Matt 24: 40-44
40“Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41“Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.
42“Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. 43“But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 44“For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.
The word rapture is not in the Bible but event it speaks of is show clearly.
Luke 17:34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. 35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.
Companion verses to Matt. 24. How do you reconcile the two?
Don’t try to reason with the Anti-Rapturists with ACTUAL SCRIPTURES!
All they’ll do is twist it and either give you the standard Preterist or Post-Trib argument.
John 14:1-3 is this event also ;)
But the word ‘harpazo’ is found in many passages, the Greek word translated from Greek to Latin as rapturo, from ‘rapto’.
That speaks how suddenly it happens. Somehow, somebody decided to insert the word “secret” next to rapture which is not the case.
Early dispensationalist taught that Matthew 24:40 was a reference to the second coming and not to the rapture. (check Scofield’s notes) The first reference to the rapture is when Paul said “Behold I show you a mystery.”(1 Cor 15:51) The word mystery means that something new is revealed. I don’t know how the interpretation of Matthew 24:40 got reversed by the mainstream teachers somewhere mid 20th century.
First Thessalonians plainly describes the “meeting the Lord in the air” as following the General Resurrection. The you quote from Matthew’s Gospel and the parallel passage in Luke were always understood as referring to the Last Judgement until some sentimentalist in the 19th century invented the notion of the “pre-tribulation rapture” which deprives the Church in the last days of the glory of martyrdom which she had in the first days after Our Lord’s Ascension.
St. Cyril of Alexandria in his 118th Homily on the Gospel of St. Luke links the parallel passage in Luke with that in First Thessalonians and sees them both as applying the Last Judgement — the understanding the whole Church East and West, including all of the confessions that arose from the Reformation held of the matter until the 19th century.