The Rapture of the Church

The Rapture of the Church

February 19th, 1984 @ 10:50 AM

1 Thessalonians 4:15

THE RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH Dr. W. A. Criswell 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 2-19-84    10:50 a.m.   Every chapter of the First and the Second Thessalonian letters closes with a reference and a description of the second coming of Christ [1 Thessalonians 1:10, 2:19, 3:13, 4:14-17,...
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THE RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH

Dr. W. A. Criswell

1 Thessalonians 4:15-17

2-19-84    10:50 a.m.

 

Every chapter of the First and the Second Thessalonian letters closes with a reference and a description of the second coming of Christ [1 Thessalonians 1:10, 2:19, 3:13, 4:14-17, 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10, 2:1-14, 3:5].  And this chapter, the fourth of 1 Thessalonians, closes with a description of the rapture of the people of God, the church of our Lord, when He comes for His own [1 Thessalonians 4:14-17].

A sarcastic half-infidel writing about the Bible will say to us, “There is no such word in the Bible as the rapture.”  Well, in the King James Version, that’s correct.  In the King James Version, there is no word “rapture” just as there is no word “Trinity” or many other of the great ecclesiastical descriptive nomenclatures of the faith. But Trinity is in the Bible though the word is not used.

For example, the Second Corinthian letter in 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 14 closes with: “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ”—that’s one—“and the love of God”—that’s two—“and the communion of the Holy Spirit”—that’s three—“be with you all”: the Trinity [2 Corinthians 13:14].  It is a great fundamental revelation of the personality of God—the essence of God: Three in One, Trinity, though the word is not used in the Bible ever.

So with the word “rapture”—the word “rapture” is not in the Bible.  But it is a translation of this word in the passage I just read when the apostle says there is a generation that will be living at the time the Lord descends from heaven, and these who remain alive unto the coming of the Lord shall be harpazō—harpazō [1 Thessalonians 4:17]What in the world does harpazō mean?  It is used here, and it is used in 2 Corinthians 12:4: harpazō.   

Well, the word means “to snatch away.”  It means “to take suddenly away.”  I would translate it—it means “to kidnap”:  harpazō.  And it is used in 2 Corinthians 12:4 when Paul says, “I was harpazō up to Paradise, up to the third heaven.”  And here he says this generation that will be alive in the earth at the coming of Christ will be harpazō [1 Thessalonians 4:17].

Now in the English, in the King James Version, it is translated “caught up.”  Paul says, “I was harpazō—I was caught up to God” [2 Corinthians 12:4].  And in this passage, this generation that will be alive when the Lord comes will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

Now Jerome, in translating the Latin Vulgate, translated “rapture”—rapere, rapere, raptured, caught up to meet the Lord in the air.  And that’s where we get the word “rapture.”  It is as fine a theological term as you could ever discover in interpreting and understanding the depth of the glory of the word of the revelation of God.

Now he says here: “This we say unto you by the word of the Lord” [1 Thessalonians 4:15].  This is something that our Lord has revealed to us.  Now it is very plain what he means when he says “by the word of the Lord”—this rapture of God’s people.  The Old Testament is filled from beginning to ending with marvelous prophecies of the coming of Messiah Christ, but they never saw but one coming.  In the same breath, in the same sentence, sometimes in the same clause, they would speak of the glorious coming of our Lord: a suffering Servant and a reigning King [Isaiah 9:6-7, 52:6-53:12].  They were never able to differentiate between the two phases of our Lord’s coming.

He was coming first, born of a virgin, to die for our sins, to redeem a fallen humanity [Isaiah 7:14, 53:10-11].  But He was also coming to be King over all God’s creation: of the things in heaven, the hosts in glory, of the things in the earth and the things under the earth, in the abyss, in the netherworld, in the world of the dead.  He’s coming to be King and Lord over all [Isaiah 42:1-13; chapters 60-66].

Now those prophets in the Old Testament who were constantly prophesying, prognosticating, foretelling the coming of this Lord Messiah, they never saw those two comings; and they never saw the interpolation, the parenthesis, the intermission in between the two.  In their minds, there was just one great coming.

The fact that there were two was a secret that God kept in His heart.  Paul speaks of that.  He calls it a mustērion, “a mystery, a secret that was unrevealed” until it was revealed to His holy apostles [1 Corinthians 15:51-52].  And Jesus began to unfold it when He was here in the earth.

Now what those Old Testament prophets had spoken, of the coming of our Lord as a great and mighty and reigning King, was reflected and reiterated in the expectations of the apostles and the disciples of Christ.  They, reading the Old Testament Scriptures, naturally looked forward to the one great appearance of the Lord Messiah Christ.

So in the presence of the Lord Jesus, in His coming, in His presence, in His parousia, in His being there, they were looking for the fulfillment of all of those Old Testament prophecies then and there [Luke 24:19-21].  They were looking for the Lord Messiah Jesus to be reigning King over all God’s creation and over the earth.  They were expecting Him to break the power of the Roman yoke and set Israel free.  They were looking for Judah to be exalted among the tribes and in the nations of the world [Acts 1:6]. And they were expecting, in themselves, to be ministers of state in the great messianic, millennial kingdom of the Lord Christ Jesus.  One of them was going to sit on His right hand, and one of them was going to sit on His left hand [Matthew 20:20-28; Mark 10:35-45].  One of them would be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and each one of them would have an assignment, a portfolio in the cabinet of the kingdom of God.  That’s what the apostles expected.

And when Jesus began to speak to them about His death, they could not understand, and they became infinitely discouraged [Matthew 16:21-23, 17:22-23; Mark 8:31-33, 14:18-19; Luke 22:45, 24:21].  And when, finally, they saw the Lord Jesus slain and saw Him die, every hope they ever entertained for a messianic kingdom perished in the dust of the ground.  And in an abysmal despair in which we can hardly enter, they bowed their heads in ultimate and final and inglorious defeat [Matthew 26:69-75; Mark 14:43-52, 66-72, 16:9-11; Luke 22:54-62, John 20:3-10, 19].

But there was a new revelation, Paul says: “By the word of the Lord, I speak” [1 Thessalonians 4:15] There was something new.  The Old Testament never hinted it, and no prophet ever saw it.  In the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Matthew, verse 18, Jesus speaks of the church.  That’s the first time the world or the Bible ever heard of a church: “I will build My church” [Matthew 16:18].

Then, in the sorrowing hearts of the disciples, when the Lord told them He was to be killed and was going away, in the fourteenth chapter of John and the third verse, Jesus said, “Don’t let your heart be troubled—don’t be defeated and discouraged and fallen in despair. If I go away to prepare a place for you in heaven, I will come again and receive you unto Myself.  I am coming back for you” [John 14:3].  And that’s what Paul means when he says: “by the word of the Lord” [1 Thessalonians 4:15].

“If I go, I will come again and receive you unto Myself.”  That was the great mustērion, the secret God kept in His heart until He revealed it to His holy apostles.  And when the full revelation was made, there is to be the call of God from the sky, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then there will be the transfiguration and the translation of the living saints who will rise with the sainted: raised from the grave, from the dead, to meet the Lord and to be with Him forever and forever [1 Corinthians 15:51-55; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17].

First, he says, there will be a resurrection.  There’s a word there that we translated into English it would be very accurate: e-k—Greek ek.  It means “out from among the dead.”  When the Christian resurrection is referred to, that’s the way the Bible will say it.  It is a resurrection out from among the dead [Romans 6:5].

It is only the saints in Christ that are ever described in the Bible as “asleep in Jesus” [1 Thessalonians 4:15-17].   That’s never referred to of an unbeliever.  These who sleep in Jesus are those who have fallen in His kind and loving arms.

Second thing about it: he says here that there is to be a generation who shall be transfigured—translated, immortalized—after these who have been raised from the dead.  These who are still living when the Lord comes will be caught up, harpazō, rapere, “raptured” to meet the Lord in the air [1 Thessalonians 4:17].

And that, Paul says, is another mystery.  In the 1 Corinthians letter, chapter 15, verse 51:

Behold, I show you a mystery.  We shall not all sleep—we’re not all going to die—but we shall all be changed.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we, we shall all be changed.

[1 Corinthians 15:51-52]

There is to be a generation—this is the mystery revealed here, kept in the heart of God, the secret—there is to be a generation who will never taste of death.  They’ll never sorrow.  They’ll never cry.  They will be wafted up to glory. Oh, dear, like that song:

Oh, joy! Oh, delight!

Should we go without dying.

No sickness, no sadness,

No dread, and no crying.

Caught up through the clouds

To meet our Lord in the air,

When Jesus comes for His own.

[H.L. Turner, “Christ Returneth”]

That is the second great mystery.  We are going to be caught up—“raptured” to meet the Lord in the air [1 Thessalonians 4:17].  Then, Paul writes, there will be the descent of our Lord from heaven.  And he uses three “en”s here, translated “with”: “with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the air—forever to be with our Lord” [1 Thessalonians 4:16-17].

So, he says, when the Lord descends, He is coming with a shout: keleuō.  The actual translation of that word is “with a shout of command,” and always it means just that: with a shout of command.    The Lord is coming with a shout of authority and command—Lord over all, over all.

Dear me!  The church is called an ekklēsia, a “called-out.”  The word exactly means that.  The ones called out— ekklēsia, ek- kaleō—the ones called out.  The church is a called-out assembly of the Lord.  God has called to us salvation.  God has called to us to singing and rejoicing.  God has called us to joy and glory; and someday God shall call us to Himself, and we will be raptured up to be with the Lord forever and ever.  That’s the third and the last trumpet: when God shall call us out of the grave and from the earth to be with Him forever [1 Corinthians 15:52].

Now Paul writes, and he concludes the marvelous revelation with this word: “And so shall we ever be with the Lord.  Wherefore, comfort one another with these words” [1 Thessalonians 4:17-18].  Now let me translate it as most people would read that: “Wherefore, scare one another with these words.  Dear me, all of this thing of death and of judgment and of the world to come frightens me to death.”  Oh, my brother: “Wherefore, comfort one another with these words” [1 Thessalonians 4:18].   

Partly that would refer to the fact that we shall live again [John 11:20-26].  We shall live again.  I suppose to someone who is so enmeshed in the business of the world, they don’t think about death; but, my brother, I live in that world and have ever since I was 17 years old when I began my pastoral work over 55 years ago.  I live in a world of death—had a big funeral yesterday—death.

“Comfort one another.”  Partly that refers to the revelation we shall live again.  Partly, maybe, it refers to the revelation that we shall be together again.  The separation of death is temporary.  The reunion is eternal and everlasting [1 Thessalonians 4:13-17].

“Comfort one another.”  Partly, I suppose, it is the heaven and the glory that shall be revealed in us for heaven is a many-sided and many-faceted glory [Revelation 21-22].  But mostly, I would suppose, it’s what Paul writes here: “We shall be forever with the Lord.  Wherefore, comfort one another with these words” [1 Thessalonians 4:17-18].  We’ll be with Jesus forever and ever—forever with the Lord.

You know, there are about fourteen different words in the Greek language translated “with.”  But one of them betokens—the overtones in it are close, intimate, affectionate association, and that’s the word translated “with” here.  In Greek, it’s sun. In combinations, it’s sun.

For example, the Greek word for suffering is pathospathos.  And when you put that word sun with it—sumpathos.  It comes out, when you spell it in English, “sympathy”—sympathy—somebody who is moved with the infirmity or the hurt that you experience: sympathy.  That’s the word here: sun , with our Lord—close association with Jesus.

I one time heard of a man who was wonderfully saved, just gloriously saved.  And in those days when I was boy growing up, they had testimony meetings on Wednesday night.  Always on Wednesday night we’d testify.  So this man, wonderfully converted, was saved.  And he testified, and he said, “When I die and when I go to heaven, the first one I want to see is my Lord.  I want to see Jesus.”

The days passed and his great, loving father died.  And they said, “You still want to see Jesus first?”

“Yes,” he said.

Then his mother died, whom he loved.  “You want to see Jesus first?”

“Yes,” he said.

Then his boy died—the dream and dear of his heart.  And they said, “You still want to see Jesus first?”

“Yes,” he said.

And then his wife died; been in his bosom all of the years of a long married life.  And they said to him, “You still want to see Jesus first?  You still want to see Jesus first?”

To somebody who has been wonderfully saved and who loves the Lord that sun, “with” the Lord, is everything precious and dear.  You see, the apostle is avowing that death doesn’t separate us from Him. The glorious climax of the eighth chapter of the Book of Romans is:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[Romans 8:38-39]

Death doesn’t separate us, and we’re not separated from Jesus in this life.  He says, “I will be with you”—there’s that “with you” again—“I will be with you alway, even unto the end of the age” [Matthew 28:20].

He’s with us.  If you have ever gone on an errand, on a mission for Jesus, listen and you will hear the feet of our Lord walking close behind you.  If you have ever been blue and discouraged and crushed, you will feel the touch of His gentle hand on yours.  If you have ever sorrowed and been crushed, you will hear His voice saying, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you” [Hebrews 13:5]. And when we face that last hour, it will be Jesus who will stand by us and strengthen us and comfort us.  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me” [Psalm 23:4].