This isn't easy to organize to understand my question, so I'll probably be making some edits.

I am not sold on the rapture doctrine.  I've heard it all my life and never really bought into it because there is so little about it, when it is a major event.  I know "the rapture isn't biblical", but "caught up" interprets to 'raptis' in Latin.  

So, what exactly is this?  

I Thessalonians 4:16 - 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.

4:17 - 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.

This is when Christ is returning to earth to reign with an iron rod, presumably after the Tribulation.  Why do we rise to meet him in the air, only to turn around return to earth?

Q1) I know this is the basis for the "rapture" doctrine, but presuming there is no rapture, what exactly is going on here?

Q2) Why would Christians meet Christ in the air, only to come back down and land on the earth?  When Christ returns and lands on Mt Zion, he is here to stay for at least 1k years.  Why then do Christians meet him in the air?


II Corinthians 5:7-9 To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

Luke 16 has us going to either side of a gulf and being present with the Father after we die, hence the rich man and Lazarus the beggar.  The rich man asks if he can go back to his family and warn his brothers of that place.  He is in torment, but not yet in hell.  He asks for a drop of water off Lazarus' finger....   So he is at the gulf during the second earth age, and before the 7th trump.  He is there after his death, but before the millennial reign or the 7th trump.  He has already reverted to his spiritual body, and returned to the Father, and his brothers remain on earth.  So we don't lie dead in the grave and wait to resurrect, or he wouldn't be aware until after the millennial reign or 7th trump, or all his brothers would be with him there, and he wouldn't be wanting to send a messenger back because it would be too late.

Q3)  So what is the point of "The dead in Christ shall rise first", and when do the dead not in Christ rise?


I Thessalonians makes obvious sense only from the "rapture" perspective.

Some rose from their graves as brothers in the resurrection. They came out of their tombs. Yet, they were only the first fruits of the Resurrection. There is another set of first fruits that will be offered. Those that first believed in Christ. Thus Paul tells his audience that when they die they will sleep, but some of them will live long enough to not sleep because they will be alive still when Christ returns within 1-generation. At this return His Angels gather up his elect first fruits "those who first believed in him" "those workers of the vineyard" who witnessed his victory because their testimony is needed in Heaven to cast out Satan in Revelation 12. Now we are that vineyard and waiting on the harvest we need perserverence for the great harvest described in Revelation 14. We are blessed because unlike Paul's audience we go straight to Heaven as our deeds are now left behind and there is no accuser in Heaven. Unlike Paul's audience we go straight to Heaven because Christ previously came and retrieved his witnesses and Satan was kicked out!

Without this view how could any martyrs in Christ get into heaven to deliver their testimony, as Paul clearly said people still slept when they died? Yet he also said some of them would not die before they were raised!


Consider how those that witnessed Christ's victory are able to get into Heaven as first fruit believers if they were not already taken up by Christ? That would mean Satan is still at the throne of God and the Blood hasn't even been presented as evidence yet. Yet, Paul is saying in less than a generation the dead and the living will rise! That's exactly what Christ promised would happen within 1-Generation in Matthew 24 also when the Temple would be destroyed.

13Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. 14For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. (1 Thessalonians 4)

I’m trying to kill tabs that are open on my phone (493) so I haven’t read your whole post, but I will start with  rev 3:10. It’s not so
Much that one passage makes it all congeal, it’s when taking it all as a whole it “‘makes sense”. Just like rest of the Bible. It tells a grand narrative, that doesn’t always make perfect “sense” in the”  moment”( not sure what I trying to say, just trying to fit micro and macro together and maybe I can’t do that?) but all together it gels together and makes sense!

13 Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies.



14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.


And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

We will rise to meet him in the air to escort Christ back to his own just as people used to gather outside the gates to welcome their ruler home and escort him in. It's a triumphant return wherein God's throne is here and it is occupied, now and forever more.