The Rapture Or The Second Coming?

(1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.  And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord." (ESV)


Many modern evangelicals claim these verses teach a pretribulation rapture of the church.  This belief teaches that before the great tribulation the church will be raptured and taken out of this world.  Then the rest of the people will continue on this earth in the period known as the great tribulation.  This is the teaching you will usually find with the television preachers as well.  People who hold to this teaching are known as dispensationalists or dispensational premillenialists. 

But does this passage actually teach a pretribulational rapture?  The rapture is said to be a secret thing yet we have the voice of an archangel and the sound of the trumpet.  The trumpet signified the Lord's presence and was also associated with battle, the Day of the Lord, and the resurrection. 
This does not sound anything like a secret rapture.  We also find in the passage that the dead will rise first and those living will then join them to meet the Lord in the air.  Dispensationalists see this as Christians being taken away, but is this interpretation correct?  The phrase "to meet" was often used as an important dignitary's reception by a city when the people would come out to greet the honored guest with a celebration.  They would then accompany him into the city.  Thus the correct interpretation would be that Christians after meeting Christ in the air would then return to the earth with him. 

Christians will recieve resurrection bodies and their bodies and souls will be united.  There will also be a new heaven and new earth.  Heaven will be merged with the earth because after Christ returns sin and evil will be eliminated.  Those who have rejected Christ will face eternity in hell. 

So the plain and obvious interpretation of this passage is that it refers to the Second Coming of Christ.  Dispensationalists are simply reading into the text their preconceived idea of the rapture.  In fact the Bible no where teaches a pretribulation rapture.  We should all take a step back and ask ourselves what does the Bible actually say?