The first three Gospels are so much alike that people accuse Matthew and Luke of borrowing heavily from Mark, who supposedly wrote His gospel first. But not so with John.  His gospel is different from all of the others.

None of the Gospel writers penned strictly historical accounts. But among them, John was least interested in preserving the chronology of events, positioning them more to contrast with one another than to keep them in their proper order. A good example is John 2 where the water into wine miracle is followed by the cleansing of the Temple. The former took place at the beginning of the Lord’s ministry while the latter happened at the very end. John placed them side-by-side to contrast the purity of the gospel Jesus taught with the corrupt practices of the religion of the day.

From all the miracles Jesus performed, John chose to include only seven in his Gospel, along with seven “I am” statements and seven discourses. Out of the Lord’s 3 ½ year ministry John focused on only 21 days, devoting 10 chapters to the last week and 1/3 of the book’s 879 verses to one day.

Each of the seven miracles in John also symbolized a greater truth and frankly, to my mind a couple of them are a little strange. The water into wine miracle is a good example. But of all the miracles Jesus performed, perhaps the strangest one is the healing at the Pool of Bethesda in Chapter 5. It was so out of character for Him. Let’s read it. (If you want to read more about all seven, click here.)

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed (and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease he had.) Note: Some manuscripts don’t have the parenthetical portion of this passage, but its inclusion makes the following clearer.

One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ “

So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. (John 5:1-15)

What’s Going On here?
A look at the anomalies will help us decode this strange miracle. For instance, usually upon encountering a group of people, Jesus healed all the sick among them, regardless of His personal plans.  You can see what I mean in Matt 4:23-24;

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them.

And Matt. 14:13-14 says;

When Jesus heard what had happened, (the death of John the Baptist) he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

But at the Pool of Bethesda, where the place was littered with the sick and handicapped and where one sweep of the Lord’s hand could have taken care of everyone, John mentioned only one man being healed.  And that one didn’t approach Him.   Jesus made the initial contact after learning something about the man. “Do you want to get well?” He asked.

Then there’s the man’s story, a real Catch 22. Because he was crippled, he couldn’t get to the Pool in time to be healed.  Someone else always got there first.  But if he could have gotten to the pool first, he wouldn’t have needed healing. He needed someone to heal him right where he was.

And he never asked Jesus to heal him. In fact he didn’t even know with whom he was speaking. The Lord said, “Pick up your mat and walk,” and without hesitation the man did just that, for the first time in 38 years.

Then there’s the fact that this happened on the Sabbath, so by carrying his mat he drew the attention of the priests who told him it was illegal. The ex-cripple said he was obeying the man who healed him but he couldn’t tell them who the man was.

Later Jesus found him again and warned him to “stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” Was that a threat?

The Story Behind The Story
With these facts in view, it appears that the healing at Bethesda is meant to convey much more than meets the eye. The first clue to what that might be comes with the fact that the man had been an invalid for 38 years. The only other time the phrase thirty-eight years appears in the Bible is in Deut. 2:14describing the length of time the Jews had spent in the wilderness where they received the Law.

This little hint tells us the cripple by the pool in his Catch 22 represented Israel in theirs. Because they were sinners, they couldn’t keep the Law to be saved. But if they could have kept the Law they wouldn’t have needed saving. They needed someone to save them just as they were.

Bethesda means House of Mercy. Like the cripple, Israel needed someone to show them mercy in their hopeless condition. The Lord showed His mercy to the cripple and offered to do the same for Israel.

Though Jesus came to the pool specifically to heal this one cripple, the man didn’t recognize his healer and didn’t know with whom he was speaking. Though Jesus came to Earth specifically to save Israel (Matt. 15:24), they didn’t recognize their Savior and didn’t know with whom they were speaking.  “If you’re the Christ,” they said, “then tell us” (Luke 22:67).  This after He had fulfilled hundreds of prophecies from their scriptures concerning His coming.

Jesus told the healed cripple to stop sinning lest something worse should happen. He couldn’t have been speaking generally because He knew that if man could stop sinning altogether, he could save himself and wouldn’t need a Savior. The Catch 22 wouldn’t exist. So He must have had a specific sin in mind.

By working to keep the Law in an effort to save themselves, the Israelites were relying on their own righteousness, a sin. The Law was never meant to be a means of salvation, but to reveal the need for a Savior (Romans 3:20). In admonishing the cripple, He was also telling Israel to stop committing the sin of self-righteousness lest something worse should happen. And because they refused, it did. In the Lord’s time on Earth Israel was subordinate to Rome but still existed as a nation. 38 years after the crucifixion Jerusalem was destroyed and soon after that Israel ceased to exist altogether.

So it looks as if this one crippled man was chosen to send a message to Israel, joining the Lord in acting out a parable.

But the Lord and the cripple were also sending a message to us. For which of us has not claimed to be our own Savior at some point in our lives? Which of us has not been proud in our self-righteousness?

Each of us is in the same Catch 22 as the cripple, helpless to save ourselves and therefore hopelessly lost. We’re destined to carry our sins to the grave unless God extends His mercy. And so meeting us right where we are, He asks us just like He asked the cripple, “Do you want to get well?”

This is the final installment of our three part series on rapture references in the Bible.  We concluded part two with Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians.  Written about 20 years after the cross, they were the first definitive teaching on the rapture given on Earth, and as we saw Paul placed it before the End Times judgments, saying the Church was not appointed to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thes. 5:9).

About three years after the Thessalonian letters Paul wrote 1 Corinthians and in chapter 15 added more detail to his rapture teaching. We’ll begin the final installment there.

What Will We Look Like?
In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul was teaching about the resurrection, responding to questions about how the dead will be raised and what we’ll look like. He used an example from agriculture to describe it. You can’t tell what a plant will look like by examining the seed.  You have to plant it and wait till it grows. When it does the plant will look different from the seed, but the farmer will recognize it as having come from the seed he planted.  He said that’s the way is is with us.  We can’t enter Heaven in our earthly state, so we have to be changed into our heavenly state.  When we are, the splendor of our heavenly body will be different from the splendor of our earthly one, but we’ll still be recognizable. Just as we can we can tell the sun from the moon and the stars from either and from each other, so it will be with us.  We’ll all be unique, recognizable individuals.

Then in 1 Cor. 15:51-53 He wrote;

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

The Greek word for mystery means secret.  By saying he was going to tell them a mystery, Paul was saying he was about to reveal a secret.  And here it is. When the Lord comes down to meet us in the air we’ll receive no advance notice.  In one instant we’ll be going about our business here on Earth and in the next we’ll be standing in the Kingdom.  It will happen so fast we won’t have time to blink our eyes.  We’ll hear the Trumpet call of God and the voice of the archangel and we’ll step out of this world into the next one. As we look around we’ll realize that multitudes of believers from the Church Age have joined us. The dead will have been given new bodies and the living will have been transformed from mortal to immortal.  Paul said we’ll know as we’re known (1 Cor. 13:12), so just as the Lord will recognize each of us, we’ll recognize each other.  And John said that what we’ll be is not yet known, but we know that when He appears we’ll be like Him (1 John 3:2) To me that means we’ll have the same capabilities that He demonstrated after His resurrection.

Don’t confuse the trumpet we’ll hear with the 7th Trumpet of Rev. 11:15.  In the first place what we’ll hear is the trumpet of God, mentioned elsewhere only in Exodus 19:13 & 19.  The 7th Trumpet is blown by an angel in Heaven, announces the beginning of the Great Tribulation, and is never called the last trumpet.

As I said, the phrase Trumpet of God only appears twice in the Bible. The first one is in Exodus 19 at Mt. Sinai and the last one is in 1 Thes. 4.  There are some incredible parallels between the giving of the Law and the Rapture of the Church.  And as you might expect there are also some big differences.  We’ll look at the similarities first.

Both are accompanied by the audible voice of God and both create a Kingdom. At Mt. Sinai the Israelites were redeemed from slavery, at the Rapture we’re redeemed from sin. They were consecrated, we’re perfected. They washed their clothes, we’re given clean clothes. God came to the Mt. top, Jesus comes to the air. At Mt. Sinai Moses and Aaron went up, at the rapture we go up. At Mt. Sinai Israel was wed to God. At the Rapture the Church is wed to Jesus. At Mt. Sinai God dwelt with Israel and at the rapture the Church will dwell with Jesus.

Since many Biblical models are necessarily incomplete, there are also some obvious differences. Only Moses and Aaron could ascend the mountain. Anyone else going up passed from life to death. At the rapture we all go up and everyone passes from death to life. God promised to dwell with Israel if they obeyed. We will dwell with Jesus because He obeyed. They changed themselves temporarily, He changes us permanently. Theirs was an event accompanied by great fear, ours is an event anticipated with great joy. After all Mt. Sinai was the presentation of God’s Law, and the Rapture is the manifestation of His grace.  God blew the First Trump in Exodus 19 in preparation for the giving of the Law, and will blow the the Last Trump in 1 Thes. 4:16 to initiate the Rapture.

Rescuing The Righteous
Abraham had reminded the Lord that His character wouldn’t allow Him to judge the righteous with the wicked.  Even though the negotiated requirement of 10 righteous men to spare Sodom and Gomorrah hadn’t been met, God instructed the angels to remove Lot before destroying the cities.   Speaking of this  Peter wrote, “if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.” (2 Peter 2:9)

Peter wanted us to see from the example of Lot that it wasn’t an isolated incident but was meant to convey a general principle.  The Greek word translated “from” in the NIV is more clearly rendered “out of” in the King James. It means away from the time and place of the event being referenced.  We see a similar idea conveyed in Isaiah 57:1

The righteous perish,  and no one ponders it in his heart;  devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.

Here the Hebrew word translated “taken away”  means to gather in, receive, or remove. God’s character is such that He can’t allow the righteous to be punished with the wicked.

The 7 Churches Of Rev. 2-3
In a previous study I’ve demonstrated how the seven churches of Rev. 2-3chronicle Church history.  I showed how the first 3 churches (Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamus) have all disappeared and the remaining 4 Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea) are all present today. Viewed in chronological order and compared to Church history these four represent the Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical and Apostate churches of today.

In Rev. 2: 22-24 the Lord warned that some from the Church in Thyatira will face the tribulation while others will be rescued and share in rewards that are uniquely reserved for true believers, which includes the rapture. The distinction will be made on the basis of their beliefs. Those who’ve remained true to the Gospel will go while those who adhere to the Catholic church’s “Jesus plus Mary, grace plus works, and Scripture plus sacraments” doctrine will not.

In the letter to Sardis, which represents the main line denominations, Jesus warned of dead orthodoxy having only the appearance of life.  “Remember what you have received and heard and obey it,” He said, “Or else you won’t know at what time I will come to you.” He was referring to the Gospel, and notice He said “to you”, not “for you”.  Many in the main line denominations don’t know they need to be born again, haven’t got a clue that we’re in the end times and have never even heard of the rapture.  As in Thyatira, he said there are a few in Sardis who have remained true.  They’ll walk with Him for they are worthy. Once again some will be taken and some left based on what they believe.

Philadelphia is often called The Church of the Rapture because of the Lord’s promise to keep us from the hour of trial that’s going to come upon the whole world (Rev. 3:10).  The Greek word translated “from” here is the same one Peter used in describing the Lord’s ability to rescue godly men from trials. Remember it means away from the time and place of the event being referenced, in this case the End Times judgments that are coming upon the whole world.   Because we’ve kept His word and not denied His name, He has promised us a place in the New Jerusalem, where only those whose names have been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life can enter (Rev. 21:27).  This is the Lord’s personal confirmation of a pre-trib rapture, which when John wrote this in about 95AD had been taught on Earth for nearly 50 years.

The “Church” at Laodicea is really an apostate movement, a spiritual rebellion. Although it has been around through out the Church Age, it’s current prominence is a sign that the End of the Age is approaching (2 Thes. 2:3) Thinking of itself as rich and self sufficient, it lacks the one thing money can’t buy, a Savior. He’s outside the door knocking, hoping someone will hear. There’s no promise to rescue the group, who will be spit out of his mouth, only to individuals who hear and respond.

Come Up Here!
At the beginning of Rev. 4, John was called forward to the End of the Age and up into Heaven to observe and report on events that were nearly 2000 years in his future.  When he arrived at the throne of God he saw a group never before seen  in any of the Bible’s pictures of God’s throne.  Isaiah didn’t see  them (Isaiah 6) Ezekiel didn’t see them (Ezekiel 1 & 10), and even Daniel, whose vision was oriented in the End Times only saw a vague hint in the form of plural thrones (Daniel 7:9).  I’m speaking of the 24 elders sitting on thrones encircling the Throne of God (Rev. 4:4)

These 24 elders confuse some people, but they shouldn’t. Their appearance gives them away. They have thrones, so they’re rulers. They surround the Throne of God, so they’re assisting Him. They’re seated, so their work is done. They’re dressed in white, so they’re righteous. They’re wearing crowns, so they’re kings. It’s the Greek “stephanos” crown so they’re victors, over comers. They’re called Elders, a title associated with the Church. That’s a pretty strong case for them representing the Church, and no one has ever come up with a better one.

Some try to explain the 24 thrones by saying that they belong to an unidentified group of ruling angels. But four prophets saw the throne of God and recorded their experience.  Of the four, only John saw them.  And note that the Church won’t receive crowns until the Bema Seat judgment that takes place after the Rapture. Is this a symbolic view of the church in Heaven before the judgments begin? It looks that way to me.

The Song Of The Redeemed
And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men (us) for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them (us) to be a kingdom(kings) and priests to serve our God, and they (we) will reign on the earth.”(Rev. 5:8-10)

This is a controversial passage and taken by itself its difficult to understand.  But even though most of the modern translations read like the one above,  both the King James Version and Young’s Literal Translation put the passage in the first person plural as I’ve indicated in parentheses.  The first person version helps supports the view that the 24 Elders represent the Church.

Also the Greek word for King and Kingdom is the same, differing only by gender.  King is the masculine form and is the one that appears in Rev. 5:10.  (Kingdom is feminine.)  So the verse is more grammatically and theologically correct when it’s translated Kings and Priests, which define the Church, rather than a kingdom and priests.  And there’s no other group that fits the description of verse 9.  Finally, the song is more consistent with the context of the passage when it’s sung by the redeemed Church, not by a third party singing about the Church. Taken together Rev. 4-5 present a good circumstantial case for the Church being present in Heaven before the wrath of God begins in Rev. 6.  As we’ve already seen, this is what the Bible has promised from the beginning.

Who’s That With The Lord?
Speaking of the anti-Christ and his 10 king confederacy Rev. 17:14 says,  “They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.”

This is an overview statement that describes the Great Tribulation, during which Satan, working through the anti-Christ, will attempt to assert his ownership claim to Planet Earth.  Rev. 17:13 says these 10 kings will have only that one purpose during the time of their reign. In Rev. 3:10 Jesus called that time the hour of trial that’s coming upon the whole world.  In Matt. 24:21 He called it the Great Tribulation.  Rev. 17:17 says that the Lord will agree to their rule in order for them to accomplish His purpose, not theirs, and that’s to destroy the Great Prostitute. Once they’re finished with her He’ll appear to personally oversee their defeat.  And guess who’ll be with Him when He returns? His called, chosen and faithful followers.  That can only be the Church, in Heaven during the Great Tribulation, and returning with Him at its end.

From Genesis to Revelation, the overwhelming weight of evidence, some circumstantial and some testimonial shows that the Lord  always intended to remove the Church from Earth before the End Times Judgments and to hide us in His Father’s house until His wrath has passed by.  Even so, come Lord Jesus.