What is the Rapture??

The term "Rapture" comes from the Latin word, rapio, which means "a snatching away." The Rapture, then, is the time when the Lord comes in the clouds of glory, bodily (see Acts 1:11), to take out of this world -- also bodily -- all those who have died in Christ and who are still living as believers in the Saviour. First Thessalonians 4:16-18 describes it: For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them [the dead in Christ] in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

We call it the Rapture because rapio means "a snatching away," in the Latin. The Rapture is described in 1 Corinthians 15:51: I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep [be dead], but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. And so this twinkling of an eye is a "snatching away," and occurs as we zip through the heavenlies to meet Jesus Christ in clouds of glory.