The Rapture, the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His redeemed people, will vitally affect every born-again soul, whether dead or living. If confusion is to be avoided, this event, which will take place “in the air,” must be sharply distinguished from our Lord’s Revelation, when He will make His public appearing on earth to bring judgment on His foes and deliver His earthly people, Israel (1 Thess. 4:17; Mt. 24:30-31).
Some teach that participation in the Rapture will depend on the spiritual vigilance of the believer at Christ’s coming, and that those who are not ready will be left behind to endure the trials of that unrivaled persecution known as “the Great Tribulation,” “the hour of trial which is to come upon the whole world,” and to await deliverance at its climax by the personal intervention of Christ. Others contend that those left behind will be excluded from the millennial kingdom and cast into “the outer darkness,” where there “will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” to await the general Resurrection and Great White Throne. They escape “the second death” and belatedly enter heaven because their names are found “written in the Book of Life.”
If the doctrine of the Second Coming is understood to include all believers, the necessity for vigilance is not weakened. On the contrary, belief in the imminent return of the Lord Jesus should afford the strongest incentive to earnest endeavor and holy living. “Therefore . . . be ye . . . always abounding in the work of the Lord.” “Everyone that hath this hope set on Him purifieth himself” (1 Cor. 15:58; 1 Jn. 3:3).
These graces are needful, however, not because their absence will debar believers from participation, but because the Judgment Seat of Christ is closely related to His coming (1 Cor. 4:5; Rev. 22:12). At this solemn assize, the service of the believer will be called to account and reward be given or denied as required.
In this sense, therefore, certain Scriptures are to be understood which solemnly warn of the folly of indifference on the part of the believer in the light of Christ’s coming. Thus John exhorts his “little children (to) abide in Him; that, if He shall be manifested, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.” Likewise Paul writes of the possibility of being “rejected” in regard to the incorruptible crown, the reward for a “good fight” and a “finished . . . course,” at that Day; of suffering “loss” if one’s work is destroyed as belonging to the wood, hay, and stubble sort, even though one is “saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15). There is also the possibility of being “denied” reigning with Christ, if we deny Him in refusing to endure hardship for Him, however gratuitously “life” with Him may be assured (2 Tim. 2:11-12).
The writer affirms that there are substantial reasons for a belief in the inclusive nature of the Rapture in the light of which a selective interpretation is untenable.
First, in the absence of any differentiation between believers in the great Rapture Scriptures: John 14; 1 Corinthians 15; 1 Thessalonians 4; etc. In the Lord’s discourse to His disciples in the Upper Room, there is no hint of distinction, whereas in His earlier discourses regarding His Advent at the “consummation of the age,” warnings against unwatchful profession abound, and vigilance is seen to be a sine qua non of participation in His earthly kingdom (Mt. 24:40-42; 25:10-13). Is it not reasonable to infer that if a possibility of exclusion from the Rapture existed, he would have given equally clear warning of it? Paul’s great resurrection chapter, however, is quite explicit. Of the Rapture he writes, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Cor. 15:51-52). This passage clearly teaches that all believers, whether dead or living, will be instantaneously changed, alike “conformed to the body of His glory.” When the known spiritual defections of the Corinthian assembly are weighed against this explicit passage, the argument for an inclusive Rapture seems incontestable.
The Apostle’s other great treatise on the Rapture was written to counteract the fears of the Thessalonians for the safety of fellow-believers who had died. Since those days, thousands more have “fallen asleep” and it is certain that the saved dead will vastly outnumber the saved living at the time of Christ’s return. Can it reasonably be inferred that all the former died in a vigorous expectation of His coming? As it was not until comparatively recent times that scriptural teaching on the subject was revived, many believers must have died in ignorance of this “blessed hope.” Yet no distinction is made by the Apostle: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them that are fallen asleep through Jesus will God bring with Him,” and “the dead in Christ shall rise first.” Likewise, no distinction is made between living saints: “Then we which are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up.” Unless it is contended that these passages were exclusively addressed to the believers at Corinth and Thessalonica, a contention which would be subversive of the authority of Scripture affecting all believers, the case for a selective Rapture collapses.
Second, there is the inclusive nature of the Judgment Seat of Christ which will attend the Rapture, its indispensable preliminary (1 Cor. 4:5; Rev. 22:12). Thus Paul writes, “We shall all stand before the Judgment Seat .” “So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.” And of the Day when the work of each believer will be “revealed in fire” and its true character shown, whether it be of the “gold, silver, costly stones,” or “wood, hay, stubble” class. According to the result of that test, each will “receive a reward” or “suffer loss.” There is nothing in this passage to suggest that what is good or bad is tested other than at the same event (see also 2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 22:12).
Third, in the fact of the mystical Body of Christ, which would lack completeness were any of its “members” excluded at His return. Thus writes Paul, “We are members of His body” (Eph. 5:30). The growth of this mystical body, in its broadest sense, is provided for in the work of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, to the end that we all attain “unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). The absence of even the “more feeble” members would cause the whole body to be imperfect. It then could not be described as “the fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Eph. 1:23).
Fourth, the theory of a selective Rapture makes it a conditional reward, whereas it is an integral part of salvation and, as such, no less a gratuitous act of grace than any other part. Thus, in his first epistle (1:5-9), Peter writes to those “who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” and of such “receiving (anticipatively) the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” This aspect of salvation will be effected at the revelation of the Lord Jesus (vv. 7, 13), and is as much of “grace” (vv. 10, 13) as that present aspect of salvation which is the common possession of all believers. Again, Paul writes of believers as “waiting for the . . . redemption of our body,” to be accomplished at the Rapture (Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:14). Such an aspect of redemption is an essential part of that “redemption which is in Christ Jesus,” which encompasses “spirit and soul and body “