Who Goes to Christ in the Rapture? :: By Terry James

In our book of some years ago, The Departure: God’s Next Catastrophic Intervention into Earth’s History, we point out crucial truth about who will go to Christ and who will be left behind when the Lord says: “Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1, as prophesied by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18).

Even though it is “my” book in that I developed it, I say “our” book because a number of the most knowledgeable authorities in Bible prophecy wrote chapters on the most relevant topics of our day. All issues and events involving what we consider having prophetic importance are looked at in that volume through the supernatural prism of God’s Word. I therefore consider it “our” book, not just mine.

More than that, I believe each of us who wrote for it considers it to be devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ for these troubling, although exciting, times at the end of the age. We trust it has been a tool to edify God’s family by pointing to the evidence proving that the coming of “the blessed hope” of Titus 2:13 is likely very near. To that extent, that’s another reason I call it “our” book. It’s written for all believers alive today, with the prayerful hope that God’s family will awaken to Christ’s imminent coming.

I thought it good to use the Prophecy Line column this week to look again at exactly who I believe will go in the Departure–the Rapture—when Christ gives the command: “Come up here” (Revelation 4:1).

There might be some among the authors who would disagree on a couple of my views about specifically who will go to be with Jesus at the Rapture. However, I will let them answer for themselves in their own forums and in their own ways. My own feeling about the differences we might have is like that of the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, who more than once said, “You can believe the way you want to believe. But, if you want to be right, you’ll want to come along with me on this.”

Dr. McGee said that with a chuckle, and I hope you can hear the chuckle in my written expression regarding my borrowing from that grand old Christian man’s humor.

First, I will state that God’s Word says, without equivocation, just who will go in the Departure:

“Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).

So, Paul was clearly saying two major things about one classification of people. He was writing to the believers at Corinth. But he was also writing to every believer who would come along during the Church Age. Every believer in Corinth during Paul’s day is long since dead. So, he had to be addressing those who would be alive when Christ would call for them, as well as those alive when this letter was written.

The context of the letter is informing Christians about a mystery regarding a stunning event in their future. His words were to put to rest some of their worries about what would happen to the Christians among them who had died. What would happen to them in terms of their going to Heaven?

Paul was saying: 1) Not all believers would die; some would not have to die but would be alive at the time of a stupendous event; and 2) All believers, however, would be changed. They would be changed in one moment. The dead would be made alive and put into supernatural bodies. Those alive at the time would be changed into supernatural bodies while living.

The “mystery” Paul was revealing was the one wrapped up in Jesus’ words as recorded by John the apostle:

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:1-3).

Paul further expounded on this “mystery” in his letter to the Thessalonians:

“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: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16-17).

So, the thing to consider is that believers of the Church Age (Age of Grace)– Paul was talking to believers of this dispensation—will ALL go to be with Jesus when He calls them in that “twinkling of an eye” (atomos of time) moment–the Rapture. ALL believers of this dispensation will go to be with the Lord! Not a single person who has accepted Christ for salvation will be left behind.

This truth includes everyone who never reached the intellectual ability–through brain incapacity or because of being too young—to understand their need to accept Christ for salvation. These are all under the blood of Christ for redemption and reconciliation to God, the Father. All will go to be with Jesus at the Rapture.

Some believe and teach that only believers who are living in the will of God will go to be with Christ at the Rapture. Those living “carnal” lives, they believe, will be left behind to go through a time of God’s judgment and wrath, along with the unbelieving earth dwellers. But God’s Word doesn’t teach a partial Rapture—that some will go and some will stay. ALL believers, Paul plainly writes, will go to be with the Lord at the Departure. Paul writes further to the Thessalonians:

“For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10).

It is true that we are told by the Lord (Luke 21:36) that we are to watch and pray always that we may be accounted worthy to escape all the things of the Tribulation. But “worthy” in this sense means we should be living in such a way that we will not be ashamed when we stand before Him at the judgment seat–the bema. We should desire to hear our Lord say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

This might not seem fair to those who disagree with me on this—those who believe they are living their own lives within God’s prescription for Christian behavior. But it’s not what we think is or is not fair that matters. It’s what the Word of God says that matters in any question of spiritual truth. God’s Holy Word says plainly that ALL believers who have died or are living during this present dispensation (the Church Age or Age of Grace) will go to be with the Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, when He makes that shout heard around the world to His Bride: “Come up here!”

This makes the question all-important to every person alive today: How can one be assured of going to Jesus Christ when He calls those of God’s family to depart from this judgment-bound planet? Here is the answer:

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

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