UPDATED. Have you been taught all your life that the rapture and Second Coming are distinct events, years apart? Is it difficult to change your cherished belief? The teaching about the Second Coming in the earliest apostolic community was unified and without complications. Here’s the plentiful biblical and nonsymbolic and direct evidence. In the Second Addendum, I tell you my recent decision.

In this post I interpret straightforward and nonsymbolic teachings about the last day and the return of the Lord in John’s Gospel and Paul’s epistles and some verses in Hebrews, and quick reference in the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). What do these passages teach?

I don’t appeal to the most symbolic book in the Bible–Revelation–except in passing. I also add an addendum to clarify this book.

The translations of the Gospels are mine; otherwise the ESV is used. (I note when the NIV is also used). If, however, readers would like to read other translations, they are welcome to click on biblegateway.com.

The main thesis: the rapture and the Second Coming are the same event.

Second thesis: the plain and clear passage must guide our interpretation of the symbolic passages in the Revelation.

Let’s begin.

These verses in John’s Gospel are about final judgment:

²⁸ Do not be amazed at this because the hour is coming when those in their tombs will hear his voice ²⁹ and come out: those doing good things to the resurrection of life, but the ones practicing wickedness to the resurrection of judgment. (John 5:28-29)

Both the good-deed doers and the bad-deed doers will rise together at final judgment. The resurrection of the redeemed and unredeemed happen at the same time.  hose verses supply an additional context for the ones in John 6, next.

Jesus focused on one idea in John 6:39, 40, 44, 54. In those verses he said that on the last day he will raise up (from the dead) everyone who believes in him. Once again, this resurrection happens on the last day. Emphasis added:

³⁹ This is the will of the one who sent me: That everyone whom he gives me I will not lose any of them, but I will raise them up on the last day. (39)

⁴⁰ For this is the will of my Father: everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. … (40)

⁴⁴ No one can come to me unless the one who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.  … (44)

⁵⁴ The one eating my flesh and drinking my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. (54)

Paul agrees with the idea of the last day. In 1 Cor. 15:51-54 the Second Coming will happen at the resurrection of the dead at the last trumpet.

⁵¹ Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall 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 shall be changed. ⁵³ For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  ⁵⁴ When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality… (1 Cor. 15:51-54, emphasis added)

Further, in 1 Cor. 15:26 Paul said that the last enemy to be defeated will be death.

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26, emphasis added).

It’s hard to believe that death will still defeat people after an early rapture (before the Second Coming) and that God will need to “redefeat” death a “second first” time at his Second Coming! Too complicated! No, death will no longer defeat people only at the Second Coming, and the rapture and Second Coming are the same event and happen on the last day, as we see in the next passage.

Here is the clearest teaching in the NT about the rapture, which means, in Latin, “snatching up” or catching up” (Latin: rapto, raptura). In Greek, the language of the NT, the verb harpazô (pronounced hahr-pah-zoh) means the exact same thing: “snatching up” or “catching up.” In the next passage, the dead in Christ will rise first (cf. John 6:39, 40, 44, 54), which is also a kind of rapture, and then the clause “we who are alive” (Paul and the Thessalonians and now us) is linked with the rapture.

¹⁵ For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming [parousia] of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep [died]. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up [harpazô = rapture] together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thess. 4:15-17)

The above passage coordinates perfectly with 1 Cor. 15:25, 51-52 and John 39, 40, 44, 54. To interpret 1 Thess. 4:15-17, the trumpet and the raising (a kind of rapture) of the dead and then snatching up (rapture) of the living occur at the same time or are the same event. And therefore the Second Coming and the rapture occur at the same time. Then we will descend with him and be with him on the reconstituted and renovated and renewed and transformed earth forever.

Why will we descend with him down to earth and remain down here and not shoot back into heaven in the distinct rapture separated from the Second Coming? The parousia (see 1 Thess. 4:15) by definition means arrival or being there. In its historical context, a parousia happens when a Roman dignitary, like a senator or even the emperor, arrived (parousia) in a Roman colony, e.g. Corinth or back to Rome. At his arrival (parousia), the dignitaries of the city went out to meet him, and they escorted him back into their city. Then they had feasts and games to celebrate his arrival (parousia). The dignitaries in the colony did not board the senator’s or emperor’s ship and abscond away for three-and-a-half or seven years.

See the post:

What Does ‘Parousia’ Mean?

Also the Greek noun apantēsis (pronounced ah-pahn-TAY-sis) appears in v. 17 and is translated as if a verb (“to meet”). The noun appears only in two other places: Acts 28:15 and Matt. 25:6.

In Acts 28:15-16, the brothers and sisters heard that Paul and his team were in Italy and went out to meet them. Then they escorted him into Rome.

 ¹⁵ The brothers and sisters there had heard that we were coming, and they traveled as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet us. At the sight of these people Paul thanked God and was encouraged. ¹⁶ When we got to Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with a soldier to guard him. (Acts 28:15-16, NIV emphasis added)

They did not go back and board a ship to take off, backwards, to where Paul had come from, and disappear for three-and-a-half or seven years.

Matthew 25:6 says the announcement came that the bridegroom  (Christ) has come, so the bridesmaids should go out to meet him (though a noun, the NIV translates it as a verb). Note how they escort him into the house for the wedding festival (v. 10). They do not go backwards and secretly hide away for three-and-a-half or seven years.

⁶ “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ […] ¹⁰ “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. (Matt. 25:6, 10, NIV, emphasis added)

The above passage teaches us that Jesus weds his bride (the church) and sets up his endless Messianic kingdom. But first he has to judge the five foolish bridesmaids (25:12), and the unproductive servant (25:30), and the goats (25:46). The context of the entire chapter (Matt. 25) is the close-out of this age and the beginning of the New Messianic Age, when the righteous dwell and shine and when the unbelievers are sent away to outer darkness or fire–forever. The righteous and unrighteous are judged together, just as we saw in John 5:28-29.

Coherence and unity and consistency in Jesus’s streamlined and clear teaching.

Quick side-note, Peter also says that God appointed Jesus to judge the living and the dead:

He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. (Acts 10:42, NIV)

Those who are alive when Christ comes and those who had died when he comes = the living and the dead. So judgment happens at one and the same time. This verse agrees with the ones, for example, in Matthew 25:12, 30, and 46 (and 13:36-43, 37-50), John 5:28-29 and others.

Back to 1 Thessalonians: When Christ returns and raptures us, we will not shoot back up into heaven from where he came; instead, we will escort him to earth where he will set up his eternal kingdom.

Brief summary (so far): At the parousia, the dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thess. 4:16). Recall that John 6:39, 40, 44, 54 say that the dead will rise on the last day. Paul said the last enemy to be defeated will be death (1 Cor. 15:26). He likewise says this will happen with the blast of the last trumpet (1 Cor. 15:52; see 1 Thess. 4:16).

Hebrews

The author of Hebrews says that there are only two comings: the first and second:

But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. ²⁷ And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, ²⁸ so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Heb. 9:26-28; emphasis added)

Jesus first appeared at his birth, and after that time he ministered and put away sin by sacrificing himself. Then he will appear a second time for those eagerly waiting for him. This saving will be a deliverance from the present evil age and from a negative judgment. Why didn’t the author of Hebrews discuss a separate rapture? Here was his perfect chance.

Of course a teacher of the separate rapture could say that those verses do speak of a rapture because he comes a second time to save those who wait for him. In reply, however, v. 27 is about the judgment of everyone; this separate rapture only shifts the question to why the author did not speak of the Second Coming. He was keeping the church “noninformed.”

The truth is simpler: He did not warn the church about a rapture distinct from the Second Coming or parousia because he believed only in two comings: the first and second.

Titus

In his epistle to his mentee or disciple Titus, Paul says the same as what Hebrews says, but without the “first” and “second” qualifiers, though it is clear enough there are only two comings:

¹¹ For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. ¹² It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, ¹³ while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ …. (Titus 2:11-13)

In v. 11, grace appeared with Jesus’s coming. Verse 12 says we live godly lives in this present age. Verse 13 says we are waiting for Christ’s appearing in his glory. In both Hebrews and Titus, then, we have this simple sequence of eras. The line means a continuous chronological flow of events without mathematical precision until the Second Coming:

First Coming ————————————→ Second Coming

So Jesus came the first time and offered grace and salvation to all people. Before his Second Coming, we are to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and live self-controlled, upright and godly lives. Then the Second Coming happens, which ends the Church Age as we are currently living it. The Second Coming will be glorious (Ti. 2:13) and visible for all. This was Paul’s perfect chance to insert a teaching about a rapture distinct from the Second Coming, but he did not. Why not? No complicated, convoluted reasoning here: he simply believed in a first coming of the Son of God and a second coming of the Son of God.

See the Second Addendum, below, for a fuller flow chart of what the Gospels and Epistles teach.

Three main synoptic chapters in passing

I further note in passing that Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21:5-38, all parallel eschatological (end-time) passages in the Synoptic Gospels, nowhere teach a separate and distinct rapture happening before the Second Coming. To find in those three chapters a rapture separated by years from the Second Coming is to import this prior belief into them and atomize them beyond their context. This is eisegesis (leading into a text), not exegesis (leading out of a text). Exegesis is better than eisegesis. Such complications violate the best biblical hermeneutics: keep things clear and simple.

See my posts, here:

This one is the easiest:

Matt 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 and 17 in Parallel Columns Are Finally Clear

The next ones form the foundation of the summarized previous one.

Matthew 24:4-35 Predicts Destruction of Jerusalem and Temple

Matt. 24:36 to 25:46–From Second Coming to New Messianic Age

Mark 13:5-31 Predicts Destruction of Jerusalem and Temple

Mark 13:32-37 Teaches Second Coming

Luke 21:5-33 Predicts Destruction of Jerusalem and Temple (Luke is by far the clearest on this topic)

Luke 17:22-37 and 21:34-36 Teach the Second Coming

John 14:2-3, 23

Many interpreters believe that this passage clearly teaches the rapture before the Second Coming, but verse 23 decisively argues against this interpretation.

This section has moved to a separate post, here:

John 14 Does Not Teach Second Coming or Separate Rapture

The Revelation in passing

Paul and the author of Hebrews knew nothing about the most symbolic book in the Bible because they lived before it was written in the 90s.

(Or a few interpreters believe the Revelation was written in the 60s; if so, then in the normal flow of events, documents take a long time to circulate, and Paul and the author of Hebrews show no sign that they knew of it.)

It is a sure thing that John wrote his Gospel before he got his visions in the Revelation. But even if he did not, then Jesus’s teachings in the Gospels still stand as clearly as can be in straightforward, nonsymbolic, didactic words.

I have not gone into detail about debatable verses in the Revelation, because no one interpretation can dominate it and clear away all other interpretations. It is unwise hermeneutics, therefore, to impose Revelation on the clear and straightforward and didactic teachings in the epistles and the Gospel of John and Hebrews and the three parallel passages in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Just the opposite is true. The clear verses must interpret and guide us to interpret the unclear, symbolic ones.

I note in passing, nonetheless, that even Rev. 11:15-19 says that the seventh and last trumpet is blown after the mighty tribulation when God finally wins the complete victory. But my thesis does not stand or fall on this book.

Please see the addendum below for how I view Revelation in this specific post.

Summary and Conclusion 

The main goal of Bible interpretation (hermeneutics) is to keep the plain thing the main thing. Imposing complicated and apocalyptic and debatable verses from Daniel 7 or 8 or 9 or 11 or from the Revelation on the clearest verses in Scripture is not the best approach to interpreting the Bible.

All of those verses in John and the synoptic Gospels and Paul’s epistles and Hebrews (and Acts) do not contain complicated symbols that we find in the book of Revelation, the most symbolic book in the Bible.

And the bottom line is this: the Second Coming and the rapture happen at the same time and on the last day. The verses we looked at in the Gospel of John and Paul’s epistles and Hebrews and the Synoptics (and Acts) are straightforward and direct teachings in the context of the end times and the Second Coming (except John 14:2-3, 23). None of those verses teach a rapture between now and before the last day, but Paul’s epistles tell us that the rapture happens at the Second Coming. They are the same event.

Further, nowhere do the eschatological chapters in the synoptic Gospels teach a rapture before the Second Coming or teach a distinct rapture at all. All of these verses are straightforward and didactic, not symbolic (except a few elements, like the terrible scene in the sky that happens to the sun, moon, and stars and so on).

See my post:

Luke 17:22-37: Taken Away = Rapture? (I also look at Matthew’s version)

It seems that the powerful image of the trumpet stuck in the apostolic community’s mind. The trumpet heralds the Second Coming, which entails the raising of the dead and rapture of the Church on the last day and the final judgment of the righteous and unrighteous, together, at the same time.

One more time, for clarity and conciseness, the consistent eschatology coming from Jesus’s teaching and soon after began circulating throughout the earliest apostolic churches was this one:

Rapture = Second Coming and Happens at Same Time, on Last Day

When this one event happens, death will finally and at last be defeated because our bodies will be miraculously transformed into immortal ones, once and for all and forever–on the last day.

If the rapture, distinct from the Second Coming, were such a vital teaching in the original apostolic community, then the writers of Scripture were remiss because they did not clearly warn the church about it. Why not? For them the truth was simpler and they did not multiply complications, as many teachers do today.

The earliest apostolic teachers, closest to Jesus’s teachings than today’s teachers are, believed that there was only two comings: the first and the second. The first happened at Jesus’s birth; the second will be in the future when he will come in full power and glory and defeat death and set up his eternal kingdom, all heralded by the final trumpet blast.

So how does this post help me grow in Christ and wait in purity for the Second Coming?

1 John 3:2-3 says:

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” (1 John 3:2-3).

The Second Coming will happen in God’s time. We don’t need to be scared of it, nor do we get to live a life of sin, because we think we can get away with it. No, the Scriptures tell us everywhere to live godly lives. And we don’t need to be scared into living such lives, either. John 3:3 says it is the hope (not the fear) of his appearing that causes us to purify our lives.

First Addendum: Clearing up my passing reference to Revelation

Some online commenters have said that I don’t emphasize Revelation enough. One even asked, ironically, whether we should discard it.

No, we should not discard it, but we should no longer stridently stomp through it as if the issues are settled in our tidy systems.

My further reply is that the clearer texts should guide people’s interpretation of the less clear ones. For example, Rev. 4:1-2 is not a rapture passage, but teachers of the separate rapture before the tribulation have to say it is, because the church must not be around during the tribulation. However, the truth is simpler. John himself and by himself was called by the Spirit to go up and see the visions, alone, not the church as a whole. The clear and didactic and straightforward texts I cite in this post should clarify these teachers’ interpretations of Revelation, so that they don’t import a strange reading into a plain verse. 

Another example: some interpreters believe that the seven churches represent different ages within the large Church Age. So the seventh church, Laodicea, which was neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm, was counseled to buy gold refined by fire (purity coming out of trials or persecution), represents this present church age. This typological reading is very stretched. Such interpretations of historical verses–not symbolic ones–need to be reined in. However, I can’t say that this symbolic, dispensational reading is so far off-base that it adds up to heresy, and maybe some tiny elements can be gleaned from the Laodicean church that may be relevant today. Some have become lukewarm, but then people throughout all generations become lukewarm.

Nonetheless, I am so convinced that if we would just take the verses in their textual context and not “out-insight” the original writers, the Bible would become as it should be: streamlined and simpler, without the entanglement of complicated interpretational systems, as interpreters jump from verse to verse and book to book, cobbling them together to build their convoluted outcomes which confuse the Body of Christ.

To me, the Revelation was written first for the seven churches in Asia Minor and then by extension for the church of all ages, to warn them of the troubles to come. It is a book about martyrs. Beyond that, the book is the most symbolic of all the other biblical books. Therefore, it is a good idea to let the clear and didactic and straightforward verses laid out in this post guide all interpretations of this book in the Bible.

Clarity guides the unclear portions. My main point: keep the plain thing the main thing in hermeneutics (science of interpretation), and let the clear verses guide the unclear ones.

In sum, I would like, in my own small way, to bring some interpretive boundaries (and dare I say sanity?) back to the American church and Bible interpretation today.

My main point: keep the plain thing the main thing in hermeneutics, and let the clear verses guide the unclear ones.

Second Addendum

In the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds, particularly Matthew 13:39-43; and in the Parable of the Net, particularly Matthew 13:49-50; and in Matthew 16:27; and in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus clearly teaches that the end of This Age and the new Messianic Age (or Kingdom Age or the Age to Come) are ushered in right after the Second Coming; and the judgment of the righteous and the wicked happen at the same time.

Bible Basics about the Final Judgment

Fuller exegesis of the passages in the Second Addendum has now been moved to this summary post:

What Jesus Really Taught about End Times

But in these eschatological (end-time) discussions:

“In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity (love).”

We should not break fellowship with those with whom we differ in eschatological matters.

RELATED

Matthew 24:4-35 Predicts Destruction of Jerusalem and Temple

Matt. 24:36 to 25:46–From Second Coming to New Messianic Age

Matt 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 (and 17) in Parallel Columns Are Finally Clear

Mark 13:5-31 Predicts Destruction of Jerusalem and Temple

Mark 13:32-37 Teaches Second Coming

Luke 21:5-33 Predicts Destruction of Jerusalem and Temple (Luke is by far the clearest on this topic)

Luke 17:22-37 and 21:34-36 Teach the Second Coming

Cosmic Disasters = Apocalyptic Imagery for Judgment and Major Change

What Does ‘Parousia’ Mean?

Three Options for Interpreting Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21 (I discuss two other interpretations)

Luke 17:22-37: Taken Away = Rapture? (I also briefly look at Matthew’s version)