|
Original Message
|
What Will Happen at the Rapture?
By Armin A. Wolff
In any Bible study, do not just believe Armin Wolff or whoever, but be like the Bereans in Acts 17
-- read the e scriptures carefully, pray for the e Holy Spirit to open your understanding of God's word
and come to your conclusion on this is or any subject. Points raised as questions will hopefully create
an incentive for furtherer study on your own.
What exactly is foretold to happen at the moment the rapture, the catching away of the church of Jesus
Christ occurs?
Will born again, Spirit filled believers disappear without a trace in an instant?
Will driverless cars simply crash, possibly killing people?
Will airplanes whose Christian pilots are raptured fall out of the sky or possibly keep flying on automatic pilot until they run out of gas?
• What is the rapture
The word “rapture” is nowhere to be found in the Bible. It comes from the Latin “raptus” which means to catch or snatch away. The original Greek text uses the word “harpazo” which is also translated as "pluck up" or "taken away by force", such as someone getting arrested and taken away.
• When is the rapture
There is general agreement in much of the church, about the event of this catching away, but over the timing of it there is much more controversy. God alone knows the exact day, but that day is also determined by the full number of people to be rescued thereby becoming members of the church of Jesus Christ. (Rom 11:25)
The Greek word translated full number or fullness is a nautical term used to describe the full crew needed before a ship could sail. Followers of Jesus Christ can have a part in making this happen sooner rather than later. (2Peter 3:12)
Most disagreements revolve around the timing of this event in relation to the period of time known as “The Great Tribulation”. Many, including myself, believe the rapture will come immediately before
the last seven years of history as we have known it, leading up to the final war of Armageddon.
Jesus Christ will terminate this last war of humanity with his personal return to earth. The day or hour when this event that has been called “The Rapture” happens will however come as a complete surprise to both believers and unbelievers.
1Thess 4:13 -18 But I would not have you ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, that you be not grieved, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will also bring with Him all those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. For we say this to you by the Word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not go before those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Chris t shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall ever be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. Paul writes these verses in the context of the Christian foundational belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, so will his followers be raised.
Then Paul through the Holy Spirit gives a terse but succinct insight into how this will happen. The focus of this study is not what happens during the tribulation, but before and after. The first and primary purpose of the Rapture is to change our mortal bodies into an eternal, immortal one, just like the one He received when he rose from the dead.
Phil. 3:20 -21 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body.
• Rapture in Old Testament
Here we also read of a resurrection, of God's people being hidden until the judgment is passed. Note that it also mentions rooms for the people of God as well as a shut door. Jesus talks about preparing rooms in the father's house for his disciples and the door to the banquet being s hut.
Isaiah 26:19 -21 Your dead ones shall live, together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is as the dew of lights and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter into your rooms and shut your doors around you; hide for a little moment, until the fury has passed by. For behold, Jehovah comes out of His place to punish the people of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall reveal her blood, and shall no more cover her dead.
Also note the parallels between the Thessalonians passage above and these verses in Isaiah.
• The first resurrection
All believers, living or dead, at the time of the rapture, are said to be partakers of the first resurrection.
Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy i s he who has part in the first resurrection. The second death has no authority over these, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with Him a thousand years.
Jesus Christ, the Scripture tells us, is the first fruit of the resurrection. 1Corinthians 15:20 But now Christ has risen from the dead, and has become the first fruit of those who slept. Therefore by examining the details of His resurrection, we can get some clues into the resurrection of the saints that already died and the rapture for those saints still alive at its occurrence.
• The moment of the resurrection of Jesus
After the unspeakable ordeal of the crucifixion, Jesus’ battered and disfigured body was taken from the place of execution and laid in a new unused tomb.
Matthew 27:57 -60 When the evening had come, a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, came, who also himself was Jesus' disciple. He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. When Joseph had taken the body, he wr apped it in clean linen, and laid it in his new tomb, which he had cut out of the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and departed.
• Resurrection energy
In the wee hours of the morning of the first day of the week, the awesome resur rection power of God flashed into the lifeless body of the Lord Jesus. This immense energy re -created the body of Jesus into a transcendent, eternal, glorified form. This glorified body flashed out of the enveloping grave clothes, which were left behind in a pile where the body had lain. The two ton stone covering the opening of the tomb was not rolled away to let Jesus out, but was removed for the benefit of those who came to the grave that morning. That way they could clearly see the tomb no longer held their Lord. He appeared to his disciples in a physical, fully clothed body that could be seen and felt. He likes to eat, although he doesn't have to eat like we do in order to survive. In many of the interactions with his disciples after his resurrection he shares food with them. I like that because I also enjoy eating!
Luke 24:39 Behold My hands and My feet, that I am He! Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me have. His body was quite different from our present mortal b odies. God is very detail oriented, both in his creation and his holy Word. The only man -made thing in heaven now and forever, are the wounds that sinners inflicted on the Lord of the universe. For one, His new body did not have blood in it. His physical b body is eternal, not subject to the limitations of space and time.
Before they sinned, Adam and Eve each had a similar bloodless eternal body not subject to death or decay. When they sinned, Adam and Eve perceived themselves to be naked, because they had lo st the robe of light, which is the righteousness of God. (Psalm 104:2)
Genesis 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of man.
• Blood is absent in heaven
Because blood was spilled for sin, first the blood of animals and then ultimately the blood of Jesus Christ, blood represents an atonement for sin. Because there is no sin in heaven nor was there on earth before Adam disbelieved and therefore disobeyed God, blood is not necessary or even allowed .
1Corinthians 15:50 And I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Our present flesh and blood body is corrupt and subject to corruption.
• Instantaneous change
Just as Jesus was changed in an instant on the morning of his resurrection, so all Christians indwelt by the Holy Spirit shall be changed. Just like Jesus ’ grave clothes were left in a pile where his old battered body had lain, so too will our earthly clothes and other physical objects with or on us stay on the spot where we happen to be when the transforming resurrection power of God flashes all over the earth on that glorious day. In an instant of time, all Spirit filled Christians, will be trans lasted , snatched out of and away from this present space–time dimension into the eternal realm which can be thought of as enclosing and encompassing all time from its beginning to its end. Right now, we are in this world physically, but we are not of this world spiritually. After this transformation event occurs, we will still be in this world physically, but also in eternity physically. Just as Jesus, so we too will be clothed with a robe light which is the righteousness of God.
1Corinthians 15:51 -52 Behold d, I speak a mystery to you; we shall not all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed; in a moment, in a glance of an eye, at the last trumpet. For a trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed.
• Non local being
John 20:19 Then the same day at evening, being the first of the Sabbaths, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the jewish people, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, Peace to you!
Even though Jesus could be seen and felt with the physical senses, he was able to slip in and out of our present time -space dimension as easily and effortlessly as one of us might walk from the kitchen into the living room. He was and is still today a non-local person, not confined to any particular time and place. Non-locality also confers the ability to be in any number of places at the same time. In theological terms it simply means God is omnipresent, that is He is non-local.
• Emmaus
Here Jesus goes on a 7 mile walk with two disciples, giving them a Bible study which culminates in them
having dinner together that evening. Supposedly, he is their guest, but he simply disappears after giving them the bread as they recognize him. They are so excited about having seen the Lord, they walk all the way back to Jerusalem in the dark to tell the other disciples. Jesus new transce ndent body is obviously composed of an entirely different arrangement of matter than the normal matter we are familiar with. (Luke 24:13 -33)
• Forty days
After his resurrection, Jesus did not immediately depart Earth and go to heaven, but was still here for forty days in his transcendent glorified body, ministering to those whom He dearly loved, his children.
Act 1:3 to whom He also presented Himself living after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them through forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
• Servants not greater than the master
Because Jesus is our model, the servants of the Lord, Christians, will likewise not vanish and go straight to heaven after the instant transformation out of a mortal bod y into an immortal, eternal one. They too will be given the joy to minister on earth for a period of perhaps 40 days just as their master set the example. There is nothing in Scripture that I know of that states that believers will instantaneously disappear, only that they will be changed from mortality to immortality in an instant.
John 13:16 truly, truly, I say to you, A servant is not greater than his master, neither is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.
After their instantaneous resurrection/transformation, the holy glorified people of God, that is the Church, may be here on earth for a short time, before Jesus will call them to himself in the clouds. From there he will personally escort them to heaven for a celebration such as the universe has never seen. This celestial banquet is called the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Rev 19:7- 9
1Thess 4:17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall ever be with the Lord. There is nothing in this passage that says that zero time will elapse between the time of transformation from a mortal to an immortal physical body and the actual meeting of those physical bodies in the clouds where the actual reunion with Jesus Christ takes place.
• All assumptions must be examined
It is an unwarranted assumption that the physical transformation of the mortal body as given in 1 Cor 15 and the reunion with Jesus Christ in the clouds of the air are not and cannot be separated by a period of time. As an engineer and scientist I have always been told to challenge all assumptions, because many assumptions made by man historically have turned out to be not the way things really are. God is eternal, but humans are time bound and as such have a always made erroneous assumptions concerning time periods and still do so today. The evolutionary theory with its billions and billions of years is a modern example of this error. The early Christians believed that Jesus Christ would return in their lifetime, but here we are many centuries later still waiting for Jesus Christ to appear a 2nd time.
\\
[link to www.waterfreeclean.com]
|
