There is some lack of clarity in the Body of Christ as to whether the Second Coming of the Lord is the Rapture of the Church, where He lifts His saints from the Earth to meet Him in the air, or when He touches down on Earth the second time, or whether it is a combination of both. The fact is, "second coming" is not a phrase found anywhere in Scripture, so we're dealing with human definitions here and, unfortunately, none are as authoritative as any scriptural definition would be! So what have we got to work with?
The word "coming" is used in reference to both comings of the Lord:
The Rapture: the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him (2 Thessalonians 2:1), and just seven verses further down . . .
The Lord's Touch Down on Planet Earth: And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath
of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
So which do we go with?
Again, we cannot be dogmatic as human definitions are not dogma. If someone speaks of the Second Coming of the Lord, we must ask what he or she is referring to; but if we need to distinguish between the two coming, then it seems best to refer to His touch down on the planet as His Second Coming because that will be the second time He will come to the planet and walk on it, and that will be how we will use the term in our studies. For a fuller treatment of this, see Section I. of The Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
But there is much that will happen before the Lord's Second Coming. This series of studies will address the main events.