Jesus warned that one of the major signs of the end times will be rampant deception (Matthew 24:4-5).
Even the New Testament reveals that the first Apostles had to quickly start warning their congregations about false teachers and false prophets who were creeping into the church and who would mislead people in various ways (2 Peter 2:1, 2 John 7-11). One of the most notable deceptions back then was the lie that Christians had to follow the Old Testament laws in order to be saved (Galatians 5:2-4).
Unfortunately, even in our time, nearly two-thousand years later, nothing has changed. The creation of the Internet has, however, made it far easier for people to deceive others, as false information can now be created and spread just by a click of a button. Due to the increasing popularity of AI tools, now even photos and videos are no longer trustworthy.
During the coming seven-year Tribulation, the Antichrist will be a master of deception (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). With the help of the False Prophet’s fake miracles (Revelation 13:12-14), the Antichrist will be able to convince almost the whole world of the lie that he actually is God when he will appear to come back to life after suffering a deadly wound (Revelation 13:3-4, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). As a result, most people alive at that time will worship the Antichrist (Revelation 13:8, 2 Thessalonians 2:11), except for the ‘elect’ Tribulation saints who will know better (Matthew 24:24).
However, I believe that deceptions of various sorts will begin to occur very early on in the Tribulation. I’ve written in the past here on Rapture Ready about how it is likely that the world’s governments will explain away the Rapture as being a mass alien abduction. For secular people, this lie will likely be quite persuasive.
But for those who will be left behind who believed they were Christians, yet who had never actually trusted in Jesus Christ’s promise that he would freely give eternal life to all who believe in him (John 3:16, 5:24, 6:40, Romans 3:21-28), I think there will be another, more subtle deception which may be far more effective.
This deception will not be primarily carried out by the Antichrist, or even by his False Prophet. Instead, this deception will likely be carried out by all of the semi-theologically-informed Christians-in-name-only who will be left behind after the Rapture. This group will likely include even some current pastors, theologians, and Bible teachers whose credentials will make their deception that much more convincing.
And what will that deception be?
It’s called the partial-rapture theory. This theory teaches that only some true Christians will be raptured, while other true Christians will be left behind to go through the Tribulation.
Typically, the partial-rapture theory claims that only those Christians who were living holy enough lives will be raptured, while the other, less-holy Christians will have to stay behind and suffer in the Tribulation in order to be spiritually refined. These left-behind Christians will supposedly have to prove the sincerity of their faith through rejecting the Mark of the Beast or being beheaded for not worshiping the Image of the Beast.
I believe this partial-rapture theory will be far more dangerous than the alien abduction lie because it will target the left-behind people who already had been deceived into believing they were Christians but actually were not. These people will have mistakenly thought they were Christians because they:
– Went to church every Sunday, or at least, at Christmas and Easter.
– Were water baptized or participated in the Lord’s Supper/Communion/the Eucharist.
– Went through the Catholic rituals of First Communion or Confirmation.
– Went to Sunday School as a child.
– Read the Bible.
– Graduated from Bible college.
– Worked as pastors, or even as seminary professors.
– Were ‘good’ people.
– Had Christian parents or grandparents.
Or basically, anything else that might be used to identify a Christian other than having personally put one’s faith in Jesus Christ alone as his or her Savior.
Sadly, the partial-rapture theory will deceive these sorts of left-behind ‘Christians’ by telling them that they really were true Christians but, for whatever reason, they did not qualify to go to heaven in the Rapture. Yet what these people will actually need after the Rapture happens is to be woken up to the reality that they had never truly believed in Jesus, and that this is the reason they were left behind.
It will turn out that what these people actually believed in was themselves: their performance, their church participation, their good works, their own religiosity, or their own attempts to avoid sin. They believed that, by doing these things, they could please God enough to earn their way into heaven. Like all religious legalists, these sorts of left-behind ‘Christians’ will call Jesus ‘Lord’; but if they persist in their self-righteous beliefs, Jesus will one day tell them “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:22-23).
When these ‘Christians’ crowd into churches in the days after the Rapture, their left-behind pastors will reassure them that they are still saved. Instead of pointing them to the true gospel message of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone, these unsaved pastors will push these already-deceived people back onto trusting in their own works yet again, by telling them that now they have to buckle up and get ready to endure through the Tribulation.
Thus, it may be true yet again that during the Tribulation, just as it was in Jesus’ time, it will be the religious people who will actually be the hardest to reach with the gospel message, rather than those who recognize that they are sinners who need God’s forgiveness (Matthew 21:31-32). Some of these left-behind ‘Christians’ may even be told that they can earn their salvation by courageously facing death via the Antichrist’s guillotines (Revelation 13:15, 20:4). Sadly, they will end up being just as eternally lost as those who will rush to take the Antichrist’s Mark of the Beast in order to be able to buy and sell (Revelation 13:16-18, 14:9-11).
Unfortunately, unlike the alien abduction lie, this partial-rapture theory deception does not even have to wait for the Rapture to happen in order for it to be accepted by either the prideful self-righteous legalists or the uninformed true Christians who have not properly searched the Scriptures for themselves (Acts 17:11).
From the many hours I’ve spent watching a number of end-times channels on YouTube over the past few months, I’ve been surprised and dismayed by how popular the partial-rapture theory has become. Dozens upon dozens of YouTube false preachers passionately warn their audiences to repent from all their sins in order to be ready for the Rapture, and warn that ‘lukewarm’, ‘carnal’, or ‘backslidden’ Christians will be left behind. Some of these false prophets even talk about having received dreams or visions from God that supposedly support this false teaching.
Typically, these false preachers have their favorite lists of sins which they threaten their audience with by claiming that any true Christian who has not overcome these particular ‘sins’ before the Rapture happens will be left behind. Some examples include being addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs, watching pornography, gambling, participating in sexually immoral relationships, enjoying horror movies or secular music, being divorced, not reading the Bible enough, not praying daily, and on and on.
The effect of this sort of preaching is the exact opposite of what the teaching of the Rapture should actually produce in Christians. Instead of encouragement and hope (1 Thessalonians 4:18, 1 Peter 1:13), the partial-rapture theory generates anxiety and fear. These feelings are not from God (1 John 4:18, 2 Timothy 1:7, Romans 8:15).
Instead of pointing people to put their faith in Christ as the One who has already paid for all their sins, past, present, and future, and who has given Christians his own perfect righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Corinthians 1:30-31), the partial-rapture theory points people back to themselves and their own efforts to overcome sin. If the partial rapture theory were true, some Christians could indeed boast about being saved from the Tribulation by their own righteousness, rather than only by their faith in Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Corinthians 1:31).
We must remember that all Christians continue to struggle with the sin that still lives in our flesh and causes us to do things we do not truly want to do (Romans 7:15-25). The Apostle John warns that if we think we have become so perfect that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves (1 John 1:8, 1:10). After all, no one except Jesus has ever been totally righteous (Romans 3:10), and all our good works are like filthy rags in comparison to God’s perfect righteousness (Isaiah 64:6). God’s standards are so high that breaking a single one of his laws is equivalent to breaking them all (James 2:10). Even our sinful thoughts are seen by God as the same as actually sinning (Matthew 5:28).
Thus, when we honestly look at our lives, no Christian can ever say that we have done enough or are holy enough or have overcome enough sin to feel sure that we are truly saved. This is why assurance of our salvation comes only through trusting the promise that the very first moment we believed the gospel message that Jesus Christ died for our sins so that we could have eternal life (John 3:16), we were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our bodily redemption (Ephesians 1:13-14), which will happen at the day of the Rapture (Ephesians 4:30, Luke 21:28, Romans 8:23, 1 Corinthians 15:50-53, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17).
Therefore, these few verses cited above have already disproven the idea that Christians have to meet some undefined level of personal holiness in order to be included in the Rapture. But there are even more ways to refute the false partial-rapture theory.
Perhaps the clearest verse that proves that all true Christians will be raptured is in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52: “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (ESV).
See how Paul clearly says, “we shall all be changed.” He doesn’t provide any list of sins that must be avoided in order for someone to be qualified for the Rapture. In fact, Paul does not warn at all that some Christians who are alive at the Rapture will not be included in this event due to them not meeting some undefined and arbitrary level of personal ‘holiness.’
Furthermore, to be consistent, those false teachers who endorse the partial-rapture theory should also say that only some deceased Christians will be included in the Rapture, since it is obvious that not every Christian in the past lived a perfectly holy life, either. So why should they say that all the dead in Christ be included in the Rapture, if only some living Christians will be included? Presumably, it is because these false teachers cannot threaten the dead in Christ or build themselves up by tearing the dead in Christ down, as they do with the living Christians in their audiences.
Instead of trying to be holy enough through our own efforts to overcome sin and follow God’s law (Galatians 3:2-6), Christians can trust that the good work that Christ began in us the day we first believed will be completed at the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6), which is the Rapture. It will be then that our bodies will be transformed so that we will be delivered from our inherited sinful nature that plagues us in this life (Romans 7:24, 1 Corinthians 15:53-57).
I have heard partial-rapture teachers cite Revelation 19:7-8 in order to claim that Jesus is only returning for a ‘spotless’ Bride. Thus, they claim that some true Christians who are alive today will still have to ‘wash their robes’ by being martyred in the Tribulation (Revelation 7:13-14). But the false teachers forget that the only reason God sees any Christian as spotless is because Christians are clothed with Christ’s pure righteousness, which is received through faith (Romans 3:21-22, Galatians 3:27, Philippians 3:9).
Thus, refuting the partial-rapture theory is just an extension of refuting the false gospel message that Christians must do enough good works to be eternally saved, rather than receiving salvation as a free gift through faith in Jesus Christ alone (Romans 6:23, 3:26, 4:5). I do not have space here to properly explain every verse that false teachers twist to try to teach salvation by works (2 Peter 3:16), so I will end by offering only one more solid proof that all true Christians will be taken at the Rapture.
At the Rapture, Jesus will be coming back for his bride, the true Church, which is also the body of Christ, comprised of all true Christians (Ephesians 5:23-32, 4:4-6, 1 Corinthians 12:12-14). Jesus promised that the gates of death and hell will not overcome the Church (Matthew 16:18). But the partial-rapture theory tears apart Christ’s body, his bride, and wrongly claims that Jesus will leave part of his true Church behind to be ravaged by the Antichrist who will make war against the Tribulation saints and conquer them (Revelation 13:7).
So because Jesus said that the Church will not be conquered by death and hell but the Tribulation saints largely will, this proves that the group of Christians who make up the Church are not the same group as the many millions of new believers who will only come to faith after the Rapture happens, who will become the Tribulation saints (Revelation 6:9-11, 7:9-10).
Christians today should feel reassured that God’s wrath, which he will pour out on the world during the Tribulation, is only meant for unbelievers (John 3:36). After all, the purpose of the Tribulation is not to refine the Church but to finish the last seven years God promised to Israel (Daniel 9:24-27) to bring the Jews to the point of realizing that Jesus is their true Messiah (Matthew 23:39, Zechariah 12:10, 13:8-9). It will also give everyone who until then had not believed in Jesus additional chances to do so.
Thus, true Christians today can be confident that Jesus will rescue us from God’s wrath that is to come upon the world during the Tribulation (1 Thessalonians 1:10, 5:9-11, Romans 5:9). There is no condemnation left for anyone who has put his or her faith in Jesus (Romans 8:1). Raptured Christians will be safe during the Tribulation and will dwell in the rooms/mansions that Jesus has been preparing for us in his Father’s house (John 14:2-3, Isaiah 26:19-21). Thus, everyone who truly believes in Jesus before the Rapture will be kept out of the entire time of the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10).
I hope this article can reassure any Christian who has been threatened with being left behind due to their sins that the partial-rapture theory is not a biblical teaching. Of course, it is true that there are still many good reasons that Christians should work on overcoming sin with the Holy Spirit’s help. Therefore, it is not the case that saying that all true Christians will be taken to heaven in the Rapture somehow undermines the value of sanctification.
Therefore, I hope that more end-times watchers will speak out about this false doctrine, which is, in essence, a false gospel message, and clearly refute it. This is important for Christians today so that they can have assurance that they are truly saved and will be included in the Rapture.
But perhaps even more importantly, the partial-rapture theory must be refuted in order that the current Christians-in-name-only who have never believed the true gospel message will not be deceived after the Rapture about their need to truly put their faith in Jesus Christ for the first time.
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If you are interested in reading an easy-to-understand introduction to what the Bible teaches about the end times and the gospel, check out Arden’s book, A Detailed Biblical Introduction To The End Times: The Pre-Tribulation Rapture, Seven-Year Tribulation, and Pre-Millennial Return of Jesus Christ.
Links to Arden Kierce’s books and other writings can be found at ardenkierce.com .