Will our physical bodies be left here on earth at the time of the Rapture or will our bodies be taken?
Will only our souls go to meet Jesus in the air when the rapture happens leaving our bodies to look dead to those left behind on earth? Or will our bodies be taken leaving only clothes and jewelry behind. We have been exposed to movies and books that describe the Rapture as taking our bodies and only leaving clothes and jewelry behind. Which is correct?
Reasons I believe our bodies will be gone:
Most folks , myself included, believe that at the rapture living believers will simply disappear, bodies and all. This belief is based on 1 Cor. 15:51-53 which says the dead will be raised and we (the living) will be changed. According to Paul in this scripture we won’t die in the process but we will be instantaneously transformed. Death only affects the physical body, and since we won’t die, it’s reasonable to assume we won’t leave our bodies behind. Our bodies will be supernaturally changed from mortal to immortal so we can dwell in eternity with the Lord. You will need your body at the rapture to be able to put on immortality. If our bodies die at the rapture then there would need to be another time of retrieving them in order to unite with the soul to become incorruptible.
Changed into incorruptible:
51 “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Cor. 15)
In order for a person to be transformed from corruptible to incorruptible a body is needed. Perhaps that’s why the dead in Christ arise first. So their bodies in the grave can be reunited with their souls that have been with Jesus since their death. (2 Cor 5:8) Then those persons on the earth will join them in the air. (1 Thess 4:16-17) “16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
In 1 Thessalonians 4:14, it tells us that at the rapture Jesus will be bringing the souls of those believers that have died. They will then reunite with their bodies from the grave as they are transformed into incorruptible.
14 “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him”.