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“IT’S NOT COMPLICATED?”  JUST WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

Unless you can lay aside your preconceptions, this all may sound to you like “the Great Pumpkin arising out of the pumpkin patch on Halloween night.”  It takes courage to be able to hear and believe the truth. Paul explained our steps in a letter to a group of his charges.  Through circular reasoning, some now mistakenly conclude that his words refer to a future rapture.  The rapture you speak of was also accomplished on that last day return of my son, as the old agreement was on the verge of being consumed by the new. It was truly accomplished a moment after the physically dead received a new body just like my son’s and also came forth to us.

The “last trumpet” had surely sounded  and our people who remained alive were forever changed, just as Paul had predicted.¹⁰⁷  Our power that had raised my son and all the others had changed and translated them into the heavenly realm just like Enoch of old.¹⁰⁸  What’s more – from that day forward, the words they left behind would reproduce, spiritually speaking, after their own kind throughout all future generations. From that point on, whoever came into the fold because of their word would get our package deal of complete redemption, including resurrection life.¹⁰⁹ That completed step three.

THAT SET UP STEP FOUR?

You got it.  Paul understood the order of things.  First, my son plus the rest of the “firstfruits.”  Then the rest of the dead and those still alive at his rapture/resurrection coming – to be followed in years to come by each whose body expired in his own order.¹¹⁰ Everyone of ours would now experience a rapture/resurrection into a new body simultaneous with the expiration of their old body.

SO WE’RE NOT WAITING FOR FUTURE RETURNS OF YOUR SON IN ORDER TO EXPERIENCE EITHER RAPTURE OR RESURRECTION?

Death has been defeated for our worldwide troupe. 

This takes place for real in the unseen realm, not in your visible natural realm.  Our life is accessed by faith, not sight.¹¹¹

107           “Behold I tell 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 trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).

108           “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die’” (John 11:25, 26a).  “He who has the Son has life . . .” (1 John 5:12a).  “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11).  “. . . when He is revealed, we shall be like Him  . . .” (1 John 3:2b).  “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19).

             It’s the author's belief that in the midst of an unprecedented tribulation period (AD 66-70) but prior to God’s wrath being unleashed and soon culminating at the AD 70 Fall of Jerusalem, all those still alive and in spiritual unity with Christ were instantly changed. They were translated from the visible physical realm into the spiritual realm just like Enoch of old – having involuntarily exchanged their earthly body for their new everlasting heavenly one, never to be heard from on earth again. Less than a moment before, others in spiritual unity with the Godhead by faith who had already physically died were made alive and translated to heaven in like manner. Just like that, the multi-prophesied and earnestly expected rapture/resurrection event had been accomplished by an omnipotent God. Also as prophesied, an unbelieving apostate nation was left behind to experience the wrath soon to come.

109           “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word” (John 17:20).  “That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

110           “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the (first of the) firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.  But each in his own order:  Christ, (the rest of) the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming” (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).

111           “Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).  “For in it (the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:17).