THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Gospel according to Luke
Message Five—The Rapture of the Overcomers
Scripture Reading: Luke 9:23-25; 14:26-35; 17:26-36; 21:34-36
I. If we want to save our soul-life, we will lose it, but if we lose our soul-life for the Lord’s sake, we will save it— Matt. 10:39; Luke 9:23-25; 14:26-35:
A. In 9:23-25 the Lord Jesus taught the disciples to take up their cross and follow Him by denying their soul-life:
1. To save the soul-life is to allow the soul to have its enjoyment and to escape suffering; to lose the soul-life is to cause the soul to lose its enjoyment and thereby to suffer—Matt. 16:25.
2. To lose the soul-life is to lose the enjoyment of the soul, and to save the soul-life means to preserve the soul in its enjoyment—Mark 8:35.
3. To deny the self is to reject the soul’s desire, preference, and choice—Luke 9:23.
4. We must deny our soul, our soulish life, with all its pleasures in this age, so that we may gain it in the enjoyment of the Lord in the coming age—1 Pet. 1:9.
5. If we allow our soul to suffer the loss of its enjoyment in this age for the Lord’s sake, we will cause our soul to have its enjoyment in the kingdom age; we will share the Lord’s joy in ruling over the earth—Matt. 25:21, 23.
B. In Luke 14:26-35 the Lord teaches us to be absolute in following Him and to hate everything, even our own soul-life, that distracts, hinders, and frustrates us from following Him faithfully:
1. As the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13), the believers’ taste depends on their renouncing of the earthly things—Luke 14:33-34.
2. Believers may lose their taste—their function in the kingdom of God—by not being willing to renounce all the things of the present life—v. 34.
3. If the believers lose their taste, their function, they will be f it neither for the land, signifying the church as God’s farm (1 Cor. 3:9), which issues in the coming kingdom (Rev. 11:15), nor for the manure pile, signifying hell, the filthy place in the universe (21:8); having been saved from eternal perdition but being unfit for the coming kingdom, they will be thrown out from the glory of the kingdom in the millennium and be put aside for discipline—Luke 14:35.
II. If we lose our soul-life, we may participate in the rapture of the overcomers—17:26-36; 21:34-36:
A. In order to participate in the rapture of the overcomers that we may enjoy the Lord’s parousia (presence, coming) and escape the great tribulation, we must overcome the stupefying effect of man’s living today—17:26-30:
1. The conditions of evil living that stupefied the generation of Noah before the deluge and the generation of Lot before the destruction of Sodom portray the perilous condition of man’s living before the Lord’s parousia and the great tribulation—Matt. 24:3, 21.
2. As followers of the Lord Jesus, we need to overcome the stupefying effect of the world’s indulgent living by losing our soul-life in this age—Luke 17:31-33.
B. Preserving the soul-life is related to lingering in the earthly and material things—vv. 31, 33:
1. We linger in the earthly things because we care for our soul’s enjoyment in the present age—cf. 2 Tim. 4:10.
2. Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt because she took a lingering look backward at Sodom, indicating that she loved and treasured the evil world that God was going to judge and utterly destroy—Luke 17:32:
a. She was rescued from Sodom, but she did not reach the safe place that Lot reached—Gen. 19:15-30.
b. Although she did not perish, she was not fully saved, but, like the salt that becomes tasteless (Luke 14:34-35), she was left in a place of shame; this is a solemn warning to the world-loving believers—1 John 2:15-17.
3. Lingering in the earthly things for the sake of our soul’s enjoyment will cause us to lose our soul; that is, our soul will suffer the loss of its enjoyment in the coming kingdom age—Luke 17:33.
C. Luke 17:31-36 speaks of our reaction to the rapture call:
1. These verses depict the soul-life in its engagement not with sinful things but with the things of earth; the Lord’s charge here is related to the believers’ overcoming in their practical life—vv. 34-36.
2. Whether or not the living believers participate in the rapture of the overcomers depends on their reaction to the call to go; the rapture will occur secretly and unexpectedly—v. 31:
a. This call will not produce a miraculous lastminute change in us that has no relation to our previous life with the Lord.
b. In that moment we will discover our heart’s real treasure; if this treasure is the Lord Himself, there will be no backward look—v. 32.
3. Certain ones are taken because they have overcome the stupefying effect of self-indulgent living in this age to be raptured into the enjoyment of the Lord’s parousia—vv. 26-30, 34-36.
D. In 21:34-36 the Lord Jesus warns us to take heed to ourselves and to be watchful at every time, beseeching that we would “prevail to escape all these things which are about to happen and stand before the Son of Man”:
1. Prevail here means to have strength and ability; the strength and ability to escape the great tribulation come from watching and beseeching—v. 36.
2. Escape refers to being raptured before the great tribulation— Matt. 24:21.
3. All these things which are about to happen are all the things of the great tribulation.
4. Stand before the Son of Man corresponds with standing in Revelation 14:1, indicating that the raptured overcomers will stand before the Savior on Mount Zion in the heavens before the great tribulation.
Ministry Excerpts:
NOT ALL BELIEVERS RAPTURED AT ONCE
In 17:34-36 we see that some who are sleeping will be raptured in the night, and some sisters grinding and some brothers farming will be raptured in the day. Here we see that the rapture will involve saints who are in different places at different times. When the rapture takes place, some will be raptured in the night, and others will be raptured in the day, depending on where they live on earth. Perhaps the saints in the Far East will be raptured in the night, and the saints in the West will be raptured in the day.
In these verses we see that not all those who are sleeping, grinding, or farming will be raptured. This indicates that not all the believers will be raptured at once. The Lord says that two will be on one couch, and one will be taken and the other will be left. The same will be true of two grinding at the same place and of two laboring in the field. In each case, the one who is left may not know the whereabouts of the one who has been taken. This is the rapture of the watchful believers.
Certain fundamental teachers of the Bible do not believe in the rapture of the overcomers as distinct from the general rapture of all believers. In other words, they do not believe in what has been called the “partial rapture.” These fundamental teachers believe only in what is mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 4. They do not believe that Matthew 24 and Luke 17 speak of the rapture of the watchful, overcoming believers. However, as we consider these chapters, we realize that the only way to interpret such portions is to regard them as speaking of the rapture of the overcoming believers.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD BEING A LIVING PERSON
We need to understand 17:21-37 in light of the question asked by the Pharisees in verse 20. The Pharisees asked the Lord as to when the kingdom of God comes, and His answer is given in all the following verses. His answer includes all that is covered in verses 20b through 37. In His answer the Lord indicates that the kingdom of God is actually He Himself in His first coming, in His suffering, in His second coming, and in His overcomers’ rapture. In all these He is within us as the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is not an organization or a material realm. Rather, the kingdom of God is the Son of God as life sown into the believers to grow and develop into a spiritual realm where God rules in life. Hence, the kingdom of God is a living Person. This living Person is the kingdom of God in His first coming and in His suffering, and He will also be the kingdom in His second coming and in the rapture of His overcoming believers. In each of these instances, this living Person is the kingdom of God.
I can testify that I have been considering this portion of the Gospel of Luke for over half a century. Again and again I would come to this portion, study it, and research it, looking for the proper interpretation. After studying the four Gospels thoroughly over and over, I have been brought to a certain conclusion concerning the kingdom of God as revealed here, a conclusion which I believe is correct.
Luke 17:20-37 reveals that the kingdom of God is the Son of God as the seed of life sown into God’s chosen people to grow and develop in them into a spiritual realm where God reigns and rules in His divine life. This kingdom of God is actually a living Person. When He comes, the kingdom of God comes. The kingdom came in the Lord’s first coming and in His suffering, and it will come in His second coming, in His overcoming saints’ rapture, and, as we shall now see, in His destroying of the Antichrist.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ANTICHRIST
Luke 17:37 says, “And answering, they say to Him, Where, Lord? And He said to them, Where the body is, there also will the vultures be gathered together.” Literally, the word “body” here signifies a corpse. This is a most mysterious verse, and I have been puzzled by it for more than fifty years. Eventually, after careful study of the Bible and the writings of others, I have concluded that this verse is concerned with the Lord’s destroying of the Antichrist.
Antichrist will be the cause of the great tribulation. Thus, it is he who will need to be judged and destroyed. As all people in Adam are dead (1 Cor. 15:22), so the evil Antichrist with his evil armies, who will war against the Lord at Armageddon (Rev. 19:17-21), is in the eyes of the Lord a foul corpse, good for the appetite of the vultures. And as in the Scriptures both the Lord and those who trust in Him are likened to an eagle (Exo. 19:4; Deut. 32:11; Isa. 40:31), and the swift destroying armies are also likened to flying eagles (Deut. 28:49; Hosea 8:1 NASB), so the vultures here, raptorials of the eagle kind, must refer to Christ and the overcomers, who will come as a swift flying army to war against Antichrist and his armies and destroy them, thus executing God’s judgment upon them at Armageddon. This indicates not only that at His appearing to the earth Christ with His overcoming saints will be where Antichrist is with his armies, but also that Christ with the overcomers will appear swiftly from the air like vultures. This corresponds to the lightning’s flash in Luke 17:24.
Now we have the full answer of the Lord to the question asked by the Pharisees regarding the coming of the kingdom of God. The answer is that when the Son of God came the first time, the kingdom came with Him, and when He went to the cross, the kingdom went with Him. Furthermore, when He comes back, the kingdom will come back with Him. When His overcoming saints are raptured, the kingdom of God will be there. Finally, when Antichrist will be defeated by the coming Christ, the kingdom of God will be there as well. From all this we see that the kingdom of God is actually the living Person of the Man-Savior. Because He is the kingdom of God, wherever He is, the kingdom of God is there. Whenever He appears, He appears as the kingdom of God.
A SUMMARY
Let us now briefly summarize chapter seventeen as a whole. In this chapter the Lord teaches us not to stumble others, to be always ready and willing to forgive when we are offended, to exercise faith in our sovereign God, and to consider ourselves unprofitable slaves. If we do these things, we shall be kept in a high standard of morality. As those with such a high standard of morality, we shall not stumble others nor be offended by them. Because we have faith in God, we shall not complain. Furthermore, instead of considering ourselves great, useful, and profitable to God and others, we shall humble ourselves and say that we are unprofitable slaves. In addition, we shall realize how merciful the Savior is. When ten lepers came to Him, He did not exercise any choice, selection, or preference, but healed them all.
In this chapter we also see that when the Pharisees troubled the Lord with a difficult question concerning the kingdom of God, He indicated in His answer that the kingdom of God is actually a living Person, the Man-Savior Himself. The spiritual reality of this Person who is the kingdom of God is not observable to physical eyes. Hence, the kingdom of God does not come with observation. In order to see the spiritual reality of the kingdom of God, we need spiritual perception. As the living Person of the Lord Himself, the kingdom of God appeared in His first coming and in His suffering, and it will appear in His second coming, in the rapture of His overcoming believers, and in His destruction of Antichrist and his army. (Life-Study of the Gospel of Luke, msg. 39)