

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boxman144 said:

Is The Rapture Biblical?

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boxman144 said:

I'm just asking because, some people believe that the Rapture is coming soon and I don't want to miss it or be left behind.

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boxman144 said:

I'm just asking because, some people believe that the Rapture is coming soon and I don't want to miss it or be left behind.

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