For this installment of Eagles in the Bible, I want to concentrate on the Rapture of the Saints.
Psalm 91:14 is God speaking about a believer, and says, “Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name” (NASB).
The psalm can be seen as God the Holy Spirit, in the figure of a mighty eagle, training and rescuing believers. This verse seems to speak of the Rapture, when believers will be taken to heaven at the end of the current age.
Eagles belong to an order of birds known as raptors. The English word raptor designates a diurnal (hunts during daylight) bird of prey that seizes and carries off its prey. The Latin word that provides the root is raptare, which literally means “to seize and carry off.”
Similarly, the English word rapture is often used to apply to the translation of the saints, living and dead, to be with the Lord Jesus Christ upon His return (1 Cor. 15:51-52; 1 Thess. 4:16-18). The word translates a word used in the Latin vulgate of the Scriptures, raptus, the past participle of the root word rapere, which has the meaning of “being snatched up and carried away.” This word translates the Greek harpagesometha (pronounced har-pag-e-so’-meth-ah) of 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which means “caught up.” The root words for raptor and rapture actually come from a common Latin root rapio.
The Bible certainly records many instances where the Holy Spirit carries someone off as a mighty eagle does its prey:
Of course, The Rapture of the Saints is that event alluded to in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, cited above. The disappearance of true believers who are caught away by the Spirit of God will be a sign to all the earth that the Bible has prophesied the truth about the Last Days, and that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world. The fact that the seven Biblically ordained feasts of Israel give an accurate picture of salvation history is strong evidence that The Rapture occurs prior to the seven-year reign of Antichrist and the Tribulation.
Passover pictures Christ’s crucifixion and atonement. The Feast of Unleavened Bread pictures His laying broken in the tomb. First Fruits is a picture of the resurrection, and Pentecost is the day that the Holy Spirit is given to the Church.
Each year, nine days prior to the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur (pronounced yom ki-poor’), the sixth feast in the Jewish calendar, trumpets are blown on Rosh Hashanah (pronounced rohsh’-hah-shaw’-nah), the Feast of Trumpets (the fifth feast). There are 100 notes sounded in the synagogue by the trumpets in use. These notes take different forms, but the last in a series of notes is called the tekiah gedolah (pronounced te-kee-yah’ ghed-oo-law’), a long blast. The basic order for blowing the trumpet or shofar starts with thirty blasts following the reading of the Torah and Haftorah in the morning service. This is followed by another series of thirty blasts following additional readings. Finally, forty blasts occur at the conclusion of the morning service.
This last trump of the one hundred appears to be what Paul is talking about when he speaks of the Rapture occurring “at the last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15:52). This pictures the Rapture taking place prior to the “Day of the Lord,” which is portrayed in Scripture by Yom Kippur (Joel 1:15, 2:1-32, 3:14; Zech. 12:1-13:1), and which encompasses the seven year tribulation period.
The seventh and last feast that is Biblically ordained in the Torah is Succoth (pronounced soo-koht’), or Tabernacles, and is strongly connected with the thousand year reign of Christ following the tribulation (Isa. 2:2-4; Zech. 14:16-19).
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