The covenants of God and specifically the promises of those covenants being fulfilled in the Messiah comprise the main message of the Bible. When we read and interpret the Apostolic Scriptures, it’s best to keep God’s covenants in mind. In regards to our study, I believe a specific aspect of the Mosaic covenant will aid us in understanding the events surrounding the return of the Messiah. Firstly, ifIsraeldisobeys God on a national level, God promises curses which include being scattered across the globe:
Moreover, the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known. (Deuteronomy 28:64)
WhenIsraelreturns to God and obeys His Torah, in accordance with the Mosaic covenant, God will bring His covenant people back to the Land of the covenant.
If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back. (Deuteronomy 30:4)
Ultimately, everything God does through His people will bring Himself glory; so how does the return ofIsraelto the Land bring God glory? An obedientIsraelcould boast in their obedience, right? How can God causeIsraelto become obedient to Torah (on a national level) and yet retain the glory for Himself? It’s my opinion that one of the reasons why Israel, as a nation, has never fully obeyed God, and thus elicit the blessings of the Mosaic covenant, is so that God can get the glory for Himself when He finally changes the hearts of all of Israel and allows them to become obedient. This, I believe, is the New Covenant:
31″Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.33″But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34″They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
A parallel passage to this is in Ezekiel 36:
22″Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. 23″I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst Then the nations will know that I am the LORD,” declares the Lord GOD, “when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. 24″For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. 25″Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26″Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27″I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. 28″You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:22-28)
So, the New Covenant is a national covenant where God, by His power alone, brings about the salvation of the entire nation. Salvation results in obedience to the Torah and this will result inIsraelfinally, on a national level, receiving the blessings of the Mosaic covenant. This means that God will gatherIsraelback to the Land.
11Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished We are completely cut off.’ 12″Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13″Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. 14″I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,” declares the LORD.’” (Ezekiel 37:11-14)
21″Say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; 22and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king for all of them; and they will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms. 23″They will no longer defile themselves with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. And they will be My people, and I will be their God. 24″My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd; and they will walk in My ordinances and keep My statutes and observe them. 25″They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons and their sons’ sons, forever; and David My servant will be their prince forever. 26″I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant with them And I will place them and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in their midst forever. 27″My dwelling place also will be with them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. 28″And the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever.”‘” (Ezekiel 37:21-28)
From Ezekiel alone we learn that God will changeIsraelon a national level, giving them His Spirit and causing them to obey the Torah. God will resurrect all the dead who had faith and will gather them to theLandofIsrael. The Messiah (represented by the name “David”) will reign over them and God will dwell among them forever.
Let’s look at how Jeremiah intertwines the coming of the Messiah with gathering ofIsraelback to theLandofIsrael.
1″Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!” declares the LORD. 2Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel concerning the shepherds who are tending My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them; behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds,” declares the LORD. 3″Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply. 4″I will also raise up shepherds over them and they will tend them; and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the LORD. 5″Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, ”When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. 6″In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ’The LORD our righteousness.’ 7″Therefore behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when they will no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ 8but, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ Then they will live on their own soil.” (Jeremiah 23:1-8)
Isaiah, speaking of a time when God will punish Satan, couples the sound of the shofar with the gathering ofIsraelback to the Land.
13It will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD in the holy mountain at Jerusalem. (Isaiah 27:13)
The Jewish people base their hope of a coming Messiah, the resurrection of the dead and the gathering of scatteredIsraelto the Land on these passages and others like them. Jewish tradition understands the gathering ofIsraelto be a fulfillment of Deuteronomy 30:4. The Targum Jonathan, a first century Aramaic paraphrase of the Tanakh (an ancient version of the Message bible), translates this verse as follows:
Though you may be dispersed unto the ends of the heavens, from there will the Word of the Lord gather you together by the hand of Elijah the great priest, and from there will He bring you by the hand of the King Messiah. (Targum Yonatan on Deuteronomy 30:4)
The promise of the gathering ofIsraelto the Land is even a part of the daily prayers and is prayed three times a day:
Blast the great shofar for our freedom, and lift a banner to gather our exiles, and gather us together from the four corners of the earth. Blessed are You, O Lord, who gathers the scattered ones of His people Israel. (Tenth Benediction of the Shemoneh Esrei)
In the Talmud, Rabbi Yochanon says, “The ingathering of the exiles is as important as the day when heaven and earth were created.” (b.Pesachim 88a)
Now let’s look to the words of the Master Himself to see how He said it would happen. Let’s specifically note the chronology of the events:
29″But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30″And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. 31″And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31)
The Master says that after the tribulation everyone will see His return and it will be accompanied with great glory. In other words, nobody’s going to miss this; it will be obvious to everyone. Following His obvious and visible return will be the sound of a great shofar and the gathering of His elect from around the world. These words are completely in line with the words of the Prophets that we have just read.
What can we conclude after looking at these passages from the Prophets and the words of the Master? The resurrection and subsequent gathering ofIsraelfollows the visible and glorious return of the Messiah. This event is accompanied with a shofar blast. What we haven’t seen in any of these passages is mention of a disappearing of Believers to heaven. Let’s now take a look at two important passages from Paul’s epistles:
51Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52in 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. 53For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54But 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. (1 Corinthians 15:51-54)
Here, Paul is commenting on the passages from the Prophets regarding the resurrection and explains that at the resurrection, those who are alive will not have to die but will rather be instantly changed into immortal bodies. Notice he connects the blast of a shofar (specifically the “last” trumpet) with the resurrection, as did the Prophets. The only new thing Paul introduces is the answer to what was probably a common question among the Jewish communities: What happens to those who are alive at the time of the resurrection? His answer is that those who are alive will not have to die but will be instantly changed into the immortal state. Now, let’s look at 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and see what he teaches there:
13But 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. 14For if we believe that Yeshua died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Yeshua.
We can note that the context of this passage is the resurrection of the dead.
15For 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.
What does Paul mean when he says “by the word of the Lord?” Is he referring to a revelation he received directly from God? Possibly but there’s also the possibility that Paul simply understood what he was about to say was from the Tanakh and that the Spirit simply illumined him to see it in the context of Yeshua. We see that Paul is connecting the coming of Yeshua with the resurrection of the dead. The ones (the Believers) who are alive at the coming of Yeshua will not precede those who have died in Him (died believing in the promise). Precede them in what? Again, the context of this passage is the resurrection. Therefore, Paul is simply saying that the ones who have died in Messiah will be the first to rise and subsequent to that (essentially at the same time), those who are alive will transform into the immortal state as well. He’s saying the same thing he said in 1 Corinthians 15.
16For 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 Messiah will rise first.
Paul connects the return of the Messiah with the resurrection of the dead. Yeshua will descend from heaven. There will be a shout and a trumpet (shofar) blast, at which time the Believers from all past generations will resurrect from the dead. Once again the shofar blast is connected to the resurrection of the dead. Also, there is something about the shout of Messiah and resurrection. He shouted for Lazarus to get out of the tomb and he did. Yeshua shouted while on the cross and some of the saints rose from their grave. Here, in the end, Yeshua will descend from heaven with a shout and all of the dead that are in Him will rise.
17Then we 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. 18Therefore comfort one another with these words.
The believers who are alive at that time will be caught up. The word rapture is derived from the Latin word “rapiemu” which means “carried off” or “carried up.” The Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible, translates the Greek word “harpazo,” which means “to seize” or “to carry off,” with “rapiemu,” so it essentially has the same meaning. Therefore, apparently, the concept of being “caught up in the clouds” is a Biblical concept.
Being caught up together with the newly resurrected believers, together we will meet Yeshua in the air. Paul concludes that we will always be with Yeshua. There’s no mention of believers being taken away to heaven. This passage does connect, though, the resurrection of the dead with the coming of Yeshua and apparently there will be a gathering of all those who had faith in the Messiah in the air at the Master’s descending. Apparently, we will meet Yeshua and the now resurrected believers who were dead “in Messiah” previously. Paul does not say where we will be when we are “with the Master always.”
It seems clear though that Paul is speaking of the same events that the Prophets and Yeshua were talking about: the resurrection and gathering ofIsraelto the Land by the Messiah, which is accompanied by the sound of the shofar. But what about the part where he says we will be “caught up.” It’s possible that Paul is borrowing the imagery of Isaiah 60:8, which says:
8″Who are these who fly like a cloud and like the doves to their lattices? (Isaiah 60:8)
The Targum (the ancient Aramaic paraphrase of the Tanakh) understood this passage to be referring to the gathering ofIsraelback to the Land and renders Isaiah 60:8 this way:
“The, captivity of Israel, who are gathered together, and come to their own land, as doves that return to their dove houses.” (Isaiah 60:8, Targum)
Whether this is simply illustrative language or we will actually be caught up to meet Messiah in the air doesn’t really matter. The point is that when he says we will be “caught up,” Paul is referring to the gathering of those of faith who are alive at the time of the Messiah’s coming.
This line of thinking is not outside of Jewish though. The great middle ages commentator Rashi used Isaiah 27 to comment on Deuteronomy 30:3:
Great is the day of the ingathering of the exiles, and it will come about with much difficulty, as if God Himself will be obliged to take hold of each person with His hands, each one from his place, like the matter which is spoken of [in Isaiah], “And you will be gathered up one by one, O sons of Israel. [It will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were … scattered … will come …]” (Rashi on Deuteronomy 30:3 quoting Isaiah 27:12[–13])
Just to be clear, I include righteous Gentiles as being a part ofIsrael. All of these passages include those Gentiles of genuine faith. The Bible does not make a distinction between believingIsraeland believing Gentiles. Believing Gentiles are a part ofIsrael, therefore, only those Jews and Gentiles who have exercised genuine faith over the centuries will be the ones who will rise on that day. And only those Jews and Gentiles of genuine faith who are alive will be instantly transformed and caught up with the newly resurrected saints. We can expect to see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, Peter, Paul, John and many more resurrected and gathered to meet Yeshua in the air. Lord willing, those of us who are alive will be subsequently caught up with them and will be gathered to theLandofIsraelwhere we will reign with Messiah forever (may we see it soon and in our day!). It’s interesting that Isaiah foretold of Gentiles being gathered with the saints ofIsrael:
8The Lord GOD, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares, “Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered.” (Isaiah 56:8)
And don’t forget the words of Yeshua:
11″I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; (Matthew 8:11)
16″I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. (John 10:16)
The exclamation of “Next Year inJerusalem!” should take on a whole new meaning at Passover. The “blessed hope” of the return of the Messiah is not to escape to heaven. Instead, we will be gathered toIsraelto live in immortal bodies for all eternity. The so-called rapture is the gathering ofIsraelto the Land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
As an appendix, let’s look at some passages from the parables of Yeshua that are usually used to prove the traditional idea of the rapture:
Being Taken Away
37″For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. 38″For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40″Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41″Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. (Matthew 24:37–41)
34″I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. 35″There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left. 36["Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left."] 37And answering they said to Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered.” (Luke 17:34-37)
These passages are set within the context of Yeshua telling His disciples about His coming. Apparently, just like in the days of Noah, Yeshua will return at a time when people will be living their lives (specifically in sin) like usual. In other words, life is normal for them and sin is the routine. The Messiah’s coming will be like a thief in the night. His judgment will be unexpected. When Yeshua says that one will be taken and one will remain, He’s actually referring to the sinner being taken away! His disciples asked Him where they will be taken and Yeshua answers that they will be taken away to where their bodies will be feasted on by vultures. This does not necessarily mean that the sinners will be literally taken away but it certainly denotes judgment (punished, presumably, by death). Just as the flood washed (took) away the sinners, so too will Yeshua “take away” the sinner upon His return. There seems to be evidence of this in the book of Revelation.
17Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, “Come, assemble for the great supper of God, 18so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.” 21And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh. (Revelation 19:17–18, 21)
Does that mean that Believers will be going through the time of tribulation preceding the Messiah’s return? It appears so, as the Master’s parable indicates:
24Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25″But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. 26″But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. 27″The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28″And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ 29″But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30′Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘” (Matthew 13:24-30)
