Messiah said He had to go away, and that the Holy Spirit would be sent in His place (John 16:7), but why did He have to go away at all? And, why didn’t His disciples just “accept Him into their hearts,” if that is how salvation is obtained? He was RIGHT THERE!
The reason Yahoshua the Messiah HAD to go away was because, according to the wedding traditions, once the bridegroom went to his father’s house to prepare a dwelling place for his bride and himself, that started a period of mandatory separation. The couple could no longer have any direct, physical contact.
Not until the father told his son that the dwelling was complete, and to go and get his bride, did the two have contact again. The bridegroom and best man would go and gather the bride and take her back to the dwelling place for the marriage to be consummated. When the consummation was complete, the bridegroom would call out to the best man to let him know, so the best man could go and alert the rest of the wedding party to start preparing the wedding feast (John 3:29).
But, there was no contact allowed before that point. That’s where we get our tradition of the bride and bridegroom not seeing each other on the day of their wedding before the ceremony.
After the Perfect Lamb had taken His bride’s sin (unrighteousness/unbelief) upon Himself, was crucified, suffered the punishment for those sins in hell, conquered death and hell by rising again, and then appeared to his followers briefly, He went back to His Father to start building the dwelling place (the New Jerusalem, who is the bride), which began in Acts 2 with the fulfillment of the Feast of Weeks—the giving of the covenant (“ketubah,” the marriage covenant).
Those who confuse the order of events that happen in the “end times” have no understanding of the Father’s traditions, so they are not able to understand properly what the prophetic texts mean. Thus, there are some who claim that the bride will never be raptured (because their English translation of the scriptures doesn’t contain the English word “rapture”), or that she will be raptured at the end of the tribulation, or half-way through the tribulation.
Those errors are ALL derived from ignorance of the traditions. One must know and understand the traditions to be able to interpret the prophetic texts properly.
We see in Revelation 19:7 that the Bridegroom is emerging from the wedding chamber after His wife had “made herself ready” for Him, and then He goes to the earth in judgment.
Now, how could the marriage already have been consummated at that point, if some of the bride were still on earth? If some of the bride were on earth when He comes back here in judgment, He would not be able to have contact with her until He takes her to consummate the marriage; so, He violates His Father’s wedding traditions by going to the earth in judgment, thus having contact with some of the bride still on the earth? Not a chance.
And, who is the wife who had already made herself ready for Him before He comes back to the earth in judgment? Messiah’s a polygamist? Absurd!
For more information: Will There Be a Pre-Tribulation Rapture?