This is a convenient word, inasmuch as it is used to distinguish the coming of the Lord for us into the air (1 Thess. 4) from His public return to the Mount of Olives (Zech. 14:4-5). It is called “the rapture,” because it is in fact the sudden seizure or snatching of a number of living persona (as well as a raising of the bodies of the saints) out of this world in the twinkling of an eye, and that secretly; no such event marking our Lord’s public return, which is of a stately and judicial nature (Rev. 19).