There will be no rapture of the living saints in Christ until the deceased saints in Christ are first raised from the dead, and this resurrection will not occur until after a period of tribulation involving the man of lawlessness, as revealed in the writings of Paul. However, I also recognize that Jesus deliberately shifted the focus away from pinpointing the exact timing of these events—such as those foretold in the book of Daniel—and instead emphasized the need for constant watchfulness and spiritual readiness. This creates an ongoing tension between the prophetic sequence of events and the call to live with the expectation that Christ could return at any moment. Some today may attempt to resolve this tension by introducing an additional rapture before the final resurrection, but I view this as a distortion of biblical teaching. Rather than trying to force a worldly solution that sidesteps the complexity of these revelations, we should approach this tension with a more spiritual mindset. We are called to trust in God’s timing, remain vigilant, and maintain our focus on living faithfully in the present, balancing the teachings of Jesus and his apostles without compromising the integrity of Scripture. It was later that Paul and John received revelations reaffirming the prophetic sequence of events. This I take as additional to Jesus’ sayings about vigilance, not a substitute for them.
