What is the Rapture?

The word "rapture" does not appear in English Bibles. It comes from the Latin rapiemur, "we shall be caught up," in the Latin Vulgate's translation of 1 Thessalonians 4:17. There Paul comforts believers grieving for Christians who had died: "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" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Paul describes the same hope in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52: "we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." Christians across traditions agree that Christ will return, that the dead will be raised, and that believers will be gathered to him. They differ on timing and sequence. Pre-tribulationists, a view popularized in the nineteenth century by John Nelson Darby and later by the Scofield Reference Bible, believe Christ will gather his church before a seven-year tribulation, with his visible return coming afterward. Mid-tribulation and pre-wrath views place the Rapture partway through that period. Post-tribulationists believe believers will be caught up to meet the Lord as he returns after the tribulation, in one event. Many Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, and Reformed Christians, along with others who hold amillennial views, read 1 Thessalonians 4 as describing Christ's single, visible Second Coming rather than a separate event. Sayings such as "the one shall be taken, and the other left" (Matthew 24:40) are also read differently within these views. All can share Paul's own conclusion: "Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

Key Passages