?The word ?rapture? does not occur in the inspired Scriptures.?
This we are told by one popular Watchtower Publication. One is then left to wonder how a Latin reasoning book would read, and if they would still try to use this misleading form of deceptive argument, and if they would be able to quote a modern Latin bible translation, or if they would completely avoid the subject altogether. Since the word that Christians today use, ?rapture? comes from Jerome?s Latin Vulgate translation from the Greek which reads?
deinde nos qui vivimus qui relinquimur simul rapiemur cum illis in nubibus obviam Domino in aera et sic semper cum Domino erimus
Interestingly, Thayers Greek lexicon defines the word, ?harpazo? to mean ?to seize, carry off by force? and ?to seize and carry off speedily, John 6:15; Acts 23:10; used of divine power transferring a person marvelously and swiftly from one place to another, to snatch or catch away? thus causing Jerome in the 4 th century to translate ?harpazo? into the Latin using the word, ? rapiemur? from which we acquire the word ?rapture.? Thus the Watchtower is exceedingly misleading and not informative at all concerning the word when it states that it is not in the Bible.
Also we are told by the same Watchtower publication,
Quote
Who are the ones that will be ?caught up in the clouds,? as stated at 1 Thessalonians 4:17?
Verse 15 explains that they are faithful ones ?who are left until the coming of the Lord,? that is, they are still living at the time of Christ?s coming. Will they ever die? According to Romans 6:3-5 and 1 Corinthians
End quote
Thus the Watchtower contradicts the sacred secret that Paul informs his readers of at 1 Cor 15:51.52. where he says,
?See, I am giving you the revelation of a secret: we will not all come to the sleep of death, but we will all be changed. In a second, in the shutting of an eye, at the sound of the last horn: for at that sound the dead will come again, free for ever from the power of death, and we will be changed.?
Thus Paul tells us that not all Christians will face death, but will be changed instantly, thus clarifying what he had already written the Thessalonian congregation years earlier about the fact that when Christ does come again, the Trumpet he carries will sound, and the dead will rise, and after that, the living ones, who are surviving, will then be changed.
Why would Paul state so plainly that the dead rise first, and subsequent to that, the living who are surviving? Why the need for a distinction between the living and the dead if the WT is accurate?
If the Watchtower is correct, all Paul had to do is say that the dead would rise, since WT theology does not allow Christians who are living to be changed instantly and be ? harpazo? or ?raptured? or, as the NWT translates it, ?caught away,? unless they die first? The WT quoted above states that a ccording to Romans 6:3-5 and 1 Corinthians 15:35, 36, 44 Christians must die before they can gain heavenly life. However, a comprehensive reading of those text state nothing about a Christian MUST die before he gains eternal life in heaven, in fact, it tells us exactly the opposite! For in 1 Cor 15:51, Paul very clearly informs his readers of exactly the opposite of what the WT states, namely, that not all Christians will die, but that all Christians will be changed when Christ comes and sounds the trumpet.
The watchtower loyalist is in effect saying, ?We do not believe that the bible teaches that Christians will not all fall asleep in death, nor that we will be ?swept away.?
Perhaps the Watchtower writers would be better off writing an article on how the words ?Governing Body? or, ?faithful and discreet slave class? are not found in the bible!
Just something to think about
Free in Christ
Daniel Michaels