"When he [Jesus] had said this, as they were watching, he was
lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was
going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in
white robes stood by them. They said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you
stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been
taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw
him go into heaven.'" Acts 1:9-11
Christians will meet Christ on Earth in the final judgement.
Before the Judgement, we will not meet Christ so the Rapture cannot
be true. The angel said Christ would return the same way: he will
appear from a cloud, descend to the ground, and place his feet on
the earth. From this it would appear likely that Christ will return
just as the angel foretold, and that the tribulation believers
remaining alive will see him as he comes.
[quote]Many do not accept the pre-Tribulation
rapture interpretation because they believe that it is not clearly
expressed in the Bible, but instead relies on extrapolations and
inferences made from unconnected verses[citation needed]. Many
further believe that if anything this significant were intended to
be a major part of Christian teaching, then surely Christ would
have made a plain reference to it in his own sermons as recorded in
the Gospel, and not buried such a major prophecy in a few verses of
the Apostle Paul[citation needed]. Many times the New Testament
describes when something will happen "before" another event.
Indeed, three times the idea of "before an event" is used with
reference to the coming of Christ. The first of these is Acts 2:20
where it refers to events that will happen "before" the coming of
Christin this case his first coming. In the second, 1 Corinthians
4:5, Paul warns his readers against pronouncing judgments "before"
the Lord returns. The third is in the heart of the primary passage
that is used to support the idea of a pre-tribulation rapture. At 1
Thessalonians 4:15 it says that those who are living will not
precede or go "before" those who have died at the coming of the
Lord. And as noted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 it says that the
Antichrist will occur before the coming of Christ.
The New Testament even discusses the tribulations chronological
relationship to other events related to the second coming using the
concept of "before". At Matthew 24:29 it says, "Immediately after
the tribulation of those days". But it never says that "before the
tribulation" Christians will be taken away as Darby
asserts[citation needed].
Thus if the New Testament writers desire to connect two events in
terms of time even in relation to Christs coming or the
tribulation it has the language and grammar to do it. But no
passage in the New Testament directly describes any coming of
Christ as happening "before the tribulation"[[/quote]