A lot of people have a problem with the rapture taking place at the end of the Tribulation. They say it doesn’t make sense to them because we’ll just go up to come right back to the earth.
In reality, that was exactly what the Jews were in the habit of doing with any dignitary that was approaching their city. They would go outside the city, meet them and escort them back to the city. It was an act of respect and a way of honoring them.
In fact, this is what the disciples did when Paul arrived in Rome. One group came out to meet him at the Appii forum, and a place known as The Three Taverns.
Acts 28:15
15 And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far asAppii forum, and The Three Taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage.
This is the same Greek word ‘meet’ that is used in I Thessalonians that refers to the rapture when we go up to ‘meet’ the Lord in the air on the Day of the Lord.
I Thessalonians 4:17
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.
Here is what Vine’s Expository Dictionary has to say about the definition of this word.
Meet (Verb), Meet With, Met:
“a meeting” (akin to A, No. 1), occurs in Mat 25:6 (in some mss. in ver. 1, and in Mat 27:32, in some mss.); Act 28:15; 1Th 4:17. It is used in the papyri of a newly arriving magistrate. “It seems that the special idea of the word was the official welcome of a newly arrived dignitary” (Moulton, Greek Test. Gram. Vol. I, p. 14).
Sometimes we get caught up in the idea that heaven is way up there and we are w-a-y down here. Sometimes we long to be up there, but we’re stuck down here.
For us there is a great divide and has been since mankind’s fall in the garden, but for Jesus it’s not a trip at all! It’s more like going downstairs. This verse from Amos puts it in perspective. I like how it is worded in the New Living Translation.
Amos 9:6 New Living Translation
6 The Lord’s home reaches up to the heavens,
while its foundation is on the earth…
If you live in a two-story house, you don’t consider your bedroom at the top of the stairs to be a different address, do you?
The change in our bodies from mortality to immortality takes place in the twinkling of the eye just prior to this meeting in the sky.
The rapture is not to keep us from the devil’s fury. And, it is not to protect us from the wrath that Jesus is about to pour out on the earth. It is to give us the unique honor of sharing in the glory of Jesus as He makes His powerful (and fear producing) entrance into the earth to pronounce judgment and wrath upon the wicked! (Romans 8:17)