Why does Paul call the rapture a mystery in 1 Corinthians 15:51?
Paul calls it a mystery because it was a secret never before revealed in Scripture, a Pauline doctrine not found elsewhere. It reveals that believers alive at the end of the church age will not die physically but be suddenly changed, while dead church-age believers are resurrected to meet the Lord in the air.
Les teaches that 1 Corinthians 15:51 is part of the same complex revelation, yet it is something totally different and never referred to anywhere else in Scripture. That is why people struggle to contemplate it. Paul calls it a mystery, meaning a secret never before revealed: there will be one group of believers who do not die physically but are alive when everything culminates. Nowhere else is this hinted at. At the end of the church age, a group of believers will be suddenly moved from here to there in a split second. Les acknowledges it is hard to comprehend and that unbelievers scoff, because it takes faith to believe Christ will leave glory, come to the atmosphere, the trumpet will sound, the archangel will shout, the dead believers of the church age will be raised and resurrected to meet the Lord in the air, and then those still alive and remaining will follow in a split second.
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,