“Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,” -2 Thessalonians 2.3
The rapture of the church is the event that closes out the church age. The church age began on Pentecost 33 AD and ends when Jesus returns for His church. That event is at the writing of this post still future. But know for certain that one day Jesus Christ will return in the clouds to take His church to heaven.
1 Thessalonians 4.13-18 tells us the dead in Christ will rise first then we who are still alive will meet Him and them (the dead in Christ) in the air above the earth. But there is another passage in 2 Thessalonians which teaches the rapture of the church. Specifically, 2 Thessalonians 2.3
The key word is “apostasy” which is the Greek word, “apostasia.” The word means “rebellion or to fall away” but another meaning is “spatial departure” as in leaving one place and going to another. In the context of 2 Thessalonians 2.3 this makes more sense than a “rebellion or falling away”.
The “it” refers to the tribulation which will not come until “the apostasy comes first.” If the word “apostasia” means, “rebellion or falling away” then it must be a rebellion or falling away that is unique. For the church as a whole has rebelled and fallen away many times over the past two thousand years.
But if the “apostasia” means “departure” which I believe it does, then the flow of the verse makes more sense. For if the “apostasia” is indeed the rapture then what comes next in the verse makes sense, “and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,” this man of lawlessness, son of destruction refers to the beast or the antichrist of the tribulation.
There are believers today who are convinced that we are presently in the tribulation. Yet a detailed study of that topic reveals that to be impossible (c.f. the book of Revelation, and other Scriptures). Paul warns, “Let no one in any way deceive you,” which unfortunately is exactly what happens when believers to do not “rightly divide the word of truth” 2 Timothy 2.15.
For a detailed study on the rapture in 2 Thessalonians 2.3 I recommend:
“Evidence For The Rapture, a Biblical case for pretribulationism” edited by John F. Hart.