"Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed - in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." (I Corinthians 15:51-52)"For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord." (I Thessalonians 4:16-17)When the Apostle Paul wrote to the churches which he had established in Corinth and Thessalonica, it is possible that there was a belief that some of them would not see death given that these verses are written in the first person plural. When the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 AD, it must have seemed to them that the event described by the Apostle Paul in his letters was imminent. All of them died, however, including the Apostle Paul to refute such a belief if it ever existed.Since the Apostle Paul never wrote about the End of the Age as cited by Jesus and recorded by the Hebrew scribe Ezra, it is likely that the event described in his letters was never placed in that context by the believers at Corinth and Thessalonica. It is certainly not placed in that context by those who believe in a Rapture, based on these letters, whether they subscribe to the pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, post-tribulation, or pre-wrath interpretation of the Rapture. In order to understand what the Apostle Paul is writing about, it is necessary to put it in the context of what Jesus had to say about it."Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." (Matthew 24:29-31)According to Jesus, it is the Elect who are to be gathered at the sounding of the trumpet. Revelation 8 and 14 describe the Elect as being 144,000 male virgins from the twelve tribes of Israel. Apart from these Elect being gathered at the seventh and final trumpet (i.e. Feast of Trumpets), there is no Rapture."And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was commited to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hand. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." (Revelation 20:4-6)John had this vision while in exile on the island of Patmos (Revelation 1:9) after the Apostle Paul had written his letters to the churches at Corinth and Thessalonica. The "dead in Christ" cited by Paul must, by definition, rise at the First Resurrection cited in Revelation 20. Among the dead in Christ are those who have been beheaded after the sounding of the sixth trumpet for not worshiping or receiving the mark of the beast who appears at the sounding of the fifth trumpet. When the seventh and final trumpet is sounded at the Feast of Trumpets, these dead in Christ rise first followed by the gathering of the 144,000 Elect. 