A Secret Rapture?


The scene is a Boeing 747 over the Atlantic Ocean. Most passengers are sleeping. Suddenly, some of the passengers start to vanish. One by one, the remaining passengers cry out in fear as they realize their fellow-passengers are missing. Parents are frantic, as all the children have disappeared.
Though this sounds like science fiction, it is actually a scene from the first volume of the “Left Behind” series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. These highly popular books are based on the premillennial theory that prior to a seven year “great tribulation” period, there will be a secret rapture, or “catching away” of the Christians.
Amazingly enough, millennialists come up with this seven year period by declaring that the seventieth week in Daniel’s prophetic vision (Dan. 9:27) did not follow the continuum of the other sixty-nine weeks. Because the Jews rejected the Messiah, they believe in a “parenthesis” or “gap” theory, wherein the kingdom does not come until some future age yet to come.
John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), of the Plymouth Brethren sect, developed a theory of futurist premillennialism, which he called dispensationalism, after the division of history into dispensations or eras. The last of these dispensations was presumed to be a kingdom set up on earth during a thousand year reign. C. Scofield popularized this theory through his Scofield Reference Bible, which came complete with notes on millennial thought.
Darby, and others, held that Christ’s second coming would happen in two stages–a secret rapture, then the second coming of Christ in glory after a seven-year tribulation.
They cite I Thess. 4:16-18; 5:1-2 for their secret rapture theory. “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. But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.”
The fact that the scripture states that Jesus will come as a thief in the night is not referring to a silent or secret coming, but means rather the unexpectedness of His coming (Matt. 24:44). II Pet. 3:10 says, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” There is no mistaking here that the last day is intended. It comes as a thief in the night–obviously not meaning silently here, but unexpectedly. It is referring to the same day that Paul was speaking of in I Thess. 4. Furthermore, how could one call this a silent coming when it says that the Lord Himself will descend from heaven and it is accompanied with A SHOUT, A VOICE of the archangel, and A TRUMP!
Neither do we see in these scriptures a vanishing of the Christians. It states that they will be caught up in the air. This is in the same visible sense in which Jesus was taken up and a cloud received Him out of their sight. In this same visible manner, the angel foretold Jesus would return (Acts 1:9-11).
Let us consider the context of Paul’s writings here. The Thessalonians seemed to have had some confusion as to what would become of those who had already died in the faith (vs. 13). Paul is writing to give them clarity concerning their hope of resurrection at Christ’s second coming. He is addressing the subject to bring comfort to the saints. Therefore, the rising of the wicked is not mentioned in this context. This does not mean that there will first be a resurrection of the righteous and at a future time a resurrection of the wicked.
Some believing in a secret rapture refer to it as a “first resurrection.” The term is misapplied in the context of a supposed secret rapture. The biblical term “first resurrection” refers to a spiritual rising from a dead state of sin (Eph. 2:1; I Tim. 5:6) to newness of life in Christ Jesus. Every true child of God experienced this in real Bible salvation, when Jesus “delivered us from the power of darkness, and...translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” Col. 1:13. The apostle John aptly describes this spiritual resurrection thus: “…He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life”–a resurrection!
The events in I Thess. 4 are in no wise meaning a secret rapture of Christians which precedes further events on the earth, but rather the end of all things on earth, for the coming spoken of here ushers in the global resurrection of the just and the unjust in the same hour (Jn. 5:28-29), where all will be called to the final Judgment and the earth and all the elements will be burned with fervent heat (II Pet. 3:10). This trump of God is one and the same with the last trump of I Cor. 15:51-54, wherein all bodies will be changed “in the twinkling of an eye” to incorruptible, immortal bodies. Some erroneously refer to a secret rapture taking place in the twinkling of an eye, but the scripture is referring to the change of the body for the resurrected dead and for those still living at the second coming of Christ. I Thess. 4, I Cor. 15 and Jn. 5:28-29 are all speaking of the events on the last day. “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice [same voice as I Thess. 4], And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” Jn. 5:28-29. There is no second chance!
This teaching also comes into scrutiny, as it puts a rather definitive time-line on the second coming of Christ (in effect, it would really be a third coming, according to their eschatological teachings), by saying He will come directly after a seven year period of tribulation, and then set up a kingdom on earth for 1000 years.
How grievous that such an unbiblical teaching has become so widely accepted in more recent times. Just as the Jews of old had misconceptions of the coming Messiah, much of the professing world today, as we are standing on the brink of the second coming of Christ, are holding to popular misconceptions. The entire system of millennial teaching is based upon one misinterpreted scripture after another. Beware, dear souls, and be not tossed about with these winds of false doctrine.


— Sis. Susan Mutch