Praise God we have come to the end of our study on Rapture, i hope you were blessed, please we welcome your comment and input as regards this subject God bless you.
Text: 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18
“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.1 Thessalonians 4:15 (KJV)
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 1 Thessalonians 4:16 (KJV)
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (KJV) Wherefore comfort one another with these words”. 1 Thessalonians 4:18 (KJV).
Question:
Can this happen without a rapture, a physical trumpet being blown, then people seeing Jesus in the cloud, etc. I’m somehow confused. Can you help out?
Answer:
1 Thessalonians 4:15-18.
Firstly, Paul was talking about resurrection not rapture. From vs 13, don’t be ignorant about those who sleep or have died in faith, in the Lord, they will be raised at His ‘Coming’ then vs 16 explained how the dead would be raised to life. We that are alive and remain at His coming.
TO BE CAUGHT UP
Let’s look at this phrase, then we shall be “caught up.” The Greek word is Harpazo, meaning sized away, pull away by force. That’s the same word translated in Latin as Rapture. The real meaning of the word is “a strong feeling that absorbs the mind” That doesn’t sound like fly away home. Rapture is not an escape. It is an ascending to the elevation, the realm where God dwells. John had the invitation at the island of Patmos. Revelation 4:1-2, the voice said to him, “Come up hither” and immediately, he was carried away in the Spirit. His physical body was still on earth but in the Spirit he was carried and was showed things in ‘heaven’ the realm where God dwells. He was shown the Revelation of Jesus Christ which he was asked to write. He was seeing and hearing spiritually in that experience and writing down physically. Paul had his own rapture which he recorded in 2 Corinthians 12:1-4. He was caught up to the third heavens. There is no historical record by Paul himself or any other person that said that Paul disappeared to heaven. Paul never taught so or testified so. Carnal men made up fantasies from their mind to support their escapist rapture theory. Of course it’s a theory. Resurrection, immortality is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that raises us up from death condition. There is spiritual, moral and physical resurrection. But that is altogether a different subject.
Ezekiel had his own rapture experience. As a captive slave of the babylonians, he was with the captives at the river Chebar and suddenly, something happen to him. Ezekiel 1, 37. He saw visions, he was carried away ‘IN THE SPIRIT’ not in the physical. This was John’s experience too in Revelation 17:3; 21:10. He was carried away in the Spirit. Rapture is a spiritual experience. Do you really think it makes sense for us to fly up into the skies and hang between the skies and the earth dangling with white clothes forever?
Brace up! Here is the spirit of wisdom. We have a better hope, a living hope, a hope of resurrection, immortality, a hope of changing into His likeness. We shall not all sleep or die, those of us that are alive and remain, we shall be changed in the twinkle of an eye, in a moment, we shall be changed in the atoms of our bodies, clothed with life, immortality. We shall be changed. The sting of death has been destroyed which is sin as we progressively appropriate it, Understand it, as we look into the perfect law of liberty, the gospel of salvation by Christ, we are being changed from glory to glory. Hallelujah! Whosoever has this hope purifies himself. Isn’t this better than the rapture saga?
MEETING WITH GOD IN THE AIR
Come to think of it; how do we meet with Him in the air and remain there in the air forever? That whole phrase is laden with symbology. Don’t we often say that, “we want to be free as the air”? What do we mean? Is n’t it a colloquial expression of needing freedom? How come when we read such expression in scripture we tend to take it very literal. Jesus in John 3 said that, “…the spiritual man is like the air that blows”; you don’t see where it’s coming from and going, you can’t catch it, you can’t cage it. Death cannot hold down those who died in Christ and buried under earth in a grave where they can’t breath. But When the presence of God is manifest, the dead shall rise above the underground experience of suffocation and become free as the air forever. The word translated ‘Air’ actually means breath in the Greek as rendered by the KJV in verse 17 of 1Thes 4. We shall be free like the air forever, we shall breath the breath of God once again and live, we shall be caught up to God and to the throne, to heaven, the presence of God, the dwelling of God. Hallelujah! Therefore, console ye one another. Remain blessed!
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