Two Second Comings?

It seems that everyone these days is either predicting when ‘the rapture’ will take place, or at least daily watching for it. A whole lot of people either haven’t been reading the Bible, or haven’t been believing what they are reading. All of this obsession with a secret rapture is just not founded in the scriptures. We have ‘pre-trib,’ ‘mid-trib,’ and even a few ‘post-trib’ rapture enthusiasts. So what does the Bible consistently state about the time that God’s elect, or bride, will be caught up to meet Jesus? Firstly, the word ‘rapture’ is not in the Bible, but I think a lot of people realize that. It means ‘a catching away,’ which is what Jesus will do with faithful believers when he comes. Now let’s use the following passage as a text to work from to find the truth: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 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" (I Thess. 4:15-17). To be honest friend, this passage settles the whole issue, because it is certain that there cannot be anything else in the Bible that would contradict what we’ve seen here. This passage obviously describes God’s elect, dead and living, being caught up to meet Jesus at his coming back to this world. The angels who stood by when he ascended to heaven in Acts ch. 1 also stated that he would come again in like manner as he had been seen going away (Acts 1:11). Even as the apostle Paul stated in our text that there will be one second coming, and so those angels confirmed likewise. They did not say that Jesus would come again and again.

Some will say that there is his ‘appearing,’ when the rapture takes place, and that his ‘coming’ is later. But that just puts us back to square one again, because the Bible only shows one appearing of Jesus, even as it shows one coming. There are twelve mentions in the new testament scriptures of THE appearing of Jesus, and they all refer to one appearing. Now we know he will appear at his second coming, because the scripture says that "every eye shall see him,” and also, “then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven”(Rev.1:7; Mat. 24:30). Also in the same passage in Matthew 24, Jesus plainly said, “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” And from there he went on to say that his appearing and coming would be “after the tribulation of those days,” and that it would be accompanied by “a great sound of the trumpet;” and also that his elect would be “gathered together,” [caught up, or away] at that same time (Mat. 24:31). That takes us back to our text scripture, where the same things are mentioned. So any secret rapture, only known to the elect, would mean that there would have to be two second comings, or a second and third coming of Jesus; and these things are just not in the Bible. Same with the appearing. There is either one appearing, as the scriptures confirm, or two appearings, which things the scriptures do not confirm. Yes, this means that the elect of God will have to endure all of the tribulation to come, as the scriptures also confirm (Mat. 24:21,22; Dan. 7: 25; Dan. 8:23,24; Rev. 13:7). And yes, this also means that the coming of the Lord is still some time away. But what is more relevant to God’s people than the second coming of Jesus, is preparing ourselves for the trials and tasks that are at hand; for any moment could be our last, and that moment will be equivalent to the Lord’s coming for us. God bless.