Short answer: YES
Here’s why…
The word rapture means to be “taken-up” or “snatched away”. It is firmly believed amongst born-again followers of Jesus that the rapture is imminent – meaning it can happen at any time.
Some Christians fail to find the doctrine of the rapture in their Bibles – not because it is not there, but because they may not understand it or do not want to believe it – to them it may sound too fantastical. Many also confuse the rapture with the second coming of Jesus Christ. But there is a clear distinction between the two. There are many Bible verses that speak directly to the doctrine of the Rapture or allude to it. Fundamentally we believe that when the Rapture happens, without warning, born-again Christians around the world will see the sudden appearing of Jesus in the heavens and in that instant our bodies will be transformed or translated into ‘Heavenly’ bodies and we will be physically removed from this earth and be united with Jesus, who will take us into His Heavenly realm and our eternal abode.
The purpose for the rapture is to prevent and save Christians from going through the Great Tribulation period which the Bible says will come upon the whole earth in the last days. This period of Great Tribulation will last for seven years and will be the most cataclysmic and terrifying period of human history and all but a third of the world’s population will be wiped out. The Bible describes catastrophic natural disasters coupled to wars and unspeakable human misery. The Great Tribulation will be a time when God pours out His wrath upon an evil world whose inhabitants refused to acknowledge and worship the God of creation, but God’s children (Christians) will be saved from this end-time wrath.
Luke 21: 36 “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things (the coming tribulation period) that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man (Jesus).”
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 “For the LORD Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the LORD in the air: and so shall we ever be with the LORD.”
Colossians 3:4 “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.”
Psalm 50:3-5 “Our God shall come… Gather my saints together unto Me.”
1 Corinthians 15:51-52 “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.”
A rapture, or ‘taking-up’ is not a new Biblical concept either. We know of at least three rapture events recorded in the Bible. Consider the following:
- Enoch – the great, great, great, great grandson of Adam, was raptured 987 years after the creation. The book of Genesis records this event: Genesis 5:24 “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” The new testament apostle Paul mentions Enoch’s rapture in the book of Hebrews written sometime before 70 A.D. : “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” Enoch then is a picture or pattern for the coming rapture of the Church.
- Elijah – was another prophet that was raptured and thus another pattern or type for the end-time church: 2 Kings 2:11 “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into Heaven.”
- The next person to be raptured was Jesus’ disciple and apostle John. Towards the end of his life, John had been exiled on the island of Patmos – such was the persecution of the early believers. It was here that John was taken up into Heaven where Jesus revealed to him future events which he recorded in the book of Revelation. Again, John’s ‘taking-up’ into Heaven is a pattern of the coming rapture of the Church: “After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened in Heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.”
The warning is dire: Those who are not believers and followers of Jesus will not be counted worthy to be raptured (nor will they ever see Heaven) and will therefore have to endure the darkest time in human history on earth – these end times or last days are now upon us and the rapture is imminent.
Zephaniah 2: 1-3 “Gather yourselves together…. Before the day pass as chaff, before the fierce anger of the LORD come upon you…. Seek the LORD… it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD’s anger.”