Lesson 2 Overview

Is the Rapture of Christians Really in the Bible? with Dr. Andy Woods

This lesson continues the “what” question, developing three more of the ten truths about the rapture (truths four, five, and six). It finishes the material from 1 Thessalonians 4 and moves into 1 Corinthians 15:50-58. Use this overview to review the key points after watching the full video.

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Review

Dr. Woods restates the first three truths from the last lesson: the rapture is an important doctrine, it is distinct from the second advent, and it involves the catching away of all living believers.

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Truth Four: The Rapture Is a Reunion

Dr. Woods explains the concern that prompted Paul to write. Paul had taught the Thessalonians about the rapture, but after being driven out of the city (Acts 17 and 18), he learned they were grieving over believers who had since died, some as martyrs and some from natural causes. They wondered what would happen to their deceased loved ones in Christ when the rapture came.

He notes that when a believer dies, the soul goes immediately into the presence of the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23). Paul comforts the Thessalonians by explaining the order of events: the dead in Christ rise first, receiving their resurrected bodies and descending with Christ, and then living believers are caught up to meet them. The two groups do not come down to earth but meet in the air, a great reunion in the sky. Dr. Woods stresses that every believer will take part in the rapture at one end or the other, either caught up if alive, or descending with Christ if already dead.

He also points out that Paul does not say “do not grieve,” since grief is natural, but “do not grieve as those who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Because believers will see their loved ones again, the doctrine is given as a comfort (4:18).

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Truth Five: The Rapture Is a Resurrection

Turning to 1 Corinthians 15:50-58, Dr. Woods defines resurrection. Death is a separation of the material body from the immaterial soul (seen in Jesus in Matthew 27:50 and Stephen in Acts 7:59). Resurrection is the opposite: a reunion of the soul with the body, but the body as God intended it before the curse of sin. Every church-age believer, living or dead, receives this resurrected body at the rapture.

He notes that the Corinthians were beginning to abandon the doctrine of resurrection under the influence of incipient Gnosticism, which taught that the physical world is bad and the spiritual is good (the same thinking that made some sneer at Paul on Mars Hill in Acts 17). Paul corrects them in 1 Corinthians 15:12, warning that to throw out resurrection is to throw out Christianity itself.

Dr. Woods explains why a new body is needed: the present body is under the curse and decaying (Genesis 3:19; 2 Corinthians 4:16; Romans 8:23), and is not fit for eternity with a holy God. He compares it to needing proper gear to scuba dive, and jokes that comparing a high school yearbook photo to a current driver’s license proves the body is disintegrating. It will still be recognizably us, but restored as God designed it.

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Truth Six: The Rapture Is an Exemption From Death

From 1 Corinthians 15:51 (“we will not all sleep, but we will be changed”), Dr. Woods teaches that an entire generation of Christians will be taken in their resurrected bodies before their natural lifespans expire. “Sleep” is a euphemism for death, and Paul says a generation will not die.

He shows this is not a strange idea, since Scripture already records individuals taken to heaven before death: Enoch (Genesis 5), Elijah (2 Kings 2), Philip (Acts 8:39), Paul (2 Corinthians 12:2-4), John (Revelation 4:1-2), and the two witnesses (Revelation 11), along with the ascension of Christ. He notes that several of these are described with the same Greek word harpazo used for the rapture, so there have already been individual “raptures” in Scripture. The difference with the coming rapture is that God returns not for one person but for a whole generation. He offers this as a comforting hope, that believers may be the generation that never has to pass through death, though he cannot promise it.