By Charles Meek
What Is (Was) the Rapture?
While there is room for disagreement among Christians on eschatology, I am going to describe very briefly here a different view of the rapture that will shock most evangelical Christians. But I believe it is honoring to God’s word. I ask the reader not to dismiss this out of hand. Check it out against Scripture. Test all things (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
Let’s carefully analyze 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, the most important passage on the rapture. There are three critical words in this passage: HARPAZO (“rapture”), AER (“air”), and APANTESIS (“meet”).
The word HARPAZO does not necessarily mean physical removal. It can mean “to seize on, claim for one’s self.” An interesting example of another use of HARPAZO in the New Testament is 2 Corinthians 12:2-6. Paul tells how he was “caught up [HARPAZO] to the third heaven.” We do not know exactly what happened in this experience; perhaps he was in a trance (Acts 10:9; 22:17). But we do know that Paul remained on earth to tell the story. The term “caught up” in these contexts is closer to what we might say, “I was so caught up in the novel that I saw myself in the story.”
Interestingly, there are two words for “air” in Greek—AER and OURANOS. OURANOS means the upper atmosphere, while AER mean the lower atmosphere, thus the air that we breathe. Paul specifically used AER in this passage. AER may have a spiritual connotation (see Ephesians 2:2). Your feet don’t have to leave the ground to be in the AER.
When Paul said Christians would “meet” (APANTESIS) the Lord in the air, this means the exact opposite of what modern rapturists think. The destination is earth! The Greek word APANTESIS is found in only two other places in the New Testament. In Acts 28:15, believers from Rome went out to "meet" Paul and escort him back to their city. Similarly, in Matthew 25:1-10, the virgins went out to "meet" the bridegroom and escort him back to the wedding hall. Thus, the image evoked in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 is that of believers being spiritually caught up to go out to meet and escort Jesus back to earth to begin his rule on earth. The idea of believers being physically transported to heaven in a literal rapture is foreign to the text.
Many Christians think that the purpose of the rapture is to escape the Great Tribulation. But Jesus made it clear that the tribulation was close to them in time in the first century—and matched perfectly the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 66-70 (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21). Jesus told his first-century readers that they could escape the tribulation by retreating to the mountains!
One cannot read 1 Thessalonians 4 and miss the fact that Paul was teaching that the events he was describing would HAPPEN TO HIS CONTEMPORARIES. It would make no sense to the Thessalonians for Paul to be describing events that would happen thousands of years later. This time-line would be consistent with Jesus’ numerous “this generation” prophecies, including Matthew 10:23; 16:27-28; 29-34; 26:64; etc.
Did Jesus ever say anything about a rapture? Actually, Jesus prayed against any rapture in the sense of physical removal! In John 17:15 we see his prayer to the Father, “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” If Jesus asked for such, would the Father deny his request?
So, what was the “rapture?” Honoring both the biblical time-texts and careful exegesis of the text, it was Jesus coming “in judgment” in AD 70 to bring the Old Covenant order to a close, to claim believers as his own, and to be with us forever. This is great news, don’t you think?
For more, see my complete article on this: