Caught Up to Jesus

During the First Century, as in the present age, there was speculation about the return of the LORD as mentioned by Jesus in John 14,

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ¹

‘I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also’ has been one of those verses that has been interpreted as having taken place two thousand years ago, at various times in the last 150 years, as about to take place, or as some euphemism for a spiritual experience rather than bodily event. Hence, Paul tells the Thessalonians,

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 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. ²

Paul puts to rest the speculation of secret knowledge by saying, “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord…” so it is directly from Jesus, something Jesus did say. He goes on that it is an actual, tangible event with ‘the Lord Himself descending, the archangel announcing, the trumpet blast of God’ and ‘the dead in Christ rise first.’ Definitive, point-in-time, tangible events and not some euphemism. Then we have the living disciples,

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. ³

Many would like to tell you definitively everything there is to know about ‘will be caught up’ but I can’t and wouldn’t if I could. There are elements of the LORD’s timeline that the LORD has reserved for the Father only.

Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. ⁴

Just a little historical context, ‘caught up’ is the words called by some as the Rapture. The End of the Age when Christ returns to take Authority over the world is called the second coming or Parousia. It was not until the 1830s and the rise of dispensational theology that ‘Rapture’ was seen as a pre-millenial event and in the second half of that century before some groups made popular the pre-tribulational event. In the last 75 years, many groups have set dates for the Rapture but as of the moment I’m writing this, not yet. The term ‘imminent‘ is used to express the idea that the ‘catching up’ could happen at any moment soon.

The phrase ‘will be caught up’ is used several times in other contexts. In Matthew, parable of the sower ‘the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown. ⁵ In John 10, Jesus says that those He give eternal life will never perish ‘and no one will snatch them out of My hand.’ ⁶ In John 6, Jesus ‘Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. ⁷ Paul tells “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.” ⁸ In each phrase, there is the sense of forcibly being removed, taken away. But when, the Bible does not tell. But the good news, part of the gospel, is that we will ‘be with them’ and ‘so shall we always be with the LORD.’

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. ³

There is no speculation regarding God’s ultimate destination for the disciples for we have Jesus’s Word on it,

I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ¹