I know you believe Jesus will come back halfway through the 7 years of trouble and we will be taken up to be with Him (Rapture) but what are the reasons you think that this will happen (half way and not before or after the 7 years)?

The Rapture – Phil’s Best Guess

Table of Contents:
Warnings
Disclaimer
The Nature of the Rapture
When will it happen? Deductions from Scripture.
Events to Watch for which mark the approach of the End.

• Covenant
• Many
• One ‘Seven”
• Covenant broken
• Abomination
• Revealed
• Restrainer Removed
• Cut Short

Deduction
Justification for this view of the timing
Warning
The Pre-Tribulation Rapture view and its Problems
The Post-Tribulation Rapture view and its Problems

Warnings
Before getting into this subject, I want to dispel two notions:
1, Some say, “We don’t need to study the End Times. What will be will be. It is not helpful for us to waste time on knowing such things.”
I say we do need to continue to teach about End Times:
Jesus warned us that even “the elect” might be deceived in those days, but said, “See I have told you in advance” (Matthew 24:24, 25)
Paul tells us to encourage one another by teaching about these things (1 Thessalonians 4:18)
He also said, “Don’t you remember, when I was with you I told you these things” (2 Thessalonians 2:5)
Hebrews says we will see that the “day” is drawing near (Hebrews 10:25)
Peter says we are to wait for and hasten the Day of the Lord by our Godly lives (1 Peter 2:5)

2. Some say, “There can only be MY view on exactly how the End Times will pan out.”
When Jesus came, many thought the messiah would be a king who would throw the Romans out.
But in the end, Jesus came as a suffering servant, to give his life to take the penalty for our sin.
We would be well advised not to repeat their error of being more dogmatic than scripture.

So, what follows is not to be taught as the last word in theological correctness.
It is “Phil’s Best Guess”, though based on Scripture, as to how some aspects of the end times might pan out.

Disclaimer:
Please note that as the End Times are one of the central features of scripture, there are quite a few scriptural themes and references which I have not included.

The Rapture – what is it?
Before getting into when the Rapture will occur, we need to refresh our knowledge as to what it is.
The first critical passage we need to know is 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18
The Thessalonians misunderstood the teachings about Jesus coming back.
They thought he was coming back straightaway.
That gave them two problems:
They had given up working.
They were frightened in case people who had died would have missed it.
Paul puts them straight:

1 Thessalonians 4 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen
asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who
are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those
who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven
with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound
of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who
are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18
Therefore encourage one another with these words.

That’s a lot of information So let’s break it down a bit
The central theme: Jesus is coming back.
He is the ‘Lord himself’, coming in the clouds.
Note that this is not a descent to the earth, that will happen sometime later, when his feet land on the Mount of Olives.

And who comes with Jesus?
Those who have fallen asleep
This means people who have died.
Paul is saying they won’t miss out.
This has sorted one of the Thessalonians’ problems.

So, what is incongruous about this picture?
Remember it is talking about dead people.
They are simultaneously coming down with Jesus and going up to Jesus. v14 & 16
NB Scripture is always written from point of view of the writer. Dead are down, heaven is up.
Because that’s how it looks!

Then Paul deals with those who haven’t died
v 17 we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them

Will “rise” – This means Stand up (from lying down)
With the added implication of ready for action

“Caught up” means to seize, grab hold of, carry away by force
This is the origin of our word Rapture, from the Latin rapio – to be seized.
Some insist the word Rapture is not in the Bible.
The English word isn’t, but the Greek is!
Harpadzo means to choose, then snatch up and carry away for yourself.
Rapio has the same meaning.

Jesus catches us up to meet him in the air
Then,
We will always be with the Lord
From then on, Jesus will be our constant companion

New Bodies
And as we meet him, and “see him as he is” we will be instantly changed, to receive new bodies which are like his body after his resurrection.

John tells us that our new bodies will look and behve like Jesus’s resurrection body
1 John 3:2 but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

Jesus explains it more. He uses the picture of an “oikia” a house, but it has many “mone”, individual places to stay. Our word “remain” comes from mone.

John 14:2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

Paul echoes Jesus’s teaching to the Corinthians and the Philippians
2 Corinthians 5 1 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Philippians 3:20 the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body,

Where did these New Testament writers get this theology from?
The Old Testament! – Yes the Old Testament says when we see him, we will get resurrection bodies like Jesus’s
Psalms 17:15 As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied -shaba: to be filled- with your likeness.

When will it happen?
Our English word “when” can mean two things
The occasion, the setting, the situation
The Chronological time by the clock and the calendar
The Greeks didn’t have that problem – They had two words to say when

When it comes to the end times – eschatology
The Bible tells us lots about the first sort of when
But very little about the second sort, the actual date

So that’s where we are right now
We know a lot about the occasion but not much about the calendar.

So let’s check out first:
When – The occasion
We’ll start with the words of Jesus:

Matthew 24:15 “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing
in the holy place (let the reader understand)…
…21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until
now, no, and never will be.

Jesus speaks about a strange thing called the Abomination of Desolation.
That will start a time Jesus calls the great tribulation. That means great trouble.

Then Jesus tells us how he knows about it – he read the book of Daniel.
Here’s what Jesus had been reading:
Daniel 9:26-27 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing.
(This is an accurate reference to the timing of Jesus’s crucifixion but that is for another subject.)
The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing [of the temple] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.’”

The first detail is: Who is the “he” the passage mentions at the beginning of v27?
Grammatically, he is the “ruler who will come” as mentioned in v26

When does he come? V26 says at the time of the end.

The Gap
BUT
The people he WILL come FROM are responsible for destroying the city and the sanctuary. That was the Romans in AD70.
Please note, it wasn’t ‘he” who destroyed the city, it was the people he would (eventually) come from.
V26 carries on by speaking of the “end”.

So though it starts with AD70, it ends with a prophecy of the last days
It’s as if there is a gap halfway through verse 26, and we are living in that gap

Why is there a gap?
There is a Bible principle that prophecy, especially Old Testament prophecy, refers to what happens to Israel; the church age is transparent.

Events to Watch for which mark the approach of the End.
The Covenant
Going back to the Ruler:
What does he do at the time of the end?
He confirms a covenant.
For our purposes we can take this to mean he oversees an agreement.
(There is more in these words than just that, but that is for another time.)

Who with?

Many.
“Many”, is Hebrew slang for the Rulers* of a large group of peoples but including Israel as one participant.
So, the Ruler confirms a covenant between many national leaders and Israel,

For how long?
One ‘Seven’

And here I have to help you with another bit of slang.
Here, a Seven is seven years.*

Covenant broken after three and a half years
Does he keep the seven year covenant he made? No, he breaks it – right in the middle
How does he break it? By putting an end to Sacrifice in the Temple.

But right now, there is no temple! And no sacrifices.
So by halfway through this seven year agreement, a Temple must have already been built
Could that have been an item in the agreement? Don’t know.

Abomination that causes desolation
What does he do then?
He sets up an “abomination that causes desolation”
.
Here’s another bit of Hebrew phraseology
Abomination that causes desolation refers to a Greek tyrant called Antiochus IV Epiphanes. He ruled Israel 200 years before Jesus.
He wanted everybody to worship his god, Zeus
He was so keen that he desecrated the temple by sacrificing pigs on the altar, set up a statue of Zeus with his own face on and demanded that everyone worship it. (A Jewish family called Maccabee drove him out and the temple was rededicated. This is remembered in the festival of Hannukah.)

Revealed
At that point the world realises he is not a saviour but a tyrant.
He is revealed for who he really is at the 3 1/2 year point.

Paul teaches us that this revealing is a marker for what will happen in the end times:
2 Thess 2:2, 3 …2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one deceive you in any
way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed.

He is “revealed” halfway through the seven years, not at the start.
The Day of the Lord cannot occur BEFORE the 3 1/2 year point.

I think the Day of the Lord can only refer to the day when the church leaves the earth in the Rapture.
But this CANNOT happen BEFORE the “great peacemaker” is revealed to be a world tyrant.
This will be when he breaks the covenant and sets himself up in the Temple, demanding the world worship him.

The Restrainer removed
What has possessed him to start acting in this way when he has previously been seen as a great benefactor to the human race?
To explain that, we have to look a few verses later in 2 Thess

2 Thess 2:6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed,

It is God’s Holy Spirit who is restraining the “Mystery of Lawlessness” in the world now, and right up to the end of the first three and a half years of the seven year covenant.

But this passage says at some point the Holy Spirit is ‘taken out of the way’.
This links with the disappearance of the church in the Rapture.
Although the Holy Spirit, as God, is omnipresent, yet in a special way, he dwells in his people.
It is largely through his people that he exercises a godly influence on the world.
When this restraint of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the saints is removed from the Man of Lawlessness, he breaks with his previous apparent benevolence and is “revealed” as a tyrant.

Cut short
We now need to study some information from Jesus’s words:
Matthew 24:21-22 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. 22 And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

The days of tribulation will be “cut short” for the elect
What does cut short mean? Whatever it is, it tells us that the elect will not be on the earth for the full seven years

How long are the saints under the thumb of the Ruler? Daniel tells us.
Daniel 7:25 He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.

Here’s another piece of Hebrew slang: a “time” is a year. and the plural means two years unless the exact number is stated.
So a time, times, and half a time means the saints are given into the hand of the Man of Lawlessness for three and a half years.

Which three and a half years, the first half of the seven, or the last half?
well if it were the last half, the days would not have been “cut short”.

The deduction:
Putting all this together:
The Rapture will occur at the mid-point of the Tribulation, three and a half years after the Man of Lawlessness confirms a Covenant with “Many”.

The people of God, with new, physical resurrection bodies, take part in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. He is the Bridegroom, they are his perfect Bride.
This lasts for three and a half years.

After this, Jesus descends to earth, riding on a white Horse.
He captures the Beast and False Prophet and puts an end to their kingdom.
His feet land on the Mount of Olives, which splits.
He goes through the Eastern Gate (the Golden Gate) of the Temple Mount.
By miraculous means he replaces all existing structures on the Temple Mount with a new temple, with a throne room in the Holy of Holies.
He takes his seat on the throne.
He rules over the earth for a thousand years, with his saints,
(For this period, “The Millennium”, and subsequent events, see other answers.)

Justification for this view of the timing
The Rapture cannot happen until the Man of Lawlessness is revealed, three and a half years after the Covenant.
It also cannot happen later than this, as the saints are only in his hand for three and a half years, and because their suffering is cut short, this three and a half years has to be the first half of the Tribulation.
Near the time, God will tell those who are watching and listening exactly when is the day, and maybe the hour, of the Rapture. (As he did in the days of Noah.)

See also, below: Problems with the Pre- and Post-Tribulation views, which leave the Mid Tribulation Rapture as the only sensible deduction.

A warning
In the first 3 1/2 years the saints are ‘given into the hand’ of this ruler. He will persecute the saints even before he reveals himself as a tyrant.
So the ‘great peacemaker’ who the world adores will be persecuting God’s people. And the world will not only allow him, but they will approve of what he does.

So we can deduce that the Rapture will rescue the church from tribulation.
But after they have gone, at the 3 1/2 year mark, everything gets even worse.
Jesus calls the second half of the Tribulation the ‘Great’ Tribulation

Matthew 24 15 “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand)…
…21 For then there will be great tribulation…

Why? Who does it get worse for?
The saints have already gone.
But the Jews haven’t.

There will also be those who were not believers at the time of the Rapure, who were left behind on earth, but who then repent and turn to God. These could be the “saints” who are persecuted by the antichrist in what seems to be the second half of the tribulation. Rev 13:5-7

Right now, (October 2025) there is speculation about whether Donald Trump could be the coming Antichrist.
This has been heightened by his recent successful call to many nations to make a Middle East Peace Agreement.

My view at this point is that there are several requirements which are missing:
– There has been no mention of Seven years
– The agreement had no reference to a Jewish Temple
And love him or not, Trump does not have several essential features of the Antichrist.
– He will be insignificant at first. Daniel 7:8
– He will rise to great power, not by his own strength, but he will be put in power by external force. Daniel 8:24
– Only a small number of people will bring about his rise to power. Daniel 11:23
– He will be attacked, apparently fatally, but miraculously recovers, which will astonish the whole world. Revelation 13:3

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The Pre-Tribulation Rapture view.

Those who say the Rapture will come before the Tribulation rely on the “thief in night” scriptures.
This comes from these words of Jesus:
Matthew 24:42-44 42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Luke 12:35-40 35 “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, 36 and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. 38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! 39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Jesus said he didn’t know when the day or the hour would be.
Matthew 24:36-39 36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
“PreTribbers” say If Jesus doesn’t know, what makes you think you can know?

And Jesus told the disciples it was not for them to know
Acts 1:6-7 6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.

Problems with this Pre-Tribulation Rapture view:
1. It tempts us to ignore many parts of scripture which teach on End Times.
The reasoning goes like this:
If the Rapture is the first event of the Tribulation (as it must be if you are not to know of it in advance), then we can safely neglect it.
It will happen anyway, out of the blue, we don’t need to teach on it.

But Jesus and Paul did teach on it:
Jesus: Matthew 24:24-25 24 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand.
Paul: 2 Thessalonians 2:3-5 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?

2. We will be aware of the approach of the end times.
Just after Jesus has said the disciples were not to know, he goes on…
Acts 1:7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority…

Then he says we will receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming UPON us.
Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

3. The Fig Tree
When he was on earth, Jesus told his disciples that only the Father knew the exact date and time of the End.
Matthew 24:36-39 36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

BUT both before and after that passage, he teaches that Godly people ought to know the times.

Matthew 24:32-33 32 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates.

This is not about knowing the time on the clock, or the date on the calendar, but Jesus still expects us to read the signs of the times which say clearly that his arrival is imminent. Those who are approaching the last days WILL BE expected to know this!

The fig tree is a symbol of the nation of Israel. For centuries it seemed as if it was dead, but within the last few decades, it has been replanted and has sprung into life. The lesson for our times could not be clearer! When we see these things, we know that he is near!

4. The days of Noah
Matthew 24:36-39 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Jesus said that the days of Noah and the days of his return would share similar features.
In Noah’s day most people were unaware that anything was going to happen.

Actually, it was worse than that.
They knew that Noah was building an ark.
Likely, they also knew why he was building it (a flood was coming, or so he said).
So they were deliberately ignoring Noah’s plain message of imminent judgement on the earth. – Like people are today.

But Noah wasn’t unaware! He and his whole family got a week’s notice of when the rains would start.
Genesis 7:4-5 4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” 5 And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.

So the ungodly were caught, “like a thief in the night”, but Noah, who was listening to God, knew the actual day when the flood would begin.

Noote that he didn’t know beforehand when God would tell him to go in the ark.
He had to trust God that it would happen in the right time.
Then God said it would be seven days. Genesis 7:4
And Jesus implies that like Noah, we will be told beforehand.

Note that Noah could also tell when the rains WOULDN’T start. It was when the ark hadn’t been finished! Easy! But that also means that as soon as the ark was finished, it could be any time.

We also have various prophetic words which have to be fulfilled before the end time scenes start to play out. But there are now very few of them left, and they could be regarded as fulfilled very soon.

One main example is that the Gospel must first be preached to all nations, Matt 24:14, but the rise of the Internet in the past three decades has put us on the cusp of imminently fulfilling this requirement. Also remember Revelation 14:6,
Then I saw another angel flying overhead, with the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.

Another major requirement is that Israel must be a sovereign nation, able to participate in its own right in covenant negotiations with other nations. This came to pass on May 15 1948.

Other requirements include the rise of technology to prevent people buying or selling if they will not go along with the Antichrist’s rule. This requires features such as digital IDs and internet control of financial systems. This is already available.

5. The thief in the night by Paul
Paul reminds us of Jesus’s teaching about his coming like a thief in the night.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-3 1 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

The idea is that a thief comes when you don’t expect him.
If you expected him, he wouldn’t be a successful thief.
This has the same hallmarks as Noah’s flood. People will be taken by surprise.

Therefore, goes the thinking, Jesus and the Rapture must appear as the first event of the tribulation, or else you’d be able to work out when he will come. Then it wouldn’t be a surprise.
There is a severe problem with this, which is explained by reading the next words Paul wrote.

1 Thessalonians 5:4-5 4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

We don’t belong to the group for whom it is a surprise.
Paul says that we are not in darkness, like those he has just been talking about, we have the light of God in our lives. Pul expects us to see what will come to pass, not be surprised by it.

6. Jesus taught his disciples that the Holy Spirit WILL reveal ALL they need to know.
John 16:13 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

7. God does nothing without revealing it to his prophets
Amos 3:3-7 3 “Do two walk together,
unless they have agreed to meet?
4 Does a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey?
Does a young lion cry out from his den, if he has taken nothing?
5 Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth, when there is no trap for it?
Does a snare spring up from the ground, when it has taken nothing?
6 Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid?
Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?
7 “For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.

Amos tells us that there are harbingers, signs, precursors to many events
An agreement precedes a meeting.
A lion roaring is the sign that he has prey.
A bird, caught, shows that a snare has been set.
A snare trips, only when it has taken something.
A trumpet is blown in a city causing people to be afraid.
Disaster strikes a city: The Lord has done it.

Then it says the Lord shows HIS prophets, in advance, what he intends to do.
The prophet is shown the precursor and knows what event will follow.

Note that the revelation only comes to his servants the prophets.
Many so-called prophets are self appointed, they are not servants of God, they serve themselves and their own ambitions.

But HIS prophets will know all his acts, in advance.

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The Post-Tribulation Rapture view

This holds that:
-The church goes through the whole Tribulation period; they are not removed from it.
-There is not a separate Rapture event, the raising of the saints and the Second Coming (to earth) of Jesus are part of the same event.
-In Matthew 24:29-31, the “tribulation” means the whole seven years. The gathering of the elect follows this.

Problems with the Post-Tribulation Rapture view
1. In what way, then, is the tribulation “cut short” for the sake of the elect? Matthew 24:22

2. How is the church given over to the Antichrist for a time, times and half a time? Daniel 7:25

3. Matthew 24:29 could just as easily refer to the first 3 1/2 years, during which the church will be persecuted. The signs in the sky would accompany Jesus’s descent in the clouds, as they do here.

4. In Rev 19:6-21 The Marriage Supper of the Lamb precedes the coming to earth of the the Rider on the White Horse.
This Rider then brings an end to the tribulation period.
He comes to make war on the Beast and the False Prophet (Revelation 19:20). He doesn’t come to gather his elect. This must have happened earlier.
If the elect are not gathered until after the Rider comes, then who attends the Marriage Feast?

5. On the Post-Trib view, the following actions have to happen simultaneously. This is improbable:
-Jesus descends in the clouds accompanied by the souls of the saints, the dead in Christ. They rise from the earth and receive resurrection bodies. Those left alive rise as well, and receive resurrection bodies. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
-The Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Rev 19:9
-Jesus comes riding on a white horse and makes war with the antichrist’s forces of evil. Rev 19:11-20
-The saints come onto the earth for the start of the Millennial reign. Rev 20:4
-Jesus descends to the earth, onto the Mount of Olives, all his holy ones with him.. Acts 1:11, Zechariah 14:3-5