By Paul Wilkinson, Ph.D.
This article originally appeared in Ariel Magazine, Summer 2026, Vol. 1, No. 59. Readers who wish to view the article in its original magazine format may access the complete issue here.
In my previous book Israel: The Inheritance of God, published by Ariel Ministries in 2020, it was a blessing to lay before the reader the beautiful simplicity of God’s promises to His covenant people. These promises are not difficult to understand because the Bible is very clear: Israel will never cease to be a nation in God’s sight despite all that Israel has done (Jer. 31:35-36; 33:25-26). The Jewish nation awaits a glorious future once her sin and rebellion have finally been dealt with and her Messiah, the Lord Jesus, returns to deliver and restore His people (Dan. 9:24; Zech. 14:3-4). A time of great trouble still awaits Jacob, “but he shall be saved out of it” (Jer. 30:7). That is one of the reasons why replacement theology is so utterly false, even blasphemous! Not only does this age-old heresy rob the Jewish nation of its divinely appointed blessings, but it also attacks the very character of God by calling into question His faithfulness. Israel has been unfaithful, the church has been unfaithful, and you and I have been unfaithful at times, but God never has. He simply cannot break covenant because He is God and not man (Hos. 11:9; 2 Tim. 2:13). As the Almighty declared through the prophet Malachi, “I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed” (Mal. 3:6).
The doctrinal truths contained in the Word of God are simple because the God of the Word intends for all His children to understand it. However, this does not mean His truths are simplistic—far from it. There are many glorious layers to each truth which require a lifetime of careful and prayerful exploration. But while we wait for the redemption of our bodies, we have our fallen, prideful flesh to contend with and an enemy who is extremely powerful, crafty, and deceitful. In the same way that Satan has been allowed to gain a foothold in the church and carry so many believers away from the beautiful simplicity of God’s promises to Israel, so has he been allowed to gain a foothold in relation to our “blessed hope”: the any-moment, pretribulational rapture of the church. Tribulationism, with its erroneous claims that we must pass through half, most, or all of the seven-year tribulation (mid-trib, pre-wrath, and post-trib), continues to captivate and capture the minds of many brothers and sisters in Messiah.
It is my sincere and prayerful hope that my new book, The Beautiful Simplicity of the Rapture, will be used by the Lord not only to encourage you today, dear reader, but also to help rescue, restore, and renew the minds of as many as possible before the trumpet call is sounded and we are caught up to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:15-17).
Led Away from Simplicity
In his second letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul wrote the following:
I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Messiah. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Messiah. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it! (2 Cor. 11:2-4)
In Paul’s absence, the Corinthians had allowed their understanding to be “corrupted” by false apostles who had come in among them. The Greek word that Paul used is phtheirō, which can mean “to corrupt, ruin, lead away, or wither,” depending on the context. As Paul writes elsewhere, “Bad company corrupts (phtheirō) good morals” (1 Cor. 15:33, NASB). The word that Paul used for “simplicity” is haplotēs, which conveys the idea of purity and sincerity. Paul was burdened for the Corinthians because he discerned that Satan was corrupting their minds in a way not dissimilar to how he had deceived Eve in the garden. The church in Corinth was being led away from a pure and simple devotion to Yeshua.
The doctrinal truth of the rapture is simple, sincere, and pure. There should be no confusion or contention about it, especially concerning its timing. However, we have an enemy who is constantly seeking to complicate, confuse, and corrupt the minds of believers by distorting God’s Word. He seeks not only to rob God of His glory by damaging our witness to the truth but also to steal from our hearts the blessings we can experience when this most beautiful truth is rightly taught and treasured. So many believers have been raised in church traditions whose theology is, in part, a corruption of biblical truth. The statement of faith of so many churches in the West is based upon the allegorical, amillennial teachings of the Protestant Reformers. For all the good that the Reformation undoubtedly brought, its legacy is mixed, especially in relation to soteriology, Israelology, and eschatology.
In his earlier letter to the Galatians, the apostle Paul had to bring a strong word of discipline to those who had fallen under the spell of false teaching and were “turning to a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6). In so doing, he mentioned an unfortunate occasion when he had had to publicly rebuke the apostle Peter no less. As Paul explained, “when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, ‘If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews?’” (Gal. 2:14). Another translation puts it this way: “I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.” The Greek word Paul used is orthopodeō, which is a compound of two other words: orthos (meaning “upright” or “straight”) and pous (meaning “foot”). This Greek word sounds very much like the English word “orthopedic,” which refers to the treatment of musculoskeletal issues within the human body. It derives from the French word orthopédie, which was coined in 1741 by Frenchman Nicholas Andry and is a compound of orthos and another Greek word, paidion, meaning “child.” Thus “orthopedics” was originally concerned with the treatment of deformities in children. How appropriate, then, that the apostle Paul should use the Greek word orthopodeō to address the doctrinal deformity he had diagnosed among the children of God in Galatia. Having given heed to false teachers who were preaching another Messiah and another gospel, the Galatians were no longer walking “straightforward,” or “uprightly,” according to the Word of God. Their crookedness needed correcting.
Today, tribulationists in the church are preaching and teaching another hope, which is no hope at all. It is most certainly not “the blessed hope” that Paul referred to in his letter to Titus (Tit. 2:13). Many believers have been rendered “unorthopedic” in their walk with the Lord because these teachers are hindering them from thinking about the rapture in a simple and straightforward manner. The beautiful simplicity of the any-moment return of the Messiah for His bride has been supplanted by the ugly complexity of a school of teaching that places you and me in the tribulation to come. There is nothing “blessed” or “hopeful” about being told that we, as the bride of Messiah, are destined for a time when the wrath of God is going to be poured out upon a Messiah-rejecting world that will be under the control of the Antichrist. With that said, the primary purpose of this article is not to address the grave errors of tribulationism per se. That is the overriding thrust of my new book. In this article, my main concern is with something that affects us all, no matter where we stand on the timing spectrum. One of the perennial schemes of the enemy is to shift our focus away not only from the doctrine of the rapture but also, and far more importantly, from the Person of the rapture: Yeshua, our heavenly Bridegroom.
One man who recognized the danger and warned believers in his own generation was a little-known evangelist from Britain by the name of George Cutting (1843–1934). In his tract, “Caught Up by the Bridegroom, Coming With the King,” Cutting posed the following question:
Dear reader, are you aware of it? The Lord Jesus Christ is coming again! … There is an unmistakable and growing conviction in the minds of God’s people all over the world … that the church’s history on the earth is about to close; that the Lord Jesus is coming to take His bride away to the Father’s house on high. Reader, are YOU yet alive to the reality of this solemn matter, and what it involves?[1]
Sadly, many believers are not alive to this reality, at least not yet. This is due, in large measure, to the devastating impact Reformed covenant theology has had on the church on the one hand and the relentless dissemination of tribulationist teaching on the other. But George Cutting had more to say in his tract when he made this solemn assessment: “Many, who know something of the doctrine of the Lord’s coming, seem to get their souls engrossed with ‘events’ which they think have been, or are being, fulfilled, rather than with the blessed Person Himself who is coming.”[2]
Missing Messiah?
I know firsthand how easy it is to become enraptured by the doctrine of our blessed hope. We can be so captivated with studying all the beautiful layers of this biblical truth that we actually miss the very Person who is coming! It is no different with the doctrine of Israel’s national restoration. We can be so caught up with all things Jewish or with everything pertaining to the modern State of Israel that we miss the Messiah. So let us journey back for a few moments to the last Passover supper our Lord celebrated and reflect on some of the astonishing words He prayed just hours before His betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion.
Having informed His disciples that He was going away but that they would not be able to follow Him for a time, the Lord brought immediate comfort to their troubled hearts by stating that He was leaving in order to prepare a place for them in His Father’s house. Here is what Jesus said on that solemn occasion:
Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know. (Jn. 14:1-4)
Yeshua was not speaking here about believers going to heaven when they die. If that was what He had meant, then He would have to come again and again—and again—to take away each one of the many millions of believers who have already died, and who may yet die, before the rapture. Death is never presented in Scripture as our hope; it is the divine penalty for our sin. However, through the atoning sacrifice and glorious resurrection of God’s Son, the sting of death has been removed for the believer. At the Last Supper, and with so much Jewish wedding imagery behind His comforting words, the Lord introduced His beloved disciples to the glorious mystery of the rapture. They could not fully grasp what He was saying at that point in time because it had been divinely ordained that the apostle Paul would be the one to reveal the full mystery. Even so, Yeshua clearly alluded to the rapture when He embedded in their troubled hearts a most blessed and certain hope—that one day He would return in Person to receive them to Himself, never to be separated from Him again.
How Beautiful Are Your Feet?
Any teaching on the rapture that does not fill our hearts with joy and anticipation is a sure sign that it is not from the Lord! It makes no difference how educated, how articulate, how knowledgeable, how persuasive, or even how gracious, gentle, and godly the pastor, teacher, or writer may be—the message needs to be firmly rejected and the speaker gently corrected. Have you noticed how cold, condemning, confrontational, and utterly confusing the teaching is of those who believe that God has rejected Israel and replaced Israel with the church? Replacement theology is thoroughly miserable and full of ugly complexity because it does not come from God. The same can be said of tribulationism. Consider for a moment these verses from Isaiah 52:
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted His people [Israel]; He has redeemed Jerusalem. (Isa. 52:7-9; see Nah. 1:15; Rom. 10:15)
In this prophecy we are told that the feet of those who bring this good news to Israel are BEAUTIFUL. Not only that, but those who have been watching and waiting for such good news are said to break out into songs of JOY. The Lord is returning to Jerusalem and Israel will be saved. Who would not want to burst forth into joyful songs of praise to our God? Tragically, many in the church do not! Nevertheless, it was these verses in Isaiah that inspired me to include the word “beautiful” in the title of my new book. For the believer who has already surrendered his or her life to Jesus, the promise of the rapture is the most beautiful news we could ever receive. Our Savior is coming for us, and it could be today! The beauty of this promise can be seen in the way it brings comfort, reassurance, strength, hope, and courage to those in whose hearts it resides. It holds us fast and secure in the sorrowful storms and testing trials of life because it keeps our focus on the One who could come this very moment to catch us away and take us to our home above.
The Longing of the Bride
For all that the apostle Paul accomplished during his incredible life of service, surrender, and sacrifice, he never lost his focus on the One who met him on the Damascus Road and changed the course of his life forever. In his final words to Timothy from the dungeon in Rome, he wrote these unforgettable words:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2 Tim. 4:7-8)
What “day” was Paul referring to? The day of the rapture. I doubt that any of us would object to the great apostle receiving such a crown from the Lord Jesus. However, Paul did not keep the spotlight on himself. He made it very clear that the only qualification for receiving the crown of righteousness from the Lord is to love, or long for, His appearing. Not many of us will be called to accomplish the same kind of exploits that Paul did, but each one of us is called to be faithful and obedient and to reflect back to our heavenly Bridegroom the same desire that Paul nurtured in his own heart—to be with the One who “gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
Consider these words that Yeshua prayed immediately before Gethsemane when He brought you and me before heaven’s throne: “Father, I desire (or will) that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me; for you loved me before the foundation of the world” (Jn. 17:24). John used a specific Greek word for “desire” in this verse: theló. It expresses the Lord’s earnest intent for us to be with Him where He is and to see Him in His glory. On the day of the rapture, the bride will finally be joined to her heavenly Bridegroom, and every heart of heaven shall rejoice (Rev. 19:6-8). No more watching and waiting, no more tears of sorrow and suffering, only unspeakable and everlasting joy.
The famous English Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892) put it this way: “We do not know yet, beloved, of what happiness we are capable.”[3] How beautiful and simple these words are—and from a man so learned in the Scriptures. His eyes were on Jesus!
I close with the words of a man who was named after Spurgeon, a man who also contended earnestly for the faith and longed for the coming of his Lord. In Whatever Happened to Heaven? David Charles Haddon Hunt wrote the following:
Surely the Bridegroom must grieve over a bride that is so reluctant to join Him in that great heavenly marriage. Is it not time that the bride of Christ, laying all else aside, became excited about the prospect of seeing and being with her Bridegroom forever? Oh, that a great cry would arise from the church: “We love you, Lord Jesus! Please come and take us home! The Spirit and the bride say, Come! Come, Lord Jesus, come!”[4]
May that cry echo loud and clear from our hearts today as we watch with eager anticipation for the long-awaited Bridegroom.
[1] George Cutting, Caught Up by the Bridegroom, Coming With the King (Oak Park, IL: Bible Truth Publishers, pamphlet #1656-13, 48 pp.), accessed March 2, 2026, at https://bibletruthpublishers.com/caught-up-by-the-bridegroom/george-cutting/caught-up-by-the-bridegroom-coming-with-the-king/cutting-pamphlets/la96600.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Marriage of the Lamb,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 35 (July 21, 1889), Spurgeon Center for Biblical Preaching at Midwestern Seminary, accessed March 2, 2026, at https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-marriage-of-the-lamb/#flipbook/.
[4] Dave Hunt, Whatever Happened to Heaven? (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1988), p. 309.
This article originally appeared in Ariel Magazine, Summer 2026, Vol. 1, No. 59. Readers who wish to view the article in its original magazine format may access the complete issue here.
Copyright © 2026 Ariel Ministries. Originally published in Ariel Magazine, Summer 2026, Vol. 1, No. 59. This article is republished on the Ariel Ministries website with permission. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from Ariel Ministries. Permission requests may be directed to corporateoffice@ariel.org.
