Another repost from me. I see I have not really posted on this thread. Although I have in many others about the rapture, and all this other nonsense.
"1 Thess. 4:17 "After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." NIV
άρπαγησόμεθα - harpagesometha -future active indicative from the verb άρπάζω, meaning to be caught up, snatched up in the air.*
I agree with others totally on this word. But the word in question for me is not about "being caught up," but instead, the word "meet."
άπάντησις - apantesis - fem, noun, nominative case. The word has a technical meaning in the Hellenistic world related to the visits of dignitaries to cities where the visitor would be formally met by the citizens, or a deputation of them, who went out from the city, and would then ceremonially escort him back into the city.*
Other occurrences of this word in the New Testament is Acts 28:15-16
"The brothers and sisters there had heard that we were coming, and they traveled as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to MEET us. At the sight of these people Paul thanked God and was encouraged. 16 When we got to Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with a soldier to guard him."
Therefore, we will be caught up in the air to return with Jesus back to a renewed and restored earth. There is no mention in this or any other passage that believers will be snatched away, rather going to meet Jesus and returning with him, as the believers in Rome went out to meet Paul and went back with him to the city.
The final reference which uses this word meet is in Matt. 25:6
"At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to MEET him!" The virgins went out to meet the bridegroom then went back with him."
This word in other Greek sources always refers to the people going out to meet a returning conqueror. The accompany him back to the city. They are not taken elsewhere.
Show me any where in Greek where it says they are taken somewhere, rather than returned. In fact, rapture as you have correctly stated is from the Latin Vulgate and is a corruption of the original Greek. The New Testament was written in Greek, not Latin. (Vulgate was translated in approx. 382 AD)
As for the tribulation, we are always in the tribulation. Take places like Communist China and North Korea and India and Saudi Arabia and Eritrea. Those believers are being killed for their faith, just as believers have often died for their faith.
Rev. 7:14 "I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
θλίφις - thliphis - trouble that inflicts distress, oppression, affliction, tribulation. This is the only reference to the tribulation in the Bible. Any Bible scholar knows you do NOT make a doctrine nor write a book based on one scripture. But fanciful interpretation of Rev. has gotten more than Harold Camping in trouble for this very poor reading of the Greek.# Poor hermeneutics does not a doctrine make!
Believe what you want. But if you want the truth, look at the original Bible, not the writings of men. And put the words into context of who Paul and Luke and John were writing to - the people of their own time, not the 21st century Christian."
*The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament" by Cleon L. Rogers Jr. and Cleon L. Rogers III, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids Michigan, 1998.
# The Greek - English Lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian Literature. 3rd Edition. Danker and Bauers, The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
