I notice that you stand with those who believe that the rapture does not have a set date, but instead a set number of believers who must be completed in order for it to take place. I was wondering if there were any clues given as to that number. I only remember reading “a multitude that could not be numbered” for the saints that stand behind the Lord at the final white throne judgment. Thank you for your insight and praise God there are those like you who encourage steadfast Christians to think.
The idea that the Church has a specific number of believers comes from Romans 11:25 where Paul called it the “full number”. As far as I’ve been able to determine, there isn’t even a hint in Scripture as to what the total number in the Church will be. The largest number in the Bible is given as 10,000 times 10,000, which equals 100,000,000. In a vision of the end times Daniel saw this number of beings standing before God. (Daniel 7:10)
Some scholars believe this was simply the largest number people in Daniel’s day knew how to express and that it shouldn’t be taken literally. But even if the Bible did tell us the number, we would also have to know how many have been saved during the Church Age to determine how close to reaching the number we are. I don’t know of anyone on Earth who could give us that information.