Page 32 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Meaning of the Church
revealed to be truth utterly foreign to anything Israel knew in
the Old Testament, or for that matter, anything contemplated
in the future in Israel’s covenants. Israel is always regarded as
a nation, a theocracy, and a people among whom God dwells,
while the church is regarded as a living organism in whom
Christ dwells, united by vital life and growing by inner spirit­
ual supply.
The indwelling Christ the hope of glory
As indicated previously, the fact that Christ indwells the
believer is our ground for the “hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). This
thought is given further revelation in the third chapter of Col-
ossians.
In Colossians 3:4 it is revealed, “When Christ, who is
your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in
glory.” The indwelling Christ is integral with the believer’s
hope. At the present time He is “your life” while in the future
we can expect His fully manifested glory when He is glorified.
The ultimate goal of spiritual experience is reached in Colos­
sians 3:11, when the believer enters into the truth that “Christ
is all, and is in all.”
It may therefore be concluded from the study of both the
mystery of the one body and the mystery of the church as an
organism that the believers in the present age are quite dis­
tinct from either the believers of the Old Testament or believ­
ers of future ages.
Mystery of the Translation of the Saints
The scriptural revelation of the translation of the saints as
presented in major passages in the New Testament lends sup­
port to the concept that the church of the present age is a
distinct body of believers. The truth revealed concerning the
translation is in itself not only a supporting argument for pre-
millennialism as a whole but by its detail sustains the concept
of a pretribulational rapture.
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