So, What is It?
So what is the Rapture of the Church? Where did that idea come from? Is it a new idea as some purport? Is it something we should seriously consider; and if so, why? And when will it happen exactly?
Some challenge the idea of the Rapture by saying, “It’s too new to be true.” Well, to that, I have two responses. Number one, just because a belief is early or long-held doesn’t mean it’s true. Heresies like Gnosticism appeared early in the Church and had to be countered by John and others.
Number two, the early Church did believe that Christians would be rescued before the Tribulation. You could say that the early Church fathers were strongly premillennial. That includes men like the Shepherd of Hermas, Irenaeus, Ephrem of Syria, Clement of Rome, Tertullian, and Cyril of Jerusalem. I could go on and on. All of them believed that Jesus could come back at any moment and we should be ready.
John 14 is a passage that some people might think has nothing to do with the Rapture. But the more I’ve studied it, the more I have come to realize that it is one of the first mentions or intimations of the glorious Blessed Hope of the Church—Jesus’ promise of the imminent, signless rapture of the Church—in the New Testament.
Known as the “Upper Room discourse,” it is the second-longest sermon Jesus ever preached (behind the Sermon on the Mount). It was delivered to His disciples in private, just before His crucifixion.
The first six verses of this sermon are seminal: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know. Thomas said to Him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:1-6)
There are four distinctive features about this Rapture—this coming—that He refers to:
Comfort
The first feature of the Rapture is its comfort. Why on Earth would Jesus say to His disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled”? Because they were troubled. In fact, the anxiety among that group was rising minute by minute, because in this setting, at this last supper, He had just announced that He was leaving.
Just a few verses earlier, in John 13:33, Jesus said, “Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek me, and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’” Simon Peter spoke up with the question all of them had: “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him and said again, “Where I go, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow me later.” In his own anguish and confusion, Peter responded, “Why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for You.”
Later in the same sermon, Jesus recognized, “…because I have said these things to you, sorrow fills your heart” (John 16:6). The disciples were confused and filled with sorrow because they had given up everything to follow Him for three years nonstop—and now He was leaving. That is not what they wanted or expected to hear, so their hearts are troubled and filled with anxiety.
Jesus’ command to “Let not your heart be troubled” was given in a present passive imperative, meaning to stop an action already going on. They were already worried, already freaking out. So, Jesus said, “Stop it.” The words He offered to comfort them are simply this: “Believe in God; believe also in Me.” Then He said, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places [and] I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:2-3).
Similarly, right after he described the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:13- 18, Paul wrote, “Therefore, comfort one another with these words.” There is nothing more comforting to those of us alive right now than the assurance that Jesus could come back at any moment for us.
Notice that Jesus described the place He is preparing (Heaven) in four ways:
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