BARNEY BRIGHT
Well-Known Member
Wonderful Truth of the Very Near Rapture (Catching Up of All Believers)!! Those Who Died in Christ ===1 THESS. 4:13-18 NASB
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Thenwe who are alive and remain will 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. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.===caught up "is" the rapture!!
1 Corinthians 15:51-58 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 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 will be changed. 53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. Philippians 3:20-21
It is my belief that the context of the scriptures in 1Thess. 4:13-18 the resurrection is being discussed, so I keep it in that context. I believe there are two groups that are resurrected, First is the righteous who will be in heaven with Jesus being resurrected with the same kind of body as Jesus when he was resurrected, immortal and incorruptible. This resurrection starts at the second presence or second coming of Jesus in which those who have died before that second presence and who will be in heaven with Jesus will be resurrected first. Then those who are to be in heaven with Jesus but still alive on earth at the second presence of Jesus when these die at that moment of their death they are changed in the twinkling of an eye and caught up to heaven. After all these have been resurrected to heaven there will still be those who are judged righteous by God but are to be subjects of God's kingdom who will live on earth. After all those who are to be Kings, Priests and Judges in that kingdom have been resurrected, Armageddon will start and all those who are judged righteous by God will be kept safe during that destruction of the wicked and go into the new earth without dying. Then will start the Thousand year reign of Jesus Christ and during that Thousand year reign another resurrection of both righteous and unrighteous will take place. These also will be subjects of the kingdom and will live on earth. When resurrected they are mortal and corruptible.