Resurrection from the dead = from among the dead.

This is an image of the Roman soldier @ the Cross of Christ...IT IS ALSO THE BEST DECRIPTIVE IMAGE OF ME 22 YEARS AGO (March 23rd 2004) from Wichita to Leavenworth, KS Journey!

Rabbi Jason Sobel explains WHY the Cross?
The deeper you study the Bible, the deeper the connections and meanings you will find!

Daniel 9 reveals it plainly: Messiah comes, is cut off, the city and temple fall—then a gap unfolds.

The 70th week awaits a rebuilt Third Temple and covenant. Scripture separates the timeline. The pause is real. The fulfillment is still coming.

Chuck fell asleep & is w/ The KING of KINGS!

After the Tribulation of Matthew 24
Why the Elect of Matthew 24 Are Not the Church at the Pre-Tribulation Rapture

Introduction

One of the most common questions I get when I teach on the pre-tribulation Rapture is this one right here. If Jesus says in Matthew 24 that after the tribulation of those days He will come with power and great glory, and if He sends His angels with a great sound of a trumpet to gather His elect, then how can that not be the same event Paul describes in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15? On the surface, to a man who does not rightly divide his Bible, the thing can look like a match. There is a coming of Christ. There is a trumpet. There is a gathering. There are saints involved. So the careless reader, the covenant man, the replacement theology man, the post-tribulation man, and the fellow who has read more prophecy charts than Scripture all jump to the same conclusion. They say, There it is. Matthew 24 is the Rapture. Then they assume the Church must go through the Tribulation. But that conclusion does not come from careful Bible study. It comes from grabbing similarities while ignoring context, audience, timing, wording, and doctrine.

The first rule in handling a question like this is that I am not allowed to force Paul into Matthew, and I am not allowed to force Matthew into Paul. The Holy Spirit wrote both, and He did not get confused. Jesus in Matthew 24 is answering Jewish questions about the temple, the sign of His coming, and the end of the world. The disciples ask Him plainly, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matthew 24:3). They do not ask about the Body of Christ, because the Body of Christ had not yet been revealed. They do not ask about the mystery of the Church, because that mystery was still hidden in God. They ask a Jewish Messiah about Jewish concerns tied to Jerusalem, the temple, Judea, the sabbath day, and the visible coming of the Son of man to the earth. If you ignore that setting, you are not studying prophecy. You are vandalizing it.

Now I want this essay to do more than answer one man on a post. I want this to be something solid enough that when this question comes up again, and it will, I can hand somebody the link and say, Here. Read this slowly. Read the verses. Compare them. Let the Book speak. Because this issue is one of the places where confusion multiplies faster than rabbits in a field. People see the word “elect” and think it has to mean the Church in every passage. They see the word “trumpet” and think every trumpet in the Bible is the same trumpet. They see a gathering and assume every gathering is the Rapture. That is not Bible study. That is word association. So I want to lay this thing out so clearly that the only way to miss it is if a man wants to miss it. Matthew 24 is not the Church’s pre-tribulation Rapture. It is the post-tribulational gathering of Israel’s elect and believing saints connected with the Second Advent of Jesus Christ to the earth.

1. The Question in Matthew 24 Is Jewish Before It Is Christian

The whole chapter opens in a Jewish setting, and if you miss the setting you will miss the sermon. Jesus had just departed from the temple, and His disciples came to point out the buildings of the temple to Him. He then tells them, “There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). That statement triggers the question of verse 3. The disciples are not sitting around asking when the Church will be caught up into the third heaven. They are asking about the destruction of the temple, the sign of Christ’s coming, and the end of the world. That is a Jewish prophetic framework straight out of Daniel, Zechariah, and the prophets. It is about the kingdom program, not the mystery program.

Then look at the details Jesus gives in the chapter. He warns, “let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains” (Matthew

24:16). That is not language addressed to the Body of Christ spread across all nations as one spiritual organism. That is a local warning tied to a specific geographic region in Israel. Then He says, “pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day” (Matthew 24:20). There is your Jewish setting again. The sabbath day is a dead giveaway. The Church is never told in Paul’s epistles to regulate her prophetic escape around sabbath restrictions in Judea. That belongs to Israel and the land.

A man who ignores those details and then says Matthew 24 is the Church’s Rapture is doing exactly what so many prophecy teachers do. He sees one or two overlapping words and ignores the whole frame of the passage. But the frame controls the picture. The context is temple, Judea, sabbath, abomination of desolation, and the sign of the Son of man. That is not Church mystery ground. That is tribulation and Second Advent ground. The Church can draw application from many things in the chapter in a broad moral sense, but doctrinally Matthew 24 is not addressed to the Body of Christ as such. It is Jewish kingdom material.

2. The Great Tribulation of Matthew 24 Is Not the Church Age in General

Jesus says, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). That statement alone should stop all the loose talk. He is not describing the ordinary sufferings Christians face in the present age. He is describing a unique period of unparalleled distress. He ties it directly to the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet in verse 15. Daniel’s seventieth week is not a vague symbol for all church history. It is a defined prophetic period connected with Israel and Jerusalem. “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city” (Daniel 9:24). Thy people are Daniel’s people, the Jews. Thy holy city is Jerusalem.

The great tribulation in Matthew 24 is therefore not the normal pressure of living in a wicked world. It is the climactic time of Jacob’s trouble. Jeremiah says, “it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it” (Jeremiah 30:7). Jacob is not the Church. Jacob is Israel. That does not mean no Gentiles get saved in that time, because they do, and many will die for it. But the tribulation as a prophetic program is centered on the Jew, the land, the city, the covenant, the temple, and the coming King. It is the furnace through which God purges Israel and judges the nations.

Paul, on the other hand, when he gives the Rapture revelation in 1 Thessalonians 4, does not mention Judea, the sabbath day, the abomination of desolation, the temple, or fleeing into the mountains. He says, “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout” and “the dead in Christ shall rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Then he says the living saints are “caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). That is a different setting, a different people, and a different emphasis. Matthew 24 is survival through tribulation until the King visibly returns to the earth. First Thessalonians 4 is the catching away of the Body of Christ to meet the Lord in the air before wrath falls.

3. The Elect in Matthew 24 Are Not the Body of Christ as Such

This is where many people trip because the word “elect” is used of Christians in several New Testament passages. That is true. Romans 8:33 says, “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect?” Colossians 3:12 says, “Put on therefore, as the elect of God.” First Peter 1:2 says believers are “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God.” So yes, Christians can be called elect. But that does not mean every use of the word elect in every context is automatically the Church. Israel is also called God’s elect. Isaiah 45:4 says, “For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect.” Isaiah 65:9 refers to

“mine elect.” So if you see the word elect and immediately shout Church, you are not interpreting. You are assuming.

In Matthew 24 the elect are in a tribulation and Second Advent setting tied to Judea, the abomination of desolation, and cosmic signs. Jesus says in verse 22, “but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” Then in verse 31 He says, “he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect.” The elect there are God’s chosen people and believing saints connected with that tribulation period, with a strong reference to Israel’s remnant. The context decides it. The Church did not replace Israel, and the elect is not a code word that erases Jewish prophecy every time it appears.

Mark helps even more because he gives parallel wording and says the angels “shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven” (Mark 13:27). That is not the language of the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4. That is the language of regathering after the visible Advent. It includes saints on earth and saints connected with heaven in the broad kingdom sense. It matches Old Testament regathering passages where Israel is gathered from the nations at the coming of the Lord. Isaiah 27:13 says, “it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish.” That is not the Church’s mystery Rapture. That is Israel’s prophetic regathering.

4. The Trumpet of Matthew 24 Is Not Paul’s Last Trump

Now we come to the trumpet argument, which gets thrown around as if one trumpet sound settles every prophecy in the Bible. But a man who knows anything about Scripture knows there are many trumpets with many functions. There are silver trumpets in Numbers 10. There are trumpets at Sinai. There are trumpets in Joshua. There are feast trumpets, warning trumpets, regathering trumpets, and judgment trumpets in Revelation. So when somebody says Matthew 24 has a trumpet and Paul mentions a trump, therefore same event, he is not proving anything. He is just lining up two English words and hoping nobody looks deeper.

In Matthew 24:31 the Lord sends “his angels with a great sound of a trumpet” to gather His elect. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16 Paul says, “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.” Those are not the same descriptions. In Matthew 24 angels are sent out to gather. In 1 Thessalonians 4 the Lord Himself descends, the dead in Christ rise, and living believers are caught up. Matthew 24 says nothing about the dead in Christ rising. It says nothing about translation of living saints into glorified bodies. It says nothing about meeting the Lord in the air. First Thessalonians 4 says nothing about angels being dispatched to regather elect survivors from the four winds after a tribulation.

Then there is 1 Corinthians 15:52, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.” The last trump there is the last trump for the Church, not the last trumpet that will ever sound in the universe. Paul is writing to a Church about a Church mystery. He says, “Behold, I shew you a mystery” (1 Corinthians 15:51). Matthew 24 is not called a mystery. It belongs to openly revealed prophetic material tied to Israel. You cannot take a mystery trumpet for the Body of Christ and force it into a public, visible, post-tribulation gathering passage for Israel and the nations. That is mixing programs. The trumpet similarity is superficial. The doctrinal content is different.

5. The Coming in Matthew 24 Is to the Earth in Glory, Not in the Air for the Bride

Matthew 24 is crystal clear about the nature of Christ’s coming in that chapter. Jesus says, “then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven” and “they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30). That is visible, public, earth-facing, and connected with mourning tribes and cosmic disturbance. It parallels Old Testament Second Advent passages like Zechariah 14 where the Lord stands upon the Mount of Olives, and Revelation 19 where He returns in judgment and triumph. This is not a secret, sudden removal of the Bride before wrath. This is the blazing manifestation of the King after tribulation.

Compare that to the Rapture passage. In 1 Thessalonians 4 believers “meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). The Lord does not come all the way down to establish His kingdom in that text. The saints go up to meet Him. It is reunion, not revelation to the world. It is comfort, not terror to the nations. It is resurrection and translation, not the visible judging of the earth. The differences are so strong that the only way to make the passages identical is to flatten everything down until all distinctions vanish.

There is also the matter of what happens next. In Matthew 24 and 25 the coming of the Son of man leads right into judgment of nations, separation of sheep and goats, and kingdom conditions on earth. In the Rapture passages, the Church is caught up, comforted, and later seen in heaven before returning with Christ. Revelation 19 shows saints coming with Him, not being gathered for the first time on the day He visibly appears. So if Matthew 24 were the Rapture, who are the glorified saints returning with Christ later? The system knots itself up because it refuses to distinguish the coming for the saints from the coming with the saints.

6. Paul Calls the Rapture a Mystery Because It Was Not the Subject of Matthew 24

This point settles more than many realize. Paul says, “Behold, I shew you a mystery” (1 Corinthians 15:51). A mystery in Pauline revelation is not something spooky. It is truth once hidden and now revealed. The Body of Christ itself is a mystery. The union of Jew and Gentile in one new man is a mystery. Christ in you, the hope of glory, is a mystery. The pre-tribulation catching away of the Body is part of that mystery program. It was not laid out in the Old Testament and it is not the subject of Matthew 24, which is dealing with kingdom prophecy already rooted in the prophets.

If Matthew 24 already plainly taught the Church’s Rapture after the Tribulation, then Paul’s presentation in 1 Corinthians 15 would not function as mystery revelation in the way he presents it. He is not merely repeating the Olivet Discourse in different words. He is disclosing truth specific to the Body of Christ. He ties it to “the dead in Christ” in 1 Thessalonians 4:16. That phrase is Church language. Tribulation saints are believers, yes, but the technical Pauline expression “in Christ” as the Body’s standing belongs to this age of grace. Matthew 24 does not use that language because Matthew 24 is not unfolding Church-body doctrine.

That is why the attempt to merge Matthew 24 and Paul always ends up diminishing the mystery character of the Church. It turns the Church into spiritual Israel, drags the Bride into Jacob’s trouble, erases the distinction between kingdom prophecy and mystery truth, and leaves believers reading every tribulation survival instruction as if it were written to them doctrinally. The result is chaos. Right division fixes it. Matthew 24 gives tribulation and Advent truth. Paul gives Church and Rapture truth. They do not contradict each other. They complete the whole picture when kept in their proper places.

7. The Right Reconciliation Is Distinction, Not Confusion

So how do we reconcile all these passages? Not by forcing them together until they say less than they were meant to say. We reconcile them by distinguishing what God distinguished. The elect can refer to Israel in one place and the Church in another because the word itself is not owned by one group in every context. Trumpets can sound for different reasons in different dispensations. Gatherings can take place at more than one stage in God’s program. Christ can come for His saints before the Tribulation and then come with His saints after the Tribulation. None of that is contradictory. It is only contradictory to the man who insists God must do everything in one undifferentiated event.

Matthew 24 is the Lord answering Jewish kingdom questions and describing the tribulation and His visible return to earth. First Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15 give the mystery of the Church’s Rapture. Revelation then shows the Church in heaven before Christ returns in judgment. The great tribulation is real. The elect in Matthew 24 are real. The trumpet in Matthew 24 is real. But none of that overturns the pre-tribulation Rapture because those passages are not describing the same event from different camera angles. They are describing different events in the prophetic calendar.

And this matters pastorally, not just academically. If you mix these passages, you rob the Church of her blessed hope. You turn “comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18) into brace yourself for Antichrist, the abomination of desolation, and the cosmic collapse first. That is not how Paul preached to the Body. He taught imminence. He taught expectancy. He taught deliverance from the wrath to come. The Church is not looking for the Beast. She is looking for Jesus Christ. Israel’s elect endure through the tribulation to see the King come to earth. The Church is caught up to meet the Bridegroom in the air before that wrath begins.

Conclusion

The answer to the question is not hard once you let the context govern the passage. Matthew 24 is not the Church’s pre-tribulation Rapture. It is the Lord Jesus Christ answering Jewish questions in a Jewish prophetic setting about the tribulation, the sign of His coming, and the end of the age. The elect in that chapter are not the Body of Christ in its mystery standing as such. They are God’s chosen people and believing saints connected with that tribulation program, with a special emphasis on Israel’s remnant. The gathering in Matthew 24 happens after the tribulation, with angels, in connection with the visible Second Advent of Christ to the earth.

The Rapture passages are different in audience, content, and tone. In 1 Thessalonians 4 the dead in Christ rise first. The living saints are caught up. They meet the Lord in the air. In 1 Corinthians 15 the event is presented as mystery truth for the Church. In both places the focus is comfort, reunion, transformation, and hope. There is no abomination of desolation, no Judea, no sabbath, no survival instructions for fleeing the mountains, and no post-tribulational kingdom regathering by angels. These are not minor details. They are the very details that tell you what event you are looking at.

So the reconciliation is simple if you are willing to rightly divide the word of truth. Do not confuse Israel with the Church. Do not confuse the Second Advent with the Rapture. Do not assume every elect is the Church, every trumpet is the same trumpet, and every gathering is the same gathering. Let Matthew say what Matthew says. Let Paul say what Paul says. Let Revelation place the Church in heaven before Christ returns with His saints. And once you do that, the fog lifts. Matthew 24 remains true, Paul remains true, and the blessed hope of the pre-tribulation Rapture stands exactly where it always stood. The only way to miss that is if a man wants to miss it.