The rapture

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
The doctrine of the rapture is not one that all Christians are aware of – a fact that I was reminded of recently when talking to a colleague. There are two primary passages of Scripture that give us details about the rapture: 1 Cor. 15:50-54 and 1 Thess. 4:13-18. So what is it?
The word ‘rapture’ does not appear in the Bible in English, but the word ‘rapturo’ does appear in the Latin Vulgate. It means to be caught up (1 Thess. 4:17) and refers to the instantaneous change of believers from their physical bodies into their glorified, resurrection bodies. This is not without precedent in the Bible: we read of a similar thing happening to Enoch (Gen. 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kin. 2:11). At the rapture, believers do not die but are instantaneously transformed into their resurrection bodies. At the same time, believers who had died are raised to life and given their resurrection bodies. This is what is called the ‘first resurrection’ in Rev. 20:6.
The rapture is the first stage of the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is what Jesus referred to in Matt. 24:36-44 and parallel passages. There, He tells us that no-one will know the day or the hour of the rapture. There are no prophecies that need to be fulfilled before the rapture can happen. This is not true for the Second Coming, when Christ returns to earth to establish His kingdom (which is preceded by 7 years of tribulation as detailed in Revelation, Daniel, and elsewhere in both the Old and New Testaments).