"But the word 'Rapture' isn't the Bible!" Or is it?

Every chapter of 2 Thessalonians contains a reference to the return of Jesus. The Thessalonians were disturbed because some had taught that the Rapture had already happened and that those in Thessalonica had been left behind to face the Rapture. The Apostle Paul wrote this in response to their fear: Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4).

This shows that the topic of the return of Christ was important even in the first-century church. It is no wonder then that the early church lived with such evangelistic fervor, even to the point of death. Paul assured them that they would be rescued from the time of God's coming wrath. He said, "You became imitators of the Lord and of us, for you welcomed the message amid severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath" (1 Thessalonians 1:6-10).

In the second century, some Christians thought they were already in the Tribulation. And others thought the Lord was near because of the intense persecution they faced. Hugh Latimer was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, and later Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI. In 1555 under the Catholic Queen Mary I, he was burned at the stake, becoming one of the three Oxford Martyrs of Anglicanism (Hugh Latimer- Wikipedia). He expressed assurance of the Rapture, saying, "Peradventure it may come in my days, old as I am, or in my children's days...the saints shall be taken up 'to meet Christ in the air' and so shall come down with him again" (Page 29 of The Basis of the Premillennial Faith written in 1953 by Charles Ryrie). Latimer lived in the 1500s. This was 250 years before John Nelson Darby, who the Rapture doctrine's detractors say originated the Rapture theory. Yet here we have a Bishop centuries earlier articulating both the Rapture and the return of resurrected believers with Christ.

Others who attack the Rapture theory say that the word "rapture" doesn't even appear in the Bible. They're right, sort of. The English word "rapture" doesn't appear in the Bible, but the word picture of the Rapture occurs many times, as I showed in a previous post. The word itself doesn't have to be there for the doctrine to be there. "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). The Greek word for "will be caught up" is "harpazō" and means "to seize, carry off by force, to seize on, claim for one's self eagerly, to snatch out or away" (The Outline of Biblical Usage by Larry Pierce). The word "rapture" comes from the fourth-century Latin translation of that Greek word. So when someone tells you the Rapture isn't the Bible, the description of it is. And if they want to find the word, read the Bible in Latin. That's why we started calling the event "the Rapture" when Jesus seizes us and carries us off, snatching us out and away by force to eagerly claim us for himself. The word "Trinity" isn't in the Bible, but Jesus told us to baptize disciples in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). The Trinity is in the Bible even though the word isn't. The Rapture is in the Bible even though it's not in the original Greek text.