Understanding that there are a huge number of Freepers who are Catholic, and other denominations that don’t focus heavily on end-time prophecy, I know I put myself out on a limb when I discuss my belief in a rapture here on FR.
That being said, I’m no theologian or expert on the order of events in prophecy, but I’ve always took the line in scripture “”the dead in Christ will rise first,” to mean that when a Christian dies their Spirit will be lifted up to heaven at the time of death to be in the Presence of Jesus. And at the Rapture, the living Christians will join them. And most who believe in the Rapture believes this happens at the beginning of the 7-year Tribulation.
I do believe in the pre-Tribulation Rapture, mainly because the Tribulation period is seven years, and there is allot that needs to happen in just the first 3 ½ years of it. It would take Global Chaos for one man, the antichrist to enter the Worlds stage and deceive nearly everyone LEFT on the planet, (all the peoples of the World in all religions) in such a short period of time. The only type of “Global Disaster” I could think of on that scale would be for 200 or 300 million Christians to just vanish. And the whole point for the belief in the Rapture is we don’t believe Jesus meant for the Saved to have to suffer through the horrors that will happen to the planet during those seven years. And because he loves us so much and does not wish that any shall parish into eternal Hell, he knows it will take a great shake-up of those left to finally get them to listen. The “tough love” that so many of us fathers are familiar with. That we believe is the whole point of the Tribulation. Many will be saved during this time but they will be persecuted horribly, much like the first Church was, with public executions and torture, only to be ended with the physical return of Christ.
The way it looks to me, when Jesus calls us up, we which are alive will be launched up, soul, spirit AND body...But first, the bodies of those who died will raise first...And as you say, their soul has previously gone on to be with the Lord upon death...
This is a resurrection of the bodies of the dead Christians and those Christians who are alive when Jesus calls...
1Th 4:16 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:
This is not the spirit going up, this is the body coming out of the grave at the last trump...
And on the way up, our bodies will be changed...
1Co 15:51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
1Co 15:52 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, and we shall be changed.
1Co 15:53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1Co 15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
Mar 7:16 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.
Rather than praise or question the merits of the case you make, I applaud you for putting yourself “out there” to personally state your beliefs as you did, on this subject that some very good minds do disagree.
For myself, I don’t think what I believe, or don’t believe about the tribulation or the rapture matters all that much. I have faith that in His own good time, all such questions will be answered, with or without me figuring them out; and me believing or not believing in some aspect of it all will not change my relationship to G-d or His to me. I have faith in G-d that His will will be done.
I'm one of FR's few resident postmillennialists. Eschatology (future events) should be an outgrowth of our beliefs re discipleship and evangelism (present events). IMO it should not be the other way around. I was persuaded, years ago, to change my eschatological view from Premillennial to Postmillennial because I couldn't justify how Christians could be "victorious" today and simultaneously rushing towards a Great Tribulation tomorrow.
To believe that the world will wax worse and worse, and that lawlessness will increase until the Great Tribulation (or at least until the Rapture), one must conclude that either A) transformed lives don't accomplish jack squat when working in groups, meaning groups can't be transformed B) God doesn't plan on transforming lives in the future, or b) the transformed life is but a temporary phenomena. Either that, or one must jettison the idea that there are any signs of the times that we can watch for, i.e. the world will not get worse and worse prior to the Rapture. But very few premils believe this.
Now most Americans (but not all) approach the issue from the POV of Scofield-flavored Dispensational Premillennialism, and they would say "You don't polish the brass on a sinking ship!", as did evangelist Dwight L. Moody in the 19th century. The culture will not (cannot) be redeemed by anything - not even by a wholesale repentance and conversion of the population - nothing short of the physical return of Christ will have any lasting impact on it, and thus the most a redeemed man can hope for is a ticket out of here. Such thinking would have us believe that the Great Commission commands us to "go ye therefore and make converts of all nations".
If your eschatology teaches that Christians shouldn't "polish the brass on a sinking ship", you will probably discount or avoid altogether other ship-related skills as hull & sail repair, mastering sea-sickness, and simple navigation. What good is it to ask people to repent and convert, and not prepare them for how to live afterward? The Great Commission commands us to make disciples, not converts. Disciples do more than learn how to make more converts. A man cannot repent of his old behavior, unless he has a new set of behaviors to substitute for them! And can those new behaviors be expected to "do" anything in his life? In his children's lives? In the culture around him?
"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men."
-- Matthew 5:13
If we extrapolate Dispensationalism backwards, we come to the conclusion that living one's life for Christ in any era doesn't add up to jack squat statistically or sociologically, whereas living one's life for Satan has a statistically measurable, progressively successful effect on society in every era. Even if the church manages to actually achieve a net growth in the number of believers, Dispensational Premillennialism tells us that those believers won't accomplish jack in the way of impacting, let alone redeeming, the culture around them. Their lives won't be transformed or have any effect in any statistically meaningful way, long-term. Christians will be losers in every area of culture and history. There's no way for the world to move towards a Great Tribulation unless this is true (classic Premillennialism actually has a way around this, but Dispensationalism IMO does not). The Gospel offers no hope for man or his world, beyond a supernatural "get out of jail free!" card.
And Jesus answering saith unto them, "Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall watch the mountain groweth before him until it fills the whole earth, even unto crushing all the saints beneath it, yet yeah verily ye will declareth victory over whatsoever ye saith until death.Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and keep ye deluding yourselves until that day when I will return unto you and finally accomplish Myself what ye could not do in My Name.
"
-- Mark 11:22-24, Pretrib Dispensational Version
Ultimately, for me the issue came down to pretty much just one question: which is the most powerful event in history - Adam's Fall, or Christ's Redemption? I came to believe it's the latter - and because of it, I switched my eschatology. IMO Dispensationalists believe the former (Adam's Fall) is the more powerful of the two.
Those of us holding the POV of Postmillennialism and the Reformation would say that the blood of Christ is capable of redeeming everything affected by the Fall. Post-redemption, we believe that the Bible gives us guidelines in how to behave, as redeemed individuals, in every area of life. We expect that redemption progressively flows outward from the repentant/obedient soul, the impact compounded by the number of repentant/obedient souls, to ultimately effect a positive change in culture and politics and art and everything produced by man. So long as Christians are obedient, they will positively impact the culture around them, and the long-term effect will be a statistically measurable redemption/restoration of their world, prior to the physical, literal return of Christ.
The LORD said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”
-- Psalm 110:1