OUR Lord’s emphasis is that His return will be sudden and surprising. It will be as sudden as a lightning flash. It will catch the people of the world who are living selfish and self-centred lives unawares. It is pre-eminently a sudden, dramatic, divine intervention in history for the salvation of the elect and the judgement of those who have rejected God’s rulership over their lives.

If Jesus’ use of the word Parousia gives unmistakeable insight to the imminence of His return, centuries of theological debates have, so to say, complicated matters. Today, the simple Christian is in a dilemma: is Christ’s Parousia the rapture or the second coming of Christ or both?

Debaters often proclaim that the “rapture” is a word that is not in the Bible. That is true. English translations do not actually use the word rapture but it is translated from the Greek word harpazo meaning caught, away, up. The belief is largely based on 1 Thessa 4:16-17 which says “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.”

It is important to note this because this verse says, “to meet the Lord in the air.” This means Jesus does not step foot on the earth at this time; believers will be called up to the clouds to meet him. Theologically, this is the rapture of the saints. Its exact timing and sequence in the chronology of end time events are, however, subjects of theological debate.
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