Does the Bible Teach Two Separate Comings of the Lord?

Does the Bible Teach Two Separate Comings of the Lord?

Does the New Testament actually at least infer, if not outright teach, two future comings of the Lord, one before the Tribulation period to rapture the Church; the other one after the Tribulation period to crush Satan and set up God’s Kingdom rule?

I personally believe that the Scriptures do teach that very strongly, by inference at least. Let me point out to you perhaps one or two reasons why I’m convinced of that. First, when you look at the order of things that the Bible teaches that will take place at the Rapture and then you look at the order of the things that the Bible teaches will take place at the Second Coming of Christ and after the Tribulation period, you will find that the order of things between those two comings of the Lord are just the opposite of each other. What do I mean by that?

Well, we’ve already seen from, for example, 1 Thessalonians 4 that when the Rapture takes place, it is the believers who will be removed from the earth in blessing to meet the Lord in the air and to go back with Him to the Father’s house in Heaven.

So at the Rapture, believers are removed from the earth and by implication the unbelievers are left here. But when you go to passages such as Matthew 24, which are describing the Sec­ond Coming of Christ immediately after the Tribulation period, you have just the reverse order of that being taught, namely, that at the Second Coming of Christ it’s the unbelievers who are alive on the earth at that time who are going to be removed from the earth but removed from the earth in judgment, and it’s the believers who will be alive on the earth at that time who will be left here to go into the next period of world history.

So, at the Rapture it will be the reverse order of things at the Second Coming of Christ.