Pre-Tribulational Rapture

Enoch walked with God and God took him — translated so that he should not see death, and taken out before the flood judgment ever fell. He is the first picture of the Church removed from the earth before the waters of wrath rise.

The angel tells Lot, 'I cannot do anything till thou be come thither.' Judgment on Sodom is held back until the righteous is safely out — heaven does not pour the fire while the redeemed are still in the city.

The servant is sent to fetch a bride for the son, and Rebekah is called away from her country to meet Isaac and become his wife. It foreshadows the Spirit calling out the Bride to be brought to the Son before the marriage.

Resurrection ('thy dead men shall live') is joined to a command: 'come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers... hide thyself... until the indignation be overpast.' The people are shut in and hidden until the wrath has passed by.

'The righteous is taken away from the evil to come.' God removes His own ahead of the calamity, and no man lays it to heart — the mercy of being gathered out before judgment arrives.

The final week is one seven-year covenant broken in the midst by the prince that shall come — Daniel's seventieth week, the Tribulation. It belongs to Israel and her city, not to the Church, who is caught up before it opens.

'It may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD's anger.' Concealment from the day of wrath is the hope held out to the meek who seek the Lord.

'They shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.' The Lord gathers and spares His treasured ones as a man spares his own son, before the day burns as an oven.

'Be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.' The command to be ready at an unknown hour rests on a coming that carries no advance sign — the imminence that marks the rapture.

The wise virgins keep their lamps ready and go in with the bridegroom, while the door is shut on the unprepared. The watchword is plain: 'ye know neither the day nor the hour' — be ready for a coming without warning.

Loins girded, lamps burning, the servants wait for their lord's return that they may open to him immediately. The posture Christ commands is constant readiness for a Master who may come at any hour.

'The same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire... even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.' The righteous is out before the fire falls, the same day — deliverance and judgment do not overlap.

'Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.' The promise is escape from the whole hour, not survival through it.

'I go to prepare a place for you... I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.' Christ comes not to set up the kingdom on earth here, but to receive His own and take them to the Father's house.

'This same Jesus... shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.' The personal, bodily return of Christ is fixed and certain, the ground of the Church's waiting.

'Being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.' The justified are saved from wrath, not merely through it — a settled exemption from the coming outpouring.

We groan within ourselves, 'waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.' The believer's hope reaches forward to the moment of bodily change, the great goal of the rapture.

The Church is described as 'waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,' who shall confirm her blameless unto the end. Waiting for a Person, not for signs, is the normal Christian stance.

'We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.' Here is the rapture named as a mystery — the living generation transformed instantly and the dead raised incorruptible.

'Maranatha' — the Lord cometh. The early Church's watchword was a cry of expectancy for the imminent return of her Lord.

We long to be clothed upon with our house from heaven, 'that mortality might be swallowed up of life.' Paul's hope is not to be unclothed by death but to be clothed upon while living — the change the rapture brings.

'Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour... who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.' The Church looks up for a Saviour who transforms her at His coming.

'The Lord is at hand.' The nearness of Christ's return is meant to shape the believer's whole spirit — moderation flowing from expectancy.

'When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.' Our appearing with Him in glory presupposes we were first caught up to be with Him.

We are to 'wait for his Son from heaven... even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.' The Deliverer Himself is the one we await, and He delivers us from the wrath before it comes, not out of the midst of it.

The Lord descends with a shout, the dead in Christ rise first, and the living 'shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.' This is the charter of the rapture — the whole Church caught up to meet Him and be forever with the Lord.

'God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.' Set against the Day of the Lord that overtakes the world as a thief, this is the Church's guarantee of exemption from that hour of wrath.

Paul entreats them 'by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him.' The gathering together unto Christ is the rapture, set apart as the ground of comfort against end-time deception.

'Except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed.' The word beneath that phrase is a departing, a going-out, and the man of sin cannot be unveiled until it happens — the Church is taken before the lawless one ever steps onto the stage.

'He who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way,' and then shall the Wicked be revealed. The Restrainer — the Holy Spirit working through the indwelt Church — must be removed before the man of sin can appear.

A crown of righteousness is laid up 'unto all them also that love his appearing.' To love His appearing is the mark of the waiting believer, and it is rewarded — the appearing is a thing to be longed for, not dreaded.

We are 'looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.' The Church's hope is not death but a Person appearing — the imminent, signless coming of Christ for His own, and it is blessed.

'Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.' He appears a second time to those who look for Him — a coming for His waiting people, unto their full salvation.

We exhort one another 'so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.' The nearness of the day is a present spur to faithfulness, held always before the believer's eyes.

'Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.' The husbandman waits for the harvest, and the believer waits for the Lord, whose coming is ever near.

'Hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.' The believer's hope is fixed forward on the moment Christ is revealed, when grace is brought to its fullness.

'The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment.' Drawing on Noah and Lot, Peter states the rule: God delivers the godly out before He reserves the wicked for judgment.

'When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.' At His appearing we are made like Him in glorified body, and every man who holds this hope purifies himself — the rapture is both our transformation and our motive for holiness.

'The Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment.' He returns with His saints already glorified at His side — which requires that they were first caught up to Him before that day.

'I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.' Christ promises to keep His Church from the very hour of testing that falls on the whole earth — kept from the time, not merely through it.

A voice as a trumpet says, 'Come up hither,' and immediately John is in the Spirit before the throne. After the letters to the churches, the Church is called up — and from here through chapter eighteen she is never again seen on the earth.

Before the Lord descends with His armies, 'the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready,' arrayed in fine linen. The Bride is already in heaven, glorified and prepared — for she was caught up long before this return.

'The Spirit and the bride say, Come.' The Church's answering cry to her Lord's promise, 'Surely I come quickly,' is the longing of a people waiting to be caught away.