07/30/2015
A Thorough Explanation of Why The Rapture or Catching Away of the Saints will occur before the Tribulation and Day of the Lord:
"Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or by a message or by a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come." (2 Thess. 2: 1-2)
Our text is 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. The church at Thessalonica was confused and worried about end-times events, so Paul wrote Chapter 2 of this letter to eliminate their confusion and anxiety concerning the Rapture and The Day of the Lord. Here's the problem: The Thessalonians had become convinced that the day of the Lord...what?...has come. That's pretty clear. They have become convinced that the day of the Lord has come. They're in it. Well, why would they ever believe such a thing? Well they're undergoing tremendous persecution, severe persecution, including perhaps martyrdom. And somebody has told them this is the indication you are in the day of the Lord.
What is the day of the Lord? And why would they be so shocked to be in it? The day of the Lord is a very technical term. It refers to the time of God's ultimate judgment. The term "day of the Lord" appears four times in the New Testament. Many other times it is described or even given different names. The term "day of the Lord" appears 19 times in the Old Testament. It always refers to a specific final period of divine wrath. It's easily described by just a few Old Testament passages.
Isaiah 13:9, "Behold the day of the Lord comes cruel with both wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate." Jeremiah 46:10, "For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance that He may avenge Himself on His adversaries." Joel 1:15, "For the day of the Lord is at hand, it shall come as destruction from the almighty." Joel 2:11, "For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible." Joel 2:31, "The sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord." Amos 5:20, "Is not the day of the Lord darkness?" Malachi 4:5, "The coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Zephaniah 1:14, "The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter." And then Zephaniah 1:15, "The day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness."
When you see the day of the Lord you see wrath and fierce anger and desolation and vengeance and destruction and terror and darkness and dread and gloom and distress and trouble. It's judgment. Six times it is referred to as the day of doom. Four times it is called the day of vengeance. Revelation 6:17 calls it THE great day of His wrath. It always refers to the ultimate severest cataclysmic judgments of God on the wicked. It is the culmination of God's fury, God's wrath. It is climactic. The New Testament calls it His day, the day of wrath, the day of wrath and revelation, the great day of God Almighty. So this is a terrorizing period of judgment, the final judgment.
We are warned in the Bible the day of the Lord is near, the day of the Lord is at hand. It's always sort of coming out there in the final time when God pours out His fury. Jesus in the parables of Matthew 13 described it as a time of fire, burning. In Matthew 24 and 25 as He preached on His Second Coming He described it as a time when the angels come with flaming fire. Peter describes it as a time when the elements melt with fervent heat and men are consumed in eschatological fire.
Now think of it. Here's a little church. Here's a little group of Christians who have been convinced that they're in this and they're saying to themselves, "How did this happen? How did we get in this deal? We're not supposed to be here."
You say, "Well, what made them think that?" Go back to 1 Thessalonians. First Thessalonians chapter 5, in the first letter he wrote to them, Paul told them this, verse 2, "You yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come." You know about it. You read the Old Testament. You know what Jesus taught. You know what I've told you. "The day of the Lord will come and it will come like a thief in the night." What does that mean? Unexpectedly, quickly, unannounced and harmfully. Just like a thief, they come unexpectedly, unannounced when you don't expect...when you're not ready and they do harm. While they...not we...but while they in the world are saying peace and safety, everything is fine, then destruction comes on them suddenly like birth pangs on a woman with child. They'll not escape. Notice they...they...they...not us...not us...not you. Verse 4, "But you, brethren, are not in darkness that the day should overtake you like a thief, for you are all sons of light and sons of day, we're not of night nor of darkness."
In other words, his point is this, this isn't for you, but you, brethren, the day is not going to catch you. You say, "Well what's going to happen to us?" Well he already told you. Go back to chapter 4 verse 16, "The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel, with a trumpet of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words." This is the we and the us part. The Lord's going to come and take us to heaven. We're not going to be here for the day of the Lord. We're not in the darkness. The day won't overtake us. We're sons of light and sons of day, not sons of night and sons of darkness. That's for the ungodly. That's clear in the Old Testament. That's clear in the New Testament. That's not for the godly. That's the ultimate culminating judgment of God as He fires His wrath on those who don't know Him. That was further described, wasn't it, in the first chapter of 2 Thessalonians as God's righteous judgment, retribution on those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
So, you see, what they had been told was the day of the Lord is an event you're not going to be at because the Lord is going to take you to be with Him. The dead in Christ are going to rise first. The living are going to get caught up, we're going to meet the Lord in the air, we're going to go and be with the Lord. We're going to be rescued out before the fury falls.
They had the same kind of anxiety that the dear people in the time of Malachi had. Malachi is the last prophet of the Old Testament in the order of the books are given. And in that little prophecy Malachi says, "God's going to judge...God's going to judge...God's going to judge." And a little group of believers get together at the end of chapter 3 and they start talking to each other and saying, "I wonder if God remembers us. We could get caught in this deal. When the fury falls we might get it." And Malachi says, "The Lord heard them talking to each other and the Lord said, Don't you worry, don't you worry, you'll be Mine in the day that I make up My jewels and I know how to distinguish between the wicked and the righteous. Don't you worry, you're not going to get caught in that."
It has always been the hope of the people of God that the Lord would deliver them out of judgment, that those who are in Christ Jesus will not know that condemnation fury. But here are these believers and somebody has convinced them they're in the day of the Lord and the obvious reaction is...what happened to the Rapture? We're supposed to be out of here before this deal starts. And now they're really confused. Panic sets in because they think they're in the day of the Lord.
Let's look then closely at these first two verses and see how Paul faces this issue. "Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him." Stop right there.
Paul says, "I want to...I want to request of you that you begin to properly understand this matter of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him. I've got to straighten you out." The word "now," "de" in the Greek marks the move to a new subject. It's a transition from the beautiful prayer in verses 11 and 12, now to the real heart of the letter, the real doctrinal heart, this matter of the Second Coming. He calls them brethren, it's a gentle humble approach to the situation that emphasizes their equality as brothers in Christ. And he comes with a tenderness. He doesn't come and say to them, "You blockheads, I've already written you one letter and explained all this stuff." He's a very gentle Apostle at this point and because they are so perturbed and upset, he wants to deal with them kindly. And you should remember that throughout this notoriously difficult passage, Paul is motivated by a pastoral purpose. He's not out to gratify some unlawful curiosity about the end times, he limits his instruction to what is necessary to correct their error and get back the comfort they should be enjoying in the hope of the Rapture. So he speaks gently to them in pastoral terms. "And we request you," is a verb that basically means what it says...we plead with you. There's a gentleness. There's a kind dignity to this. He avoids being pontifical or authoritarian or intolerant or overbearing, but wants to be very gentle and very tender with them. It's the very same phrase he used back in the first letter, chapter 5 and verse 12.
Now what is it that he wants to persuade them about? With regard, or in behalf of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him. The Greek construction here in the Greek language forces us to conclude that he has one event in mind...one event. It is not the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's one...and our gathering together to Him, that's two. It is one event. There is a single definite article and it ties them together. It could read, "With regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, specifically our gathering together to Him." When you say "parousia", the word for coming, you're talking about a lot of things. There are epochs and times within the coming of Christ. He comes for His Church. He comes with His church. He comes to judge. He comes to set up His Kingdom. He comes to rule in His Kingdom. And then to establish the new heaven and the new earth. There are many events in the coming of Christ. So he narrows it down. I want to talk to you with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus and our gathering to Him. That's a perfect description of the Rapture, isn't it? Doesn't the Lord come and then aren't we gathered to meet Him...where?...in the air. He says I want to talk to you about the Rapture.
Now why would he be discussing the Rapture? Because that was the problem. They can't figure out how they got in the day of the Lord. They're not supposed to be there by what they've understood. Furthermore the little personal pronoun "our" lends at least to me, anyway, a friendly tone to this aspect of the Lord's coming. I think if he was talking about the Lord's coming in the judgment sense, I think he would have used the Lord rather than our Lord which seems to be a friendly way of making it a hopeful aspect of that event. So with regard to the coming of our Lord and our gathering to meet Him, which is a perfect description of both sides of the Rapture, he says, "I've got to straighten you out." "Coming" is "parousia", the general term but obviously he's relating it to our gathering together to Him which is a description of the Rapture, "episunagoge." "Sunagoge" is the word from which you get synagogue, a gathering place. "Epi" is intensifying it, the place of our collecting together. So here we have a concern on their part about the event in which we are gathered together with the Lord.
Some of the old commentators called it "the muster of the saints." This word, "episunagoge," is only used one other place in the New Testament, Hebrews 10:25 where it says, "Forsake not the assembling together." And that's the idea of the word. So they were worried about our coming to be with the Lord, our gathering to Him. Paul had described it for them in the first letter. Jesus had said it this way, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid," right? You don't need to worry about whether you're going to lose Me permanently. In John 14 He said, "I'm going to go away and if I go I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again to receive you unto Myself that where I am there you may be also." That's the gathering together. In fact, there are some who believe that the term, "episunagoge," the gathering together, was a technical term used in the early church to speak of that event. And we might be just as well to call that event the gathering together as to call it the Rapture.
So they weren't worried about the coming of the Lord with regard to the fate of the wicked. They were concerned about the gathering of the saved because if they were in the day of the Lord they must have concluded that something went wrong. Go back to 1 Thessalonians 1...1 Thessalonians 1:10, he says to them, "I know you have turned to God," verse 9, "from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come." They weren't expecting any of God's fury. And that's a very general statement there but I don't believe they were expecting eternal wrath or any other kind of wrath. They were waiting for the Son who would deliver them out of that. The Son would come and they would be gathered together in a great congregation to Him and they would go to the place He prepared for them and then would come the day of the Lord. They expected to be taken to glory before the day of the Lord ever began. And they had been promised, 2 Thessalonians 1:7, rest or relief. They had been promised, 2 Thessalonians 1:10, glory. So they weren't expecting wrath and fury, but rest and glory. In fact, chapter 5 verse 9 of 1 Thessalonians, Paul even reminded them God has not destined us for wrath.
So the only way you can understand this passage from my viewpoint is to understand that they thought they were in the day of the Lord and therefore they missed the Rapture. If this was the day of the Lord, maybe God forgot them. They were supposed to be resting in the Lord's presence, but they were in the day of the Lord?
The effect is in verse 2. "That you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or by a message or by a letter as if from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come." Listen, they were a wreck. They were shaken. They had lost their composure. They were severely disturbed because through a spirit, a message and a letter purported to have come from Paul and Silas and Timothy, they had been told the day of the Lord had come. "How did we get here?" they're saying. "What are we doing here? What happened to the Rapture? Was Paul wrong? Did God forget us? This is serious stuff."
Let's go backward through verse 2. The last part says, "To the effect the day of the Lord has come." There is no way that you can translate that verb "has come" any other way than the way it's translated. "Enistecon", it means "has come." Some commentators do cartwheels around it, trying to make it mean something else. It cannot. It simply means they believe that it had come, had arrived, therefore was there present actually. They were in the day of the Lord. It had arrived and they were in it.
You say, "Well why would they even think that?" Because of the persecution which perhaps included martyrdom. And more than that, because they had been told they were in it. You say, "How were they told?" By a spirit, a message and a letter. Three avenues, it's a triple use of "dia," the word "by or through," indicates three distinct means. What does it mean by a spirit? Well prophetic utterance, divine revelation from the Holy Spirit. They had been told that the Holy Spirit revealed it, that it came by the Spirit, direct revelation from God. And then they got it not only by a spirit but by a message, that's logos, a speech, a sermon. And thirdly, a letter, a written letter. And listen to this, then this little phrase, "As if from us." And that little phrase relates to all three.
Here's the scenario. Somebody comes to town. They say, "We have a word from Paul for you." Oh? Paul? "Yes." Now only months have passed since he had written the first letter, just a few. And they were, no doubt, eager to hear because their hearts were fresh and their love for Paul was great. "A word from Paul. Here's the word, you're in the day of the Lord." What? "He got it by revelation, it came through the Spirit, and he is preaching it by word, by message. And not only that, he has written it, here is a letter." And they had a forgery.
You see, in order to convince them that they were going to have to live through the day of the Lord, they had to get apostolic authority. They had to get some apostolic credentials. And so they said this came as a revelation to Paul, that Paul preached it and they said that he had even written it and here's a letter. It hints, doesn't it, at the existence of counterfeit apostolic documents very very very early in the life of the church, from the very outset Satan was counterfeiting stuff. All kinds of counterfeit documents were running all over the place within a matter of a few years. And the church had to distinguish between the authentic and the spurious.
They said this was all from Paul. By the way, Paul didn't like letters being attributed to him that he didn't write. He has a little word that may relate to that, look at the end of chapter 3 verse 17, it's an interesting note. As he closes the letter he says, "I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter, this is the way I write." What do you think he's saying there? If you've got something else and it doesn't look like this, I didn't write it. He had a way to do his signature that nobody could duplicate, I think. But see, this young group of believers got this and it supposedly came from Paul, that they were in the day of the Lord, that believers are going to go through the day of the Lord and maybe get delivered afterwards.
And what did it do to them? In verse 2 at the very beginning, they had been quickly shaken from their composure and disturbed. Very strong terminology here, it is very graphic terminology. The first verb...first you see the word quickly, hastily, rashly shaken. "From your composure," the word composure in the Greek is mind. Shaken means to be broken loose. It can be used of a rocking motion that shakes a ship, tossing it on the stormy waves. It can be used of a building that disintegrates under an earthquake. It can be used of a ship that is tied to a mooring and it breaks loose and begins to be tossed by the surf. To put it in the vernacular, you've lost your mind, you've gotten cut loose from your moorings. You're flipping and flopping all over everywhere. You're falling apart, tossed wildly. You've lost your mental balance over this. You're running amuck, you're operating on emotion, anxiety and fear. Pretty severe condition.
And then he adds the verb "be disturbed," means to be alarmed out of fear, frightened. Hey, if they were in the day of the Lord, fear. Now think this one through. If they had thought that the Rapture came at the end of the day of the Lord, they wouldn't be in fear, would they? They'd be happy. They'd be saying, "Hey, we're near the end, we're near the end, we're near the end." The very fact that they think they shouldn't be there tells us that they had been taught they weren't going to be there. So, the word "disturb" means...has the idea of clamor, tumult, fear, crying aloud. I don't know what was going on when they met for church but it might have been interesting, moaning, groaning, anxiety‑filled people thinking they were in the day of the Lord and trying to figure out how they missed the Rapture or how the Rapture didn't happen, or God forgot them or Paul was wrong, and then where are we? If he's wrong about that, what else is he wrong about? State of nervous excitement that ends up in panic. They were having a continuous panic attack as a whole church. They were then defying a basic principle of Christian living and that is not to be controlled by emotion but by truth. They lost their sense, they lost their composure.
So obviously they...they had been told that they would be escaping the day of the Lord. If they had been taught a view that they were going to go through the day of the Lord and then be taken to glory, they would have been saying, "Well it's difficult but we're excited cause this means Jesus will be here soon." No. They had expected Rapture and gathering together and then day of the Lord for the ungodly. So what were they doing in it?
So they needed an authentic word and that's why Paul writes this chapter. And he uses Antichrist as the focal point. You know why? Because it is Antichrist who really triggers the events that bring the day of the Lord. So what his point here is this, you can't be in the day of the Lord because the one who comes to start the events of the day of the Lord hasn't even come yet. And he uses Antichrist because Antichrist is an already revealed individual, so he can build his case on Daniel and he can build his case on the teaching of Jesus. And that's why he deals with the Antichrist. And in verse 3 he says, "Don't let anybody deceive you, it won't come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed." You can't be in the day of the Lord. There are some things that have to happen first that trigger that event and they haven't happened.
Some things are going to happen before the day of the Lord kicks in. We've been promised we'll have no part in those things.
John MacArthur
