Well maybe not a single verse....
I want you to keep this in mind as we continue. This is the second time this has come around in our conversation.
There is not one verse in the entire Bible that explicitly states what has been claimed in support of a separated rapture.
Why then do you believe something nowhere stated?
I don't ask this solely of you,
@CrowCross. I ask this of ALL folks who believe things nowhere stated in scripture. I'd ask this of any Trinitarian and I've spent the last week and a half debating and supporting the doctrine of the Trinity with piles of scripture (the point being I hold myself to the exact same standard to which I now try to hold you). You believe something not actually stated in scripture. Why?
We have also already established you hold this position because of an inferential reading of scripture. Fine. There is nothing automatically inherently wrong with inferences
if they are built on clear statements found in scripture. We're not supposed to invent a postion and then read other scriptures according to that invented interpretation. We're supposed to start with what is actually stated and make our inferences based on those statements.
You have failed at that practice. Repeatedly. Here's an example...
but the angel did say Jesus would return the way he left...that's 1...
Yes, that is what the angel said in Acts 1:11.
Acts 1:9-11
And after he had said these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while he was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven."
Notice what the text specifically states. First, Jesus did not take himself up to heaven. Something or someone else took him up
. Second, the angel does not state Jesus will come all the way to earth when he returns the way he left. It is an
assumption on everyone's part that Acts 1:11 reports Jesus is on earth. It does not. Not only does it not state he will come all the way back to earth, it also does not report he went all the way to heaven, either
. We do, of course, have other places where scripture explicitly states Jesus is in heaven
so there is reason to infer Jesus left earth and went to heaven - inferences based on clear, explicit statements and not inferences based on further inferential reading. There is a fourth point, but I won't belabor it right now because 1) it'll take a lengthy post to do so, and 2) I'm not sure you will agree - even though I can provide plenty of scripture to support the position which is this: God is said to come and go on clouds many places in the Bible (
Ex. 13:21;
Ex. 40:38;
Lev. 16:2;
Ps. 11:11;
Isa. 19:1 and many more). There are more than 100 of these verses in the Bible, and some of them can be taken literally and some of them can (and should) be taken figuratively. In Psalm 11, for example, the text reports God riding on a cherub. One has to ask, "
Why does God need to ride or come on clouds at all?" If God is always everywhere at once, then what
exactly is "
coming" and "going" really about?
In Acts 1, Jesus leaves earth and goes up into the sky. He does so being lifted up and he is NOT lifted up on a white horse as has already been covered. Because he did not leave on a white horse, he will not return on a white horse and this makes perfect sense because nowhere in Revelation (the only book of the Bible explicitly stating Jesus ever rides a white horse) is Jesus stated to leave heaven on that white horse.
That means ALL of the eschatological claims any teacher might ever make about him doing so are all extra-biblical claims that add to which we are explicitly instructed not to add.
...and then there is the second verse that says Jesus will return riding a white horse.
Not in Acts 1. So, to which "second verse" are you referring? There are only two verses stating Jesus is ever riding a white horse and neither of them say anything about a rapture and neither of them say anything about him leaving heaven.
Revelation 6:1-2
Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, "Come." I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.
Revelation 19:11
And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.
Stick to what is stated and do not add to it. That is the hermeneutic the book of Revelation tells us to use! In both cases, Jesus is observed in heaven and never stated to leave, never stated to come to earth. As I have posted several times already, Jesus is not stated to come to earth until chapters 21 and 22.
Those two verses are enough to show Jesus returns twice. Once in the air then a second time Jesus on earth.
No, they are not. Those two verses do not state what you say they say.
On the other hand there is the decription of the return being when people are partying like in the days of Noah.... which I doubt will be happening at the end of the tribulation when Jesus returns as sorts things out. What do you think? Will it be party time just before Jesus returns?
Already covered. In the days of Noah it was those who were taken away that were destroyed. Jesus' reference to the days of Noah has absolutely nothing to do with any rapture, separated or otherwise. That same narrative explicitly states Christians will be handed over to tribulation and immediately after the great tribulation they will see things as described in Jesus' teaching. In other words, Christians go through the tribulation; they are not raptured away to escape it.... and the book of Revelation confirms this.
Revelation 7:13-14
Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?" I said to him, "My lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Christians go through the great tribulation. They "
come out" of it. They do not get raptured away to escape its travails.
Thomas Ice is wrong.
Not really...all you need to know is that the "kings of the earth" are considered as a separate category from the kings of "the whole world" in Revelation 16:14. 
