(As promised…)
Excluding Revelation, there are three main passages that detail the
coming of the Lord. I list them below:
13 But we
do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that
you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.
14 For if we
believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those
who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the
word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the
Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord
Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel
and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17
Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
18
Therefore comfort one another with these words.
1
Thessalonians 4:13-18
50 Now I
say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor
does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
51 Behold, I tell you
a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
52 in
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will
sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
53
For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on
immortality.
54 But when this perishable will have put on the
imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about
the saying that is written, “D
eath is
swallowed up in victory.
55 O
death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
1
Corinthians 15:50-55
24 For
false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and
wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.
25 Behold, I
have told you in advance.
26 So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is
in the wilderness,’ do not go out,
or,
‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe
them.
27 For just as the lightning comes from the east
and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
28
Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.
29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days
the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not
give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of
the heavens will be shaken.
30 And then the sign of the Son of Man
will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and
they will see the
Son of Man coming on the
clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
31 And He will
send forth His angels with
a great
trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds,
from one end of the sky to the other.
Matthew
24:24-31
It seems as though all three of these passages are describing the same
event.
Further,
Revelation clearly
states that the martyrs of the Tribulation will receive their new bodies after
the Tribulation during the first resurrection.
If this is a separate event from the events described above in 1
Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians, then there are three resurrections: church,
tribulation martyrs, and the dead.
Revelation clearly speaks of only two resurrections: living (elect) and
the dead (lost).
So if all four passages (Matthew, 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, and
Revelation) are speaking about the same event and if Matthew and Revelation peg
this event as following the Tribulation, then the “rapture” must really just be
the resurrection of the elect. But, if the rapture occurs before the end of the
Tribulation, Christ must come back twice.
Nowhere does scripture state that there is a third coming of Christ (or
a third resurrection). Most Pre-tribbers
and Mid-tribbers simply break these returns of Christ into part 2a and part
2b. Part 2a is to be Christ’s spiritual
return; part 2b His physical return.
