Those that look for anything to discredit God’s Word will say see, rapture isn’t a word used but they miss the point and the hopeful message. Now I must confess that the word “rapture” is found nowhere in God’s Word.
The Apostle Paul uses the Greek word Harpazo in describing believers being “caught up” or seized, snatched, or take away by force by the Lord. The Latin word raptus, meaning “seized” or “carried away” being used in the Latin version by Roman Catholics which probably led to the common term “Rapture”.
The Apostle Paul describes this event in two different Epistles:
In the first, Paul describes being caught up into the air and in the second, Paul says we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, a fraction of a second. This is when both the dead in Christ and those living believers at the hearing of the trumpet will be given glorified bodies, ones like our Lord Jesus took on when He was raised from the dead.
Then at the last trumpet, our bodies are raised from their graves and we are united with our spirits that Jesus brings with Him. Even Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive right now but we know their bodies are in still in graves here on earth. Jesus answered the Sadducee’s who questioned the resurrection of the dead as they didn’t believe in it, “you do err in not knowing the Scriptures nor the Power of God. Have you not read of God saying I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
The first is 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17. The occasion for this is that some of the Thessalonians had died and they were all expecting the Lord to come back for them while they were still living. This caused some of the believers to begin to doubt Paul’s message so the Lord sent Paul to tell them of a mystery (secret).
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. 16 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; 17 then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
and in 1 Corinthians 15:51-54
51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 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. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
But what happens if we die before this happens?
It’s our bodies that die and lie in the grave but our spirits go to be with the Lord in Paradise. Jesus said as much to the thief, who on the cross beside Him, confessed Him as Lord.
And the Apostle Paul informs the Corinthians that a believer being absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. The Lord allowed Paul to visit Paradise in the spirit which he described as being in the 3rd Heaven but it was too wonderful and unlawful to describe. Paul even refused to identity that he himself saw these things but rather referred the experience “to a man that he knew”.
Speaking of Heaven, there are three: There’s the atmosphere above the ground which is the first Heaven, then there’s the second Heaven where the rest of the universe is and then there’s a special place outside of the second Heaven called the third Heaven where Paradise and God’s Throne is.
2 Corinthians 5:6-8
6 Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord 7 (for we walk by faith, not by sight); 8 we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.
For those of you still not believing this, consider how much time would pass in the moments after you fall asleep in death and you wouldn’t even realize it? Have you ever been so tired that you fell asleep and woke up 8 or 9 hours later without experiencing the passing of time or was put out for a medical operation and woke up hours or perhaps the next day? We all have. I have no doubt that in the twinkling of any eye after your eyes closed in death that you would immediately wake back up finding yourself in the air with the Lord with a new body, one like He has.