Still More On The Partial Rapture

Q

I was watching a televangelist, and he says that he believes all the blacksliders will not go in the rapture and the ones that are sitting back and not doing serving the Lord or doing his will. Is this true?

A

This is a version of the partial rapture theory, which holds that even after we’re born again we have to qualify for participation in the rapture. No one knows what it takes to qualify and no one will know if they’ve made it or not until after it’s too late. And this is supposed to be our blessed hope.

You won’t find a single Bible verse that supports this. The clearest rapture verses in the Bible both say, “We will not all sleep (die), but we will all be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51) and “the dead in Christ will rise first. After that we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them” (1 Thes. 4:16-17). There’s no indication here that some will go and some will not. “We will all be changed” and “We will be caught up”.

Also, if we’re in Christ we’re a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) with a righteousness from God that has been imputed to us by faith (Romans 3: 21-24) having been made perfect forever in His sight because of the Lord’s once for all time sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:12-14). How much better can we get than that?