CHURCH OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST ONE WORLD CHRISTIAN MINISTRY What is the Pre-tribulation Rapture? The rapture is an event that will take place sometime in the near future. Jesus will come in the air, catch up the Church from the earth, and then return to heaven with the Church. The Apostle Paul gave a clear description of the rapture event in his letters to the Thessalonians and Corinthians. 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: 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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thess, 4:16-18). Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, 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 shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal [must] put on immortality (1 Cor. 15:51-53). The timing of the rapture is not known. From the Word of God and from sound reasoning--something Jesus used quite frequently--I hope to prove the reality of the pre-tribulation rapture. Scriptural Evidence for the Pre-tribulation Rapture The Marriage Supper of the Lamb In Luke 12:36, the Word states that when Christ returns, He will be returning from a wedding. In Revelation 19:7-8, we read about the marriage itself. The marriage supper takes place before the marriage. According to Jewish custom, the marriage contract, which often includes a dowry, is drawn up first. The contract parallels the act of faith we use when we trust Jesus to be our Savior. The dowry is His life, which was used to purchase us. When its time for the wedding, the groom goes to the brides house unannounced. She comes out to meet him, and then he takes her to his fathers house. This precisely correlates with the events according to the pre-trib scenario. Jesus, the Groom, comes down from heaven and calls up the Church, His Bride. After meeting in the air, He and His Bride return to His Fathers house, heaven. The marriage supper itself will take place there, while down here on earth the final events of the tribulation will be playing out. After the marriage supper of Jewish tradition, the bride and groom are presented to the world as man and wife. This corresponds to the time when Jesus returns to earth accompanied by an army clothed in fine linen, white and clean (Rev 19:14). The Salt of the Earth Jesus said, Ye are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13). When the believers are supenly removed, the earth will be plunged into spiritual darkness. When this happens, the Antichrist will then be free to control the world.Behold, He is coming with the clouds (of heaven). (1:7) This symbolically means that the Lord will reveal Himself in the literal sense of the Word and lay open its spiritual meaning at the end of the church. Someone who knows nothing of the internal or spiritual meaning of the Word cannot know what the Lord meant by His coming in the clouds of heaven. For He said to the high priest who was adjuring Him to say whether He was the Christ, the Son of God, As you have said.... I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. (Matthew 26:63, 64, Mark 14:61, 62) Moreover, in speaking to His disciples about the end of the age, the Lord said, And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear..., and they will see (Him) coming in the clouds of heaven with power and...glory. (Matthew 24:30, Mark 13:26) The clouds of heaven in which He will come mean nothing else than the Word in its literal sense, and the glory in which they will see Him, the Word in its spiritual meaning. The reality of this can hardly be believed by people who do not think of the Word beyond the sense of its letter. To them a cloud is a cloud, and so they believe that the Lord will appear in the clouds of the sky when the Last Judgment is at hand. But this idea collapses when the meaning of a cloud is known, that it is Divine truth in its outmost expressions, thus the Word in its literal meaning.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 17:44:51 +0000
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