14.2. What is the Rapture
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The Scriptures present six raptures. Four have already taken place. Two are still to come. . . . The four raptures that have taken place include when both Enoch and Elijah who were taken up from earth to heaven without experiencing death (Gen. Gen. 5:24; Heb. Heb. 11:5; 2K. 2K. 2:1, 2K. 2:11), when the Lord Jesus ascended to heaven after His death and resurrection (Mark Mark 16:19; Acts Acts 1:9-11; Rev. Rev. 12:5+), and when Paul referred to the rapture of a man (probably Paul himself) to the third heaven (2Cor. 2Cor. 12:2-4). . . . The other future rapture [besides that of the church, 1Th. 1Th. 4:17] will occur when the two witnesses of the future Tribulation period ascend to heaven after God has resurrected them from the dead (Rev. Rev. 11:3+, Rev. 11:11-12+).4
The Rapture, in the sense we are using the term, is the catching away of persons to a new location by the power of God without their initiation or control. We are specifically interested in the Rapture of the Churchthe event which describes the translation of the living and dead in Christ to be caught up in the clouds forever to be with Him (1Th. 1Th. 4:17).Notes
1 Frederick William Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 109.
2 Ibid.
3 Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice, Charting the End Times (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2001), 110.
4 Renald E. Showers, Maranatha, Our Lord Come (Bellmawr, NJ: The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, 1995), 11.