Secret Rapture

“Do you believe in the secret Rapture? I've had this question posed to me several times. But what does the phrase “secret Rapture” even mean? After all, the effects of the Rapture certainly will not be a secret. It's not as if The Disappearance of every genuine follower of Christ simultaneously from the earth could go unnoticed. Even if you give the lowest estimation for the number of professing Christians that are actually followers of Christ, the number of people that would be evacuated off the earth at the same time by the Lord would not be a low number. The percentage might be low, but the total number definitely will not be. So what is this supposed “secret” about?

The doctrine of the Rapture is not a secret either. People have been talking about the Rapture since the beginning of the church. They will likely continue to be talking about it until it happens. Even though 1/4 of professing believers no longer believe that Jesus is even going to literally, physically return, and there are many others who believe in the return of Christ but believe in different timings for the Rapture, the Tribulation, the Second Coming, and everything associated with that. So the Rapture itself certainly is not a secret. What, then, do the opponents of the Rapture doctrine, who often use the term “secret Rapture” as a pejorative, mean when they say that?

It could be in reference to the fact that unless you were going to be taken up in the Rapture, you won't actually see it happen. As I said above, you will definitely be aware that something has happened. But you won't see the actual event. How could that be? Because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:52 that the Rapture will take place in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. How fast is the twinkling of an eye? The twinkling of an eye refers to the time it takes for light to travel in the eye from the iris to the retina or 1/6 of a nanosecond. A microsecond is 1/1,000,000 of a second. A nanosecond is 1/1000 of a microsecond. So we could call the Rapture a secret in that it happens so quickly that the only ones that will be aware of it when it's happening are the ones who are involved in it.

This is how the Bible describes Enoch's rapture. Genesis 5:24 says Enoch walked with God and then all of a sudden, he just wasn't there because God took him. Hebrews 11:5 tells us that Enoch did not see death because of his faith, which is the only thing required to participate in the Rapture. There was no announcement, no warning, no fanfare. There was no booming voice for all to hear that got everyone else's attention. Enoch was there and then he wasn't. It's as simple as that. Elijah experienced a type of the Rapture in 2 Kings 2:11 when he was walking along and then all of a sudden, he was taken into Heaven. These are the only two men who have ever lived that have never experienced death so far. That is why there are some who believe the two witnesses that will appear during the first half of the Tribulation (Revelation 11:1-14) are Enoch and Elijah because Hebrews 9:27 says everyone dies once and then faces the judgment. That seems like the most logical conclusion to me as well, though everyone who will be caught up at the Rapture of the Church will never taste death either. So there are obviously exceptions to that Hebrews 9:27 rule. Jesus himself was raptured in Acts 1:9-11. He spent 40 days after his resurrection appearing to hundreds of people, providing documentable proof that he was alive to many eyewitnesses. Then he gave final instructions to his apostles before ascending into Heaven while they watched him. I would call this a slow-motion version of the Rapture because the scripture seems to indicate that the apostles were actually able to see him ascending. The Rapture will happen so quickly that it will take everyone by surprise except those who will hear the shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet call of God (1 Thessalonians 4:16). But still, what Jesus experienced when he ascended to Heaven is also a type of a Rapture.

If anything is secret about the Rapture, it's the timing. Remembering Matthew 24:36 when Jesus said that no one knows the day or the hour. The angels in Heaven and even Jesus himself do not know the hour that he will return to bring his church to Heaven with him to escape the wrath of God on planet Earth. Only the Father knows when the Rapture will happen. If the Father has kept something a secret from his son, it's most definitely a secret to us. And the Father has seen fit to keep the timing of the gathering of his people to himself a mystery even to this day. This verse cannot be talking about the Glorious Appearing of Christ at the end of the Tribulation because we know exactly when that will happen. The Tribulation will last seven years (Daniel 9:27). A biblical year is 360 days. 360 times 7 is 2520 days. That means that from the time the Tribulation begins when the Antichrist signs a treaty with Israel (Daniel 9 24-27) to the end of it, will be 2,520 days. So we know exactly how long the Tribulation will be and therefore the exact day that Jesus will return at the end of the Tribulation. All you have to do when the Tribulation starts is count 2,520 days ahead from that date and you will know when Jesus is returning with his church to set up the Millennial Kingdom on Earth. But until the Tribulation begins, no one knows that day either even though they eventually will be able to calculate it. The only event on God's prophetic calendar that will be an absolute secret known only to the Father until it happens is the Rapture of the Church. That is also why a mid-Tribulation or post-Tribulation Rapture is unlikely. If the Rapture happens in the middle of the Tribulation, a person will know when that is about to occur because we will know when the Tribulation started and when the halfway point is. The same would be true if the Rapture happened at the end of the Tribulation. We would know the exact timing of the Rapture in both of those scenarios because we would know when the Tribulation began. The only way that Matthew 24:36 is possible where no one knows the timing is if the Rapture happens prior to the Tribulation with no signs preceding it. The Rapture itself will not be a secret. But its timing is the best-kept secret in the history of the universe.