Vision for Mission: Nurturing an Apostolic Heart

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Vi s i on for Mi s s i on: Nur tur i ng an Apos to l i c Hear t

1 John 3.3 – And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

C. The Rapture and the Resurrection

1. The Second Advent and the Rapture: three marks of the Rapture, 1 Thess. 4.13-18

a. Mark one: the descent of Christ at the cry of command to wake the dead

b. Mark two: the dead in Christ will rise first

Phil. 1.23; 2 Cor. 5.8

c. Mark three: the living saints are caught up together with them in the clouds to “meet the Lord in the air”

(1) “Rapture” from the Latin rapiemur “we shall be caught up”

(2) The privilege of the living saints: passing from mortality to immortality without passing through death

2. The resurrection body, 1 Cor. 15.35-58

a. Different from the mortal body (as the wheat is different from the seed): the choice of God

b. The heritage of the saints: a resurrection body that is imperishable, glorious, and powerful, the “spiritual” body

c. “Like Big Brother’s”: conformed to the image of Christ’s glorious resurrection body