Church's departure

In his second epistle to the church in Thessalonica, the apostle Paul spoke of "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him." (2 Thessalonians 2:1)

He had taught them that the Lord would descend from heaven and that dead and living Christians would be caught up together to meet Him in the air. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) And the church was waiting for God's Son from heaven to rescue them from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:10)

But false teachers were trying to persuade them that "the day of the Lord" had come, which threw them into a state of alarm, confusion and turmoil. (2 Thessalonians 2:2)

So Paul warned the church not to let anyone deceive them. Then he reassured them that the day of the Lord's wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:3, 9) would "not come unless the apostasy comes first." (2 Thessalonians 2"3)

The Greek word translated <I>apostasy</I> or <I>falling away</I> means <I>to depart from</I> and should be translated <I>departure</I>. Paul did not qualify this departure with the phrase, "from the faith," because he wasn't discussing a departure from the faith, as he was in 1 Timothy 4:1.

The definite article points to a single, previously defined event that was known to his readers. His readers knew that the church was going to be "caught up" to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), and "our gathering together to Him" was Paul's stated subject in this passage.

Clearly, Paul was reaffirming the pre-tribulation rapture of the church.