One Taken, One Left

In Matthew 24:40-41 we read, “Two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.” A similar statement is found in Luke 17:34-36. Most prophecy teachers insist that this separation is the rapture. After all, they portray a scene in which men and women will be going about their business and suddenly the godly will vanish.  I understand why they make this connection. At first glance it looks like the rapture.  But the context and details of the passage suggest that “one taken and one left” is not a reference to the rapture but an event that shall occur at the second coming.

First of all, in both the preceding context (Matthew 24) and the following context (Matthew 25), the coming of the Son of man refers to the day the Lord descends to earth in judgment. Matthew 24:29-31 locates this coming after the time of great tribulation. Matthew 25:31-46 associates this coming with the judgment of the sheep and goats.  Furthermore, in the immediate context we see that “one taken, and the other left” in verse 40 occurs in connection with the coming of the Son of man in Matt. 24:36-39. Notice that verse 40 starts with “then.” Now it seems like dubious exegesis to me to insist that this particular reference of the coming of the Son of man refers to the rapture though every other instance in the preceding and following context refers to the coming of the Lord in judgment. And if this coming of the Son of man is the second coming, then those who are taken must be the ungodly, for without exception the second coming passages portray the separation being accomplished by removing the ungodly and leaving the godly. The order is exactly the opposite of the rapture.

Secondly, this event takes fifty percent and leaves fifty percent. This can’t be the rapture. Five percent being taken would be an extremely optimistic estimate for the rapture. And the actual figure is most likely closer to one percent. God is not sloppy in his math. The 144,000 will be exactly 144,000—exactly 12,000 from each of exactly 12 tribes. The seventy years of captivity was exactly seventy years, not sixty-eight or seventy-two. The sixty-nine weeks of years from the command to rebuild Jerusalem was exactly 483 years from its utterance until the triumphant entry of Messiah the prince. The angels loosed by the sixth trumpet were set for an hour, day, month, and year. They won’t come one hour early or one hour late. And so the fifty percent will be exactly fifty percent, not twenty or ten or five or one.

Thirdly, this event does not take the taken to a wonderful place but to an awful place—”where there is a corpse, there the eagles gather” (Luke 17:37). What do corpses and carrion eating birds have to do with the rapture, where the church meets the Lord in the air and is transported to the Father’s house in heaven? Nothing! At what prophetic event do we find corpses and carrion eating birds? Armageddon. For those who care more about exegetical integrity than they do multiplying rapture passages, it is obvious that “one taken, the other left” is not a reference to the rapture but Armageddon.

So what event occurs at the time of Armageddon that involves a fifty percent division? The sack of Jerusalem on the day of the Lord that we read about in Zechariah 14:1-2. The invading army of the antichrist will take the ungodly half captive, presumably placing them in an internment camp in Armageddon where they will perish with the armies of the Gentile nations. The godly half will be left in Jerusalem to welcome the arrival of their Lord a few hours later.

The “one taken and one left” passages are a classic example of the problems we face when we interpret passages based on superficial observations rather than a full-orbed, robust exegesis.  Not only do we misunderstand the passage itself, but we lose the light that it could shed on other passages and subjects, and we grow accustomed to sloppy principles of interpretation that promote minor errors in the camp of truth.

Eyes wide open, brain engaged, heart on fire.

Lee W. Brainard