Terry James: Why the Rapture?

Why the Rapture?

Terry James

My contention continues to be that the answer to this question can be found within one verse. It is a statement by the ascended Lord Jesus Christ to John, the disciple Jesus called “beloved.”

I believe there is a singular word to describe the reason for the Rapture. We will, I hope, get to both the Scripture passage and the word that I believe answer the question “Why the Rapture?”.

First, we need, for those not familiar with the term “Rapture” to provide a definition.

The word “rapture” isn’t expressed as that term in the Bible, at least not in the English versions. It is given in the Latin Vulgate, however, as rapturo—translated from the Greek language in which the New Testament was mostly written. The Greek word for the great snatching away (being “caught up”) is harpazo, and it eventually became called the “Rapture” by most in the English-speaking world.

It is the “twinkling of an eye” moment the Apostle Paul prophesied will take place at some unknown time, a time only God the Father knows. Here is the Scripture passage encompassing that stupendous event:

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 Thessalonians 4:16–18)

So, what is the purpose of this event Paul tells believers to “comfort” ourselves in, considering that it will take place at some unknown instant? Certainly, the great apostle spent much writing time telling of this call of Christ into the clouds of glory. Read 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-55, for example.

Paul, himself, looked for this event to happen during his time on earth. He preached and taught, assuring the believers in Thessalonica that this event hadn’t yet occurred—because many of them feared it had happened and they had missed it somehow. Paul went to great lengths to explain the truth of the Rapture—the harpazo. (Read 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.)

So, again, why the Rapture? To be given so much ink by the most prolific writer of the New Testament, and by one of God’s most prominent prophets, the Rapture must have monumental significance.

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