THE SNATCHING AWAY OF THE ECCLESIA
There is no hint in the Hebrew Scriptures that individuals within the nations would one day have access to God apart from the mediacy of Israel. Only in Paul’s epistles do we learn of “the glorious riches of this secret among the nations” (Colossians 1:27). Likewise, only in the writings of Paul do we learn that Christ is coming in the air to snatch away with Him “the ecclesia which is His body” into celestial realms prior to His coming to the earth to rule from Jerusalem as its triumphant Monarch. In those writings, this “snatching away,” commonly called the “rapture,” is described and explained.
The Transformation Into Celestials
How is it that we shall be able to ascend to the air, and accompany Him to the celestial spheres? II Corinthians 5:17 explains: “So that, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: the primitive passed by. Lo! there has come new!” As our earthly bodies are not fit for inhabiting the heavenly realms, a change must take place, and it indeed shall: “And according as we wear the image of the soilish, we should be wearing the image also of the celestial” (I Corinthians 15:49). Paul explains how it will happen:
Now we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are reposing, lest you may sorrow according as the rest, also, who have no expectation. For, if we are believing that Jesus died and rose, thus also, those who are put to repose, will God, through Jesus, lead forth together with Him. For this we are saying to you by the word of the Lord, that we, the living, who are surviving to the presence of the Lord, should by no means outstrip those who are put to repose, for the Lord Himself will be descending from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the Chief Messenger, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall be rising first.
Thereupon we, the living who are surviving, shall at the same time be snatched away together with them in clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And thus shall we always be together with the Lord. So that, console one another with these words (I Thessalonians 4:13-18).
Paul mentions it again in I Corinthians 15:20-23:
Yet now Christ has been roused from among the dead, the Firstfruit of those who are reposing. For since, in fact, through a man came death, through a Man, also, come the resurrection of the dead. For even as, in Adam, all are dying, thus also, in Christ, shall all be vivified. Yet each in his own class: the Firstfruit, Christ; thereupon those who are Christ’s in His presence . . . (I Corinthians 15:20-23).
Notice the precision of the language here. All are not dead in Adam, but “are dying.” True, most are dead in Adam, but a large number of believers will be alive (though dying) who will be “snatched away to meet the Lord in the air.” And Paul explains how quickly it will happen:
Lo! a secret to you am I telling! We all, indeed, shall not be put to repose, yet we all shall be changed, in an instant, in the twinkle of an eye, at the last trump. For He will be trumpeting, and the dead will be roused incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruption must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality (I Corinthians 15:51-53).
What Our Celestial Bodies Will Be Like
For our realm is inherent in the heavens, out of which we are awaiting a Saviour also, the Lord, Jesus Christ, Who will transfigure the body of our humiliation, to conform it to the body of His glory, in accord with the operation which enables Him even to subject all to Himself (Philippians 3:20, 21).
Our bodies will be like His in glory. On the mount of transformation, Peter and James and John glimpsed Christ’s celestial body: “. . . and [Christ] was transformed in front of them. And His face shines as the sun, yet His garments became white as the light” (Matthew 17:2). Paul had a similar experience on the road to Damascus: “Suddenly a light out of heaven flashes about him” (Acts 9:3). Light will emanate from our celestial bodies, and I believe we can safely surmise that they will be made of light. Already, figuratively, we are “light in the Lord” and “children of light” (Ephesians 5:8, 9). And we shall be made “competent for a part of the allotment of the saints, in light” (Colossians 1:12).
Our celestial bodies that will house our spirits are already prepared for us:
For we are aware that, if our terrestrial tabernacle house should be demolished, we have a building in God, a house not made by hands, eonian, in the heavens. For in this also we are groaning, longing to be dressed in our habitation which is out of heaven, if so be that, being dressed also, we shall not be found naked. For we also, who are in the tabernacle, are groaning, being burdened, on which we are not wanting to be stripped but to be dressed, that the mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now He Who produces us for this same longing is God, Who is also giving us the earnest of the spirit (II Corinthians 5:1-5).
Our spirits await the Lord out of heaven, and our spirits “are groaning” in anticipation. But do we wait and groan alone?
For the premonition of the creation is awaiting the unveiling of the sons of God. For to vanity was the creation subjected, not voluntarily, but because of Him Who subjects it, in expectation that the creation itself, also, shall be freed from the slavery of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God. For we are aware that the entire creation is groaning and travailing together until now. Yet not only so, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruit of the spirit, we ourselves also, are groaning in ourselves, awaiting the sonship, the deliverance of our body (Romans 8:19- 23).
We and the entire creation are groaning. All of creation is out of God, and He is Spirit, Light and Love. All creation has come through Christ, and “all has its cohesion in Him” (Colossians 1:17). At the core of all is Love, Light, and Spirit. Within everything—within every atom—there is a kind of unconscious predisposition for it to become what it was purposed ultimately to be. The entire creation “knows” what is destined to be, and that is why it is groaning.
How Do We Wait For This Glorious Event?
If, then, you were roused together with Christ, be seeking that which is above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Be disposed to that which is above, not to that on the earth, for you died, and your life is hid together with Christ in God. Whenever Christ, our Life, should be manifested, then you also shall be manifested together with Him in glory (Colossians 3:1-4).
Who Gets Snatched Away?
Who will go? Who will be snatched away to meet the Lord in the air when he descends and calls His own to Him there? In these degenerate days, Christendom is composed of many who are not even believers. To some, the Scriptures cannot be “modernized” fast enough to suit their lifestyles and philosophies. They have not heard His call in life, so certainly will not respond to it in death. We may be sure they will not go.
But there are many who have been called, who rely on Him for salvation, but who live in a fog of tradition and deception, and know little of the Scriptures, and less of the truth for the present, who have hardly heard of the “secrets,” and cling to the teaching of our Lord and His twelve apostles concerning the kingdom, rather than the message of Paul for the nations.
Other believers claim to have exclusive knowledge and a special position. Some are sure they belong to the 144,000 on earth. For a time, I belonged to a Pentecostal denomination which taught that all who were to be saved had to be baptized according to their specific formula, and had to live a righteous life afterwards according to a set of denominational rules. It is useless to catalogue all the conflicting claims, for all but one must be wrong, and who knows if even that is altogether correct?
Faith in Christ is sufficient, no matter how faulty one’s other beliefs. The members of the ecclesia which is the body of Christ are under grace even if they do not acknowledge it or understand it. False belief is a “missing the mark;” that is, sin, but for us with faith in the Son of God, “where sin increases, grace superexceeds” (Romans 5:20).
Even the personal “beliefs” of each saint change from time to time. How greatly mine have! When we first really believed, for salvation through the blood of Christ, we may have thought that it was due to our repentance, and our sins were pardoned, and we had entered the kingdom. But these things are not for the joint body, for the saints in it are justified and reconciled, and, when they believe, are sealed with the holy spirit of promise, which is an earnest of the enjoyment of our allotment, to the deliverance of that which has been procured, that is, we are pre-expectants in the Christ (Ephesians 1:12-14), and will hear Him when He calls from the air. The spirit that we receive when we believe determines our place and portion, of which it is a part, not our ignorance or mistaken beliefs.
Almost all who have attained to maturity in Christ have had to put aside some childish and flawed beliefs. Being part of the snatching away of the saints is a question of God’s designating us beforehand in love for sonship, not of our understanding, or appreciation, or response. It is in accord with His own purpose, and the grace which He has given to us in Christ Jesus before times eonian (II Timothy 1:9).
Paul prays for those who are sealed with the holy spirit of promise, for a further spirit of wisdom to perceive what is the expectation of their calling and the riches of their allotment and the power present at the rousing of Christ (Ephesians 1:14). This makes it evident that they lacked this added endowment, and that the earnest of the spirit, which is the portion of all, does not include a knowledge of the higher truths for today. Yet this does not invalidate our pre-expectancy. Under the law, and even in the evangel of the kingdom, some response is necessary, or the blessing is withdrawn. Not so in grace. It operates even better in the midst of failure and opposition than otherwise, for these provide a background for its display.
It is a common fallacy to reason that our destiny is in some way dependent on ourselves. In the higher circles of Europe they have a sarcastic saying, “A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his ancestors.” We all came into the world without being asked the time, the place, or the circumstances. Either it was a favorable or fiendish fate, or the work of a selecting, supervising Subjector. We who love and worship Him can have no doubt on this score, for He has revealed to us that He chose us in Christ before the disruption (Ephesians 1:4). A child is not disinherited because it is weak or immature. None of us is fit for the glory about to be revealed in us. The very thought of such selfishness dims and darkens the grace of God, the display of which, throughout the universe, is the chief excuse for our existence.
Must We Watch?
Must we be alert and watching when He comes for us? No. This idea comes from those who misapply to themselves scriptures that concern the return of Christ to Israel at the beginning of the Millennium. Our Lord warned the living saints of Israel to be watching, for only those who watch will be taken along when He comes to Israel. To them the Son of Mankind comes as a thief, and some will be received and others left for judgment, as it was in the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37-51). The highest in the kingdom are those who earned it by their attainments and sufferings. Only those who were true to their Lord throughout his ministry and rejection will occupy positions in the coming earthly kingdom. Paul will have no place there at all. He, as we, already will have been roused to glory before the resurrection of the just takes place in the earthly kingdom. He expected nothing less:
The Lord will be rescuing me from every wicked work and will be saving me for His celestial kingdom: to Whom be glory for the eons of the eons. Amen! (II Timothy 4:18).
We who are part of the body of Christ are exhorted to watch, but in a very different way. As the next chapter shows, the seven years following the snatching away will be the worst era in earth’s history. Darkness will cover the earth, and murkiness the peoples (Isaiah 60:2). It is true that the world today is also in darkness, but not so his saints: “Now you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day may be overtaking you, as a thief” ( I Thessalonians 5:2):
For you are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of the darkness. Consequently then, we should not be drowsing, even as the rest, but we may be watching, and sober. For those who are drowsing are drowsing at night, and those who are drunk are drunk at night. Yet we, being of the day, may be sober, putting on the cuirass of faith and love, and the helmet, the expectation of salvation, for God did not appoint us to indignation, but to the procuring of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for our sakes, that, whether we may be watching or drowsing, we should be living at the same time together with Him. Wherefore, console one another, and edify one another, according as you are doing also (I Thessalonians 5:4-11).
Regrettably, most of today’s saints are drunk or drowsing. Even those who have never tasted a drop of alcohol are intoxicated with the spirits of delusion and error. And we who claim to be sober, and not sleeping, are we not drowsy? God pity us if we were dealt with in the same way as those who watch for the kingdom! If we received our desserts we would be with those who lament and gnash their teeth.
Consolation and edification are ours only because God deals with us differently. There is no penalty if we fail to keep awake and sober. There are doubtless some saints, such as Paul, Timothy, and Titus, who obeyed these exhortations, but what about us and the rest? We certainly don’t deserve to be vivified and snatched away to meet the Lord in the air, if it depends upon our watchfulness and sobriety!
Here we see, as perhaps nowhere else, the practical operation of the transcendent grace which is our portion in this administration. At its close none will be penalized for their past by being rejected at the snatching away, as in the case of the resurrection of the saints of Israel. In order to stress this, the Scriptures repeat the thought by using two words, to emphasize the fact that all will be snatched away at the same time together (I Thessalonians 4:17).
Why We Are Snatched Away
If our being called, justified, snatched away, and glorified is completely a matter of grace, the reason for it must transcend us greatly. And it does:
Yet God, being rich in mercy, because of His vast love with which He loves us (we also being dead to the offenses and the lusts), vivifies us together in Christ (in grace are you saved!) and rouses us together and seats us together among the celestials, in Christ Jesus, that, in the oncoming eons, He should be displaying the transcendent riches of His grace in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7).
Through the transformation of unworthy, dying mortals into immortal beings of light who operate with their Saviour above all sovereignty and authority, Christ will indeed be “displaying the transcendent riches of His grace” to His celestial creations. We have seen that it is God the Father’s purpose to become All in all of His creations. This He accomplishes, over the course of the eons, by subjecting the universe to Christ, the Son of His Love. Christ is God’s Image, His Complement, or That Which makes God completely known to His creation. Christ will reconcile all heavenly and earthly beings to God the Father through the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:18-20). The ecclesia, in turn, is spoken of as Christ’s complement, the medium through which the All in all is being completed (Ephesians 1:22-23).
As part of Christ’s glorified body, the saints become beings of the highest order. Paul writes that the saints shall judge, or set right, the world as well as messengers (I Corinthians 6:2, 3). This does not mean that the saints will condemn the world, but rather rule it during the oncoming eons. While the saints in Israel will rule Christ’s kingdom on earth, the saints who are members of Christ’s body will administer the rest of the universe, directing and controlling the messengers to the utmost bounds of creation. By the power of Christ, His glorified ecclesia will subdue all celestial rebellion and enmity, playing its ordained part in “completing the All in all.” No longer acting as fallible humans, the members of Christ’s Body will operate as an inseparable part of the Infallible Light of the world.
The great work of the reconciliation of the universe—the heavens in all their magnitude, the celestial regions with all their multitude of inhabitants—is to be carried out by Christ, operating in and through that glorified ecclesia which is His body, His complement.
We are foreknown, predesignated, called, justified, snatched away, and glorified, not for any blessings that may accrue to us, although we shall be blessed beyond all measure in the process, but that the supreme glory of His grace might be lauded throughout the whole universe. Paul writes in Ephesians 1:11 that we are those “being designated beforehand according to the purpose of the One Who is operating all in accord with the counsel of His will, that we should be for the laud of His glory.”
The Celestial Realm—A Busy Place
As we can see, contrary to popular theology, heaven is not solely a place of rest and bliss. The bliss that will be ours in our future state will come more from our being conformed to the glorious body of our Lord, and ever with Him, than from our being in any special locality. For us, the heavenly realms will be a scene of intense activity. Satan will still be there when we are snatched away. It is not until midway through the period of indignation that Michael battles with Satan and casts him from the heavenly realms to the earth:
And a battle occurred in heaven. Michael and his messengers battle with the dragon, and the dragon battles, and its messengers. And they are not strong enough for him, neither was their place still found in heaven.
And the great dragon was cast out, the ancient serpent called Adversary and Satan, who is deceiving the whole inhabited earth. It was cast to the earth, and its messengers were cast with it (Revelation 12:7-9).
We shall witness that event from the celestial standpoint, and begin to comprehend how the Supreme Spirit operates all. Many of the saints have wished to be there when Christ comes in great glory to the Mount of Olives, to set up His kingdom. Some have never even heard of our pre-expectant meeting with Him in the air. Will they be disappointed? Will we miss that marvelous sight, when every eye shall see Him, even the nation who stabbed Him? Absolutely not!
To us, seven years prior to His return to the Mount of Olives, He descends alone, unattended by any angelic host, for He Himself is the Chief Messenger, and He Himself will blow the trumpet of God, which will wake the dead. But to Israel He comes attended by a heavenly host. We read that, “coming is the Lord my God, And all the saints are with Him” (Zechariah 14:5). All the highest and holiest of the host of heaven will be with Him on Mount Olivet, and we shall always be together with the Lord (I Thessalonians 4:17). Even though our allotment and mission are among the celestials, He would not have us absent from the moment of His highest terrestrial triumph.
Before He comes for us, we are ambassadors on this earth for Him (II Corinthians 5:20). As He snatches away His ecclesia, His ambassadors are withdrawn. The administration of the grace of God ends. Man’s day reaches its climax, and because of it comes God’s Day of Indignation against unfaithful Israel and the unbelieving nations.