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If you want the answer to the "rapture" question, simply study the RESURRECTION.
The rapture doctrine requires students of the scriptures to approach each relevant verse with certain preconceived notions about prophecy. If you simply read the various prophetic verses about the return of Christ, the Bible clearly teaches that believers will be “gathered” at the second coming -- not some secret, invisible return that precedes his BIG second coming at the end of the tribulation. The problem isn’t in our understanding of the rapture, because the rapture as routinely taught today doesn’t even exist; the difficulty is in our understanding of the resurrection.
In John chapter five, Jesus tells us how God The Father has committed the power of resurrection to him. Jesus says “He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life...for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice. And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” (John 6:24, 28, 29) According to these passages, apparently there are two resurrections: one for those “that have done good,” and a resurrection for those “that have done evil.”
In one of the parallel accounts, a verse in Luke has Christ himself saying that the believer shall “be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:14) Another proof text of this dual aspect of the resurrection is found in the book of Acts when the Apostle Paul was brought before the Roman governor Felix and charged with heresy by the Jews.
Paul stated that he believes, as the Jews did, “that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.” (Ezekiel 33:8, 4) A further example of this understanding of two resurrections is found in the Old Testament, when the prophet Daniel was instructed by the archangel Michael concerning the tribulation and the resurrection. In that instance, Michael said that in the time of the end, “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Daniel 12:2)
Back in the New Testament book of Revelation, we find a reference to “the first resurrection.” (Rev. 20:5) This first resurrection clearly relates to believers in Jesus, for the text states that they “lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” (Rev. 20:4)
In the same chapter, John (the writer of Revelation) says “the rest of the dead live not again until the thousand years were finished.” (Rev. 20:5) Later in the chapter John says, “when the thousand years are expired...I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God...and the dead were judged...” (Rev. 20:7, 12) These verses plainly state that there are two resurrections -- one for believers and one for unbelievers.
The Revelation passages further clarify that these two resurrections are separated by one thousand years; this being the period we commonly call the millennium during which the resurrected believers shall “reign with him a thousand years.” (Rev. 20:6)
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