Matthew 24:40-42

Matthew 24:40-42
From verse 37 through the end of the chapter Jesus is giving rules of watchfulness. For the most part, these admonitions fit any coming judgment. However, in this context, Jesus is admonishing His disciples to watch for the coming destruction of Jerusalem. He has already given them the specific signs of His coming in judgment on the nation, now He warns everyone to be ready.
“One will be taken, one will be left” refers to those to whom the coming destruction would take unaware and those who, having listened to Jesus’ warning, would escape. Those who recognized the “signs” Jesus just gave would escape; all others would be taken. This passage has often been used as proof of a “rapture” in which the righteous would be taken off the earth leaving the wicked behind to suffer a seven year tribulation. There are a number of reasons why this cannot be the explanation of this text.
While it is true that the righteous will be taken up to meet the Lord in the air at the time of His second coming (1 Thes. 4:13-17), this text says nothing about being taken up into heaven or up in the air. Remember the context. Jesus is talking about the attack of the Romans on Jerusalem and the other fortified of Judea. Millions of Jews would be killed or taken as slaves. But anyone who knew the words of Jesus would have escaped.
Further, in Luke 17:20-37, Jesus gives this same warning in the context of the appearing of His kingdom, which in Mark 9:1 Jesus said would come before those standing there saw death. Therefore, the “tribulation” spoken of in Matthew 24 is the destruction of Jerusalem, not some future period of time after the Christians have been zapped off the earth. In the same context, those “taken and left” must refer to those who are taken in the destruction and those who escape.
Later, in Matthew 25:31-34, Jesus says that when He returns in the final judgment, “all the nations shall be gathered before Him” and He will “divide them as a shepherd divides sheep from the goats.” There are not two judgments, one prior to the supposed millennium and one after. There is one final judgment in which good and bad will be raised and stand before the Lord to be judged. Matthew 24 is not a description of a premillennial tribulation nor of the final judgment.
Berry Kercheville