The Rapture described in the Old Testament

You may have heard the saying “The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.”  Since the Rapture is revealed in the New Testament, we may expect to find it concealed in the Old Testament.

Indeed there are OT passages that that describe the catching up of believers at the end of the age. Let’s compare the NT with the OT to see.

In the New Testament Jesus described His coming and our being gathered this way,

At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other (Matthew 24:30-31).

Psalm 50 describes the vision of the coming Lord and God's chosen being gathered this way.

Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages. He summons the heavens above, and the earth, that he may judge his people: "Gather to me my consecrated ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice." And the heavens proclaim his righteousness, for God himself is judge (Psalm 50:3-6).

In each passages the coming of the Lord is a visible and tumultuous appearing. He descends into the clouds of the sky where He and His angels are between heaven and earth.  From there He summons His elect which are gathered by His angels. The dead in Christ are summoned from heaven (the resurrection of the dead) and the living in Christ are summoned from the earth (the rapture).

Below, the Lord comes down from heaven in a tumult to deliver and rescue the believer.

Part your heavens, O LORD, and come down; touch the mountains, so that they smoke. Send forth lightning and scatter the enemies; shoot your arrows and rout them. Reach down your hand from on high; deliver me and rescue me from the mighty waters, from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful (Psalm 144:5-8).

These Old Testament examples of the Rapture, like the New Testament, reveal the Lord’s Second Coming after the Great Tribulation.

Richard H Perry