Rapture: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

This article is about the Christian raising up of the faithful. For other meanings, see below.

In some variants of Christian eschatology, the rapture is the literal raising up of the faithful believers before the last days.

Supporters of this doctrine are most commonly found among fundamentalist and conservative Protestants, especially in the United States. Some other Christian groups disagree with such interpretations of the Bible.

According to this belief, believers will suddenly disappear from Earth in the "twinkling of an eye", while all others will be left behind to endure the tribulation. In some Christian circles this is known as a pre-trib doctrine, because the rapture rescues the faithful from Earth before the tribulation, rather than after, as some other Christians believe. The resurrection of the dead will occur at the same time. Almost all Christians believe that believers will be taken up to heaven, but the essence of the term "rapture" is that in some way non believers will be left behind for at least some period of time before the world finally ends, and this teaching revolves around the scripture passage in the gospels which says (a paraphrase) "a brother will be taken, and a father left, a sister etc.", as well as a passage from Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians talking about believers "meeting Christ in the air". These verses were not really paid much attention to before the Protestant reformation, and consequently most Christian denominations who have beliefs concerning a rapture are those that appeared after the reformation.

Supporters for this belief generally cite three primary sources in the New Testament:

• In 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, the Apostle Paul writes: "Behold, I shew 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 trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."
• In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul writes: "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: 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."
• In Philippians 3:20-21, Paul writes: "For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."

Generally, an elaborate set of predictions about the end times are constructed from these sets of verses, together with various interpretations of the Book of Revelation and the predictions of Christ's return in Matthew 24:30-36. In general, believers in the rapture consider the present to be the end times, and offer interpretations of the various symbolisms in the book of Revelation in terms of contemporary world events. They believe that, because of the presumed imminence of the end of the world, they have a unique ability to correctly understand these symbols, which had seemed so cryptic to Christians in earlier times.

Criticism of the rapture are usually based on the idea that it is a relatively new theory in the history of Christian belief, and also on the principle that anyone left behind who had knowledge of the theory but didn't believe in Christ would essentially have full proof to be convinced of the necessity of believing and thus everyone left behind would essentially be forced to believe (this would prevent any type of Anti Christ from having any credibility).

Belief in the rapture became popular in some Christian circles during the 1970s, in part thanks to the books of Hal Lindsey, including The Late Great Planet Earth. Many of Lindsey's predictions in that book, which assumed that the rapture was imminent, were based on world conditions at the time. The Cold War figured prominently in their predictions of Armageddon, and other aspects of 1970s global politics were seen as having been predicted in the Bible. Lindsay believed, for example, that the 10-headed beast cited in Revelation was the European Economic Community, which at the time consisted of ten nations.

Many Christians continue to believe in the rapture, with their interpretations of biblical eschatology having been updated to reflect changes in world conditions.

There was a 1991 film starring Mimi Rogers called The Rapture which was about one woman's experience of the rapture.

Rapture is a major component of the premise of the Left Behind books and its various spin-offs. Again these books greatly revived belief in this concept.

Rapture is also:

• a literary expression for intense joy or pleasure, as in research rapture.
• the title of a 1980 hit single by Blondie, the first rap-influenced number one hit.
• the title of a hit single in 2001 by New York City-based trance duo Iio.
• The Rapture is a New York City-based rock band.