A Meeting in the Air
I tuned in to a YouTube video of a preacher the other day. He was preaching a sermon about the end of the age and specifically about the rapture of the church. He had broken his message into three parts with the first asking, “What is the Rapture of the Church?” He started off with 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, two verses famous for the revelation of the rapture as found by John Nelson Darby in the late 1800s.
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. —1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 (RSV)
The preacher of this megachurch emphasized the Greek word ηαρπαγησομεθα (harpagesometha) which is translated in the RSV as “shall be caught up.” Its meaning is “to snatch away,” and he connected it to Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 15:50–53 where he describes the glorification of physical bodies of the last generation of believers happening in an instant.
I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Lo! I tell 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 trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. —1 Corinthians 15:50–53 (RSV)
All that was well and good until he explained what happened next. He left the meeting in the air and went directly to Luke 17:24–35. He described it as a period of tribulation in the earth where those who hadn’t accepted Christ as Savior would suffer for seven years until his return. What about the believers in the air? Well, they would be enjoying the marriage supper of the Lamb during this time. While this seemed a little incongruent, he emphasized it: “So, you can believe in the Lord now and be raptured to the marriage supper of the Lamb or you can wait and come to faith after the rapture and have to endure the most horrible seven years of tribulation until he returns to the earth again. It really is that simple.” This preacher is no outlier. I have several friends that are pastors and traveling preachers, and they all preach these verses the same way.
But what’s interesting, both with this preacher’s sermon and my ministry friends, is that while they are quick to jump on “caught up together” (harpagesometha), they veer off to other scriptures without really considering the two Greeks words (εἰς ἀπάντησιν – eis hapantesin) translated to meet. They, as Americans, look at them as describing something akin to a business meeting. But the two words combined in Hellenistic Greek constituted a term of art.
When a dignitary paid an official visit (παρουσία) to a city in Hellenistic times, the action of the leading citizens in going out to meet him and escort him back on the final stage of his journey was called the ἀπάντησις. —F.F. Bruce
The expression εἰς ἀπάντησιν was a technical expression in Hellenistic Greek for the departure from a city of a delegation of citizens to meet an arriving dignitary in order to accord the person proper respect and honor by escorting the dignitary back to the city. —Charles A Wanamaker
This understanding of the Greek puts the scripture in a whole new light. Believers will be glorified in an instant and those who are alive at the trumpet blast will go up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (remember that Jesus’ glorified body can walk through walls – John 20:26) to give him proper respect and honor by escorting him back to his newfound kingdom on earth.
